Going Feet First Ch. 01

"Sergeant, what are you doing?" Galen asked as he moved to catch the box of munitions as she lowered it from the Hercules. When she let the weight off he nearly had a hernia as the weight of what felt to be a hundred pounds of firepower came under his control.

"Everything here is coming with us," Michael answered from inside the plane.

"Coming with us?" the private echoed. "Where? To Mila's camp?"

"Village," she corrected as she lowered down another box, this time ensuring he had it under full control before she let it go.

"That's the plan," Michael answered, though his voice was muffled as he sounded to be fumbling around in the cockpit. "I ain't leaving any of this for some Ra'zorlich bastard to find and hunt us down with."

An uncomfortable feeling drew Galen's attention toward the scar behind the plane. All the sudden he felt like something was watching him from the darkness like when he ventured out into that swath of mutilated trees the first time. Then the private simply shook his head and turned back to the Hercules. Wondering what was going on inside, he made the jump to boost himself up into the door and climbed up into the aircraft.

Just as he had guessed, Michael was in the cockpit lashing an arm rest from the pilot's seat onto the end of a metal pipe to put together a sort of crutch. Mila was picking up another wooden box of supplies, one that rattled with the sound of linked bullets and loaded magazines inside. Without him outside to catch it however, she placed the rifle crate full of ammo crate back down beside to door and went to grab the fourth.

"So what's the plan?" Galen asked, looking to Michael. "Are we going to carry the crates one at a time on mine and Mila's back, all the way to her village?"

"No," she interjected, "I will take Michael back to my people and return with help to carry these in one trip."

The private blinked in surprise. There was an exceptional lack of him involved in that plan. "What am I to do?"

With a sharp jerk on a string, Michael finished the assembly of his crutch and immediately went to stand on his own two feet. Despite the angle that the C-130 was leaning he was remarkably able to keep his balance as he turned to face the young soldier. "You're gonna stay here and guard the supplies until we get back. We're looking at a good two and a half hours round trip, so settle in, soldier."

A depressed sigh escaped Galen, his head dipping as he answered, "Yes, sir."

"Hey."

The private looked up to his sergeant, who had taken a step toward him and planted his free hand on his shoulder. "Cheer up. We're alive, we found a friend, and we're not getting ourselves killed at the hands of the NVA. All things considered, we're doing pretty good."

Hearing that come from someone else other than himself, Galen managed to give a weak grin as he nodded. It didn't make anything any easier but at least it was good to hear. Eight dead men were still trapped here with them, never could their tags be brought home or their bodies be laid to rest in American soil. He didn't even know if there was a way for him and Michael to get back. What kind of closure would their families get? What would happen to his own mother?

Horror flooded his mind as he thought of how she would react to the coming news. For the second time in her life, a knock would come at her door, and when she answered it there would be another officer handing her a note and another flag. Only this time she would be told that it was her boy that wasn't coming home.

A single tear traced Galen's cheek before he managed to wipe it away, hiding the fact that it had even emerged before anyone else could see it.

...

When the last of the four crates were pulled off the C-130, they were dragged out by the firepit and placed into two stacks. Then Michael and Mila gave Galen a quick goodbye and a 'See you soon' before they headed off into the forest. Once again, the Private found himself on his own in the middle of nowhere.

Five minutes passed, then ten.

Galen cooked up a breakfast ration to eat and swapped out the bandage wrapped around his left bicep for a clean one. When he had finished eating, he cleaned his mess kit and then went back to guard duty.

Twenty minutes passed.

Nothing had come through the area other than the odd bird overhead or a curious buck that quickly ran off at the sight of him. When he had seen it enter the clearing, Galen had to wonder if it was an actual deer or just something similar. It had thicker fur, unusually massive antlers, and a slightly longer, bushier tail than what he was used to. Still, its general shape fit the profile of what he had known to be a deer so he just chalked the changes up to the fact that he wasn't on earth.

Welcome to Raska, Private.

Another forty minutes were killed off as Galen stripped his rifle down to its parts and pulled out his cleaning kit. He went through the weapon from end to end, cleaning out what gunk and dirt had built up during his day out in the wild. When he had finished doing that he brought out his grease and ensured all the moving surfaces were properly lubricated before reassembly.

