A lone Bradley rolls through the muddy terrain of Western Schon, after passing through the dead sands, they’ve now found themselves in the deep muddy forest. Most of the paths that lead to the second phase line that they’re planning to establish were tight and small roads meant for carriages.
“Driver, continue forward. The convoy should be around here.”
The blonde well groomed Lieutenant Colonel was proudly showing his black beret as his IFV rolled through the muddied countryside. Soon, he could see clouds of smoke coming out of the tall trees.
“Vlad, this doesn’t look good.”
“Блядь. At least check for the fuel, we can keep going without the ammo, but gas we need. Priyom.”
“Yea, but don’t get your hopes up.”
Soon, the muddy road gets worse as the path is full of tracks of the wheels of varying sizes of trucks and equipment. In some parts, it got so bad that there were large puddles of dirt coloured water. Soon, he could see the back of an M1A2C with its MUSK armor all detonated.
“Gunner, is it a K kill?”
“Looks to be sir, the Magical Urban armor did its job but seeing that smoke from its engine bay tells me more than I have to.”
“Fuck. Any players?”
Zooming in, the gunner could only see the corpses of the mindless skeletons.
“Negative sir, just the goons.”
“Fuuuck, did they run?! We had no respawns from this convoy.”
“Desertion sir?”
“Either that or these dumbheads made a run for it, I think we’ll soon be seeing people respawn at the bases as the local fauna starts eating them up.”
Passing through the Abrams, they notice its upper right side is completely blown off to the point you can see the driver seat from outside and the steel arrows embedded on the ground next to it makes the LTC shake his head and perform a facepalm. Soon, the Bradley starts rolling next to abandoned trucks, the entire muddy road was slowly getting bottlenecked with them, MTVRs, M939s, Ural 4320s, and Kamaz trucks all lay in ruin, most of them having there doors left open and there windshields cracked by arrows. Most startling was that the tankers were completely blown off.
Soon, the small path became blocked as piles and piles of military trucks and recovery vehicles lay in waste, many seems to have tried to turn around, but the smoke further down tells him that they’ve blocked all the front and back of the convoy and massacred the vehicles in the middle. He removes his Beret, revealing his buzz cut blonde hair as he strokes the top of his skull, his jaw just open at the horrendous sight.
“John! Colonel John! Do you copy priyom? What’s the status of the convoy?!”
“Fuck, its all wasted Vlad. Nothing here but abandoned trucks.”
“What?! Ты, должно быть, издеваешься надо мной! That is about a hundred to two hundred vehicles John! Are the tankers at least intact?!”
“Negative, this is a shitshow. Where the fuck was air cover?”
“Didn’t they get delayed? This isn’t exactly our home comrade John.”
“Well shit, now what? We won’t be able to move forward. Do you copy Vlad? If this continues, we’ll be sitting ducks tomorrow with low ammo and no gas!”
“We made do, return now, I’ll call it in and have men recover vehicles and report that the entire thing is fucked.”
Making his way back to the frontlines, he almost got stuck multiple times on the way there as the mud got worse and worse, and the terrain never having to take in such weight of the vehicles. In a large patch of open forest lay hundreds of Main Battle Tanks and IFVs from both Guilds, all lying in wait for fuel and ammo. The blonde Lieutenant Colonel exits out of the Bradley as he passes through columns of idling vehicles. Unable to continue their push, soon he sees Dimitri in his green Ratnik armor, talking to other players with what’s the next step.
“Конвой не прибудет, а пока я хочу, чтобы мы заняли оборонительные позиции здесь и здесь.”
He was pointing on a laminated map of the Region, ⅓ of it was in the desert while the rest was a thick jungle forest. Not many ground units could really do but follow the one or two roads and lead to obscure locations as there aren't really as many inhabitants in the continent due to its natural hostile nature.
“И транспортные средства, товарищ Владимир. Мы собираемся оставить двигатели включенными на ночь?”
