24 Hours, it has been 24 hours since 1st Reconnaissance Battalion breached the Empire's defensive position near Alnus and began their mission of leading 1st Marine Division's mad dash to Sadera, and they haven't come in contact with any enemy forces yet.
The sun is rising, the birds are flying, the morning just gave off good vibes, it looks like it's gonna be a good, sunny day, 1st Recon eighty vehicle convoy, rolled down the dirt highway, with trees on the left, and a beautiful grassland to the right, it feels like as if they're in a high-fantasy film, killing dragons left and right, rescuing the princess, except that's not the case for Hitman-2.
The battalion has been on the road for a while, heading to their objective. At the front of the convoy meanwhile, is Hitman 2-1, who just came across a dead head of a blue-haired girl, missing it's body, on the road.
"Fuck, check it out Sai, we got a head of a dead civvie up the road" Evan calls Simon by his 'Sai' nickname, asking what he should do.
"Do not run it over Evan!" Snapping his neck to look onto the road up ahead, he sees the blue-haired head of a girl up the road, with blood gushing out of it's neck, he immediately orders Evan to avoid running over the head.
Hearing this, Evan swerved the Humvee to the right, missing the head, but instead, they ran over something else, it's the headless body of a girl, maybe 15-16 years old, the blue-haired girl head missing it's body belongs to this headless dead body on the road, lying next to a horse, being eaten by vultures.
This immediately causes the body to rupture, spraying blood all over Hitman 2-1's Humvee.
"Jesus. . . . Why can't we just have one fucking day without bodies on the road!?" Simon says in an exasperated tone, tired of seeing dead bodies for 24 hours since they started the operation, before that, they're just setting up and preparing in Alnus. They only began their march to Sadera 24 hours ago, and the place along the highway is already littered with dead bodies and vultures.
The constant artillery bombardment by coalition artillery units has caused civilian casualties, some landing short of their targets and blowing up something else.
"Man, what the fuck was that? It looks like we are in a fucking Doom game or some shit." Evan said, gulping down his 8th can of energy drink.
"That was fucked up, looks like our arty has caused collateral damage." Doc Clancy, waking up from his 1 hour slumber, joins in the conversation.
"That's a legit fucking fire mission, called in by Marines, they thought she was a fucking Imperial Scout, probably mistaked her for that at night, I mean our goddamn NVGs are at 50% power, it's literally impossible to tell the difference between a Imperial soldier and a civilian at night." Simon said, still pissed at the fact that Battalion's H&S didn't bring enough batteries for their night vision to work properly.
"2-1 Bravo, this is 2-1 Alpha, interrogative, do you see any weapons on that horse? Over." Simon clicked on his 'push-to-talk' button on his radio headset, asking the vehicle behind Hitman 2-1 Alpha, their Humvee, to Hitman 2-1 Bravo, the vehicle behind them if they saw any weapons on the horse and the girl.
"Negative, 2-1 Alpha, negative, no weapons spotted, 2-1 Bravo out." a reply came back, it's the deep voice of the 24 years old Sergeant Aiden Lund, a black man from Boston. He joined the Marine Corps because his hood is too dangerous, filled with gang violence. He's Simon's Assistant Team Leader, however, he leads a different Humvee that's directly behind 2-1 Alpha, Simon's team,, despite being Simon's Assistant Team Leader.
Hitman 2-1 is splitted into 2 teams, 2-1 Alpha, led by Simon, and 2-1 Bravo, led by Lund.
His driver, 21 years old, Corporal Alexandro Moraes, a Brazilian immigrant, nicknamed "Allie" because his name is a bit cumbersome, is disgusted by what he saw.
"Jesus. . . ." Is all he can mutters before turning his face away from the now, ruptured dead body of a blue haired teenage girl.
"Fuckin' hell bro, can it get any sicker than this?" Lund says, shaking his head at the dead body.
They continued their journey, making turns left and right, still speeding to their objective near Italica.
That is, until they came across something on the road, it's not a dead body, it's alive, there's a childlike figure standing in front of Hitman 2-1, forcing Evan to step on the break immediately, surprising everyone.
