16th of May 1990, 13:00, US expedition.
Parkers Battalion, Recon company, 1st platoon.
"1st platoon, this is Fox Black 5, what's your status over?" the radio sounded off.
Ah shit, 2nd platoons radio operator internally swore.
He looked towards the Lieutenant who was talking, again, to 2nd squads, squad leader. The lieutenant, despite just being able to see his back side, looked absolutely irritated and quite possibly pissed.
Honestly, I should be grateful that we lasted this long. It's been a hour and we still haven't moved out yet, and I just now gotten a radio checkup call. But still it didn't help that I will be the one answering.
He looked to the Platoon sergeant who was taking notes on a map, "So... you wanna answer?"
"No," was his blunt response. Not even bothering to look at him.
It was worth a shot, he ill-fatedly noted.
He pressed the transmit button, "This is 1st platoon Romeo, we have had mechanical difficulties. And are currently immobile, Fox Black 5 over." It wasn't a lie per say, just no one noticed him overhearing the 2nd squad leader saying they lost a member.
"Received, how long until its resolved over?"
Even if it was still a mechanical issue, how the hell would I know that?
Right before he was about to transmit that he had no idea, someone yelled out from the recon team.
"Hey! is that Lopez?!" a soldier yelled from on top a Humvee while pointing North of their position, binoculars in hand.
The whole recon team stopped what they were doing looked to the direction in which he pointed. At first, they didn't see anything just the snowy forest. With the trees and foliage blocking their line of sight. But lord be hold, Lopez was revealed from inside forest in a full out sprint.
"Why is he running?" one recon member asked.
"More like how he is running, this isn't exactly a thin layer of snow." another member pointed out, kicking the snowy-ground as evidence.
The lieutenant on the other hand didn't care so much on the why, but more on the fact he was spotted.
"Oh, thank god he's back," he whispered, but quickly switched back into his officer ways, "Okay everyone, get back in your vehicle's and prepare to move!" he yelled out to the recon team.
Upon receiving the command, the squads began making their way to their vehicles and the radio operator began informing Company HQ they would be moving shortly. While the lieutenant and some members of 2nd squad started walking towards Lopez to hear what he had to say about his long leave of absence, the lieutenant thinking a whole range of racist insults to give the soldier for ignoring protocol.
But as the Lieutenant, Simmons, Sarge, Grif, and Washington, walked into the woods, away clearing from the clearing and the recon platoon, they started to notice how frantic Lopez looked in his running.
Lopez was in a sprint all right, rifle in one hand and his other free of anything to assist in his running to get the best effect and free motion one could get while running with a rifle. The snow from the ground getting kicked up into the air by his legs as if he was running in a stream of water. They could even see his rapid breathing in the cold air from where they stood, which was some distance.
"He's really booking it," Simmons noted.
"Yeah... is he running from something?" Washington questioned.
which Grif snorted at the idea, "You think he pissed something off?"
The lieutenant, still pissed on the situation, decide to make this a fine example, "He wouldn't be in this situation if he would have stayed with the group." he rebuked the group.
The group remained silent. Except for Grif, mumbling something about, you wouldn't stay with this group either if you were in it. The lieutenant didn't hear the sarcastic comment.
Lopez ran up to the group sounding like a wheezing pig and held on to Sarge by the shoulders, which Sarge remained unmoved by the action. While the other present circled around to hear what he had to say.
"Lopez! Where the hell have you been!? We could have been done 30 minutes ago if you wouldn't have wondered off." Sarge berated Lopez.
Lopez, ignoring what sarge just said, took in a breath of air, "Shut up you old goat, we need to get ready! It's coming!" he yelled out in Spanish, while shaking him as he did so. Trying to get the urgency across as quickly as possible.
"Goddamnit Lopez, what have I told you about speaking Spanish. This is United States Army, we speak American." Sarge said, remaining un-effected and oblivious by Lopez's actions.
Due to Lopez's physically exhausted, and mentally exhausted, he could physically only get Spanish out. So, even though he knew of what he was going to say in English, all that came out was Spanish.
"We need to go!" Lopez yelled into Sarge's face, in Spanish.
Washington noticing the clearly distressed posture Lopez was in, grabbed onto Lopez's shoulder, "Lopez, we can't understand you." He said calmly, "what's the matter?"
