Good and bad news, good news is I'm on a bit of a writing spree, I'm working on chapter 4 while 3 is being edited at this time as well as being halfway through Jaune Joestar's next chapter, trying to iron things out for Once Bitten Twice Shy to get another chapter, even doing some re-writes and polishes for Code: RAGNAROK, so things are happening even if slow. Bad news I've been locked out of the FFN app, so I'm quite pissed about that. I can't even log into the app from my phone, I've reset my password and it works on computer but for some damn reason my phone won't let me read anything… at least I can post but damn it I just found out I'm three chapters behind one of my favorite stories.
Anyways, enjoy the upload I'll see you at the end
GOW
Raven rock stilled, at last, it felt like an eternity of shaking as high command went to examine the ramifications.
"Status," Autumn asked.
"There's some chaos in the lower floors, Knight Squadron, and the Devil Dogs are keeping the peace but I'm not sure how long it'll last," Bruja said, the first to look at her terminal again.
"We are currently running on secondary power, Our generators need to be looked at by engineers as soon as possible. There is also a containment breach and defenses are offline." Eden brought up.
"Razz is about to need a trip to the med bay," Colwell said glaring up at the leader of IA from his spot on the floor, Razz meanwhile was trying not to throw up on the Devil Dogs commander a second time.
"Send him later, we'll probably need to send you down to ensure the soldiers stay in line and increase morale in the civilians," Bruja said.
"We'll need you to help re-capture the creatures that breached, for now, the floors are to be off limits," Autumn said.
"I'll send him first, Navarro can meet me down there and keep the people calm while I fix the breach, assuming you're done playing hero," Colwell said. His inquiry was met with silence.
"Navarro, do you copy?" Autumn asked.
"He's no longer on coms," Eden said.
"Bring him back online then," Colwell said.
"I cannot, Navarro is no longer at the door," Eden said causing the room to freeze up.
"Did the acid melt through the shield and kill him?" Bruja asked.
"What kind of shield is that anyways sir, it rocked the whole mountain and didn't even protect General Navarro." Razz finally spoke, his bile swallowed down enough for basic speech.
"There is no acid," Eden said, the screen displaying his audio turned into a live feed of the outside, instead of the ruins of DC surrounding the mountain they now were met with grassy plains far as their cameras can pick up. "Security footage shows us somewhere else, and we have no GPS reception anymore. By all available systems checks thus far we are in unknown territory."
"How did that happen?" Cornagi asked.
"It must have been the security protocol having sent us here, and however it did so General Navarro must have been sent flying away after or during our arrival, or he has been left behind at the capital wasteland," Eden said.
"But it was a shield. How the hell did it do all this?" Autumn asked.
"The program was labeled SHIELD, with this current situation I believe that to have been an acronym however I cannot find any record of it within my access in our systems, based on what the data says however we are somewhere else, likely what the shaking was as the mountain repositioned," Eden said.
"Then where's Navarro?" Bruja asked.
"Likely flung off while the mountain was in the movement process, if so he should be somewhere around the mountain's new location," Eden said.
With the latest development, Fenrir stood up, faced the door, and began walking.
"Colwell, get back to your seat, I can't lose another General right now," Autumn said, grabbing The young general's wrist. A moment later He felt pain shoot up his body as Colwell dropped Autumn on the ground faster than anyone could comprehend. In stunned silence, he left the room.
"Did Colwell just assault the general of the army?" Cornagi asked.
"Looks like I have another write-up to give him," Razz said, swallowing the bile in his throat.
"We don't have time for that, I'll address it myself later, for now, Cornagi I want you down in the living quarters making sure everyone is fine, what else seems to be wrong," Autumn asked.
"Unknown, I'm still running a system diagnostic but at 20% power it's going to take time," Eden said.
"Son of a bitch, do we have any idea where Colwell went?"
"On his way to the front gate," Eden said.
"He's going after Navarro." Bruja said.
It took a moment of thought but the entire room nodded in agreement.
"Yea sounds like something his dumb ass would do, anyway we can stop him?" Razz asked.
"I think we should Just let him look, for now, he's capable enough to survive by himself and if he can bring General Navarro back it would help," Cornagi said.
"Agreed, if anyone can find Jose and bring him home it's Colwell, and he has the strength and skill to kill anything in his way." Bruja agreed.
"Ah, His mutts are at the front gate anyways so they'll probably back him up, as much trouble as he gives me. Colwell is probably the best bet to bring Navarro back." Razz said with a scowl.
"As little as I like it there's not much else we can do, Bruja and Cornagi I want you both to help keep the civilians calm, make sure every soldier knows that if they misbehave Colwell is in charge of disciplining them, Razz and I will coordinate a fixing of our systems best we can, hopefully, Navarro and Colwell make it back soon and we can iron out the rest of the problems," Autumn said, earning salutes from everyone in the room. "And one more thing, Colwell's episode and Navarro being MIA don't leave this room, I want you to send Rivers and Miles here so I can brief them as the acting leaders of the Devil dogs and Knights."
"Yes sir." Bruja and Cornagi said before walking out.
