OR2-EP1: Perun Awakens (1)

McNeil was sensitive to all kinds of odors, partly because he had been poisoned, and partly because his training required him to be able to survive in complex environments, especially if they were as bad as they could be. As he realized this, the intolerable stench of decay brought McNeil, whose consciousness was still in a state of chaos, immediately to his senses. He pushed aside the broken limbs resting on his face and crawled out from under the rubble and corpses. The only way to describe the scene in front of him was devastation, the land swept away by the war was dead, ruins and broken walls were the only scenery here. McNeil rubbed his eyes vigorously to make sure he wasn't in a hallucination before taking a step forward.

Besides the odor of rotting corpses, another thing that made McNeil feel puzzled was the current temperature. He had traveled to different missions around the world, and the freezing temperatures of Hammerfest were still fresh in his mind; it was one of the coldest winters he could remember. Maybe this was another world of Hammerfest, because the cold around him was so shivering that McNeil was soon so frozen that his legs were shivering and he had to cower in a corner to escape the cold wind. He was beginning to miss everything about South Africa, where even in winter there were no sub-zero temperatures - to be exact, the summers in South Africa were harder than the winters. Based on his experience, McNeil estimated that the temperature probably dropped to around -30 degrees Celsius. Luckily, he was still wearing a coat heavy enough to protect him from the cold, or he would have frozen in place in no time.

The gusts of wind faded away, and McNeil left the ragged walls and walked deeper into the ruins. He was wearing a white military overcoat with his name written on the left chest position and an armband on each sleeve, which signaled the unit he was currently serving in and the one he had last served in. McNeil pulled the coat off, scrutinized the two armbands on the coat, and disappointedly slipped the coat back on. He didn't recognize either insignia, nor could he remember any unit in the GDI or the United States of America using similar symbols. It seemed that he was in the middle of a whole new world again ... Maybe that wasn't such a bad thing.

He needed to complete three tasks: clarify his location, learn the relevant information about the new world, and find Professor Egon Schuller. McNeil came inside a half-collapsed house that had been blown up and looked around, trying to find some clues that could provide him with valid information. If it were nighttime, perhaps he could tell whether he was in the southern or northern hemisphere by the position of the stars, but it was still far from nighttime, and a difficult day would be torture for McNeil, who had no information at hand. He rechecked all the equipment on his body, and apart from this uniform on his body, he did not find any weapon or communication equipment. This made McNeil could not help but laugh: he had seen many young people in the news who went exploring without carrying enough equipment and supplies, and most of these people died miserably in the wild, and McNeil's current situation was not much different from theirs, except that he was wearing a uniform that seemed to have a little deterrent effect. Jackals, wolves, tigers and leopards don't recognize these symbols, and to these beasts, humans who have fallen in the wild are just alternative food.

Michael McNeil left the house and searched the next collapsed house. He saw two bodies in the house, bodies in pieces, apparently shattered by shells - bad news for him, who had hoped to judge his position by observing the looks of the surrounding inhabitants. So, McNeil pinched his nose and picked up the broken pieces of the body, picking out a few relatively large parts and searching meticulously in the dim sunlight for any features that might be useful. White people ... Yes, white people are everywhere, and this kind of information is irrelevant and does not allow him to analyze his location at all. Any race could be active in any corner of the world, and the advent of the age of globalization had broken down cages and barriers, not to mention places that were accustomed to receiving immigrants, and the natives were feared to be in the minority instead.

"It's cold ...," McNeil shivered, retreating back inside the broken house. Another gust of wind struck him suddenly in the face, and the biting cold forced McNeil to withdraw inside the house that did little to keep out the cold. He shuddered to think how the tenants ... of these already dead inhabitants had managed to survive so tenaciously. Ice and snow are not suitable for human survival, otherwise mankind might consider colonizing the North and South Poles, rather than being content to let them become mere research areas. Something inside McNeil surmised that the climate must have changed. He had met the aborigines who lived in the Arctic Circle, and the physical characteristics of those people bore no semblance to these white men before him. One might think that the Russians could be an exception, yet the Russians were not considered aborigines. Before they arrived in Siberia, the natives here were no different from the inhabitants McNeil had seen in Canada. Besides, the Russians didn't seem to want to live in Siberia.

