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Chapter 3: Into the Storm

Guild Base Zone 4

Bordraab smiles as he and his men prepare their tanks for battle, doing a visual inspection of their M60A3s. Nearby, the infantry is preparing as well, songs playing loudly over the loudspeakers. “Bodies” by Drowning Pool had just finished, practically a prerequisite for going into battle for any American fighting force nowadays and he is interested to see what song will come up next. After all, every generation has their own songs that motivate them. He is not left disappointed. He recognizes the lead up to the song about to play. He heard it plenty of times back when he played Dragon Ball Xenoverse.

“CHA-LA! Head CHA-LA!

Keep shinin’ ultimate Z on everything!

It got me ai yai yai yai yai!

Sparking!”

Even though the singer has a very thick Japanese accent, everyone in the entire hangar seems to sing ‘sparking’ at the same time as the singers do, then goes into a heavy guitar riff. Bordraab smiles, a good song. He’s glad that band took the time to make an English version. Every single gamer had at least heard of Dragon Ball Z, if not watched it themselves growing up. He continues with his checklist, his 2 tank driver coming over. “I’m good to go.” He says, smiling. Bordraab looks over the huskie and smiles. “Good, excellent news Vlad.” He says. “Get ready to move out. When I finish here, I’ll give everyone’s vehicles a once over.” The guy nods and salutes, then heads back to his tank. As Bordraab finishes checking his tank, he looks up and pays attention to the song for a second.

“Cha La! Head cha la!

It’s true an empty head ain’ so bad.

I can fill it up with dreams!”

Bordraab grins at that one. Yup, that pretty much sums up this generation all right. His generation had come into its prime just to see the start of the War on Terror, something many scholars have called ‘World War 3’, and was fighting to ensure the next generation could live free. Now here they are, about to fight a major enemy for the newbs in this game, their own battle to ensure that the next ‘generation’ in this game would survive. Nothing was on their minds except winning the fight. After this fight was done, he could devote his time to pursuing his dreams.

With his platoon gathered up, Bordraab goes over the plan. “Right then, based off the spawn rates so far, command has decided we will attack in blitzkrieg style straight into the heart of the Blighted lands nearby us. Word on the wire is that the other territories with beta guild populations are doing the same thing. A total of 3 of the four major blighted zones are being targeted. The idea is that we can beat back these blighted zones, use the resources inside them to arm up all the newbs and make the entire player base into a fighting force afterwards. But in order to do that, we need to secure this blight and get rid of it. We do that by finding the ‘Queen’ located inside the heart of each blight and killing the fuck outta her.”

The music is interrupted as the speakers kick on. “All troops prepare for departure.” After that clicks off, the chorus of the song playing comes back up. ‘You can fight like a Krogan, run like a leopard, but you’ll never be better than Commander Shepard.”

“You heard them, load up! I want all tanks ready to move in five minutes.” Bordraab says, then heads back over to his own tank and gets inside it. Five minutes after that, he and his tank platoon roll out and get on the main road out of the base to form up with the rest of the guild in its attack formation.

Alaria, Fantasy Faction Territory

There were hundreds of them. Swordsmen, magicians, all of them walking through the center of town. All of them were from the same guild, the Knights of the Blood Oath. Rias didn’t need to guess why they were here or where they were going. She and Akeno watch as they march on through the center of town, just like everyone else does. They were heading off into battle. After the victory last night against the general Endarkened attack, every single guild out there had said they were going to attack the blights, to strike back hard and end the game quick as possible. The thought of tens of thousands of her countrymen, and possibly hundreds of thousands worldwide, marching into one battle sends chills down Rias’ spine. She has absolutely no doubt they can do it either! They took down those attacks no problem after all.

“Isn’t this incredible?” Akeno asks, looking at them all with a grin on her face. “It’s like those videos from world war 2. You know, the troops marching through the cities they had liberated. Only here there’s no confetti.” Rias nods at that, looking at them all. Not one of them was under level 12. “Whatever they’re going to do, whoever they’re going to fight…it’s going to be huge.” Rias says as the last of them walks through. More than a hundred people. “Want to follow them?” Akeno asks, smiling wider. Rias shakes her head. “No, I think we’ll stay put.”

