Chapter 20

Several minutes later…

The cop car we're in pulled up next to the tankery grounds.

The scene was quite bad. The place had several SWAT vehicles in it already, as well as a MH-6 Little Bird on the ground. Police officers were everywhere, pulling up yellow cordons.

"Was ist hier los?" I pretended to demand as I walked in.

A squad leader walked up to me.

"There's been a mass shootout in an alleyway behind your compound, Panzer Kommandant."

"Ah, well…" I sighed. "Andrew, go fetch the others. I'm checking the scene out."

…

Only when I saw the site of the accident did I realize how much havoc Jason wrecked.

The place was smeared in dried blood, and the bodies were still in a relatively fresh state. And while Andrew did mention bodies, he didn't mention the part that the bodies were literally broken into bits: snapped arms, legs and other body parts lay everywhere, and the weapons that seemed to have belonged to the attackers were in a similar state: an AKM lying next to my feet had its barrel torn off, the stock smashed to splinters and the bolt mechanism ripped clean out, and an M16 lying on some nearby junk had completely deformed optics, a crushed barrel and the magazine broken in half. The only 2 complete corpses were the M17 gunner and the M60 operator (still nailed to the wall; I silently made a note to test Jason's strength).

I noticed a few policemen giving me weird looks.

"What?"

"Sir," an officer said, uneasily, "you're grinning."

"What? This is good; at least I won't have to worry about some jackass terrorists doing dangerous stuff to my friends."

"Sir, we have to detain the American boy, his 4 adjutants and that big man for-"

"Excuse me?" My tone made it pretty clear I was getting a bit pissed.

"For one, sirs, I believe that the situation has made it pretty clear that my friends were the supposed-to-be victims, had they not been on constant vigilance. And secondly, these people," I pointed at the corpses, "were terrorists, vandals, trying to sabotage the school tankery team. Their death was totally self-earned, and my friends weren't doing anything wrong."

Apparently, the police were hoping to say something, but just then-

KABOOM!

A deafening explosion roared to my left, followed by the rapid fire of machine guns and several other small arms.

"What the fuck!?" I yelled as I whipped out my MP41.

Then, an American Countryhuman dashed into the alleyway, tailed by …

A fucking guided missile.

The soldier leapt to the side, and a split second before the missile hit him, he vanished in a loud "Pop!", reappearing at my side. The rocket slammed into the wall and blew up.

"Sir, you've got to get out of here!"

"What the shit is going on!?"

"Those damned terrorists! They attacked Xu's convoy! And…"

"And what!?"

He gulped. "They have U.S-made main battle tanks and infantry fighting vehicles! And a whole lot of other serving U.S and NATO weapons!"

A few moments earlier…

Xu sighed as he walked out towards the edge of the compound.

He had got a briefing on what had happened from the police (though they were pretty confused at what he is), and he had to admit, this Jason guy had got some tricks up his sleeves.

His personal motorcade was waiting at the front gate already. In the front were 2 "卫戍"("Sentry" in English) sentry robots, tall and humanoid, with a square head housing sensors, dual-barreled assault rifles in their robotic arms, and strong torsos supporting their huge frames. 6 "迅-1"(RAPID-1) armored jeeps followed behind, covering the front and sides, basically Hummer-like vehicles with a 360 degree sentry gatling gun and a small laser projector. In the center was a "枢-3"(Cen-3) 8-wheeled armored command vehicle, a huge vehicle similar to an enlarged Cougar, but the chassis was longer, had bigger doors, and the top weapons were 2 Mangler sentry autocannons, a coaxial M2 machine gun and a high-powered rail gun. 7 M150 APCs followed behind, each carrying 10 "幽灵"(Phantom) special troopers.

But as he neared his car, still in thought, a sharp tug in his subconscious told him something was wrong. He halted abruptly, and then-

Whoosh! BOOM!

A SMAW-D rocket warhead flew out of a nearby building and exploded against the leftmost armored jeep, scorching the side. At the same instant, 4 RPG-7 warheads slammed into the transporters, destroying 1 and immobilizing 2. Then, a Phalanx Close-In Defense battery at the end of the road (it was mounted on a flatbed; he had no idea when or how it got there) roared into action along with 3 portable gatling guns. The front Sentry robot was blown to bits by the autocannon, while the other reacted, blasting its weapon into the nearby buildings.

Cries and yells of alarm came. A squad of Phantoms jumped off the APCs and ran to positions, readying their weapons. The Cen-3's Manglers revved and began to thunder away.

Xu ducked aside as a high-caliber bullet whizzed past him, and snatched it out of the air. A .416 Barrett.

"Attention. All units, the enemy has a sniper. Divert some Phantoms to the nearby buildings. Over."

Meanwhile…

I swore as I ran after the U.S Countryhuman soldier.

What an excellent day. First some bloody carnage, and now a terrorist strike. Like, can this get any worse?

I snapped out of my thoughts as I saw a terrorist raise an ARX-160 assault rifle at me. I swung my SMG, and a jet of blood flew out of the man's head.

I looked around, and figured the situation was getting fucked up. The Countryhumans were resilient and skilled, true, but even they're having problems with the massive number of incoming enemies, not to mention the surprise factor.

Pop!

A bullet glanced off my chestplate. I wheeled around, and gave a K-7 SMG-wielder a blast. He went down for the count.

At that moment, a loud commotion came from the end of the street. I turned, and saw, to my utter shock, 5 U.S Hummer jeeps – 2 had M2 Browning machine guns on top, while 3 had semi-enclosed turrets sporting gatling guns – moving down the road, backed by 3 M2A2 ODS IFVs. To make things even worse, 2 M1A2 Abrams MBTs burst through a nearby street, also entering the fight.

