Operation Black Dawn
Mission 9 - A Korean at his finest, and a Payne at his worst
September ? - 1995/1097
One-hundred-and-twenty minutes after mass Disappearance of GDI and Nod Forces
"[...] We must guard against the acquisition of influence, whether sought or unsought, by the Military-Industrial Complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power can and will persist. [...]"
- U.S. President Omar Bradley's farewell speech, 1960.
PFC. Alvin S. Payne - Camp Riverbed [II] Quarantine Zone - Dated September 29, 1995.
As I stared at the IDAP-HEAU Technicians begin to seal up our environment and only allow a filtered oxygen vent for us to breathe, I knew that we were fucked. We somehow, and I really mean somehow, caught NCID in the worst possible time we could have contracted it. We had just liberated what was supposed to be Camp Riverbed, but in the end, for my actions, I got fucking infected with shitass-disease 1995.
As I sat around, looking for something to do, Harma and the rest of the team were playing Uno. The civvie we rescued and her kid is being screened last time I checked, so it was just us looking out for ourselves. Wonderful.
"Plus four!" Harma said, slapping down a +4 card. The recepient, an RSDF rifleman, gave out the most underacted agonizing scream of eternal torture and suffering.
"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaagh." They said, collapsing on the floor in fake shock. "Nooooo."
"And I'm close..." an IJA rifleman said, before putting down a turn-skip card, crippling the next guy in line after Harma. "Turn-Skip!" He announced loudly, pissing off the Reichswehr rifleman that was next in line.
"Oh fuck you, scheissekopf!" The Reichswehr rifleman said, being so angry you swear you could see an anger vein appear on his head. "I'M GOING TO STUFF YOU IN TWITTER FOR ALL ETERNITY!" He continued, before exhaling and repositioning himself. "Sorry about that. I got a little carried away." The Reichswehr rifleman finished before continuing to play Uno with the rest of the team.
"You guys having fun there?" I turned my head and asked. "Because it sounds y'all are about to trigger the Third World War." I commented, much to the annoyance of the rest of my team. "Oh fuuuuck you, man." Harma responded, laughing. "I didn't join Nod just so I couldn't win against those damn Confederate Ruskies!" He shouted, raising his hands. "And I'm going to fucking win!"
"Tell yourself that, Noddie." The RSDF rifleman said, standing back up. "Because my next move is going to fucking shit on your newfangled tactic!" He abruptly shouted, raising his fist before settling down. I had to hand it to the RSDF, they were resilient. Whether it be dealing with the Ukrainian-Confederation border skirmishes or the Crimea War back in '91. Though, I did have a feeling that saying those last two things was something that aged poorly. I had... truth be told, no idea why.
"Say, Ivan." I called out, calling for the attention of the RSDF rifleman. "Ever fought in any of the Peacekeeping missions the UN called us for?" I asked, before... receiving a tired sigh and the RSDF man looking at me in the eyes with the most dead look possible. "I was deployed to the Habib Triangle. 1989." He said, sighing heavily.
"...Ah, shit." I bit my tongue after hearing the words 'Habib Triangle' and '1989'. That was another of the most brutal slogs the UN had to fight in. Just rivalling the Iran War in sheer futility of both sides' goals and the countless men lost just so the politicians could rub one in to Nod before the Secretary-General had them silenced for disrupting the peace. The Habib Operation*, as it was referred to in academic studying and on Wikipedia, was a massive trench-warfare scenario in the desert where GDI and Nod fought for weeks with massive lines of trenches, chemical weaponry, biological weaponry, and massive combat 'pragmatism' that ended up with lots of dead bodies on either side.
If I had to guess, the RSDF rifleman was part of the original RSDF soldiers sent to the area expecting a simple peacekeeping operation. The operation turned out to be far worse, as I found out. Live footage showed from TV gave me the impression of massive lines of barbed wire, artillery shells, spent casings, and ammunition dumps turning into de facto tactical nuclear weapons thanks to some people giving the GDI and Nod troops the great idea of stockpiling U-235. It was only through the timely intervention of the UNSC and Nod's Chamber of Advisors that it didn't outright descend into total MAD.