“A good idea.” Says Miya from behind them, coming up and offering Akeno and Rias some food. “We would get in their way. After all, we’re all of level 5 and you, Rias, are at 6.”

Akeno places a hand on one cheek and leans her head against it, still smiling. “Oh, I didn’t say go and fight with them. Just watch…”

“I’m just hoping that they bring back some awesome loot that can be used by the rest of us.” Elias says, looking out at them, his tail swaying slowly back and forth. “That would really help with leveling up everyone in town if they brought back some level 5 gear that was worth a damn.” Rias chuckles a bit at that. Just how his southern accent makes ‘damn’ sound like ‘dayum’ was funny to her.

They all grow quiet as they go back inside, hoping things went as well as they could. As they are eating, all of their ‘message’ indicators go off. They look and see that the major battles are to be broadcast! “Oh, now this is gonna be sweet.” Elias says, going to the broadcast screen. They could see massive armies of fantasy faction men forming up into formation and waiting for all of their people to get into position before moving out, all of them mounted up on horseback. They’ve got gryphons and even a few drakes on their side as well! The drakes are different from the ones that attacked before. Those were all black and grey, but these drakes are all different colors, from bright red to dark blue. The camera changes and shows human faction armies forming up as well, with M60A3 tanks and M113 APCs loading their troops. They even had helicopters loading up soldiers and taking off into the air, accompanied by Cobra attack helicopters.

“It’ll be a few hours at least before they can get started.” Rias says. “Let’s go get in a little bit of leveling. We’ll come back here in a few hours and watch the fireworks.” The others agree, nodding their heads, and the group gets up to get out there and get in some levels themselves.

Carolina Blighted Zone, Northern Section

It had taken them a good few hours, but now, finally, they were in position in front of the blighted zone, the only one east of the Appalachian Mountains. Their advance to the Blighted Zone was an easy one, with the helicopter troops in their Hueys clearing out any bots in their line of advance. Now even the helicopter troops were on the ground, waiting for the massive force to advance into the Blight.

This one was one of the four major blighted zones in North America, but hey, they had all the beta guilds from New England down here with them. They were a few miles north of the border to what was North Carolina and are now going to burst straight into there and drive down to about where Raleigh is and killing the queen of this Endarkened stronghold. Just…the place looks ugly as all hell. Instead of the green trees with brown bark and the vegetation, the forests on the hills all look burnt and destroyed. No vegetation on the ground, the burned out trees looking like someone had taken the time to burn the trees all the way through but had still left them standing. The sky was green with black clouds swirling overhead instead of the white puffy clouds you’d normally see.

Bordraab pops the commander’s hatch open and gets up to look around the tank. The fresh air is appreciated and the scene is almost serene, not counting the green air in front of them. What a downer, even the SKY was blighted. His radio crackles to life. “All units deploy and prepare for combat. Tanks will blast their way through the initial defenders. All units will rush ahead into the blighted zone and head for the middle. Infantry will deploy to the flanks and advance behind the tanks, wiping out anything they miss. Intel indicates the enemy is in large batches on the ground, with miles separation between the groups. We’ll hit them hard and move in fast. All units watch your ammo consumption.” Comes the call of the company commander over the radio. Bordraab calls in his ‘roger that’ and motions to the nearby mechanized infantry platoon to deploy. The APCs drop their ramps and infantry comes pouring out, 8 to an APC.

“First platoon! Move out!” Bordraab calls. The four tanks move out, infantry running along behind them. As soon as they cross into the blighted zone, enemies start spawning up out of the ground. “Fire at will. Conserve main cannon rounds, use machine guns only.” He calls again, firing his coax machine gun into a group of zombies that had spawned up in front of him.

For as far as the eye could see, there was movement. Three Phantoms come streaking in overhead and split, swooping down and dropping napalm on larger groups. A bolt of magical energy streaks up from the ground after one of the Phantoms. The Phantom drops chaff to decoy the homing bolt, then swings back around and pelts the launch site with more napalm. So far, things were going well. Bordraab looks back and sees the infantry is steadily advancing. Zombies are no match for rifle armed infantry backed up by APCs.

