Roanapur was pretty much on fire.
2003 had swung in like a hammer. The US Invasion of Iraq had been in full swing by the time the events that had transpired in the city came to their finale. A small American military task force had decided that the very city through which weapons were being smuggled to various terror organizations across the Middle East was going to have to be 'cleaned'. Completely.
With this intent in mind, a squadron of the US Military's most elite Tier 1 teams had come to town. From Chang and his Triads, to the various whorehouses and even to the Lagoon Company, these men cleared the place out of most of the scoundrels that had little regard in terms of supplying whomever with their guns. Police had been paid off by Uncle Sam so that this CIA-focused operation could easily be tended to.
The Rip-Off Church had also been dismantled by CIA order. Eda and her friends had become a liability and the CIA wasn't exactly shy with disavowing and killing its own agents to keep up their work in other parts. It was also because of this operation that the ongoing gunfight in one of the most powerful Mafias' HQs was ongoing. Silenced weapons coughed rounds out, while automatic Kalashnikov AKs returned fire with their usual barks.
Still, a Tier-1 team vs Spetsnaz. It was like the Cold War had come to town. And the US SOCOM was winning by a mile. The elite soldiers pushed forward, their night vision goggles' lenses glint visible as each AK's muzzle flashed. A couple of Team members were injured by the rounds of the Kalashnikovs, mostly due to them actually having NV scopes strapped to the guns, but the reply was brutal.
Two of Hotel Moscow's men collapsed to the floor, lungs and heart rather promptly replaced by lead. Another pair of men returned fire with VSSes and AKs, but were promptly and terrifyingly flanked, flashbanged and grenaded, before the rest of the Task Force pushed through into the place. The city wasn't going to exist anymore if the TF could help it. Every bullet counted.
The platoons advanced deeper in, suffering some casualties from 'well-meaning' ambushers whom they promptly headshotted. They were losing men, too, but that was to be expected here. Triads and Muscovites were assholes enough to fight them like this, after all. Only way the damn Commies could so much as win a fight between them, considering everything.
The Platoon lead pushed toward the back office with two men, rifle raised and at the ready. He stopped beside it and his men stacked up beside him. He gave one chop of his hand and switched places with his breacher, covering the rear as his troop swept the last of Hotel Moscow's operations within Roanapur clean, blood pooling on the floor and pouring out of the rooms around.
The breacher pulled his shotgun off his back, racked the pump and placed it against the door's first hinge. It was also when the first AK bullets pierced the wall they were using for cover, killing the Breacher in a burst, wounding the second man in the stack and skimming the officer's helmet. The man swore to himself, dropped onto his back and opened fire, emptying his entire magazine of 5,56 into the wall.
A thump echoed from the other side as the man radioed, presumably for medevac for his dead breacher and wounded 2nd Man. Sighing, he stood to his feet and dusted himself off, then quickly checked the double doors to make sure there were no traps. Once he was sure there wasn't even a Grenade Bouquet waiting for them on the other side, he kicked the doors dead-center, causing them to swing open.
A black-haired man, built like a bear and with a scar running across his face, lay on the floor, bleeding out. He lifted up his pistol and tried to shoot, but the Spec Ops commander put two slugs into the man's head. Walking past the corpse, he kicked the pistol out of his hand and approached the other side of the armored desk, which was lined with penetrating shots from his AR. The fact his 5,56 rounds had had enough momentum to do that kind of damage was funny.
Still, they didn't kill their intended target, who was leaned against the desk, heaving with two bullet holes in the left side of her chest. The scarred, blonde beauty clad in a red suit with a skirt and leggings held a cigar between her trembling lips, trying to light it with a lighter that had a hole punctured in it. She looked up at the Commander of the SOF team, smiled wrily as the blood in the corners of her mouth foamed, painting her teeth a sickening red, and asked with a hearse voice, "... Got a light, Americanski...?"
He lifted his rifle and pointed it at the top of her head. She chuckled, then coughed, "Figures... None of you ever smoke, eh?" before the grin widened, "Guess we'll see each-other in hell..."
