Cassou Armory

In the days after reaching the sanctuary of Cassou, Jiro immersed himself in learning to use the powerful relics housed in the secret Armory.

Under Ruka's guidance, he trained relentlessly with the elite scout rangers to master the exotic alien weapons and gear.

Though the Armory's origins remained shrouded in mystery, Jiro saw firsthand the incredible advantage its contents offered for striking back against Prota.

The plasma casters, disruptor grenades, and harmonic projection cannons were engineered to combat the monstrous hordes under Prota's control.

Wielding devices like the sleek Argon pulse rifle filled Jiro with newfound confidence.

The advanced arms seemed specifically designed to counter Prota's assimilation threat.

Even the lightweight but resistant armour plates offered protection from Protean attacks.

In simulation exercises, Jiro learned to operate as a disciplined team wielding the relics' potent capabilities.

Ruka's scout rangers had perfected specialized combat tactics to optimize the Armory's arsenal.

Now Jiro fought by their side, bonded by a common purpose.

With such elite training and gear, Jiro believed victory over Prota was possible, however slim the odds. As long as their secret mountain sanctuary endured, humanity had hope.

.........

One morning after drill exercises, Jiro found Ruka performing maintenance on a heavy Volt Driver cannon. He admired the big scout's easy expertise with even the most enigmatic relics.

"Getting the feel for our fancy new toys?" Ruka asked with a grin as he inspected the cannon's energy coils.

"I think these toys could wipe Prota's forces off the map," Jiro said, hefting his own Volt Driver. "We just need to find the heart of his operation."

Ruka nodded. "Prota sure ain't making it easy. His creeper lairs never stay in one place for long. But we'll start gathering intel for surgical strikes soon enough."

Jiro studied a projection map showing Prota's sprawling infested zones. "There must be a central hive or source controlling this spread. Cut off the head, and the body dies."

"You're thinking like a scout commander already," Ruka said approvingly. He powered up the cannon's thrumming pulse core. "I've got a little recon mission in mind. We'll see what secrets those deadscapes out there can reveal."

Jiro felt eager to finally shift from defence to offence. With Ruka at his side, he was ready to take the fight to Prota.

.........

The next day, Jiro joined Ruka and a small team for a covert foray into the barren lands beyond Cassou's mountains. Slipping past deranged zombie outliers in the foothills, they entered Prota's domain.

Jiro was struck by the alien hostility of the environment. The sprawling infestation zone teemed with organic structures and skewed physics that induced claustrophobia and dread. Ruka's squad reacted with military precision, their Volt Drivers ready to fire.

Moving silently between the disturbing biomechanical growths, they detected the presence of large centralized hive structures where assimilated hordes congregated. Such a hive would be a prime target for the Armory's most destructive relics.

Planting remote sensors, they retreated from this unearthly landscape. Back at Cassou, Jiro and Ruka presented the intel to their leaders. Though the Council preached patience, Jiro knew it was only a matter of time until a raid on the nearest hive.

For now, he kept training and helped patrol Cassou's periphery. But his mind constantly turned to the coming counterattack. Surviving day to day mattered less than delivering a decisive blow.

.........

Late one night on watch, Jiro spotted a lone infected straggler shuffling toward Cassou's outer fields. Raising his Argon rifle, he centred the crawler in his sights. But his finger hesitated on the trigger. The creature had once been human, its soul stolen by Prota. Ending what remained of its life gave him pause.

At that moment, the figure turned and looked directly at Jiro. For an instant, he thought he saw a glimmer of tortured awareness in its vacant eyes. A silent plea for release.

Jiro steadied his aim and fired. The crawler collapsed and moved no more. Approaching cautiously, Jiro was surprised to find a data module integrated into the mutated body's structure. This was a Cyber Creeper - an advanced infiltration unit.

Alarms sounded across Cassou's perimeter. The town had nearly been breached by one of Prota's spy-creepers. Jiro realized secrecy and static defences would not be enough. All-out war was inevitable.

.........

A week later, Jiro was awoken by clanging bells ringing across Cassou. He knew the sound could only mean one thing - the long-anticipated assault on a core hive cluster was underway.

