Ajax and the Reptillian Conspiracy

[Phoenix]

Hey folks. So while I have changed how I conduct business lately, I still do conduct business. And I've recently received an interesting yet odd commission. The job is simple. I just have to post the accounts of my client. The client goes by Ajax and I will be posting their accounts without color as they prefer to be nondescript for various reasons. Without further ado, here is the first post.

Perhaps you have heard of the Reptilian conspiracy and their involvement in both American and Canadian politics? I can’t say if rumors of the larger conspiracy are true or not but I have encountered at least one of these creatures so I can vouch positively for their existence. And the one I tangled with was certainly a manipulator behind the scenes.

I didn’t know I was dealing with a Reptilian when I started the case. It actually started out as the other sort of case I deal with. The sort of case where the evil is entirely of human origin. While I’m a dedicated hunter, the supernatural is not my exclusive prey. Indeed, it’s really more of a sideline. More often I deal with the villains that the law can’t or won’t touch. It’s just that it so happens that supernatural fiends fall into that category.

It started by following up some tips that certain individuals within the criminal justice system were receiving gratuities to be less than vigilante in the pursuit of their duties. The problem is, that there were no financial records that my sources could track. So my job was to conduct a few break ins and procure hard physical evidence.

That’s how it works a lot of times. When there’s covert work to be done, I’m the one for the job.

I didn’t find cash money in the safe’s of the influential and powerful. At least not more than you might expect. A few thousand or so which is just pittance. What I did find was something far more interesting and by interesting I mean in the Chinese sense of the word.

What I found were arcane charms. The real deal. With alien symbols and the unholy vibe that sets the hairs on the back of my neck stand up straight to attention like the rank and file on parade. Faint blue outlines showed symbols that would not be visible to the naked eye. I couldn’t be sure but it was likely that disturbing these charms had silently alerted someone to my illicit presence.

I’m not so foolish as to mess about with charms that I don’t know the purpose or operation of. So I tossed a flash-bang in the safe and closed the door. It was time to beat a hasty retreat out of the not so honorable judge’s residence.

The window seemed to be the way to go. I’d be able to climb to the roof and then maybe roof hop several buildings over until I could let myself easily back to the ground.

Except when I opened the curtains, I saw a bluish apparition floating there, as though about to pass through the glass. It may have assumed at first that I couldn’t see it except that I made the mistake of following the things movements with my eyes. As though it was attached to a zip-line, it suddenly darted away to another part of the city.

Well that was that. Someone out there would be alerted to my interference. He, she or it would no doubt come looking for me very soon. What frustrated me was that I did not have any easy ways to go find him, her or it first.

I get paid well but I was beginning to suspect that I would soon be earning more than my fair share.

[Phoenix]

Here is the second installment.

All I had to go on was the general direction that the apparition had departed in.

Well, okay, that wasn’t all I had going for me.

I carried on my way out the window and up to the roof. I just barely made it out of sight when I spotted the police cruiser pulling up. The traditional security systems were doing their thing. So I did mine and got myself out of there.

Several blocks away I spoke into my helmet mike. “Dial Oracle.”

It rang about five times before it was finally answered. “Hello Ajax, this better be important. I was in the middle of something with my wife.”

“I may have been made by a mage. I need a dragon line map of the west end uploaded.” Then I braced myself.

“Dammit. You should have all of that already loaded into your system. Quit falling asleep at the briefings!” Oracle yelled into my ear. I’m pretty sure they was remotely upping the volume of my helmet speakers while they was at it.

“Have them during my regular work hours and it won’t be an issue.” I countered. “You can’t have me working all night and then be awake for daytime briefings.”

“You knew what this job entailed when you signed the dotted line.” Oracle’s voice was still cross but I could hear the keyboard being nearly assaulted. “If you can’t handle it like a professional, we’ll get someone else.”

My HUD showed a text message indicating that the new files had been received. “Sorry boss, it won’t happen again.” I opened file and a wire frame map of the city appeared imposed over my vision, showing blue lines where areas of increased magical energy where reported.

“Don’t call me boss.” And then the line went dead.

“Well, there goes my Christmas bonus.” I muttered as I studied the map. There were only a couple of possibilities on the trajectory established by the entity I had ran into earlier. I opted to check the furthest away first and then work back from there.

