A/N: So I was going to post this last week but real life got in the way, and my internet connection decided to be unusually asshole-ish. So I decided to be nice and make tonight a double feature! Enjoy!
I'm supposed to be the soldier
Who never blows him composure
Even though I hold the weight of the whole world on my shoulders. - Eminem
Day one had been easy enough, basically getting everyone settled in; haircuts, uniforms, barracks and a crash course in military etiquette had Raziel in completely over his head, but it wasn't until the second day that things started getting difficult. He'd studied wars in school; seen documentaries and movies; he'd even led a group of teen heroes into battle against gangs, super-villains, demon tyrants and aliens. He'd studied almost every form of armed and unarmed combat and trained himself to the pinnacle of human physical conditioning and beyond.
None of that seemed to amount to a whole lot just now, almost two months in. Because of his masochistic training regimen and whatever Slade had done to him he assumed that training for military operations would be a breeze and that the hard part would come when he was fighting in the war. Granted he had held out longer than the rest of his comrades but two months of sleep deprivation, intense physical exercise, usually done with seventy pounds of gear on your back and very little as far as food quantity is concerned, have left him exhausted in ways he never imagined a human body could be, he was basically running on will power alone. He had been exhausted before, to the point of losing consciousness, but he was past that now but he had no desire to give in like he had in the past.
Even the combat style was unlike anything he had ever trained with, all of the martial arts and combat he knew relied on fine movement, pressure points and massive amounts of training and skill but this was totally different. The instructors did include various mainstream fighting styles; boxing, jujitsu, taekwondo, Krav Maga and even a little kung fu but they also instructed in a simple but deadly concept of fighting that frankly scared him a little. It scared him because it took simple movements, like raising your hand, and turned them into movements that could potentially do a lot of damage, regardless of combatant size, skill, training or experience. For example; simultaneously knee your opponent in the groin and thrust the palm of your hand up under his chin. The knee in the balls causes him to curl inwards and the palm in the chin will drive his head back, dislocating his neck and potentially killing him.
And that little manoeuvre can be immediately followed up by grabbing onto you opponents chin and pushing his head backwards, causing him to lose balance, and then driving downwards, like you are holding a melon that you want to smash on the sidewalk. It was a brutal and visceral style of fighting that differed from any other he knew, he could already tell that it would serve him well.
As much as he'd hate to admit it, his physical conditioning had actually improved a lot. The military's emphasis on muscular strength and endurance combined with his own emphasis on flexibility and agility had made him far better than he ever was, exhaustion aside.
"You look tired Raziel. Want a break? Maybe grab some sleep?" Sergeant Kovallan asked in a kindly voice.
"Sir, no sir! I'd rather run the gauntlet again sir!" It may seem almost suicidal to refuse the Sergeants generous offer of rest and sleep, except that he last guy who took him up on his offer, Michaels, got three days solitary confinement with only bread and water for sustenance and the rest of the unit got nights of guard duty, meaning they slept for two hours then walked the base perimeter for two hours and then slept for an hour before getting up and going through the usual daily grind. Screw the instructors and he could handle any physical or mental punishment they could think up but giving up meant letting down your friends and giving them punishment, and that was unacceptable.
"How about the rest of you girls?" the Sergeant hollered.
"Sir, no sir!" they all shouted before saying some horrible task they'd rather be doing instead of resting; running up the mountain, running the gauntlet, five mile march through the marsh.
"That's good boys. Fall in!"
The whole unit was working at stations around the exercise yard; sit-ups, push-ups, chin-ups, lunges, squats, stretches, tug-of-war and sparring. But despite all that activity it only took the entire one hundred and forty-seven man platoon only a minute to stop what they were doing and fall in with their units.
"Excellent men. Now who can tell me what you are going to be doing for the next week?" he asked.
"Sir, training sir!"
"Good answer, but wrong," He told them, "You have passed basic training, and the Major wants you to have a week of vacation. Go into town, party, drink, relax, have fun, get laid, whatever!" The platoon broke into cheers.
"The only stipulation is that you have to be ready for the ceremony tonight at eighteen thirty. Now, fall out!" and the men broke ranks and began rushing about to get ready before the dead line. There were showers to be had, boots to be shined, dress uniforms to be cleaned and ironed, a second shower to be had and only two and a half hours in which to do it all.
"Man Razz, can you believe it? We're finally getting our stars."
"I know." Raziel answered with genuine excitement in his voice. Sure the Star's weren't that big a deal in the grand scheme of things. They only really signify that a soldier has passed basic training, sort of like a half way mark.
The next phase of the training would be combat training, not just in a ring or on a shooting range, but in the field against a living, thinking, scheming and experienced enemy; accomplished through the utilization of mock battles, scenarios and live fire training. But that would come later, now was a time for celebration.