And unfortunately, the RSDF were the first to encounter such horrors. I remembered that a bit too late before asking, but when I did remember, well... being shown live footage from UN-ISA* agents sent to evaluate and explore the area. ISA agents declassified their documents together with Nod's Ministry of Intelligence. What I watched was sure as hell not pretty, but some fucking idiots used the footage as proof of a need to 'retvrn to trvdition' and revive the 'gentleman's war' ignoring the fact that WW1 was a slog that was only marginally worse than the Habib Operation.
He's seen enough 'traditional edits' for the words 'monarchy' and 'corporatist' to leave a bad taste in his mouth. Especially since they kept embracing the most niche ideology. Why the FUCK do so many people support the most niche ideology ever? Goddamn, I've seen enough 'Strasserist' or 'Fascist' people on the internet. And that's not even accounting for the 'Nazis' who supported some dumbshit party that collapsed in 1933. Come on, Anton Drexler looks like a fucking shithead. Why would anyone like him?
But enough political rambling. I don't know how I turned it from the Habib Triangle to my own political ranting. Jesus, do I really ramble like this a lot? It's fucking odd how I can go from talking about the horrors of war to lambasting the warhawks who praise war for their tradition. But, I digress. "...Were you part of the first-response?" I ask, nervously opening up to the RSDF rifleman about the whole shitstorm that was the Habib Operation.
"Yes. I... fought with the first-response teams." The RSDF rifleman moved his helmet down to cover his eyes. I understood what he was trying to do. Poor guy.
"Ah... I won't see into it. Have fun."
He nodded. "Thanks."
And with that, I turned around to stare through the transparent tent that the United Nations had locked us in.
And I wondered one tiny little thing.
Did we lose anybody?
Eighty-Five minutes earlier...
WO1 Pyeong Chong-woo - Chernobog, ? - Dated ?
"FUCK!"
I ducked down behind cover the moment I heard that phrase. Fuckers knew how to use smoke grenades, that's for sure. Without thinking, and nearly on the verge of shouting, I issued a command... to people I had no rank or affiliation to. If I could've examined myself later on, I would've ripped my tongue off.
"Get to cover!"
And I popped out of cover myself. Shooting occasionally at the one or two bastards who popped out of the smoke trying to charge at me with a machete, or any weapon that they had in their hands. The hollow point ammunition was designed for soft targets... but alas, some fuckers were smart enough to wear at the very least ramshackle armor. Probably scraped off a car door.
Well, if I were a Grenadier, I'd have grenades, but no, I guess grenades are too special to be handled by the unwashed, savage Minigunners. "Fuck's sake!" I shouted, clearing a jam on my rifle just before some asshole with a club tried to rush at me and hit me on the head with it. "MAN! 50 METERS!" I said, before repeating it twice as I shot these fuckers left and right, left and right, and left and right. Some shots missed and landed on the FUCKING ARMOR, but many landed on the more fleshy parts of these people. Hollow Point is fun when interacting with flesh. Very cool.
"AH SCREW THIS!" I immediately went for the bayonet sheathe, bolting it to the rifle. Pilots didn't normally need it, but in this case, I wanted to stab these fuckers out of anger. As I turned my head to face my other partners, they looked at me like I was insane for suggesting such a tactic. In response, and wanting to play up my expressions just to see their reactions to it, I grinned as if I was about to eat shit a minute later.
And with that, I hopped out of the cover by straight up vaulting over it, nearly grazing my hand in the process. A scratch opened up, and my hand was stained with blood. But, even then, that didn't bother me. Why? Well, simple. I was fucking pissed and I wanted to kill something. And I needed to do it IMMEDIATELY. Life-or-death risk be damned. I just wanted revenge for the profuse bleeding that I was suffering. It wouldn't have affected me anyway, as I needed to take a lot more punishment than one arrow or one stab to go down. It's the standard back home.
But not in here.
I charged at one of the white-looking fuckers, and thrust the bayonet directly into his eye. The fucker dropped dead, bleeding all the way through. His partner saw this, and tried to respond with something that I would have called stupid later. And by that, I mean, attempting to charge at me with a two-handed weapon. This attempt at getting a revenge was a disaster. And why, exactly? Well, because rather than letting the fucker get the satisfaction of killing me, I hold my rifle to block the swing of his sword. It worked, and the rifle didn't break. Somehow. While their sword split in half.
