Participants:
| Scene Title | Til Someone Loses An Eye |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | A strategic ambush of a military base in Eagle Rock gets even wilder when a seer joins the rebels. |
| Date | March 10, 2013 |
Near Idaho Falls, Idaho
The first peak of fighting during the Second Civil War hit a fever pitch in the Northwest mid-2012. When word of the failed assassination attempt on President Mitchell finally got out west, it did nothing to alleviate the heat of the battleground as freedom fighters sought to take out or take over military bases at key strategic points, eliminating Mitchell’s eyes, ears, and access to the area like pulling a curtain over the area. Or, some would have ventured, attracting attention to it.
Eagle Rock near Idaho Falls is one such location, but with the strength of the military establishment there, the rebels haven’t been able to push in. A meeting of the various group leaders has gone poorly, leaving makeshift militia scattered in their temporary camps to their own devices as they’re forced to wait for orders. One such group, twenty strong with a mix of Evolved and Sympathizers, do just that around a trio of bonfires. The Mud Dogs rest and tend to their weapons, looking up every so often as an argument reaches their ears from the leader’s tent.
“You saw the intel from Mendoza. They’ve got drones, jets… They’ve got goddamned tanks. Not even you or I could take a shell to the face. Going full force would be suicide. And to be a distraction while the other groups waltz right in? Fuck that.” The low growlings of Luther Bellamy are as heated as the fired lit outside the tent. “They probably already know we’re out here, even with Misty’s shield.”
“That’s exactly what I told ‘em,” an even deeper bass voice than Luther’s rolls out like a boom of a thunderstorm. “But the other groups are too weak to get this shit done. You know what their deal is, you’ve seen their numbers. We’re not going to just march out there and show ourselves, obviously. We go but we show ‘em we’re not here to play. Hit ‘em at 0130 hours, while they’re still sleeping. Tell the others.”
“Slag…”
“I said, tell the others, Bellamy.”
“… Sir.”
Luther emerges from the tent with a heated slap of canvas back and a disturbed scowl on his face. A rough hand scrubs at the longer beard prickling from his jaw line as he walks back towards the central fires. A bright blonde haired and bright eyed woman sits up straighter as the man approaches the logs that make up their seating, sliding to a side to give him some space. He lowers himself slowly, deliberately, setting an elbow on his thigh and chin in palm, and stares towards the fire unfocusedly. And the woman at his side leans a little forward, her sidelong gaze giving him a moment to process.
“She's a right slag ain't she?”
The voice pops out of nowhere and a raven haired woman is peering over at the group with Luther with pale gray eyes. She wears a shiteating grin, she must have just gotten away with some mischief. Eve’s lips aren't wine colored today.. they are bare and she wears no makeup. Her battledress is deep red red today, muted.
The array of weapons she wears on her person are scary and funny. Among the knives and guns and rows of ammo.. there's a couple rubber duckies attached to her belt.
With a sigh and she flops down on the log next to Luther, not really looking at him. Not really looking at anyone but the sky is a nice surface to explore, the clouds and stars are always doing neat things. Eve mutters to herself as she drums pale fingers on the surface of the table. “My… my… my…” her voice croaks out, hoarse from overuse during a battle not too many days ago.
Both Luther and the blonde woman beside him look up at the trespasser, their faces mirrors of a shared puzzled look to the peculiar, heavily armed woman whose opening line is a play on words. Neither of them bear recognition of Eve in their expressions, and that makes her thusly suspicious. Yet, neither of them move immediately for weapons. Neither of them really move at all. There must be a deeper confidence that their security here is still intact. Or, there will be hell to pay for the camp’s lookouts for letting a stranger in to their confidence.
When Eve comes over to sit on the other side of Luther, the man blinks at her wordlessly. It’s the other woman, the blonde, who speaks up. “New to the group? I’m Trish.” She sounds pleasant enough, like she’d been a doctor in a previous lifestyle. Which is sort of true. Patricia, or “Trish” as the others call her, was a dentist in the times before the war. Now she’s a fierce fighter alongside the rest of them despite not having any superpowers of her own to speak of.
