Author's Note: It's been 1 year since Monty Oum passed. It's hard to believe how much my life has changed. Throughout my depression and difficulties of High School in my mind I remembered to "Keep Moving Forward". I wish I could have met Monty, It was from his work and his message that I found my love for writing no matter how bad it is. I start the rewrite of this story on February 1st 2016. Rest in peace Monty Oum, We the Roosterteeth Family miss you and we will always remember you and what you created in this world. I will do my hardest and more to match your resolve and I implore everyone else to do the same.
Pain is the most important feeling human beings have. Because of pain we can feel life, we learned fast in the Battlefield that if you were caught in an explosion and your limb didnt hurt...your probably don't have that limb anymore.
My memory is fogged as I take a look around. I wasn't as much confused by the fact that I WAS FALLING FROM THE FUCKING SKY, but more by the fact that people were falling with me. I felt like I should know them but I couldn't remember. My memory begins to clear and I begin to remember.
Date: February, 1st 2015
Classification: Operation Zero Hour
Operator: David Reaper
Why did my life go wrong? Here I am at 15 years old and already retired. After being forced to serve as a Child Soldier I signed up as a U.S. Navy Seal at age ten along with my brother who was 15. At nearly 14 years of age I fought my final battle where I was permanently injured and was forced to retire. That final battle resulted in the loss of my brother and the end of the corrupt Military General Mitchell Shrekken. At least I thought it was my final battle. Little did I know that two men requesting my return to combat for another mission would change my life so much.
My injuries made me unable to do acts like sit-ups or crunches. Despite this my old Squad and I were still chosen as the Nation's best infiltrators.
I walked into the armory and stopped in my tracks as some familiar faces snapped into salutes.
"Sir! Welcome home", one of them said.
"I should be saluting you Tyler, You're the Squad Leader… not Me", I replied.
"David you will always be the leader of this squad, I'm just the second in command", He dropped his salute.
That is Tyler Arma, Originally my combat medic. After my Brother passed and I retired he was promoted on account of his calmness in stressful situations. He inherited the remains of the squad, only two members of the squad remained with my Brother and Me gone.
The other member was Gaige Patriot. He is one of the most insane people in this world, but he was a master of explosives. He would never be allowed to advance ranks on account of all the friendly soldiers he's killed.
I picked up a nearby radio and tuned it the commands frequency, "Let's see if the call signs have changed". I clicked the side button in and said, "Overlord this is Grimm Reaper Actual requesting mission details over".
"Roger Grimm Reaper Actual this is Overlord your mission goes as follows… Grimm Reaper Squad is to infiltrate a base in Alaska named Bright Moses and rescue a chief scientist. Your counter signs are Flash, Lightning. This Nuclear Rearmament facility has been captured by Terrorists. We recommend that you suit up in the exoskeletons and counter terrorism kits. Good luck, Godspeed, and Welcome Back Actual", Sounded through the speaker on the radio.
We wasted no time and started dressing into urban camo fatigues. Gaige alerted me that he was still Codename Grimm Reaper 4 and Tyler was still Grimm Reaper 3. Tyler took a standard M16A6 with an underbarrel M203 grenade launcher and a red dot sight along with a FAK and his M11 handgun. Gaige took his custom M4A4 that he painted with an "Asiimov" Camo and a M272 Recoilless Rifle . I took a MAR-15, my trusty Knighthawk 45. M1911, and my favorite blade. We suited up in our tactical exoskeletons, these held many gadgets like grappling hooks, emp's, and flares.
In maybe 10 minutes we were loading into the Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk and we were taking off towards Alaska.
Fortunately there was a blizzard when we started out infiltration, We couldn't see… but the same goes for our enemies. Well...our naked eyes couldn't see, but our thermal vision built into the helmets of our exoskeletons allowed us to see almost perfect. Strangely there were no sentries at this base.
We never lowered our weapons but we never stopped scanning our sectors. Going through every room looking for our target. It wasn't until all the lights in the room shut off that we made contact.
In the shadows I could make out the figure of a 7 foot tall bulky figure. The lights turned on right above us and above the shadow. In the light we could see it was a Anti-infantry piloted mech. These mechs carried 6.5mm miniguns and swarm mini missile launchers.
A robotic voice sounded from it, "INTRUDER...IDENTIFY YOURSELF".
"Aw shit", I muttered beneath my breath.
The minigun started to spin up and we could hear robotic laughter.
"GET IN COVER", Tyler screamed before Gaige and him jumped behind some boxes to the right
I jumped to the left behind a box next to a large nuke shelving unit. Due to a larger crate in front of Gaige's box he didn't have a clear shot.
