Authors note: This story is not dying anytime soon. Now that I have no college for now, I can actually spend some time with these chapters. I also decided to add some new characters from the Sleg point of view to get a different perspective of the world I created, and to show that not all the Slegs are assholes which is what a lot of people think about them. I'll go into the new enemy in the tunnels next chapter and I promise that it will be awesome and longer than this chapter, which is quite short. As usual, please review and enjoy the new chapter.
P.S. - If you get the fitting reference I made with the title chapter, you are awesome.
Chapter 13: Opposing Forces
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The group still travelled down on the road, galloping slowly since they were not in a rush to run from the Slegs at the moment. Wendy knew this road well since she used it often to travel to Gravity Falls, avoiding the occasional Sleg convoy that passed through to deliver supplies or transferring citizens to the town and back, other than that, the Slegs never really established too much control of this road, mostly because the military was too busy waging military campaigns against the rebels under Xon's orders, not having the proper manpower nor time to establish a secure route on the road the group was on now.
"So Wendy, what's it like being a rebel?" Asked Mabel, wondering how her life is as a rebel. "Just kind of curious."
Wendy sighed heavily before responding. "It's not easy."
"I'd imagine going up against the Slegs is no easy task." Said Dipper, just as curious as Mabel.
"It's not just the Slegs, there's also the new lifestyle you have to adopt." Explained Wendy, making a grim look on her face. "You're always on edge for everything around you. Every day you have to watch for danger, every sound you hear, every sight you see, it makes you think that everything is out to get you. The Slegs don't help with that lifestyle, since they're always trying to hunt every one of us down, so we always have to be on the move unless we find a place that could be called home base."
"Like the base we're going to?" Inquired Dipper.
"Exactly." Answered Wendy. "But even then, it's still rough. I've seen a lot of people die in my eyes, in more ways than I care to imagine. Loss is very common in our struggle, and when we lose one of our own, we just have to deal with it and move on to continue the fight, never having enough time to properly mourn our dead before the military strikes us and kills more of our people."
"How many people died?" Asked Dipper, before immediately regretting his curiosity to ask the question.
"Too many." Answered Wendy softly, while Nate and Lee stayed silent. "Too many died."
Wendy then lowered her head solemnly, thinking back to the people she saw die in front of her own eyes, until Mabel broke the small silence in the group.
"Wendy I… I'm so sorry." Apologized Mabel. "What I said before about rebels being cool… I didn't mean to-
"It's okay." Said Wendy, lifting her head up and stopped thinking back to her darker thoughts as she looked at Dipper. "Just… try to ask questions that aren't so personal next time, okay?"
Dipper nodded at Wendy, sparing her from any more questions about the resistance, she looked like she didn't want to talk about it right now.
After a long silence in the group, Dipper decided that it was time to change the topic. "I uh- I want to say thanks, since I've never had the opportunity to say thanks before."
Wendy smiled at the kind compliment, which cheered her up a bit from the last conversation. "No problem. I wasn't going to leave you and everyone else behind."
"I know you wouldn't. Stan would have been proud of you." Said Dipper, making Wendy frown slightly out of guilt at the mention of Stan.
"Yeah, he would have." Agreed Wendy, still thinking back to her lie from before. "And I'm proud of you."
"For what?" Asked Dipper.
"For not giving up." Answered Wendy, turning her head to face Dipper. "A lot of people in your position would have given up after having a tragedy like that happen, but you're strong. We need more people like you."
"Oh wow. Uh, I don't what to say." Smiled Dipper, taken back by Wendy's words. "Thanks."
"No problem." Said Wendy, as the two stared into each other's eyes before Wendy broke away and looked ahead, while Dipper blushed without Wendy looking.
The rest of the group trotting on their horses close by the two noticed the whole scene play out, as Mabel began gossiping about the two with Nate, Lee, and Soos silently so Dipper and Wendy wouldn't hear.
"He likes her again." Said Mabel, pointing out Dipper's blushing. "My brother would never blush like that unless he likes her."
"Didn't Doctor Funtimes have a crush on her before?" Asked Lee.