Luther finishes taking stock of Eve’s weaponry first, a longer questioning glance spared for the rubber ducks, before he offers with a short nod of greeting. He’s definitely a man of few words, but behind the storm-grey gaze there is intelligence in his assessments.
“So, where’re you from?” Trish continues with the small talk, easily filling in the silence. “Don’t mind him, he’s still sore from the last run.” Her excuse for Luther’s glib manner earns her a look from the man, but it’s an indulging one. His sigh betrays his gruffness, and Luther turns back to Eve with an extended hand in offer of a shake. “Luther,” he supplies name-wise, following with a dry humor, “or if I’ve pissed you off somewhere in the past, ‘That Fuckin’ Asshat’.”
Trish smacks Luther’s shoulder lightly with the back of her hand, a ‘stop that’ physical chiding. It’s her turn to be indulging, though. It’s also pretty obvious that the pair of them share affection for each other, but they’re not together. Yet. It’s still budding.
“Encantado de conocer tu culo.”
Said in greeting of the two new people in front of her. “I don't do groups full time, something always ends up in flames.” There's a crack of laughter and Eve is pulling out a joint to smoke. “Mind? Of course you don't!” Sparking it and taking a deep pull, “I knew someone named Arseface.” Maybe there's a relation?
The wild woman blows smoke out of her nostrils and waves a hand. “The next run is.. tomorrow..” her brow twitches, pale gray eyes staring at Luther. “..at 0600?” There's a devilish grin and Eve leans back without falling off the bench, “I'm here to help. Deja ir mi pato!”
Luther and Trish both look at Eve in confusion for the foreign phrase, neither of them understanding the language. Did she just say culo? The blonde woman caught that much, but isn’t sure on the rest, so instead Trish merely laughs and watches their newest chatty companion.
Obviously, Luther doesn’t mind her smoking the joint. There are far worse things. “Arseface? Might be, maybe one of my cousins,” the man remarks with a humored snort of a laugh, because it’s a joke. Who knows where his cousins might be now, dead or very far away. Canting his head slightly as Eve goes on and stares at him disconcertingly, he narrows his eyes at the bit of information. “How’d you find that out?” he asks after a beat, a push down of suspicion. Invisible hackles prick up, wavering. Is Eve a double agent, sent from the other side? Luther has always been a man looking out for danger, ever since the Bomb. The first one.
Trish leans against him as if she senses the bristling suspicions of the man, trying to get him to relax in the company of the eccentric woman. “Are you talking about the base?” she seeks to clarify. “We’ve been prepping for their next run at us. Slag—” The woman nods towards their leader’s tent, “He’s been aching to get into it but the other squads aren’t equipped to handle taking on a full base.” Seeing as Trish is the Mud Dogs intelligence officer, her duty to gather and supply information from their scouts to the strategists, she’s got a vested interest in what Eve has to say. But she doesn’t find Eve all that suspicious, instead digging a little deeper into the other woman’s psyche. “Are you like him?” Trish pats Luther on the shoulder indicatively. “What can you do?”
At Luther’s and Trish’s questions there is a wide smile from the woman and she tips her head back to blow out a thick cloud of smoke. A pale finger darts out to draw absent minded symbols into the haze, a bit of fang showing at that. “I see, dream, it's all the same.” She waves a hand the smoke billowing out instead all around her.
“We’ve got not much time, round the troops! Man the gates! There comes a villian in the mist!”
Eve snaps forward and puffs more on the joint. “I had a vision,” She clarifies and points over the ridge in the distance. “They are marching for blood, scurrying in the dark. Gee golly! What do we do?” There's a slam of her palm on the table.
“We rip them to tiny pieces and feed them to the horses.”
Proof that Trish’s mind was probably wasted on the practice of dentistry, she immediately understands Eve’s remarks with a tip of her finger. “A prophet,” she says with an interested glance from the smoking woman to Luther. “Precognition. That’s something we didn’t expect to have… and we just might get through this easier.” Her gaze shifts back to Eve, and the seer can see it in her expression. Trish also had doubt about the operation, but now there is more. There’s hope they can make it out of this alive.