Seizing the opportunity, I jammed it in his eye, before pulling it out violently. The eyeball remained jammed there as the guy stumbled back. I charged forward and jammed it straight between the eyes this time. The fucker fell to the floor, blood collapsing as my rifle's bayonet pulled grey matter, skull fragments, and meat out of the hole it just forced itself in.
My spree of stabbings wasn't enough, I decided. I needed more carnage out of this. I needed something to unleash my rage upon. And my bayonet just did the trick.
For each of these fuckers busy with other matters, was another fucker that I jammed a bayonet into. One tried fighting the medic-looking gal, only to get repeatedly stabbed by the rifle bayonet so much that the blood basically oozed off the weapon. I didn't even have the time to give one of those condescending 'you're welcome' types of words. No, I just wanted to fucking kill shit.
Slashing at one fucker only to end up impaling another and using him as a human shield and kicking him off once he took the brunt of the shit for me, I wasn't exactly aware of what the hell I was achieving, but I felt it was good. And it only needed to be that for me to, well, continue it. Even if my bayonet was starting to look like a Serial Killer's main weapon of choice on those old horror movies I used to watch as a kid. Those were always good fun for me, so I wonder if that has something to do with my desire to fucking murder them.
I managed to get off a shot at one of them, and without thinking, my first instinct was to rush to them, shoot their fucking kneecaps, then go for the neck via bayonet. Now, if this was a normal battle, I'd get yelled at for violating basic ethics. But over here where I was basically an alien? Well, I don't care if I turn myself into a Pariah, I sure as hell want to have fun with these white KKK-esque looking motherfuckers!
When I finally took the time to take a look back at my team. They all just stared at me wide-eyed as I raised my rifle, bayonet bloodstained, and started treating this like it was a hack-and-slash adventure. Well, it was.
However, my fun was interrupted.
"Time out, time out."
I turned my head, my mind still in a frenzy as I brutally kicked off the last guy who tried to fight me off.
"I only just finished purging the Southeast Fortress, but I rushed over here as soon as I heard the news." The fucker stated, smug-ass. "And it seems that someone here has been enjoying themselves." They said. The fucker was wearing complete white and looked like the most smug-ass motherfucker that I could have punched. And, excuse my Angrish, but he feels so much like one of those kids who you'd want to kneecap just for annoying you and merely existing. Except this guy was probably part of these fuckers, so that meant that my actions would be justified if I suddenly went on another murder spree.
"Oh fuck off." I mumbled, before immediately bolting back to the people I had just accompanied. But then again, letting them be on the same team as a potential crazed murderer would be better than that fucker. Hopefully.
As I jumped over to the team, the two leaders were still arguing.
"Mephisto?" I heard one of them ask.
"You have no reason to object, right? Just a few insects that flew too close to the light... are they really worth your time?" He said, turning to us. I felt like I was about to fucking snap, but since this fucking kid actually looked like he was important, it was too much of a risk. And I've done risky flights on previous assignments, much to the chagrin of my helicopter.
"Don't do anything unnecessary!" The other leader responded, as angry as a regular woman could be without looking like they were on the verge of tearing someone limb by limb.
"You still have somewhere else to be, don't you?" Mephisto, that kid-looking fucker, responded. It seemed like he'd have a lot of influence for shit like this to happen.
"What are they up to?" Instructor Dobermann asked, peeking her head behind a damaged car. She turned to me and asked me that question silently. I knew that because I've seen that expression on other Lieutenants.
"Beats me." I said, checking my rifle for jams by moving the charging handle. "But all I know is, these... people, they don't have a coherent chain of command." I responded, finishing my jam-check with a hearty slap of my magazine's bottom. "And hopefully, I get to kill something again." I finished, smiling with the most painfully psychotic-looking grin I could muster. I wasn't normally a fan of killing, but now that it's become so much of a chore to me, I can't really give a shit.
Also, for some reason, nobody seemed to care about my grazed arm or the fucking arrow poking out of my arm. But hey, last time I checked, removing the arrow was painful and would risk infections, so that was probaby out of the question for them. But, funny enough, I've suffered worse than one simple arrow. I mean, after all, I've survived 3 bursts to the chest while on missions. It just took an ambulance and medics to patch me up.
"Alright." I turned to the doctor. "Listen, Doc. This guy looks like he's the most smug-wannabe asshole in the universe. We might be able to stall him enough for uh, Nearl, was it, to pick us up." The Doctor responded with a simple "Yes, I know." as he also followed my jam-checking procedure based off tracking the hand-eye movements of an average pilot.