She thumbed closed the lighter just as the man squeezed the trigger. It closed with a loud clink... And then a volley of explosions rocked the Hotel Moscow building. Pre-placed mines detonated in one last 'fuck you' to her American raiders. Their EOD team had been hard at work disabling them, but hadn't accounted for the ones in Sofiya's room. Balalaika, the infamous Russian Crime Lady, had had one last little ace up her sleeve.
Cold War wasn't gonna end without one small victory for the Reds...
Still. Balalaika thought she'd be worse off when she died. She expected fire and brimstone and all that shit for the things she'd done on the Earth. From Afghanistan all the way to Roanapur, she'd left a trail of bodies so long, it could've probably gone into the thousands. Certainly, no Adolph, Joseph or Mao, but she was sure she had a place reserved in Hell for the lives she ruined simply through Hotel Moscow's work, at least.
Stood on her feet, the woman felt no hole in her chest, nor wounds or burns. In fact, she felt almost nothing, save for the eerily creepy sensation of a rushing wind. When she opened her eyes, she saw herself stood at the edge of the Baikal, one of the many sprawling lakes within Russia's great wilderness. Though something was odd about it, terrifyingly so.
She noted a marker written in ancient cyrillic, made of stone. It sat at the edge of the cliff face she was on and bore markings that looked almost pagan in nature. She was never much of a religious person, but, despite that, she felt drawn to it. Approaching it and kneeling in front of it, the woman set a hand on its cold stone. She couldn't make out the words. Ancient Slavic was never her forte. Sure, there was overlap with modern Russian, but...
"Interesting, isn't it?" A heavily-accented voice spoke. Balalaika swiveled about and her hand almost instinctually went for the pistol in her holster. She found, however, that her Stechkin was missing. She scoffed, then looked at the newcomer, noting the man's outfit. An ancient helm with two eyeholes, marked by the same symbols as the marker, a veil of chainmail covering the back of his head and neck. A blonde beard flowed from underneath the helmet, somewhat concealing a smile. He also wore intricate gold and bronze armor, carried a round shield with a crest on it and a shortsword in an ornate scabbard.
He raised his hand and said, "At ease, child," with a smirk. He approached her, but she moved to the side, trying to avoid getting too close. Looming over the lake and staring at it as the ethereal sky up above began to glow, he said, "You've put up quite a fight back there. Would make anyone proud to go out the way you did. A true soldier of Russia, even at your darkest."
"Thanks," She furrowed her brows, "How do you-... Who are you?"
"A friend," He told her, turning to face her. She saw that his blue eyes glowed, one hand resting on the pommel of his sword. He extended a hand and said, "Call me Perun. I have been watching your and your soldiers do work for a while... And worry yourself not, heh. There's not many things out here that would wish to send you to hell for trying to keep a cesspit of a city like Roanapur under some form of control."
"Mm... Perun, huh?" Balalaika didn't trust him, "I'm going to guess you already know my name."
"Sofiya Pavlovna Irinovskaya," The man smirked as he saw the surprise on her face. He continued, "Of course, I do. Like I told you, I've been keeping an eye on you. Ever since you became a soldier, in fact," before lowering his hand. He told her, "I'm afraid you aren't set to die just yet, though. No matter how you wish you headed out to see either Heaven or Hell, there's still need for you and your men."
Balalaika's confusion only grew as she racked her brain, trying to remember who 'Perun' was. The name was eerily familiar, so she must've run into it in some book or something, but a cosplayer like this guy was probably... She blinked and looked up at him, "Perun," and the realization hit, "The God of Warfare amidst the early Slavic Tribes. The protector of the Slavic peoples."
His smile grew into a proud one, "Indeed. You are a smart girl, Sofiya."
"... Okay. Odin, I don't believe you. Dva, even if I did, you aren't supposed to exist," She counted on her fingers, staring at him intensely, severely concerned. His smile remained, however, "And tri, what the hell would a Pagan god want with an Atheist and her men? I never believed in religions much outside of hoping there's something out there that isn't just an eternal, boring darkness."