In the predawn dark, he rallied with Ruka's strike team. They were loaded into armoured transport vehicles and briefed en route. The target was a 10-hive formation 50 miles into contested territory. Speed, surprise, and the relics were their only advantages.

Jiro rode in the lead ATV with Ruka, their Argon rifles loaded and disruptor grenades primed. Ruka's face was steeled for combat, but his eyes betrayed a flickering fear they all felt. There was no going back now.

The convoy accelerated to top speed once beyond Cassou's cordons. They raced towards destiny under the bleeding moon. Jiro recited a silent prayer, the only ritual that mattered anymore.

With targeting systems linked, the strike vehicles fanned out as they reached the hive zone perimeter. Sound came distorted through Jiro's helmet comms - engines droning, gauss cannons booming, and beneath it all a ceaseless shrieking.

Jiro fired controlled volleys alongside Ruka as their ATV strafed the oozing mounds. Incendiary shells blew smouldering craters in the hive structures. Shrieking crawlers erupted from every crevice, but fell swiftly to the heavy guns.

The raid pressed deeper into the winding hive maze. Aapperingcrawler hordes were shredded by unrelenting firepower. Still, they came, buying time for the heart of the hive complex to prepare.

Jiro glimpsed the core just as a massive door slid aside. From the vaulted interior rose a colossal cybernetic combat chassis ridden by hive elders. Ruka gave the order to focus all fire on the giant beast.

The armoured figure stomped forward, shrugging off direct hits. Jiro toggled his rifle to full disruptor wave intensity. Beside him, Ruka primed their ATV's entire ordnance payload.

"Hit it with everything!" Ruka yelled over the cacophony. Jiro braced as blinding munitions erupted from their vehicle. The giant staggered backwards under the barrage.

With a booming groan, the towering hive defender toppled. Jiro barely had time to cheer before more nightmares poured out of tunnel openings.

"We can't hold them off forever - let's move!" Ruka barked. The strike team pulled back, guns still thundering. They had dealt a crushing first blow, but the war had just begun. Jiro knew that now for certain.

This was only the opening salvo. The real battle, for the very soul of humankind, was still ahead.

.........

In the months that followed, Jiro became a veteran of many hive raids into the spreading infestation zone. The war against Prota consumed his entire existence.

Each new operation probed deeper behind enemy lines, searching for clues to the alien force's origins and weaknesses. Prota was cunning, masking the locations of its most vital assets. But Jiro was certain one massive counterstrike could turn the tide.

Between battles, Jiro spent every spare moment with Cassou's technical teams poring over data recovered on missions. There had to be a breakthrough somewhere in the corpses, structures, and genetic traces they seized from Prota's forces.

Jiro also found camaraderie with the other grizzled scout rangers. Over shared meals and card games, they strengthened the bonds that overcame primal terror in battle. Jiro was no longer an outsider here - these people were his tribe.

He still occasionally crested a ridge overlooking Cassou's peaceful valley and recalled the normal lives people had lived before. It seemed a fantasy now when even memories felt infested by Prota's ubiquitous machinescape.

At times, Jiro glimpsed fatigue in Ruka's eyes that mirrored his own. But the big scout always rallied his optimism before missions. The troops relied on Ruka's strength and surety of purpose. Doubt alone could kill them.

They both knew the occupied lands and Prota-worshipping death cultists grew stronger daily. For every hive cluster destroyed, more emerged from the shadows. Cassou remained a beacon of defiance, but seemingly the last fading light as darkness spread.

Yet it was the only way forward Jiro understood anymore. The war gave structure and meaning, saner than peace had been. He chose to believe final victory was possible, whatever logic said.

With dogged faith, Jiro rose every morning and donned the battle gear. Checked his Argon rifle's settings one more time. And went into the abyss hunting the heart of evil.

Because if he dwelled on how unearthly Perfection pinned the Earth in its embrace, victory standing remote as any falling star, then all courage would vanish... And the human race meets its end not with proud banners unfurled, but huddling behind barriers, waiting for the last lights beyond to go out.

So Jiro fought on. And waited for the day fate revealed the path to triumph or oblivion.