“All units, update on the fighting. Fantasy faction forces from the Michigan area are now engaging into the Great Lakes blighted zone. They appear to be advancing as well as we are. That is all.”

Alaria, Fantasy Faction Territory

Rias and her party are inside the same tavern they were at before, sitting at a table with plenty of food and drink, a broadcast window up at one corner of the table. The tavern is full of people right now, all of them chatting and eating, every table showing a broadcast of the fighting. “YEAH! Look at that!” Elias says. “KBO just broke through into the blight! Take that ya stupid darkspawn!” He chugs some of his ale and sighs happily, leaning back.

“Geeze…it’s like a Sunday during football season…” Rias says, rolling her eyes, resting her head on a hand and looking at the screen. She had already been hit on by a man while she was gathering up food for everyone from the counter. Her (patent pending) evil glare got the guy to back off really fast and gave her a clear lane back to her seat.

“Aw, don’t be like that.” Miya says, drinking a bit of her own drink. “It’s all on how you look at it. Everyone needs this boost. After all, we found out not too long ago we were stuck in a game and fighting for our lives. This is the first opportunity to unwind a lot of them have had.”

Rias just waves that off as if it doesn’t matter one single bit to her, which in actuality it probably doesn’t. “Yea yeah…I know…Still, I wish they wouldn’t ‘unwind’ at me…”

Akeno snorts a little bit. “Please, I could see that evil glare from here. You even had a bit of your aura flare up. Did you know that?”

“I did not!” Rias responds, head coming up from her hand and a shocked look on her face that just gets the others laughing at her. An explosion on the screen catches their attention and cuts the laughter short.

Dallas, Texas

Stella had heard there was going to be a major battle from her son and had taken time off from work to watch the live broadcast. She was sitting here in her living room on the couch with her daughter, both of them have their eyes glued on the television. The live broadcast of the battle the Human Faction in North America was going into was up on screen, put up there by her laptop. Unlike the main news feeds, this one does not jump back and forth, instead it gives a top down or bird’s eye view of the battle. So far things were going well. The human faction had burst straight through the zombie hordes that formed the outside mobs of Bots in the area.

“Mommy, can you pass me the popcorn?” Emily asks. Stella passes it over to her without taking her eyes off the screen at all. Her mind is full of prayers to God to keep her son safe in there. A ringing on the doorbell finally gets her attention off the tv. Sighing and mentally growling that this better be good, she gets up and goes to the door. At the door are her neighbors. Both the ones next door and the ones across the street. “Hey…we heard your son is going into battle right now. We figured we could come and keep you company.” Says their neighbor from across the street.

“Certainly.” Stella says, stepping back. “Come on inside.”

Carolina Blighted Zone

The battle was going well so far. The infantry had burst straight on through the zombie hordes that guarded the entrance to the blighted zone. There was a vicious air battle going on right now but there was absolutely nothing Bordraab could do about that. He was going forward at full speed with his platoon and there was a horde of Ice Trolls ahead. “All units, open fire!” He calls over the radio.

The four tank platoon fires in quick succession, first the number 1 tank, then number 3 on his right, number two on his left, and number four on the outside right. The ice trolls had no idea they were under attack until the rounds streak in and slam into their chests, the High Explosive rounds splattering what is pretty much heavy infantry, the bodies shattering into pieces as they hit the ground and evaporating away. However, behind them, a pair of gun beasts see the tanks coming in.

“What the fuck are those?!” Calls out number 4 as the gun beasts come into view. They look like dinosaurs, except for the giant cannon growing out of their backs. One of them ducks down its head and fire belches from the cannon. A loud WHAM sounds in the air and Bordraab looks to the side. Number 3 was hit and down to half health. “Three, angle your armor and return fire!” He calls, his cannon belching its own flame, a HE round racing downrange. It hits the creature but barely drops its health. “And switch to Sabot!” He calls. The second beast fires, the round going high. “Infantry, deploy fast!” He switches targets, seeing more of the beasts coming into view.

