(authors note, THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS ACTUAL WAR CRIMES, and explicit mentions of gore if you are not in the headspace please skip this chapter)
As the trucks left the base and got onto the highway it started to snow, the convoy consisted of from what i saw before i climbed into the armored bed of the truck, about six other pickups all with similar modifications a captured truck from the national guard that looked like it was pulled out of a vietnam museum, it was covered in guns ranging from a simple light machine gun to m2 50 cal and had sheet metal welded to it as well, our truck was buzzing with activity, the guy with the gopro had a laptop on his lap and this thing looked like it could take a bullet, while the guy with the sks was cleaning the barrel, and markus was prepping boxes labeled as NATO 7.62 near the machinegun, and my while my buddy was also talking with the SKS guy.
i decided to talk with Lara and Nicolas, "hey guys" i said awkwardly,
"hey Mykkol what's up?" Nicolas asked me,
"need any help?" I asked, seeing if I could help with anything,
"yea actually here can you hold onto this?" nicolas asked holding out what looked like the barrel for a gun,
"sure thing" I said clamping my muzzle down on the barrel, Nicolas then walked over to markus and grabbed an ammo box from next to markus and walked back, he then sat down next to me and took back the barrel,
"thanks Mykkol" Nicolas thanked me,
"No problem," I said.
I looked over to lara to see she actually had fallen asleep and was actually melting the snow that landed around the bed of the truck, it is also now that i had noticed the scratched out police K9 logo on her "vest" it had a small side pouch that had a box of ammunition hanging from it, and a second pouch with a medical symbol on it.
"Hey everybody get ready, we are going live soon!" The camera guy called out then muttered something under his breath, and a light on the gopro turned on, and he put the laptop from his lap into the bag on his back, then grabbed an MP7 from his bag and extended the stock.
Markus looked back to us and said "Well there's a roadblock coming up, get ready" just as he finished gunfire erupted from the front of the convoy, Lara jolted back up while Markus pulled the Bolt on the machine gun "Everyone lets get to work!" Markus yelled as he fired a quick burst from the machine gun,
As markus said this the SKS guy opened the door on the rear of the pickup, and jumped out along with the camera man, i jumped when i heard a round ricochet off the side of the pickup truck and once Nicolas was out of the truck i followed suit what happened next was a blur in a matter of seconds a rocket flew by from the barricade and hit next to the larger truck, the soldier who fired the rocket was then ripped in half by a machine gun on the truck in retaliation, i also saw a guy get flung off his feet by the blast he was out in the open and on his back,
i decided to run out into the line of fire in order to save him, i was almost hit twice as i ran into the middle of the battle, once i made it to his side i noticed his leg was eviscerated, and i grabbed the back of his shirt and dragged him back behind our truck, i noticed a small group of fellow rebels making a move to charge the barricade,
"Nicolas we need to move!" I told him, and he nodded and followed me. He fired off a few rounds while we made the sprint behind a rusted and burned out van.
At this point i reached just under my vest and pulled my Knife into my mouth, he nodded to me and grabbed a grenade off my pack, pulled the pin and threw it into the barricade, killing about 3 soldiers in the blast, i then went around the other side of the van and jumped over the sandbag wall if i wasn't so far in the moment i would have noticed the blown out pieces of asphalt being pulled into the air and thrown at soldiers around me, but i didn't and charged a soldier who was loading a round into his grenade launcher and stuck my knife into his thigh causing him to fall and Nicolas hopped the barricade right after this disarming him fully, by this point the gun fire had died down, the barricade was ours. It didn't take long for us to set up, and thankfully we were only about 2 miles from our main target, a guy in a national guard uniform walked over to me. I also noticed the blue lightning bolt patch on his vest,
"hey can i get that drone?" he asked me, i nodded and slipped the backpack off, he thanked me and started assembling the drone.
