Forlay's Command
By: Forlay
Forlay pushed back her hair as another drop of rain fell through the thin fabric of the tent and landed on her head. "Damn rain. Damn war," she muttered. She'd never liked the idea of this war. True, she may love a good fight, and she loved killing characters off in a story, but when great writers began to succumb to writer's block thanks to the anti-fic bullets, it was going too far.
As she looked over the battle plans, she began to wonder how she'd ended up here. How had she become the leader of an army of some of the best writer's the Animorphs Fan Fic community? And how was she expected to fight a war when every hour it was reported that more authors had been sent home with writer's block?
There was a blast of fresh air in the cramped tent. Forlay looked up, "Oh. Hi, Bob."
"Hey," he said, dropping his helmet on the muddy ground. Why did this war have to be fought in the middle of a hurricane? she thought absently.
"This entire war is going to come to an end you know." She said. "We only have a few really good writers left. More and more often, after their writing ability comes back, they don't return to fight." She sighed, if they would just stick it out and return, they'd have a sure chance of winning! "Look at this," She pointed along the river "If we send a small contingent of writers up this way…"
"Ma'am! Ma'am!" Forlay and Bob looked up when DeathGrip ran into the room, nearly looking panicked. She gave a hasty salute to her superior and began giving the report. "Rb and D.M.P. are making a move! They're coming across the open ground!"
"That's suicidal!"
"What is she, Crazy?"
DeathGrip shrugged, gave another salute and ran back out of the tent. Forlay grabbed her gun and her helmet and ran out of the tent right behind DeathGrip.
"Hold your fire till you see the whites of their eyes!" she ordered, running through the battle field, getting to a safe point behind a trench. What to do next? she wondered quickly, knowing she didn't have time to debate her decisions. "And break out the machine guns!" she yelled. Those were supposed to be saved for an emergency, but she figured D.M.P. and Rb trying to invade their trenches constituted as an emergency.
She almost smiled as she saw DG quickly secure a rapid fire gun for herself. She should have been the commander, Forlay thought. She'd be a natural. Then she shook that thought off. How could she try and wish this fate onto a friend?
The enemy forces started yelling as they charged the trenches. Her forces threw up shields, trying to deflect the bullets, but the bullets were coming too fast.
"There's too many!" L'Angel shouted in desperation.
Here comes the fun part, Forlay thought as she got up from her crouch and ran behind her troops, shouting orders to hold their ground. How did D.M.P. and Rb get so many? But soon, there wasn't time to wonder.
"They're in the trenches!" AniBlaire shouted as the first troops spilled over into her army's trenches.
"No!" Forlay shouted, enraged. Nobody was going to get into her army's trenches and live to write the tale. "Give them all you've got!"
Writer's on both sides were disappearing almost too fast to follow. Forlay rolled into a spot directly behind the trench wall that had been filled by Andagorilla only seconds before. She began opening fire on every enemy soldier she saw. Some of her best writer's were gone, and wouldn't be able to grace the net community with their writing for days, possibly even weeks, in extreme cases. She'd avenge the worst punishment a fan fic writer could get by dishing it right back out.
"Hi, Forlay."
Forlay spun around, ready to fire, but stopped when she recognized the voice and face. It was Rb, her long time friend. This was what their war had come down to, friends firing on friends. "Hi, Rb," she replied coldly.
"Enjoying the little skirmish we're having?"
"Little skirmish?" Forlay asked, incredulous. "Rb, awesome writers are loosing their writing ability! How can you call that little?" She flinched as she felt a bullet kick up mud behind her. That was close, she thought.
Rb looked annoyed for a minute, then said, "My side hasn't lost all that much."
Forlay looked around the forces in the trench quickly. An obvious bluff on Rb's part, their forces were about equal, and when she had charged, her side had actually had more writers. "We're about even, Rb. That much is obvious. You had more troops than me and we're equal. You've lost more."
Another bullet hit the mud behind Forlay. Rb's eyes flared in anger. Forlay wondered what was making Rb so angry. "It's an easy shot! HIT HER!"
Forlay spun around and ducked, figuring Rb was talking about her. The anti-fic bullet just barely missed her head. Rb ducked out of the way of the bullet just in time. Forlay wasn't sure how she felt about that.
Forlay began searching the remaining enemy troops for who had been shooting at her. She caught a glimpse of D.M.P. ducking away from her line of sight. There's the attacker, she thought and started after D.M.P.
"D.M.P.!" Forlay shouted, trying to get the renegade stop. D.M.P. glanced over her shoulder quickly, and kept running, ducking behind Forlay's troops whenever possible to avoid getting shot.
After a roundabout run through the trenches, Forlay finally had D.M.P. cornered. "Trying to shoot me in the back, eh?" she asked the delusional, manic-depressed, psychopathic writer. "That's not very nice."
"Um...um...I was following orders?" D.M.P. suggested feebly.
"Uh-huh," Forlay said unmercifully. She raised her gun, ready to avenge her fallen friends, when almost faster than her eye could follow, D.M.P. had her own gun raised.
And fired.
Forlay quickly pulled the trigger, more as a reflex as she ducked than actually wanting to hit D.M.P. with one of the dreaded anti-fic bullets. She felt a something hit her shoulder, and she began to feel groggy. Her last conscious thought on the battle field was seeing D.M.P., having been hit by her bullet, slowly dematerialized, heading back home.
Forlay jerked up, suddenly aware she was back at her computer, not commanding an army. "Dang it!" she shouted. She opened up her writing program, opened her current fic, and tried to write. Nothing happened. The unthinkable had happened: she'd been hit by D.M.P.'s anti-fic bullet.
She closed the story and logged off-line, seeing none of her 'troops' were still on-line. Probably watching TV or reading, trying to recover from their ordeal.
"Untill next time," she said ominously. "And there's always a next time."