Chapter 1: A Soldier's Flag
My name is Sylvester Flores. I am 20 years old, and I'm currently a Lance Corporal in the United States Marines. It may not seem like it, but right now, the world is at war. North Korea finally decided to try its hand at reinvading South Korea.
What was supposed to be a small conflict spiraled out of control once China and several other smaller nations decided to join in. And like usual, America joined in once their way of life was threatened, landing me here. Guess the dyslexic Mayan calendar meme was right. If someone gets antsy and fires a nuke, then we're going to have Fallout 5 much sooner than we expected.
"You really need to improve your handwriting. If that ends up becoming the final log of the previous world, no one will be able to read it."
The person insulting me right now is Tim, the leader of our squad and one of my best friends since high school. He and the rest of my squad were tasked with receiving and escorting an artillery convoy. But when we got to the drop location, the helicopter ended up getting delayed, so I decided to do some journalism while I waited.
"And what about you? Your handwriting isn't any better."
"Bruh, what do you mean! I have the neatest handwriting in the squad!"
"What good is neat handwriting when you need the highest-grade microscope to see it?"
We both looked at each other before bursting into laughter.
"Tim, we've been waiting for 6 hours now. How long until the artillery arrives?"
"I'm not sure. Radar has picked up a lot of enemy jet activity for the past hour."
"Ughh." I groaned. "At this point, we're never going to leave." Taking out a cigarette from my pack, I used my lighter to light it and put it in my mouth.
"Want one?"
"You're seriously snuck weed on a deployment? You have a problem."
"I'm not using weed, just the normal cig. And it's only a problem once I run out."
"The keyword in that sentence is problem."
"More for me then." Putting the cigarette back into my bag, I also put my journal away so I could talk.
"So Tim, what do you plan on doing after th-"
"Come on, man. You know everybody dies when someone asks that question." A voice interrupted.
Sitting up from the backseat was Dale, second in command, and the one person who makes me wonder why he's still overweight in this field of work. I get it if he was a commander who sat around all day, but he's active in the field, doing all the same missions we do with no difficulty. Is that really fat or just muscle? At this point, I can't tell.
"You've been watching too many movies. That never happens."
"Karma is a real bitch, man. You don't wanna be messing with it, especially in a warzone."
"If it were real, then that means stepping on a crack would break our mother's back. Which it doesn't."
"I'm warning ya, man." Dale laid back down in the seat, leaving us alone.
"I have a feeling he's a flat-earther."
"I'm 90% sure he is. As for what I want to do, I'll go home and propose to Jemma."
"Oh right, that was supposed to happen. Sorry about that."
"It's not your fault. When the call of duty… well calls. It's either you answer it or be thrown in prison for deserting. Either way, you're fucked. At least it'll be in the metaphorical sense on the battlefield." Tim chuckled.
"So what about you? If you're going into journalism, I suggest using a computer."
"I'm not becoming a journalist. If you look at the average game journalist, I'll be too overqualified for the job."
"Preaching to the church with that statement."
"Thank you. But as for what… I think I'll try—"
Boom!
An explosion went off nearby, impacting a nearby vehicle and blowing it to pieces. Quickly grabbing my gun, I get away from the truck just in time to avoid another shell. Dale, however, wasn't so lucky and got caught in an explosion before he can even leave the truck.
"Enemy mortor! It's an ambush!"
I rushed toward the remaining congregation, but Tim pulled me to the side and directed me to the forest.
"Everyone to the forest. Go, go, go!"
Under his order, I quickly ran into the forest at full speed. Explosion after the explosion happened behind me as the adrenaline fueled my stamina. I could hear the screams of my fellow comrades who were caught in the flames. The image of Dale flashed into my mind as I kept on moving.
"Commander Hayner to the supply helicopter. Land immediately and prepare for pick up!"
Just as I thought all hope was lost, it showed up in the form of our supply helicopters. As they flew in, both copters landed far away from the artillery shelling and opened their doors.
"We're almost there, let's— agh!" A soldier by me suddenly fell over and was left behind. I stopped and went back to pick him up.
"Sniper, get down!" I started covering fire and started dragging the guy to safety. My message got across, as many of us started to return fire, giving me enough time to wrap his wounds."
Soon enough, the mortar strike also stopped. Meaning that they're re-calculating their shot in order to hit us. I couldn't stop, though. Stopping on a battlefield means death.
I continued my approach to the helicopter via crawling. Tim and the others had already gotten there and were waiting for me, but the explosions of the mortar restarted, and were much closer than before.
