Severa walked across the battlefield, briefly admiring the scenery around her. It was actually pretty, if she had more time to appreciate it. With autumn brown trees and the rolling hills, the world was nice...or would've been, if it wasn't for the bugs infesting the planet and ruining the scenery with their disgusting hives and nests. But then again, Severa supposed that's why the higher ups sent her and people like her to deal with this mess.

"Ha ha, take that, ugly bugs!"

"Eat hot lead, evil insectoid minions of evil!"

Severa sighed as she heard the telltale sounds of machine gun fire behind her.

High Command may have lucked out when they found soldiers like her, and she extra lucked out when she managed to get in a squad with people like her, but she also had the opposite of luck when she got stuck with idiots like the ones that were on her team right now.

"Justice prevails!" Cynthia exclaimed, brandishing her machine gun.

"Those evil bugs were no match for our righteous and continuous fury!" Owain agreed, striking a heroic pose.

"What the hell are you two idiots doing?!" Severa demanded. "We're supposed to be making our way to the objective, not shooting every damn bug we see!"

"But shooting bugs is so much fun!" insisted Cynthia.

"Yeah! Especially mowing them all down with our rapid-fire guns of blazing glory!" Owain added. "Cynthia, hit me up!"

"Yeah!"

Severa sighed as she watched her two idiot friends chest bump each other.

"You two are such dumbasses…also, where the hell is Morgan? I swear she was right behind us."

Just then, the three got a message on their HUDs that a Shrieker nest was destroyed.

"Huh?"

"Hey, guys! I'm here!" came Morgan's voice over comms.

When the three of them looked up, they saw the girl in question on a hill, waving, several expendable rocket launchers by her feet.

"Sorry, saw some flying bugs and their nests and just had to get a good vantage point to take them out," Morgan said. "Anyway, what's up?"

"...Well at least you're doing something useful," Severa grumbled. She then turned to her other two friends. "As for you two, stop wasting your ammo shooting every bug you see. We're going to the objective and need to be ready to hold our ground."

"We'll be fiiiine," Cynthia predicted confidently. "We have justice and democracy on our side!"

"Not to mention awesome and overwhelming firepower!" Owain added, holding a stratagem ball.

"I knew it was a mistake to take you two along…" Severa muttered. "Come on. Let's go. The coast looks clear and so does our path. For now."

"You guys go ahead. I'll catch up after I've collected some samples," Morgan said, already running off before Severa could say anything.

"...Okay. Fine. Just don't get yourself killed. We're not going to waste a reinforcement because you got shredded chasing commons or something!"

"I'll be fine!" Morgan called out, disappearing over a hill.

"Hmph."

Severa marched to the objective with her two idiot friends, occasionally getting messages of nests being destroyed.

"Morgan, what are doing out there?"

"Sample hunting."

"We just got word that a heavy nest was destroyed."

"It had samples in it, okay? And all the bugs in there made it hard to get in and collect them."

"I—you know what? Whatever. Do what you want," Severa said over comms. She then stopped. "Hey, look! A light nest. Looks like it's time for—"

"Time for heavy ordinance!"

Before Severa could even finish her sentence, she saw a ball flying over her head and straight into the light nest. The ball then emitted a red beam.

"Owain, why did you you toss a 380mm barrage at a LIGHT GODDAMN NEST?!"

"I like to blow things up," Owain said simply.

"And it's really fun to watch," Cynthia said, nodding sagely.

"I…" Severa took a deep breath to try and calm herself down. "Whatever. Let's go do this E-710 thing and move on before we get accidentally blown up by that artillery."

Severa really didn't get paid enough to deal with this crap…

Once they arrived at their destination, she threw down some turrets and took up a defensive position.

"I got the terminal!" Owain declared, firing up the computer.

"Great. Just do this so we can move on, yeah?"

"I'll get this done in no time. No mini-game will get the best of Owain Dark."

"Gawd, he's referring to himself in the third person again…"

"Hey, look! Bugs!"

Severa looked just in time to see Cynthia laughing maniacally while unloading her machine gun at the patrol.