“Я прошу прощения, но если вы можете, объединяйтесь с остальными в холодные ночи. Мы должны зарезервировать столько топлива, сколько сможем.”
John joins in, the Slavic tankers salute to him and he shakes hands with Dimitri.
“So, it’s bad isn’t it?”
“Yep, total air superiority my fucking ass. They totaled the entire supply convoy.”
“Ahh, well. We make do for now, set up defensive locations. If the natives are able to go around us and attack the convoy, then we can rest assured more will come for us when we have our guard down.”
“Yea, yea. I’ll go find someone with a Longwave, I need to know where the main force is.”
John then salutes and walks back to a Command Stryker in the middle of the mothballed armored units. Inside, he takes a phone and tunes into the Logistics Frequency.
“Hello, hello. This is Lieutenant Colonel John Atwood from the Ninth Armored Brigade Combat Team with Mister Volodymyr Dimitri of the Seventy Sixth Spetsnaz Motor Rifle Brigade, can we get an update on what’s happening down there with the main force?”
“Oh sir!” The man replying back seems to be in a very busy atmosphere as his voice was getting muffled with the sounds of engines and vehicles “We’re currently on a Tactical Pause. Currently resupplying the main force on the border of the forest and desert.”
The man was standing next to a HEMTT with a longwave radio sitting atop its fuel tank. Behind him is a gigantic convoy of American and Russian trucks, all in the desert or dirt. Refueling and rearming the entire main force. The main battle tanks were in the front, forming the outer layer while with it are Infantry Fighting Vehicles and APCs lay in the middle. Protecting the only road in the region as a massive bottleneck occurs. A flying Crow that’s following the entire convoy could see that it reaches all the way back into the desert.
“What?! Weren’t we having priority since we’re the spearhead?!”
“Sorry sir, we can’t send more trucks to you after what happened. That’s almost seventy trucks and armored vehicles gone and totaled. Forward scouts has also reported that a temporary checkpoint set up was arrowed and its guads slashed. Good thing they were skeletons.”
“....Then what do you expect us to do?! We’re in the middle of enemy ground and your telling me you can’t send shit?!”
“Yes sir, exactly that sir. Air support has to be moved up as the Airbase is currently having its own problems with cargo planes and fighter jets battling for space on the tarmac.”
“Jesus, I thought high command properly planned this, why are we getting slowed?! Wasn’t this supposed to be swift?!”
“I apologize sir, but we can’t really do anything. I’m also busy here with having to feed the main force. We also have problems with Saboteurs in the hybrid villages, some of the men are even planning on burning or shelling them.”
“What? We’re gonna commit war crimes now?!”
“It’s not like we haven’t already sir, some of the Fourth Rocket Artillery Company’s shots landed on a town and killed multiple people.”
“Fucking…! Okay, we’ll set up defensive positions here. But you better tell High Command to take air superiority more seriously unless they want a bunch of totaled scrap metal to meet up with the Asians!”
He bangs the telephone on the Strykers wall, angered beyond belief as to their situation. “Should I just defect? Fuck. What a giant mess.” After pulling his senses back, he walks to what remaining fully fueled tanks they have left. “Sergeant, what’s the situation with the fuel?” The middle aged brown haired soldier takes his OCP kevlar vest and walks to the Colonel without saluting.
“Two left. One MTVR and one Kamaz. That’s all we have.”
“Oh my God.”
“Is it true sir? The entire resupply convoy is totaled?”
“Yea… sadly.”
After a deep sigh, the Sergeant goes back to his crate and sits down. Just enjoying the peace with refueling hoses laying around him on the mud. Soon, the afternoon becomes night and the players have set up tents behind their armored vehicles. Players from both Guilds nonchalantly conversed and had fun even with the language barrier while the Lieutenant Colonel was on the Stryker, waiting for any news.