"Yeah, but that was ten years ago. Now Dipper isn't twelve or so sweaty and awkward like he used to be." Said Mabel, before looking back at her brother briefly to see him nervously hold on to Wendy to not fall of the horse. "Okay, I take that back, he's still awkward."
"You really think they could actually, you know, get together?" Asked Soos, more concerned about Dipper with Wendy's tendency to lie.
"Absolutely. Love conquers all!" Exclaimed Mabel, making Dipper and Wendy glance over to Mabel.
"What are you talking about?" Asked Dipper curiously, while Lee decided to respond.
"We talking about you and-
"How awesome you are." Interrupted Nate. "Since you got this cool shotgun with you and all, Wendy should teach you how to shoot."
"Nate's right." Agreed Wendy. "If we ever run into anything dangerous, you'll need to know how to use that thing properly."
"Maybe you can teach him before we stop for the day?" Suggested Nate, which Wendy agreed with.
"Sure. You and I are going target practice tonight, Dip." Said Wendy, making Dipper glad to hear that. 'Thanks Nate."
"No problem." Replied Nate, while Mabel turned to Nate with an excited look on her face.
"Did you just set them up on a date?" Asked Mabel excitingly.
"Not intentionally. But this guy here gave me no choice." Answered Nate, nodding his head to Lee.
"It was all part of the plan." Said Lee, trying to come up with an excuse for his outburst.
"No it wasn't." Said Nate.
"Or was it?" Asked Lee, which made Nate shake his head as he faced Mabel.
"So how about you, Mabel? Anyone special in your life?" Asked Nate, which made Mabel smirk at the question.
"Always free for you, handsome." Joked Mabel, which made Nate chuckle at the joke.
"Thanks for the offer, but I'm taken." Said Nate, as Lee butted into the conversation.
"He's with Tambry now." Said Lee, as Mabel gasped with glee.
"Really? Congratulations." Said Mabel happily. "How is she anyways?"
"She's fine, though she's still sad about not seeing Robbie again." Said Nate, as he wondered something. "You haven't seen him in Gravity Falls have you?"
Mabel's smile quickly disappeared, remembering what happened to Robbie when his name was mentioned. "He's… he's dead. I tried to save him but there was nothing I could do."
Nate and Lee then frowned at the answer, not expecting to hear that form Mabel as Lee cursed to himself.
"Shit. What am I going to say to her?" Asked Nate, wondering how to break the news to Tambry.
"I'll tell her about Robbie, just in case she won't get mad at you." Offered Mabel, while thinking back to Robbie again and sighed heavily.
Before Nate could change the topic, the group could see a CSF APC driving straight towards them, which looked like it was in a rush.
"Off the road, now!" Shouted Wendy to the group, making the horses gallop into the woods nearby, hoping that the APC didn't spot them.
Luckily enough, the APC drove past the group, not even bothering to stop as it sped away as fast as it could. When it was gone, the group went back on the road to continue onward.
"That was a close one." Said Soos, relieved that CSF didn't spot them.
"Strange. It looked like they were in a rush." Said Dipper, suspicious of the APC. "You know anything about that, Wendy?"
"Not really." Answered Wendy, just as suspicious as Dipper. "I don't know why they would drive so fast."
The group just continued on the road, close to reaching the tunnel that they had to go through to be one step closer to leaving the region and away from CSF, not having a single clue as to what lies ahead of the group.
O-O-O
Miles away from the human fugitives is a military dropship flying low altitude along the same road the humans travelled on. The dropship is colored in forest green and is about thirty meters in length, with small wings on its sides that had a small engine on each wing, giving the dropship extra speed and mobility, along with two larger engines on the top back, while the rest of the rear was the troop bay door for soldiers to enter and exit, the cockpit of the dropship had two pilots, one in front while the other behind, the pilot who operated the vehicle was in front while the co-pilot behind operated the rotary gun on the front of the ship, the design of the ship was quite bulky since it was made for carrying troops while providing some air support with the gun in front, and despite the bulky appearance, the dropship still well as a troop transport, capable of holding at least twenty four troops in the troop bay, along with a few extra soldiers if there weren't enough seats.