While he did that i decided to take a walk around the roadblock, it was pretty well fortified and defended, it even had a dedicated barracks, which was currently being used to house prisoners, our injured were under a small tent we had set up, and generally what was happening was we were preparing for the main assault, the fact we were only a mile from our final destination well within short range artillery, and in general i am surprised we haven't been flattened yet, i mean i have heard so little about the outside world at this point, since the transformation we have been cut off, all for our "strategic location" this assault is important for many of us, especially because of what the place is now being used for, many of us could have friends and family sitting in this "camp", the conditions of it we don't know, but when we attack it will be swift, the plans are pretty well and clear, however what we have an issue with is that we don't have our vehicles to assist us in the assault as the snow is getting thicker, and our reinforcements have been bogged down.
"Hey Mykkol!" Markus called out to me from our command tent,
I ran over to the tent and hopped up onto the folding table where a map was sitting, around the table were some higher ranking officers,
"We are down 30 men and one vehicle right now, we literally cannot do anything about attacking the facility before this snow lets up, and even then the temperature is dropping rapidly" the officer on the right side of the table practically yelled,
"Here you go" a militiaman said putting a dry erase board and marker in front of me,
I nodded in thanks as he went on his way
"You know what I say we do? We burn them out…" the one on the left side of the table said,
"And kill our own?!" Markus yelled at him, and from there the bickering devolved into a full blow argument,
"We could send a drone scout out the place and then send a group of elementals to harass them throughout the night" i wrote on my dry erase board, of course this went unnoticed by the three officers at the table,
"WILL YOU LISTEN TO ME?!" i yelled of course they noticed me once i effectively barked at them, i slid the board into the center of the table, and they read it,
"That is actually a good idea, except if the wind picks up further we lose the drone as well" the officer on the right said,
After a bit more debating we decided to send the drone out to see what there was around the facility, and we decided to instead of sending elimentals to harass 3 humans would go out with scoped hunting rifles and harass the soldiers, as the sun eventually set over the horizon i noticed a few trucks pulling into the roadblock, people got out of the trucks and started to make their way around the area doing various things some worked on moving materials, around some were loading things onto the trucks, and others were beginning to rally around where we would odds are begin our attack from.
I decided to spectate for a while longer and curled up on the hood of a pickup truck,
I was pulled from my spectating by Nicolas who had tapped me on the head, and i realized i had been sitting there for an hour at least,
"Hey you hungry? One of the guys found a box of MRE's" Nicolas offered,
"Not really i am just hoping that we can get done with this soon and back home" i told him as gunshots rang out in the distance,
"Alright just figured i should ask you" Nicolas said as he turned to walk back to a group of elementals that were talking,
I decided to go to our command tent for the time being and see what our plans were.
"We need to move while that bastard is there!" i heard Markus say as i walked into the tent,
"The issue with that is we don't have night vision they do and they are entrenched," a lieutenant said,
"Well what are we going to do when he gets away? Let him get a safe desk job and reap the benefits of lying through his teeth and telling his superiors that we are terrorists?!" a second lieutenant yelled over the other,
"Hey we have multiple trucks and a humvee pulling into th…" the radio on the desk called out and stopped suddenly, just after a few explosions happened in the distance,
"Bennett you there? Do you copy?" Markus said over the radio, there was no reply
"We need to move now, they definitely know we are here now, Lieutenant Mykkol, Go get the elementals ready, Lieutenant Brooks, get everyone else ready, we need to move" Markus ordered, me and the other second lieutenant nodded and rushed out of the tent.
