Disclaimer: I do not own bleach! All credits go to Tite Kubo
Soul Society East (Somewhere in the air)
By now it was very close to midnight and the sky had been filled with clouds, although the day earlier had been fairly cloudy aswell, and anyone under the clouds if close enough could hear the roar of the propeller engines of the Quincy transport aircrafts, which was flying just over the clouds which assisted in keeping them hidden from view along with the darkness as they didn't have any lights on.
Wingmen accompanied them temporarily to function as an escort just in case they end up meeting hostile flyers, as Ichigo didn't want to leave the transport planes unprotected as they didn't possess any self defensive measures like the bombers and was completely unarmed, as they were never intended for these kinds of operations in the first place but rather to fly behind friendly lines with supplies and troops from point A to point B or to just fly inside the Wandenreich between bases and airports for various transport missions.
Inside the aircraft the paratroopers was sitting in waiting for their time to jump out, in the meantime they were bored, either playing with something, taking a smoke, sleeping or just staring at the roof, they weren't really in a very talkative mood as they were all nervous as something like this had never been done in the spiritual world before, if anything it was unheard of, and they knew that once they jumped, they'd be completely surrounded on all sides and cut off from any assistance unless the planes was willing to come with an additional batch of paratroopers as reinforcements.
The pilots on the other hand were looking all around, trying to see if there was enemies or any notable mark that would indicate their recent position, their radars failed when they flew over the infested forest, most likely due to the presence of some special hellspawn or something that caused a malfunction in either the transmitter or reciever, not that it mattered because the radars on all transport aircrafts had failed completely.
Unlike the bombers, these radars weren't created with any form of reishi or reiatsu protection to protect against reishi or reiatsu that might cause a backlash, which was a major flaw in their design if they were to conduct parajump missions, of course replacing the radar behind the nose cone on an aircraft was easy as the nose cone radar was compatible with those of the bombers as they could be put directly inside the nose cone, but for now they had to rely on calculations of speed, time, height and distance to figure out their position.
There was no doubt that because of this, a lot of the paratroopers would miss their drop zones, or DZ for short, and the fact that each aircraft was carrying 90 soldiers of 20.000, that would possibly be a lot of missed DZs, and the fact that they were flying over the clouds to avoid being spotted directly didn't help much either.
Their radios were still operational so they could still speak to one another luckily, and they unanimously decided to take the risk of lowering their altitude when they are approximately inside the dropfield, or the field where they'd drop their paratroopers, as long as the paratroopers were dropped inside the dropfield they'd still enter the battlefield even if they did miss their DZ, as the dropfield was a large circle on the map with all the DZs marked into it, a zone the leading planes would reach in just 37 seconds and then they'd start their descent.
All planes were flying with their ramps halfway open, the top ramp fully up and the lower ramp was functioning like a floor, they opened the ramp when they let out the wingmen for escort and kept the ramp open ever since, so the engines were roaring nicely and loudly for the paratroopers inside.
The pilots were wingmen, and could utilize the vollstandig aswell as they also possessed a parachute just in case something happens, and every military aircraft the Wandenreich had possessed an emergency exit in case something bad happens so that the pilots could jump out as it was considered better by the military to lose the aircraft then the pilots themselves as the aircrafts could easily be replaced, that was harder with the pilots as they came in a limited quantity.
When the pilots looked out the window they noticed the clouds lighting up with moving light, and there was lots of lights aswell, and the pilots quickly realized that it meant trouble, as the lights in question was strong and clearly came from spotlights, indicating that the Dominion utilized spotlights aswell but it wasn't really that much of a surprise, but they haven't fired yet, but it wouldn't be long as the first planes had by this points started their descent and was hitting the clouds.
It didn't take long for the first batch of planes to get underneath the skies, and it only took the Dominion spotlights 47 seconds to find the first batch, causing the Dominion ground forces to open fire with their anti air weaponry, some fired large quantities of smaller rays while other fired larger rays which was distinguishable from the smaller ones even over large distances, which later exploded in the sky, meaning it was flak, of course the Dominion had yet to find out their true altitude as they undershot them with them with the flak, but the smaller rays that didn't explode fired even over the clouds and didn't stop until it was drained of reiatsu or it hit something.
The radios in the planes quickly began to go very active as pilots were speaking over each other, it was evident that the anti air defences were extreme and that they were struggling a great deal, as a result the pilots in the planes that descended flipped a switch, turning on the red light in the rear, causing the paratroopers to stand up and hook up with the hook on their main parachute chord which was made out of reishi inside the aircraft meant for parachutes and checking their equipment to ensure that everything was ready as a final check.
The checks were done in a short time, as when the signal was given to the pilots some flipped the switch to the final position, causing an alarm to briefly sound as the light changed to green, causing the paratroopers to walk towards the ramp and just fall out, since the transport planes had two rows, two and two jumped out at a time as the first wave of Quincy paratroopers began to descend towards the ground.
And other planes followed suit later, and it didn't take long for the night sky to be filled with falling soldiers and parachutes, plane after plane turned on the green light and the soldiers jumped out without hesitation despite the immense anti air defence the Dominion put up, by now they had gotten a correct altitude for their flak even, causing the rays to explode too close for comfort to the planes.