My ride was only a few short blocks away. After all, I couldn’t exactly take the subway without attracting unwanted attention. Not with my armor and gear on, anyway. But on my bike with my gear stowed in the cargo bins, I looked like I was just wearing a fancy crash suit.

The bike itself was provided by the agency. It had a few features that were definitely aftermarket options but it definitely looked like a regular street bike. I revved the powerful engine and took off across town.

The neighborhood I wound up in was very old but had recently undergone some gentrification. Crime was low and modern luxuries common. I would have to be careful not to attract any undue attention around here. Fortunately for me, the buildings were packed closely together just as they were in much of the rest of the city. It would make getting around much easier.

I found a secluded area to stash my bike. Then I put on my gear and slipped into the alleyways. I have a specially built grapple launcher that is built into a shotgun to help me with scaling buildings but I prefer to use my hands and skill. In an urban environment, there are many ways a person can ascend up to the roof tops. Bounding from surface to surface is usually quicker and leaves less evidence of my passing.

So how did I hope to find what I suspected to be some sort of mage?

Simple. I planned to stumble around blindly until I triggered some sort of magic defense. Which is exactly what I did.

[Phoenix]

And now for the third entry which will wrap up Ajax's first night on this particular case.

It was on the roof of a townhouse when it happened. I might have missed it if it weren’t for my special goggles. Otherwise the invisible lines of mystic power that ignited to life as I stepped onto the roof would have remained unseen. Immediately I braced myself but there was no immediate effect. I figured it could have been some sort of silent alarm. That’s normal, most mages seem to prefer passive security on the outside of their lair, saving the flashy stuff for those who delve deeper within.

I sort of wished I’d been as up on my countermeasure downloads as I should have been. I certainly wasn’t going to bother Oracle twice in one night though. Unfortunately, while my goggles let me see things that were meant to be unseen, the magic that allowed that to happen didn’t allow an interface with non-organic systems. So while I had seen the ward clearly, I couldn’t take a picture or run visual recognition software on it. Had I been up on my downloads, I could have scrolled through a list of known symbols until I found a match or a near match and then hope that could tell me something.

As it was, I only had my own intuition which wasn’t really any better than the next fella’s. Oracle often liked to point out that I was hired for my brawn and perhaps my looks but definitely not for my brains. Which isn’t really fair since I’m smarter than average, I’m just not a genius.

But I am getting somewhat diverted from the topic at hand. I was on the roof of what was most likely a mages house. A house that was built right smack dab on a line of power. And while I had good reason to suspect that this house may hold the mage I was looking for in particular, the fact of the matter was that it could be just a simple coincidence. The one I was looking for could very easily be living elsewhere on the line. It was after all a known fact that mages actively sought out such places to live in order to harness the available power.

With all of that in mind, I didn’t linger for a single moment. After that initial contact, I withdrew from the roof quickly found a hiding spot. It was lucky that I did as a familiar apparition drifted up through the roof I had been on and started looking around.

I had to be careful. With an ordinary perp, I would have planted an HD micro camera and withdrew to a safe distance. With this thing I had no way of observing it except directly with my goggles. And it wasn’t even like I could put the goggles in front of a camera so it could see the spectre (I’d tried in the past-it didn’t work).

Fortunately for me, while it could pass through solid objects, it couldn’t see through them. I just had to keep out of its line of sight in a paranormal game of hide and go seek. It doesn’t matter how advanced technology gets, there is always a place for the basic skills of the craft.

It was touch and go a few times but I was pretty sure I managed to avoid detection. Once it descended back into the townhouse, I made my way back down to the ground. Once there, I noted the address and then hastily departed for my bike. That was all I would be getting tonight. More leg work would be needed before I went any further.

[Ron Caliburn]

Damned Reptiloids.

[Kolya]

They never bring good news.

[Phoenix]

This was a particularly challenging mission for Ajax. He used to have a partner that he worked with directly in addition to Oracle's virtual support. Due to personal differences, they no longer work together and this was the first mission that Ajax faced solo.

So I had the address of a mage that was involved in this whole thing. But that's not enough to act on. They might be contracted to provide security and not really have anything more to do with what's going on beyond that.

The agency is pretty discriminating. We don't just move on someone or something just because there is something supernatural involved. We have to determine what it is we're dealing with of course. We have to determine the threat as well. If the conventional authorities can be employed to deal with the situation, then we help enable them to do so.