Just as he popped the last piece of his rifle back in place, something, or someone, in the distance unleashed a bird scattering shriek. The soldier immediately went on alert, loading a magazine in his rifle and racking the bolt to hear that satisfying clack of a round sliding into the chamber. When that voice screamed out over the forest a second time, it became quite clear that it was female.

The private gave his rifle's charging handle a forward smack to ensure the bolt was fully seated then took off running. Whoever had screamed was in the opposite direction of the Ra'zorlichs, but also in a different direction than where Mila and Michael had gone. It didn't matter. Twenty rounds of 7.62 millimeter rock 'n roll was loaded into his weapon ready to bring a world of pain down upon whoever was harming that woman.

After sprinting a good forty yards into the trees, the scream came again. This time though, it was followed by desperate pleading in a foreign tongue. Whoever this damsel was, she didn't sound anything like a nekonian. Safety off, Galen charged through a wall of brush and brought his rifle to bear... although he didn't expect to find a monster standing fourteen feet high.

From the back, it seemed somewhat humanoid, although its flabby body was covered in a patchwork of pelts and furs poorly skinned from the unfortunate animals. Its hair was a gnarled mess and so greasy that the oils literally peeled off its scalp. Moss, bugs, and branches covered its body as if the thing had lain down in a swamp for years without moving. The smell alone made Galen nearly choke on his own gag reflex.

And there, within the grasp of this monster's massive hands was a young woman. Frantically kicking and screaming, she fought as hard as she could as the monster raised her high above its head. It's knuckles slowly going white.

"Me gonna squish elvy, make sticky paste," the beast chuckled.

Tears were running down the girl's cheeks as the monster began to squeeze. Her screams became more shrill and agonized as her face slowly turned red from the blood displaced within her.

"Halla!" she cried as she saw him, "Si tetlee neh, halla!"

Rapid thumps in Galen's chest turned to pounding in his ears. This beast was going to kill her!

Unsure of what else to do, he brought the back of the creature's skull into the sights of his rifle and cracked off a round. Hair and thick oils on his scalp exploded to reveal the white of chipped bone underneath. Blood quickly poured into the gash in the skin and the monster roared in pain, loud enough to shake the ground beneath Galen's feet. Next came a yelp as the woman hit the ground, released form the creature's grasp as it turned around with one hand holding the back of its head.

For such a massive body, the giant had tiny eyes. Like two marbles dropped onto a batch of rising dough. Underneath these beady peepers sat a bulbous nose jutting out like a faucet from between two pudgy cheeks. And judging from the deep-set frown arching over its massive forehead, the monster probably wasn't very happy.

"A human? A human hurt Gurple? Bad human! Make Gurple bleed! BAD HUMAN! GURPLE SMASH!"

The earth itself seemed to tremble as Gurple rushed him with his giant fists raised high. In the second before he might've been splattered into a fine paste, the Private braced his rifle against his side. Planting his forward hand on top of the weapon's handguard, he unleashed a burst of automatic fire from the hip until the recoil started to throw him off balance. The brass didn't even hit the ground when he then leaped out of the way of the rampaging monster.

What had to be several tons of blubber and stupid came down with the elegance of a bulldozer on the place Galen had been standing a split-second earlier. Just as the soldier's belly hit the ground, the force of the shaking earth under Gurple tossed him right back up. With his extended air time he went another yard forward to crash face-first right into a bush.

There was a thunderous groan as the monster wept in pain, his sobs echoing deep through the trees and shaking some clean of their leaves. Grumbling himself, the private stood up and pulled a thistle from his uniform and brushed off a couple of leaves from his pants. After sorting himself out, he finally turned to see how effective his attack was.

The whole of the giant's right knee cap was blown away with no sign that he was able to even move it. After what had to have been eight rounds of thirty caliber FMJ bullets, the joint had been quiet messily destroyed. Blood was also dribbling down from the back of his skull and running down his neck into the crater formed when he landed. Galen figured "Gurple" wouldn't be hurting anything anytime soon, and this was his chance to finish it off for good.