Some even took a direct hit, causing the wings to rip off, in some cases even the entire fuselage broke, causing the aircraft to split in two, but of course that was the best case scenario as in that state, the pilots evacuated the plane quickly and the paratroopers fell out, some got their chords pulled by the string before it dispersed, the others pulled it manually or used the reserve parachute.
Others weren't that lucky, as some had their engines hit or damaged by either a direct hit or a close flak ray that exploded causing engine damage on one of their engines, in some cases it was nothing and they got away lucky for now, in other cases their engines caught fire, switching off the engine usually solved the issue but some of the engines exploded, causing a massive fuel fire that spread across the wings of the aircraft before exploding by force inside the aircraft, leaving it to fall out of the sky engulfed in flames as paratroopers fell out burning with damaged parachutes, leaving them to fall to the ground without one and dying due to the height and the fact that their reiatsu was much lower then that of a captain level didn't help as it was unable to protect them from the fall due to it's low level.
It was pretty much obvious to both pilots and paratroopers alike at this point that with all of these air defences, taking them out was damn near impossible, they could do what they could to minimize them if given the opportunity but taking them all out was impossible even if they landed in their respective DZs.
***Parachute Infantry Regiment 5***
A company unit was usually the size of 80 to 150 soldiers, but the paratroopers dropped it to about 90 soldiers per company due to them having 90 in each aircraft, so each company was smaller then what the Wandenreich usually used.
B company from regiment 5 was the first unit to jump out, so it was only natural for them to land first, but already there was a major problem, because the turbulance and the wind pressure resulted in the companies being blown all across the air, this resulted in not only companies being scattered around but in some cases soldiers aswell, resulting in the companies losing soldiers by being seperated from them.
This is what happened to B company as one of the first soldiers landed in slightly forested field completely alone, but the soldier didn't realize that until the parachute was dispelled and the soldier was free to move.
The soldier who was registered as Soldat 2, A. Wagner, with Wagner being the surname, looked around to verify his surrounding and to double check whether he was alone or not, that was until he noticed another paratrooper dropping close by.
"Hey!" Wagner said as he quickly approached the soldier.
"Damn it!" The soldier replied as the soldier pushed the button and pulled the dispel chord.
"That is a greeting in and of itself." Wagner replied.
"Huh? Oh right, hey." The soldier replied.
Wagner looked at the sigil on the collar and realized that this was a soldat 1 rank soldier.
'Probably fresh out of boot camp...' Wagner said internally.
"M.I?" Wagner asked, the word M.I is short for Military Identification, by asking such a question the soldier asks for name, rank, unit and duty.
"Elise Strutfelt, Soldat 1, parachute infantry regiment 5, D company, grunt." Elise responded.
In the termonology M.I, the meaning of duty usually means military position, a grunt was just the standard soldier, but you had the duty of radio operator, artilleryman, sailor, wingman, pilot, crewmember on either flying, sailing or ground vehicle, medic, engineer and so forth, so that's what duty meant.
Wagner was surprised as he thought the soldier was a male, but then again their masks hid their voice and made them all sound familiar, and such a voice could easily be associated with a male as it was a deep sound.
"Alright, Adrian Wagner, Soldat 2, parachute infantry regiment 5, B company, grunt." Wagner replied.
"We're the only ones here sir?" Elise asked.
"Looks that way, let's reach out with the radios and see if we can contact anyone." Wagner said.
"This is Wagner, is anyone out there?" Wagner said into his mask radio, not wanting to make anymore noise he turned off the speaker on the mask, Elise did the same, regardless he got no response.
"This is Wagner, come in!" Wagner said, only to get static in his earpiece in the goggles.
"No response on my end." Elise stated.
"I can't get through either, must be some sort of interference, we should get moving, someone might have seen our chutes." Wagner said as they moved while keeping low so that the tall grass might hide them.
They began to crouch northwards for a few seconds until they heard some weird ray sounds that kept firing continously and they saw several beams from the same location and quickly realized that it was a crystal MG firing into the forest, probably at something a small Dominion group found suspicious, regardless Wagner took the opportunity to peek out of the grass to get a quick glimpse.
The crystal MG looked special in it's own right and just like the Wandenreich, very mechanical compared to the rods and staves they commonly used, or those artillery antennas.
It possessed a similar appearance to that of a Maxim machine gun only with the barrel in the center rather then the bottom of the circular front shape, and probably with good reason, as it had a similar rate of fire like a Browning 50 cal, and the Quincies knew that in order to get this much rays, a lot of crystals was needed, and they were probably special too.
Wagner quickly realized that the crystals was inside the circular shape covering the barrel and the rear part possessed some kind of device to it, probably supplying the crystals with reiatsu, so the rear part was the transfusion and firing mechanism without a doubt, and if that took damage the MG would be useless, the problem was reaching it.
Wagner and Elise quickly decided to turn around and go the other way as the crystal MG was protected by 12 Dominion soldiers, and they didn't want to risk fighting them so they hurried away from there quickly before they got spotted.