"Well at least you're having fun," Severa dryly.

"Man, there is nothing like firing a machine gun at full blast into a horde of bugs and watching them squish!" Cynthia sighed dreamily. "And look! Took them all out with my last bullets!"

As she watched Cynthia reload her machine gun, Severa's eyes drifted toward one little bug hidden behind a rock. Her eyes then widened in horror as the bug looked up and emitted some pheromones or whatever it was when it cried out.

The ground then promptly shook as the dreaded message appeared.

Bug Breach Detected

"Uh-oh…" Cynthia looked around, still in the middle of her reload, as a swarm of bugs suddenly emerged out of the ground around her.

"Cynthia, get the hell out of there!" Severa shouted, getting her shotgun ready. "Owain, how's that terminal coming along?"

"It's, uh, coming!"

"Make it come faster, damn it!"

It was a good thing that Severa placed her turrets beforehand, as they were soon very busy shooting at the bugs that were emerging out of the ground.

"Damn bugs, damn breaches, damn gun!" Severa cursed as her clip ran dry. "Reload reload reload RELOAD!"

Severa had to dive from her vantage point as a Bile Titan covered it in its lethal acid breath.

She planned to shoot it in its ugly face with her recoilless rifle, but was forced instead to waste her round shooting a Charger that would've otherwise trampled her.

The problem was that now she was on the ground, with a swarm of bugs and a Bile Titan closing in on her, and she didn't have time to reload her anti-tank weapon.

So she did the only thing she could.

"Crap, crap crap crap crap…!"

She ran.

She ran around the area with the bugs and the Bile Titan giving chase. Severa had to dive and skid and duck as several Chargers ran past and almost trampled her.

"Cynthia, where are you and what the hell are you doing?! Help me! I've got like a million bugs and a damn Bile Titan on my ass!"

"Uh…uh...here!"

Severa saw a red beam behind her, before a shell landed and exploded, releasing toxic gas behind her.

"Thanks, but this still doesn't solve the Bile Titan issue!" Severa shouted, watching and running as the Bile Titan walked through the gas cloud as its friends choked on the gas. "Stop screwing around and kill that thing!"

"I can't! I didn't bring any anti-tank weapons with me!" Cynthia cried, running away from the Bile Titan alongside Severa.

"What do you mean you didn't bring any anti-tank weapons with you?!" Severa screeched.

"I'm mainly anti-chaff, okay?!"

"Did you not realize how many heavies we have on higher difficulties?!"

"That's what you and Morgan are for!"

"Morgan, where the hell are you?!" Severa shouted over comms.

"Hey guys, you'll never guess what I found!" came Morgan's voice.

"We don't care! Get your ass over here! We're drowning in bugs and heavies!"

"Oh, is that why it's so quiet on my end? I gotta say, it really made it easier to—"

"WE DON'T CARE! GET OVER HERE NOW!"

"Okay, okay. Give me a few minutes."

"We'll be nothing but stains on the ground in a few minutes!"

"Fear not, for I, Owain Dark, shall come to the rescue!"

Severa could only briefly see a thin red aiming laser target something behind her before she heard a quick firing sound and the Bile Titan roaring as it died.

"Heh, and you laughed at me for taking the Orbital Railcannon Strike," Owain said. "Bet you're thankful now, huh?"

"I sure am!" Cynthia nodded her head enthusiastically.

"Great. Whatever. Now help us deal with all this damn chaff!" Severa barked.

"Have no fear, as I am a generalist specialising in taking out all sorts of evildoers, all I have to do is punch in my next stratagem and I—ACK!"

Severa watched in dismay as Owain was knocked away by a huge Impaler tentacle appearing out of the ground. What was worse, he dropped his red stratagem ball right at his feet before he was flung away.

"Oh boy, what did he call in?" Cynthia asked, having finally reloaded her machine gun.

"Napalm barrage! Run away!"

Severa had just enough time to dive away before a napalm shell hit and exploded into flames where she was standing just seconds before.

"Great. Now we have to wait forever until the barrage subsides and then even more until the flames die out..."

