This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.
The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/KyleKKent on 2025-12-21 23:04:11+00:00.
Preparation H
In the gap of the grenades Harold has to duck away and rush from several returning grenades and he has to abandon his rooftop altogether.
The not-illumination leaks through solids... sort of? But it just generally tells him that something alive is there. Which is fucking useless as it can’t make out movements and forget being able to tell which way the man is looking.
He moves more and leaps from one building to another as quietly as he can. Barely a puff of air in noise and he STILL is only a bit ahead of the grenades that...
He shouts by reflex as the next grenade proves to be a flashbang and he had the distance to avoid shrapnel, but the sheer light pouring into his eyes make him stagger at the worst time. He falls. Hits the side of the building and slams into the wall while grabbing onto a windowsill. He forces the window open blind as he vaguely hears what might be footsteps coming right at him and he forces his way in to take a breath as his eyes are completely fucked.
He suppresses the urge to laugh, but with how his ears are ringing he’s liable to laugh too loudly. Clever bastard found a way around the reflex. The Flashbang was not intended to harm him, was not an actual threat and things were already blunted due to it being all holograms anyways. He also had no plan. He was just acting now, trying to get around his instincts through endless reaction rather than deliberate action.
Or maybe the flashbang just rattled his head badly enough that he’s thinking nonsense.
There’s a sense of danger and he swats a grenade back out the window and then it goes off at a safe distance. Exactly one second later he bolts from it, finds and manoeuvres around a table he throws up to both shield himself and get enough distance to avoid the cooked grenade that goes off right as it crests the window.
Chunks of shrapnel are embedded in the ‘wood’ and his vision is still badly messed up. But it’s settled just enough to let him open the door and slip further into the apartment. He navigates by his own light with ease and slips around as he blinks enormous spots out of his vision.
“You alright?” Alpha calls out. Harold doesn’t take the bait and there’s a chuckle right after. “Ah well, nothing like a zero light hunt right? Did you know that humans have noses comparable to some dogs? We just don’t pay attention to it. Usually.”
The fact his voice is considerably closer, and his light shows he’s passing right through the wall of the apartment building lets Harold know that Alpha is on him.
Harold digs out a bit of masking tape and a grenade. He head for the stairwell uses the grenade on it’s handle side to prop the door open behind him and tapes it to stay shut up top.
He then pulls the pin and starts slipping down the stairs.
He makes it two stories down before he dives for the wall and avoids his own grenade having been kicked back at him. It detonates a floor below.
“Thanks for the thought kid, but I have plenty of my own.
“You are yakkey when you’re having fun.” Harold notes as he slips down another flight then slips to the side as Alpha dips down and a claymore clatters to the landing. Harold jumps over, past and into the spaces between.
The claymore goes off and there are innumerable bouncing bits of shrapnel. He catches and swings down safely into the lowest level.
He then charges out and barely avoids getting flashbanged again and this time the flashbang is followed by an incendiary grenade.
He looks up to see the mechanism of the door, and quickly gets to work. Taping down a grenade so that the handle is held against the mechanism and when the door is opened the mechanism will break. He pulls the pin and gets moving.
“Did you just booby trap another fucking door?” Alpha demands.
“Do you have wall hacks or something? The hell is going on?”
“Thanks for the confirmation of the pattern. Dumbass.” Alpha says and Harold sighs. Then he frowns and shifts his stance. He slips the guns away, and withdraws a knife.
He creeps up to the door and flattens himself against the wall knife in the right hand. Left hand ready...
Alpha starts to emerge and Harold grabs his rifle and pulls hard. There’s a clunk as the grenade falls to the ground and Harold reverses the force to push him to where the explosion will be. But he goes with it even as Alpha grabs onto him and initiates a grapple. Before adjusting things to redirect Harold’s knife into his armour instead.
The grenade goes off and everything is chaos, madness and both men are rolling as smoke, shrapnel, noise and more fill the air.
Then they’re locked together, fighting over the knife in the darkness with their ears ringing.
“Good fight!” Alpha compliments him before he begins pushing back harder and harder as Harold’s own knife is turned on him. He cranes his neck around to try and bite at Alpha’s fingers as he fights for control but the man has him locked down and turned it into a contest of sheer physical power. And Alpha has had decades to let the strength sink in good and deep.