And the allusion isn’t lost on the pair sitting with Eve on the log. Luther smirks a bit at Eve’s enthusiasm, nodding slowly. “Like the mares of Diomedes.”
Eve has likely already seen the Mud Dogs in a vision somewhere that has lead her to this place, this time, this moment. The group has many names, not all of them savory or good, but at their core they mean well. It’s hard to see it, especially when Slag slaps open the flap of the war tent and emerges like a rhinoceres stepping out onto the savannah and just as ornery. Dark skinned and darkly dressed, shaved bald and reinforced biker leathers unadorned with anything that would glimmer in the fire’s glow. He doesn’t need it, given his power to superheat anything, especially metal, in the span of seconds. The leader of the Mud Dogs eyes Eve beside Luther and Trish, then turns away to head off to the mess for a quick bite.
Nobody here is unsettled by the idea of eating before killing, it seems.
Luther presses himself up to his feet, checking his boots to see that they’re still strapped on tight. “You’re damn right, there’s a villain. And we’re gonna get him.” In the larger sense, he might mean General Moritz. But at present, he refers to the base commander. “C’mon you two. We’ve got an ambush to set up.”
0128 Hours
The stars in the Idaho sky look like a glittering blanket full of jewels pulled across the night in a curtain. A veil of hushed night time insects and animals play in a symphony of peace. Crouched and crawling like those very animals, the Mud Dogs plus Eve take an approach towards the military base that places them at a skewed angle to the front gates closest to the runways. Closest to the equipment that, if it were to get rolling or get off the ground, would be devastating to the meager rebel forces.
“Alright.” Slag’s voice rumbles out from the group as he shoves a matte black motorcyclist’s helmet on his head. “Bellamy leads Team Beta with Trish and Newbie, take out the tanks and any infantry that comes at you. I got Team Alpha with main group and we’ll handle the drones and towers. Once we’re in, the other teams’ll take Points Charlie and Delta. We converge at Omega, where the commander’s going to be. Any questions?”
“Yeah are we going to get a change of pants?” calls a voice from the gathering of rebels, one of the gruffer veterans. The questions elicits a chuckle from the troops, something to alleviate the nerves.
Slag’s gloved fist punches up into the sky, then waves the group forward.
Luther and Trish are armed with assault rifles taken from their previous exploits, along with a pistol each. Though they don’t have much ammo. But that’s why they’re going to a military base. Sure, that’s the reason. “You going to be okay, Seer?”
The seer in question didn't seem to be paying attention until the subject of pants came up and her head snaps up, “Pants in battle, who does that?” Eve whispers softly to herself, gaze going doing to the battle dress she was wearing today, jet black with silts up the side for movement. The leggings underneath were maybe pants but she would shrug her shoulders if someone were to point that out.
There's a tiny crumpled up birthday hat strapped onto her head, she couldn't get it to straighten out all the way but she feels like it is appropriate for some reason. The oracle pats down her body armed with her double Desert Eagles, shotgun slung over her back and a wicked blade strapped to her waist. She's ready for combat, “For duty!” She shouts out randomly with a snort and a paw at her nose. Stop that silly, no you stop that.
As plans are laid out Eve is attentive and she nods, she gives Luther and Trish a sly grin, “Do you like to play…” She's digging around in her messenger bag before pulling out a stick of dynamite, “Put the stick of dynamite in the tank’s mouth?” There’s a wild look in the woman’s eye and before the group can say much else she’s hooting with laughter and running out towards the base, ducking under cover and rolling in the dirt to get closer before she stops behind cover and does a circle with her head, long braid of hair going flying as she lifts the long fuse she has into the dynamite and holds it with a look of complete deviancy.
“One, two.. buckle my shoe.. three, four.. your daddy's a whore, five and six.. you betta pick those sticks cuz if you don’t I’ll take a rope and wring it round your neck like- Oh!” The fuse had burned to a significantly shorter length. “BOMBS AWAY!” A roar leaves the woman as she tosses the explosive over and far into the enemy’s base.
