Chapter 9: The Rose's Tale

Temple Prime

Bosnia-Herzegovina

Confessor Ragnok watched in horror as he saw the Deacon raise his right hand. The twisted, mangled face of Confessor Xander leered at him as his hand smoothly transformed into a Supercharged Particle Beam cannon, aimed right at Ragnok's head.

Confessor Ragnok's mouth went dry. He simply could not let these...abominations take control of the Confessors. He had despised cyborgs greatly, abominations to natural life. Yet here he stood at the mercy of the most powerful cyborgs Nod had ever created. Ragnok stared at General Anton Rolf, horror-struck.

"General...WHY?"

General Rolf gave him a sad smile. "Sorry, Ragnok, but times have changed. It seems you are no longer needed."

Ragnok's mouth gaped as the cannon began to charge. He began to scream, "No!" as the Particle Beam cannon unleashed a terrifying blast that threw Ragnok off his feet, sending him slamming into the wall with such force that cracks appeared, marking the spot of impact. Ragnok's body slid to the floor, his mouth agape in an endless scream, a large gaping hole in his armor. Blood painted the walls behind him, in a grisly mosaic.

General Rolf prodded Ragnok's body, satisfied. "For the record, Ragnok, you were far too annoying to be included in the project." He turned to the Blackfriar and the Deacon, nodding approvingly."Nice colour," he added to Ragnok's unmoving body, noticing the blood stains on the wall. He turned back to the Blackfriar and the Deacon. "Excellent work, my warriors. Now, we can truly take over Nod once and for all!"

The room almost shook with the sound of evil laughter.

Meanwhile...

Belarus, Minsk

As the powerful artillery shell slammed into the ground, First Sergeant Jacob Bertenrath of the Zone Troopers was thrown off his feet. He rolled to his feet and turned just in time to see a Nod Militant aim his assault rifle at him. He reached for his railgun and blew the militant to pieces. Beside him, Private Hector Gerald and Corporal Victor Deckerman raised their railguns and fired. The Attack Bike that was heading towards them exploded outward in twisted, melted metal, burning rubber and shrapnel.

Sergeant Bertenrath gritted his teeth. There was just too many of them. No matter how many they killed or destroyed, more Nod infantry and vehicles just took their place. He turned behind and smiled as he saw GDI APCs rolling steadily forward, their machine guns blazing away at everything that moved. Suddenly, he saw a flash of movement, and to his horror, eight Nod Stealth Tanks materialized out of nowhere.

They fired.

The APCs were practically gutted by the hail of rockets fired by the Stealth Tanks. The APCs cracked into pieces before exploding into bursts of fire, melted metal and body parts. Private Gerald winced to himself as he heard the screams of those unlucky to be trapped inside. All that remained of the APCs were their skeletons and giant scorch marks on the ground.

"Hello? ANYONE!? Any GDI units in the area, RESPOND! We are under heavy fire and need assistance! Repeat, WE NEED ASSISTANCE NOW!" Sergeant Bertenrath screamed into his radio. They were seriously at risk of being overrun very soon. As he turned, a Nod Tiberium Trooper squad came up, spraying corrosive liquid Tiberium everywhere. The Zone Troopers managed to blow them away, but not before Corporal Deckerman and Sergeant Bertenrath were hit by the corrosive sludge. Their armor hissed as the sludge burned right through it.

Suddenly, a familiar voice came on his headset.

"We're right behind you, Bertenrath. Hold your position..."

Sergeant Bertenrath couldn't believe it. "Raymond! You there?"

Staff Sergeant Tricia Raymond came back over the radio. "We're almost there..."

As a new wave of Nod vehicles and infantry rushed towards them, he sky was filled with GDI Hammerhead gunships, their dual Vulcan cannons blazing away, raining bullets down upon the Nod forces, shredding infantry in their wake. As the Attack Bikes, Raider Buggies, Militant Rocket Squads and Mantises prepared to fire back, a shower of sonic grenades bombarded the ground below, smashing the vehicles below to smithereens. However, the missiles soon took their toll, and three Hammerheads exploded in fiery balls, spiralling wildly before crashing to the ground.

The lead Hammerhead landed next to the Zone Troopers and Staff Sergeant Tricia Raymond, Lieutenant Susan Anderson and Lieutenant Erin Samuels stepped off the gunship. Lieutenant Eric Jansen and Captain Warren Schaefer of the Zone Troopers followed suit.

"We brought a little help," Staff Sergeant Raymond smiled as multiple other figures stepped off the Hammerhead. GDI Sniper Teams. The Sniper Team commanding officers were Middle-Eastern, well-built and had casually slung their GLS-70 sniper railguns over their shoulders.

"Captain Khalid Omar and Sergeant-Major Feisal Ahmed at your service," the sniper commanding officers smiled. "Need somebody taken out?"

"Yeah," grimaced Sergeant Bertenrath in pain. "A lot of somebodies..."

The snipers slid their sniper railguns to their eyes and casually took aim.