The tip touches Harold’s throat and red panels light up. The knife vanishes and the lights turn back on as the city vanishes.
“HAH GAY!” Herbert taunts as both men separate.
“Fuck you tiny! Where was my fire support!?”
“Where the fuck were you? You were supposed to herd him into my line of fire!”
“Those instincts of yours are interesting. Those ‘nades I was throwing all over were all dodged perfectly, but you got clipped by a flash? I didn’t even think it would work, I was doing it to conserve the lethal stuff.”
“I think that’s how it got me. That flash didn’t have any intent behind it, was non-lethal to begin with... and these holo-weapons aren’t triggering the danger sense as high as normal. Normally it’s like someone shouting at me. But now it’s more like a low level, reasonable conversation.”
“Okay, so we can confirm that these two have night vision thanks to the eyes. Can you two explain how it works? Are you seeing another spectrum of light? Is this like thermal vision?” Omega asks.
“It’s like thermal yeah, but different. The problem with Other Direction nonsense is that it’s really nonsense. We can only compare it to things it’s acting similar to, but nothing is exact. In the light we can’t see this light, but we’re all giving it off, and that’s how I kept track of you guys. But... it’s not really light. It’s like... an absence of darkness?”
“Implying that this light lacks some kind of presence that normal light has?” Omega asks.
“Yes.”
“... That’s bullshit.”
“You’re telling me.”
“You’re the one who has it!”
“Doesn’t mean it’s not a bullshit sandwich with a side of nonsense!” Herbert replies.
“Should we tell them about the fish?” Harold asks.
“The fish?” Alpha demands and he frowns as his eyes go from side to side before his eyebrows go up. “The Engine Nuzzlers? They... they’re really able to be in the other side?”
“Yep.”
“... Are there any here?” Alpha asks and Harold holds out his hand with a finger extended and traces something through the air. He turns to Herbert. “He’s full of it right?”
“No... he’s actually indicating a hargath. Not that they’re easy to see. It’s more like tracing a heat shimmer. You don’t really see them, just how they kind of stir things.” Herbert explains.
“Okay... so why do you two still have eyes?” Alpha asks.
“What?” Omega asks before pausing. “Oh... yeah why do you have eyes?”
“You guys love doing the... oh... uhm... basically we don’t know. Maybe whatever they’re sensing of our eyes doesn’t seem like something they can eat? We don’t know why our eyes don’t stand out to the Hargath. And I am thankful they don’t the little bastards are always in greater numbers than you expect and always fucking hungry. If they ate meat they’d strip planets bare. If they ate metal then there wouldn’t be space travel.”
“Sure there would, we’d have wooden ships instead.” Alpha says.
“Oh! Or hollowed out meteors and asteroids!” Omega says before reconsidering. “But how would we get them if we can’t use metal off planet?”
“Could you imagine the space race if they learned that leaving atmosphere had something eating everything?” Alpha asks.
“Holy god that would have made the whole world shit itself.” Omega remarks.
“This conversation sound strangely well worn.” Herbert notes.
“We talk about the dumbest scenarios when we’re on the boring parts. We brainstormed on what would happen if some mad scientist made some kind of metal eating strain of the Astral Hargath. End result? Galaxy’s fucked, ninety nine point nine nine repeated of Centris starves to death inside the month, anarchy sees the spires fall and that’s AFTER the plates have already fallen to the world with all the damage that implies.”
“Did you account for possible cannibalism for the starving to death figures?” Harold asks.
“We did, but we had to include retaliation and anarchy tainting the food supply and killing off scavengers. So it didn’t help much.” Alpha says.
“Okay, holy fuck. What are we doing next?” Herbert asks. “And how did he get you? Make out to hard?”
“I tried to get the jump on him with knife but he locked me down and overpowered me.” Harold notes.
“After he tried his third grenade trap today.”
“They make you more careful as you move and therefore slower.” Harold replies. “It lets me control your movement.”
“Right. Anyways, one final bit of fun before we start moving in...
Content cut off. Read original on https://old.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/1psjrhq/oocs_into_a_wider_galaxy_part_542/