"We cannot ask ourselves whether woman is superior or inferior to man any more than we can ask ourselves whether water is superior or inferior to fire; There can be no doubt that a woman who is perfectly woman is superior to a man who is imperfectly man, just as a farmer who is faithful to his land and performs his work perfectly is superior to a king who cannot do his own work." - Julius Evola


The small column of pickup trucks moved at a steady pace down the street, their path painted with the early morning hues. Bumps from the debris littering the street would jostle the occupants, many men squashed together in the cab and piled in the truck bed. Grumbles would come and go, but with them always was the palpable tension.

These men were the reserves, drawn up from the southern defense line of Arkadia. While their comrades of the northern line had been mauled by the Reds, the most these militia had faced were shadows lurking in the darkness of night. Many of these men had yet to use their rifles, but this did not make them entirely ignorant of the danger they faced. Rotations in and out of the line brought whisperings of the terror in the north, and the actions of brave souls to light.

Heads turned when passing the next intersection. The men looked to the burned, smoking husk of the church building off to their left. The roof was gone, having been eaten up by fire and shrapnel. The tower was blasted away, so much that its smoldering remains barely reached higher than the office buildings over yonder.

The riflemen grimaced, for amongst the many people climbing through the rubble, they could make out the short figures of the volunteers with stretchers in hand—carrying the wounded and the dead and sorting them out. These were the Angels that had been whispered about many times over; figments of imagination, spun from the wildest depths of the minds of men stricken with shellshock and bloody wounds. But to see them as real human beings, bearing the same weight as them—it brought disbelief to these men, to bouts of frustration and anger.

Brows furrowed in blind anger over the cruel world they lived in, that it would allow such travesties as this: from the church entrance, two Angels carried their stretcher out, loaded with a body covered with a bloody cloth. These slouched Angels carried their gruesome cargo over to the parking lot, where rows of corpses awaited them. Together, the two would pull the body off, and carry themselves and their stretcher back to do the process all over again.

The truck these militia rode in had slowed to a crawl, for there was significant debris in their path. A crater in the asphalt made traversing forward a challenge. This only gave the men more time to look at the carnage that had been unleashed from last night.

"…fucking hell."

One man turned to his outspoken comrade, "Hm?"

"Look at them."

He looked, and saw the same as the other men around him. But he was unsure of what his friend spoke of, so he asks, "Who, exactly?"

"The…the girls, right there," the man pointed to a gathering of Angels, who were on a short break from carrying the dead. And it was a sight to see—for they could've easily been mistaken as misplaced militiamen. But their stature gave them away, that and their long hair, and expressive eyes. Even from where they were parked, the men could see the grief that lay over these tired girls, dressed in their metal helmets and muddy boots.

"…how old d'you think they are?"

A scoff came in reply, "Why would that matter? It ain't right no matter how you slice it."

A third voice pitched in, "Nobody's ever old enough for war. It's like my Pa always said: the younger you are, the worse it is to experience."

"I'm just saying," the first one retorts, "they shouldn't even be here. Why would anyone like them want to be here?"

"Something tells me they're natives," a fourth voice commented, "They don't have a say to whether they want to leave or not. They've got no choice, what with the Reds bearing down on their home."

"Or they're just crazy," came a sly remark, "They've probably got a few screws loose, and that makes them all the better to be around."

"Every time you open your mouth, it's always the most out-of-pocket shit you could say, I swear to God," the banter turned inwards upon the militia, as now a figurative pissing contest befell two of the men, the others jeering them on.

Some of the men still observed the strange spectacle. They saw doctors and nurses crossing this way and that, scavenging whatever wounded might still be alive. They saw Angels don their helmets and trudge back to their labor, carrying their stretchers to and from the church ruins with more bodies. The more astute of the militia would count some thirty or so lined up in the parking lot, and there were still more to be carried out.

