Envy and the marines had stayed put in the forest clearing as twilight rapidly gathers, listening to the growing thunder from the south.
"Fucking Hentai Boys are getting schwacked, bro." the skinny, vile-as-his-namesake Rancid observed to no one in particular, as he broke down and cleaned his rocket launcher for the third time.
"You take that thing apart one more time and the Blueberries are gonna catch you without your piece, marine." Old Timer, the squad sergeant, growled, "Get it together and ready for action."
"Aye-aye, sarge."
"Any news on the net, Sparks?" the sergeant asked, glancing up at Envy, who had sat on top of the Drachman's armored car and was watching their chatter with an amused half smile.
Nervous humans were always fun.
The sleepy-eyed female marine shrugged, yawning before answering;
"Yeah. Hentai Boys are getting schwacked. Other than that, nothing coming down from Warboss Actual since the alert call."
"Hentai? What language is that?" Envy asked from their perch on top of the armored vehicle, "Wait," they held up a hand, "Tokugowan, right?"
Hatred, the hulking Drachman who was currently preparing the armored cars heavy machine gun for action stopped and turned to look at his squads notional captive,
"Er, yeah." Envy held their hand up in triumph, as if there had never been any doubt that they were correct in guessing the strange language; "We're based on the West Coast, so there's a lot of cross cultural immersion with the other countries on the Azure Sea…"
"Cross cultural fuckin' immersion he says." Rancid interrupted, laughing as he shoved a rocket into the front of his launcher and locked it in place, "Tell my dude up there what it means, Hatred." He smirked, before checking the safety on his launcher to make sure it was engaged.
The big Drachman blushed, hard.
Envy smirked to match the vile marine with the rocket launcher; as much as they disliked the thin little jerk, they were bored and willing to work with him to make Hatred squirm, mainly out of pure boredom.
"Well, what does it mean?" Envy prompted.
"Some mysteries you're gonna have to figure out on your own, lady." Corpser, the units second in command, muttered as she sent a warning glance at Rancid, "Keep you minds in the game, people."
"Oh come on…" Envy griped, "How bad can it be?"
"The Kraken is the beast symbol of the Fourth." A quiet voice sounded from the other side of the armored car, and Envy jumped out fo their skin, "It's a monstrous squid. You know what squid are, yes?"
Envy turned to find the sharpshooter Whisper sitting on the top deck of the armored car and facing away from them; the homunculus was sure he hadn't been there before and they hadn't heard him climb up.
"Yeah." Evy muttered, to shaken to come up with any venom to throw into their speech, "I do."
"Hentai is a slang word in Tokugowan for perversion."
"And? What do they have to do with each other?"
"You seem sort of fucked up." The sniper said, still not looking back at Envy; there was no insult on his worlds, just a simple observation of fact, "It will click eventually."
The crescendo of war form the north suddenly abated, the gathering twilight going silent as the guns tapered off to dull, constant roar rather than the echoing cacophony of a few moments before.
"They're through." Sparks suddenly called, pressing her hands to the earpieces of the compunctions headset on her helmet, which were plugged into a radio set carried on her backpack, "Warboss is callin' us in."
The armored car came to a screeching halt in front of a collection of half-completed underground bunkers topped with dark green tents, with heavy cables trailing out of many of them to a forest of ariel antennas not to far away, a few Drachman soldiers moved quickly here and there, ducking down earthen stair cases and into the bunkers, dark red light briefly spilling out unto the dark night a they lifted up tent flaps to dart inside.
"Warboss sounds tied up, I'm ducking into the CP to get Orders" Old Timer explained to the rest of his squad as he climbed through the cramped steel door of the scout car and stood up. The other scouts quickly dismounted the vehicle, checking their weapons as they moved off; Envy noted that they studiously stayed close to a nearby shelter trench; the sudden caution from the reckless Drachman infantry made the homunculus tense, and theyunconsciously moved behind Old Timer, not wanting to stay in the dark about what was going on.
From the South, the sounds of battle intensified, the sounds of the explosions now so close together as to be indistinguishable.
Envy was nearly on top of the grizzled veteran when he reached a heavily fortified wood and sandbag bunker; two Drachmans sat in fox holes on either side of the door, with both stepping out to briefly shine a flashlight on Old Timers face- and Envy's.
"What the hell is that thing still doing here?" one of them demanded, "Why's it following you?"
Old Timer glanced back at Envy,
"Didn't realize he was there." He explained, "But you may as well let him follow me. We have enough problems without hi slitting your throats and stealing your faces."
Old Timer walked inside, with the homunculus on his heels, the guard's ether confused or intimidated enough to not try and stop the pair.
The sergeant flipped back the heavy blackout curtain and pushed inside, barely bothering to hold it open for the trailing shapeshifter. Despite the petty disrespect, Envy could barely hold back a smirk; what fools would give someone like them access to their headquarters?