About 6 minutes later they arrived at a road, instead of continuing through the forest the two moved with it to see where it leads, hopeful that they could find any other unit around as it was more likely on the road, besides the road was a creek with flowing water with lots of trees on the side, which functioned as a landmark to verify their position.
Walking for an additional four minutes the two eventually heard some branches rustle, which caused an alarm in both of them and they ran to hide, but they didn't really see anything coming out of the branches, so Wagner decided to use an option their mask speaker had, to send out a low frequency sound wave that even dogs barely hear at close range, though their goggles were designed to pick up on the sound, it was an emergency solution in case units lost radio contact and to avoid friendly fire in a moment of confusion.
It had an approximate range of 150 meters, and the soldier could decide on the sound the earpiece recieved, in short it was a special morse code system, and the Quincy military traditionally used two rapid and two slow beeps to call out, and to respond two quick beeps with a long slow beep was sent out, now in morse code those two signals didn't mean anything at all and was just a transmit and recieve signal using sound to signal Don't shoot, friendlies.
This system could be controlled by controlling reishi inside the speakers, as reishi was the switch that controlled everything in the mask and goggles, a fairly easy system for a Quincy who specializes in manipulating reishi, and the sound system was easy to remember aswell, the reason they had this was because it was common to hide your reiatsu while hiding to avoid being detected by a sensory type, something probably every paratrooper were doing right now.
Regardless Wagner got a response with two quick beeps and a long beep, indicating friendlies, causing the two to lower their guards, little did they know that the other unit had spotted them prior but was unsure whether it was friendlies or hostiles due to the trees, so they also calmed down and lowered their guards when they realized it was indeed friendlies.
The two ran out into the creek and meet up with about 37 other soldiers that had managed to group up including a commanding officer with the rank of captain, the two parties crouched down and the soldiers around began to look around to ensure that they didn't get a surprise while the officer, Wagner and Elise spoke, all three lifting their goggles to their barets and taking off their masks, the officer still wore the officers uniform however which made him destinguishable from the rest of the soldats, only he wore a baret, gasmask and goggles aswell.
"Adrian, wondered where you've been." The captain stated, leaving Wagner to realize that this was members of B company, namely his company.
"Landed in a field just a few minutes away, is this all that's left of B sir?" Wagner asked.
"We all got seperated when we jumped, we've linked up over time and formed up with members that was scattered about and formed this unit, all are members of B company, except her... I don't remember her?" The captain said as he looked at Elise.
"Elise Strutfelt, Soldat 1, parachute infantry regiment 5, D company, grunt." Elise responded.
"D company huh? Haven't seen any of those guys around yet, but if you landed here then they're probably around here somewhere, I also noticed a plane with the Onmitsukido forces dropping around here somewhere so they might be closeby, for some reason our radios aren't working, too much interference around here so our comms are completely cut off and we're unable to contact any other units, even our horn is down." The captain said as he looked at the units radio operator who had a radio backpack attached to him, usually called a field radio though it wasn't uncommon for the Quincies to call the field radio a horn at times.
Usually when paratroopers possess a radio, they attach it to the parachute and puts it on when they land, they usually carry it as they jump out while it is attached to a string on the parachute made specifically for additional equipment, usually the mask and smaller radios were attached to the company, platoon squad or fireteam they were in, with usually four preset channels, but to contact other companies, divisions or other then that you needed a field radio, which was a bigger radio with a cellphone attached to it, usually that was the only way to contact headquarters or other companies or higher forces outside your own company, aswell as the only way to request support by artillery, air strikes by wingmen or other support assets availeble as the radio could also connect to other branches of the military.
The field radio had a stronger transmitter and receiver then the standard issue radio and if the standard issue didn't work, then the field radio had a higher possibility of working, and the fact that it didn't work means that the interference is rather powerful, usually the standard radio possessed 24 preset channels, but only a few were used and in the standard army never connected to headquarters as the grunts might panic and cause unnecessary radio traffic due to panic.
"I see, how did command screw up this much?" Wagner asked.
"Can't blame them, they probably never knew of any interference or it might be something that the Dominion just put up." The captain responded.
"But if D company is here, and B company aswell, doesn't that mean that one of us are in the wrong DZ?" Wagner asked.
"Heh, we both are, our objective is 13 kilometers that way, and D company's objective is 17 kilometers the opposite way, so we got a long march ahead of us, we'll link up with anyone we can find along the way, for now Elise, you're with B company until we can find your unit, understood?" The captain asked.
"Yes sir!" Elise responded.
"Alright, manifest silencers and use them, we don't want to create more noise then absolutely needed, let's move out!" The captain said as they moved to the road the rest of B company was originally on as Elise and Wagner attached their silencers to their rifles, they never noticed it until they were ordered to attach them that the rest of the unit already had silencers attached to their rifles and some even carried SMGs with silencers.
Every soldier knew how to manifest a silencer, but the regular army rarely used it, so it was fairly uncommon for them to use silencers as it was more the A.N.U's style of using them for assassinations or such, it was more common to use a silencer when taking on a snipers role as the last thing a sole sniper wants is to be caught.
