The battlefield is hell on Tietus. Soldiers dying every second, blood being shed left and right, and the sound of blasters flying around filled the skies... I don't want to be here anymore. I haven't been keeping count, but I'm pretty sure we started with the upper hand. According to OJ, we more than quadrupled their forces... but look at us now.
I was put up with the task of infirmary transportation, but even then, I still have to put up with the groans and moans of thousands of injured soldiers as my comrade and I carry them to the western station. It's mortifying, the fact that we're somehow losing this. I'm not one to usually blame another person for other people's accidents, but maybe General Cody is a reasonable person to blame.
Musa: [All of the army and air forces were brought together to accomplish this one task. All we had to do was–]
BOOM!
A fireball exploded right in front of my face but did no real damage to me. My comrade approached me after the explosion with his brows furrowed.
Abdimalik: [Are you alright man?]
Pushing the wagon from the back was a close friend of mine from infirmary training. Telling him that everything was alright, we carried on with a wagon full of injured soldiers and we kept adding more as we moved forward.
Abdimalik: [How are we losing this, dude?]
Musa: [Cody is the worst captain ever, that's how.]
A mage came running our way with an armored soldier on his back. Signaling to him to throw the soldier on the wagon, I continued.
Musa: [An army of a hundred led by a genius, can win a war against an army of a million led by an idiot.]
Abdimalik: [Word of the wise, dude.]
I let out a light chuckle.
Abdimalik: [Do you think if we go to Sir Anthony, he could have everything sorted out?]
Musa: [They separated us for a reason. Pretty sure they don't want us to hold them back.]
Abdimalik: [And I'm pretty sure they don't want us to lose so easily.]
I let out a sigh. Abdimalik was well known for his repeated rebellious acts, always going against the general's orders and making fun of the royals behind their backs. Though he isn't a good role model, he's a joy to be around.
Abdimalik: [C'mon man! I know you don't want to keep picking people up like this!]
He turned his head and pouted.
Abdimalik: [This is embarrassing as shit!]
We came near the western infirmary, an enormous white tent that had several other wagons parked and being unloaded. I lightly sighed in relief as our job was almost over.
Musa: [I'm supposed to be watching over you, so don't do anything stupid. We'll both get in trouble for it.]
We parked our wagon beside another that was being unloaded. A white man walked out of the tent and looked at us with a smile. This was Isaac, the general's assistant. He walked up to us and lifted one of the soldiers out of the wagon.
Isaac: [This isn't the time to be sitting around, men!]
His plastic smile really started to piss me off. Looking at him made me feel uneasy.
Isaac: [Hurry up and unload this wagon! We need more soldiers on the field!]
Musa: [Who's to say that they haven't died already, considering your stupid tactics and all.]
Isaac stopped walking and turned over to me. As he stared with a blank face, I got the feeling he heard what I said.
Isaac: [Come on!]
Man, I've never been more relieved.
Isaac: [Whatever, just don't sit around. More and more people need healing.]
He walked into the tent with a single soldier on his shoulders. Abdimalik let both of his hands out and a magical aura formed around them, a moment later the same aura appeared around several soldiers laying on the wagon. The soldiers surrounded by the aura went airborne and followed Abdimalik as he walked into the tent.
Abdimalik: [After we finish this, let's go to the head knight. We can't let Cody continue ruining us.]
Abdimalik doesn't seem to understand the reason why we can't just go and ask for help from a higher-up. If we're caught leaving the battlefield and end up getting blasted, no one in the infirmary would help us and claim we were trying to run, they'll call us traitors. I can't risk losing my life, hence why I joined this stupid infirmary transportation team.
I let out my hand and watched as my green aura formed around the rest of the soldiers. Using a lot of my upper body strength, I lifted about four or five soldiers out of the wagon and flew them into the infirmary. Walking into the infirmary was brutal. Because of our huge loss in numbers, the Western Medical Team seemed to have somehow used up all of their max healing potions, so they were resorting to the old tactic of amputations and surgery. This was until the next load of max healing potions was delivered from the east, but that doesn't seem plausible. The lack of potions meant the loss of blood. Soldiers' blood scattered all over the place, from the walls to the blades of grass, and the groans from the soldiers, ogres, and humans alike, made me sick.
I saw Isaac helping Abdimalik rest the soldiers he brought in at the far back of the tent. They were both talking to the soldiers to calm them down, as we trained for.
Musa: [Hey!]
I flew the soldiers their way and Abdimalik carefully overrode my aura and took control of the flying soldiers. He gently placed them on the benches to wait in line for a dozen doctors to finish their jobs. I went back to the wagon and brought the remaining soldiers to the infirmary.
