Interstellar Age

While Erich was slowly making his way to the extraction point, the rest of his team had covertly made their way to the Oni Royal Palace. Luckily for them, their stealth field generators were undamaged, allowing them to easily fly through the skies at low altitude and remain undetected. 

The Royal Oni Palace was not easy to assault, at least not on foot. For starters, one would have to breach the walls which were built atop a crater. Then they would have to scale down the crater itself and into a lake, which the Oni Royal Palace floated atop. It was damn near impossible to achieve.

Not only that, but the palace was equipped with all kinds of aerial and orbital defenses. Allowing it to remain completely unharmed from the bombardment, and allowing them to shoot down any potential atmospheric fighters, or even jet troopers. 

Of course, they would first have to detect these potential hostiles before their systems could lock on and shoot them out of the sky. But the stealth technology built into a W-7s power armor not only allowed the wearer to remain completely invisible, but it also deflected any potential sensors, making them truly and completely invisible. 

Because of this, Ghost and his men simply descended from the sky, and into the Palace gardens, where they silently stalked through the large estate. As an expert in close quarters combat, and assassinations, Echo led the way in dispatching the Royal Guard who patrolled the palace grounds. 

A single plasma knife to the neck was all that was needed to send the Oni Royal Guardsmen to the afterlife. And it left no bloodstains to speak of due to the intense heat which would cauterize the wound. 

After covertly taking out these men, Echo would hide their bodies in all sorts of places that were out of immediate investigation. Meanwhile, the rest of the Team simply watched, and waited until the entire gardens had been cleared of the two dozen or so men who were previously patrolling it. 

JT couldn’t help but whisper into his comms about his amazement. 

“God damn, I love to watch that man work. Unlike somebody in this unit, he is a true professional…”

This remark was obviously an insult to Heavy, whose entire shtick was a frontal assault with superior firepower. The man truly had the stealth capabilities of rampaging hippo. How the hell he ever managed to join an elite unit like the WRAITHs whose entire job revolved around being covert, JT would never know. 

Because of this, Heavy simply snorted in disdain towards his comrade, but did not dare raise his voice in fear of revealing his position to any potential hostiles. And while the long-range communications may be jammed, the Mk 2 Power Armor had a built-in feature that allowed a unit to communicate with one another if they were close to each other. Say within approximately one hundred meters. 

Thus, Ghost’s voice was loud and clear, as his artificial intelligence confirmed that Echo had succeeded in eliminating all the guards within the immediate vicinity. 

“Alright, Echo has cleared the area. We must now make our way through the palace, and to the Emperor.” 

JT nodded his head in response to this, and took point, as he covertly made his way through the gardens, and into the Palace, where he witnessed Echo stuffing a fresh corpse into a cupboard. Normally if someone were to witness this scene, they would think that the corpse was stuffing itself into the cupboard, but the WRAITHs had the ability to detect one another with their helmets. Thus, it was a rather normal sight for JT, who simply commented on Echo’s actions with a snarky tone. 

“Having fun there Echo?” 

Echo did not say a word and instead finish hiding the corpse where he then looked straight at JT and raised his thumb in a positive gesture. JT returned the gesture before stalking through the halls, where he led his team towards the personal quarters of the Great Oni Empire, which according to their artificial intelligence was his current location. 

Throughout their journey, Ghost and his team silently dispatched the troops walking through the halls with their knives, and stuffed the bodies in hidden locations. Until they finally reached the door to their target. 

Now that they had killed just about every royal guardsman in the palace, Heavy could no longer contained himself and instead pulled out his grenade launcher, where he fired a 40mm antimatter grenade at the front door of the Emperor’s personal chambers, which was guarded by two men. 

The explosion not only blasted the two men into mincemeat, but created an enormous hole in the doorframe. Upon seeing Heavy’s action, JT simply sighed and shook his head before mocking the man. 

“You just had to do something stupid, didn’t you?” 

Despite JT’s harsh words, Heavy was smiling beneath his visor as he voiced his discontent with their previous covert nature. 

“I’ve been waiting to do that all fucking day!”

While JT and Heavy argued, Ghost and Echo entered the personal chambers of the Great Oni Emperor, where they found the man quivering in the corner while buck naked. Alongside him was one of his maids, and his wife, who he appeared to have been intimate with just prior to the explosion. 

The Great Oni Emperor’s voice was hysterical as he called out for his guards to save him, only for there to be dead silence on their end. 