"Alberich! Get the fuck out!" Jones's voice suddenly came through my earphones.

"WHAT? No freaking way!"

"At least 15 yakuza closing in on you! They've got riot shields and MTS-255 shotguns! And 2 M115 sniper rifles to your starboard! Besides, you can't handle the enemy's armored units!"

"Damn it." I shut off the comms, ducked behind a civilian car and looked at my crew. "What now?"

"I'll screw those shootists." Lucas volunteered.

"I suggest we pop smoke & haul ass, wholeheartedly."

I looked at Andrew. "Well, that's not your style."

"What, you want to go through shields designed to stop modern assault rifles with WWII stuff? And don't tell me you don't see those?" He pointed at an Abrams.

"Did it ever occur to you that we don't have smoke grenades?"

Andrew looked like he would've gone thinking, but just then, Johann peered over the hood of the car & went as pale as bleach.

"OUT! Out, out, out! MK32!"

The teams scattered as a deafening explosion consumed the vehicle. It didn't take me any effort to find the culprit, and I knew we were in for some serious trouble.

The person in question was quite damn tall, clad in state-of-the-art body armor with armor plating on various places. He had a huge black helmet, rimmed with transparent panels. A huge shield – I'm figuring this thing can reach my shoulders when propped upright – was strapped on his arm. The grenade projector Johann mentioned was held in his hands.

I aimed and fired away, but the man ducked down behind his shield and my bullets just sparked against the metal. And I was forced to abandon my cover again when the soldier flung a hand grenade at me.

I expected an explosion, but instead, when the grenade blew, a brilliant white light blinded me, and my ears rung like crazy.

Fuck. A flashbang!

I rubbed my eyes, and recovered my eyesight-

Just in time to see a bayonet flung at my torso.

"Oh, fuck this!"

I gripped the blade, and desperately pushed it back, even as the iron bit through my gloves and into my palm. But I was really losing: I mean, my opponent is a grown man.

But just as the blade touched my tunic, a deafening battle cry slammed into me, knocking me away.

And Sergey's huge figure leapt into the street. He had a new outfit now: his greatcoat had armor plating – and I'm talking about tank-style armored plating, not just Kevlar – all over, and a bulky, huge power suit beneath, an assertion of straps, armor and reinforced fabrics. His helmet was equally large, with iron flaps and a built-in screen (why a screen? Because it was flashing). He held his GSH-6-30 with both hands, and a saber that was as long as my arm was hung on his belt.

The soldier, shocked by the new enemy, fired his grenade projector, but Sergey lifted his arm, and an even larger shield shimmered into existence. The thing was probably about as tall as I am, painted olive-green with the sickle-and-hammer in center position. The grenade blew up harmlessly against the iron surface, not even charring the paint.

Kuznetsov roared in rage and slammed the soldier with his fist. The soldier lifted his shield, but the shockwave still blew him several feet back. Sergey hauled his sentry gun, and the iron monster roared to life, a stream of liquid flame roaring out of the muzzle. A group of enemies were literally blown to chunks by the formidable weapon, and the turret on top of a Hummer was punched full of holes before it caught fire.

But at that moment, an M1A2 turned its fearsome 120 mm gun towards Sergey's flank, and fired.

"Nein! Sergey!" I yelled in a panic as the figure was consumed in an explosion.

But as the smoke dissipated, I saw, with shock, that Sergey looked pretty much intact. However, he was really enraged.

Sergey roared in fury and jumped at the tank. He landed next to its side, and gripped one of the railings on the turret's side. He twisted his arms, and I can hear the iron groan and creak 3 meters away. He flung his arms upward, and tore the rail clean off the turret. The general leapt onto the top, and ripped the hatch off the tank with his bare hand (yes, hand, in singular). Then he hefted his autocannon and blasted the interior of the tank, and I heard explosions and screams within as fire began to hiss out of the tank's observatory slots.

Kuznetsov released his main weapon, broke the tank's engine exhaust grilles open merely by stomping on it hard, and pulled a Molotov Cocktail off his belt. He raised his left palm, and a blaze erupted in his hand. Lighting the incendiary bomb with it, he slammed it against the engine and leapt off. Mere seconds later, the Abrams' turret took off as a deafening explosion erupted from the chassis, landing atop a civilian car.

No, wait…

That's not a civilian car.

I ran up to the unidentified vehicle. It was a military vehicle, judging from the camo, but it wasn't an ally car. Yet, no one was operating the machine gun on top (and by the way, said machine gun wasn't a Browning…), which ruled out the possibility of hostilities. Furthermore, the vehicle looked Russian, another weird thing.

"What's up with you?" Andrew ran up to me and frowned at the car, "What's a Russian Typhoon armored jeep doing here?"

Well, that settles what this is.

I reached and grabbed the side door, and with a slight tug, it opened…

Showing what made me & Andrew extra perplexed.

Inside were a bunch of girls – I'd say 10 – crammed awkwardly into the space. But they were not wearing the standard Oarai uniform, but a black shirt, white coat, black skirt, long silk stockings, and sneakers. Another thing was that none of them were facing us, but cowering in the vehicle.

I exchanged confused looks with Andrew, then carefully poked one of the girls with my SMG.

She turned around…

And her appearance struck me like a thunderbolt.

"Das ist unmöglich…"

Not that she looked weird: long, black hair, spectacles, white face and amber eyes.

The big problem was: I freaking know that face. And it was NOT supposed to be here.

I wasn't wearing my gas mask, so my face was visible to her. She pulled back in shock as she figured out who I was.

"Venus?"

"Louis?!"