Now, he was left with nothing, no equipment other than the clothes on his back that could assist him in escaping the freezing temperatures. The world was shrouded in a silver-white color that breathed death, and beyond the ghastly whiteness of the snow was the deep red of blood, and congealed black unidentified matter was everywhere. McNeil was fortunate enough to find a few bodies with more complete faces, on which he saw Slavic features. This pinpointed the likely locations in Southern and Eastern Europe, and he would definitely not be surprised if a new war broke out in these zones where the various ethnic groups were in serious conflict. Serbia, Croatia, Ukraine ... These were what McNeil had read in history books, and long before he was born this was the front line of confrontation between GDI and the NOD Brotherhood. Even if the world situation had changed, if the nature of the conflict hadn't, then the sharpest confrontations in the same region would remain.

What he needed was a tool to be able to access outside intelligence, and as long as he got his hands on a cell phone or something similar, the problem would be solved. McNeil, who had given up hope, felt his way into the next room, which he searched thoroughly, and found a cell phone in the pocket of another body. This cell phone was a far cry from the smartphones McNeil remembered from the 1970s, and it didn't have most of the features McNeil had expected. However, compared to the last time he got his hands on a brick in South Africa, the older model smartphone was at least much better than a regular cell phone that only had call functions. McNeil cautiously took the phone outside and pressed the on button. A logo he had never seen before popped up on the dark screen, perhaps some corporation that had become a giant in a parallel world by working on a new type of cell phone.

"Okay, let's see what's we have now." McNeil left the house and found a road leading out of town. The road was narrow, probably only good for two cars side by side, and McNeil wasn't sure exactly where the road that disappeared into the distance led.

McNeil took a few steps forward, determined to search for as much new intel as he could before leaving the town in ruins. The phone showed 43% battery left - not a big deal, but the screen full of Cyrillic letters made McNeil immediately realize that he was in Ukraine or Russia. He didn't understand Ukrainian or Russian at all, and if he'd had a chance to learn French and German before and had missed out for some reason, these little Eastern European languages had always been off McNeil's radar, and it was inevitable that he'd lose out as a result in the future. He found the settings button by virtue of the icon on his desktop and changed the system language to English, before he began searching for the information he needed.

"January 21, 2046." McNeil jerked his head up and looked around, suspecting that someone nearby was watching him.

The year 2046 was a year that wasn't going to leave any lasting impression on McNeil. In his own original world, the Third Tiberian War had begun a few years later, and human civilization had suffered a catastrophe. Without the SCRIN invasion, perhaps the greatest loss to mankind was the tens of millions of casualties caused by the liquid Tiberian bombs detonated by the Ion Cannon attack on Sarajevo. the SCRIN invasion changed all that, and mankind was forced to use all the means at their disposal to fight the enemy, these aliens had to be eliminated once and for all.

Then, in an effort to wipe out the SCRIN radiation nodes in Area Zero, GDI's military campaign caused twenty million deaths - this time with their own liquid Tiberian bombs.

Michael McNeil dropped the memories from his mind and opened his browser, searching for the next piece of intel. He typed USA into the search bar, and the first thing that popped up was a Wikipedia profile of the United States of America; it appeared that his nominal homeland still existed for now. Next, he typed WAR into the news search page, and all he got was the news that the Russians had invaded the Ukraine not too long ago. McNeil's insides rippled as he seemed to have expected this to happen. During the years of GDI's rapid rise, its dominance had been challenged more than once by other nations, but these challenges were futile in the face of Tiberium's rapid expansion and the deterioration of the global environment, and GDI eventually had more power than any other sovereign nation, ruling the entire human world-except for the Brotherhood of NOD . As one of those who lived through that era of competition, McNeil could relate to the other side's mindset of fighting the good fight. He knew that GDI wasn't as honorable as it was advertised to be, and that the opposition's resistance had a certain amount of legitimacy in addition to fulfilling their own interests... However, when humanity was facing a devastating catastrophe, any in-fighting would only make them move faster towards extinction.

"Well, it looks like I'm in the Ukraine now." McNeil came to his final conclusion, "And in a uniform of unknown origin ... I hope the United States hasn't ventured into an unnecessary war."

That information was enough for him. Where he was and what conflict he was involved in was the first thing McNeil needed to know, the other bells and whistles could wait until he was safely back in the rear before he inquired more closely. The soldier in the white military overcoat continued on his way, realizing that the mysterious man with a penchant for mischief stood in front of him by a truck that had been abandoned in the middle of the road.