“Intruders! Your Emperor is under attack!”

Echo did not even bother listening to the man’s nonsense, and punched him straight in the gut, causing him to spill out the contents of his lunch all over the floor. Echo then restrained the great oni Emperor with little effort, as he bound the man with zipties. He then handed the man a communication device which had been taken from one of the dead guards. Where Ghost then voiced the words that Echo wanted to speak. 

“Contact your forces, and tell them to surrender. If not, we will not only kill you, but your entire family as well.”  𝒩𝑂𝓥𝑳xt.𝒸𝑂𝑀

Despite not knowing who these men were, the Great Oni Emperor was too terrified to resist, and thus, he quickly did as his captors demanded. He spoke into the communication device and ordered what remained of the Loyalist Forces to surrender. 

“This is an order to all forces from the Emperor himself. Lay down your arms and surrender. The war is lost!” 

Though these orders confused the loyalist troops, they did not dare disobey an order from the Emperor, and thus the hostilities that were ongoing across the world immediately halted. As for the Emperor himself, he was still terribly in fear for his life, and was quick to voice these thoughts aloud. 

“What are you going to do to me?” 

Now that the battle had ended, long-range communications were restored. And because of this, Ghost responded to this question by pulling out a holo communicator, which once activated displayed the lovely figure of Kondo Yumi who had a smug smile on her pretty face as she sat in a command chair. 

“I believe that is for me to decide… What is the matter, nephew? By the looks of it, it appears that you have just witnessed a ghost?” 

Kenji could not believe his eyes or ears. Until now, he had never believed the intelligence which suggested that his royal aunt was in command of the rebel forces. After all, he had personally seen to her death.

Yet the holographic projection of her figure, as well as that hyper feminine voice which the Great Oni Emperor was so familiar with, did not lie. Somehow, Yumi had come back from the dead, and had rallied those dissenting elements of Oni society against him.

For over a year now, the Great Oni Empire had been in a state of civil war, and the entire time, Yumi was behind it. Kenji struggled to find his voice, or his thoughts, as he voiced one simple question while in a state of bewilderment. 

“How?” 

In response to this, Yumi simply smirked before telling her nephew the truth, not that it really mattered. He was as good as dead, and there was no way he could possibly inform the galaxy of the Germanic Star-Empire’s little secret now that he was in their custody. Thus there was a haughty tone in her voice as she bragged about her resurrection. 

“You never believed me when I talked about how great our allies are. In fact, they were better than I could ever imagine. They even have the medical technology that is required to bring one back from the dead. Truly astounding stuff.

It’s just a pity that I’m missing some of my memories. Of course, Erich filled me in on how I died, and I can’t help but admit that your betrayal stings me. Colonel Ghost, is Erich with you there now? May I speak to him?” 

Ghost had an awkward expression on his face, which was concealed by his visor as he admitted that he had no idea if Erich was even still alive. 

“Apologies, your majesty, but Erich was blown off course during our drop. His whereabouts and status are currently unknown. If he is alive, then he will meet us at the extraction point.” 

This news caused Yumi’s mood to sour, but she did not lash out at the WRAITHs, after all no matter how great ones plan was, combat was unpredictable, and because of that she could not hold Ghost and his team accountable for Erich’s disappearance. She simply sighed heavily before voicing her thoughts about the matter. 

“I do hope that boy hasn’t gotten himself killed again… Poor little Ayumi will be so discouraged her fears turned out to be reality…”

It was only now that Kenji realized why the Germanic Star-Empire had requested that he hand over his daughter in exchange for his son. Yumi and Erich were alive this entire time, undoubtedly committing any number of taboo acts while within the borders of his allies. The Great Oni Emperor suddenly felt an intense rage as he lashed out at his aunt verbally. 

“You fucking whore! This is all your fault! If you hadn’t been so shameless to corrupt my only daughter, I would never have moved against you! I hope you suffer a thousand deaths for what you have done to our family!” 

Yumi’s expression turned ugly, as she commanded Ghost to restrain her nephew in the harshest means possible. 

“Colonel, restrain my nephew, and while you’re at it, teach him about something I like to call respect. Just don’t kill the idiot, I intend to do that myself! I will join you shortly after my forces have secured the planet. Until then, keep that moron under control, as well as his fool of a son!” 

With this said, Yumi cut the communication, allowing Ghost and his men to manhandle the now deposed Great Oni Emperor.