"Well at least it's getting all the bugs," Cynthia observed.

"I guess…" Severa then looked at the raging inferno and squinted. "Hey, is that…?"

Sure enough, several large silhouettes could be seen approaching from the flames.

"Oh great. More Bile Titans." Severa counted her recoilless rifle ammo. "I don't suppose you brought a supply pack?"

"Uh..."

"I don't know why I bothered…"

Just then, several rockets whizzed past and hit the Bile Titans right in their faces, killing them.

"What…?"

"Hey, guys!"

Severa and Cynthia both turned to see Morgan driving up to them in her Fast Recon Vehicle.

"Wow, Morgan! You have great timing!" Cynthia exclaimed.

"I try to get my timing down for dramatic effect. Anyway, here." Morgan handed Cynthia and Severa supplies from her supply pack. "Thought you could use these."

"You're a lifesaver, Morgan!"

"We could've avoided all of this if you were with us…" Severa grumbled, jabbing herself with a stim.

"I thought you guys could handle yourselves. Besides, look at all the samples I collected!"

"Wow! That's a lot!" Cynthia said, looking at Morgan's haul.

"I know, right? Hey, where's Owain?"

"H-here…"

The three girls turned to see a charred and battered Owain limping to them.

"Man, you look terrible," Morgan observed. "What happened?"

"Got burned, broke every bone in my body and ran out of stims, but democracy protects…!"

"Heh, here."

Morgan gave Owain some supplies and shot him with her stim pistol.

"Oh man, that thing works fast!"

"Experimental Infusions," Morgan explained matter-of-factly. "Heals you up in no time. Side effects may vary."

"Well, thanks for your help, late as it may have been," Severa said. "Now that it looks like we killed all the bugs, let's see where we are with this terminal…"

Severa carefully made her way to the computer. She then turned and glared at Owain.

"...What?"

"We were out there fighting all this time and you still didn't redirect the flow to the target?!"

"The puzzle was hard, okay? They didn't cover it in basic training!" Owain said defensively.

Severa thought she would throttle him.

— One Mission Later —

"Man, that was awesome!" Owain exclaimed as they arrived back at Morgan's Super Destroyer.

"I'll say. High difficulty bugs is so cool! There's so much stuff to shoot at!" Cynthia agreed. "We should definitely do it more often."

"You stupid cadets were no help at all!" Severa barked. "I had to do all the heavy lifting, with a little help from Morgan here and there!"

"Nuh-uh! Look at our kill count!" Cynthia countered. "Me and Owain got the most kills!"

"Yeah, you also burned through all of our reinforcements," Severa retorted. "And my kill count is only so low because I was busy shooting heavies!"

"As much fun as bugs was, I think we are now experienced enough to graduate to bigger and better things," Owain said, his voice deadly serious.

"Wait…" Severa didn't want to believe where this was going. "You don't mean…?"

"Bot front! Bot front!" Owain and Cynthia chanted together.

"Like hell we are! You two idiots could barely survive on bugs! You'll get absolutely destroyed on bots!" Severa exclaimed.

"Says you. You're always a naysayer," Cynthia said. "We did high level bugs and were just fine."

"Only because I was here to bail you out!"

"The only thing that bailed us out was democracy!" Owain declared.

"You two idiots—!"

Before Severa could finish her insult, all of their Super Destroyers were jumping into another sector.

"What—?"

"Bot front! Bot front!" Morgan chanted, having jumped them to a bot planet. "Let's goooooo, bot front!"

"Yeah!"

"Whoo!"

Severa watched in disbelief as her three idiot friends cheerfully and obliviously jumped into their hellpods.

"...You will all get shredded by lasers and I won't be held responsible!"

— Several Moments Later —

"Argh! There are lasers and rockets everywhere!"

"My machine gun bullets are bouncing off these shields!"

"Help! I'm being juggled by rockets!"

"I'm not used to enemies shooting back!"

"Reload reload reload!"

"Hide behind cover, you morons! Don't run in the open!"

"I'm trying! Ack! I got ragdolled out by a rocket!

