Morning and then early afternoon, found O’Brien, Jonesy, and Perkins passed out in a field of Soybeans. None were feeling their best. Their brains were dull and aching from the after effects of the night before. Their bodies were sore from having passed out pretty much where they fell on the uneven terrain. It wasn’t that unusual a morning for O’Brien and Jonesy.

“Now, how do you suppose we ended up here,” O’Brien asked, scratching his head. Not one for many words in the morning, Jonesy shrugged.

“We’re going to join Ethan in the battle,” Perkins replied.

“Ah, that’s right,” O’Brien remembered, and seeing they had brought four cases of beer, decided to crack one to wash away the foul taste of the night before.

“I wish we brought more food,” Jonesy said, looking sadly in the box of leftover pizza. Regardless of how much he drank the night before, Jonesy was always hungry when he woke up. Jonesy was hungry most of the time.

O'Brien, whose appetite seldom failed him either, looked in the box. There were only three pieces. Grabbing the biggest one, he said, “Well boys. Eat up. We’ll have to make it through the day on beer. Hopefully, we’ll find a town along the way where we can resupply”.

“I’m not hungry,” Perkins, the least experienced soldier said weakly.

Immediately O’Brien and Jonesy made a move for the extra piece, but when their hands met at the slice, they looked at each other, snarling a bit while calculating what to do. They decided to tear the slice in two, and prevent the inevitable fight that would otherwise break out, knowing each other as they did.

The lads began to perk up a bit after breakfast and a couple of beers. Even Perkins was feeling better, as O’Brien and Jonesy forced him to drink with them, even though the last thing he wanted to look at that morning was a beer. They knew it would make him feel better and it was their duty to train him, seeing as he was a new Cadet. Now with a couple of beer in him, he was feeling better. “Pretty good, actually,” was his words.

The plan was to set off right after breakfast, but they still felt a little sluggish and decided to have another beer. Then they got to thinking how troublesome it would be to lug all those beer through the stubble of the fields and maybe they should reduce the number a little before they began their march, and so they set about that task.

It wasn’t long before O’Brien was acting his way through some of the more memorable highlights of his recent imaginary battles, with his imaginary hatchet and Bowie knife. He was agile, almost acrobatic as he spun past a minion, decapitating it in midspin, and then plunging his knife into the heart of an awaiting Nephilim on the other side. The Demons didn’t fare any better when it came to feeling his cold steel.

“I said take that you lousy Demon bastard,” was what O’Brien was saying when an actual Demon dropped down in front of them.

“Jesus, Mary and Joseph!” O’Brien exclaimed. “What is that”?

They had never heard of a mature Demon before. Mature Demons had yet to become part of the lore, but it was a Demon, looking more like a dragon than anything else. It was a little small, but it looked like a dragon was circling them. Two more Demons dropped from the sky. Without ceremony, they grabbed the Cadets in their iron like claws and flew off.

The three Cadets were unceremoniously dropped in front of a large tent at the forefront of the gang. It and a few columns of smaller tents were separate from the rest of the gang. The sun, soon to make its descent from the sky, shone brightly on the Cadets. The tent was facing Northwest. Perhaps the gang had a good idea of where the battle would be fought after all.

The three Cadets huddled together where they fell, which looked to be a thoroughfare. No one seemed to pay them any mind.

“I pissed myself when that Demon grabbed me,” O’Brien exclaimed. Although not admitting anything, both looked like they felt his response wasn’t unreasonable given the circumstances.

“What do you think they want with us?” Perkins asked.

“What do they want with us?” O’Brien replied unbelievingly. “They want to torture us for information, that’s what”.

“Yes they do,” Jonesy, who had fought in the same wars as O’Brien agreed.

“Just let them try,” O’Brien declared. It should be noted, he was still drunk and that was when he had the most courage.

“Shouldn’t we maybe just tell them?” Perkins asked. “I mean, they’re going to get it out of us sooner or later. Sooner suits me”.

O’Brien looked at Jonesy, and then Perkins with disdain. “Have you forgotten about that badge you would be wearing on your sleeve if we had time to sew one up for you? You sir, are a Cadet! You have sworn your life to the resistance and Ethan Strong. If it is our duty to die here withholding state secrets, then that is what we will do.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

“What state secrets?” Perkins asked. “You barely know how to find them”.

The conversation would have gone on longer, but they were interrupted by two elite guards coming out of the immense tent and standing on either side of the opening. They were Dark Angels, the first seen by the Cadets. O’Brien might tell you he wasn’t scared, and it was from all the beer he was carrying inside him, but he pissed himself again. To be fair, he pissed himself lots of times when he was only drunk and there was nothing to scare him.