"I see three squads of Tiberium Troopers coming our way..." muttered a Sniper Team soldier. As one, the snipers fired. "Make that two squads." They fired again twice. "And then there were none..."

Just then, a few GDI Juggernauts trundled up to their position, while being strafed angrily by Nod Venoms like bees. The Zone Raiders casually fired a few surface-to-air missiles and blew them out of the sky. The Zone Troopers who could still fight and Zone Raiders took up covering positions around the Juggernauts. One of the Juggernaut drivers raised his hatch.

"Can you get the coordinates for the Nod base defences over there?" asked the Juggernaut drivers. He primed the three massive 200mm cannons on his Juggernaut, preparing to key in the coordinates and direct a bombardment. Captain Khalid Omar and Sergeant-Major Feisal Ahmed crawled slowly, not giving away their position.

Then came Captain Khalid Omar's voice

"Coordinates for base defences are 120, 549. Bring the rain!"

The Juggernauts raised their cannons to the sky and fired, a crescendo of artillery shells blasting into the sky.

Captain Khalid Omar and Sergeant-Major Feisal Ahmed watched in grim satisfaction as the shells descended on the Nod base defences and reduced them to rubble. The GDI forces swarmed into the base en masse.

Nod Forward Base

Lisbon, Portugal

In the Nod base, all was quiet.

And in the silence, a Nod Commando was busy counting to herself as she did pull-ups. Her body shook and she gritted her teeth as she painstakingly pulled herself up. Her lithe, svelte body was matted with perspiration.

"...98...99...100."

At the last pull, she levered herself over the bar and held the pose for five seconds, before flipping back down and rolling to her feet. As Natalya got back up, she massaged her burning muscles. She checked the twenty-four clock. It was already 2030.

Shit. She hurriedly rushed out of her quarters and headed off into the forest next to the base. As she ran into the forest, she saw Marc leaning casually against a tree.

Marc smiled and she threw her arms around him. They held each other as they looked up into the dark night, at the moon shining in the sky. There was a long, awkward silence.

Then Marc spoke.

"Natalya, if you don't mind...could you tell me why you joined Nod in the first place?"

Natalya was taken aback. She looked away for a long moment, before she looked back at him. She took a deep breath.

"When I was young, my whole family lived in Irkutsk. We were so happy back then. We were all so sure we were safe. Safe from the war. That is, until GDI announced it was going to bomb the city next to ours, where a large Nod base was contained.

"But something..." Natalya looked up at Marc, and he saw small tears starting to form in her eyes. "Something went wrong. GDI used the Ion Cannon on Irkutsk by mistake. Razed the whole city to the ground. I was at home when it happened, and I was the only one who made it to the basement in time. The rest of my family..." A tear started to roll down her cheek. There was no need to complete the sentence.

Marc was shocked. "God...the Ion Cannon..." He could imagine it himself. The superheated blue beams forming in the centre of the city then spiralling inwards and converging at dead centre, before the killing blow. The horrible shockwave and ion blast, as building and flesh alike vaporized. "Were...were you the only one?"

"Yes. I had nowhere to go, so I went to another town and begged in the streets. I learned a lot from there." She half-smiled. "More than anything I had ever learned in school. Then along came a couple who were willing to take me in. They said they were delighted to adopt a child.

"And what did they do? They made me their personal slave. I was forced to do their every bidding, no matter how menial. Every day I had to work, and I was beaten often." Natalya turned around and raised a corner of her shirt. Marc's eyes widened as he saw a few long, thin red lines down her back, scarring the smooth, pale skin of her back.

"And then, when it all got too much, I ran away and joined Nod."

Marc nodded. "And then you became a Nod Commando." As she looked up at him again, he noticed a new light in her eyes. Even though she was a Nod Commando and killing was second nature to her, her eyes still shone of innocence. Now her eyes had the light of someone who had been to hell and back.

As Marc watched, Natalya turned and rested her head on his shoulder. Marc turned to look at her, finally realising what she had gone through.

"Have you told anyone else this?" he asked.

Natalya shook her head. "But now you know, so let's just keep this our little secret."

Nod Headquarters

Ayers Rock, Australia

As Kane stepped into the room, the members of Nod's Inner Circle solemnly stood up. They were glum, knowing that GDI was rapidly advancing on Temple Prime. However, Kane appeared calm and collected.

"Gentlemen," Kane muttered, "there shall be no unhappy faces at this meeting." As Brother Marcion and the other members of the Inner Circle looked up at him in disbelief, Kane smiled.

"Yes, GDI is advancing upon Temple Prime. But even so, they have forgotten something very important..." Kane pointed to a map, to the south of the world. The Inner Circle gasped, then chuckled menacingly.

Both sides were sure of victory. So sure, in fact, that both of them failed to see the Scrin ships preparing for landing. The Scrin Overlord stood at the bridge of the Mothership.

"Deploy the landing craft..." From the bridge, he watched in growing satisfaction as the Scrin Drone Platforms and landing craft streaked down to Earth.