Days Of Ruin3…Never Ending
I do not own Advance Wars or any of the series…if I did I would have added more COs.
"Guys! Lets get the equipment loaded!" The deep voice had a commanding tone. The voice and the sound of engines starting outside awoke a certain leader.
"Argh…my head…wait where is my mask?" He said worriedly as he saw his mask next to his head.
"And where is that girl? ...The girl!" he threw off his blanket and got up to see her sleeping peacefully in the bed.
'She might wake up now…better get some food for the both of us.' He thought as he left the flaps of the tent, leaving the girl to her sleep.
As he walked to one of the trucks that had food stored in it he greeted the men he passed and assured them that he was fine. He opened up the back doors of the truck to see an older man, probably in his 50's or 60's, the old man grinned as he tossed two cans of food into the hands of the young leader.
"Are you sure Shopkeeper?" He said to the grinning Shopkeeper.
"It's on the house, no need for your bullets this time boy!" The shopkeeper smiled and shook his head when he saw the leader trying to hand him a clip of bullets. He then grabbed some papers and headed to the back of the truck, probably to do inventory on our remaining supplies.
The leader headed back to the tent after grabbing some utensils and a can opener from one of the supply cabinets. He heard something in the back of the truck but dismissed it.
"Ah I wish I was young again…" sighed the shopkeeper as he looked over the remaining cans of food.
As the leader parted the tent's flaps he was the girl still sleeping, her pale blue hair would be pretty long if it wasn't tied into ponytails. He sat next to her sleeping form and attempted to wake her by nudging her shoulder. She started to stir and he just sat watching her, his mind paused for a bit as he saw that she had yellow eyes. It wasn't those eyes of the sick, it seemed that it was her normal eye color.
"Where the hell am I! And Who the hel-" She was cut off by a strong sound of grumbling coming from her stomach and as soon as she noticed this she blushed slightly out of embarrassment. She mentally kicked herself as she felt herself robbed of energy.
The leader smiled and also blushed as his stomach rumbled soon after hers. He took out two cans of food and started opening them with the can opener. The girl was eying the teen cautiously, prepared to attack if he did anything wrong since she knew the insignia on the blanket in front of her. The leader sighed as he opened the second can and handed it to her with a fork, with caution she snatched the can with the fork and started eating the food in the can.
"Those are pretty rare these days and you should be lucky those canned sausages still exist…" The leader muttered trying to keep her from hearing it, but due to her enhanced senses she could hear him clearly.
"S…Sh…shut up I'm just hungry! …Thanks" She said cautiously glancing back at the smiling teen. She mentally kicked herself again as she stammered. 'I hate my weakness!' She thought as she quickly ate the can's contents.
There was silence as both greedily ate the canned food and the first to break the silence was the leader of the men.
"S…so Whats your name?" He asked as politely as he could. He only knew how to speak with men due to the lack of women in the group so he tried to be as polite as possible.
"Tabitha…" The girl said this kindly and asked back "Whats your name?"
"Don't have one…well I go by other names the group gives me." His sad sounding sentence soon had a happy tone as he finished.
"Like what names?" She asked.
"Well they call my Boss, Leader, etc…and one calls me boy…well, he calls everyone boy since he is the oldest in the group…" She just stared at him with a skeptical expression and started laughing as soon as he said that he was called "boy"
"Hey! Don't take this as a joke! I am the leader!" He said to her then waited for her to calm down.
She was still laughing a me a bit "You? Haha…a leader? Aren't you too young?" her laughter was clearly irritating the self-proclaimed leader.
She immediately stopped laughing as a huge man came through the entrance of the tent. She guessed immediately that this was the real leader of the group of men. His huge figure was powerful enough to take on maybe four or five IDS soldiers barehanded.
"Boss! I heard yelling here! Is there anything wrong?" The man looked puzzled at the laughing of his leader with the previously sleeping girl was sitting upright with her mouth open.
"That was priceless! Thanks John!" The leader said this in-between laughs patting John's back as he laughed.
The large man, John, understood what had happened, it always happened whenever the group tried to recruit civilians from ruins. He smiled and said to the girl. "The world is full of surprises…keep an open mind!" He said as his laugh could still be heard from the outside.
"…Well that was unexpected…" Tabitha said as she tried to compose herself. "Well you're a leader of a group of bandits, where are you headed?" she said, she guessed that the two guys could be trustworthy since they were playful.
"Well you see, we're headed in the direction of the smoke off in the distance past the forest, the northern bandits must have found a large city to raid and we need supplies to feed the group…I guessed that if there was a large enough bandit group to take down a city we would have some problems. So we just want to head there to gather supplies while avoiding the northerners." He said calmly stating his plans.
Tabitha's face showed signs of anger as she was forced to remember what had happened to the fortress. "You can't go there…your group would be instantly decimated by their forces." She said bitterly, her anger focused on the troops that had celebrated. "Your forces wouldn't stand a chance against their tanks…" Her once angry voice now shifted into sadness.
"Wait! They have tanks? More than one? We only have enough firepower to take out just one medium tank! …Wait you came from that city?" He was facing a dilemma right now, to the north was the northern bandits' army and to the south was the previous group of bandits that defeated them.
"…Yes, you see I lived in that place for a long time, I knew it had superb defenses…but my home was still destroyed!" She was depressed, the memories came back to haunt her, she was too exhausted; depressed, saddened to feel like her usual self.
"So you escaped with the rig but ran out of supplies?" He asked with a hint of worry in his voice.
She nodded and attempted to get out of the bed, she nearly fell but the leader supported her, his arm at her side keeping her stable.
"Well, change of plans, I have to tell the rest about the change in direction. Do you know the area?" The Leader asked
She nodded and winced in pain from moving too quickly. 'My life is ruined, no home, no family to go to, and no hope…well… hope can still be found…' she thought as she smiled weakly up at the teen.
"Lets get some water before I speak to the men, ok?" He told Tabitha as they walked slowly to the water truck.
'The group of men had prepared themselves pretty well, they have supplies, weapons, transportation, and a leader.' She thought as they both walked slowly through the men in the midst of preparations. She closed her eyes and let her supporter guide her. Some men ran by diligently with supplies and boxes, some just stood and watched the walking couple head toward the water truck. Those that stood were quickly put back on track when John slapped them on their backs.
When they arrived at the truck he pulled out an empty bottle that stood out from the rest, it had black lines on its side distinguishing it from the rest of the clear bottles on the rack. The leader propped Tabitha against the side of the truck while he filled the bottle.
"Why is your bottle different from the others?" Tabitha inquired, cutting into the sounds of men in the midst of loading.
"Oh, I'm probably the only one that cleans their bottle, the rest just chuck it in the back and grab another when they feel thirsty. Would you want to drink out of dirty bottles?" The leader explained as he finished filling his bottle. He handed it to Tabitha for her to drink and waited next to her as she drank from the 'cleaner than usual' bottle.
"Thanks" She said, her body feeling refreshed with the water.
"No problem, water always tastes the best after going a while without it." He stated as he walked over to the back to refill his bottle.
"Tabitha?" The leader called.
"Yes?" She answered
"We need a plan to defeat the southern bandits if we obviously can't head north." Said the leader grimly.
"There is a factory in the southeast, there may be enough supplies in there for a day and a bonus or two with the fuel depots located on the grounds." She said while pointing in the general direction of the factory.
"They won't be happy but I'll make them move." The leader said optimistically.
The sounds of supplies being moved clattered through the raider's camp, the occasional clang of steel resounded as men hefted ammunition boxes from the rig into their trucks.