Somewhere in Madagascar, 0100 Hours

Another bullet hit the sand colored wall in front, and Shadow flung himself down, cursing, waiting for the enemy's burst to cease. His team members did the same; one slightly braver than the rest, his belt fed machine gun continuing to pour lead into any space in front of the compound where he detected movement - real or imagined.

The hits ceased. Knees digging into the hard beige ceiling, Shadow continued to return fire over the low wall. Only a few figures were completely visible at this range, and even though his weapon was of a lower caliber and accuracy in comparison to a human's assault rifle, he managed to drop each of the less fortunate terrorists with ease.

This defense is just ten minutes old and it's becoming a struggle, he thought.

For the first time since boot camp, his energy spilled out into the world around him as though the cup holding it had shattered. His body searched frantically for its life power, searching, trying, failing. He recognized the signs of withdrawal surfacing: sweat, hunger, his body weakening. Nausea kicked in, his gut lurching, and he paused to rest his head against the cool wall, breathing deeply, trying to keep his disgusting MREs in his stomach.

He had to get the message out.

"Fuck!" he shouted, more out of pain then frustration. He had to get the message out. Through the nausea, almost throwing him, he called, "They've got their hands on a Chaos limiter!"

He should have suggested taking action sooner. Now, with the anthros' ability to move quickly neutralized, the platoon had no choice but to stand and fight.

How did the poorly funded largely civilian militia managed to get their hands on such an expensive piece of technology? It didn't matter in the heat of the moment, and Shadow pushed the thought away as an RPG's rocket flew just over the building he was in.

He couldn't hear a thing through the ringing in his ears. They'd had no time to get ear protection on as Boko Haram had attacked in the dead of night, with no one prepared for the assault. If Shadow's combat-oriented hearing couldn't pick up any other sounds, no one in the entire area could either.

The G.U.N platoon was trapped.

Someone patted his shoulder, and he ducked behind the wall to find the Polish soldier he'd known since boot camp, speaking to him in rapid, worried hand signals.

How much power can you draw through this? he gestured, hands moving swiftly in front of his grenade launcher equipped rifle.

Just enough for a single Chaos Spear, but there's no way I can get close enough to use it, Shadow signed back.

The Pole cursed under his breath, raising his weapon to aim and launch a forty mike mike towards the enemy they thought they saw. Shadow returned to his position, seeing many more figures moving through the dark. Every shot he fired kicked up sand and dust into his face, and debris flung into his eyes. He switched to fully automatic and sprayed down the enemies' area, blinking his way through the pain. Tears welled, trying to force the dust out.

The warrior's gun stopped firing, the magazine empty. It dropped to the floor as he drew another from his plate carrier. Once locked and loaded, he raised himself once again to find that the enemy was charging. He stared, dumbstruck for a moment, then calculated quickly with his heart sinking in his chest. He knew he shouldn't; it was a waste of time, but he couldn't help but think of the hopelessness of the situation.

There's hundreds of them... there's only fifty of us.

Finally, resigned, he pushed the calculations out of his head and concentrated on dropping the suicidal insurgents one by one.

Although he couldn't hear the bullets going by, he could feel the sonic boom of each round pounding in his chest. At this point, Shadow had stopped paying attention to the bullets narrowly missing him, ignoring the enemies' sporadic fire and standing to kill another insurgent that was too close for him to hit otherwise.

To his side, a man was hit, though he didn't even pay mind to it. Shadow watched almost dumbstruck as the wounded man ignored the missing flesh from his shoulder and kept firing, barrel resting on the wall.

Then it happened.

A flash, out the corner of his eyes. When he looked, he could see the faint smoke trail following a rocket. Opening his mouth, he barely had time to scream a warning before it was drowned out by the RPG thudding into the building.

"INCOMING!"

The structure collapsed. The roof he was standing on dropped out from beneath him.

There was no time to scream, yelp or even think. Shadow hit the ground on his back, and knew nothing more.