"Are you still happy with your new identity?"

"Next time you should think of a way to get me to intelligence related to myself faster." McNeil coughed a few times as he trudged through the cold wind to Lilin's eyes and continued, "You see, I still don't know what unit of the U.S. Army I'm serving in because I haven't seen this badge symbol ..."

"Oops, that was an oversight on my part." Lilin patted his head hidden under his hood, "I see, I'll correct that next time. As compensation ... here's Professor Schuller's phone number, you can try contacting him now, provided he has time to answer your call."

A string of numbers appeared before McNeil's eyes. The string of numbers seemed to be displayed directly on his eyes, and he couldn't get rid of it no matter what. He hurriedly entered the number into his cell phone, and the string of blood-red numbers immediately disappeared. McNeil went to where Lilin had just been standing - the guy had disappeared into thin air again - and began to call Professor Schuller. He didn't know Egon Schuller very well, and the old professor hadn't interacted with him much during his lifetime, and didn't even remember McNeil ever visiting him. Regardless, they were now comrades in a boat and had to work together to get through this.

A few minutes passed with no response from the other side. McNeil sighed and looked at the remaining charge on his cell phone and decided to call Schuller again, this time there was still no one to answer him. Impatiently, McNeil turned off his cell phone, only to notice a few black dots appearing in the air in the distance. He felt something strange and his general instinctive alertness drove him immediately off the highway and back inside the abandoned town, ready to find cover. Unidentified flying objects don't just appear out of nowhere at this time of year; they must be enemy craft. It didn't take long for McNeil's suspicions to become reality as two drones whizzed by not far from his head, the Grim Reaper raising his scythe to him. McNeil didn't dare to delay for a moment, he left his cell phone outside and dug himself into a cellar not far away, quietly waiting for the drones to leave the area. Now was not the time for heroics; there was nothing he could do to survive an attack from these two drones. While he wasn't sure what level of technological advancement the drones of 2046 had reached in terms of military use, it was inevitable that an unarmed, ordinary person would be unable to resist a weapon of war.

It wasn't until after McNeil thought the drone had left that he felt comfortable enough to climb out of the cellar, put his cell phone back in his coat, and hobble on down the highway. He had to be more careful getting out of here; the enemy probably searched for any suspicious signals in some way, and maybe McNeil just happened to be one of those targets. No civilians would be active in a war zone, only trained soldiers would be willing to cross these death zones.

McNeil's education taught him that any force that would not submit to the New Order (McNeil's personal interpretation, and the textbook's more grandiose) and the free world should be firmly suppressed and eliminated, with Russia as the primary target. This argument was no longer applicable by the time he became a young man, and the world became an arena for the GDI and NOD fraternities to tussle. However, it is a fact that cannot be ignored that Russia has always been one of the major concerns of GDI. Economically backward? Guess the polar bears wouldn't mind using their powerful military to drag the last of their enemies to hell.

"Looks like this generation of president has played badly with the balance beam." McNeil laughed to himself.

He began to quickly analyze the battles related to Ukraine. During the First Tiberian War, the NOD controlled most of Eastern and Southern Europe, and Ukraine was no exception; at the time, the NOD was on the verge of turning the world upside down, and no one would have thought that the Brotherhood would be suppressed by GDI before the millennium - thanks to the Ion Cannon system that came online just in time. After that, GDI implemented drastic modifications to the Eastern European countries in an attempt to turn them into bulwarks against Russia and the NOD Brotherhood. However, these modifications posed great pitfalls due to the lack of water, anti-GDI radicals chose the GLA, which had just risen to prominence in the Middle East at the time, and then the whole of Europe was engulfed in war, with the GLA at one point attacking Germany, which in turn provided respite for the Brotherhood, who had gone into hiding after their first defeat. Since then, the GDI has been deeply divided, with the United States retreating to its homeland, the EU going to the depths of madness and depravity, and Eastern Europe becoming a literal wasteland until it disappears from memory altogether. In those battles that took place in Eastern Europe, the commanders on the GDI side often fought haphazardly purely on the basis of overwhelming military might, and the only reason they were able to win was because the GDI was able to withstand the attrition; in another, relatively weaker, organization or nation, it is feared that it would have fallen apart due to economic collapse. After the end of the First GLA War, the bitterly disappointed EU became completely disillusioned with the United States, and turned to wholesale study of Chinese military ideas and systems, and began to openly fight against the United States in the GDI, with even the United Kingdom, which had been a staunch ally of the United States, coming out on the opposite side of the United States. In analyzing these shifts, James Solomon once pointed out to McNeil that the early GDI military was in a quixotic state where the United States commanded and the EU bought and paid for it, which led to growing discontent in the EU, which eventually grew to a point where it became difficult to end.