He walked up alongside the monster and pressed the muzzle of his rifle up against its temple while returning the fire selector to 'semi'. With an angry glare narrowing his eyes, he cursed at the giant before preparing to pull the trigger.

"Neya!"

The private stopped as the girl he'd saved rushed up beside him and shoved the barrel of his rifle toward the ground. Saying again in a musical voice, "Neya."

Galen would have answered her, but his jaw struck the ground the second he laid eyes on the gem before him. Her soft, tender grasp pulled his trigger hand away from the rifle, bringing it to pale yellow lips so they could lightly kiss his knuckle. Long, ruffled green hair flowed down over her nude body, coming down low enough to nearly cover the golden peaks that tipped her full, apple-sized breasts.

The woman was a head shorter than Galen, with pale olive skin that had a rich gold undertone that seemingly shined in the morning light. The only thing that she wore on her inviting banana shape was a thin pair of green, semi-transparent panties and a garter of vines holding a bone knife to her thigh. Without a word she then went up on her toes and brought her golden lips in to smooch his cheek as her lashes beat down over her cloud white eyes. When she pulled away from him, a warm smile drew across her enchanting face. From ear, to long-pointed ear.

"Come," she ordered uneasily in the human language as she pulled Galen's hand.

However, he stood frozen in place, body petrified by her beauty. Realizing this made her giggle and step in to gently pat a hand on the side of his cheek. "Tiya? Tiiiyaaa, huuumanaaaa, tiya?"

Her angelic voice partially brought the soldier from his trance, enough for him to finally move his feet, at least. His mind, however, remained locked in pure bliss as he followed this elven beauty. The two of them leaving the giant humanoid behind him groaning at its obliterated knee.

...................................

"We gotta hurry!" Michael snapped as Mila hauled him over her back, sprinting toward the direction of the gunshots. Behind them followed a warrior pack of Willhers consisting of five neko males wearing leather armor carrying wooden spears or bows. They were all much taller than Mila with their hard bodies bristling with muscle under their fur as they hardly broke a sweat to keep up with her.

"You are sure this thunder comes from a human?" one of the warriors grunted.

"I am," Mila huffed, "The sound of their weapons mimic a thunder storm in full strength, and strike with the force of a hundred war hammers."

Her feline eyes scanned the area before her, wondering why Galen would have needed to fire his weapon in such a place. The Ra'zorlichs would never leave their territory. Lycans, though a bit feral at times, wouldn't attack unless provoked. Tree elves were the most passive race in the entirety of Atzla, if you could even find them. Any of the other races of Atzla didn't roam this part of the forest due to its proximity to the Ra'zorlichs. That only left... a troll.

Atzlar help him if he encountered one of those.

In all of Atzla forest there were less than a dozen trolls, so their presence was a rare sight to behold as the giant monsters loved to sleep. They would rest for years but once they woke, they loved something else: destruction. Animals, trees, villages, people, anything they could get their hands on was considered dead.

There was no reason for it. They merely enjoyed throwing their weight around and trampling over everything like oversized children who had yet to know better. The havoc they could wreak in the day or two they spent awake had, on several occasions, forced entire tribes to rebuild or start again from nothing as all that they had was crushed for the troll's amusement.

And once they had their fun, they would seek a meal and go right back to sleep. Sparing the people of the Atzla forest until another decided to rise from its slumber.

"Oohhhhhhhhhh...!" roared a voice far too powerful to come from a normal-sized humanoid.

Everyone in the party stopped, listening as the thunderous voice groaned out again not too far ahead. Though the soldier didn't recognize it, the Willhers did. Each of them knowing the sound all too well from a few years before.

"What the Hell was that?" the soldier finally asked.

"Troll," Mila answered.

"We must leave this place, warn the village that another has woken," one of the warriors growled.

Hearing the agony coming through the trees, the tracker carrying the sergeant calmly shook her head. "Do not worry, Warie, hearing the monster groan in such pain means the human likely put it down."

At once, the five Willher warriors glanced at one another in disbelief. The last man to have stood up against a troll on his own died a fine paste on a tree trunk. And yet she claimed a lone human could take one down?