Lopez let go of Sarge and swung around, "We! Need! To! Go!" he at last yelled in English at the group pointing in the direction he came from.
The group looked to where he was pointing but didn't see anything but his own tracks in the snow and the rest of the normal looking forest.
The lieutenant having enough of this unprofessionalism turned back to Lopez, "Private Lopez, you know how long you have held us back in this position!" He yelled into his face, "We could've been long gone from here 30 minutes ago, but no, you had the bright idea of wandering off like you're in the goddamn boy scouts!"
As the lieutenant continued to yell at him, Lopez, despite having his face covered by military goggles and scarf, looked every bit confused as his fellow members did in this situation.
Washington was right about to give the order for the other members to give some space for the lieutenants yelling session with Lopez but stopped when he heard something.
It sounded almost like a distant snaping sound. At first, he thought it was one of the members being bored and started messing with a stick, but when he looked at each one they were all busy observing's the lieutenant crackdown on Lopez. All either hands free or holding their weapons. So, he looked towards where Lopez ran from and tried to block out the sound of insults. He heard it again, a distant sound of what now reminded him of branches being snapped or torn down.
To hear what it was exactly, he followed in the tracks Lopez made in the snow to get closer and to get farther away from the group and maybe see what it was.
He made it a couple steps before he could hear it a bit more clearly and stopped, something was moving through the forest bumping into trees and smashing branches as it moved. But that didn't make any sense, he thought. If that is what the sound is, then it would have to be huge, the branches were at least 12 feet up.
But confirming his theory on it moving was correct, it was getting louder despite him not moving. And now there was a new sound added into it, a thumping sound.
"Hey, does anyone else hear that?" Grif voiced to the group, apparently now able to hear the sound too. Washington turned around towards the group to hear their input.
Lieutenant stopped his yelling upon hearing Grif and listened into his surroundings, to hear if Grif had any merit. The other members remained quiet and listened in to hear if they heard it too.
The lieutenant eyes widened in surprise and confusion when he could hear it, "What is that?"
Lopez hearing the sound himself, "It's here!" he finally yelled a sentence in English. But he fled towards the rest of the platoon before he could explain further.
The group became more confused now than before.
"What did he mean by 'it'," Simmons asked the group.
They all turned towards the lieutenant, which looked more confused than them and looked towards Washington who strayed away from the group and was closer to the source the sound then them.
Washington faced towards the direction it was coming from and brought one hand up to shield his squinted eyes from the light to see if he could spot what it was. But as he scanned the forest, the thumping sound was getting louder and more frequent along with the sound of wood being shoved and moved.
"What in the hell is that sound?" Sarge asked what was on everyone else mind.
"It might be the battalion's armor," the lieutenant told of one possibility.
"That can't be," Simmons said, "If that was the case then they would've passed the recon company and they would've have moved ahead or informed us."
Washington decided to bring out his binoculars and brought them up to his eyes and scanned the forest again.
But again, all he could see was trees, logs, and rocks. But sooner than later he would see what it was eventually, evident by it getting louder.
"Hey guys! Do you hear that sound?" A soldier manning one of the m240s mounted on one the Humvees yelled out towards the group.
Washington ignored him and rescanned the forest again with his binoculars. Trees, rocks, black... He grew confused as he saw a silhouette in the distance. It was to big to be one of those...
"oh my god,"
"What was that Washington? Did you see it?" Sarge asked.
Instead of answering, Washington swung around towards the group and started running.
"I think he saw it," Grif commented.
"We got contact!" Washington yelled as he ran past the group, "Its coming this way! Lets go!"
Upon the waring the lieutenant followed right behind him as he continued on towards the vehicles just as Lopez did. The three other members on the other hand, did not immediately follow suit but instead turned back towards the source of the sound to see what it was.
The thumping, crashing and snapping of trees were louder as before. The group could feel slight vibrations in their heels, some just thought that was just nervousness, but that idea was bashed when the trees in front of them in the distance started dropping chunks of snow from vibrations of something hitting the ground.
"Oh fuck," Grif was the first to comment on what he saw.