The militiamen kindled a vengeance in their hearts, and showed it with straight brows and stony faces. The Reds would pay for their savagery, with every ounce of their own. How much had these invaders done already that heralded a swift and merciless judgement upon them; that they would now resort to forcing innocent souls to fetch their dead kin from the ruins of the buildings they had known and grew up in—a terrible affliction on the heart it was. For these militia had already tasted bitter defeat when fleeing from the chaos of before, but not again. If not for the sake of those still living, then for those the Reds have already taken, countless loved ones with names and faces still fresh in their minds.

The truck was able to circumvent the debris and drove on, past the ruins and further towards the line. They were to set up some distance behind the front and await the signal to be called into battle, once the counterattack was underway. And they awaited this moment eagerly—for the fight had evaded them all this time, but not today.

Under a dawning blue sky, the column of trucks moved forward.


Clouds and low-hanging fog swept from the coast and rolled up the slopes of the mountain. The sun might have risen at this point in time, but its shine was dimmed by these grey clouds. Nevertheless, Blackwell's football field was bursting with movement.

A shovel struck the grass, burying into it and tearing it from its place. The upturned soil was tossed, and again the shovel was brought down. Shovel-men kept up their pace, digging the holes necessary to brace the recoil of their mortars and heavier guns.

Speaking of such heavier guns—

Miller looked up from his toil, and saw the poor bastards that were regulated to hauling the field gun. These men had been able to truck it all the way up the heights from the war museum located in the town below, but every running vehicle was needed to transport the reserves to their staging positions, so the rest of their journey was done by pushing and pulling it forwards.

It was a deactivated gun, and by that it was gifted to the town's museum for the express purpose to never be fired again, because no one felt the need to use it and practicality rendered its potential use to nothing. The museum staff saw this and thought the same, that its heavy weight and cumbersome size meant nobody could use it even if they attempted to snatch the gun and its ammunition from the museum's storage. A single piece of cork had been shoved into the barrel to render it inoperable, and this was how the militia found it when scavenging for anything they could use against the Reds and their artillery.

Personally, Miller thought it was a divinely comedic turn of events, that such a thing even existed, let alone in the near-perfect circumstance of being here within the militia's reach; but he would not turn down a comparative advantage against the Reds, not if it meant his brothers down in the trenches might live to fight another day.

The group-leader motioned with a wave of his hand, and the men with shovels backed off, and made way for the militia hauling the gun. Though they called it a heavy gun, it was heavy only in its weight. The gun's caliber was actually smaller than the mortars the militia had at their disposal.

Miller eyed this gun and its housing, and found it to be rather simplistic in its design. It was an old gun, probably the kind his grandfather had used to fight in the Pacific during the Second World War; and he felt a sense of excitement overtake him, because now he was living in his old man's footsteps.

Except, he was a shovel-man, and shovel-men were just volunteers who merely dug the holes to brace the gun's recoil. They do not operate the gun nor handle its ammunition, not unless it was absolutely necessary. So Miller wiped the sweat from his brow, and watched as his fellow mortarmen set up the gun, facing it to the north.

He was envious of these militia, not only for their prior experience as ex-military, but because they were given the chance to rain hellfire down onto their enemies. After what the Reds did to his rural community along the Oregon coast, after having taken from him his mother and father, as well as his longtime girlfriend, Miller swore he would exact his vengeance upon the Reds. In any way he could, in any effort he made, it would be done to the best of his ability, so that he could spare others the suffering he endures and inflict the most damage unto his foes.

And many of his comrades felt the same. Besides Miller, there was a blond man who went by the name of Fredrickson, who had been separated from his grandparents, the last of his remaining family after a prior tragedy had taken his mother and father. This man was quiet, and rarely spoke to his brothers; he was conscious of his trauma, and the manner by which it reflected in his words.

With him was Murphy, who despite not having lost any family members to the Reds, found sympathy in his brothers-in-arms by coming from Northern Ireland, where the Troubles had taken his uncles from both his mother's and father's sides of the family. In him was a resentment over the world and its violent machinations, but even more so was this resentment directed to the perpetrators, nameless people with balaclava faces and bitterness in their hearts.