One more step on the road to understanding this strange new wor-
Envy froze.
They had spent their lives under a militaries command center, they had followed armies on campaign, effortless gliding in and out of the ranks, watching, waiting to push things Fathers way. They thought they knew what to expect on the beating heart of Megaladon.
What they found instead was a quiet insanity.
The tight confines of the bunker glowed with the blue light from a handful of glowing monitors, a few larger things haphazardly mounted ti the wall, but most sat on a pair of long, flat tables, surrounded by a swarm of Drachmans in sweat stained fatigues, men and women hunched over laptop screens not very different from the machine they had cadged off Sparks back at the cabin.
The dim light of the bunker truly came from a small box crudely mounted to the ceiling, projecting images unto the wall opposite the entryway they had just come through.
It brought memories of the first movie projectors they had seen, long ago at an exposition in Central, but instead of a whirring film reel, the sleek machine had a rats nest of cables snaking out of the back of it and attached to the terminals under it.
"'Scuse me Old Timer." A voice came from behind as a Drachman officer pushed in behind Envy and the sergeant.
"Yeah, Wolfie. Sorry. C'mon Razor."
"Razor, huh? Careful now you two." The officer warned cryptically, which might have made Envy wonder if they weren't distracted by the newcomers bizarre appearance; she was wearing the standard Drachman camouflage uniform and body armor and sported short cut black hair, but it was streaked with eye searing pink dye, which matched the oversized, pink plush cat ears mounted on top of the radio headset she wore.
Envy stared after the officer as she pushed past, showing a large green and black patch on the back of her body armor that said "Fur Stranger" in Drachman. They were relatively sure they were missing something in the translation, but the overall effect was...
"What in the hell..." Envy began.
"Don't question it." Old Timer sighed, as the oddly dressed Drachman plopped down at an empty chair next to a previously unmanned terminal that had an entire bank of glowing monitors in front of it.
" 'Dromes up and running, boss man." she called, "Got three UAV's up and sending to main...now."
Envy looked back to the front of the bunker and found Aleksy standing in front of the projection screen with his arms folded across the front of his armored chest and equipment harness.
Where the hell had he come from?
"Warboss, all elements in position. Blue-Balls are fifteen klicks out." The Drachman intelligence officer called from a bank of monitors showing a collection of red markers on a map, with slowly moving blue markers closing in, "Kraken's bought us what time they could but they're falling back to regroup for flanking attacks."
"Any Bluies breaking off to pursue?" Aleksy, Warboss, asked.
"No. Nothing so far. Heading in straight for us."
Warboss snorted in amusement before turning around, stopping short when he spotted Envy; the homunculus took an involuntary step back as the Drachman leveled a withering glare at them, and they actually felt their face break out into a sheepish grin at the absolutely concentrated wave of "you don't belong here" seemed to radiate off Aleksy.
The Drachman officer shifted his glare to the sergeant who had brought Envy here, and Old Timer gazed steadily back at Warboss. Before ether could speak, the officer with the plush ears on her head announced,
"Feed's up. Got Night Raven up high and two tee-bee's at cruising height. My people are spinning up a few racks of Buzzers and Monkey Wrench's now. Fifteen mikes."
The screen behold Warboss, which had formerly been blank save for a few cryptic icons scattered across it, now flared to life it with display broken up to show three moving images- the shapeshifter took a moment to grasp that the images being played cross the screen were real, live streams of video, a moving picture transmitted like a radio signal, although judging from the angles, these were transmitting from above, flying like the thunderously roaring fighters that they had watched streak across the skies above war-torn Amestris. They recognized the ghostly white hues of "thermal imaging"- similar to the scopes on the Drachman rifles.
But just what was sending those images? A few days ago Envy would have died before they asked that aloud of these strange human's, but now…
"What sort of flying machine are you all using to do…that?" Envy waved a gloved hand at the screen behind Warboss, who was currently standing to one side and watching the far edges of one of the screens theone showing the highest angled view, fill with white hot glowing vehicles moving across the landscape.
"Unmanned aerial vehicles, U.A.V.'s, or drones, for short." Old Timer quietly explained, "These models are for long range reconnaissance. Others are short range, used by company and platoons. These transmitting to the screen are the ones assigned to headquarters for wider surveillance. There are other models that Wolfie runs from her terminals over there, and back at her UAV company. They'll be up soon."
"And? What do these "other models" do?"
"I imagine you'll see before too long."
Before Envy could demand a straight answer, one of the Drachmans at another terminal called,
"Blue-Bellies are dismounting infantry."
"Premature disembarkation." Someone called, to dark chuckles from their comrades.
"Isolated?" Warboss asked,
"Negative, front wide."
