Many apologies for taking so long to get this chapter out, I kinda forgot about it since many difficult things came up in my personal life and I've had little time to work on this. These issues are still ongoing but I will nevertheless still continue to try my hardest to get the chapters out. I hope that you can forgive me for my absence. Anyway's, hope you enjoy this chapter and if you can, please leave reviews so I can improve myself.
Steel and fire.
Is there no greater thing that humanity has created? Is it not the apex of a hundred thousand years of evolution? No beast can withstand its sheer volume. No living thing does not fear it. No man cannot wield it without soon being obsessed with every facet of its existence. Civilizations burned under its wrath yet by the same token, many saved from complete annihilation.
Steel and fire against flesh and bone, that's the way it has been for longer than the records recall.
And there is no better demonstration of this eternal conflict than what would be later known as the Third Battle of Sumire.
The Grimm began their attack as the bombardment of the trenches slowly crept backward to cut off reinforcement. Over a fifty-kilometer front that stretched all the way from flooded plains of Sumire to the wasted valleys of Lower Cairn, it was a charge without order, without sense or tactics, rising up from the darkness of no-man's-land like the beginnings of a black tidal wave.
And so the Guard rose in response. The survivors of the carnage threw themselves into battle wherever they could. In most places, they managed to reach the fire-step before the Grimm did but in some places, those black beasts were faster. There the battle quickly descended into blind madness where men stood no chance in close combat. So much blood was split in those hellish fights that you could taste the metal in the air.
Where the Guard could leverage their one advantage, they punished the Grimm for even daring to come tonight. Many were caught in the mazes of razor-wire and ditches expertly constructed by the Pioneers and forced into kill-boxes where they were slaughtered en masse in the tens of thousands by artillery, rifles, and gun emplacements. A carpet of dead rolled out behind the attackers as they trudged forward against the fire.
But they quickly found that there was no end to the numbers. The Grimm still hurled themselves forward with reckless abandon, destroying the wire with their jaws even as their bodies erupted into black gore or throwing their still-twitching bodies onto it to create corpse bridges for their brethren to cross. Despite the sheer firepower being thrown into their ranks, they eventually reached the frontline.
At one stretch of the line, no more than sixty meters wide, scores upon scores of Grimm hurled themselves in only to find themselves not slaughtering but rather being slaughtered at the hands of a company of Grenadiers. With halberd, trench-axe, and club, napalm-spewing flamethrowers, spitting grenade launchers, and shrilling scatterguns they carved apart the invader with effortless elegance rivaling even the famed Huntsmen. The trenches rapidly filled up with Grimm corpses until it was level with the surrounding terrain, packed with bodies so deeply the Grenadiers were forced to fall back and hold a reserve trench.
At Post 891, just north of the edge of Sumire, even the endless tide of flesh was stemmed by the elite fighting vehicles of Vacuo's 7th tank division when they launched the first counter-attacks of the night. The ground quaked under their approach and the air was filled with the deep throaty rumbles of a hundred engines. Treads flattened as turrets blazed in all directions. Grimm hurled themselves onto these steel beasts, trying to pry open inch-thick plating to reach the prize inside. Flame-spewing tankettes and supporting infantry fire quickly put an end to their ambitions.
The arrival of a dozen Ursas and Death Stalkers would have made any other Guard unit hesitate, but not the 7th. They rammed out the legs of Ursas and Death Stalkers, before surgically disassembling the crippled beasts with their roaring cannons. The vanguard vehicles dropped the bulldozer blades mounted on their front hulls and rammed the legs out from under them, before blasting the crippled beasts into smoldering wrecks.
The seas of mud literally boiled from the fury of the assault. Barely an hour since the first shells fell, Post 891 reported the complete rout of all attacking forces. But the fury of the tankers was barely satiated and they pursued the fleeing Grimm all the way out into no-man's-land, bashing aside attempted ambushes like the mild annoyances they were. Two hours later, Post 891 reported the complete annihilation of all attacking forces.