But in the situation they possessed themselves, they were surrounded, cut off from any reinforcements, no radio contact and completely isolated, so silence was key to their own survival, for the rifles did make a bang when fired as the reishi casing did explode with force, shooting the bullet out, so naturally the rifle was loud without a silencer and might just attract the attention of any nearby Dominion units, forcing them into direct confrontation with what might be a larger unit then their own.
Of course the Dominion crystals were just as loud as their rifles, so they had to be careful not to be spotted by any Dominion unit that could get the first shot, in short, eliminate the target before it can make too much noise, so now the paratroopers mission were one that required stealth to the maximum extent, and thus the silencers were useful in case they really did need to fire their weapons.
As they walked down the road, a soldier came to a certain realization.
"Sir?" The soldier asked with his speaker on as low as possible.
"Yeah?" The captain asked.
"How will we link up? I mean do we have a meeting point or something?" The soldier asked.
"If you're refering to the other companies then we all have one objective in common, namely the village of Takakanai, our objective is to capture it, and that's what we'll do, we'll probably be meeting several companies or other units along the way and link up with them and then take that damn village and link up with the landing forces later on." The captain replied as the soldier nodded in understanding.
"Now that I think about it, I don't see any medics amongst us?" Wagner asked.
"The only support infantry we have is a radio operator, no idea where the medics are, so if anyone gets hit or injured, I really hope you remember your first aid training." The captain responded.
The soldiers did have a first aid kit in their equipment belts but that consisted of a bare minimum compared to what the medics had, and it was faster to patch up injured soldiers with first aid kit then using healing magic as it was faster and could stop bleeding for a while, compared to healing magic that focuses on healing the wound, ensuring that the wounded soldier could be transported away to a safe location to be healed, the medics did know a bit about holy magic and could utilize low level abilities but were limited to that.
It was usually the surgeons that was the most powerful healers, being trained as holy paladins and got the position of surgeon, even getting surgical training in case they needed to cut the patient open directly from the Royal Order of Holy Paladins, in short holy paladins with surgical training was probably the best doctor you could have, or you had the fourth division of the Gotei which was just as efficient, and the Quincies did have a lot of holy paladins with surgical training availeble and unlike the Gotei, the Wandenreich possessed no shortage of military doctors, a great relief for the soldiers fighting this war.
***37 Minutes Later***
Having followed the road continously, they had encountered two dead Dominion patrols, usually about squad size, aswell as passed one checkpoint with dead soldiers, proving that they weren't the only unit on this road, and considering how they died, namely they'd been shot, it was clear that it was a Quincy unit ahead of them.
They must have had the same idea as they had because their bodies were still warm when they checked them, which means that it wasn't that long ago that they were killed, one of the soldiers had worked as a coroner at one point and knew how to find time of death, which assisted with finding out approximately how far ahead the other unit was by establishing the average time of death.
The approximate time was about 11 minutes ahead, so considering the time and distance, they would have heard the shots if they didn't have the silencers, most of the paratroopers must have thought about the silencers at this point as they were a huge benefit in a bad situation.
In total about 1000 Onmitsukido soldiers dropped down along with 20.000 Quincies, so the total number of dropped soldiers were 21.000 if you count in the Onmitsukido, so they were few in numbers and a rarity to find in this situation, and if they were responsible, then slashes from Zanpakutos would have been visible, so there was not a chance that the Onmitsukido was behind those deaths.
Walking for an additional four minutes, the entire unit soon heard two rapid beeps and two long beeps in their goggles, causing them to quickly stop and kneel down to keep low as they responded with two rapid beeps and a long one.
The bushes moved as a head with a mask and baret poked out, before the rest of the body showed, along with other soldats, showing a unit of 17 soldiers, two of which were medics.
"Who's in charge here?" The captain asked.
"I am sir!" A soldat said, with the rank of sergeant.
After a brief introduction, it revealed that two were members of D company and the rest were B, so most people already knew each other, the medics had pistol holsters on them aswell as a magazine pouch with four fully loaded SMG magazines, aswell as a magazine clip in their coats like any other soldier, although both medics utilized a rifle, and the hunch of the captain had been on the spot, the entire unit utilized silencers.
The medics aswell as engineers most commonly used a pistol or reishi bow out in the field, this was because both engineers and medics were a support role unit, they were supposed to be on support and get as little attention from the enemy as possible, the pistol was only used if the enemy got too close for comfort while they were doing their jobs, of course they knew how to manifest the regular military weaponry and could become makeshift grunts if needed as they had gotten the same training as the grunts, only the support units had gotten additional training on the side so they had a longer training period.
"We've been looking for a field radio to connect to other units as our radios are down but no luck sir." The soldat said.
"Forget it soldier, even that is jammed." The captain said as he pointed at the radio operator, causing the soldat to look at him as he realized that they had one availeble.
"I see, anyways I sent one of my guys up to scout earlier and he came back just recently, it looks like there is some kind of activity up ahead, I was just about to get the intel when you showed up sir." The soldat stated.
"What kind of activity?" The captain asked.