"What the fuck? Fucking tell us first before you break, you could've sent me flying into the road and break my neck if it weren't for me holding the Mark-19" Kirito kicks his shoulder, harder than last night, making him mutters a "ouch".
"Sorry, but back to why I stopped." Evan said, as his gloved hand pointed to the road infront of them.
"It's a girl? Maybe 12, 13 years old, Doc, get ready to dismount on my order." Simon observes, telling Doc Clancy to get ready to step out of the vehicle.
"Yes Sergeant." A reply came from behind Evan's driver seat, Doc Clancy is gulping down a pack of MRE's M&M, as breakfast.
Rory is trying to find people, who could destroy and defeat the Fire Dragon once and for all, but anyone who tried challenging Fire Dragon never made it out, all of them trampled by it's massive feets and it's inferno-like fire breath.
Then, he heard the news of these other-worlders, with weapons capable of leveling a city overnight, she decides to seek their help, luckily, she came across a convoy of the other-worlders riding in strange metal wagons, it looks like they stopped the moment they see her.
"Interesting. . . . " She said, before approaching the foremost wagon, it's Hitman 2-1, Simon's Humvee.
"Hitman 2-1 this is Hitman-2 over." the voice of Lt Mistral came on the radio.
"This is Hitman 2-1, send it." Simon replied, signaling he's ready to receive the message.
"Interrogative, why are we stopping? Over."
"It seems like there is a lonely, girl, maybe 12 years old on the road in front of us, permission to approach her? Over" Simon asks, wanting to approach the girl and check if she's injured
"Affirmative, approach with caution. This is Hitman-2, out" Lt Mistral gave him the permission, then ending the radio conversation.
"Doc, you're going with me, Evan, Kirito, Traveler, stay inside the Humvee." Simon orders, his team immediately obeyed his orders, he and Doc immediately stepped outside, moving cautiously towards the girl.
Just as they are approaching the girl, she suddenly jumped at a unholy height, before landing back, creating a small hole in the road, sending shockwaves across the convoy.
"Whoa!" is all Simon and Doc could say, as they stopped in their tracks and decided to point their M4A1 at the girl.
"My name is Rory Mercury, I am the Apostle of Emroy, the God of Death and Destruction!" The girl, now revealed to be Rory Mercury, boasts.
Hearing this, Simon doesn't want to take any chance, so he lowers his M4A1 and decides to talk with her.
"Alright, what is it, Little Miss Apostle." Simon said sarcastically, staring at the girl with his unblinking green eyes.
"I want to see your leader, the highest ranking one on the field."
"Well . . . ."
Back in the Humvee, Kirito, Evan and Traveler are debating on who the girl might be.
"She looks like an orphan, don't ya think." Kirito says, ignoring the earlier's shockwave.
"But she doesn't act like one." A voice pops out behind him, it's Lane, the resident reporter.
"Yeah no shit, this fantasy world is so full of fucking shit." Evan said, before picking up a radio telephone, attached to his Humvee's SINCGARS Radio system, contacting Lt Mistral.
"Hitman-2 this is 2-1, it looks like the girl wants to meet with Godfather, over." Evan said, informing his Platoon Leader on what the child wants, it's obvious she isn't a ordinary kid.
"Roger that 2-1, contacting Godfather now, Hitman-2, out." Lt Mistral replied on the radio, before contacting the Godfather.
On Lt Mistral's Humvee, he talks with his Platoon Sergeant and Driver, Gunnery Sergeant Alex Mays, on whether he should contact Lt. Col Franzese, aka Godfather, the Battalion's leader, or not.
"It's up to you sir, whether you want to do it or not." His Gunny, gave him an assuring smile.
"I'm contacting Godfather." Lt Mistral picks up his Humvee's SINCGARS and contacts the Battalion commander through his channel.
"Godfather, this is Hitman-2, requesting Actual on the net, over." Lt Mistral said, not wanting to leave Hitman 2-1 Alpha to handle the child alone.
"This is Godfather Actual, send it." The raspy, low-pitched voice of Lt Colonel Franzese, known by his callsign Godfather spoke up on the radio.
"It seems like, a important figure in local culture wants to meet with you, over" Lt Mistral.
