On a certain Planet called Earth by the natives, in a certain country called Afghanistan by the natives there is a military base run not by those of that country but by one of the great superpowers called U.S.A. 

 

It is called Bagram Air Base, a primary receiving front for troops and logistics. Currently it was day and a big transport plane just landed, carrying troops and in this case it was a platoon. The platoon consisted of 3 squads for a maximum of 36 soldiers led by a second lieutenant.

 

The first lieutenant's name was John. He carried the air of a hardened man by constant warfare, even though he was quite young, being only 27. Currently he and his men were going to a briefing room. Passing by logistic staff, room by room, they came to it. Once inside they saw two people. Once was a decorated general and the other a lieutenant general.

 

Coming inside, they formed orderly ranks and faced the general and saluted. 

 

“ Sir. ” 

 

The general nodded and had them at ease. “ Good, you're here. Listen for this mission you will not know the location of your deployment, neither will you know after whom you will be deployed. All you need to know is that the ones that you will face are terrorists and that this mission is top secret. Is that understood? ”

 

“ Sir, Yes, sir. ”

 

Nodding again the general went on. “ Good, I am sure you have already been briefed on the specifics of the mission but just in case Mike here will repeat it again. ” With his hand the general pointed at the man behind him. “ John you came with me. ”

 

“ Yes, sir. ” Replied John and followed the general. Again he passed room by room until they came to the generals office. Once inside the generals went for his chair and once seated looked at John.

 

“ John, it's good to see you again and I am sorry for having you come here again but your expertise will be needed for this. ” Said the general.

“ It's ok, sir. Sir may I speak freely? ” Hearing the question the general nodded.

“ I have looked through the report and found it intriguing. On one side is very detailed but on the other it carries warnings that could not have come from an insider. May I ask as to how the situation came to be? ”

 

Again the general nodded as the situation was indeed a bit unusual. “ Don't tell this to others but even I find it hard to swallow. You see it was a normal day for me that day and sure as hell I did not expect anything to happen but when I came to my office I noticed a little box wrapped like a christmas present on my desk. When I asked the secretary he said he nobody came, and neither did he notice when it was placed there. Looking over the security footage showed nothing. It was as if it had appeared out of thin air. The insides I am sure you have already seen? ” 

“ Yes, sir. ” Replied John. “ And I have studied it. From the building plans, to patrol routines, to their weaponry. It was all very detailed but sir it said that there will be many civilians involved in this mission, so there must be something I am missing. How was it approved? ”

 

“ Simple John. It's very simple. We have been guaranteed by the insider that the civilians will be taken care of and will not hinder the mission at all and considering the risks and rewards entailed in this event it was approved even if casualties will appear. ” Told the general and ordered with an authoritative voice behind his statement. “ That said, when the mission starts you focus on the terrorist hard no matter the consequences. Is that underwood? ”

 

Hearing the seriousness from the general John could only admit that it was beyond him right now. “ Yes, sir. Is the deployment still the same? ”

 

“ Yes, go to your men and make sure they are ready. ” Ordered the general. With that John went to his men but before he left the office he heard the generals voice again. “ Take care of yourself John and one more thing. Once you are there the insider man will contact you. He will give you instructions on some things. Note that he's not military but he will be on your side. ” Nodding again John made his way back to them. 

 

The moment he was gone the general could only relax in his chair and rub the bridge of his nose due to stress but even that was interrupted the next second. A voice came out of thin air.

 

“ I told you before you don't have to worry about the civilians. ” Said the voice. Hearing it the general looked at that corner of his office and saw a man appear there. He was tall with broad shoulders with red hair and silver eyes, wearing jeans with a black moto jacket. 

“ I remember what you said last time, no need to repeat it. ” Said the general, but there was no authority in his voice except uncertainty. He looked at this newcomer and asked what he truly needed to say. “ Remember the deal we made. ”

 

Nodding, the man with red hair rolled his eyes a bit and said. “ I will, but I don't think I will need to intervene at all except the end. ”

“ Why? ” Asked the general? Not quite understanding why that was.

“ Well, I don't think it's a coincidence that the general's nephew was called to battle this time. Even if you hadn't pulled the strings to get your nephew the glory, he would have been called here. Probably. ” Said the man with red hair.

 

Not quite understanding the general asked again but the man with red hair only shook his head and said no more. “ Fine, either way remember the deal and take care of John. ” Repeated the general again just in case. 

 

“ I will. Don't worry ” Like that the man disappeared again and the general had no choice but to wonder at everything that led to this. 

 

***

One thing all modern soldiers are trained to do, except killing the enemy of course, is that civilians are the no go for anything. But when the target is juicy enough, even those morals are quick to be forgotten. Like it will happen very soon.

 

Not long ago, better said 2 days ago, I scouted out the base of the guy possessed with the Demon seed. After doing my experiments with the captured Demon seed I waited for his buddies to show up and followed them to their base. It was a hidden one and to my surprises much bigger than I expected.

 

It was in the same city, but what surprised me was not how many men they had, nor the complex they had hidden themselves in. No, what had surprised me was the sheer number of Demon seeds they had. Out of the 57 men they had stationed in this base 20 had Demon seeds inside them. ` Well, 19 when I killed one of them. `

Anyway 14 of them were first stage Demon seeds and 5 of them were at the second stage.