"Vehicle lights and movement, voices indicate a patrol most likely." Another soldat who scouted replied.
"How many soldiers?" The captain asked.
"I don't think they're soldiers sir." The soldat replied.
"What do you mean?" The captain asked.
"The vehicle didn't look military at all, it had letters on the side saying Civil Watch." The soldat replied.
"Civil Watch? That's the Dominion's law enforcement if Marshall Inoue is to be believed, the hell are they doing here?" The captain asked.
"Maybe they're maintaining law and order while the soldiers do the soldiering?" Wagner guessed.
"That's the most probable course of action, regardless law enforcement is a paramilitary force and considered hostile, we'll move in on them and see if we can get them, I want them alive, maybe they know something about this interference." The captain said.
"Yes sir." The leading soldat said.
"Wagner and Erich, you got point, let's move out." The captain said as they began to advance.
The fact that Erich and Wagner were on point meant that they were moving ahead of the unit by a certain distance, functioning as advance scouts, of course this was risky as they were usually the ones spotted first so the position meant that you had to be on guard at all times unless you want to get a bloody surprise.
After moving for a while, Erich and Wagner held up a fist, causing the entire unit to stop as the knelt down, the two had heard voices and an engine running in the background.
The unit was taken by surprise when they heard a loud noise belonging to a ray being fired, causing the entire unit to throw up their weapons to return fire, only to realize that they weren't fired upon, of course the unit moved up to Wagner to support their vanguard.
They eventually moved off the road and into the treeline to use the trees as cover as they wanted to advance as a full unit instead of appearing over time to maintain superiority, they were a large unit by this point, possessing 56 members, making them just over platoon size which was 45 soldiers maximum and just below company which was 80 soldiers minimum, so they were right in between.
As they got in position as quickly and quietly as they could, as they got into position they quickly saw what the noise was, and realized that it was the law enforcement officers that had actually fired using a small rod with a crystal, their uniforms were much different then that of the soldiers so it was clear at this point that these were law enforcement officers rather then soldiers and would put up a very poor fight.
Regardless the Quincies noticed two civilians, both had white blonde hair, which was a rather unique color, there were one male and one female, all wearing rags but they didn't appear to be souls specifically, shortly afterwards they got a look at the eyes of the female, which was crimson red, indicating that she was a mutated fullbringer, and it was safe to say that the others were the same aswell.
Of course they never got to look at the eyes of the male as he had gotten his hair dyed blood red, courtesy of the civil watch officers, which confirmed the sound earlier, as it was the sound of the males execution, of course the officers just laughed and joked about this, showing their discontent with the mutated fullbringers to extreme levels, of course the Quincies felt the same way about the regular fullbringers.
As they watched, the officers abused and hit the female with the rod and kept ripping her clothes, giving off slight hints that they had intended to rape her before killing her most likely, or killing her whilst raping her, not that it mattered because the Quincies had no ill will against the oppressed mutated fullbringers, so they had no intentions of letting anything happen to her, compared to the law enforcement officers which was fullbringers of the Dominion.
They were positioned in the headlights of the vehicle, which possessed two large rotary lights in red and blue aswell as a speaker in the middle, giving off a 50's-60's impression.
As the first officer began to loosen the belt on his pants the captain gave off a hand signal as he put the rifle on his shoulder and kept it there, then he manifested a pistol, before he stood up and calmly walked out of the tree line towards the three officers with their backs turned towards him, much to his amusement as he just shoved the two closest officers to the side nonchalantly.
This surprised the officers, the one with his pants now down, quickly took a peek before the captain grabbed him by his throat and smashed his head down on the hood of the vehicle and then he put the loaded pistol barrel directly towards the temple of the officer with his finger on the trigger.
The two other officers quickly realized what was happening but they made a fatal calculation, as they failed to take into account that the captain was part of an assault force, and most likely not alone, if anything they didn't even calculate that he was military at all and believed that he was just some scum from around here, causing them to draw out their small rods.
"Don't even try it!" Wagner said loudly behind them, causing the officers to look towards the treeline, revealing 56 Quincy soldiers with their weapons aimed and safeties off.
"Drop them or die, simple as that." The captain said calmly.
"Who are you?" One of the officer asked.
"Quincy military paratroopers, that's all you need to know." The captain responded.
The three officers were stunned by this, they had never seen a Quincy before, let alone seen their military force, which the captain picked up on, if anything he was left wondering why they were so confused, the rest of the unit walked out of the tree line and walked towards the vehicle while the two medics turned to the civilians, the other soldiers disarmed the other officers who held their hands up at gun point.
"You really didn't see the massive airdrop earlier?.." The captain asked.
"We got here about 15 minutes ago, we had no idea about this!" One of the officers said clearly panicking.
"How?" The captain asked.
"There is a beacon that we use to open up a garganta, it's just around the corner there, it's a square device the size of a medium sized box!" One of the officers said as he was scared.
"Ermin, Wagner, Erich, go find it before trouble shows up!" The captain said.
"Yes sir!" The three said as they began to move
"This ones dead captain, nothing we can for him." One of the medics said.