"Roger that, my victor will move into position, so the local can debrief us, Godfather out." Godfather said, before ending the radio conversation
"Well, that went easier than I expected." Lt Mistral turns to Gunnery Sergeant Mays, instead expecting the call to be filled with red-tape bureaucracy.
Meanwhile, at front, Simon and Doc Clancy is busy listening to Rory's story, about why they should kill the Fire Dragon.
"Hold on, let me get this shit straight, there's a honest to god, Fire breathing Dragon, running around near us burning shit up?" Simon said in disbelief, never would he thought that he would get to fight an actual dragon.
"That sounds, well, very interesting." Doc Clancy is speechless, not knowing how to respond to her request, which makes him scratch his red hair in frustation.
"You can ignore it as much as you want, but the thing is going to kill lots of civilians." Rory begs, with her red eyes staring at the Sergeant.
Just then, a Humvee pulls up near their position, it's the Godfather, the highest ranking guy in the battalion and also it's commanding officer.
Appearing out of his vehicle, he immediately says,
"What the fuck is going on here." Clueless to the situation, Rory immediately approaches him, proceeding to explain what she told the 2 marine and sailor earlier.
"So you want me to kill that dragon, and delay my original mission." He asks in his raspy voice, knowing just how he would kill it.
"Yes." Rory immediately replied without hesitation
"I have another way of killing it, without delaying the mission." Godfather responds, he plans to not risk sending his men to fight the dragon, and just have his JTACs call in a bombing mission on the dragon to kill it.
"Alright then, goodluck!" Before he could say goodbye, Rory already left the scene, sprinting at unholy speed toward the wilderness. Disappearing.
"..."
Everyone is surprised by her speed, but they have no time to talk about it, Godfather has decided to call in airstrikes through his JTACs in Battalion HQ, they informed him that there's 10 US Navy Super-Hornets to deal with it while the Battalion continues their journey.
Simon and Doc Clancy gets back to their Humvee, they're greeted by the sight of Evan talking about how lack of "pussy" causes countries to go to war.
"You ever wonder, why countries went to war, I'll tell you why, it's lack of pussy, that is fucking up the whole worldwide peace, if more fucking enemy of the state gets some pussy, then they wouldn't have fucking attacked us, because a happy enemy, is not an enemy, they don't have time to attack us if they're happy, think about it man." Evan ranted, he's ranting yet again, the side effect of being sleep deprived and high on energy drinks.
"Evan, shut up, we are Oscar Mike." Simon slapped his shoulder, making him come back to his sense.
"We are not waiting and staying behind to see the bombs being dropped?" The traveler, who has been busy taking notes of Evan's rant, asks Simon.
"No, the battalion wants us to move now, yes, I know, staying behind watching the explosions might be cool, but Godfather wants us to move." Simon replied his question, sounding almost disappointed with the lack of action in this war.
"Our first fucking contact with hostile forces in this war, and we ran away, like fucking bitches." Evan complains, starting the vehicle, the battalion eighty vehicle convoy is on the move, yet again.
The mood in 2-1 Bravo's Humvee isn't any better, all of them are still traumatized by the incident 5 hours ago where Simon's team ran over the dead body of a blue haired girl, causing blood and organs to spray all over 2-1 Alpha's Humvee.
Just then, they hear a loud shriek, coming from the sky, they immediately looked up, and see 10 Navy Super Hornets, packed to brim with JDAMs, is on their way to blow the living hell out of the thing.
Then, they heard the explosions of the dropped JDAMs, the shockwave indicates that it's a mix of 500lb and 1000lb JDAM, enough to level a small town, it was followed by a loud, scream of the dying Fire Dragon, desperately trying to run away, only to be killed off for real by a final JDAM explosion to its face.
Seeing this, Sergeant Lund is amazed by the sheer firepower, only being able to say,
"Super fuckin' Hornets, dropping down hate and death like a motherfucka'"
Note :
Battalion H&S - the unit in a battalion that maintains and fixes shit for the rifle units of the battalion, also contains the battalion HQ.
JTACs - Joint Terminal Air Controller, basically a guy in Battalion HQ that directs air strikes