In the distance, deep in the forest, a goddamn elephant finally came into the groups sight. Running full steam as one of that size could run, it was either smashing what trees that got in its way aside with its tusk or not bothering at all trampling them all together. And to make matter worse, it wasn't just a normal elephant. It might have had the same size and features. But it was undoubtably was the same as the other black beast they encountered and fought in this world, pure black with the only other color being its husk and bone like armor it had all over its body and pure red eyes.
A roar sounded throughout the air, one of a rumbling and screeching sound, only confirming more that it was indeed a elephant hybrid.
Grif, Simmons, and Sarge, saw this as their sign to follow in the others example and turned tail and run towards the others.
"Men!" the lieutenant yelled towards the rest of his unit still with the vehicles as he ran, "Prepare for combat! We got incoming!"
The platoon Sergent, like everyone else, who was curious on why Lopez seemed all outa shape was already on the North side of the perimeter of the vehicle circle, so he took no time for inaction with the order.
"You heard him, we got incoming! Set up a firing line and prepare to fire on command!" the platoon Sergent commanded.
The two squads that were present wasted no time, designated gunners ran for the Humvees, machine gunners either set up positions on the hoods of the Humvees or went prone on the ground with their assistant gunners, rifleman were yelled at by the squad and team leaders to spread out along the Northern perimeter with the grenadiers with their grenade launchers. All waiting to fire on the unknown enemy.
The Platoon Sergeant lost track of Lopez, but Washington managed to get to him right as the lieutenant made it clear of the woods.
"Platoon Sergent," Washington took a breath from his short but frantic sprint, "we got to get the heavy weapons out for this one fast!"
"What do you mean?"
"We got to get the anti-tank weapons!" Washington said, pointing towards one of the Humvees.
"I don't think we need-"
Washington cut him off, "Look!" he said while pointing North to show his point.
The platoon Sergent followed his hand to where he pointed, three members of their platoon, just now coming out the woods into their clearing. With a pissed off elephant smashing through one of the trees on the edge clearing as it pursued them with a rumbling roar as it locked onto the unit as a whole. The recon platoon didn't wait for the command to fire and fired at the sight of the beast, resulting in light machine gun and rifle tracers racing towards the beast
Washington had to admit he expected a somewhat dramatic reaction of him, but all he got was raised eyebrows and a command.
"Well slap me silly, someone get the rocket launchers now!" he yelled out to the platoon, looking around for anyone who heard him to give them instructions, or maybe to get one himself.
Washington on the other hand eyed the unmanned fifty on one of the Humvee and ran for it.
"Fuck, its gaining," Simmons yelled out as he and the two others were halfway to the unit, the lieutenant having already made it to safety within the platoon's circle of vehicles
"Don't look back, just run!" Simmons screamed out.
Sarge took particular notice of that, "Grif, see how close it is!"
"Grif don't-" Simmons tried but was too late to warn him.
Grif, with the prospect of danger and a history of following commands in the army looked back. All he saw was that the war beast was right on their heels, no more then 30 feet away.
How the hell did it gain so fast? It weighs like a million tons, he questioned.
But when he faced forward again, "Son of a bitch!" he lost his footing and went into a tumble into the snow.
Grif could've sworn he heard a joyful yes coming from Sarge as he ran off. So instead of looking backwards to his likely cause of death, he jumped right back up to his feet, slipping slightly in the snow when he did so, but nerveless went back into a sprint, ditching his light machine gun as he did so.
The Lieutenant with Simmons and Sarge having made it to the vehicles and the fire from two dozen men intensified into the beast. 5.56 and 7.62mm NATO rounds tour into the beast, trying to slow it down as Grif chugged his way to them. The rounds impacted the beast with little poofs of black smoke or deflected from the bone armor it possessed, doing little. Even the mounted M240s on the Humvee's were doing no better.
The only thing that the platoon seemed to have going for them was it was too large to miss.
Grif made it to the closest platoon Humvee, which had a mounted M240 gunner and rifle man on both ends providing fire. He sprinted around the front of it passing the rifleman to get to the other side, hopefully shielding himself from the elephant or at least have its attention on anything other than him.
The results were everything but, even as the manic elephant was quite possibly getting withered down with light weapons fire, it still persisted in its target. Which was Grif.
