They arrived at the Camp No Name late in the afternoon. The camp was tiny with just four buildings and as its nickname suggested it had no name. Three of the buildings were longhouses with nothing inside them but wooden floors. It was where they were sleeping when they were not sleeping outdoors. The last building was the command bunker. It had a bunch of cots for the officers and that was it. Sitting in the middle of the four buildings was a bunch of armored personnel carriers (APC). They were surrounding a Command Vehicle or CV. The CV had communications and other command and support equipment set up inside. There were a few APC trucks outside of the fence that had tiny South Korean flags on them.

The rest of the OD was waiting for them as they made their way in. Someone had set up a bunch of wood for a bonfire close to the front of the gate. Behind the bonfire, someone else had set up a bunch of metal trash cans that had been cut out to make a makeshift barbeque grill. They were already going and Emily could smell the food cooking. She nodded to the gate guards, a mixture of US and South Korean soldiers, as she passed by them.

Emily was sitting on a log that someone had found and brought into the camp near the bonfire, and thought about what the Colonel had just told them. The Koreans were heading back tonight but the rest of the U.S. Special Forces were staying for another week. While the Colonel had said they were staying because he wanted more time for Third and Fourth company to train, Emily and the rest of the OD knew it was because of her. They weren’t happy about it but one thing everyone understood about the Special Forces was that they were always training unless they had an active mission. The Colonel was not happy with her performance during the exercises. The OD was not happy about losing two days of free time in Seoul. No one was happy.

Si-Woo sat down next to her with his grilled seafood. “What is up with Koreans and their seafood,” Emily asked herself as she bit into her cheeseburger. For the past three weeks, Si-Woo had avoided hanging out with anyone and only had just started to sit beside her in the past few days.

A year ago she wouldn’t have to know why but now she knew. People had expectations about supers especially really powerful supers. While she had been in Guam she had the Navy boys and the native islanders to keep her protected from those around her. Once she left the island she realized how much she had been protected so far in her military career.

Being a Super Soldier in the military was supposed to be a secret but in reality, it was a poorly kept one. While no one was taking her picture or posting about her in social networks, everyone knew who she was. Most of them were annoying but harmless but others had agendas. Some wanted to date her because she was a super while others wanted her to do things that would help them but by helping them it might impact negatively on the Army and her Career.

The most annoying thing though was people asking how exciting it was being a super soldier. She wanted to tell them the truth, that it sucked. She wanted to warn them just how dangerous it was but she no one wanted to hear that. She usually just changed the subject or lied when the topic came up.

She also saw how the women treated the male supers and she was starting to understand David a little better. The women who went after a male super were called bunnies or power bunnies. They would do anything to date one as well. She had seen some gross things they were willing to do just to stay or get with ‘their man’. After nearly twenty years in the military that had to have made some kind of impression on David. She was just glad he hadn’t treated her like a bunny though.

There was also an ugly side to the Super community too. Some people didn’t like supers or were jealous of them. While the military had rules about discrimination there were always ways to work around the rules and shun those who had superpowers. It wasn’t only the military people either. Some military contractors who found out that Emily was a super soldier and also gave her a hard time.

She had never been exposed to the ugly side of the super community before she had been shipped off to Afghanistan. She had never had time to see it around her. She spent all her time before being deployed training or getting ready to deploy. She could look back now at her time in Afghanistan she could see so many instances where it had come up. She had been blinded by ignorance because she had never been subjected to that behavior before.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

She had never realized just how much Jan and Wonder had been protecting her. She missed them. She knew Jan was coming up on re-enlistment and wondered if she would stay or go back to the real world. Jan had been planning on staying in the military before everything happened but now Emily didn’t know if she would.

Emily had taken a few days off to head to Arlington National Cemetery to visit Wonder’s and David’s grave once she was back on US Soil again. She had cried the whole time. Someone had put flowers on the gravesites and while she was there a Boys Scouts troop came by and placed flags on all of the graves. Wonder would have laughed her head off at the geeky kid who placed a flag on her grave.