Another man stood by them, who was given the surname Palmetto, but was more specifically known by his nickname, Vinny. As to whether his actual first name was Vinny or something similar to it, he would not tell; but his heart burned in sorrow for the loss of his father, who was murdered by the Reds when they had swept through the suburbs of Portland where his family had lived. Like Miller, he too swore vengeance against the Reds, and wished to jump into the throes of the fight if only for a chance to raise his hand against them.

But these boys were inexperienced, and knew not how to fight. They settled the aching in their hearts, just enough to accept their current positions as supporting elements to the militia's artillery. But they yearned for battle, and prayed day and night for a chance to prove themselves worthy of divine blessing.

The hum of an engine reached the ears of the militia, and they turned to see a single truck come from the south. It rushed down the street and slowed whereupon reaching them. A couple of runners got out and walked over to the group-leader, speaking in hushed tones.

Miller and the shovel-men were keen to ponder on this, "…what d'you think they're on about?"

"I reckon it's got something to do with the big push," Murphy postulated, "Maybe they'll ask for us to join."

"Don't get too excited," Fredrickson dissuaded, "They won't send us off to fight. They'll send the old heads instead. Better chance for them to live after it all goes down."

"Hold on, you're coming at us with pessimism, and that's got a lotta' caveats with it," Vinny chastised his Germanic counterpart, "What you's gotta do, is believe. Believe it like you believe in the Lord, and you'll watch as it unfolds right in front of you, I promise you that."

But their hope was too far gone to be realized. Indeed, Fredrickson was right: the veterans were asked to join the attack, and the others were left to man the mortars and the heavy gun. Miller found it to be a fruitful course of action—God might have berefted him the chance to strike down the Reds with his rifle, but in return, gave him the chance to drop lead atop their heads.


Breakfast had come late. Delays to the start of the counterattack had manifested in the transportation of extra supplies and ammunition. Most specifically, militia and volunteers were caught up in sorting out the damage that had been caused in last night's storm of lead.

A hand, its fingers stained in blood and shivering from exertion, takes hold of a water canteen. Another hand twists the cap off, then the canteen is brought to parched lips.

Max took a swig of water, then set her canteen back in its spot. She sniffles, but the pungent smell of smoke in her nose will not go away. Tired, ocean-blue eyes look up, and witness the rest of her squad take their seats on the berm around her, where the low-hanging branches of autumn leaves shield them from gusts of bitter cold.

Mess kits and cutlery sounded over the crackle of ashen wood and smoking rubble. It was a small breakfast; they couldn't risk hacking it up. Though terrible images crossed their minds, they ate as a token of gratitude that they were still alive, no matter how miserable it felt to be here.

This food did not placate them, however. There was no comfort in the dust, in ash and smoke. The line of body bags was growing by the hour. Flies, the faithful servants of rot, would have a feast on this day.

No one mentioned the dead that could not be seen, nor which could be pulled from the wreckage. And it wasn't merely the death of good men that kept the Angels silent; it was the death of sanctuary, the death of themselves. Every one of them had perished in this church last night, their ghosts having fled to the trenches to cower in safety—every girl knew this, yet not one had the heart to say it.

Where words failed them, their features took up the solemn mantle. There was no shame in showing grief, not when everyone was just as guilt-ridden as the other. A bitter despair of themselves and this cruel world manifested in clenched fists and faraway looks.

Max sniffled again. Her eyes were dry, and bloodshot. There were dark streaks under them, denoting a lack of proper sleep. Memories of last night were consumed by flames in her head, a calculated purge done to spare herself of as much trauma as she could.

"…Max."

Caulfield glanced to an outstretched hand. It was just as dirty as hers, but it held a clean napkin, and in this napkin was a chunk of cooked chicken breast. The mousy brunette looked further still, to the arm and shoulders, then the face of her best friend.

And then she turned her head down, "I'm not hungry, Chlo'."

"I haven't seen you eat anything since last night," Price chided, "Take it, Max. You can't think straight with an empty stomach."

First there was hesitation, but ultimately her hunger won out, and Max took the offering and ate. It was bland, and a bit dry, but it was food nonetheless.