Little to their knowledge that Werewolves have snuck up on their mothball using invisibility cloaks, weaving through the lines and lines of armored vehicles. Spearing and slashing anyone that notices their footprints on the mud.
“Μετακινηθείτε, εκεί.המכונה עם הגב הגדול, אנחנו חייבים להרוס אותה.”
Hearing the order of the Alpha, one of the Wolves goes to the remaining tank of fuel. But little did he know in the cab of a truck behind it was the brown haired Sergeant, looking at photos of the beautiful Capital city of the High Elves. With the window down, he can hear the players laughing and having a grand time. Some even fool around with the turret of an M1A2 Abrams, treating it like a wild animal as the gunner sways it left and right.
*Splash* *Splash* The Sergeant looked at the driver side mirror and could see that there was no one and the mud had no traces of movement, peering outside of the window to look at the front, he could see two large paws strangely on the front of his truck. But then, another print appeared as if the creature was trying to properly insert something into the back of the Kamaz without alerting anyone or leaving a big mound of mud.
Slowly, he reaches for the key and starts the MTVR. Within the milliseconds, he pounds the pedal to the floor and can hear a thud as it rams into the back of the tanker. Hearing the crash sends everyone on high alert and from that onwards, the Werewolves revealed themselves, adorned in Iron armor and using metal swords, lances and spears.
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“ATTACK! WE GOT MULTIPLE TANGOS IN THE FORMATION! EVERYONE TO STATION!”
Hearing this from the radio, everyone got up and ran to their armored vehicles. Since the attackers were coming from the right, the ones on the left were able to start up their Main Battle Tanks and Infantry Fighting Vehicles. T-80UKs and BMP-3s roll around the mothball and into the right side where explosions are heard and turrets of M1A2 Abrams could be seen flying.
“Святой Иисус... Мама Мэри, смилуйся…”
The Russian tank commander could only stare as gunshots started popping and tracers filled the skies. Inside the right of the mothball, American players are fighting for their lives as the eight foot tall Werewolves cut them in half, due to their strength. Not even Kevlar was able to stop them from ripping humans in half, while others ran on all four, throwing purple crystal shards underneath the soft and lightly armored vehicles while some hop on top of the Main Battle Tanks and throw them inside. What came after was a continuous rain of explosions from their vehicles. One American tanker was trying to get into the hatch of his Abrams when midway, a Werewolf bit his head off completely clean.
Soon the T-80UKs reached the side and started opening fire with its NVST and top mounted Dshka. It was a bloody mess as limbs of players were being torn apart and screaming before they offed themselves so that they could respawn.
“Водитель! Расплющить этих нечестивых тварей!!!”
Hearing this, his driver puts the pedal to its max, revving the turbine engine as it flattens the armored Werewolves, the threads and road wheels become red, as the heavy main battle tank churms the beasts, unable to pierce its armor even with magic. Seeing that most of the players had either boarded the armored vehicles or died, he tightened the straps of his helmet.
“Наводчик! Стреляйте осколочно-фугасными прямо перед собой!”
“Вас понял, командир!”
The gunner fires an HE round right in front of them, throwing the attackers like toys. While on the left side, five Russian players with one of them carrying a flagpole of their Guild, the Red Star was running away from the dark forest followed by a Giant wearing a rag tunic and was holding a tree as its weapon. Encountering the first tank, it starts bashing it into the top armor, denting it was it engine revs into life, the T-90A tries to turn its turret but the thirty foot tall Ogre just grabs the 125mm Smoothbore and starts to bend it out of shape. The tank then fires, the catastrophic failure causes the high explosive shell to explode midway in the barrel, the shrapnel from it cuts some of the giant's fingers off, making him scream in pain as he starts kicking the tank with his feet.
Being made of steel, he instead hurt himself as a Metis ATGM headshots him, making his body fall into a large pile of armored vehicles. The Giant was so heavy that the undercarriages of the armored vehicles were nearly touching the mud. While on the right, the charging T-80UK finally ran out of shells and ammo for its guns and had to resort to just flattening the attacking enemies with their tank’s tracks.