All this takes surveillance. Oracle is especially adept at cyber-surveillance. You know that expression, 'Follow the money'? It's one of their many talents. It's almost like they can cast spells in binary or something. But there's no actual magic involved, just good old fashioned hacking and cracking.

As for me, I do it the old fashioned way. I use cameras and plant bugs. Which all serve to give Oracle that many more eyes and ears to use. I also spend a good portion of time watching my subjects directly. I'm a hands on sort of individual.

Oh, there's one more thing I occasionally do. It involves black bags and black vans. It also involves restraints, bright lights and voice distortion and that's all you need to know about that. All skills I learned back from my government days.

It took a week of surveillance before we even decided who to black bag. The unfortunate candidate confirmed what we had already suspected. The mage was the ring leader. They were the one that everyone payed up to, answered to, and was afraid of. The Doc wiped his mind and he was placed back into his natural environment.

Speaking of the Doc, one of their functions is to scan the minds and emotions of people I interrogate. They also administer a special drug cocktail and monitor various outputs by various machines the respondents are hooked to. They're normally pretty chipper but lately they've been very cool and detached. While Oracle can get on my case at times, when Doc is being cool, it's scary. Given what had happened just before this mission, I can't really blame them.

At any rate we were also collecting a fair body of evidence of criminal behavior. Except it wasn't the sort of evidence one can submit to the authorities. Nor was it the sort of crimes that they could easily prosecute. Sure coercion is illegal but kind of hard to prove when magic is employed.

So what was this fiend up to? They were arranging a power network involving law enforcement agents, a couple of judges, a senator, a congressmen and a few well placed bureaucrats. What was their end goal? Power for the sake of power, probably.

In any case, we felt we had enough to go on now. The next step would be to deal with the mage and that meant drawing them out of their lair somehow. Only a fool goes after a wizard in their tower.

[Phoenix]

And now for the next part of the story.

If you are a mage, then living on a ley line is good for providing aid in every day sort of magic. But sometimes your plans for global domination just require that you summon a demon, create an Ultradox of Geomatic Focus or tear open holes in space and time. For these occasions you need the sort of power that only a junction of ley lines will provide.

There was such a junction in the city but it was in a public place. One cannot simply summon Aryag Gynax, subduer of the thirteenth plane, butcher of the battle of Canex and holder of the cursed rings of lore without drawing a bit of attention to oneself. For the conspiracy minded, absolute privacy and secrecy are required at all times. Drawing attention to oneself tends result in determined opposition from those who have no great desire to be dominated. That is of course where I, or people very much like me come in.

So the problem facing our mage is that they must travel to a secret location to power their most potent magics. This means leaving the safety of their sanctuary. The problem facing us is trying to figure out where they are going and to be ready for them at a place of power when they do.

Intercepting them prior to reaching a secluded place can endanger innocent civilians which is something we avoid at all costs. It does no good to destroy a threat to humanity if you become a worse threat in the process. Patience can be difficult but it is worth it.

Unfortunately the times that a place of power can be useful is often spread months apart and a lot of evil can be accomplished in that time.

Ah, but the impatient mage on a the road to secret power has other ways to muster power to fuel their machinations. This particular individual had gone the usual route of forming a cult of humans with a higher than normal potential for magical power. It was grooming them to develop that power, to increase it, so that it could in turn tap into it.

Now while this means that they can perform their rituals in the safety of their own home, they will still get the best results at a place of power. So much the better if they can sacrifice a few cattle in the process (ever wonder about those strange mutilations?).

One of the things we do is watch the cattle auctions for odd purchases or odd purchasers. In this case, we found a connection between some of the cultists we were already watching and the purchase of a very small lot of cattle. They had their own trailer and we only had to follow them from the auction to see where they dropped off the cattle to get a good idea where the next ritual would take place.

It was up to me to conduct the surveillance of the ritual itself and intervene if it was felt necessary. I would be the eyes and ears while experts observed my transmissions and tried to determine what was going on. That would then dictate what action I would take.

So there I was in my place of concealment watching with my very expensive optics when people started to arrive. A large circle was drawn in the earth and four cattle were secured in the center. About a dozen men showed up in ones and twos. They arrived in normal business apparel but added the sort of ceremonial robes that seem so very fashionable for these shindigs.

And then the guest of honor arrived.

He was a tall one, standing over two meters in height. He had a barrel chest and clawed hands. He (I can only really assume gender here) had scales. His face was hard to see under the robe however.