"At least Rivers is easier to work with most of the time, are you sure you don't want to stop Colwell? I can still have an order sent out to keep him in the base." Razz said.
"No, as furious as I am, this is still something that needs to be done, and Colwell is going to have the best chance of killing any mutants we don't know about in this region," Autumn said.
"General Colwell has retrieved his PA and left the base with a Gatling laser and his sidearm, he left his cyber dog and troops," Eden said.
"Did he say anything to anyone?" Autumn asked.
"Not that I can tell, he left through the upper East doors and is walking straight."
"I hope you know what you're doing kid," Autumn said with a sigh.
GOW
Navarro jolted awake as he felt a cold sweep through his thigh. He could feel his body groaning under him while his suit display showed several hostiles approaching on his HUD,
'a stimpack then' he thought as he remembered the auto-injection he requested on his armor.
Deep growls were heard from nearby as he forced his body to stand up, another quick glance showed that his suit took some serious damage already with his shock absorbers completely dead and most of the shell busted. But he tore his eyes away from the hud to see what looked like four giant wolves of solid blackness, bone-white spikes covering their backs and faces spreading around him.
"Shit," he said, and the creatures charged him.
Navarro rolled to the side as two of them crashed into the spot he was standing in earlier, unholstering his plasma defender he fired at the one closest to him, one round entered its head and melted the creature's skull.
The other creatures began to charge again being dispatched with another shot each as the plasma made contact and melted their bodies into ashen shadows
"That's odd, plasma normally leaves a green goop but they just dissolved completely," Navarro muttered to himself.
Scanning his surroundings he could see that aside from the crater he made on landing there was mostly grassland around him. Switching the hud to map mode answered no questions as he could simply see the faint outline of his surroundings on the local map, a new scan, and the larger map had no data on it.
"Alright Jose, how did we get here," he asked himself, "last thing I did, was seal the doors of raven rock so the force field would work, From there…" he stressed his mind and remembered the shaking, the mountain vibrating at a fierce level causing him to strain his grip to keep the door shut, a bright flash is the last thing he remembered before his grip and consciousness went out.
"I don't know if they'll be able to even find me. I should try to look for a way back." His mind made up he looked around once more, no distinct landmarks were around to help him determine his way so he decided to walk east once more.
GOW
Hellhound was used to shit hitting the fan, she's been friends with Colwell since school and in a squad with him since the fall of Poseidon, she's seen no shortage of his dumb idea and even had a handful of scars on her dark brown skin to show it. but this, this was insane.
"So let me get this straight, Pendragon and Fenrir are just gone?" A familiar voice asked. She almost forgot Miles was here, just as she was second in command of the Devil dogs he was second in charge of the Knights, he was rather pale with scars and blisters marks all around his hairless skin, and neither of them expected to be told by Autumn and Razz that their CO's were just gone.
"Yes, Navarro's location is completely unknown and Colwell left the facility close to two hours ago, he was unresponsive when doing so," Autumn repeated.
"Except for assaulting the general of the army," Razz muttered.
"Sounds like Fenrir alright," Miles muttered.
"Oh, can it Delta, If Fenrir and Direwolf are MIA we should be mounting a rescue." She said, miles scowled at her words.
"It's Merlin now, and you should refer to General Pendragon with more respect." He said.
"Easy both of you, I know you have some history but I don't care right now. Your COs are gone and like it or not you both need to step up and lead your squads and our military into being successful." Autumn said.
"Fine, I'll put Ghost in charge of keeping the civilians calm but from what I saw before I came up here the newer ones are scared, it's making it harder to figure out who needs what help. Meanwhile, I request to be allowed to search for General Colwell with a small squad, just myself and two others," she said.
"Denied, Colwell is already out there searching for Navarro, his suit should map out the path so he can return anyways but right now we need both of you working on getting the facility operational," Autumn said, causing Rivers to scowl.
"With all due respect, if Dylan was unresponsive as you said then he may need some backup, it'll just be me and two dogs we'll be back with him before you know it." She offered again.
"Be that as it may, we need the Devil dogs here, Colwell will cool himself off soon enough and probably come back with Navarro when he does, till then I need you both here helping out and leading your squads." Autumn reaffirmed. "This is not up for debate, I want you two to keep your squads in order and keep this under wraps, I don't want to think of the panic that we'll have if it's revealed two of our generals are gone."
"I don't know Autumn, they might cheer when they find out Colwell is one of them," Razz said. The next thing anyone knew Hell Hound was being held back by Merlin as she tried to deck Razz.
"Razz! That was uncalled for, you two are excused. I need to have a talk with General Razz for a minute." Autumn said.
"Yes sir," Merlin said, dragging Hellhound out of the room.
"Let me go Delta, someone needs to knock that sly little shit down a few pegs." She snarled.
"Calm down hound, you and I both know Razz just wants another excuse to write up the Devil Dogs." He said to her.
"Then let me give him one!"
"As much as I'd love to watch both of you eat shit we're too busy for that, you and I both know Fenrir is going to come back here soon enough, likely with a body count bigger than our population, maybe even with General Navarro and it's our job to make sure this base is operating for that return."