It ran up right up to the Humvee and struck its sharp tusk right into the Humvees side, the left tusk piercing its side armor going right into the engine and the right doing the same into the back cargo bed, pushing the entire Humvee into the ground sideways. The two rifle men positioned on either end of the Humvee along with Grif scattered right before impact to get some distance from what was going to happen next, but the gunner wasn't in such a position to do so.
The gunner tried to abandon the vehicle and jump for it but was too late, the vehicle was lifted up into the air and was now at the mercery of the beast.
The Elephant then preceded to rock its head in any possible direction smashing and dragging the Humvee into the ground, tearing chucks of US army metal off like its tires, bumpers, the side doors and the like. All while granting and whaling angrily at getting shot at by small arms.
The gunner meanwhile held on for his life. If he were to let go and attempt to jump, he would be flung across the clearing.
"This is our chance, surround it!" yelled the lieutenant as he fired his newly acquired M16.
The rest of the recon platoon broke from their firing line and began to reposition to outflank the beast as it trotted into the middle of the platoon circle.
It took notice of the encompassing of gun fire and rapped its long trunk around the Humvee and tightened its grip.
"Oh no," was all the gunner could say before the entire Humvee was ripped from the tusk and thrown, the gunner being yanked back inside of the vehicle from the g-force as it flew through the air like a toy car, the vehicle itself landing sideways on top a vacant Humvee some distance away with a crash.
Before the Elephant could focus on one new potential target a blast tore into its side, roaring out in pain at the sudden loss of its pelvis.
It looked towards in the direction of the culprit, a lone grenadier, having had fired his M16 under barrel grenade launcher.
The beast huffed, and again sprinted towards its new target.
"It's coming right for me!" the grenadier screamed in panic, as he tried to load a new HE round into his grenade launcher. The sight of a giant monsters and the stomping making it difficult to focus.
The beast made it half-way before a thunder burst of higher caliber rounds tore into its left side, 12.7mm rounds.
"Yeah, that's right, it's me you want!" yelled Washington from a Humvee with a M2 machine gun.
The beast took the challenge and rotated its huge body towards Washington and sprinted, all while taking small arms fire from the spread out platoon.
Washington re-aimed, "Why the hell did I do that?" he complained and resumed firing the fifty.
Tracers impacted the face of the beast but the only effect it had was slight cracks in the face armor. So, Washington switched firing towards its long wide legs, particularly the kneecaps.
The effects were short of satisfactory, the bullets pierced the thin black skin of the legs but due to the short fire rate combined the even shorter burst of the M2 and lesser profile of legs resulting in some misses was not having a fast enough effect. And the actual bones being able to somewhat able withstand the hail of lead to some extent, it was simply not enough to bring it down.
And all hope of it being brought down was vanquished when the fifty Cal had a malfunction.
"No,no,no,no, not now," panickily cried Washington as he started slapping the machine gun in a foolish attempt to fix the problem.
Sarge took a pause from firing his shotgun to notice the absence of fifty Cal fire and saw Washington attempting to fix the problem. To give Washington more time he decided on a change in tactics.
"Aim for its eyes!" Sarge yelled and resumed firing,
The beast for its part was only enlightened by the absence of higher caliber fire and increased in speed.
Waving its trunk in the air, it released a final cry of slaughter and brought its tusk to the ground, sliding them against the ground, plowing the snow that covered it as it stampeded towards Washington. With the intention of tossing the Humvee, with Washington in it, into the air.
Washington was about to abandon the vehicle, and his heroic's, altogether as the elephant plowed towards him like a train before another grenade explosion encompassed its left tusk, detaching it from its head, and more similar impacts splattering along its body.
The monster, feeling such pain and loss of weight stunning it. It fell to its side, sliding the rest of the distance it had to Washington. With its only intact tusk reaching just feet from the rear tire of the Humvee.
It remained still and motionless, with only the steam and smoke of the platoon efforts to stopping it radiating of it.
Due the beast having slammed into the first Humvee it managed to cause havoc in the center and make it to the other side of the platoon's circle awhile having bullets hitting it from all sides. Now most of the platoon was completely behind the creature and was slowly creeping up behind the corps to confirm the kill.
Most likely being saved from death Washington looked toward the origin of the grenades that were fired to his right.
"Hey Washington! look who saved your ass again!" yelled Grif, a smoking M249 in hand, right below Lopez who was manning the Automatic-Grenade launcher mounted on a Humvee. The grenade launcher clearly having dispensed its ammunition by the steam rising from its firing chamber and barrel.