The interior of the troop bay did have twenty four seats, making it able to effectively transport two squads of soldiers to whatever destination they needed to go, though only one squad of twelve soldiers were sitting in the transport, including the Sargent who was the squad leader, deciding to stand close by the troop bay door, facing his squad while holding on to a railing above him.
The Sleg soldiers had a more battle ready appearance than CSF, since every aspect about the soldiers was twice as better than CSF. The squad had eight Geckens and Five Guanians, the Sargent standing was one of the Guanians, and most were armed with standard issue assault rifles that were similar in appearance to the XM8 rifle, colored in a shade of black and equipped with a scope, while two Geckens and Guanians were equipped with semi-automatic combat shotguns, similar appearance to a Benelli M4, also colored in a shade of black and could hold about ten shells, and one Guanian and Gecken were armed with light machine guns, similar in appearance to a SAW machine gun, with a clip capacity of one hundred fifty bullets, and as backup side arms each soldier had a pistol, in similar appearance to a berretta, so the military had much deadlier weapons than CSF had, along with proper military training for combat situations.
The soldier's appearances were also different, instead of wearing ballistic vests, the soldiers had black military combat armor, covering the entire torso region and were made with stronger metals that were more durable and flexible, while wearing black tactical utility vests with a lighter shade of black, which mostly carried ammo and a combat knife, the military uniforms the soldiers wore is colored in forest green camo, along with the black combat armor, the soldiers also had black elbow and knee pads just as durable and flexible as the combat armor, with black combat boots, black tactical gloves and their ballistics helmets, which were colored in the same forest green camo as the uniform, the combat masks the soldiers wore were also made from the same material as the armor, they were thicker and had one nozzle on the mask where the mouth was for their vocoders, they were still equipped with a vocoder voice in the masks, but they did not hide the voices of the soldiers and made them sound who they were, and instead of CB radios, the radios were installed in the masks so there was no need of the small radios, and instead of tinted glass lens, the lens were colored blue and acted as some kind of tech googles that provided night vision for the darkness instead of being glass lens. Needless to say, the military were much more powerful than CSF.
Most of the squad had their masks off and just engaged in small talk with other squad mates or checked their gear for their mission, one particular Gecken with yellow scales had his mask in his hands, his rifle by his side as he just stared at his mask intently, stuck in his thoughts as to what was happening.
This was the Gecken's very first combat mission, he was straight out of boot camp and it was his very first day on Earth for his first day of military service, and already he had to go into a firefight. He was nervous, not expecting to fight on day one of being in service with the IAF, Imperial Armed Forces, and he had no desire to fight in the first place, especially not in the infantry, it wasn't his choice since he was conscripted into the army, only sixteen years old and yet his "glorious Empire" had no problems conscripting people his age, simple people who wanted to live normal lives but were forced into combat by their government.
The soldiers in his squad were all combat hardened and have been into multiple firefights before him, the only reason he was transferred to such a squad was because of a last minute decision by his superiors to put him in the squad, due to a sudden loss of a fellow squad mate yesterday by natural causes and the squad needed to be at full strength for their mission. He felt alone since he didn't really talk to any of them, nothing to really relate to since he was fresh meat, he stayed in his thoughts until a Gecken with rough olive green scales and his assault rifle on his side spoke to the young Gecken across.
"Hey kid." Said the Gecken across, getting the young Gecken's attention as he lifted his head to face him. "I haven't seen you before."
"I'm new." Said the young Gecken lowly.
"I can tell, smooth scales." Said the Gecken across, pointing out the young Gecken's scales. "You don't look like you've seen combat. First time?"
"Yeah." Said the young Gecken, somewhat surprised that someone would actually speak to him. "Just got out of boot camp."
Then a dark green scaled Guanian with a shotgun and shotgun bandolier across his chest next to the Gecken across by his left whistled surprisingly and spoke. "Bad day, huh? Sucks to be you."
"Cut the kid some slack, Brok." Said the Guanian next to the young Gecken's left, with his light machine gun in his arms and slightly lighter dark green scales, looking like he was making sure his gun wasn't jammed. "He didn't say anything to you."