 

Noticing their number, there was only one explanation of course. There was somebody spreading them around, and he was not hard to find at all. It was their boss, as he was not hard to find with how everybody followed his orders. Having noticed that my SoP was preventing the Demon seed from passively gathering Demonic power I wagered that the boss was probably a Demon and to prevent my discovery I didn't use it to scout out their base, but went the normal way. 

To not lose my ability to perceive the Demon seed I had to find a different way to perceive them. For that I experimented with how SoP worked for a bit and applied it to my eyes. Unlike my SoP that envelopes anything and provides me information, this method could only work passively. 

I had to find a way that demons seeds interact with its surroundings and have it be interpreted like Light to my eyes. Anyway, shortening the explanation, all that's needed to be known is that now I had a method of perceiving Life Essence with just my eyes. It was much weaker and only a faint outline was possible to be seen from the head of people around me. Following the theme the Demon seed had a black outline. 

 

But when I saw the boss his whole body had a black outline. Which confirmed it for me that he was a fully transformed Demon. With that curiosity in front of me I observed everything there was and found out that the head Demon was able to sacrifice humans to increase the seed numbers. It was simple really. 

Using his power he captured the Soul that left the body that died. With his power he enveloped the Soul and did something, unsure what as I didn't want to be found. Anyway once he was done the Soul was transformed into a Demon seed. Then he implanted it into one of his men's Soul.

 

Seeing that I could figure out how he probably had a way to mature the seed to. Having seen it all I could have ended it all but for my own enjoyment I decided on a different path. Taking everything I saw I made a report including the Demon stuff and made a report of it to the Americans. 

I didn't know the name of the terrorist group, neither did I want to know it, but it had to be known as when I made that report to the US army they were quick to deploy their man. A little deal with the general in charge helped too. And right now I was on the plane with the 36 soldiers that will be engaging them.

 

Knowing that they would be long seen if they went with ground deployment, they decided on parachute landing just outside the city and slowly make their way inside under the cover of the night.

 

Seeing their faces hardened with combat I observed a particular one. All I knew his name was John and that he was the nephew of the general I made a deal with. To ensure the mission got the go ahead and have his nephew be the star of the operation I made the deal that I would protect him and the civilians in that base. But what I didn't expect was that he was a bit special.

 

When I look at him and perceive his whole being, alongside his soul I notice a tiny white ball inside his Soul. Considering what I learned very recently I knew immediately what it was. It was an Angel seed. Being the opposite of the Demon seed which at first looked like a tiny black marble ball, this one looked like a white marble ball and it was still in the first stage. 

 

As I looked at him I could only ridicule the similarities between Heaven and Hell in my head and wait for the exciting jump out of the plane. 

 

` My first skydive and I don't have a parachute with me. So exciting, should I make something like a parachute or a skydive suit. While I have not seen one yet in person, with my current capabilities it's not hard to make something similar. Still I wonder what would happen if I fell from this high, would I survive if I transferred all the kinetic energy of the impact. Hmm, yea best I leave that experiment for another day, lets just go with a normal skydive. `

 

That decided I waited for the moment which soon came. John stood up and made a pep talk for his team. They didn't really need it as they were professionals, but it never hurt to have one's courage bolstered. Immediately after that the rear hatch of the plane opened and soon they jumped one by one and me being the last one. 

 

As I stood there and watched the earth beneath I undid my stealth and scared the living crap of one of the plane crews. Giving him a wave of my hand I jumped and screamed.

 

Frozen there he saw me jump without a parachute and heard my battle call. “ Geronimoooooo. ”

 

With no barriers I felt the air pass me by as if screaming at me. Having seen from movies and similar stuff it wasn't hard to get the hang of it. Spread yourself if you want to go slower and do the opposite if you want to increase your speed. Fiddling a bit here and there to get the right angle I saw the soldiers in their gear and night vision goggles. 

One of the reasons I had to disable my stealth was that I could only use it if my SoP was active as when Light was blocked everything was black to my eyes and I had to rely on it to find my way. On the ground it's still fine, sort of, but here in the air with nothing in sight to orient myself it was a death sentence.

Soon I saw the men deploy their parachutes and so did I, only in my case I just deployed half of my usual barrier and had it interact with the Air. Some more fiddling with it as I was in freefall I had it working properly. Following the men I landed in the area of them. 

 

Once we were down I saw the soldiers quickly gather the parachutes like the hundreds of times they had done before and make their way into the city but before they entered I took out the gear I had the general prepare for me, a walkie talkie tuned into the frequency used by them.

 

“ Test, test. ” Immediately they all stopped walking unsure from whom that voice came or from where. 

“ John, Johnny boy. It is good that you have come. No need to be scared, it was the general that gave me a way to talk to you. ” I said to him.

“ Who are you? ” Came the question from the handheld radio.

“ Me, of course I am your insider man. Don't bother looking for me but I would suggest you listen to my advice. ” I told him.

“ And what kind of advice would that be? ” He asked.

“ Well, there could be many but the first will be you listening to me as I guide you guys through the city undetected. We don't want the enemy to find you guys, do we? ”

 

It took him a minute to consider it but eventually he did reply. “ Fine lead the way. ”

 

“ Good, Let's do this. ”