"Did we have any chance of stopping NOD from regaining control of Eastern Europe at that point?"

"No." These were Solomon's words to McNeil more than thirty years ago, as the dying former Supreme Commander of the GDI looked calmly at McNeil, who had been promoted to Major General of the Army, "McNeil, don't you understand? We fought and won! They're the ones who threw us out, and we only gave them freedom, which they didn't need ... what NOD can give them is what we failed, I know that very well ...always have."

In his later years, Solomon always considered his commitment to clearing NOD's sphere of influence to be futile; whenever they eliminated NOD's local strongholds and leaders, the locals were quick to invite NOD back. Especially in the Yellow Zone, GDI's support is incredibly low, and many civilians don't want to support GDI's military operations in any way, shape, or form.

GDI has been winning, consistently, rarely suffering crushing defeats, and the end result is that they have been forced to shake hands with the NOD Brotherhood in order to save mankind ... The most ironic part of this is that NOD's influence has spilled over into the parliament, with MPs making unrealistic promises to the Brotherhood in exchange for votes in the Yellow District.

A few hours later, an exhausted McNeil spotted a sentry station up ahead. Hiding his inner joy, he started toward the outpost. There was no Russian tricolor flag on it; this could not be Russian territory; McNeil was convinced of that. As he reached the flagpole and scrutinized the flag, a creeping fear spread throughout his body. It wasn't the Stars and Stripes; it was a white-headed eagle flag on a blue background that looked somewhat similar to the EU flag he had seen earlier. McNeil wrapped his coat tightly around him and continued to approach the interior of the outpost deeper and deeper, and soon three soldiers stepped out of the house and pointed their guns at him warily.

"Hey, everyone, put your guns down." McNeil said with a quick smile on his face, "I just got back from the front lines where-"

A soldier whispered something to his companion behind him, and the man immediately returned to the house, perhaps to report the situation here to his officer. The soldiers who remained did not let their guard down, and there was distrust in their tones.

"What part of the front line?"

McNeil knew nothing about it; he couldn't make up a location, and he didn't remember his exact position before. There were so many towns and cities in the Ukraine, God knows where he had been before. Upon seeing McNeil's hesitation, two soldiers stepped forward and pinned him to the ground, and after carefully searching him they didn't find any weapons, but still kept him under control and waited for orders from their superiors. After a few minutes, they judged from their superior's statement and McNeil's armband that he was indeed a soldier from a frontline combat unit, and released him with a slight apology and a token apology.

"I didn't expect a deserter so soon." One of them sneered.

"I'm not a deserter. Look, I was defending the town with the others, but the Russians leveled the town with drones, most of the men were dead, and I had no choice but to come back here." McNeil quickly made up a lie with the information he had acquired to try and fool the American soldiers in front of him.

"Hey, that's rather like something the Russians would do, I'm not surprised." The other soldier commented. He invited McNeil to rest inside the hut, it was too cold outside. McNeil, who had been walking in the wilderness for a few hours, drank some hot water and ate some food, barely allowing his strength to recover before he began to continue searching for information on the cell phone that he had picked up from the battlefield. Unfortunately, there was no signal here, and his intentions fell through.

The soldier who had just walked into the room to report was nervously gazing at the screen in front of him, which showed real-time images coming back from the drone as it flew through the air. With these trusty aides around, they probably didn't have to worry about somehow being sneaked up on by the enemy.

"Dude, do you have any newspapers here?"

"... I brought it with me at the airport last time." The soldier monitoring the screen handed McNeil a nearby magazine. McNeil took the newspaper and frowned after just one scan. He saw a title he had never thought of before, which made him wonder if the world he was in was one of the types he recognized.

"... International Magician Conference ... What the hell of all this?"

TBC

Chapter Notes:

This story was first conceived by me in late 2020, when I never expected Russia to invade Ukraine a few years later.

In terms of results, we know that Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei | The Irregular at Magic High School's official canon timeline has Russia formed the new Soviet Union after World War III, which means that Ukraine was apparently eventually defeated and integrated.