After they finished their session, Abdimalik and I went on break. Sitting behind the tent, furthest away from the battlefield, we stared up at the evening sky and mourned our current lifestyle.
Abdimalik: [Isaac told me that we're running extremely low on soldiers to the point they might force the medical division out.]
My eyes uncontrollably widened.
Abdimalik: [Does searching for the head knight sound like a good idea now?]
Musa: [Why do things never go my way?]
Abdimalik: [Blaming yourself for joining the army?]
Musa: [I did it for the luxuries.]
Who wouldn't have? They give you the benefit of good free housing, a butt load of money, cancel out your taxes, and allow you to use the latest and greatest tech before anyone else! Not to mention the free tuition after four years of this crap!
Musa: [But just like everything else, it didn't go as I hoped.]
Abdimalik: [Must suck to be a first-year and get drafted before the first month.]
Musa: [I don't understand my life choices sometimes, man. I should've signed up for the Magi-Knight Leviere program.]
Abdimalik laughed. I'm not joking about any of this. When the year started, the Aveay army was sending off several of the Magi-Knights generated there over to Leviere for training. Tons of us left, but a majority stayed back due to King Didus' racism, also the fact that they were basically on track to being raided by the demon king on some random day.
Malik stood up and offered me a hand. I could see the rebellion in his eyes. Grabbing his hand would only call for trouble, but if all goes well, we'd be crowned the saviors of the Hydra war, or so I hope. Both paths, running with him or going out there to fight, potentially ended with me dying a painful death... but that was if all went wrong. Looking on the bright side, fighting for a long enough time could result in the eastern infirmary successfully delivering the max healing potions and all going well, and running with Malik could result in Cody being forced out of his place and the battle successfully coming to a close. I'm not good at picking odds, but running to save the war seemed a lot more worth it.
I gripped my hand onto Malik's and was lifted onto my feet by him.
Abdimalik: [The head knight should be up north.]
With a nod, we began our quest. He began to hum a catchy melody from a song about the end of the world. It eventually got stuck in my head, which made me pissed.
In order to get to the head knights, we would need to get through the army clash unnoticed. At first, that sounds impossible, but apparently, Abdimalik has been thinking of strategy all day. According to him, it will be foolproof and nothing could go wrong, but this was Abdimalik I was talking to. Not exactly the best man for the job, but since it was just the two of us, I had no one else to turn to. Breaking a stick off a nearby tree branch, Abdimalik used it to make a map of the battlefield. Drawing a square and using circles to represent allies and triangles to represent the enemies.
Abdimalik: [Now, are you listening?]
I gave him a nod.
Abdimalik: [What we do is we have to dress like the enemy–]
Musa: [Hell no!]
Why did I not see this coming?
Musa: [Our allies will murder us!]
Abdimalik: [No, you don't understand!]
What is there to misunderstand?!
Abdimalik: [We wear the armor but we don't go near our allies! If we take the armor of a wounded Penn soldier, we'll be able to sneak over to their side and devise a path to get out.]
Musa: [HOW IS THIS FOOLPROOF?!]
Abdimalik: [DON'T YELL AT ME!]
This is the first time Abdimalik ever yelled at me, and the same for me too.
Abdimalik: [The moment we get our hands on a Penn warrior's armor, getting shot by a plasma gun is virtually impossible.]
Musa: [Yeah, that's why they switched to the plasma-concentrated swords!]
Abdimalik: [I don't think you've noticed, but plasma weapons don't have any effect on that Dragonite armor. The most damage it could do is flick your skin.]
That's also the main cause of our embarrassing loss. All of the soldiers brought to the battlefield with Aveay were only given plasma weapons. Only those that walked here with Jime had any real equipment, but they all went to the eastern battlefield.
Musa: [Okay, what if push comes to shove?]
I get the feeling that I might have to kill one of my allies, but I basically signed up to be a traitor.
Abdimalik: [If that ever happens, we should be standing side-by-side, so rather than pushing and shoving, we can gangbang instead.]
His bright confident smile after saying that made me even more scared for my future. My entire life is in this man's hands now.
Musa: [Please never say that again.]
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
He turned back to his map and using the stick, he started to draw a single wavy line towards the center of the map.
Abdimalik: [This is the path we take to get to the center.]
Musa: [That path is emptier than my DMs.]
Abdimalik laughed while drawing two triangles that had an 'X' drawn in the center.
Musa: [Now there are Penn warriors on the path?]
Abdimalik: [They are dead Penn warriors I pulled to the side. Apparently, they were shot in the face with a blaster, so their armor has no holes.]