Lopez himself, was checking his grenade feeding box, "Nuts, I'm out." he noted.
Washington was about swear to never to wish death upon them until he felt something along his waist.
He looked down "What th-" Washington was jerked from the Humvee screaming for his life.
The nightmarish Elephant with its entire left side still disfigured and one tusk gone, wasn't dead yet. so, while Washington was distracted and the rest of the platoon off guard, it slid its trunk right up to Washingtons flank on top of the Humvee and preceded to grab hold of him.
"Fire! Fire at it! It's not dead, fire!" Yelled the Lieutenant, who like the others thought the beast was done for but got back to firing at the beast. Albeit more aimed at avoiding the friendly within its grasp.
The monster got up on all fours despite the crippling injury's sustained, and as it did with the tossed Humvee before, was dangling Washington side to side.
"Someone kill it!" yelled Washington as he was trying focus on squeezing out of its grasp as he was being swung each and every way like he was on a roller coaster ride.
The beast took Washington as a secondary threat and stomped its way towards the nearest soldiers on the ground trying to get closer to avoid firing into Washington. One such soldier being unfortunate enough to been swiped off his feet by its only tusks and tossed aside, the cracks and snaps of bones audible to all present. Then the beast turned and dialed in the compact group of soldiers, all around the lieutenant, and readied to charge.
It made it one step before a rocket soured right into its forehead, the heat warhead within exploding against its bone armor, sending the blast directly into its head. Completely hallowing it in a internal explosion. It fell to the ground like a sack of bricks, dropping Washingtons body wrapped in its lifeless trunk with it.
Despite the rocket blast completely blowing the top half of the elephants head off, the surrounding soldiers continued to fire small arms into its now disintegrating corps.
Soldiers tend to learn from their first mistake.
"Alright," the lieutenant ceased his own contribution to the shooting, "Everyone cease fire! Cease fire!" he yelled.
The pops and cracks of rifle and machine gun fire slowly died down as soldiers echoed the order around the slayed beast. Then silenced once again plagued the clearing as the soldiers lowered their weapons.
"Fuck," mumbled Washington as he slid his body out of the grasp of the beast like a snake, "Someone could've, you known, did that sooner?"
A blast of a shotgun sounded off, having the all the lowerd weapons jump back up level at the beast.
"Hold fire you fucktards!" yelled the platoon Sergent, walking towards the caused of the heightened tension with a freshly fired M72 Law in one hand.
The weapons were once again lowered, and eyes were set on the target the platoon Sergent had locked onto. Sarge attempted to hide his blunder by holding his shotgun by its sling at his side.
"Someone check on Willy and the Humvee!" the lieutenant said, having more important things then a un-called discard of weapon.
"Ummm," Sarge was like a dear caught in the headlights of a semi-truck as the platoon Sergent stopped right in front of him and got in his face.
"Are you fucking blind Sergent?!"
"Errrr, well sir-"
"Yes or no?!"
Sarge gulped, "No."
"Hey, does Washington need a medic?" someone called out within the unit.
The lieutenant took second to glimpse at Washington as he was checking on willy with the medic, "Washington, you good?"
Washington was taking a knee to get the dizziness out of his system, a slight pain in his back was increasingly being known to him.
"Uh my back doesn't feel so good, sir." responded Washington.
"Can you walk?"
Washington slowly got to his feet, arms out balancing, trying to compensate for the little balance he had.
"Yes sir, but-"
"Walk it off," said the lieutenant as he leaned into what the medic had to say about Willys current state.
After a few minutes the platoon of men regrouped to report. Three Humvees totaled, one KIA and a other WIA. The KIA being poor willy, his death was instant based on what the medic had to say. The MIA being Johnathan, somehow only having just a arm and leg broken after being thrown a couple dozen feet in a Humvee into a other Humvee.
All caused by one, newly discovered, creature. Which lead to one question on everyone's mind.
"Lepez, what the hell did you do to piss it off?" questioned Washington.
"What makes you think-" Lopez started.
"That doesn't matter," the lieutenant stated and pointed towards the radio operator of the platoon, "come here, we need to radio Battalion HQ about this new one."