"Focus on the female!" The captain replied as he looked at the female who just stared at the ground with completely dead eyes, not even responding to the second medic who asked questions.
"The hell did you do with her!?" The medic asked.
"Nothing, we haven't done anything yet!" One of the officers replied.
"Unit 2-5 report in." A voice said, causing the captain to look around before he noticed a radio on the belt of the officers.
"Ahh, you have functioning radios, how convinient, how come yours works and ours doesn't?" The captain asked.
"I don't know." The officer replied.
"Don't play dumb with me boy, you know more then that, or are you stupid?" The captain asked as he pushed the pistol harder into the temple.
"There is a tower the military uses not far from here, it might have something to do with that! I just know that we were ordered to put special devices on our radios about a week ago! I don't know why!" The officer replied.
"Where is this device?" The captain asked.
"Just underneath it." The officer replied.
This caused some soldiers to take the radios of the two other officers, and then they handed them over to the radio operator who immediately began to look at them, whilst the captain wanted the radio of the officer he held down, as he assumed that unit 2-5 were them.
"Is this connected to the Dominion military?" The captain asked.
"No it's just dispatch!" The officer replied.
"Alright." The captain said as he turned off the radio and threw the officer to the ground.
"Now which direction is this tower?" The captain asked, causing the officers to point at the same direction simultaniously.
"Alright... Any Dominion soldiers there?" The captain asked.
"Some, not sure how many." One of the officers replied.
"How many towers are there in total?" The captain asked.
"Here, it's just that one." The officer replied
"Alright... Kill'em." The captain ordered.
"Wai-" One of the officers said before he got shot by a soldat with the rest of his friends.
The reishi bullets split in their heads, cracking the rear of the skulls open and some brain matter and skull matter came out, though not much, though some blood spilled on the soldiers that fired, leaving some traces of red on their uniforms, masks, goggles and barets, mostly on those who were close which was about 6 soldiers though the captain was far enough away that he avoided all of it.
The captain looked around and noticed Wagner, Erich and Ermin who had returned.
"The beacon is inoperable?" The captain asked.
"Yes sir, fired some shots into it, it was combined mechanical and magical so it's currently spitting sparks by the road side." Ermin responded.
"Alright, we'll keep the radios and look at them, then we'll take that tower and see if we can use it, otherwise we'll blow the damn thing to kingdom come! Let's move out!" The captain ordered.
"Sir? What about the female?" A medic asked.
The captain stopped with the rest of the unit and looked at her, he had briefly forgotten about her actually.
"What's her condition?" The captain asked.
"Some bruising, we stopped the bleeding and it's nothing serious, signs of a slight concussion and some broken ribs, but I think she's worse of mentally." The medic responded as he looked at the female.
"Alright... We'll take her with us, she'll be better of that way rather then being alone out here, atleast she'll have a chance of surviving." The captain said before he approached the dead civilian.
Kneeling down, he realized that the two looked similar and he assumed that they were related somehow, he did notice something around the wrist of the deceased, something that looked like a bracelet of sorts before he looked at the female, and realizing she had the same bracelet, on it was something written.
'Threlassan?... Must be his name... Let's see if this works.' The captain said internally before he focused on the female, grabbing her arm.
"Irisviel?" The captain said as he read from the female's bracelet.
Suddenly the female moved her head, looking at the captain albeit with those dead and empty eyes, which surprised the medics as the captain was the first one to get her attention.
"That's your name?" The captain asked but he got no response.
The captain pointed at the bracelet before asking once more time.
"Your name?" The captain asked, this time he got a response, as the female slightly nodded.
"Alright, we'll be taking you with us now, once an opportunity arises we'll send you straight to headquarters for medical treatment, but that's gonna be a while, for now you'll come with us." The captain said as the two medics helped her up.
"Let's move out." The captain said as the unit finally moved out as the two medics assisted the female.
***A while later***
After marching for a while they eventually found their new target, namely the antenna, and the captain immediately realized that it might be difficult to use it, additionally the radio operator did peek at the civil watch radios just to find out that they were incompatible with their radios so they were a no go for the time being, maybe an engineer might be able to find a solution, but they didn't have any engineers that dropped with them, which ruled that out.
The tower was shaped like a dead tree with reishi flowing through it, causing the tree to get a red glow in a circuit pattern, indicating that it was fully magical, the radio operator took out a device and realized that it wasn't just a communications line for the Dominion but also what was causing the immense interference.
One of the tree branches must be blocking their communications, and he also concluded that the tree was of the long range type, so if they chopped it down, burned it down or blew it up, the interference might stop and they might regain radio contact again.
The tower was protected by about a platoon sized unit, 40 soldiers, they also detected a Dominion flak cannon and two anti air rapid firing devices, even if the Quincies had the number, they had to assume that those anti air defences might be turned to anti infantry defences, and that would be bad.
The captain decided to take an alternate course, so he ordered six soldiers in seperate positions to function as snipers, three soldiers to utilize the MG42, of course they didn't have silencers for that as it was incompatible with the silencer so they would fire loudly, and split the grunts into three groups, the female had been left behind somewhere safe with a medic so she didn't end up getting caught in the crossfire.