Apparently everybody but Eve is wearing pants to this shindig. Still, it’s not the weirdest uniform to be seen coming out of rebel fighter groups. Luther gives Trish a worried glance for Eve’s demeanor, but the blonde woman merely looks amused and enthused. “She’s going to be good,” her response to his non-verbal question comes easily, and there’s a brief moment where Trish looks right into Luther’s eyes. And leans in to plant a long kiss on his lips as Eve runs off to toss dynamite over the barbed wire fencing.
Luther’s eyes round out, as he wasn’t expecting the kiss. And then the dynamite explodes, making the man break off the kiss and duck. There’s a counter-look from him to Trish, one of those ‘we’ll finish this later’ glances, and then he pushes up to his feet with rifle in hand and charges the fencing.
The sudden explosion sets all alarms off. Spotlights from guard towers come on and shine down upon the rebels, and the first pops of gunfire sound out amidst klaxons signalling an attack on the base. Team Alpha leads the way, and as Slag reaches the fencing first he lays his hands on the chainlink in a large circular pattern. Where he touches the metal, the links suddenly turn red hot and melt away, dripping in sizzling chunks on the ground beneath. Once he’s cut through, the leader kicks in an entryway and the fighters spill through.
They split off, Team Alpha headed along the chainlink to one of the first guard towers. Team Beta, with Luther in the lead, runs towards the equipment hangars. Trish hangs back in the thick of the soldiers shouting directions to the others until their first contact with the enemy. Night-shift soldiers open fire on the group, bullets whizzing by Eve and the others. One of the rear soldiers stumbles and goes down.
“Get to the main bay!” yells Trish as she returns fire and takes out a soldier. “Eve! Stay with me! You got another one of those? Use it!” She makes a throwing motion and points towards the entrance of the hangar where the opposing army soldiers are rushing out of to find some cover. In the forefront, Luther throws a hand out and a potent mixture of fire and blinding light sends a few soldiers screaming as they’re set aflame and clutching their eyes. A few are mercifully cut down by bullets from the other fighters before they’ll suffer being burned alive.
In front, behind, and off to the side in the distance, the sounds of gunfire echo in the night.
There’s a wild, “Wheeeee!” As the bullets barrel around her, she’s ducked down and then when the fence is opened is charging forward with the others. A nod is given to the other woman and Eve pulls out another stick of dynamite to light and lob over towards those soldiers with a, “Fanculo il tuo cazzo!” she screams with a wide eyed look at Luther, “HOT HANDS!” She’s amazed.
With a glare at the incoming troops, Eve takes a look inside her messenger bag and shouts, “Lucky ladies you are! Cowgirls! Lucy luus!” She pulls out a rubber duckie, yellow with a fuse trailing out from it. “Lucky duck don’t give a fuck.” She makes a kissy face with her wine colored lips and lights the fuse with a oooohhhhh expression on her face. Not a moment sooner she’s whipping out a Desert Eagle and firing a volley of bullets at the troops as the duckie lands in the middle of the group.
“We honor thee, O Cluckee Duckie for your sacrifice! May you rest well with the valkyries of Valhalla. Witness!!!!” She holds up her gun and fires off a few rounds. The duck goes off with a bang and a “Oooyooo!” from Eve and she fires another bullet into a man’s skull from point blank range. She moves with chaotic, fanatic movements not staying still for long, a constant whirl of hair and material dishing out iron and steel in her wake. She is in the midst of shooting another troop in the shoulder before a kick to his stomach sends him spiraling back and she casts a look to Luther.
Luther’s smirk for Eve’s wild-eyed comment might be missed in the chaotic fray, especially as she’s then tearing a hole into the midst of an approaching group of soldiers with… a rubber ducky. A few of the soldiers pause, tensed because they expect to see a grenade. They don’t happen to call out the danger. “You’re kidding m—” The explosion is a mess of force, fire, and yellow rubber bits that drop the soldiers in that immediate group.