Food that could've gone to those poor men, had someone tried to save them.

It was hard to tell if risking their lives would have made any difference, or if they would have doomed themselves to as horrifying a fate as what befell the wounded inside the church. Amongst the Angels was a desperate need to prove themselves, for they knew that their efforts had fallen short of their oath; they had been tasked to help their fellow soldier-men, and this task had yet to be fulfilled.

Footsteps shuffled to where Max and Chloe sat. They looked up, and greeted the newcomer with hushed tones—

"Hey, Vic—'Sup, Vicky."

"We're needed," Victoria beckoned the leader of First Squad, "come on."

Caulfield stood, clutching her steel helmet in one hand, and followed after Chase. The two squad-leads passed their sisters-in-arms, moving further across the lot and around the rows of body bags. They would reach a gathering of militiamen, among whom was Dr. Neumann. The Head Doctor was in a tense conversation with a messenger, and bid this messenger to depart at once to Commander Madsen.

Dr. Neumann turned to address them as they approached, "Now—to solve the matter at hand."

His brow was pinched over his eyes. He was stressed, and huffs of air expelled from his nostrils. His short, black hair was in disarray, and a sheen of sweat glistened from his forehead. His day was not over, not even close.

"I've been given orders to have as many people as possible ready to support this coming attack, you all included," he started, "I haven't a clue when this will be, but I can only assume it will happen soon. Have your squads ready to go once the militia reach their objectives and begin consolidating their gains."

"Sir," Victoria inquired.

"Yes?"

"What if the militia don't succeed, what then?"

His stone-cold expression hid his doubts well, but his words betrayed him, "Then keep your distance. You all will be relocated to Blackwell once the attack is over, regardless of the outcome. Keep yourselves away from the frontline as much as you can and do your best. That is all, now go."

They turned and left. Walking back felt like treading into the darkness without a lantern to guide their way.

"…Vic," Max asked. The two girls did not slow their pace as they spoke.

"Hm?"

"How's your squad holding up?"

Chase took a moment to conjure a decent answer, "I'm still holding on. I've been keeping a close eye on Emilia as you've asked—but that's about it. River's been keeping her head down. Sara hasn't done anything suspicious. And yet, I feel like they're just waiting for me to croak, all so they can tear each other apart."

"…you know, I could help you—"

"No," the leader of Second Squad deterred the offer, "I have them under control. I will see this through, no matter what River and Sara are planning."

"If you insist," Max diverted the subject to the upcoming attack, "I know you're ready for this—I might be as well—but I'm not sure the others are."

"I'm no better off than you are Max, don't sugar-coat it," came the sobering reply, "the truth of the matter is none of us are ready. I know for a certainty that most my squad's got four-hour's sleep at most, and they're still reeling. If we tell them of what's next, then it's likely they'll outright refuse."

"…then, are we really going?"

"We'll consolidate our squads together, those who don't want to go will form a reserve here at the church, whoever joins us will be what we've got," a sigh, now Chase slowed her pace to a stop. They were out of earshot from their squads, but heads were already turning towards them.

"Are you fine with that, Max?"

"It matters not what I think," the brunette was resigned to it, and seemed to burn with the same zeal that Victoria carried in her purposeful stride. Caulfield spoke earnestly, "I just want to give all I've got, so that this never happens again. All this death, this destruction—if I have to walk into the fire to ensure that it never returns, then so be it."

"Better to do it with a friend by your side, than to do it alone," Chase smiled, because this feeling was mutual. They were bound by honor to give their all, and God-willing, they would do it right.

The squad-leads walked to their awaiting squads. Mess kits were stowed away, and stretchers were raised up over shoulders. Pairs of eyes, though tired and weary, awaited the command of their leaders.

"What's the plan, what do we do now?" they all asked.

And were answered, "For those who do not have the strength to help, they shall stay behind. But for those who want to go, they shall follow after us. Now is the time for vengeance."

In the distance, the skirmishing had increased its pitch, rising along with the anticipation of many.