Marvel Iron Age: Ares, Dogs of War part 7

Continued from here part 6

Cairo Iron Hall

A monitor activates in Hassan's office. He turns with a grin to see the Supreme Commander glaring at him, "I told you 24 hours."

Hassan became nervous, "It seemed as though Khalaf was losing."

Stryfe nodded, "That could have something to do with you denying support that you were ordered to give, which could have ended the battle in a day and not allowed Ares' army a starking week to prepare an assault that took thirty five nations out of my hands. Because of you the whole of Africa ignored my direct orders and your Omega 3 cost me a General worth fifteen of you."

As if on cue the door to the office was ripped from its hinges. Hassan looked in terror on the filthy and bloodied Iron Bull standing in his door way. Stryfe got a hateful grin, "Well that saves a bit of time."

Khalaf looked on Hassan with pure hate as Stryfe continued, "An example needs to be made, The Generals in that part of the world have bitten the hand that feeds them. Khalaf do whatever you like to him but leave enough to hang from a pole."

Hassan stepped behind his desk, "Now hold...."

Khalaf swung his sword chopping the desk in half before snatching Hassan up by the throat and dropping the scimitar, "I will not sully my blade with your blood."

The soldiers of Istanbul blocked the door way as Hassan screamed from behind begging Khalaf to spare him as the Iron Bull stomped him into the ground.

***

Khalaf finally stopped about five minutes after Hassan had died when he heard a clap behind him. He turned to see the Supreme Commander the screen, "I've been trying to purge that man for half a decade. Enjoy the new office Khalaf, it's yours now."

Khalaf heard but didn't respond, rage still filled him but he knew the man he killed was less to blame than the one who just promoted him.

***

Ares dropped out of the transport in New Olympus and marched to the men in charge of the New Latverian soldiers in the DMZ. He stood before a General, "I would like to thank your army for their aid in making this an independent nation. But now I'm going to have to ask you to leave. The Chechyen Empire will not begin as an occupied territory. Tell your Queen she can still count us as allies but this nation is not under the wing of New Latveria."

The General looked stunned but was unwilling to argue. He then walked back to his men, "Get me a comm line to our men at the new borders, we need to bolster them. The damned clone isn't going to respond well."

***

New York Iron Hall

Stryfe looked to the officers on his monitors, "Give me some retaliation options."

Beyonce Hwjang spoke up, "Frankly Sir, there's nothing we can do at the moment. Yozgat devastated the forces throughout the area. We barely have a functional hall between Cairo and China at the moment. The War god did a pretty good job at crippling us there."

Another officer chimed in, "Its gonna be a good six months before we could do any effective operations in the area and they aren't celebrating victory just yet, Ares knows he's vulnerable at this point and is keeping his men on high alert and to be honest he's just better at this than us. He's proven our numbers don't mean anything, around a quarter of his forces literally qualify as weapons of mass destruction."

Stryfe glared at the man and felt like he'd explode before shutting off the monitors. He turned to Iron Claw, "Perhaps Helfitta's idea has merit."

***

As the Latverian soldiers left the borders of the DMZ two Generals spoke, "This can't be legitimate."

His comrade nodded, "What can we do? Ares has set himself up as a God King, they look on him as we looked on Doom if we force him out then we are no better than our enemy."

@batkevin74@time_phantom@cbishop@awesam@tommythehitman@impurestcheese

@joshmightbe: Looks like Ares got what he wanted. Hmm Checnyan DMZ. New Country, New Target

@impurestcheese: Be aware tho it is a Country populated almost exclusively by monstrous mutants who up til now have spent their entire lives in a hostile environment so they all know how to fight super powered folks.

@joshmightbe: Added to the Marvel Iron Age Library. :)

@joshmightbe: It's called Hit and Run dear with extra emphasis on the run

@impurestcheese: The run part is very wise, especially considering there are a few people of the DMZ that will eat people. Also I was thinking it'd make sense if your guy Rove came from here, its where most of the mutated monsters come from here, Iron Claw, Callous from Masters and many others scary bastards are from the place.

@joshmightbe: Hmm interesting about Rove. I had a different origin story in mind but this opens up several other possibilities

@impurestcheese: He doesn't have to be from there just saying if you didn't want to go into too much detail being from the DMZ is pretty much a reason unto itself for being a hideously mutated monster.

@impurestcheese: A Push In The East Pts 1-2 plus a Tales from the Empire (can't remember the number though) have more details on the Chechyen DMZ as does I believe from @joshmightbe Ares and Masters.

Stryfe glared at the man and felt like he'd explode before shutting off the monitors. He turned to Iron Claw, "Perhaps Helfitta's idea has merit."

Nice! And Khalaf is alive to revenge another day

I think, and it'll take time and some effort, we should consider a reading order time-line thing. We do pretty well continuity wise but just in case some really eager beaver wants to read from the start

@batkevin74: Just wanted to let you know, that Ares didn't technically beat Khalaf in the battle of Yozgat, it was more of a stalemate. Sure Ares pretty much won the war but he wasn't actually able to actually beat Khalaf in the field. I'm still working on my reading order.