“You’re stronger than you think you are,” Si-Woo said in English suddenly breaking Emily out of her nostalgia.

“What?” Emily said in surprise.

“My people, they cheated. Every time we face each other across the battlefield they made sure there was a weapon capable of killing you near me. They did it to make you feel that I am stronger than I really am. Without that, there was nothing I could do against you.” He told her. “You are the better soldier than I am. I am sorry for the way they acted.” SI-Woo said standing up and bowing.

“They had to make it fair,” Emily told him as she thought over all the exercises that she had been on the past few weeks. She realized that he was right. He always was either near or near enough to an SK weapon. The only times he had lost was because he had been too far away when he fired his weapon at her and she had enough time to dodge out of the way.

“War is never fair.” He told her. “If this had been real and we were on opposite sides I would be dead and you the victor. I know ways of killing a Brute with more strength and immunity than you have, but those ways would not be effective against you. I was selected to join this operation because I was the only one in my country who had a chance of winning against you and even then my people had to make sure I always had the right tools to do it.”

She had nothing to say to him so she just nodded and turned back to the fire.

“Hey, snap out of it.” Someone said behind her preventing her from falling back into her nostalgic thoughts. “It’s only one more week. We could do that standing on our heads with no problems.” The woman said behind Emily.

Emily looked over her shoulder and smiled. It was G. That wasn’t her real name but her family was from India and she had a really long unpronounceable last name so everyone just called her G. She was a short woman. She was shorter than Emily had been before she had awoken at Super School. G was a low-level Brute. Class four strength with an immunity class C. That meant that she could lift just under a ton and was strong enough to shrug off bullets from a handgun. Anything higher was deadly to her.

She had not qualified for either a Main type super or a Secondary type super either. She had chosen to take the Engineer job when she had gone through the Special Forces Basic program six years ago. She was on ODA and in the first platoon but had taken Emily under her wing when she arrived after completing Special Forces advanced schools.

G and her husband had taken her out to the bar when she turned twenty-one. It had been a great night. While she did have one beer for the sake of having an alcoholic drink she reframed from drinking the rest of the night. She didn’t want to be like her father. G’s husband was this accountant who worked from home. It was odd to see them together. G was Indian and an outdoors kind of woman and her husband was this dorky white guy who wore a shirt and tie, all the time even when working at home. He also spent all his time on the computer looking at spreadsheets while G was always outside rebuilding old muscle cars.

“Sorry I was just talking to Si-Woo…,” Emily said turning towards where Si-Woo had been sitting but he had vanished.

“Did he just time-stop to get away?” She thought to herself.

“So I heard a rumor about your time with us. Word is that you might be heading back to the states to meet up with the fourth OD. They are due to rotate into Iraq in about a month and a half.” G said looking into the bonfire.

Emily cursed. “Well, at least it’s not Afghanistan she muttered.”

“You can’t go back to Afghanistan. You can’t return to a warzone that you have been a POW in.” G said shaking her head. “Besides Afghanistan is mostly quiet now. Iraq is where the chaos is. With the OCS dissolving, it's like a civil war between terrorist groups. The groups are fighting themselves as much as they are fighting us now. It should be fun.”

“Things never work out like they are supposed to around me,” Emily muttered darkly.

“Listen, Doom Girl, I wouldn’t worry too much. You shouldn’t do much fighting. Most you’ll do is to stir the pot up and let the bad guys fight each other harder. Easy peasy.” G said with a smile.

“Doom Girl huh?” Emily said struggling not to smile.

“You’re not the only ex-nerd here. You’ve seen the comic book collection I tell everyone is my husbands. Well, let's just say that it’s not all his.” G said pushing Emily. Emily moved sideways slightly as G used her superpowers to push her.

“Nerd,” Emily replied shaking her head.