The APCs behind the tanks skid to a stop quickly and their ramps go down, the infantry spilling out quickly. Without warning, an APC takes a hit from a round fired by the first gunbeast, half of the infantry still inside. The vehicle, not designed to stop a round meant to engage a tank, explodes into a ball of fire. Of the crew and the remaining four infantry in the back, only two men stagger out, on fire and health draining away. Before any other men can rush to help them, the men die, their bodies shattering into a thousand crystal shards that evaporate away.

“This is Infantry Squad B-4, requesting immediate close air support at sector two two seven.” The squad leader calls out. “Enemy beasts are firing upon us.” He is interrupted as the tank in front of him fires, the round racing downrange at the gathering herd of gunbeasts.

“Roger B-4. Cobras inbound. ETA five minutes.” Comes back the voice on the radio, calm and collected as ever.

“Cobras!? The fuck happened to the Phantoms?!” The squad leader calls back.

“All Phantoms currently engaged. Command out.” The line cuts off. The squad leader, confused, looks up into the sky. It was empty, not even clouds up there, though it is a sickly green color. A cry from one of his soldiers brings him down to Earth. “Shit! Get set up!” The soldier yells, seeing humanoid figures advancing from their flank. The squad rushes to deploy and gets ready to engage.

Skies Above Carolina Blight Zone

In the skies above the battlefield, the Phantoms were involved in a fight for their very lives. Drakes had risen up en masse and were engaging the F4s. Even the addition of allied F-100 Super Sabers didn’t free them back up. Phantoms and Sabers duck and dodge, weaving around in a dogfight with their Drake foes. A drake swoops in and lashes out, snapping at a Phantom that barrel rolls out of the way and fires its cannon, striking a drake farther off in the back and causing it to fall and explode into the crystal shards that signify death in the game. The Phantom flies through the orbs in the sky that give out loot and turns to fly back, only to have a Drake take advantage of his moment of straight flight to swoop down from overhead and crash directly into the Phantom’s cockpit. The pilot dies at once, the Phantom entering into a dive that ends abruptly on the ground several thousand feet below.

“Fox two.” Comes a call from one of the Sabers and a missile streaks out, tracking true on a Drake and exploding, sending the creature falling to earth as its body catches fire as the gasses that allow it to fly light up upon contact with the air. A few seconds later it shatters and evaporates away as it hits the ground. A larger beast, a full blown black dragon, comes up and fires off a blast of energy. The Saber dodges to the side quickly, the beam as fast as any bullet but dodgable. An Endarkened on its back flings up its hand and a bolt of red energy rushes out, chasing after the Saber. The Saber drops chaff and banks right lightly, lining up on another drake. The bolt tracks on the Saber despite the countermeasures and slams into one of its wings.

The aircraft banks, sharply this time, in the opposite direction trailing smoke and another cloud of chaff, a second magical bolt missing him and running straight into the chaff. The F-100 comes around and fires a missile, the missile detonating just above the rider, killing it and causing the beast to go crazy and lash out at a nearby drake, smacking the smaller creature and sending it in a cartwheel down a couple hundred feet before it can regain control. The F-100 swoops low and finishes the job with a cannon burst into the Drake’s belly, only to run smack into the dragon’s line of fire. The beam from the dragon tears straight through the center of the fighter’s right wing. The pilot struggles for control as his aircraft falls from the sky and at two thousand feet from the ground, he finally gives up and ejects. Luckily for him he lands behind friendly lines.

Dallas, Texas

Stella finds herself glad that her neighbors had come over. The view on the screen is horrible. The fighting was going on and the broadcast was catching every bit of it, going from the air battle to the land battle based off which section was the most heavily engaged. She places a hand over her mouth to try to muffle the sound of her crying but can do nothing about the tears falling from her eyes. On the screen right now was an image of a tank platoon engaging at least 10 gunbeasts. The tank platoon was rolling backwards, stopping only to fire, but the gunbeasts had already killed two of the tanks, their hulks burning brilliantly, not yet having despawned for some unknown reason. Her daughter couldn’t stand it as much as she could and had run, balling her eyes out, back to her brother’s room a few minutes earlier.

One thought keeps going through her mind, a prayer to God to keep her son safe. She looks over to her left. Her neighbor, Martha Hersom, Kthla’s mother, was sitting next to her, a hand resting on her leg in support. She is fearful for her son, but knows he’s not in the battle himself. She had come over to lend whatever support she could to Stella.