Having never seen one, their appearance terrified the Cadets, more even than the mature Demons. Both stood at least seven feet tall, and their bodies were perfectly proportioned to their height. Like all the serpent class of Angels, they embodied characteristics and features both human and reptile. Like humans, their faces were rounded and showed traces of humanity from a forgotten evolution. Their bodies were human in form, reptilian in makeup and their naked arms and legs were protected by a tough leathery skin that served as armor. While lighter in color and resembling a soft underbelly, their abdomens and torsos were smoother than the knobby skin of their appendages, but just as hard and leathery.

It was what followed that created the most fear in the Cadets. Out came the Dark Angel Ethan had killed in a previous quest in another world. He was the one the Chiefs referred to as the Dark Angel, in the singular. This Dark Angel was of an entirely different class than the other fallen angels. He was to the Dragon, as Michael was to Ethan. He stood a full head taller than the other Dark Angels, and his confident bearing was overwhelming. His aura was violent and smoldered like the embers in his black eyes. His name was Wrath, but people who met him did not require a name to know who he was. The moment you saw him, you knew.

He walked past the guards and towards the Cadets, looking into the eyes of each one individually. Perkins nothing, nor Jonesy, but in O’Brien he found something and spent some time. There wasn’t much there, but enough to confirm his suspicions and spark a question. What was Ethan using for an army if not humans? There were no humans around here? The answer quickly came to him.

“Send some Demons and Nephilim to Iowa,” Wrath said. “Scout things out and find out how many robots are running around there. He returned to the front of the tent and sat down on what looked to be an oversized but grand lounge chair. He would bask in the last few moments of sun and draw energy for the battle to come. “Have the troops ready to depart by nightfall”.

The Cadets remained where they were. No one, especially Wrath, seemed to take notice of them. He seemed to be sleeping. The other gang members left them alone. Wrath didn’t tell them what to do with the Cadets, so they didn’t do anything with them. That was the safest way to go when it came to Wrath. Don’t assume. Some gang members did punch or kick at the Cadets in passing. They figured that was probably alright.

“Did you feel that in your head when he looked at you?” Perkins asked.

“Yes, I did,” Jonesy replied.

“What about you?” Perkins asked O’Brien.

O’Brien didn’t answer, causing the two Cadets to take a closer look at him. He was looking straight ahead, with a blank inward stare.

“You okay?” Perkins asked. O’Brien didn’t answer. Didn’t even hear him. He was awake, but sat with his mouth open and a dumb look on his face.

“O’Brien,” Both Cadets whispered as loud as they thought they could get away with. O’Brien did not respond.

In spite of not knowing what to do with themselves anymore than their captors did, they had been left in the middle of an active thoroughfare, and decided to see what would happen if they moved against a tent opposite some distance away from Wrath’s. No-one paid any notice, except a passing Nephilim who gave Jonesy a swift kick to hurry him along.

The first thing they did when they reached relative safety was take a closer look at O’Brien. They shook him and slapped his face a couple of times, and still no response.

“I think his brain’s fried,” Jonesy diagnosed.

“Looks like it,” Perkins agreed.

The three sat by the tent, watching the activities. It was routine camp stuff, which actually had a calming effect on the Cadet’s because they had done routine stuff too. Equipment was being moved. Things were being built. Orders were being issued. Everyday camp stuff.

Jonesy, not used to questioning his lot in life, didn’t pay much attention to the going ons. His attention had turned to tossing pebbles at O’Brien’s face to see if he could get him to blink or something.

Perkins was paying attention to what was going on. He noticed a lot of things. They were located at the very outskirts of the gang. He could see uninhabited land in the distance. It was some distance away, but he could see it, and it was to the Northwest. That’s where O’Brien told him Ethan was. Perkins also could see, although they were fully exposed, this was still the time they were least seen. Gang members were focused on their own tasks. Very little attention was paid to the Cadets, but that wasn’t about to last. Perkins noticed a Dark Angel patrolling the camp. He was a number of tent rows away from the Cadets, but he was making his way towards them. Perkins knew once the guard discovered them, questions would be asked, and they would probably be killed without ceremony.

“We have to get out of here,” Perkins said.

“What do you mean?” Jonesy asked.

“I mean, one of those lizard men is patrolling the camp and once he finds us, we’re done. Come on. Let’s see what happens if we make our way to that water trough”.

Each holding an arm, the Cadets guided O’Brien towards the trough. Even with O’Brien stumbling between them, making it impossible not to be noticed, they made it to the trough without mishap.

“Keep walking,” Perkins said under his breath.

“What?” Jonesy asked

“Keep walking”.

“But don’t you want to get some water”?

“Keep walking, and hold O’Brien like he’s our prisoner. Push him along a little and when you hold him, grab him with two hands and higher up the arm’.

The Cadets pushed, pulled, shook and even snarled at O’Brien as they made their way to freedom. Gang members assumed they were in someone else’s charge and ignored them as the Cadets manhandled O’Brien and themselves out of the camp.