The radioman walked over and handed the lieutenant the microphone from the radio, "This is Fox Red 6, to Fox black 6. We got something urgent to report over." he radioed company HQ.
Sarge was still curious about how Lopez managed to find the elephant, so he pursued the questioning, "Lopez, how'd you even find something like this?" he said, motioning to the now half disappeared corps. "And where can i find one?"
Lopez brought his arms up in exasperation, "What makes you think I found it? That bastard found me."
"It found you?" Simmons questioned.
"I was walking because I was taki-," Lopez coughed to cover his slight blunder, "I mean lost. Because I was lost. And it got the jump on me."
Grif giggled, "How does a thing of that size sneak up on someone?"
"Because I was too busy killing one of those Wolf things that snuck up one me, Asshole."
Grif just laughed at the achievement.
Simmons was about to ask some more about the wolf before the lieutenant cut, "Okay enough chatting, get ready to leave. We're going back to the company." The lieutenant informed the platoon before listening in on more feedback coming from company HQ.
The group around Lopez and the platoon made moves to get their gear and get to their vehicles at the announcement, but Lopez figured now would be the best time to report on his findings. "Well, the wolf got the jump on me because I was too busy trying decipher a sign I found," said Lopez, slightly raising his voice for most to hear.
Lopez's squad didn't much understand the implications of such a statement, but the lieutenant did.
"Wait, what did you say?" said the lieutenant as he gave the radio back to the radio operator and gave Lopez his full attention.
Lopez smiled under his military scarf, "I found a sign in the woods," he pointed north to get the meaning across
The lieutenant wasn't sure if he was pulling his strings or not, "What sign?" he said.
Lopez crossed his arms over his chest, "A sign in the woods-No actually, on a trail."
"A trail?"
"Yes sir."
"What was on-"
"No clue sir, couldn't read it or understand it." The lieutenant made a move to ask something else but Lopez was ahead of him, "And it didn't look familiar at all. And looked to be quite weathered down too.
The lieutenant just staired into Lopez's military goggles that covered his eyes, hands on his hips, thinking about the current give information and trying to process it.
The lieutenant took a deep breath, "So what you're telling me, soldier?"
Everyone who overheard the conversation stopped what they were doing and remained focus on what was about to be said, even the posted sentries took a moment to hear it.
"The sign looked quite alien, sir." stated Lopez.
The lieutenant staired at Lopez a second then to the rest of the platoon, trying to get confirmation he heard that right.
The rest of the platoon just looked at each other.
"Did Lopez find the natives?"
"Aliens?"
"Did I hear that right?"
Even the battle-hardened platoon sergeant looked a bit surprised at the information, raising his eyebrows and shoulders when the lieutenant eyed him, showing him his confusion and surprise at the statement.
The lieutenant looked back to Lopez to make sure, "Alien?"
"I do believe so, sir" responded Lopez.
That was all the lieutenant needed and turned towards the radio operator, who looked just as surprised as his comrades, snapping his figures to get him out of his daze the lieutenant called him over.
But right as the radio operator headed him the microphone to the radio a loud howl resonated throughout the platoon, and it wasn't just the sound of one wolf making the sound, it sounded as if a whole pack joined in. Its long drawn out declare lasting for longer for it not to catch the platoon off guard. Its origins coming from somewhere West.
At the sudden presence of more hostile wildlife the lieutenant went into action, "What are you standing around for, get into defensive positions!" he yelled.
The sentries that were posted flipped around to facing the outside perimeter at the sudden sound while the rest of the platoon stopped loitering around the lieutenant and Lopez and made themselves useful by either manning the mounted weapons on the Humvee's or went for their designated weapons and added to the security of the platoon as a whole. The heavy machines guns were readied, the light machines were supplied with extra ammo, grenades were counted, and rocket launchers were distributed throughout the whole platoon.
Lopez getting a sick feeling of Déjà vu followed his squad's section of the perimeter. While the lieutenant and the platoon sergeant with the platoon radioman rallied in the center of the platoon to better coordinate against what was coming.
But as the platoon was fully into their positions the howling stopped. Complete silence once again filled the clearing.
The only sound being made was the clanking belts of machine gun rounds and crunching of snow under boots.
And minute passed and no movement was spotted in the woods, and no other sounds were heard. Giving the platoon a sense of anticipation.