As the little gold star was pinned to his collar Raziel couldn't remember the last time he'd been this proud. To an outsider it was just basic training but after enduring the gruelling experience and seeing how many people weren't good enough, he felt real pride as the Major saluted him and offered congratulations. He'd made it, and so had his brothers.
The entire platoon had ridden into the nearby town of Antillis, just over the mountain, for their week long leave but after so long together there was not a single lone soldier to be found anywhere, either drinking in a group or going off with some local girl for reasons that were sure to be pure and innocent. And given the state of the small country it wasquiteunderstandable. Celebrations went late, alcohol flowed and the women wanted to get laid just as bad as the soldiers did.
After a week in town Raziel found himself driving the truck back to base in the early predawn light, gone were his dress blues, replaced by combat fatigues. Groaning victims of a late night were bumping along in the back, grumbling about his inability to find a smooth surface to drive on. A piercing whistle broke the relative silence.
"Incoming!" he leapt out of the driver's seat, not bothering to waste precious seconds by parking the vehicle. He wasn't sure who, if anyone, made it off the vehicle before it exploded but some of the men, about a dozen in total, were gathering in a stand of trees not too far off the road. He made his way over to them.
"Razz! What the fuck man!?" Lt. Michaels screamed.
"I know, now shut up," he whispered back, "don't give away our position!" His point was emphasized as an artillery shell whistled through the sky and shook the ground, kicking up dirt and shrapnel as it scored another direct hit on a vehicle."
"We're on our own soil, what the fuck is going on!?"
"God damn it, sir! Pull yourself together!" They didn't have time for a hysterical CO but he couldn't bring himself to detest the man for falling apart, he had the first few times he'd gone out as Robin, only Batman's indomitable and reassuring presence allowing him to remain semi-collected.
"Alright guys, how we doing for weapons?" he decided to let someone else deal with what was supposed to be their calm, collected and level-headed combat leader.
"Could be worse," one of the men responded, "They never let us being our primaries, but we got side arms, three clips, and our knives. I think some of the guys might have grenades and the trucks might have mortar and shells"
"OK listen up," he said after a minutes deliberation. "We don't know where or how many the enemy is, or how long until they get here. So the first order of business is to find as many survivors as we can and find some cover. Get any weapons we can out of the trucks."
"Right," Lt. Michaels said, clearly feeling better now that no one was depending on him for direction. Raziel got lucky then, he just happened to be looking east when the small flash of fire caught his attention off in the distance on the road that spiralled up the little mountain. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his binoculars. Finding their focus, he could clearly see the huge cannon off in the distance near the rounded top of the tree covered mountain.
"Ok, Mickey?"
"Yeah, Razz?"
"Eyes east, about thirty miles, elevation fifteen-hundred. There's a cannon there. Keep an eye on it."
"Wilco," and the man moved off to complete his assigned task.
"You," he pointed to another soldier, "Radio Harland, call in support." He turned to Michaels, the ranking officer, "take three men and secure a safe zone in the trees about fifty yards west of here."
"Right."
"Everyone else on me." Everyone who was left, about a dozen men, waited to be told what to do. "Break up, find survivors and get them to the Lieutenant at the safe zone, Search the transports for anything useful. We'll figure things out from there. Break!"
Twenty minutes later and the whole company was back together at the safe zone, minus three dead and seventeen with minor shrapnel wounds. It didn't look promising. Michaels was the ranking officer, which meant that leadership fell to Raziel because Michaels couldn't keep from sobbing like an infant with no milk in his belly. Harland was under siege and they were on their own with the weapons they had.
"Alright guys, I know it looks bad."
"Looks bad? Raziel, we're fucked."
"Can it, Spiz. We can do this; it's what they trained us for." He had to keep morale up, because even the best army in the world could be destroyed by poor morale in the ranks.
"What are we going to do?" it was a good question, and he gave it some real thought.
"We move forward and trench in, get ready for an enemy advance. Then we take a small unit in at night and try take out the artillery. With any luck we'll be able to scavenge some weapons or possibly take the big gun and give some back up to Harland."
"WHAT!?" Joenes screamed. "You want to try back up the base!? We're only one platoon."
"True," he acknowledged. "But what if our enemy didn't know that? What if they thought we were ghosts? Or maybe a whole regiment?"
"Ghosts... how the hell do we manage that?"
"First thing we need to do is get there." The whole platoon spread out and moved stealthily through the intervening forest between themselves and their target, Raziel was glad for it. The men seemed really into the ghost idea but how the fuck was he supposed to make that happen?
It had only taken them four hours to get within a hundred and fifty yards of the gun, using their trenching knives to dig through time-packed soil and old-growth tree roots had taken until just before sunset.
