Five years ago, 20xx...
Roma spun a suppressor onto the barrels end, as the 6 of them sat in a van parked at the edge of an empty lot,
“We’ve got 2 minutes, you know the drill, he's coming back with us, alive.” He announced,
It was midday, Roma and his team were positioned in the outskirts of an airbase inside Gangneung, South Korea, where they believed the leader of the underground, Yuu Jin would soon arrive.
“Remember, no russian. Keep your heads up and smile, if you see any patrol, deal with them quietly.”
He shoved his pistol into his jacket, and they all got out of the van, and one by one they took alternating streets, Roma whistled to a cab that drove by, and climbed in the back seat, it had a new car smell, the seats were lined with a firm grey cloth that was as stiff as a rock, as if they hadn't been broken in yet,
“You're late, they'll be arriving any minute!” The driver said,
“We gave you guys an early time on purpose, now take me to the shipping docs.” Roma replied. He opened the loose seat compartment that connected to the trunk, and pulled out a shotgun. The driver scoffed, “How fancy. You too good to use a pump like the rest of us?” Roma tilted its bright chrome finish until it shined in the drivers eye,
“It's a benelli m4, I felt like this called for something personal so I brought my own.”
“I always knew you were a traitor..”
“Pfft, Those cold war hand-me-downs they issue are makeshift shit, once you realize that you'll learn to start buying for yourself.” Roma replied, he glanced out of the window, there was a massive cruise ship snapped in half on the coastline, its steel walls were stripped away by the people who were said to be using them for parts.
It's amazing how much money such a small country can still throw at this war, but even if they did push back North Korea into China, these guys are being bombarded from all sides, they won't last much longer even with nato’s help, he thought. …
Suddenly, he felt the car begin to swerve, as bullets rained hell inside. He pulled a 443 grach out of his jacket pocket, and aimed his sights between the eyes of a korean man holding a k1 submachine gun, but through Roma’s rush of adrenaline, he couldn’t process why the man he was locked on to was now standing upside down..
Minutes flashed by, and Roma found himself behind cover from the very same cab, which had been crushed like a soda can from when he went tumbling down the street inside it. Roma's hands and face were covered with blood and black powder from the broken asphalt in the road. There was an iron smell of blood in the air, and as soon as Roma caught this scent, he felt something wet begin to soak the leg of his jeans, he glanced over, staring in a daze as the driver's blood dripped to the ground through the bottom of the door panel. Nigel stood behind the backside of a house that was riddled with bullets, consoling a Korean mother and her child who stood behind him. To his right, both Andrey and Viktor sat below k-rails that blocked off the street.
They were surrounded, even if they had managed to fight off the front line, they were almost certain they had marksmen set up in the houses.
All Roma could hear was the painful ringing in his ears as endless volleys of bullets from belt fed machine guns whizzed past him, they didn't care who they hit, even shooting past their own people as they tried to flee. Roma snapped off the cab's wing mirror, and he watched through the mirror as Yuu Jin held up a fist, and the gunfire ceased instantly. Yuu Jin sat a dry m60 on the ground, and unstrapped an American Tac 338 from his shoulder, before calling out to him in russian,
“Do you like bets, Roma? Because id be willing to wager .338 lapua would pass right through a car door like paper, so why don't you come out from there and we can talk like men?” Roma looked in the eyes of a Korean man who laid dead in the middle of the road in front of him,
“What kind of maniac kills his own people and doesn't bat an eye?” He felt the car pulse against his back as a bullet tore through the rear fender and gasoline began pooling under him,
“You people had the nerve to come to my town and now you're too afraid to face me? Look at me, Roma, I'm not superman, it won't take any more rounds to kill me than you, but am i hiding?”…
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
“Did you really think you could kill me? Is that why you're here? Is your own selfish revenge all you ever think about, Roma? Because look at how many lives were sacrificed for your revenge, is that what you wanted?”
“You're goddamn right!” He stuck a middle finger up above the window, and behind them, they heard the sounds of spooling barrels, and the ground shook beneath them as two men in green bomb suits sprayed down the windows of houses with miniguns. They could feel the belts being sucked from their backpacks like a vacuum as the sound of roaring gunfire echoed off the sides of houses, and before Yuu Jin and the others could react, the roofs of buildings came crumbling down around them.