In the middle of it all, Lieutenant Colonel John with his M4A1 and Magic Staff slinged at his back is shooting at the Werewolves from the top of his Stryker. With him is a man carrying a Longwave radio, belligerently requesting for air support.
“I repeat, we read you! Just stay tight! We have a flight of Apaches and Havocs coming to you!”
“We need an ETA! We’re getting overrun here! These eight foot dipshits are tanking multiple shots!”
“Sorry, no ETA. Just sit tight, I’m sure our Pilots will reach you in no time.”
“THAT’S NOT HELPING!”
A Rotor Wing of Five AH-64D Apaches and Three Mi-28N Havocs fly through the dead of night, having to use Night Vision to conduct its night operation. Even far away, they could see the fighting occurring at the spearhead's location. Closing it, it was a mess. As much as they wanted to use the cannons and rockets, it would also destroy the vehicles and the players fighting through the maze of vehicles as more and more panic, vehicles going in all directions.
One of the T-80UMs rolls forward in the panic, while some of the Main Battle Tanks roll into the dark forest while others who were lucky enough to be near the dirt road that heads back to the desert didn’t waste a moment to make a tactical retreat. The lone Russian tank was unable to link up with others, forced to continue heading East, deep into unknown territory.
“Hello, hello. Americans, do you copy?”
“Yes! We copy you! HEY! GET HIM OUT OF HERE! MEDIC! MEDIC!”
“Блядь! This is Matryoshka, we are rolling Eastward into enemy lines! Requesting air support!”
“Sorry Matry! We can’t send you jack! We’re stuck in the middle of the formation and everything is getting blown to bits! Spearhead is taking massive losses! MASCAS! MASCAS!”
“Ладно! We will be rolling forward for at least a mile then we’ll stay put and wait for reinforcements!”
“Copy! I’ll try getting Volodymyr! Just stay alive! You folks of the Red Star Guild can do that right?!”
“Да! Matryoshka out!”
The T-80UM, surrounded by the intimidating forest of doom, continues to drive without care. With its headlights and searchlights open, the Russian tank commander opens his hatch and peeks out to look for any combatants.
“Hey Ruskie, how do I know I’ve selected High Explosive?”
“You see switch right of scope? Move it to the right and it should automatically take out the shell loaded and change it.”
The American man in his OCP crewman uniform follows the Slavs instruction, flipping the switch to the right. The autoloader levels the barrel and changes it to an High Explosive.
“Okay, Burger man. We only have five shells left, and eight HEAT and three ATGMs. Make it count Сука!”
“Yea, yea, yea. Don’t worry, I’m a Nineteen Kilo.”
“And I am Gopnik from Apraskin who visits National Library to learn English.”
“Where is that?”
As the two conversed, the Russian driver was on his own small little world. Peering into the darkness of the muddy road without blinking. His eyes fully open, and watching out for any sort of movement from his headlights.
“Pereulok, Saint Petersburg. Look for red Lada with traditional Russian Doll on door.”
“If we ever get home, I totally will! Also, do you guys have NVGs or some shit?”
“Space is scarce here comrade! Do not use NVG, it will get stuck in ceiling.”
“And this ancient thing?”
“Keep increasing zoom till scope changes to Night Vision.”
Zooming in and as much as he can, he passes through the NVG and accidentally ends up with the Thermals. Rolling it back, he could see a silhouette of a person on top of a tree branch.
“TARGET! TEN! UNKNOWN!”
“Огонь! FIRE!”
He clicks the button and a 125mm HE shell is lobbed into the tree. Completely decimating it and the surrounding branches.
“MISS!”
“Бесплатный туман, блядь, штука! What was it?!”
“It looked like a person! Can’t be a hybrid! This is something el-”
BOOM! A large explosion right in front of them as the Drozd APS intercepts an oncoming projectile.