Of course there were still the occassional sound of crystal MGs firing in the distance far away, so there probably were some firefights here and there, and that was one thing they could use to their advantage, as the Dominion would be forced to focus on those points for now until they began their assault.
The difference was the MG42 would make it sound like a major battle was being played, and the captain wanted to utilize licht regen to bombard the Dominion forces with arrows, but that was a double edged sword as the arrows would be plentiful and the reishi would illuminate the sky, giving away their position to probably the entire Dominion army as the ability would function like a flare of sorts.
The three groups would attack from the middle and the flanks while the snipers picked off any target that might be going for the heavy weaponry, the MGs would suppress any infantry that might oppose them, group one would move across the forest and attack from the right with one MG following them and two snipers.
Group two would attack in the center and remain where they are, with one MG already placed on the ground with two snipers placed in the trees.
Group three would attack from the left and be supported by an MG and two snipers.
If the MGs and snipers fired at the same time and the grunts ran towards the lines just after then they might get out of this without casualties due to the element of surprise, but of course this was just a best case scenario, they had to assume the worst.
But being attacked from three different sites was a viable strategy in this case, and in reality, the entire attack depended on how fast you were aswell as the timing of the attack, now for this attack the silencers were taken off and replaced with bayonets.
The captain manifested some binoculars to get a closer peek, and the Dominion group was definitely well equipped, even better equipped then those in Hueco Mundo, but they had made one fatal mistake, they were eating.
Normally eating wouldn't be an advantage or disadvantage, but if you ate in a group huddled together in a battlefield, then you are just the ripe target for a well placed MG assault and you would suffer serious casualties from it, the signal to attack would come when the MG fired the first rounds, as the captain stood close to one of the gunners.
The captain waited for nearly three minutes as he wanted the group closer, but they didn't get too much closer and their break was just about over, causing him to give the gunner, who had them in his sights, the signal.
The gunner squeezed the trigger gently to not avert his aim, and then it fired, the drum attached to it which supplied the MG42 generated supercharged reishi bullets, which pierced through anything without using reiatsu from the user, each soldier still had three drums inside their equipment belt after all, regardless the MG42 fired off the reishi bullets with the same speed as the Ginrei Kojaku, spitting out 1200 supercharged reishi bullets a minute as the nostalgic sound of the MG42 sounded loudly, causing the two others to fire aswell as the snipers.
The supercharged bullets tore through the Dominion grunts without any mercy, the reishi splitting from the supercharged bullet each time it hit something it could pierce through, creating shrapnel made out of reishi which caused immense internal damage and internal bleeding as the reishi fragments eventually vanished, leaving an open wound on the organs which would keep bleeding.
The Quincy soldiers ran, they didn't fire their weapons, they just ran with all their might with their bayonets attached, covered by the snipers and the MG42s, their intent was to get so close you could both shoot and stab the fullbringers before they could regain themselves fully.
The Dominion troops quickly regained themselves and realized what was happening and took cover to reorganize, they still needed to find out where that fire was coming from as the Quincies still hid their reiatsu as best they could.
Of course the Quincy MGs were making it hard for them, as the MGs who now had lost sights of their targets, fired at the ground, trees, or practically anything they could shoot at.
With three rapid fire MGs firing from three sites, and six snipers picking off targets that left the main group, the Dominion force was left in a killzone with Quincy troops rapidly closing in on them, not a good position to be in.
The first soldat had arrived and the MGs became silent as they didn't want to hit their own soldiers, and just as the MGs stopped firing the Dominion prepared their own staves but the Quincy grunts beat them to it and shot them at close range, while moving closer until they charged them with bayonets, killing off the remainder of the Dominion unit, resulting in a successful assault on the tree tower as they had now assumed control over it.
Of course this victory was the result of speed and the element of surprise, as the Dominion troops had no idea that there even were Quincies in their vicinity, that is the result of hiding their reiatsu and utilizing as much stealth as possible, hence why the silencers were so effective, if they had executed the officers prior without silencers then this wouldn't have worked and the Dominion unit would have already positioned themselves and made ready for battle.
The Quincies hurried to check for any intelligence the Dominion might have, resulting in them finding a map, some orders, a field radio they listened to.
The map was a treasure trove, as it depicted all emplacements of the Dominion, be it anti air defences, artillery, checkpoints, just about anything, now they just needed to take a picture using their goggles or a camera and send it using the field radio as it could be attached with a wire and sent over that way.
They took the pictures needed aswell as pictures of the tree and the emplacements, but the captain wanted to hurry it up, as they had made a lot of noise.
"Is this the cause?" A soldat asked.
"Yeah it is." The radio operator said as he held out a device that read interference and was getting jackpot.
"Don't think we can use this." The soldat replied.
"No, we're gonna need a paladin or a kido corps member to check this one out, this one is far out of our area of knowledge." The radio operator said.
"So shall we begin cutting?" Another soldat asked as he used his cross to manifest a reishi sword.
"Screw cutting, we'll blow the emplacements and the whole damn tree up to kingdom come." The captain said as he entered his equipment belt and took out a device.