Above, the sleek noses of fighter craft and bombers scrambled all from Yellowhollow slammed through the walls of smog choking the battle and brought with them vengeance. With the moon behind them, vague shadows slid over the battlefield like phantoms in the night. Their bellies were lit by the fire of war below, burning away like Hell made manifest on this mortal plane. Swinging around they came parallel to the frontline. They flew low at top speed. An attack run.
The Mantas took the honor of the first volley. The four rocket-pods under each wing emptied their load in moments. Spears of black smoke shot followed behind the squealing frag-missiles and an entire stretch of no-man's-land disappeared in a series of orange detonations that quivered the ground.
Just behind them, Viper ground-attack made their approach, the chain guns in their weapon pods spinning. There was a moment where all seemed to become silent and the air seemed to become heavy as if the whole world was waiting in anticipation. Then everything was deafened by the ear-grating screech of the main cannons each blasting out one hundred 50mm fire-dust shells every single second. It looked from the distance like a white-hot scythe had been dug into the earth before being dragged along at supersonic speeds, destroying all in its path. There was an actual fog of liquefied tissue in the air.
In their wake, they dropped off their payload of barrel bombs. Twisting and turning they crashed into the Grimm horde and flattened several before the timed fuses went off. With a great fwoosh, the horizon disappeared into a wall of flames that stretched a kilometer wide. Any Grimm caught in the heart of the fire was instantly atomized and the heat was so great that it didn't need to touch to kill. Any Grimm within a dozen meters had their fur burst in flames. Grimm thrashed and writhed as they tried to stamp out the fire slowly consuming them alive but some were so enraged, so maddened that they continued to throw themselves at the humans even despite the fact that their bones were turning to ash.
"We're dry! We're dry. Now everyone pull out and return to base. We'll refuel and come back for another go. Vee formation like we practiced." Within the cockpit of his Viper, Wing Commander Rudd Scar wiped the sweat off his brow. It had been a good run. No losses. No damage to her warplanes at all. Not even any contacts showing up on the radar, yet. She frowned. A battle this big and the skies clear of Grimm? Something wasn't right. Either the boys on the ground had done a superb job with their anti-air batteries or the Grimm here were less tactically adept than their kin further north. Without any flying Grimm, Guard air support practically had free reign to strike wherever and whenever they wanted.
She double-checked the green readout on her sensor panel. Nothing but her fellow pilots showing up.
"It looks like hell down there. Everything's on fire." Flying fifteen meters to her right, Lieutenant Zure banked his Mata to get a better look at the ground. "Hard to believe that there are still people fighting down there."
"Well, if we don't step up our bombing game, they ain't gonna be fighting no longer," said Circus Seven to her left. "If only the Baroness was with us. This is a turkey shoot."
"She's an ace. Not a bomber." Zure spoke. "Her job's shooting down thing's with wings, not things with legs. Besides, she's busy escorting bombing sorties to the Badlands. Saw her go this morning.
"Hey don't Griffons have wings? What does she do with that? Does she shoot the parts with wings and leave the legs alone?" Circus Ten cut in.
Scar rolled her eyes at the antics of her wing. Even in the middle of a war, they couldn't cut the chatter. "Alright, alright, boys and girls you got it out of your systems yet? Good. We-"
Her radar blipped. A yellow dot showed up just for a split second. Right in the middle of her formation but she was sure it wasn't one of hers. An artillery shell? From one of the super-heavy railguns? It wasn't unheard of to pick up those big bastards of shells on particularly sensitive radar. Probably was. If it was hostile she would have picked it up a long time ago.
Still...
She pressed her helmet mic to get lips. "Circus Wing, stay frosty… I… I just got this feeling."
"A feeling?" Circus Ten scoffed. "Scar, If I had a nickel for every time you said that..."
"Watch your mouth, Jar." Scar grimaced and craned her neck to gain a visual on Ten, flying in a green-painted Manta at the tip of their formation's left flank. "You will address me by ma'am or my rank from now on. I may be still filling in the rank of Major Harlo but I am still your Major, damn any friendship we may have had before this. In the air, I am your commander."