With gentle grace, Mila eased Michael down onto the ground and allowed him to move on his crutch toward the painful sobs ahead. The sergeant forced his way through the brush on a warpath, not even caring about the pain shooting through his leg as he broke trail with the nekos following in behind. Sure enough, a dozen yards ahead, the body of a massive humanoid creature had collapsed into the dirt, forming a crater around the wide flabs of its fat body. With the way its wide face was pushed into the ground and how its limbs lay limp in the dirt, the troll didn't seem like it was going to move any time soon.

"Holy shit! That thing's huge!" Michael yelled as he hobbled forth, picking up his pace to inspect what had to be Galen's handiwork.

"And it's wounded. Look at its knee, my fellow warriors. The other human was here," Mila noted.

These words made the other nekos give stiff "hrmphs" of doubt, the cat men turning their noses up in a stubborn manner. It was impossible for a lone human to do such damage. Michael refused to prove that the wood and iron stick he carried could make this thunder so that had to have been a lie. Perhaps this was the result of a dozen warriors with heavy spiked maces or a pack of lycans organizing an effective attack. It wouldn't explain the thunder but it would explain the troll.

Despite this ignorance shown by the warriors, neither Michael nor Mila could be bothered to let this doubt get under their skin. The both of them knew what exactly Galen was capable of with his rifle. And Michael came up with a plan to make the Willhers know too.

"Hey, troll!" he snapped as he approached the monster, jabbing it in its cheek with his crutch.

Gurple slowly turned his head toward him, crying out the words, "Go 'way, human! Gurple no like you no more. Make Gurple hurt with thunder."

A wry grin crept up on the sergeant's face as he looked back upon the astonished warriors. He wanted to shove this in their faces right then, but he had other priorities. Namely finding out where his private went. "Alright, Gurple, the human that whooped your ass, where'd he go?"

The troll groaned and lifted his head to plant his face back in the dirt. "Elf take human and let Gurple live. Now Gurple hurt. Hurt much. I sleep now. Sleep pain away..."

"Hey, don't you fuckin' sleep on me, you oversized lard bucket! You wake your ass up right now and tell me where he went!"

Each light went out in the troll's head. It wasn't even a minute before it had slipped from consciousness and finally let its painful moans come to an end. Not wanting to accept this, Michael bashed his crutch against its ear, but the snoozing monster didn't even flinch. The sergeant's face began to flush red as he then drove his boot into the troll's cheek and repeatedly ordered it to wake. Receiving not so much as a twitch he then reached for the pistol on his hip.

Only he was stopped short as a gentle hand clasped his shoulder, Mila saying. "Let it go, Michael. We have to reach your supplies and bring them to my village."

"What about Galen?!" he snapped, turning on his crutch to face her with an incredulous look.

The nekonian woman only sighed and gave a solemn shake of her head, "History tells us that when the elves take a man into their camp, the only thing an outsider can do is wait. Nobody but the elves can find their village. They shroud themselves in magic that hides them from those they do not wish to have. Legend says you could stand in the middle of their home and not know even know it was there."

The sergeant stared at her like she was crazy. Magic? Since when?! Half of the crazy shit she had explained so far barely clicked in his mind but now he thought she was just plain nuts. What was worse is that he thought he was going just as nuts for believing her. After all, how else did they even get to this world? Humanity could barely escape their atmosphere, let alone go to another planet.

With his shoulders slumping and his head hanging in defeat, Michael sighed and braced his full weight on his crutch to ease the burden on his injury. He was already starting to bleed through again. "So we wait and twiddle our thumbs while praying that he comes back alive?"

Seeing his saddened state, it was painful for Mila to give him a confirmatory nod. "The legends say that the elves wouldn't kill him. But if he does not return within the next few days, then it just might be that we may never see him again."

...........................................

The spell of the girl's beauty which had enchanted Galen had worn off a mile back but somehow he still couldn't wipe the dumb look off his face. Cognitive function was coming back to him but he still felt like nothing in his world mattered other than the delicate creature that was holding his hand. He blindly continued following the green-haired elf through the forest without caring about how far they were from his crash site.