The device was an explosive device, usually used by the engineers but the paratroopers got them for their mission, they got about two each, usually the engineers had their belt choke full of it.
The explosive charges was coated in some sort of durable plastic with steel on both ends and a 60 second watch on the front and on the back was a piece of paper covering some rather powerful glue which became extremly sticky if exposed to air, hence why the paper was covering it, and on the right of it was a pin, it wasn't difficult to use, you just take the safety pin and rotate it about 45 degrees one direction to unlock it, as it was locked in place to ensure that it didn't accidentally fall out, and then you pull the pin out and you're live, which you'd know when the clock starts ticking and the pin hole starts to spit blue sparks.
The charge functioned by increasing pressure by heating up a small vial inside which eventually exploded, igniting volatile reishi inside, causing a major reishi explosion, namely a blue glowing explosion which was extremly powerful, needless to say, it was so powerful you might want to run as far away as you can before that charge blows, after they could make it explode after just 15 seconds but then the entire unit wouldn't be able to hide from the shockwave which might either kill or incapacitate them, that's how powerful this charge was.
And they intended to use four of them at once, igniting them at the same time, they definitely wanted to be more then 45 seconds away for this at sprinting speed if you consider the combined force of all four, regardless, the captain decided to ignite one but he could only ignite one at a time, so he needed three volunteers, so Wagner and two others volunteered to ignite the other three.
The rest of the unit would run away and they would ignite them after 30 seconds, were they'd sprint at full speed back to the tree line and even further away, they dispelled their weaponry and anything that might cause unnecessary weight as they wanted to be as fast and agile as possible now.
The unit ran away and the 30 seconds passed and the captain gave the signal, the four turned the pin to the right until it didn't turn anymore and then, with the pin still attached to the fingers, they pulled it out as the began to sprint, the fizzling sound of the sparks was heard and the clocks started their countdown from 60 seconds.
And after 56 seconds, they got to a safe distance and got to cover with four seconds to spare, and then the explosion occured as the tree was completely chipped up by the explosions, aswell as the emplacements that was torn to shreds.
The bodies of the Dominion soldiers were blown skyhigh in pieces as body parts and blood started to rain across the field they previously were on, even the trees at the tree line was split apart due to the shockwave as the trees began to fall down by a large number, the cloud of dust and smoke created by the intense heat was so high it reached over even that of the tallest trees.
The Quincies were stunned by the display of explosive firepower, and they quickly realized why they had to take courses and receive lessons to use these devices, as these weren't exactly toys you want to have an accident with.
Regardless their radios were now functional again, and they realized that this single tree was the one thing that had blocked all radio traffic, which was evident when their radios began to transmit again, and the field radio was filled with chatter, mostly confusion and units trying to get in contact with command.
It quickly dawned on them how botched this air drop had been, of about 20.000 Quincy soldiers and 1000 Onmitsukido troops, only 3 soldiers managed to hit their DZ... The entire airdrop had been a complete chaos from the moment the transport aircrafts lost their radars, Quincy and Onmitsukido troops were scattered all around, no one knowing where they were or where their target is, it was complete chaos.
But with their radios and lines of communications back in order, command managed to see the field radios on the screens and managed to salvage the situation to the best of their ability, resulting in the reorganization of the paratroopers and many managed to regroup with each other as a result, it was still extremly chaotic and a complete mess out there but atleast they now had something to work with.
A few units had managed to reach their objectives however, the tree was never an objective to begin with as they never knew about it to begin with, of course this was a one time exception, command and the O.D.K would never let a mishap like this happen again.
B company was one of the few units that managed to land close to their DZ but still missed it by about 10 kilometers, the rest of B company was about 2 kilometers out already, and they had planned for a meeting point, as for D company they would link up with B as they would take on both objectives together as their objectives were close to one another, something that was realized by command after the pictures were sent to them.
During their march they would encounter some Dominion patrols hunting paratroopers and some paratroopers that had already been killed, some even hanging in the trees, most likely been killed while dropping, additionally B company linked up with a squad of lost Onmitsukido members aswell, which resulted in them linking up.
Despite the botched assault, they still managed to get many of the objectives before moving on, so for many it was a successful mission, some units were just too far away from their objective so other units that was closer were assigned to them instead and the unit far away would be redirected.
By redirecting units they managed to ensure that they got many of the objectives right on time.
To be continued
Character Trivia: I just recently found out that there is a character resembling Sabrina Basterbine in a very young age to a certain extent, although Sabrina possesses some slight different characteristics, the name of the character would be Rin Tohsaka from the Fate series, although Sabrina has light brown eyes and light brown hair compared to her sister and this Rin character, she would be the best description in appearance as she closely resembles Sabrina when I first made her up, I didn't even know there was a character resembling her until now.
Of course the character Irisviel is also taken from the Fate series as she naturally possesses crimson eyes and was a viable candidate, I have actually considered making her a minor character but nothing conclusive, if anything she might have some role in the future to a certain extent, although her brother was completely made up and I will probably forget the name of her brother and most likely never mention him again.