The comm-net was silent for a moment.
Ten spoke. "Sorry, Major. Yeah, you're right. I was out of line there."
"No problem… just be careful with your mouth. Things are different now that I'm in the lead."
"I-" Ten began before his Manta vanished, swallowed up by the darkness. Then there was a dazzling flash as Ten's fuel tanks were punctured by razor talons. The wash of fire revealed a great shape twice the wingspan of any aircraft in the squadron. Flames gripped onto its feathers and molten wreckage tumbled off as it ascended upwards.
A great hawk of fire.
An Alpha Nevermore.
"Contacts on our 5! Break! Break!" Scar order. The world turned upside down and she was crushed into her seat by the g-force of her dive. She swore that she glimpsed the burning corpse of Circus Ten pass by her cockpit among the rain of burning shrapnel.
"What the hell?" Zure frantically threw his Manta into a reckless descent that followed close behind Scar. All around them, the rest of Circus Wing was scattering like chaff on the wind. "Where the hell did it come from?"
"It came from the ground! The damn thing walked and waited until it was right under our radar blindspot." Scar yelled. Her consoles had all turned red. Alarms were blaring. She was about to hit the ground. Pulling with her entire weight on the flight stick, she managed to wrangle her Viper from its dive barely fifty meters from the earth. The blasts of her engines at full force knocked several soldiers on the ground off their feet.
Seven's panicked voice pierced through the chaotic comms. "Sons of Light! Bogey's right on my 6! I can't shake it!" A blurt of static and screams burst through Scar's headset. "Oh, Brother it's got me! It's got me!
Scar brought her warplane up just in time to see Seven's Manta caught in the claws of the Nevermore. Caught in a death grip the two tumbled in a free-fall only one could win. Its beak stabbed repeatedly into its body, ripping out wires and severing fluid lines. Already ignited fuel coated the airframe and were leaking inside. Engines practically destroyed. All electric systems down. Hydraulics barely obeying her inputs.
She did the only thing left to her. "Ejecting!"
"Seven, no!" Scar futilely cried out.
The micro-charges blew the canopy wide open. Just as the ejection seat's rocket motors triggered, the Nevermore snapped its beak once. The seat blasted up. Its parachute bloomed out like a flower. Seven's headless body drifted slowly to the ground. The Nevermore uncoupled with the dying aircraft and let it explode in a fireball as it struck the ground.
"Bastard!"
"Stand back, Zure. This one's mine," Scar wasn't a woman to let her squadron take a hit and not return it tenfold the wrath. She banked her aircraft around. "I owe Seven that, at least."
The Nevermore reacted faster, folding its wings to reduce drag. It pulled a turn so hard that it evaded her getting a target lock. Scar pitched to follow, triggering her afterburners. Her wings groaned under the punishment of the turn. The sensors told her she was pulling ten gees. Already it felt like a building was sitting on her. Breathing hard but steady she fought to tense her muscles to keep her heart beating. Pressure built behind her eyes to the point she could feel them about to pop out of their sockets.
She was three seconds from losing consciousness when the brutal turn ended and she was right behind the Nevermore.
Square on.
It knew and began to move.
But it was too late.
She flicked off the safety...
"Got you."
… and depressed the trigger.
The fury of her twin rotary guns shredded the Alpha Nevermore to ribbons, her heavy-caliber rounds treating hardened flesh and bone like they were nothing. The beast disintegrated from tail to head until nothing was left but ash on the wind and scattered feathers.
"Splash one." Typically announcing a kill gave Scar a brain-melting rush, so many joined the air force just for that feeling, but this time it was empty. Two deaths she could have avoided. Two reasons to get chewed out by the Baroness. Two black letters that she needed to write at the end of the night. "Are we clear now?"
"Keep your toes on," Zure announced. "I'm getting dozens of bogeys on the radar now. Closing fast on our asses from no-man's-land. Looks like they're mad that you got their leader, Scar. This ain't gonna be easy."
If she survived until the end of the night.