“What the fuck was that!?”
“Гребаный сукин сын-гопник из Москвы! DRIVER! EMERGENCY SPEED!”
“Artyom! We do not have much fuel left!”
“I SAID EMERGENCY SPEED!”
“This is crazy guys, we’re a lone tank in the middle of the forest without infantry or air cover. We might as well be dead meat.”
“I will not tolerate defeat, no retreat because we cannot retreat. Unless you want to return to that slaughterhouse!”
“I can’t believe it, we had the technological advance. How did this happen?!”
“Think about it later Amerikan. We must get to safety first!”
The T-80UM makes a violent right turn as it avoids ruins full of ornate designs on its marble construct. Soon, the road became blocked, forcing the driver to ram through it. The American player spun the turret around and his jaw dropped.
“MULTIPLE CONTACTS AT ONE-EIGHTY! ELVES! IT'S ELVES!”
“Что?! How?! I thought there was no Wood or High Elves here!”
Tightening the straps of his Ratnik armor, the Russian player courageously pops out of his hatch again. “Click that thing on the left! It will open the spotlight!” Doing as ordered, he encounters tall Elves with long pointy ears, there skin of gray and the Moon illuminating the sharp swords and spears with what seems to be crystals attached to its end.
“Чертов ад! Driver! Punch through it now!”
“Ни слова больше!”
Gunning it, the T-80UM bursts through the thin wall of marble and the gunner immediately spins the turret forward. The commander then opens a small box, revealing a flare gun with some ammo. From the safety of his hatch, he fires it directly upward and the gunner immediately starts scanning the surroundings.
“WE’RE SURROUNDED! CONTACTS ON BOTH SIDES!”
“DRIVER! DO YOU SEE ANY OPENING?”
“Yes! Yes!”
The Main Battle Tank brutally skims through the mud, throwing it everywhere as it enters a small patch of the forest that was all but plains, where strange blue flowers grew from the ground. The focused driver then turns right, and spins the body to face the enemies chasing them from behind.
“AMERICAN! FIRE!”
Lodging a 125mm HE shell into the forest, the Commander and Gunner both see that they killed some, as the mere second flash from the muzzle was enough to tell them they killed multiple.
“Good! Coax those Сукины дети!”
Firing the PKT, the forest is lit up by the tracers and the Russian commander pops out of his hatch and mans the 12.7 NSVT. Switching on the spotlight attached to it, he could see the Dark Elves moving at inhuman speeds through the branches, only leaving falling leaves as they flank the stricken Main Battle Tank.
“DRIVER! TURN AT NINE-ZERO!”
“We do not have much fuel left! We are going to go bingo in one minute!”
“Don’t care! Face Nine Zero! And Gunner, face Two Seventy!”
The turret spins to its back, opposite of the chassis as it fires from two directions. Gunning down the Dark Elves sneaking up on it through the blue flowers that seemingly illuminates itself. Far away, the tank sticks out like a cardboard box as it threads visibly left a path of flattened flowers. Firing from two directions as its lights bring the Sun to all those who dare look at it. One Dark Elf, with a Bow made out of the steel that is darker than his surroundings fires an arrow at a 55 Degree angle, the fork tipped arrow shines as it arches directly into the Russian tank commander who was mowing down his allies.
“HEY! RUSKIE! DO YOU COPY ME?!”
The driver and the gunner both hear the 12.7 NSVT has stopped shooting and no response from him. “Fuck! Driver, take me back to the road!”
“Where are we gonna go?!”
“I don’t know but if we get surrounded here, we’ll be destroyed!”
“Понял! Катимся сейчас же!”
T-80UM powers through the field and into the road as it drives back to the spearhead whose burning vehicles could be seen from miles away. The helicopters are all busy firing into the forest as it tries to quell the forces of Vitas. As they reach the mud, the Turbine engine grinds to a halt.
“НЕТ! ТЫ СУКИН СЫН! ИДИ! ИДИ! ИДИ!”