"Fuckwits." Warboss laughed, pressing a radio earpiece tight into his ear and keying up a microphone on throat, he spoke quickly called, "Warboss Actual to Imp Actual, across the front, be ready with a full spread."
Warboss turned to another marine manning a terminal,
"Fire Control, patch Maggot into company HQ's for Viper, Trooper and Guard companies, have them call coordinates as soon as the Blue-Belles come into long range observation."
"Marking three, make that four heavy armored elements behind the Bluie IFV's, unknown strength, make it to be company size for each."
"Fuck, what's got it into them?" the officer known as Wolfie asked as the far edge of the main drone feed filled with ghostly white images of armored vehicles and infantry.
Envy was regretting not having ducked out when they had the chance as they watched the horde barreling down,
"C.B.R. reports incoming!" Wolfie called, as distant thuds began t gently shake the ground; it took Envy a moment, but they realized that this was incoming artillery fire, exploding somewhere far too close for their liking.
"Reconning by fire. Mark them if you can, everyone keeps their guns silent. Wolfie cut that radar before they mark it."
"Already shut off and on the move, boss."
"You go, girl."
"Fuck off, Aleksy."
If Envy wasn't busy keeping themselves form flinching with each incoming explosions, they might have wondered at the overly familiar byplay between the two, but as it stood, they just grit their teeth and wished the damned marines would take any of this at all seriously.
"Warboss I've got two squadrons of attack heloes from the 6th and 10th on the net, calling ready to support."
"Hussars are blood thirsty tonight." Warboss observed, as he calmly watched the horde of Amestrians close in; they were visible on both of the smaller drone feeds now, "We have anything on what the Blue Bellies have for A.D. for this attack?"
"Negative, beyond they don't seem to have any air assets in place beyond U.A.V. surveillance. Kraken reported no anti air encountered."
"We'll assume they have something we don't know about. Lightpole, give those rotor heads a designation and have them standby until we figure out what those people have for air defense and cut its throat."
"Yes, Sir." A skinny, dark skinned young marine in front of a bank of radios answered, before speaking again, "Hussar flights, be advised you are designated as Fang and Mamba for this engagement, standby until we have info on disposition and status of enemy Air Defense assets." He called, voice cracking as he wiped sweat from his fore head.
"Maggot's getting coordinates for enemy first wave. Firing."
The ground shook harder beneath Envy's feet as something nearby roared to explosive life, followed by another and another, until a general roar built up around the bunker,
"Salvos out."
Explosions bloomed across the three video feeds, scattering amongst the brightly glowing infanty on foot and turning them into brightly glowing chunks in more than a few occasions.
Envy stood, transfixed and mute.
They had seen war, they had felt war, they had caused wars, they had seen thousands, maybe millions of humans die. When they had been born it had been tight ranks and bright uniforms following the colors into bayonets and rifle-muskets and cannister shot.
But this?
What the fuck was this?
The line from then too now had clearly, clearly, taken a big jump.
"Warboss Actual, Imp Actual. Open fire." Aleksey's voice had a breathless, excited undertone that Envy's keen hearing could just barely pick up even across the bunker and they spotted, just for a moment, a wide, demented grin flash across his features in the dim light of the tent; it was gone just as quickly as his features froze back into a stoic glare.
Envy narrowed their eyes; they had seen a look like that before; on their own face after the jolt of excitement they got from a kill.
Before they could think to much on it, a new terrifyingly loud sound erupted, muffled by the earth and timber roof above them, but sill loud enough to shake the ground; a rhythmic, hissing roar, repeated over and over and over, before falling off into an echoing silence.
"Rockets are headed downrange. Maggot and Imp relocating…"
Envy didn't recognize the voice and didn't bother to look over to see who it was, their attention having been rooted back on the images playing out on the projected screen. Wondering what new hell had been set loose by the latest outgoing barrage.
Except instead of the ghostly whit bloom of explosions, three was a sudden flare of static from the images on the screen, as black colored, shooting lines erupted across the lines of advanced Amestrian soldiers and vehicles; it took Envy a moment to recognize the pattern of a lightning strike, but instead arcing down from the heavens these swirled around the Amestrian , frontline, dancing across sky as objects that Envy guessed were whatever that roar earlier had sent downrange towards the attacking force were caught up in the crackling mass of energy and destroyed mid-flight, kept from impacting on their intended targets.
"Fucking Chain Dogs!" A Drachman barked, Envy recognized the slang the Drachmans used for state alchemists, before slamming her fist unto he folding table that held up the console in front of her, and then calling, "Imp reloading, new salvos in ten mikes."
"Maggot contining…oh fuck!" another technician cursed, as a crackling finger of electricity reached for one, then the other of the two "drones" that were broadcasting to the lower screens
The Amestrian military had brought the State Alchemist to war.