"You always were a softy, Jorg." Scoffed Brok, as the Gecken next to him elbowed the Guanian at his arm.
"Can you two save the arguing after the mission? Then I can kick both your asses, corporal style." ordered the corporal, as the two Guanians gave each other annoyed gazes before the Gecken shotgunner talked to the young Gecken again. "Sorry about that. It's just been a while since we had anything to do. Our first mission in months."
"It's fine." Said the young Gecken understandably, not really much of a talker right now.
"What's your name, kid?" Asked the corporal.
"Private Tarkeen, sir." Replied the young Gecken. "My first name is Selick."
The corporal smiled as he extended his hand, while Selick extended his hand as well to shake it. "Corporal Veklarian. Just call me Vek for short."
After exchanging their greetings, Vek decided to introduce Selick to the rest of his squad.
"You've already seen Jorg and Brok." Said Vek, pointing to the two Guanians, with Jorg nodding to Selick while Brok just slightly motioned his head up. "Private Jorg is our machine gunner and provides all kinds of support for us, he also carries most of the ammo for the squad in case we run out."
"Just call me if you ever need extra bullets, I have plenty to spare for everyone. I'm a nice guy like that." Said Jorg humbly to Selick, while Brok just rolled his eyes.
"Sucking up to the rookie? Bah." Said Brok, as Vek pointed to the Guanian.
"Private Brok is a bit of a hardass, but he's really damn good at close quarter's combat, some of the best I've ever seen. He can take on twenty humans and live, which he did." Said Vek, introducing Brok as well as he looked at Selick intimidatingly.
"Basically, don't fuck with me." Said Brok as he loaded his shotgun with shotgun shells, while a Gecken with dark yellow scales next to Selick chuckled sardonically.
"A shame all the glory went to his head. Making him an even bigger asshole than he already is." Said the dark yellow Gecken, who also had a shotgun while Brok ignored the Gecken's quip.
"That's private Zazubarr. Usually he's a rifleman like you and me, but not for this mission. He's still pretty accurate though." Said Vek, as Zazubarr introduced himself to Selick.
"I insisted that I wanted to keep my rifle and play sniper, but I remembered that free speech is a myth. So I got fucked with that one." Said Zazubarr, as he loaded shotgun slugs, made for more long range targets, instead of shells in his shotgun. "Oh uh, call me Zaz for short, I hate long ass names like that."
Selick nodded in response as Vek introduced the last member of the squad, a Gecken with light green scales who looked like he was adjusting the frequency of the vocoder on his mask.
"The last member here is Private Meakrous. A rifleman like you, me and Zaz, although an extra benefit to him is that he's a techie so if anything is broken, he can fix it." Said Vek, introducing Meakrous as he nodded but was focused on fixing his mask.
"Meeko is also a HUGE nerd." Quipped Zaz, making Meeko lift his head to look at Zaz, with an annoyed expression.
"I'm a geek, not a nerd. There's actually a difference between the two." Corrected Meeko as he looked at Selick. "Really, there is."
"Told you he's a nerd." Said Zaz, as Meeko sighed and went back to repairing his mask.
"Welcome to the team." Said Vek, as Selick nodded respectively.
"Thank you, sir. I won't let you down." Said Selick, while Zaz decided to interrupt the conversation.
"Just don't die too quickly, kid." Quipped Zaz as he patted Selick's shoulder. "Stick with me and you'll live for at least three years on the hellhole, like me for example."
"I give him at least three seconds." Spoke up Brok. "Conscripts like him don't last too long."
"I'll manage." Responded Selick in a calm demeanor.
"We'll see." Said Brok as he loaded his shotgun, while Jorg decided to speak to Selick
"Don't worry about Brok, he'll warm up to you. He gave everyone else the same treatment." Assured Jorg, while Selick nodded in response and went back into his thoughts, staring back into his mask, thinking about what he was about to get into.
It was going to be one hell of a day.
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Disclaimer: I don't own Gravity Falls, but I do own the Slegs and my Sleg characters, along with the new enemy I will introduce properly next chapter.