I've lived a long time, much longer than any monster ever should have. So, try to understand that I don't remember that much of my childhood, and my service back at home. Twenty-five years may seem like nothing to humans, but it makes my mind fuzzy and I feel like an old man sometimes even though I don't look like it. I know I spent barely more than a year in the army, but that was enough for me to figure out that I didn't want any part of what we were supposed to be doing. The other recruits felt the same, I'm sure.
Mainly, the soldiers had joined of their own free will, I remember, probably because they thought it would be an easier road. It was the wrong side, the evil side even, but either way they would be on the winning team, and while the hero's were lying dead and dying they would live to see a new age. It wasn't an easier road at all though, and the few friends I had back then all told me in their own way they regretted ever signing up in the first place. Though a lot of unlucky beasts didn't really get a choice, they were either captured then forced into it, or just… bred to do it. For me, it was all I ever knew growing up back then, since whenever I was born till the day I left.
All the soldiers in training, mostly just poor kids, were kept separate from the rest of the forces. You would be trained every day for around six months, pretty brutal stuff too. There's a saying that if you get them young, then anything is possible. Well, the commanding officers pretty much lived by that rule, and took care to beat it into our heads that we were just soldiers who should do as told. Free thought and action was unacceptable, and we lived and breathed for one purpose: to fight until we dropped dead, and to destroy anything aligned with human scum.
When your training was finished, then your overall skill as a soldier was determined, and they would place you in a permanent position in the army. There were three groups that you could be stationed into, and now that I look back on it, all three of them would pretty much screw you over any way you looked at it. The best of them got frozen and put into storage in that giant airship that belonged to our 'Lord and Master', so they could live and sleep forever until they were needed. I don't think even the best of us were too keen on that.
If you were good, but maybe not freezing material you got placed in one of the four General's forces. This is where most of the trainee's ended up, though I can't say this was the better deal. People under the General's tended to die a lot, and surprisingly not by enemy forces, but by their leader's own hands. I never saw any of them myself, but rumor travels fast, and supposedly they were all crazy in their own way. Especially the Naga. They killed their own men for the slightest infractions, or maybe only for their own amusement, either way, you ended up dead.
The last group was for the failures, recruits who didn't exactly live up to full potential, and weren't seen as fighting material. They also lumped in all the old ones who were on their last days, or those who were crippled and couldn't fight any longer. The official name for this group was the Reserves, since they were supposed to take the places of fallen soldiers in the Generals army, if the force was depleted enough. Though none of them, as crazy as they were, wanted to fill their army with bad soldiers who couldn't fight. They went untouched, and the only use they had were for missions where the infantry wasn't expected to come back. So eventually, these poor bastards were given a nickname: the Leftovers. Everyone, even the Leftovers themselves thought it was more appropriate anyway. I know I did, when that wass where I was placed.
Okay, so I admit it, I was a crappy soldier, and a brat. I didn't like taking orders, or doing what I was told. So it was no wonder that I spent pretty much every day of that six months in training in punishment, and learned absolutely nothing. Now that I look back on it, I don't think I would have had much of a chance even if I had wanted to be a good little soldier. I was a runt after all, which was pretty unbelievable considering what I am. I looked much different from the rest of them. I had no muscle where I should have been cut like a freaking diamond, even at that young an age. I was short among my peers, and constantly thin and sickly to boot. It must have been the first time any of those officers had seen a Naga who wasn't built for fighting. To them I was a weird accident, good breeding gone horribly wrong. So, it was no wonder I ended up in the Reserves.
I was the only Naga there, I remember. My species are good fighters, and all of the ones who had been in training with me were either frozen or serving under a General. They, as a rule, fight madly until they drop dead, even those who are crippled, there is no stopping them in battle. There were no old ones either, since they never lived long enough to see fading scales and blurring vision. For me to have been there, meant I was a pretty pathetic monster, and the other Leftover's knew it which earned me a sad reputation. Honest to God, even cutesy breeds like Hare would push me around. I hated being weak back then, and I thought talking tough would earn me respect. Listen to me, big talk doesn't mean shit when you don't have the bulk to back it up. Especially when it's a giant bunny-rabbit kicking your tail, and pulling rank that doesn't exist.
Other than various scuffles among other monsters in the reserves, I never saw battle when I was in the army. If I had, I probably would have died right then and there, and never have lived to see so much. Plenty of others got sent off to battle, and as far as I knew were never seen again. Even if they had lived, almost everyone from that time would be dead now already… Most of us went on without anything to do, and grew more scared and tired of the whole war every day it went on.
Like I said, rumor travels fast. And it was no big secret that we were, by some chance in hell, losing. I think they expected every monster to jump at the chance to rid themselves of humans, but surprise, surprise not everyone was too keen on the whole genocide thing. They thought the way things were going was wrong, but they refused to solve it by putting them through everything they had done to us. If I could go back and do it all over again, I think I would have been on their side. Though sometimes it's hard for me to say, because killing them all sounds like a more satisfying solution. But both humans and monsters fought back and however weak they were compared to us didn't matter. Because they had the Rebels.
Listen. I'm not going to spin you some tale about how me and Tiger of the Wind were buddies or any stupid crap like that. I never knew them or caught sight of any of them while I was serving, and besides I'm a terrible liar. I did hear the stories though, and you can imagine how blown out of proportion they were by the time they reached the Leftovers. Suddenly a normal Hare became an eight foot tall giant with fists like a Golem, and that didn't do much to boost morale, I can tell you. Personally, I didn't think much of them back then, but now I see how much they helped the cause I am trying to accomplish. I respect them and everything that they did to keep us from making a huge mistake. They were heros, all of them.
When the Rebels first started causing trouble, things began to get really bad for us. Since we had no real use, the higher ups had come up with a solution to the cost of our upkeep and training. We weren't worth the meat they fed us, so eventually they just decided to stop feeding us all together. I guess the plan is that we would all either die or try to desert, and the problem would work itself out naturally. So we killed and ate any humans we could get our claws on, plus whatever we could scrounge off the landscape. Those meals were few and far between, so eventually a lot of us started to starve. It was around this time that I decided to run away, and leave this whole mess behind me.
So one night I ran, and never looked back. Other monsters saw me, I'm sure, but no one tried to stop me. We weren't worth the time, and they could always kill us later at their leisure. Its not like any of us could have stopped them from doing so, but a starving belly can do wonders on a person's priorities. For me, food came first, and dealing with the mess I had just made of my life would come later. Regardless to say, they never found me, and I may have been the only member of the Reserves that survived the war. I couldn't say, since I haven't seen any of them since. As for the war itself, the Rebels continued their bloody path up through the ranks towards Moo.
And we all know how that story ends.