He shrugged at the first two, then said to the third, "Your skillset is what I want. Your capability as a soldier, drilled into you by those descended from the Pagan armies defending against Viking and Mongol alike, combined with the decades of experience, make you and your troops formidable warriors. Warriors I would very much like under my employ for a problem."
"Problem..." She repeated in disbelief, "Gods have problems?"
"Ones we can't solve while we are on our current ways, yes," He replied, leaning against the marker at the edge, "I am a God of War. One tasked with looking over a myriad of worlds, not just yours. And I just recently received a new world as a parting gift from some of my students. Students who flunked their course, let's say, setting that world on a path with a billion issues."
... Sofiya really couldn't believe the shit she was hearing, "And how am I supposed to help a God solve his problem? I'm not even sure if I believe you're a god-" only to yelp as lightning struck the Baikal from a clear, spotless sky. The man had barely lifted his hand when it did, but it flickered with electricity that now coursed through the waters of the Lake. Or whatever illusion of it this was. "Okay..." She sighed deeply, "I understand the allusion... But I repeat, how am I supposed to help solve it?"
"... Become one of my Paragons on the world," He offered calmly, "You and your men will do what you do best. Build connections, create allies and destroy enemies with my blessing. You will assist in bringing balance to the world through your own ways where the Brother Gods' own missionaries have failed. Through might of arms or silver tongue... I know you will be able to do it."
The woman couldn't believe she was even considering this shit. She just wanted a peaceful death at this point, but the fact that a God of all things was asking her for help? She furrowed her brows, then asked the inevitable, "And if I fail...?" that would come with any such task and thought process. Perun seemed kind in the way he stared at her, his fingers interlaced on his knee.
"... That World ends, simply, and you return to me," He offered, his voice calm, not betraying his true emotion at such a silly question, "Then you will get the rest you wish, whether it be in a Christian Hell, or somewhere else."
With that thought now floating in her brain, Balalaika really wasn't sure she wanted to further piss off the God himself. She sighed deeply, then rubbed her face and said, "On two conditions... I get all of my men back, equipment and everything. Second, you give me some form of knowledge on the world I'm supposed to secure. I want to know what we're going to be fighting that your two pupils left behind."
"Certainly," The man smiled, then stood up and approached her with an unfathomably godly swagger, before telling her, "I assure you... You will not regret this. You will be rewared handsomely upon your mission's completion, too. A place at my side as my own personal warriors, never to starve, die or feel pain again. We shall have so many things to do together."
She watched him extend her hand, then thought to herself that she hoped Boris and her men wouldn't hate her. Gripping and shaking the God's ornate armored gauntlet, the woman felt a chill shoot up her spine. Her vision blanked, her entire body felt like it was floating in the chilly waters of the Baikal for a moment, then in the next few, from whence she'd come and to where she'd gone...?
She awoke...
Above her, a broken moon lay in full view in the starlit sky. Chunks of its form floated aimlessly around, held in place only by its gravity field. She peered at it from between clothes-lines. Her breathing felt a little ragged and her mouth felt dry. She slowly staggered to her feet and gazed around, noting she was in the alleyway of some seemingly European town.
She felt for her pistol and found it on her hip. She felt for her Dragunov and found it on her back. Her gear weighed her down as she stood up and, upon looking into a puddle, she gasped. Her scars were not gone by any metric, but the middle-aged woman that once was was now replaced by a younger self, in her twenties. Like she'd been in Afghanistan.
She ran a hand over her scars, feeling them the same as ever, then noting she was wearing her blue VDV Beret on top of her head, emblazoned with the scarlet star jeton of the Soviet Union's Paratroop Divisions, Spetsnaz brigades. Aside from that, there was a Telnyashka striped shirt peering through above the zipper of her tan Afghanka winter jacket. She wore her combat boots, her cream Afghanka pants, hell, even her rig and armor.
"Vot by snova mne popastʹ v Afganistan..." She whispered to herself with a half-smile as memories of the War came flooding back. Back when everything was still okay. Back when she still wore her uniform with some sort of honor. Back when things mattered more than just selfishness and a desire for survival amidst an ever-changing nightmare of a world.
