[h3][color=DarkGray]The Anuriite Basin[/color][/h3] [h3][color=DimGray]Jungle Depths[/color][/h3] [center][h3][color=LightGray]-Pvt. Areffon Warder-[/color][/h3] [img]http://i1298.photobucket.com/albums/ag58/Silux45/0f763438-0e50-48b9-a83e-5aaf0d16430b_zpsieb4epzi.jpg[/img][/center] [hr] They fired back. [i]They fired back.[/i] He did not expect them to fire back. But they always did. His squad would have fired back, too. Perhaps Aref was just not expecting them to live long enough. Perhaps he was expecting them to all just drop dead, and then he wouldn't have to feel guilty for long. But they fought back like caged animals - that is what everybody on Anuria was, anyway - and cornering them in a jungle after a had landing? After evidently losing one of their own? Fighting them whilst grief overtook them? [i]Stupid. Stupid![/i] He didn't even realise they had fought back to start with. He assumed that all the gunfire came from them, and that the enemy was being torn apart. He didn't dare to look for the first few moments. He didn't want to see the killing. He finally looked through tear-flooded eyes and saw that the Venusians were not the only ones shooting; he only realised after Fords took a bullet to the head, blood splashing out on the tree behind him and his body falling limp to the ground. It was strange to see such a strong man suddenly become so... [i]lifeless[/i]. Aref had screamed his name after his death, but he could barely hear his own voice over the ambience of the combat. Beric was next. Took a shot to the leg and screamed bloody murder as he fell to his other leg, gripping the wound tight; but he couldn't stop the bleeding. He tried to get into cover but was just shot to ribbons by the enemy when they saw he was limping through the undergrowth. There was zero fucking remorse. Aref could see the bullets going right through him, each one siphoning his life further and further. Eventually he just slumped to the floor and lay there. He never got back up. Aref darted behind a tree, not wishing to succumb to the same fate. He was a coward and he knew it. Couldn't even muster the courage to fire his own weapon even after seeing two of his close friends die in the dirt. He was shaking too hard anyway. Shaking from fear, shaking from tears. He could barely stand; his knees knocked too hard. He just wanted to fall to the ground too, to die, to be free from this life. What would it take to get sent back hom? A serious battlefield injury? No. The medics would patch him up and he'd be back out there in a week. Promotion? No. Just meant he would be out there more than he already was. He had to face the fact that the only way he was getting back to everything he loved was in a box. Draped in a Venusian flag. "Incoming!" he could hear behind the cacophony. "Fuck!" he heard from another of his own. "Why won't he die?" he heard another call. Aref poked his head from the tree, and immediately shot it back behind cover. He kept it there long enough to see the cause of distress: an enemy soldier charging through the killing field, soaking up bullets like a tank. He was heading right for them. For [i]him.[/i] Fuck. [i][b]Fuck![/b][/i] His mind raced, his eyes filling up with tears once more. His entire body fell into a blind panic. [i]He was heading right for him. He was going to kill him. How could he contend with that?[/i] he poked his head out again. The soldier was close, so fucking close. Too close. Aref tried to duck to avoid being seen by the charging man, but before he could he felt a strong hand grip tight around his neck, slamming his head into the tree, concussing Aref badly. He could barely see as his assailant as he swerved around him, beating him senseless with nothing but his hands. Aref would try to fight back but was far too weak, outclassed by his opponent in every way. His rifle had been knocked from his hands long ago, and his knife had been batted away almost immediately. [i]This was it. The end.[/i] he thought to himself as he was body-slammed against the dirt. [i]This is where it ends.[/i] He closed his eyes. But he did not die. There was no finishing move. No painful stomp. Instead the face of his Sergeant peering over the shoulder of his attacker, knife protruding from his chest, blood pouring from the wound. Aref could have sworn he heard the Sergeant whisper to the charging soldier. [i]"Don't lay your fucking hands on my men..."[/i] But he couldn't be sure. Then was a call for retreat by his saviour, calling from all of the remaining squad members to fall back. This was not their battle to win. They were outnumbered and outgunned, and there were surely more hostiles lurking in the forest. So they left the bodies of their own, they left the body of the charging soldier and they sprinted back into the forest depths. Their next move would have to be decided quickly, for nobody was sure if they would be pursued or not... [h3][color=DarkGray]Kol'Kora[/color][/h3] [h3][color=DimGray]Sector 47[/color][/h3] [center][h3][color=LightGray]-Pvt. Toeny Keegan-[/color][/h3] [img]http://i1298.photobucket.com/albums/ag58/Silux45/b2769bb2-153c-4407-8da6-071cc7c4748a_zpsiniwjubw.jpg[/img][/center] [hr] Gas. [i]Gas?[/i] [h3]"GAS!"[/h3] He could not believe it. Why would they gas the outskirts of the city? What possible reason could they have for doing that? The Höllefeuer Empire truly were some venegeful bastards. At least that is the way that Toeny Keegan saw it. Especially now. Now that they had dropped gas on him and his squad. All they were doing was holding a recon post as to keep tabs on what was happening in Kol'Kora. They weren't attacking anybody. Sure, they were spying but they were doing it for the saftey of others. And now [i]they were being gassed for it.[/i] He didn't even realise until one of his superiors had shouted bloody murder about it. And this superior had been fighting the Höllefeuer Empire for longer than some soldiers had been alive. He sure as hell didn't expect to be hit with chemical weapons this far from the battlefield, so if he didn't expect it, who would have? Oh. And they didn't have any protective gear for chemical attacks. That stuff was expensive, and the way command saw it, he and his squad were expendable. Wasn't worth the money to protect them from chemicals in such a low-risk zone. And now they were fucked. The stuff began to seep in through the cracks in the walls, first. The small boarded room in an abandoned building on the outskirts wasn't built to be gas-proof. It started coming through the windows and the stairwell next. Floating in like some ominous green ghost, silent and seething with murderous rage. At first it just made its way into the room, moving at a crawl across the floor, and he and the others thought that maybe they could get out of this one alive. One man ripped the boards off of the window so that he could jump out and live to fight another day, but outside was saturated with the chemical agent and nobody had even seen it coming. It was then that they started to panic. It was an uproar, a writhing room of chaos as they realised they were going to die, backing into a corner away from the encroaching chemical. [i]God that stuff smelled bad.[/i] Looking around him, Keegan could see the horror of the Höllefeuer's Agent 437. He could have sworn one man's eyes had melted out. Another vomited something the colour of blood and shit without end, barfing up his literal guts before flopping down into the pool of his own refuse. Others went crazy with the pain it caused them, tearing out hair which fell to ashes as it was removed. The gas enveloped them completely. Skin flaked and burned away, bubbling and melting from the gaseous flames all around. [i]He had never felt a pain like this one.[/i] but Keegan ddi not move. He just stood there, unwilling and unable to accept such a fate. He lifted a hand to his face to scratch the itch that had covered his body. Swathes of rotting flesh were pulled away under his fingernails as he went. Looking around now yielded not the lively, unruly soldiers he had sat with only minutes ago, but mangled, deformed, burned, dead effigies of those he used to know. They had choked in the sea of green gas, burned and melted. "Chhh---" he tried to choke out a word. But instead his tongue had shrivelled from too much exposure to the gas. His throat had all but melted away. He couldn't even breathe. Next he felt the pain in his eyes, the burning, itching pain as his vision faded. His eyes swiftly turned to sludge and he too fell to the floor with a creaky thud, never to awaken again.