Work Text:
A great worldwide conflict was arising and it was instantly deemed as World War 3. But before it barely even started there was war with the Middle Eastern countries fighting each other that led to this disaster. It was only a part of the first few steps to the end of humanity… Call me the Narrator for now… I’ll speak in italics so you’ll know it's me. Let me just look through the computer here… one moment… *ahem!* Let us commence our story now shall we?
We see a battlefield of smoke and fire… Smoke billowing from destroyed mechs and tanks that were still on fire… “C’mon! We're almost to the target building!” shouted a commander giving orders to his men. But then some explosions went off ripping through an entire floor of a nearby skyscraper! We see a man is up on one of the top floors watching it all happen and then he proceeds to use his radio and says, “Do it…” “Yes commander!” The conversation cut quick before a giant mech that was as big as the Hotel pushed the building over and on top of the troops! “Get outta here! Move move!” A familiar looking up watched from a short distance as the building fell over.
The building falling caused a small storm of dust and sand throughout the nearby streets. The familiar soldier tried to open his eyes but there was so much sand and dust that it stung his eyes. The commander shouted to his advisor, “Overlord Actual! A skyscraper fell right in front of us! The mission is lost!” An explosion goes off disorienting the familiar soldier…
3 hours ago…
That familiar soldier was Artemis as he was heading on a mission to retrieve a Ace class Juno in Bagdad, Iraq. One of the biggest cities in the Middle East. Artemis and the other members of his team were heading in by chopper along with many other troops. They landed on top of skyscrapers around the city. Artemis and his team landed on the roof of a hotel.
“Touchdown… Go, go, go!...” shouted Artemis. They got off the chopper and ran to the elevator. Artemis and his squad loaded into the elevator and took it down to the bottom floor. They walked up to the open glass windows seeing the chaos in the streets. There were a few small personal mechas and tanks rolling in. “I’d say we got this mission in the bag sir!” One of his squad members said enthusiastically. Artemis replied: “I wouldn’t be so sure Zap… Always expect the unexpected…” Zap responded back: “That’s true…” Artemis gave out new orders. “Echo! Trench! Zap! On me! We're heading down the street till we reach that tower! Hooah?” The others responded with “hooah…”
Artemis’ squad followed alongside the tanks through the streets as the battle raged on. One of the tanks is later destroyed by a plasma artillery cannon. “GET MOVING!... GO, GO, GO!” Artemis yelled. “Hit the gas!” Said one of the tank driver's in one of the two still functioning tanks. The up front tank picks up it's speed until the half of a skyscraper started coming down. “GET DOWN!!” Artemis yelled as loud as he could and the building collapses onto the building from across the street. The building luckily holds until more plasma fire rains down. Artemis and his team took shelter in a nearby building as they heard the plasma rounds hit the fallen skyscraper, the skyscraper collapsed and blocked off the street. Artemis and his team had no choice but to move through the collapsed building to get across. “C’mon! We're almost to the target building!” shouted Artemis as they left their safe spot to approach the remains of the skyscraper and start trudging through it. *cough! - cough!* “This is fucking crazy!... Those bastards dropped a fuckin’ building in our way!...” said Trench before Echo added to the conversation and sounding nonchalant. “Yeah… To cut off our armored support…” then Zap chimed in “So then… What about air support?” “We ain't gettin any until we deal with their AA guns kid… Didn't you catch that in the briefing?” Echo spoke after Zap and raised an eyebrow at him when he looked back. “I-I must've just… Slipped my mind I suppose? Eheheh…” Echo scoffed in disappointment before Trench rolled his eyes, he put his left hand on Zap’s right shoulder then said. “Let’s not be too harsh on the new guy… After all… None of us did perfect on our first mission.” Artemis interrupted. “Quiet now...” After finally reaching the other side of the building they saw the building at the corners of the street on top of the building complexes. “Echo, get eyes on this…” Artemis commanded. “I'm on it…” Echo spotted out the flak fire coming from the rooftops and pointed out a mech was patrolling the front of the target building with multiple troops behind mounted machine guns and sandbags. There were two MMGs at opposite ends of the street, showing that they weren't expecting the Americans to come from the front. Echo reported everything they saw in and then Echo asked the team.