“Hey, I lost power to the turret! How do you switch to hydraulics or something?!”
“Yes, yes, yes wait!”
The Russian squeezes through the small path and helps the gunner as he opens his driver's hatch. The turret was spinning around as he checked for the tank commander.
“American, the Commander is dead. His body isn’t there anymore.”
“At Least he has respawned! C’mon! We can’t lose anymore Main Battle Tanks!”
“I know, stop spinning the turret.”
The driver opens a storage bin behind it, taking out an AK-74M. “Okay, think about Babushka’s kompot.” as he frantically loads the mag, his neck is sliced from behind. Inside, the last tanker hears a thud from the opened hatch.
“Hey, Ruskie? Are you there?”
With no response, he takes his M4A1 and pulls back the charging handle. “Okay, rounds are all good.” looking around, he could see two RGN grenades held up by a string and the flare gun. Taking it, he opens the gunner's hatch and pulls the pin, throwing the grenades out.
He then fires the flare as the explosions outside rock the tank. With his M4A1 and the red flare right above him, he could properly see that he was surrounded on all sides by the Dark Elves, darbed in their black leather armor with plates of steel and circlets with three red rubies. He starts firing frantically while an Elven woman with long white hair stabs him in the back with an angled knife. It was so sharp the IOTV kevlar vest was like it wasn’t even there, not giving any resistance to her. Screaming from the pain, the tanker keeps firing with all his might.
“Ehhhh… you’re a tough one for a mortal.”
She then slices the back of his neck, completely killing him. His body slumps down, lifeless and the flare falls on top of the tank. The long haired woman then looks back at the mothballed spearhead. Besieged and trapped as the Sun slowly rises from the horizon, the helicopters unable to do anything as the giants crushed their armored vehicles.
A hundred and a half kilometers away, deep in the desert. The ATC on the newly fielded Airbase gets a new ping on their radar.
“Starsailor Super to Khaled Al-Asad, tuning in frequency with one time VIP.”
“Copy Starsailor, welcome to the Desert of Seranhe, is the VIP, a General Paul from the Knights of Eldwood?”
“You got that right over.”
“Copy, finally. All four guilds are having problems here, we just got the bad news that Spearhead got a eighty percent loss.”
“Jesus, then is this Theater delayed?”
“Might as well be, the Main Force is still needing more supplies.”
“Roger. I’ve never flown this many times before, been basically back to back to back.”
“Sorry Starsailor, things aren’t looking too good for us.”
The C-5 Galaxy angles itself to the runway, landing gears and flaps down.
“Wind Two-Seven-Zero, Five Knots.
“Two-Seven-Zero, Five Knots.”
The two Pilots calmly control the aircraft as the rising Sun illuminates the path for them.
“Wind Two-Seven-Niner, Seven Knots. Cleared to land at Runway Two Seven.”
“Cleared to Land, Runway Two Seven.”
Being heavy, the C-5 Galaxies struts depress as it makes a smooth landing. On the tarmac, a man in desert OCP BDUs and a black beret with a symbol of a horned skull with two swords and a kite shield on it and his shoulders walks to the cargo area with skeleton soldiers lined up. With him is a blonde Elven woman wearing a green tunic with a skirt.
“Okay Treala. Make sure you don’t annoy him or Bahamut. Most of all Bahamut, without the Seven Pillars pinning her powers down. One wrong move and we’re ash.”
“Huhuhuuu… no worries. I have wanted to pet Bahamut since the first time I met the little thing.”
“Ugh. That's not a pet Treala. It's a literal Dragon that lives in the Void.”
The C-5 Galaxy grinds to a halt in front of them and the Elven girl fixes the General’s beret.
“Oh, was it a bit messy?”
“Mhm.”
“Heh. Thanks.”
A man in a formal uniform walks out of the cargo plane's stairs, carrying with him a black briefcase.
“John, what the hell is this place?”