He thought of everything, huh?
Abdimalik: [Like I said,]
he wrote a couple of words under the map,
Abdimalik: [foolproof.]
I grew a little more confident in Abdimalik. Not going to lie, but this is tactically impressive. Right as I was about to praise Malik for thinking ahead, a bomb exploding in the distance cut me off.
Abdimalik: [WHAT WAS THAT?!]
His hearing seemed to have gotten slightly impaired.
Musa: [Don't worry about it.]
I walked off onto the path drawn on the floor map and Abdimalik followed after.
The path from the infirmary to the battlefield was a short one. With the wagon in hand, it usually takes anywhere from twenty to thirty minutes, so walking without anything but military-grade armor was an easy trip. We unequipped our infirmary gear and quickly equipped the military-grade armor given to us by the Aveay forces. Now looking like full-fledged soldiers, we went out on the battlefield. Before we headed out, Isaac stopped by us and handed us weapons specially designed for taking out the Dragonite armor.
Isaac: [We need you two out there.]
He believed we were going out to fight, but little did he know, fighting is the last thing we plan on doing. Even with a battle sword in hand and well fit for the task, going out there and killing someone isn't what I want to do. I don't care about this kingdom, the alliance, or this war, but one thing is for sure. I don't want to fight.
Once Isaac turned around Abdimalik ran ahead of me toward the path he prepared. We walked through a pack of bushes and found a hidden path on the other side. A dark brown path that was as moist as dirt after rain, we were forced to walk around unnoticed until we found the two bodies Abdimalik prepared. Walking around on the path felt like I was constantly walking on the dead bodies of my allies... uncomfortable as hell. We had to keep quiet to not get the attention of the mages on the other side of the path.
Abdimalik: [Damn mages!]
I watched him suddenly stop and silently spite a mage that was on the other side. Malik turned to me and placed his pointer finger over his lip.
Abdimalik: [If they just as much sense us... it's over.]
As expected, Abdimalik's foolproof plan had a flaw he hadn't taken into account.
Musa: [What do I say if they catch me?]
Abdimalik continued walking ahead without responding. I guess I have to improvise when or if the time comes. I stared at the mage for a moment and only moved ahead when he was stabbed in the stomach by someone I couldn't see. His groan made me feel guilty as he turned around and stared at me until he finally closed his eyes and collapsed. I couldn't have done anything... it was too late. I shouldn't let this get to me. Before the other mages could come and pick him up, I had already run away and met up with Abdimalik.
By the time I caught up with him, he was reaching into a bush with his eyes rolled and tongue out.
Abdimalik: [The bodies should be somewhere around here.]
I kept a lookout while he searched with his hands. It didn't take him long to get on his knees and stick his head into the bush. I had a growing suspicion that he lost the body, but that couldn't have been the case, his plan was foolproof!
Abdimalik: [Aha!]
I quickly turned to him. His entire body had been inside the bush in search of the bodies until just now. He began to crawl backward until he dragged two human figures out of the bush that was wearing dark metallic-blue armor that would easily blend in with the night sky. However, the inside of the armor was coated in a dark red, soggy, and reeked of blood.
Abdimalik: [I told you I had bodies!]
He was really excited about it.
Musa: [That sounds like you had a lot of sex,]
He laughed.
Abdimalik: [Who said I haven't?]
I just smiled and began to remove the armor off of one of the soldiers. It wasn't a pleasant experience, but I had to do what needed to be done. I started off with the helmet, the easiest bit. Because the soldier's head was shot clean off, slipping it out and replacing it with my own was really easy. Next were the shoes, a difficult slip.
The torso and pants are the hardest of the two. The pants were metallic, so slipping them off as I would do with my casual wear wasn't so simple. They would cling to the soldier's ass and make it extremely difficult. Using my upper body strength, I had to lift the soldier off the ground, pull the armor away from his butt-lump, and proceed to pull them down. Luckily the soldier was wearing some form of underwear or this entire experience would have been really uncomfortable, however, while pulling the pants away from the underwear, I accidentally slipped my hand down his underwear and touched his hairy ass.
Musa: [Someone, kill me. Please.]
Was all I could say. Once I got the pants off everything was a-okay.
Abdimalik was struggling over on his side. I took a peek to see what was going on, but somehow he managed to pull the dude's underwear clean off, leaving his hairy limp dick standing out. I quickly turned my head and started laughing. Abdimalik joined in after a moment of complaining. Absolutely disgusting... to say the least.
Abdimalik: [This shit is gross, man!]
Musa: [You're telling me!]