The two men in suits let off the triggers as Roma rushed forward without a moment's hesitation and shot Yuu Jin in the knee, he held the gun like a club and drilled him in the back of the head, and he folded to the ground like a melted candle. Roma struck him with disdainful eyes that none of them had ever seen before, again and again, until a final strike triggered a misfire that blew past his hair and snapped him to the real world.
Nigel drug him away, with Andrey pulling the gun out of his hands with an iron grip, with its mirror finish now completely dulled by blood.
“It's safe, now both of you leave.” Nigel said to the Koreans he escorted, they both nodded before scurrying away, and in seconds, the once chaotic streets became silent. Roma looked over at Yuu Jin who lay choking in a pool of his own blood as Viktor sat him on his side,
“Dumbass! What part of alive means bash his skull in the fucking pavement, Roma?!” Nigel yelled, but he didn't hear a single word thanks to his ears that rang like an 18th century musical. He pushed him to the side and stood to his feet,
“Cut it out, Ivon.” Roma said as they all regrouped, Ivon had pressed his foot in the back of one of the men who laid cowering on the ground, as he spun 6 steel barrels of death in the man's face.
“Are we done here? I'm about to have a damn heat stroke in this thing!” Ivon asked,
“We should probably call the police, there are dozens of injured here.” Viktor insisted,
“The police? You mean the station that is just past the neighborhood? We should have been swarmed with riot control vehicles before this even started, they’ve obviously been paid off.”
“Right..”
“Man, you always come up with some dumbass shit, Viktor, who's a cop gonna believe? Russian’s with miniguns, or the innocent Koreans who are just trying to defend themselves?” Andrey asked,
“Alright i get it, fuck!” Viktor yelled,
The team collected all of the weapons from Yuu Jin's squad, before throwing them into the back of the van as well. Roma jumped into the back next to Yuu Jin, and rested his head against the back.
“101 to center, we've got the secret ingredient, we are proceeding to rendezvous point 4, 30 kilometers out, requesting exfil.” Nigel commed, a voice spoke out from all of their radios, “Copy 101, request for exfil received, an extraction team is in route, good hunt.”
30 minutes passed, and Roma began cleaning out the disassembled barrel of his shotgun. He pondered at the sight of its spotted dull red paint, before scrubbing it away with a towel. Afterward, he turned his hand over and began wrapping the towel around Yuu Jins mangled leg,
“Five years ago I lost my family to your men. Five years ago my only reason to live became hunting you down, and all it took to end your games was a man with a stronger resolve than yours.” …
Light from the sun shuttered inside, and he noticed Yuu Jeans black shirt had become soaked with vomited blood. Yuu Jin glanced up with bloodshot eyes, his horse voice rattled as he spoke with labored breaths,
“You think I'm a villain, but you know nothing of who I am. I don't do what I do because of some selfish motivation like yours. The people are suffering and our government is doing nothing but sitting in their castles picking cherries. So I took matters into my own hands.”
Ivon cracked open a bottle and began passing it around, as all 6 of them leaned in to listen,
“You think all I've done with my money was build a few factories and hire a few gunmen? I am the sole reason thousands of families are able to survive. You have just caused more damage than you could possibly know, or is that what you wanted? All because we are on the other side of this war, it doesn't matter who suffers as long as you don't lose, right, Russians?” The van stopped, and they loaded all of their gear onto an mi-17 that had landed in an open field. It had a dark green spray camo paint job that blended in with the dark patch of green grass around it, its long blades slashed through the air, creating clouds of dust from the dirt below.
Each of them grabbed a headset from the rack and sat down, and the heli lifted off. The smell of dirt and fresh cut grass was replaced with the scent of burnt gunpowder and sweat as they trekked higher, a golden glow cast itself down to the plains below, the swirling clouds were brushed onto the canvas like sky with purple and orange tints as the sun began to sink below the distant city skyline,
“You say you want to save people, but what about the people you murdered in their own streets?” Nigel asked him,
“You’re pretty new to this, I can tell. Have you ever heard the term, great power comes with great responsibility? Of course, everyone has, powerful people have to deal with powerful risks and powerful consequences. We didn't want to kill them of course, but we couldn’t let our guards down and be killed ourselves by you. Be real, if you were me, then you would also kill the few to save the many, just as I have. Yes people die but innocent people always die, that's why it's called war.” …