Another minute passed and still nothing came or alerted the platoon, giving the men now sense of relief. Putting them in a off guard state.
The platoon sergeant leaned next to the lieutenant, "Perhaps our numbers scared them off?" he said.
A second passed and the lieutenant was about to agree, until the howling came back.
This time it was even loader, sounding as if the numbers of the pack increased by tenfold. Even adding on the howling, the roaring of bears with other callings of other nightmarish creatures were present. One such sound was familiar, the whale of elephants, just like from the one they just killed.
And perhaps even more concerning, it wasn't just coming from the West. It was coming from the North, West, and the South.
Just as the sounds came back the men raised their weapons and scanned their areas of fire, even as the intensity of the calls grew even more intense in volume and power.
But as before, it stopped. Except instead of silence this time, the sounds of rumbling and the creaking of the forest were heard.
Then next the men could feel a slight feeling in the ground, not to different from a small earthquake. But the scale and significance of this was soon made apparent to men as the radio antennas on the Humvees started vibrating and the surrounding trees having chunks of snow drop down on to the forest floor, correlation with the earthquake was obvious. And most alarming, off in the distance at tree top level they could see a wave of movement, as if something was traveling through the forest, forcing the trees to buckle and bend as it traveled past them. Just the problematic part was it was more like a group of somethings that were forcing their way to them like a tidal wave.
The lieutenant was plainly confused in shock as the graveness of the situation drastically increased. This mind going into a blank panic state, a state shared by his fellow comrades.
Luckily, what type of situation they were in was soon realized by none other than Sarge.
"God almighty! We are in a stampede!" yelled Sarge excitedly as he looked up from his position at a Humvees hood.
While that announcement contributed little to relieving the men around Sarge. It did immediately slap the lieutenant out of his trance, and he considered his next course of action.
"Everyone! Get the fuck in the trucks now!" the lieutenant proclaimed.
The platoon didn't need to be told twice and abandoned their defensive positions and made their mad dashes for their vehicles.
The lieutenant himself made a dash for his passenger side door to his Humvee, but as he opened it he noticed some soldiers retrieving ammo boxes and camp gear from their rest period, "Forget your equipment! We need to leave now!" he yelled at them before slamming his door shut.
Doors were slammed shut, engines were started, and startled yelling of swearing and commands sounded off through the platoon.
Upon the visual confirmation all the men were mounted he took the radio microphone, "Everyone, go south towards the company in a line at top speed!" he commanded.
Upon permission to leave, the drivers of all remaining operable vehicles put their boots to the metal with the full intention of getting as much space between them and whatever was coming. Leaving behind the three wrecked Humvees scattered bits of non-vital equipment
The group of Humvees formed a single file line and sped South back into the woods.
The lieutenant looked back at the platoon radiomen in the back seat, "Put on HQ and hand it over!" he said in urgency.
The radiomen did a visual check on the radio to make sure it was still on the correct channel and then handed the lieutenant the microphone.
"This is Fox red 6, we got a major fucking problem!"
Authors note:
Holy moly did I take my sweat time.
Now, reason for long pause in posting. Busy is the short answer. I'm in my last year of high school and in the last semester while also getting ready to join the Army. A lot of stuff to do I say. And due to certain events in... Eastern Europe. Most of my reading and focus has been on that event. So, this story is not top priority. But I don't plan on ditching it either.
And not gonna lie, the past two chapters were originally one but that became way to long, so I split them up into two. Which is a little bit of the reason why it took me so long to post. And they are not the best I'll admit, but I just wanted to move on to the better stuff to be honest. But if there is something bothering in spelling or grammar, feel free to correct me.
And I hope you didn't mind me using the characters in the past two chapters. Rooster Teeth owns Red vs. Blue and RWBY, so I figured it'd be fun to add them in a little cameo.
Also! RWBY characters will be appearing soon. I'd say in a chapter or two... Maybe three.
Reviews:
Guest "Update?": I hope the wait was worth it.
Crowbars357: Massive thanks! I would like to believe I would have noticed at some point, but I'm not too confident on that.
NlaEid: Yeah, I probably won't do that again. Way to much effort for too little.
I do appreciate you reviews a lot, so don't think I don't look at them.
Otherwise, thank you and have a fantastic day.