"David! Take the recoilless rifle", Gaige yelled throwing the cylindrical rocket launcher to me. I grabbed it by the strap and screamed, "Cover me". The top large shelving unit would allow me to get a shot at the mech's weak point.
Using hand motions Tyler counted down from three before he popped up and started suppressing fire. I looked up and aimed my hook bearing left arm towards the top of the unit. Firing, I failed to realize that the hook had not been loaded properly and failed to reach the target. Instead the hook landed two shelves below the top. Bracing myself the hook pulled on a powerful mechanical winch and took me up to the hook. Feeling the strain on my body as I reached out my arms and hung from the shelf I couldn't help but have difficulty given the lack of stomach muscle.
I pulled up hard and launched myself high enough to grab the next shelf, I repeated this until I was at the top.
Climbing to the top it took all my strength to not collapse and catch my breath. After being out of action for so long my body wasn't in shape. After I retired I bought some land and lived on a farm doing nothing but drinking and shooting guns. Normally you have to be 21 or older to drink in the U.S. but my military service got me the right early.
Standing straight up I pulled the launcher over my arm and ran to the edge of the shelf unit. I dropped to my knee, lined up the sight posts on the right flank of the mech, and fired the recoilless rifle. As soon as the rocket struck the target every light turned on in the facility and smoke clouded the area where the mech once stood. The exoskeleton control panel on my left arm started to beep frantically as something locked onto my signature. Countermeasure deployment shooters popped from many places on my body as swarm missiles emerged from the smoke. Remembering my training and past experience I dropped to my knees and raised my left arm over my head, Mini Flares started to shoot out from my body. Pain shot through me as the missiles struck the flares causing the concrete to fall from beneath me.
I awoke inside a large concrete building that had fire spreading throughout the facility. I stood and searched my surroundings, my MAR-15 was gone but I still had my other weapons. Raising my left arm I tried to contact Grimm Reaper Squad. Unfortunately I failed to realized there was a peice of rebar pierced through my arm which in turn destroyed the control panel.
Pieces of Rubble were pushed aside as a familiar hulking metal figure pushed them off itself. The still working mech faced me and retracted its weaponry. Letting out a laugh it raised its metal fists, I realized my .45 would never penetrate the armor so I only had one chance. Reaching to the left side on my waist with my right hand I could feel the cold rubber of my blade. Drawing the sword at my hip I took a defensive stance.
The mech charged me and before I could try any move it slammed into me causing me to fly into a nearby wall. It had been too long since I held my sword in combat. Getting to my feet I swiped the blade through the air and proceeded to slice off the ends of the extensive rebar stuck in my arm. The mech charged again but this time I did too. Once we got close the mech swung and using my forward momentum I jumped over the mech and flipped the blade to my underhand. I landed with a knee dropped and I thrusted the blade back through a chink in the mech's armor. I could hear a grunt as the life drained from the pilot inside the mech suit. The mech leaned forward and stopped moving, I withdrew my sword and swung to the side stopping it mid air causing the blood to leave the blade.
I sheathed the blade and examined the mech suit, the rocket caused extensive damage to the armor. One swarm missile launcher had been destroyed along with a radar device on the shoulder. I grabbed a handle on the back and pulled, the pilot was launched from the seat inside the mech.
I climbed inside and decided that my men had moved on thinking the Mech and Me were dead. After getting a feel for the controls, I found a wall that bordered the next room and took some distance from it. I charged and raised my left arm and smashed through the wall. Falling about 10 feet I found my men in cover behind me currently engaged in a firefight with 14+ enemy combatants. Landing with my left hand down I raised my torso so I can engage the enemies. Throwing my arm forward I engaged the minigun on my right arm. Pulling the trigger the sechs barrels started to spin until bullets sprayed at 2000 Rounds Per Second. Anyone who wasn't killed in the spray was injured and routing out of the building.
Tyler kicked down a door across the room and screamed, "FLASH".
I could hear a faint, "Lightning", on the other side of Tyler.
Tyler motioned for us to lower our weapons, I retracted the minigun and activated a cargo scan to see what all was left.
"So you're Grimm Reaper Squad huh? It's a shame you had to be sent to get me", The Scientist put on a demonic smile as he pulled a clacker from his pocket. It was in that moment the scan showed up with the words "Tactical Nuclear Device". The VIP depressed the switch and the mech suit went into lockdown, As soon as the switch was hit Gaige shot the Scientist in the head. No matter how hard I tried to open the mech or move I just couldn't. I gave up on escaping as I could feel my skin burn as the nuke went off. For some reason we didn't just die...But we suffered.