Abdimalik: [We're almost there, man! Only one more plate to go.]
The last plate, the chestplate. This included the arms and torso, which was going to be the hardest of them all.
To save you all the trouble, I will skip this gruesome scene
Musa: [Alright! Are you ready?]
I turned to Abdimalik and caught him mid-change from his chest plate. Seeing his fat was probably the grossest thing of all. I started laughing at the sight of it, then it became a shared experience. Abdimalik is a cool guy and being able to go on this quest with him is a blessing.
Abdimalik: [Now I'm ready! Let's go.]
Once again, he led the way toward the center of the three battlefields. In order to get there undetected, we would have to get off the hidden trail and make our way through the Penn Army. I'll be honest, walking through the bushes and revealing ourselves to the Penn army hideout, my heart began racing extremely fast and my blood was beginning to rush to my head. Wearing the armor was insanely hot, but betraying the Northeastern Alliance only equates to bad things and those bad things got to my head. I felt an armrest on my shoulder and turning to it was Abdimalik staring at the soldiers resting. Without saying a word, he walked ahead of me with his hands behind his back. He kept a confident and stale expression while approaching one of the soldiers sitting alone. Confused, I followed behind but tried to hide.
Penn Soldier 1: [Resting?]
Abdimalik sighed and sat beside the soldier. He sat casually with a leg out and one knee above the other. The soldier looked at both of us which got my heart racing.
Penn Soldier 1: [Looks like you two went through a lot.]
He fell for the disguise?!
Abdimalik: [Yeah man. It's rough out there. We thought we would take a break, go walk a bit.]
The soldier turned back to the ground and thought to himself a bit. It seems like he was just an NPC with minimal dialogue options, but that didn't keep Abdimalik from talking to him.
Abdimalik: [I was wondering, what's happening with the leader? We didn't get to see him since we got here.]
Musa: [He isn't gonna respond, Malik. Let's find out ourselves.]
Penn Soldier 1: [We don't need to see the leader to have faith in him. Sir Alysuim trusts him, so we trust him, isn't that right?]
I felt as if we were trapped in a corner, but Abdimalik quickly came up with a counter.
Abdimalik: [It's possible that Sir Alysuim could be getting deceived. I heard the leader was a part of Hydra.]
The soldier's eyes widened in fear.
Abdimalik: [Though it's only speculation–]
The soldier grabbed Abdimalik by the collar and completely scared the balls out of him. I took a step back.
Abdimalik: [What are you–!]
Penn Soldier 1: [Don't you dare talk shit about Sir Alysuim!]
Penn Soldier Crowd: [Woah, what's going on here?!]
Shit shit shit! They're onto us!
Penn Soldier 1: [There is no way he could be getting deceived! Are you a traitor?! Traitor!]
Abdimalik grabbed a hold of the soldier's arm and stared directly into his eyes.
Abdimalik: [I'm not saying anything bad about Sir Alysuim, so you need to calm down.]
The soldier seemed to have calmed down a little bit, but the crowd remained excited as if they expected a fight to go down.
Abdimalik: [I just want to see the leader with my own eyes. While Sir Alysuim is fighting in the east, I want to clear any rumors going around.]
The soldier released his grip on Abdimalik and slowly backed away. He laid back on the wall and sighed as the crowd cleared.
Penn Soldier 1: [You'll be wasting your time, but fine. If you find anything suspicious, make sure to tell Sir Alysuim.]
Abdimalik softly smiled and then stood up. He walked up to me and placed a hand on my shoulder.
Abdimalik: [I told you. Foolproof.]
And with that, we made our way out of the Penn soldier camp and through the white woods. It was like the weather suddenly fell below freezing while we were walking, but Abdimalik said it was a sudden outburst of some demonic mana. That grew our suspicion of the Penn leader being some overlord. I began to have my doubts about joining Abdimalik on this quest, the chances of us dying even this far into it, were still high. Every time he would catch me looking gloomy, he would reassure me of our quest. We aren't in this for self-interest. We're here to support the alliance in any way possible.
Once we made it out of the woods, Abdimalik stopped walking and looked around.
Musa: [Is everything alright?]
He turned to me with a nervous smile on his face.
Musa: [We're lost, aren't we?]
Abdimalik: [Not exactly. We just... I just...]
He turned away from me and continued.
Abdimalik: [I don't have a sense of direction.]
We both fell silent as a frosty breeze blew by us.
We learned our compass directions in rookie boot camp. I can't really blame Abdimalik for not remembering it, but it's sort of pathetic considering he's only a rank higher than me. I looked up at the two suns, Helios and Alectrona. According to our captain, Helios, the bigger sun, always rises during the evening from the north and sets in the south. Since it was just beginning to set, looking in the opposite direction was the easiest way to figure out which way was which. Pointing north, Abdimalik ended his awkward smile and marched away.