Carolina Blighted Zone

Bordraab sighs as the last of the gunbeasts falls. Thankfully none of his platoon was dead yet, but that was only thanks to the reactive armor that Kthla had installed on his platoon’s tanks. He looks over to his right and sees the infantry platoon that’s with them is fairing…ok. They are engaged in a firefight with …something. He can’t make it out from here. Easily solved. He rotates his turret around and zooms in on the gun sights. They look like humans, except their skin is black, their eyes blue and glowing. They were lifting up weapons and firing at the infantry. As he watches, some bullets from his side hit one of the shadowed humans that is in a crouch behind a dead tree. The three rounds tear into him and spin him down to the ground. He bursts into shards and despawns.

Time to end that firefight. “All tanks, fire on enemy infantry engaged with friendly infantry.” He orders, having his main gun switch to HE while he fires the Coax at the infantry. His other tanks come into line with him and start firing along the entire length of the enemy line, sweeping their machine guns back and forth, the commander of the number 3 tank sticking his torso out of his tank and firing his .50 cal. The addition of another five machine guns firing on the enemy keeps their heads down. Then the helicopter support arrives, the Cobra attack helicopter sweeping the enemy infantry aside with a long burst of its chaingun.

“Load up!” He can hear from outside. The infantry was loading up. “All tanks prepare to advance.” Bordraab says into the radio, the tanks replying back in the affirmative. He looks at their health readouts. Only tank 3 was at half health, the others were all over two thirds, the ERA having saved them as a fighting force. “Infantry loaded up!” He hears over the radio.

“All units advance.” He says. As the tanks start to move, Bordraab starts to assign the points he got for leveling up. He notices there’s a forest ahead. The enemy could engage in there, but probably wouldn’t. There was at least a mile, perhaps as many as five, between this point of battle and the next line.

Alaria, Fantasy Faction Territory

It was a sight to behold. Rias and company weren’t even aware of the battles raging for the human faction, they were watching the Fantasy Faction’s attack. They were doing just as well as the human side was, though she doesn’t know it. Hacking, slashing, and blasting their way through the enemy, they had only just barely encountered something they couldn’t handle. Now the lines had stopped, the Beta players fighting hard against enemies that were shooting projectiles at them as if they were humans. And there was some sort of dark elf enemy type that showed up in large numbers and charged straight at the beta guild lines.

Barely anyone else in the tavern was making noise now. All attention was on the battles waging on the screens. Rias takes a drink and looks over the whole thing, evaluating it. “Does it look like they’re starting to be pushed back a bit?” She asks. Akeno blinks and looks closely. “You know, I think you’re right.” She says, unsure. How could Rias tell they were falling back some?

The camera pans up and shows two drakes collide midair, biting and slashing at each other and roaring at one another. Their riders start swinging at each others’ beasts with their swords, only to be blocked by the other, a weird sort of sword fight starting between the two. Then the drakes part from each other, the dark drake tipping over backwards and slamming into the ground, and a half dozen dark elves, all of the elves shattering, but the drake’s body remains and a timer pops up over it.

“What’s that about?” Elias asks. Miya hmms, leaning forward and looking closely, wishing she could zoom in. “I wonder if there’s a harvestable on it that decays after a certain amount of time?” She asks as she taps her chin thoughtfully.

Finally, at the bottom of the screen, a news ticker starts to go by. “Terra Nova Players Engaged In Heavy Combat Against “Endarkened” – Heavy Casualties Reported.”

Rias blinks at that and leans forward. “Excuse me!” She calls out, and with a set of taps, switches the view to real world news. On the screen now is an anchorman from CNN.

“We are getting reports in now of heavy player casualties in the fighting, though the players are, by everything we’ve seen, still advancing. The Fantasy faction chose a plan of action that involved moving into the Blighted zone, as boss areas in game are known, in a line, sweeping and clearing the entire zone. The Human faction has opted for a blitzkrieg attack, an armored spearhead driving in far and pushing the enemy back while infantry secures the rear…” He holds his hand up to his ear.

“We are getting information in now…Yes…It seems that both factions have become bogged down in the fighting. These images are live from the battlefields.”