"What is this giant dude coming right at—OH MY GOD HE SET ME ON FIRE!"

"Dive! Dive to put out the flames!"

"I can't see anything through all the lasers!"

"Cynthia! Shoot them or something to draw their attention away!"

"I can't! I'm being chased by a million chainsaw guys and they JUST WON'T DIE!"

While Owain and Cynthia were busy getting shot at, sliced and set on fire, and Severa was losing her mind trying to keep them alive, Morgan was humming to herself from her vantage point, taking out fabricators.

"Hey, guys! How's it going down there?"

"There is a TANK SHOOTING RIGHT AT ME!"

"HOLY—! WHAT IS THAT GIANT WALKER?!"

"Take cover, you idiots! Quickly!"

"I'll take it out with—NO!"

"What?!"

"THE WALKER BLASTED ME WITH ITS CANNON AND KNOCKED THE BALL OUT OF MY HANDS AND I DROPPED A 500KG BOMB RIGHT ON TOP OF US."

"YOU MORON! HOW COULD YOU—"

Morgan paused her fabricator sniping as the chaos over her comms went quiet after a loud explosion.

"...Don't worry, guys. I'll reinforce you."

— One Game Later —

"You are all terrible!" Severa declared into her mic, looking at the stats on her screen.

"Hey, it was our first time, okay?" Cynthia said defensively.

"And it was awesome!" came Owain's voice. "Sure, we died a lot and stuff, but that was some action movie stuff right there! Running and screaming and constantly under fire by evil robots? It sure gets you pumped!"

"It really does! Makes me want to get better at fighting these evildoers so that we can heroically kick their metal butts! Because justice always prevails!"

"Justice and democracy!"

"Democracy!"

Cynthia, Owain and Morgan all cried out over their mics.

"You three are such—"

"Again?"

"Again."

"Again!"

For the second time, Severa watched incredulously as her friends enthusiastically went for another run despite two of them having died repeatedly in the game just a few moments earlier.

"...Well I'm not going to babysit you two this time!"

"Come on, Severa. Just get in the hellpod," Morgan said patiently. "Tell you what: I'll stick with you this time to make sure everyone lives through the mission."

"...You better! I can't be stuck helping these dumbasses all by myself!"

Severa swore this was the last time she played with her idiot friends. And despite her promise, she always hopped online whenever she saw them playing and always joined their games, but just to make sure their stupidity didn't get them killed! After all, someone had to be the expert and show them the ropes! Not like she was having fun or anything!

Oof. It's been a little while since we've had an update, huh? ...Or...more than a year? Guess it's a bit more than a little, wow.

Anyway, really sorry about that. Life matters and all. I won't bore you with the details.

Apparently this site has some new features in which you have to opt into email pings or something, which is news to me. I thought things had gone quiet around here, so imagine my surprise when I logged in and discovered I got a bunch of reviews still! Reviews and comments that I was somehow not aware of. To all of you still out there, you are the real heroes! You have patience and dedication that is an inspiration to us all! Inspiration enough for me to...well, I thought it wouldn't be a great look to publish a new chapter just to say that I'm not dead, so...I'll publish a joke chapter on this joke day instead (it's still the 1st, right?).

And tell you I'm not dead and neither is this little project. I've said before I'm committed to finishing it, and that commitment still stands, even if it takes...a while. There's also nothing sadder than seeing a story you really like wither and die in silence, so this is my way of avoiding...that. It's not a "proper" chapter, but it's a promise that one is incoming!

To sum up:

1. Reports of my (and this story's) death are greatly exaggerated.

2. I am committed to see it through to its conclusion, wherever that may be.

3. Thank you for everyone still out there, waiting. And sorry. Really.

4. Next chapter is significantly in progress. Don't want to commit to any deadlines for fear of disappointment, but...tentatively going to say in the next...maybe two months or so? Definitely this year.

5. Logging in, I've seen some comments mentioning a"10th anniversary." I mean, update periods may have extended as did the chapter length, but it's definitely not been ten years since this was first published! "Ten years." Can you imagine? Some real jokers out there!