Hellhound took a breath as his words registered with her. "Why do you have to be right the one time it means I can't beat the shit out of Razz." She asks with a glare.
"You say that like I'm ever wrong." He said,
She didn't respond, instead walking away to her squad to take command.
GOW
So far walking east didn't work out as well as he'd hoped it might, a few of the strange monsters had approached him again but all fell easily enough to a single shot of plasma. Sadly he only had three shots left as his energy cells got damaged in the fall, fortunately, his machete was proving a good enough weapon against these creatures allowing the general to rip them into pieces with a few swings, still causing them to dissolve on death oddly enough.
"How peculiar, we don't see many people out here." A feminine voice spoke. Navarro whipped his head and saw a woman with long dark hair, her top was covered in what looked almost like a red robe while a short black skirt showed her thighs and the long black boots covered about to her knees, some kind of sheath was on her waist but Navarro had trouble identifying it. next to her were three thugs dressed the part with holes in their jeans and shirts as well as bandanas covering part of their faces.
"Not really sure where here is, I'm just trying to find my way back home," Navarro responded.
"Oh? Where might that be? We could help you find it." She said with a smile as her goons chuckled.
"If you want to skip the mugging part and help me with directions that would be appreciated." He said.
"Aww that's the best part though." One of her goons said, causing the rest of them to laugh.
"I figured you'd say that, so who am I fighting first?" Navarro asked, his hand hovering over the plasma defender on his waist.
"How about all of us," One of the goons said with a laugh, the three of them began circling him while the woman stayed back observing.
'She's their leader then, likely too important to want to fight with her henchmen' he thought, 'likely stronger too I'll need to save at least one round for her."
Navarro gave up on the idea of using his plasma defender, even if he made all three shots hit he'd be stuck fighting the boss who could prove troublesome, and he might encounter something more worth using his ammo on later, the machete would have to do.
Luckily it appeared that all of his assailants were using melee weapons, short swords specifically. Easy enough, as the first rushed at him he allowed the blade to slice against his metal armor while he beat the machete into his arm like it was a club causing a screech of pain as the rogue retreated slightly to nurse the new cut he had.
"That armor is something special isn't it?" Another goon asked.
"Atlesian no doubt about it, probably worth a pretty penny." The third responded. Navarro knew well enough to keep his mouth shut, as an old friend would say why dignify the dead?
The last two charged at him and he once more took the blows to his suit, feeling their impact against him as he went in for his own counter. Nothing fancy but definitely violent as one of them felt Navarro's blade beat into his chest hacking into his flesh and cracking some bones making the man wheeze in pain.
The last one tried to reposition himself only to be met with a charge from Navarro knocking him off his feet with his shoulder before bringing his machete down into the bandit.
"You bastard!" The first man spat, with his uninjured arm he grabbed his sword from the ground and slammed it into his back.
"You really want to do this?" Navarro asked, the man screamed, lunging with the machete causing Navarro to sigh, his fist slamming into the man while the sword made contact with his suit once more, the thug was sent tumbling down and Navarro was able to beat his sword into the bandit's throat killing him.
"Impressive, not too many people around these parts can stand up to the Branwen tribe, any chance you'd consider joining? We could use someone of your strength." The woman said.
"I'll have to pass, I'm still trying to find out where I even am." He said.
"Oh that'll be simple, you're on Anima." She said, approaching him.
"Assuming you're telling the truth, why help me? I just beat up three of your goons." Navarro asked.
"Because they were weak and you're quite clearly not, you're strong enough to have earned some respect and hospitality." She responded.
"Alright then, what's Anima?" He asked, causing her to look surprised.
"Anima, one of the three inhabited continents, better known as the kingdom of Mistral maybe?"
"I see…"
"You have no clue what that is?"
"Not really, but I'm used to people naming things differently from how they're supposed to be, if you could point me in the direction of Washington DC I can find my way."
"What's that?" She asked.
"Washington DC, the American capital pre-war?"
"None of those words mean anything to me."
Navarro stopped at that, his head pounding a little and his body shaking. It wasn't unheard of in the wasteland for people to not know about their history, but to not even be aware of the Great War? Something was up.
"How about you come back to camp with me, we can have a better discussion there and get you rested, besides my scouts have seen Grimm running around this way in larger numbers than normal, I'd rather us not be caught while talking."
"Yea, that might be a good idea, I'm Navarro by the way."
"Raven, I'll lead the way."
GOW
Honestly, I'm surprised I didn't upload this sooner, I'm really happy I didn't because there was a glaring mistake my beta/co-author and I talked over in chapter 3 that was in here that I didn't notice until I did my last editing round, I'll let you speculate on what it is but still happy it's out now. Oh and the last general! You've met him now. Out of curiosity tell me who your favorite general is thus far and we'll see if it changes by the end of the story, you can always comment hit like fav bookmark follow whatever the sites allow, (I love reading your comments) but I do have a discord too, it'd be great for you to join the server and chill, I plan on doing polls for some stories eventually.
discord gg 5B4kC2qSG3
