Callsign: Phoenix

Prologue

Standing alone on the once raging battlefield was a young man. He was tall with a muscular build that showed despite the damaged armor and helmet he wore. As he takes what's left of his helmet off, we see he has black hair and brown eyes. His face has a scar running across his left eye and another one that goes from under his right eye down to his jaw. This man is Commander Dunn, but on the battlefield, he's recognized by his callsign, Phoenix.

After he removed his helmet, he blinked a few times waiting for his eyes to adjust to the unfiltered light and air. His helmet had was designed to allow his vision to remain clear while he fought by removing obstructions from his view such as flashes of light or clouds of dust. Once he could see, he noticed something. Smoke. That's all Phoenix could see. So much smoke. All caused by the raging fires around him. It was starting to bug him, but he was the reason for all this smoke and fire. His battle had caused all of this. As he stood there among the smoke and raging fires, he began to smell something. It wasn't smoke. No, it was a much worse smell. One that he had unfortunately gotten used to due to the many battles he's been in over the past years. Death. The smell of death hung heavily in the air.

Phoenix slowly began to take in his surroundings. Here he stood, among hundreds of bodies. He took in the bodies of his allies, enemies, and the innocent people that got caught up in his battle. Looking around, he couldn't help but think about what a waste of life this battle had been. It hadn't accomplished anything. It had only spilled more blood. "I'm done with this. I'm done fighting this endless war" he spoke. He was alone. There wasn't any life around him. There was only death and destruction for miles on end. This whole time, he couldn't feel anything. He wasn't sure if it was the adrenaline rushing through him or the fact that he was so exhausted after the battle. He didn't really care and only knew he was just beginning to be able to feel his body again. The problem was that as the feeling returned, all he could feel at the moment was the pain coming from his abdomen. Phoenix placed his hand on his abdomen and then looked at it. His hand was covered in blood. From the looks of the wound and the amount of blood, Phoenix knew that he didn't have long before he passed out.

Phoenix looked at his gauntlet and activated a communicator. He waited a moment, and someone answered. "This is Command. Go ahead Phoenix." A voice rang. "This is Phoenix. The battle is over. I need pick up." "One moment," the voice said. Phoenix could hear other voices in the background. It sounded pretty chaotic there. After a few moments, the voice said, "Roger that Phoenix. How many are with you?" Phoenix looked around at all the bodies and sighed before saying "It's just me. I'm the only one left." The communicator went silent, a large difference from the craziness he had heard moments ago. All the people yelling, and all the chaos had just stopped. "Can you repeat your last transmission, Phoenix?" the voice said. Phoenix went to repeat himself but choked up. The memories of the past battle surged again, filling his mind with sadness. 'They're all dead. They all died because I was too weak. I was too weak to save them.' he thought. When he could finally speak, he said "I'm the only one who survived. Everyone else is dead. I wasn't able to save any of them." As he said this, he hung his head in shame. 'Why? Why did this have to happen? Why wasn't I strong enough to save any of them?' Then he heard the voice sigh and say "Pick up is enroute. ETA 10 minutes." Phoenix knew he would pass out from blood loss before they arrived. He looked down at his arm and a holographic display appeared. He activated his distress beacon so they would know where he was, and let the tiredness and blood loss take over and passed out.

***some time later***

When Phoenix woke up, the first thing he noticed was the bright white walls of the infirmary. He had gotten used to them being the first thing he saw when he woke up over the past years. Noticing he was all patched up, he got up and exited out into the hallway. He started passing people who just stared at him as he walked by. Who could blame them. Phoenix was six feet tall, decked out in armor. His armor was black, the type of black that makes it seem like light is being consumed by it. All over the armor was crimson markings, almost like tattoos. On the back of the armor was a crimson colored phoenix. His helmet had a crimson visor that made it seem like you were staring into the eyes of a demon, which along with his ruthlessness in battle earned him the name, "The Demon Phoenix." As he walked, he could hear people whispering. Whispering about how scary he looked. Whispering about how he lost his entire battalion. Along with the whispering, he noticed some people glaring at him. They were glaring because he was someone who was known for being unable to be controlled and therefore was a potential threat. Phoenix got tired of this and headed to the command center.

When he went in, he noticed that all the other commanders were gathered there. He nodded to a few of the ones he recognized from past battles. "Matthew!" Phoenix looked around. It wasn't often that someone called him by his actual name. He finally caught sight of one of the few friends he had here. Walking towards him was his best friend and brother in arms Commander Butch Dune. Butch was a tall young man with dirty blonde hair and bright green eyes, which stood out against the white officer uniform he was wearing. "Butch, what are you doing here? I thought you were stationed on Sigma 9?" Phoenix asked. "Yeah, I was until all of the top ranking commanders received orders to return to headquarters. It came from the General himself, so it must be important," said Butch.

As Phoenix looked around, he noticed that most of the people here were the powerhouses of their military. For some reason, he started to feel uneasy. But he soon forgot about that uneasiness when he heard a woman's voice behind him. He turned around to see another one of his friends, Commander Molly Hopkins. Molly was about two inches shorter than him. She was wearing her armor too. It looked kind of like his, except her armor was crimson with black markings and her helmet had an onyx visor and horns. That's what got her the name "Devil's Daughter." "Hello Matthew. Butch." she said. "Hey Molly," Phoenix and Butch said together. Phoenix turned his head. That feeling was back and was growing. Right as he was about to say something about it, there was a rumble which shook the floor. Everyone in the room started murmuring about the rumble when a sudden bright light filled the room. An explosion filled Phoenix's ears. Phoenix couldn't see anything. His mind was racing trying to figure out what happened. Where was Molly? Where was Butch? What happened to everyone? Phoenix tried to move but no luck. 'Why can't I move?' he thought. He noticed he was getting sleepy and the more he struggled, the sleepier he got. The last thing he heard before he fell asleep was a deep, gravelly voice saying, "Looks like you were weaker than I thought, Demon Phoenix."