I rushed to the campfire where most of the elementals were gathered,
"People we need to move the plan to attack has been pushed forward!" i yelled causing the conversation that was being had between the other elementals to end, i got affirmative nods in response, and every one got up, and around us the humans in the camp seemed to quickly increase in speed, one ran passed us and over to the large guntruck and got in it, followed by his gunners, while another few grabbed what looked like a large metal tube and started to load it onto the back of a pickup truck, pretty much every one that i would directly be leading was ready, and we began to move to our positions,
I quickly realized we outpaced our human counterparts even though comparably we were carrying more and also shorter, not only that but we were all still just as energized as before, so we sat and waited, 3 minutes of waiting on the side of a road in the ditch i heard footsteps, of course the footsteps were coming from the base interior more specifically the gate, i took a deep breath and got myself ready,
almost as if on cue a bright flare lit up the sky above the base,
"That's our signal!" i yelled just as a loud pop could be heard in the distance, we ran out of the ditch to see a humvee, on top of it was a gun of some sort, the gunner was dead, of course i decided to just throw chunks of broke asphalt using my abilities,
the guards we were fighting were quickly overwhelmed and the others were moving to the other side of the compound to defend it from the majority of our forces,
We made our way through the compound as the gunfight continued on the other side of the compound as we found a door the the main warehouse it was chained shut,
"Nicolas cover the door, Lara on my cue burn the lock, Every one else on me" i ordered,
i levitated a few large rocks around me in the air, nicolas aimed his rifle at the side of the door, and Lara began to literally burn the padlock lock holding the door shut, behind me was a vaporeon, jolteon, and a Dewatt, who ironically was using what could only be described as a load out from an anime, they were using a short sword and a handgun.
As the lock clattered to the ground Nicolas kicked the door, flinging it open, there was a soldier who was watching the door, nicolas fired a round into his head killing him instantly, We forced our way further into the building occasionally coming across "cages" the place was surprisingly clean until we came across a small wall, behind it smelled foul,
Lara burned the lock, and inside were bodies, easily 100 bodies in various cages, some human many elemental, it was disgusting, Nicolas had pulled out a camera and began recording, the Dewatt and Vaporion had taken a stance at the door, while me and Lara assessed the bodies, thankfully the cages were separated, meaning we could quickly look at one, and move to the next looking for any one left alive, i eventually came across one, there was an eevee in it, they were breathing, bareilly but still breathing,
"Larra there is a live one!" i said, almost choking on my words, there were covered in filth clearly hadn't eaten in days, if not weeks, and were bruised heavily,
When i didn't get a response from Lara i looked back and saw her pulling a little boy away from two human bodies, i took one of the chunks of concrete and busted the lock on the door, i pulled the eevee out by their scruff, the taste was disgusting, i would have vomited if i had eaten earlier, thankfully i didn't, i moved the eevee to the entrance and i searched for a bit longer, the only other survivor was a Riolu who was severely beaten me and lara had stretchers hooked to us by paracord and a carabiner clip, the human kid was slung over the shoulder of Nicolas while i had the eevee over my back and the Riolu having been the most severe wounds of the three had been put on the stretcher, we made our way out the same way we came in, me and lara with the stretcher clipped between us had to do a bit of work to navigate but it was the quickest way out, the gunfire was dying out, or forces seemed to be withdrawing or were on the verge of being decimated,
"Let's get back to camp" i said, as we were crossing into the ditch again, the sun had set and it was now dark out,
I spent the walk back to base feeling like I was going to vomit. What happened there was a legitimate war crime, no one said a word, it was silence occasionally broken up by gunfire in the distance.
When we got back to camp once we dropped off the survivors I promptly vomited in a ditch, the lack of any food or liquid in my stomach made it worse because of the acid having nothing around it.
after a while we loaded back up into our vehicles and we retreated back to Pittsburgh, the wind blew on to the trucks, snow was piling up further, and we were having to slow down more, of course the driver had turned on the radio, i don't know which station but one of them had been turned back on and was literally just giving updates on the battle for the airport, as well as defense updates.
As much as there shouldn't have been, there was a strange beauty to the sky tonight, the moon is just barely peeking out lighting the road with the snow reflecting it back, the cloud cover occasionally breaking and allowing the stars to be visible.
Little did anyone know things were going to get a whole lot worse very soon.