"Alright, we're in position. Let's go kick some ass!"
"Shut up, Spiz," Raziel punctuated with a sharp punch to the arm.
"But we're here. Let's go."
"We need to wait for the cover of darkness. And we have stuff to do, pull out your blankets."
"We're going to bed? I'm sorry to say, sir, but that seems dangerous and counter-productive."
"We're not sleeping, we're making ghosts."
"Huh?"
"Cut the blankets up, then stitch them back together into crude robes. So they look like a grim reaper from the movies."
It had taken until well after sunset, but they now had tattered and flowing Grim-Reaper robes for half the men, having used two blankets to one robe and all of their surgical sutures. For their part, the invading Russians had been content to sit in their encampment and fire large rounds at the decoys Raziel had left at the shattered convoy, or turn every now and then and fire a shot or two into Harland base, just on the edge of its range. Now they would pay for their laziness and stupidity.
Dressed in his robes and under the cover of a moonless night, Raziel snuck to the edge of the forest to get a better glimpse. The gun was on the road and there were roving patrols intended to keep people from crossing the road undetected, as well as guards and a two units of soldiers stationed in front of the weapon. He decided on a course of action and went to tell the men.
"Ok, here's the deal," he said to get their attention, "everyone in regular cammo is going to sneak within range and wait on us." He was referring to the men in the robes. "We will quietly take out the roving guards, try not to be seen but if you are don't worry about it. Once we're spotted, you guys open fire and we'll disappear into the forest behind the gun and attack from the rear."
Raziel had them get into position after covering their faces with black and putting a reflective red powder just under their eyes; effectively making themselves look faceless, except for two crimson slits where their eyes should be.
Things didn't quite go to plan. None of the guards at the gun had seen Raziel and his men take out the roving sentries, so they'd ended up leaving some alive to go and tell the main force. Having finally gotten his head on straight, Lieutenant Michaels read the change in situation and got ready to move forward.
"Captain!"
"Why the hell aren't you at your post!?" Captain Dmitry hollered. "And where is your patrol?"
"They were killed sir."
"By who?"
"I don't know sir. They were quiet as ghosts and nearly impossible to see in the darkness. And they had these eyes, these red eyes."
"You been hittin' the sauce, son?" They were deep behind enemy lines and trying to destroy that countries only training facility and this asshole was three sheets to the wind.
"Sir, there's something out there!" another sentry screamed as he ran into the encampment.
There were stirrings inside the camp as lone scouts came back looking like they'd seen ghosts, but they were a professional unit and they didn't break right away. They began to show cracks when Raziel took a tree branch and smacked a hollow tree with it, causing a thunderous thunk to crash and echo over the already spooked troops. They turned their spot lights and all of their attention towards the woods but they couldn't spot the dark clad men that hid just beyond the lights penetration range in the trees. Raziel held his men back until he saw the regular soldiers begin creeping towards the Russian barricades, then he stepped into the light, keeping low and moving almost like an animal.
At first, the enemy was too startled to do anything, then a second and third shape came out of the trees and then a dozen more, approaching slowly, like ghosts in the night. The enemy started shooting and then their own troops shot the enemy in the backs while Raziel's men disappeared back into the woods. When everything was all said and done, there were no casualties among Raziel's men or allies and the only injury was the bullet that Raziel had taken to the chest; a searing pain had filled his awareness seconds before it dulled and then vanished and when he looked at the wound it looked like an old scar, he didn't bother to tell anyone about it.
"OK, Radio Harland and get coordinates for the enemies location and then I want as much firepower on those bastards as you can get," he spoke into the radio.
"You got it, sir."
The diesel engine roared to life and then revved up as the fifty millimeter cannon swung into position, then the hydraulics whined as the operator adjusted the angle and elevation by fractions of an inch before a resounding BOOM! shook the air and rattled the ground followed swiftly by radio chatter, the revving of the engine, the whine of hydraulics and another shot. It was a slow process but eventually they had sanitized the area around the base and the troops still there had been able to clean up any resistance, they had even had to take out a few other gun nests that the invading Russians had set up around the base.
A huge weight was lifted off of his chest when they got the call that the enemy was dead and gone. Then something else hit him; he had killed. Not personally, but he had been responsible for the loss of many lives. It was still dark out and there was nowhere to wash off their faces, so none of the men could see the turmoil on his features. Nor could they see his expression change as he resolved not to let it weigh him down. He was at war, he reasoned, and in war you do what you have to so that you can go home again.
Thinking about home, he didn't notice his fuzzy vision right away, the darkness obscured his sight so he paid it no mind until his head began to get fuzzy. Sounds began to blur. Vision gets darker. Ringing in ears.
Fade to black.