"Flores, hurry!"
"I'm trying, Tim!" His orders. No, his plea for me to get to the helicopter was an impossible task. Between the sniper and the mitar shells, and carrying this dude my survival odds at least dropped to 1%. A 1% chance that I am willing to take.
I get up and make a dash to the helicopter. Explosions and shrapnel go off by my side as they narrowly miss me. The sniper seemed to have his aim messed up by the artillery as well since he never made another shot, at least to my knowledge. My run towards the chopper took a tragic end however, as I was hit with a blast that blew off my leg, and caused a huge laceration in my left arm.
Needless to say, I fell. With adrenaline still coursing through my veins, I attempted to crawl to safety. Tim however jumped out the chopper and ran towards me. Picking me up, he made a mad dash towards the heli and narrowly got me on before getting in himself.
"Flores, speak to me!"
"I guess Dale was right." I replied, gasping for air between breaths.
"It's bad. His leg was blown off with major laceration to his left arm. I can deal with the arm. But the massive hemorrhage from the leg is too much without the proper equipment.
"So he's going to—"
"Hey. Don't worry about it. T-t-tim. M-mind giving me an f-final light?"
Funnily enough, I did sneak weed onto this deployment, and handed over the pack I premade over to Tim. "You really are an idiot, aren't you?" Tim replied, shedding several tears.
"Y-you… know it." Getting my final blunt, my eyes slowly closed for the final time. One of my missions for the world was to get Tim to smoke a pack with me. Now that it's complete, I can die without many regrets. I just hope grandma will take the news well.
/~/
Sometime later, I woke up. I noticed that I was in a library of some kind. Several people in blue robes surrounded me, with another in white standing on top of a platform. She must be the grandmaster. "Oh, finally. If this one failed, I would have assumed the weapon had rejected us."
Looking at my hands, I noticed a flag with a blade lying at the end. Why am I holding this? "W-what? Why do I have this? Where is Tim? Did I die? Did I get rev-"
"I'm tired of this so before I become violent, grab his voice and force him to be silent. [Star Mute]"
My voice was cut off when a circle appeared in my mouth. No matter how tired I was, I couldn't speak. I felt that it was a trap and tried to run, but was grabbed by the grandmasters... paper?
"Grandmaster Paper, how dar-"
"Annoying voice. Allow me to rejoice." A circle appeared on that one's mouth as well. "Anyone else have any comments?"
"No ma'am."
"Good, now shut up. He seemed to gone through a lot"
The woman waved her hand, and her white cloak suddenly burst away and started to make a pretty large platform. I've seen similar technology to this in the movie about a fat robot. So maybe she's using microbots? But why shape them as paper? Do we even have that technology?
"Follow me, and I'll explain everything." At the snap of her fingers, the circle was gone, and the paper binding me flew off. I didn't know what to do in this situation. If I tried to run again, I'd just get captured again, and there are too many people to take out with one round of ammo. Shit, what to do?
"Mr. hero. Are you coming?"
"You're gonna drag me with paper again if I don't?"
"Absolutely."
"Alright. I surrender." Seeing as I had no other options, I stepped on the paper. It felt solid as steel but still had that flexibility to fold itself when needed. So maybe microbots weren't a far-off choice.
"Please try to stand still. It's hard trying to keep my concentration with your constant movement."
"Sorry. That's 172 pounds of pure muscle right there." I chuckled.
"It's not that. I'm just not used to having people standing on my body." The girl blushed a bit.
"Man, you really gotta work on your punchlines." The girl just gave me a blank stare. It only took me a moment to realize she wasn't joking. I laughed, visibly nervous to everyone who could see my face. Luckily for me, she was the only one here.
/~/
Reaching the top of her lab, I was released from her... body and walked off the platform. Taking a quick look around, I got startled by an animal trying to tackle me through its cage. While stepping back, I almost fell off, but Paper transformed her arms into paper and grabbed me.
"Don't fall, please. Mihare already got on my ass for this place being 'unsafe'."
"What the fuck?"
So she was being real! How!? Why!?. Where the hell am I? Keep calm, Flores, keep calm.
"Sorry, it's just that I got startled. Hold on, is that a fucking unicorn?" I looked inside the cage. White coat, longhorn, it was hard to mistake it, but that is certainly a unicorn.
"Impossible, these don't exist. At least I think they don't."