She paused as she heard heavy footfalls around her, then drew her pistol and took cover on instinct. She lifted the earpiece of her radio onto her ears and paused, realizing that it was a Platoon radio meant to link them back to their commanders. Commanders that were not around, since this wasn't Afghanistan anymore. She hummed, shifted onto the other foot and peered past the dumpster she'd taken cover.
Twelve men walked into the alley, weapons at the ready. Kalashnikovs, she soon noted. AKs, modernized, 5,45. She recognized the uniforms and gear immediately, standing up with a smile and holstering her pistol. She even saw the man leading them, his steel pot green helmet on his head. Walking forward with his AK lowered, Boris, his face younger, though also bearing the scar still, gave Balalaika a nod, ever stone-faced.
Her smile grew as she said, "Good to see you, Tavarsich Serjant. Sakharov, Menshov!" She then laughed as she saw the two men. Both of them tipped their helmets at their Captain, smiling widely as they did so. The rest of the platoon soon began to gather on her location, dozens of men she thought dead, dozens of men she'd served side-by-side with from Afghan to Roanapur.
"Glad to see you alive and well, Tovarisch Kapitan," Boris spoke, his younger voice still rough, gruff, "... Surprised we're all still alive."
"... I might have made a pact with either a God, or the Devil in disguise," The woman replied. She felt an itch on her wrist, then pulled her sleeve down to see a rune embedded into the skin. It wasn't devilish, at least, so she said, "Okay. God. Pagan one at that, but a God nonetheless..." before pausing as she saw that the rest of her troops had arrived.
Boris patted her on the back and said, "It's on you, Captain. Seems like you have words to speak to your Army of the Dead."
She chuckled, then replied, "Indeed, comrade..." before humming. She climbed onto the tallest dumpster and called out, "Tavarische!" loud enough for it to be heard throughout the entire gathering of soldiers. Heels clicked together in response, stone faces greeting Bala. She spoke on, "It is good to see you all here, today! It is even better to say to all of you, we, the fine soldiers of the Motherland, have cheated death!" and a few cheers echoed.
She walked around on top of the full dumpster, stating, "Seems like we have a new task ahead of us, though! As per my agreement with," and snorting in interruption, amused, "A God, of all things!" and that got laughs out of her men too as she continued, "We will have a new job! The world we find ourselves on is called Remnant! It faces a threat of Extinction from both within and without!"
She turned to face the wider margin of the platoon, "Some Witch decided it would be a good idea to piss off the Gods! I know you all are Atheist, my comrades, and believe me when I tell you, I cannot blame you after getting taught what these rats did to this place, understand that we fall under the Employ of someone who seems to actually give a damn about us and the world we were assigned to supposedly defend! I want it to be known, I will not accept anything less than your full strength, given upon this unholy task we've been ordained with!"
Affirmative cheers echoed across the alley, louder this time. Balalaika grinned as she added, "We've been given a task! A new War to fight! A war against enemies as numerous and as different as the many native peoples of Russia! Unified in one duty, though, they are not! WE Are! Soldiers of the Motherland, we have a War to fight against them! LET US SHOW THEM THE UNBENDING MIGHT OF THE SOVIET PEOPLE!"
"URA!" The men cheered, raising their Kalashnikovs high into the sky. What was surprising was the lack of people coming out to see what the hell this was about. Then again, it was midnight. They probably thought it was just a bunch of drunkards. Or so Balalaika hoped as she looked upon her men. Easier to conceal themselves after this gathering was over.
"Fear not the Devil! FIGHT HARD! We shall have our briefings prepared within the day for you... Once again, I am glad to see you all alive, Tavarische... Let us make this life count as we couldn't with our past. To arms, for victory and for a free world of our own making!" She called out, to the hurrahs and cheers of her comrades once more. She ordered once more, "Prepare to move! I want Razvyed'ka Troops searching the place for a temporary shelter. Platoon commanders, on me and the Sergeant! Weapons and brass-checks. Make sure your guns work..."
"We've got a War to win..." She grinned, watching her men scramble to their duties.
They weren't revived for nothing, after all.