"We can't let our guard down." Dobermann cut in, peeking out. "The enemy is still many times our size. We have to be ready."
And as she said that, the two retards arguing finally ended their little shitass conversation. It only took them approximately three-thousand years to get it over with for them, but at least for me it took a nanosecond to hear those two fuckers shut the hell up.
"Fine. Have it your way." The other leader stated, glaring daggers at Mephisto. If eye stares could kill instantly, then Mephisto would have died a a thousand times already. "I can't wait to see you fail." They finished, leaving an extremely bad impression on Mephisto. At least, as far as I can see, because the kid grimaced and cringed inside. Probably was too scared and had to run to his little bitch-ass leaders about being defeated by 'the unwashed proles' or something along those lines.
"Oh?" He said, putting up a faux-confused expression and fake surprise. It's no wonder that the other leader decided to up-and-leave already.
"We're leaving."
And with that, the fuckers whose comrades I just impaled over and over again left. Not even attempting to seek revenge. But they just straight up left after their little bullshit conversation followed.
And what followed was yet another bullshit conversation.
"Well, well. Please allow me to apologize on behalf of Crownslayer's behalf for her ruthlessness."
"What is Reunion trying to accomplish?"
"Oh, nothing in particular."
"What?"
"To be honest, I wouldn't even mind letting you bunch go." He stopped and took a breath. "You weren't even our targets in the first place."
As Dobermann and Mephisto the fucking jackass had a back-and-forth, I just couldn't tolerate that smug look. And, because my irrational frenzy, was, sorry, still active, I kind of screwed up the whole thing by deciding to give Mephisto the jackass treatment and cut him off before pissing him off by shooting him in the arm repeatedly. And my partners would probably have liked that.
"It's your victory as long as you don't di-" He just finished trying to get us all killed after Dobermann fired a flare to get to Nearl, who was late, I should complain. But as soon as he said the last two letters, I immediately spun around and fucking insulted him to his face.
"HEY, DICKWAD! CATCH!"
And I pulled the trigger while it was set to burst, letting the rifle's ammo loose on Mephisto. Now, I'd keep calling him a fucker, but that's already getting repetitive enough as is.
After I shot him in the arm thrice, he reacts with the most terrified expression. As if his attempt at playing up a sadistic, toying personality was shattered because some GDI Pilot, who would be replaceable in the grand scheme, just shot him in the arm thrice. And for an extra assurance, I shot the pistol the guy had in his holster. He never thought to use it, too.
"SHUT THE FUCK UP!" I stated.
And that's how the big fucking brawl started.
I'll talk about what the hell went on from my perspective later. I need a drink first. And I need it now.
Notes from Payne:
UN-ISA - United Nations International Security Agency. De facto secret police of the United Nations and the Global Defense Initiative acting on the behalf of the Secretary-General and the Supreme Commander of the Global Defense Initiative. The ISA has been responsible alone for creating the most complex surveillance network within the United States and has orchestrated many assassinations, including the murder of Antonio Oliveira Salazar, and the death of Deng Xiaoping after a drive-by.
Habib Operation - Disastrous desert war that turned into a trench war slog. Notable events include the UN electrocuting a major part of the Red Sea, Sudanese soldiers getting shelled by Anthrax shells, and Russian conscripts being exposed to gas attacks during the first days of the operation.
Author's Notes:
Holy FUCK I'm finally close to ending the "establishing the background and initial story" arc/part and now we're finally getting into canon-derailing. Yes, Chong-woo is probably mentally unstable. He'll probably be one of the few characters who actually will get recommended therapy by himself and the GDI/Nod/IDAP united front later on. Also, sorry for the late update, but school fucked me in the ass. With summer approaching, I'm about to commit sewer slide. Might even live with the alligators if I want to.
Nah, nah. I kid.
Also, I've finally managed to get a basic concept of GDI and Nod soldiers up and running as concept art. I'll attempt to link it, but it goes by the code of '/a/kaJTiDo'. Put that after the imgur dot com section, and you'll see what I'm talking about. Or, if you want me to send it to you in case it doesn't work, shoot me a PM. I'll probably respond to it in a short period.
But anyway, summer is approaching, so I'm going to have a lot of fun writing shit.
Well, I'll see you all next time. Stay safe, and take it easy.