“So… What's our game plan?” Trench chimed in. “Why don't we try and sneak up through the alleys into the buildings?” Artemis then replied “Let's take the right side… Some of our troops will take the left… The rest will keep the fight here on the streets…” Their troops flanked the enemy without alerting them so far. While Artemis' team snuck into the building and were just one floor away from getting to the flak guns until all hell broke loose! Gunfire blaring in the streets again as an all-out fight ensued. They successfully destroyed the flak guns but the other team was still trying to clear the rooftop of their building. Artemis and his team opened fire on the streets below to give support for their troops on the street. The mech below used its chain gun arm to fire on the building above where Artemis' team was. “GET DOWN!” Artemis shouted to his men and everyone tried to get away from the edge. Echo returned to the edge of the roof to return fire but the mech used its Cannon arm to do some serious damage to the building. Echo was flown back. Trench checked on him “Echo! Echo you alright man!? What the fuck were you thinking?!” Echo was shell shocked but okay. “I… I think I'm okay?!” Artemis got onto his comms. “This is Shadow 1 to Overlord! The flak guns are down! We need air support NOW!” Overlord responded “Roger that Shadow Team… We've got an AC-130 approaching your air space… ETA five minutes… Keep your heads down gentlemen…” Artemis then replied “Copy that command! Out!” He then announced it to everyone else. “Keep your heads down!”
The team struggled to hold the enemy at bay. Trench used a rocket launcher to try and take town the Mech. Trench took aim and yelled: “Eat this you son of a!-” Before pulling the trigger and making a hit, the missile hit its cannon arm which disabled it. Then the mech returned fire with it's chain gun and then Trench was cut down by the flurry of bullets. Echo yelled out “TRENCH IS GONE!...” Artemis stared in shock before snapping back to his senses. The AC-130 arrived and started raining hell upon the enemy and decimating their forces. The troops of Shadow Team could now take a moment to breathe. The pilot captain of the AC-130 spoke over the radio. “All targets neutralized… We gotta go and support our boys on the East side of the city… Then we'll be heading back to base for refueling and resupply…” Artemis responds back on comms. “Copy that…” The teams gathered together and their remaining tanks arrived. Artemis spoke directly towards Echo. “How many did we lose?” Echo shook his head. “We lost about eight soldiers… One of them was Trench… Twelve of our troops are injured and need medical… We're scrounging what we can for medical supplies… But some of them need transport back to base camp…” Artemis’ gaze wandered as he spoke. “I'll get a hold of base camp and order a medevac…” Artemis called in for medevacs and 20 minutes later, a couple evac choppers arrived and took the critically injured troops back to base camp. Artemis was on the comms with command and the conversation was getting heated. “What do you mean make do with what we got?! I only got a ragtag bunch of troops here and the enemy has already been making mechs! I need fucking backup if we're gonna break through security inside the facility…” Then Overlord responded sternly. “Our presence here is to stay as minimal as possible and we're having trouble getting fresh troops to you at this time… But also we are running low on time and our window of opportunity is closing… Get the job done…” Artemis responded begrudgingly “Fine… We'll get it done.” The conversation ends and Artemis has to tell everyone the bad news. “Alright everyone… Bad news… We aren't getting any more backup… We're on our own for now…” Everyone was talking amongst one another, the thought of no backup was a troubling thought in everyone's mind. “Well we still got the two tanks? A-And we still got some rockets left?” Zap chimed in trying to see if he could give everyone some semblance of hope, but it didn’t do much. But then Artemis decided to speak up and try to help increase morale a little. “We’re just gonna have to make do… Now c’mon everyone! We. Are. Shadow Team! We’ve been through stuff like this before!… Now let’s get in there and get what we came here for! Hooah?!” Then everyone shouted in response: “HOOAH!” Then everyone apart of the group that was going into the facility formed up and marched on inside.
Until we meet again my friends… Ta ta for now~
