NECROMANTEION: "Oracle of the Dead" or "Oracle of Death".
The title will make sense by the end of the tale.
Read Firefight COG first, please. Google "Firefight COG a skirmish in three parts" and click the link on Epic Forums. You'll enjoy it, I think.
It was a day for funeral pyres, observed Miguel Torres as he watched his brother burn atop the pile of human dead.
"The world went to hell more than a decade ago," Janvier was saying nearby, probably to himself. "What are we gonna call this?"
"The devil's basement," replied Torres, not caring who his squadmate was actually talking to. He stood perfectly still, solemn eyes fixed on the fire licking at the still form of his dead brother. For a moment he glanced upward, following the embers of the cremation rising up to meet the shattered, half-abandoned buildings. Then, reluctantly, he turned away.
Sergeant Acheson was standing there, giving his men the moment they needed to mourn before they had to return to the front line. He had his helmet under one arm, the blue eyepieces glinting softly in the dim sunlight, himself all encased in armor.
"We need to go," he said, looking past Torres at the mass cremation. One needed only to look at his tired, angry eyes to see that he was looking for a specific body in the pile of corpses. He'd lost somebody today too; Corporal Rostegas, his oldest friend. They'd fought in the Pendulum Wars together, before Emergence Day had ended the practice of humans fighting humans.
Torres and Janvier were wearing their armor too, and held their helmets in their hands. They had their rifles slung over their shoulders, secured by fraying cloth bandoliers.
"Any time you're ready, Sarge," said Torres, pulling his helmet over his head in one fluid motion. With it on he was just another almost anonymous Gear in the Coalition of Ordered Governments, his face completely obscured. Only his bare arms distinguished him from the crowd.
Acheson and Janvier waited only a moment longer before they slipped on their own helmets. There was no time left to grieve with the Locust Horde bearing down on humanity's last cities.
"C'mon," ordered Acheson, voice slightly muffled by his headgear. He turned and stalked away, taking his assault rifle in both hands. Janvier followed him, resisting the urge to take one last look.
Torres could not resist that last look. As he pulled the big Lancer off his armored back, he turned to watch the cremation for just a few more seconds. The other mourners, civilians mostly, their faces haggard, stood in a loose circle around the pyre. One man, his face half concealed by a ragged beard, looked right at him with eyes full of pain and tears.
In the distance, the continuous sound of gunfire echoed off of devastated buildings. Torres turned to meet it, and left his dead brother far behind.