"Ahh yes, the normal reaction." Pulling out a set of keys, the girl unlocked a door that led to what seemed to be a private study or bedroom. Books and other scientific notes were just spread across the floor without a care. She even had a bed in the corner of the room that held a mountain of notes lying around. How does she even sleep at night? Does she even sleep?
"Now that we're in a more private section of the lab, I'm ready to answer your barrage of questions." The paper that we were just riding on flew over to the girl and formed into a chair.
"Okay, so who are you, what the hell are you, where am I, why do I have a fucking flag, and finally, clean your room! This place is filthy!"
"Hey, just because I'm messy doesn't mean you can insult my lifestyle!"
"That too. You were just speaking in a monotone and serious voice a second ago, but now you sound normal."
"Fine, I quit." The girl flipped her chair and fell on the ground with a groan. "I owe someone so much money right now."
"What?"
"I was doing a bet to see how long I can act as a great sage to the next hero. But this is too difficult."
"Why do you keep calling me that? What is going on!?"
The girl sat back up. "To make this easy on both of us, our world has three of these special weapons: the morale tools, the train, and the metronome."
"Wait, did you just say train?"
"Yes, don't ask me why, I'm just as confused as you on that. Anyways, 600 years ago, these weapons were used to protect the world from these waves, a phenomenon that splits a hole in our reality and dumps in monsters. Our previous hero, Miguel, fought his hardest to stop it. But he failed, and the world was plunged into an age of darkness."
The girl pulled out two maps. The first map was huge, holding several nations, cities, and farms. The second map, however, was much smaller, limiting the nation count from 12 to 5 and heavily reducing the number of cities on the map. A mountain that was once on the old map was now labeled as a quarry. And the forest of another was reduced to a grassland. What caused all of this?
"As I said, the hero failed, and the waves ravaged the land of Arcadia until something stopped it. After that, the waves disappeared, and we rebuilt on the remains of our former lands. Flash forward to the present, and the dragon hourglass has started once again, counting down to the moment of destruction like all those years ago. That's why the weapons chose to summon you here. They believe you're capable of handling this threat and protecting the world from danger."
"I-"
"Oh, and if you fail, we're all dead."
"... yeah I'm gonna need a bit more context than that."
"Also, the normal reaction." The paper girl sighed and pulled out a chalkboard. "Okay, let's start this again from the beginning."
The girl then spent the next 3 hours and 24 chalkboards giving me a thorough explanation of the waves, weapons, and why I'm here. Many of the excerpts she gave were about the effects and dangers these waves cause on the world's stability. Younger me would have probably forgotten everything she said right now, but after being yelled at by my drill sergeant who knows how many times for forgetting formations, I decided it would be best to take notes.
The first piece of important info was that my weapon was called the Morale tools. I'm basically a support class on steroids, as all my abilities are focused on buffing groups of people with a variety of instruments and flags.
The girl who was lecturing me also told me that her name was Paper. She was what's known as a sentient construct. Constructs are golems of an element or material that can move and stuff. Now, who is the genius that decided to name her Paper in the first place? That scientist must have been very bad at coming up with names.
"And that's the basics of all the research I have. Now, are there any more questions?"
"Um, yes, if you're the Metronome. And I'm the Morale tool. Who is the train?"
"Riala."
"Who?"
"She's the reason why I'm like this. The person who not only killed my father but destroyed half my body in the process."
"You okay?" I put my hand on her shoulder. She looked indifferent about it, but I could tell she was hiding something about it. Do paper people even have emotions? Should I ask, or would that be inconsiderate of me? Damn, my curiosity.
"Yeah, I'm fine. Just not very fond of her." Opening a door to her balcony, I finally got the first fresh breath of air since I got here. The buildings here were something akin to traditional Mexican houses. Many people here were actually wearing Mexican clothing as well. Now thinking about it, the paper's clothing under her paper cloak is a Purple and Red huipil dress. Huh, that's neat.
"The city of Ken'bitch was created by the Morale hero long ago. Although most of the information was lost to time, we do know from the stories of old that he failed to defend the waves properly and relied on the world's fail-safe. Although many died, he used this moment to save as many as he can and create a city so we can prepare for another calamity."
Paper pointed over to the largest building here. Two flags of a Peryton flapped in the wind as hundreds of soldiers all swung their weapons in sync.
"Our army is 400 strong with many… "talented" people being trained as we speak. With you leading us, I believe we will be able to do what the hero decades ago couldn't accomplish." The girl then kneeled to the ground and got into a bowing position.
"I beg of you, please save our world."