After a very long walk, we came into view of the Hydra castle and the battle between demigods in front of it. We both stood speechless as the unbelievable amount of mana was flooding the place but also was lacking the people we were searching for. Somehow, we managed to look around without being spotted by either of the Paladins or Hydra members. Looking around, we saw Head Knight Lek and Anthony running towards a portal with a girl in their hands. Neither of us knew what was going on, but kidnapping was the first thing to come to my mind. As soon as Abdimalik saw them, he began to run their way, and I followed after.
Musa: [Dude! We shouldn't interrupt what they're doing!]
Abdimalik: [They could take a minute to listen to what we have to say! It's for the glory of the Northeastern Alliance!]
He isn't wrong, but what they're doing could be crucial to winning the war. I picked up my pace and stopped moving as soon as I got in front of Abdimalik. Letting my hands out and threatening to cover him with an aura, I had to stop him before it was too late.
Abdimalik: [What are you doing?!]
Musa: [JUST LOOK AT THEM! Taking that girl out of the battlefield is obviously something important! I won't let you stop them!]
Abdimalik: [Musa... think about what you're doing-]
A purple aura formed around Abdimalik and shortly after got me. The magic aura forced our hands onto our waists and disabled my ability to cast a spell. Looking behind Abdimalik, I noticed Isaac with a single hand out that was covered in a purple aura and a maniacal smile that only meant trouble.
Isaac: [I never thought the two of you could think of an amazing plan like that. And to think, if you cleaned up after yourselves, I might've never found out.]
Abdimalik: [How did you find us?!]
Isaac: [That map behind the tent, the naked Penn warriors... or the mage that caught you running.]
I heard Abdimalik mumble "damn mages" under his breath. Isaac rested a finger on his chin and started rubbing the stubble.
Isaac: [What should I do with the both of you? Report you as traitors? A single snapshot of you in that armor is all I need as proof.]
Musa: [We were doing this for the Northeastern alliance! Our current strategy is ass!]
Isaac: [Then why don't you consult the general yourself?]
Musa: [Like he'll listen to us.]
Abdimalik: [We were going to Head Knight Anthony to have him talk to Cody. He will only listen to him and OJ!]
Isaac walked closer to the both of us and stared at Abdimalik's stomach fat.
Isaac: [Fine, I'll let you two talk with the Head Knight. See if he'll fix your problem.]
After he poked Abdimalik's stomach, he was freed from the magic aura, but I was still being held. As soon as he was freed, he gave me a disappointed look and ran towards the Head Knight.
Isaac: [As for you, I've always had a feeling you didn't really care about the alliance, let alone your own kingdom.]
He walked up to me and stared me in the eye.
Isaac: [Why is that?]
Me: [I don't know what you're talking about.]
I saw him narrow his eyes for a second.
Isaac: [You know exactly what I'm talking about. You're miserable. Living life in despair and fear.]
Me: [I'd rather not listen to you tell me my life story.]
Isaac: [I really don't like you–]
Head Knight Anthony: [WHAT ARE YOU DOING, ISAAC?!]
Looking around, I saw Abdimalik making his way toward us with the two Head Knights by his side. I felt a poke on my stomach then the weight gluing me together fell apart.
Head Knight Anthony: [Why aren't you at the battlefield?]
Isaac: [I was looking for these two. They tried to run away from the battlefield.]
Head Knight Lek: [The fat one says that they were trying to get us to help. One of the generals isn't doing so great.]
I looked at the knocked-out girl resting on Anthony's back.
HK Lek: [Also, it seemed like you planned on hurting this soldier–]
Isaac: [He is a traitor, sir!]
Lek shot a deadly glare at Isaac's eyes.
HK Anthony: [If they were just trying to get some help, you can't hold it against them.]
Anthony placed a single hand on Abdimalik's shoulder which seemed to have made him a bit happier.
HK Anthony: [Take us to Cody. We'll take the princess where she needs to be later.]
HK Lek: [Shouldn't we focus on the princess, though? The paladins were strict about this order.]
HK Anthony: [It'll be fine. There's no way they can take her from us now.]
And just like that, we walked back to the battlefield and were self-proclaimed heroes of the war. Believe me, the title will grow on people and I will be praised for my efforts. For the entire walk back, Abdimalik was extremely suspicious of me, but what else could I tell him? Isaac interfering was the best thing that could happen, without him, the cocky head knight might not have joined our side.