"Reptilian." I heard the whispered word over my mike. It was spoken with trepidation and I could tell that this new fact had changed things.

I gritted my teeth.

Change is never good.

[Phoenix]

And here is the wrap up of Ajax's encounter with the Reptilian.

“This is Ajax, please advise. Over.”

Oracle responded. “Check your heat sensors. What are you getting of that ring leader?”

I checked. “Doesn’t look warm blooded from where I’m sitting.” I reported.

A voice back at the ops center was complaining. “I thought they were a human mage. That’s what we saw leave the townhouse.”

“An illusion or a metamorphosis spell.” Doc said analytically. “Probably dropped it as soon as they thought it wasn’t necessary anymore.”

“Do I engage?” I was starting to get nervous.

There was a pause from Oracle. “Yes. We’ve already seen enough to know that their plan is the domination of others along with other criminal activity. Take it down Ajax, hard. The reptoid is the primary target. We’ll nab the others if they get away. But kill that thing!”

“Roger.” I felt better now that I had clear direction. While this had been originally designated a recon mission, I had been loaded up for a strike mission just in case. It wouldn’t be the first time that mission parameters changed mid-stream.

First thing I did was launch what I call the sparkler at them. It’s like a paraflare in how it’s launched and slowly drifts down to the earth due to a miniature parachute that slows its descent. As it descends, it sets off sequential flash bangs that disorient and distract those who aren’t prepared. Best part is the sonic device that emitted a high pitched noise. Made it very hard for anyone to concentrate. Fortunately my suits helmet was specially insulated against its effects.

It was just the thing to break up a cabal of night in the middle of their eldritch ritual.

In the confusion, I charged in with my M-4 barking. Mostly I was providing my own covering fire as I closed with my primary target.

Most of the cultists, being squishy and not having signed up for facing off against an armed maniac in black armor, started to beat feet out of there. That was okay. We could afford to let them go. I had a monster to kill.

Despite my somewhat haphazard shooting, I did land several shots on the thing. It managed to shrug them off, unaffected. Its scaly hide was like thick ballistic armor for it. Apparently it was also recovering its sight and hearing quickly. Enough that it could target me with a spell.

My screen went blank, suddenly cut off from power. I had to waste precious time flipping up the ballistic visor. I had ballistic goggles on underneath as a back up. My sight was restored in time to see a massive green fist smash into my face.

While I was still staggered it was grabbing my rifle and pulling it out of my hands.

Rather than wrestle it for the gun, I drew my sidearm and started dumping armor piercing rounds into its hide at point blank range.

I was rewarded by ichor leaking holes appearing in its hide.

It decided that I shouldn’t have a chance to reload that particular firearm. Instead it was targeted by its next spell that melted much of it into slag. It was now unusable.

I didn’t fool around anymore. I felt my natural strength being augmented and I punched it square in its slitted nose. There was a satisfying crack as its head snapped back and more ichor started to pour from its nose.

It wasn’t staggered long and decided to use my own rifle as an improvised club against me. My armor absorbed it, thankfully.

“Draw your sword, idiot!” Oracle screamed in my ear. “This isn’t a boxing match!”

I reached behind me and drew out my blade. In a fluid swipe, I struck it in the side and cut into its hide deeply.

It howled in pain and I swung again and again, splashing ichor everywhere. It tried blocking a few times with my rifle but not effectively.

There was a sudden flash before my eyes and I found myself dazzled. That was soon followed by a loud clap of thunder that left me staggered. It used this distraction to start running.

No way it was getting away that easily. I pulled out my grapple launcher and blearily aimed for its back. As I hoped, it struck and penetrated.

It didn’t stop running. So rather than reel it in, I was being dragged towards it.

As it ran, it took every opportunity to ensure I was slammed into a tree. I was getting beat up pretty bad but I wasn’t going to give up.

Finally I had a thought and grabbed onto one of the larger trees he slammed me into. I reeled out some line and then tied it off. Now it couldn’t go any farther. With it at the end of the line, I charged with my sword, finishing it with a single stroke.

Then with an exhausted sigh. I slumped to my knees. That thing was a tough bugger. Shame that its body was melting away, leaving no evidence of its existence.

“You okay Ajax?” Oracles voice sounded concerned for a change.

“Yeah.” I was huffing and puffing. “Just wishing I could have at least gotten a pair of boots out of the thing.”