The view splits, showing the fighting as it is happening in both factions’ territories. Rias is amazed at how the human side looks. Sure there are heaps of bodies on the Fantasy side that make it look like a battle, a big one, had taken place. But, on the human side, the land, already desolate and dead, was DESTROYED. There were craters and fires burning brightly. The ground was charred and black, with even the dead trees looking like they were blown into pieces. Tracers race back and forth across the battlefield. The camera zooms in and she gasps. The human faction was fighting what looks like dark, corrupted versions of the races they could play as! Just like the fantasy faction.

Carolina Blighted Zone

Bordraab curses. He can see twelve gunbeasts ahead in his sights as well as a flight of four dark gryphons coming at them, with infantry besides. He also sees a slight crest between him and the enemy. If he could get to that, he could go hull down. It wouldn’t help the infantry at all, their APCs could not crest the hill and as a result they were out of the fight. That being said, it was the best position. The APC crews would have to dismount and fight with the infantry. Still, there was a clear firing zone now that they were clear of the ‘forested’ areas, if a collection of dead and burned looking trees on black ground could be called a forest.

“All tanks, we are hull down to the enemy right now. Halt! I say again, halt! I want infantry deployed just behind that crest there and firing over the lip.” He calls out, looking at his map of the area to assess the situation. They had run into a hard line of defense, red as far as the map went on his readout. Other units were halting as well. “Prepare to engage!” He calls out over the platoon net. Infantry starts to deploy from their APCs and runs forward to get into fighting positions behind the edge of the crest. The tanks could fire over them easily enough and they were far enough away that the blasts of the cannons won’t affect them.

“This is Cobra 5, I’m directly overhead, preparing to engage.” A Cobra settles in the sky behind them. It lines up and a TOW missile launches from one of its wings, racing forward at incredible speed and slamming into one of the beasts. The gunbeast’s head vanishes, followed soon by the rest of it. As another missile streaks out from the first Cobra, a second settles into place and starts firing rockets at the enemy, tearing apart the infantry as it dives for cover behind whatever they can find. “We’ll wrap this up for you guys, then you can continue your advance.”

From out of nowhere, a drake comes swooping down out of the sky. The AH-1 Cobra that was firing the missiles starts to dodge but it’s too late. The surprise complete, the drake slashes with a glowing hand. The hand goes straight through the tail section of the helicopter, snapping the tail and the tail rotor free from the rest of the aircraft. Bordraab can see the pilot struggling inside the helicopter as it starts spinning out of control along the same direction its main rotor blades were rotating. Worse, it starts tipping over onto its side. Once that happens, the helicopter falls from the sky. He can hear the pilot and gunner scream over the radio as the Cobra goes down, only to be cut short as the helicopter hits the ground and explodes.

From off to the far left, a flash of white heralds the launch of a SAM. The missile races skyward, disappearing in the black clouds overhead. A few seconds later, there’s a flash. Another missile fires, and the ripping sound of a Vulcan anti-aircraft gun firing is also distantly heard. The drake that had taken down the Cobra comes around, but the second Cobra had seen it. As the drake flies in, the Cobra unloads on it with its chaingun. The rounds tear into the Drake and send it slamming into the ground but it doesn’t shatter. A second drake comes racing in towards the helicopter only to be hit by a Stinger launched by one of the infantry.

“….anyone out there….” Bordraab blinks at the static filled call on his radio. “…anyone out there? This is Sergeant…the Old Ironsides!” The communication was filled with static but he could barely make it out. He keys on the radio. “This is Lieutenant Bordraab of the 1st MEU.” He responds.

“Thank God…someone! What’s your position Lieutenant?” The message had cleared up a bit, only a little static now. Even so, Bordraab reads off his location three times before it’s copied and received. “Sweet! Good to hear from you Lieutenant. You’re the only officer left out here! What are your orders?”

Bordraab blinks. That can’t be right! They had been fighting for hours and everyone had moved so well. He switches channels on the radio in both ears. “Command, this is Patton Platoon 2. Come in.”

Silence.

“Command, this is Patton Platoon 2. Come in. Over.”

Still silence.

Oh shit…