A deep rumble shakes the asphalt as the initial ferocity of the Mud Dogs on the equipment bay is met with the sounds of tanks being started up. A second boom rocks the air and ground behind them, coupled with a hard crash of metal and roaring flames - a drone jet falls out of the sky into the airfield, turning the runway into a scattering of fire and metal.
It’s the closer shaking of the ground that gets Luther’s attention, because his main concern has come online. “Get to the tanks!” he roars over the gunfire and klaxons, turning from the act of picking off soldiers coming from the direction of the barracks. Further off, the rebel fighters in process of taking down the defenses at points Charlie and Delta. The sounds of explosions and gunfire in the distance indicate as much as the infiltration from multiple points seems to be going according to plan.
Just as Luther calls out, a soldier pops out of the side door of the hangar and bumrushes the man, using the butt of his rifle to knock Luther down from behind. Trish’s voice screams out the relay of the order for the group to get to the tanks, but it’s also as she turns to check with Luther only to see the soldier pop out in ambush. “Luther!” she cries out, turning and aiming her rifle but not firing for fear of hitting their own.
A whirl of movement can be seen out of the roving vision of Luther’s, the corner of his eye catch a glint of metal and fang as Eve’s face comes into view and there's a sickening wet sound and a heavy weight falls on Luther’s back. Eve stands there chest puffing up and down a bloody knife held upraised in her hand a wicked grin spread across her lips.
She crouches and pokes Luther in the temple. “No time for naps Hot Hands let's move it.” A look is given to Trish and Eve nods her head towards Luther on the ground, “Help your friend!” He’s hers too whether he realizes it yet or not and she demonstrates that by helping him up a bit before wiggling her body. “It's aliveeeeeee!” A manic laugh and Eve is tearing off towards where the tanks are.
Wild pale gray eyes peek this way and that way. She's firing on troops to far from her and guts the ones that are close. “La la la, you're dead. Lalala, say hello to the good lord!” Eve is a wild whirl of limbs and steel. Hosting as she moves along.
There's a loud groan as a man tackles Eve from behind and she falls to the crowd rolling as she goes. “Ow!” Her knife clatters away from her and she spins around to kick the man in the nose before crawling forward and straddling him, digging her hand in the messenger bag she pulls out a large metal black dildo with a cackle and begins to beats him in the face with it. The troop screams out and flails his hands in front of his face trying to protect his already bleeding nose but Eve isn't having any of that as she smashes it into his face, eventually starting to break skin with the velocity of her strikes.
“Open up Cabana Boy!”
A pained, wet gurgle comes out of the soldier's throat as he expires and topples on Luther heavily. Luther groans himself with the poke to his temple, indicating he's still conscious if momentarily dazed. Trish rushes over, nodding gratefully to Eve but doesn't get a chance to say more as the seer rushes off towards the tanks. "She's crazy," remarks Trish as she helps Luther back up to his feet, "But I kind of love her for it." Luther levers himself up, but not before grabbing the dead soldier's rifle and slinging it behind him. "She's going to get herself killed," he grumbles, though well aware that he'd just gotten ambushed and that she saved his life.
Inside the hangar, Eve's wild tactics leave two more soldiers on the ground from gunshot and stab wounds, and a couple more soldiers manage to duck behind cover, but their third teammate isn't as lucky when his tackle of Eve turns into him on his back and being beaten with… a huge dildo. Once the other teammates get over the sight of it, they rush to the soldier's aid. One of the soldiers grabs Eve's wrist to twist her arm painfully behind her. The second helper levels his rifle at Eve and is about to pull the trigger, but another gunshot barks out and strikes him in the shoulder. A streak of blonde rushes in, Trish leaping up and kicking the soldier back out of the way before she fires a second shot into the man.
The soldier holding Eve's wrist suddenly finds himself grabbed from behind as well, but by the face and throat. Luther's hot hands are as accurately described as ever as he burns the man's flesh, sending him to the ground with a scream. He's not there for long, as Luther pulls a pistol from his belt and fires a shot into the writhing soldier's head to end his suffering. A second shot goes to the dildo-beaten soldier's exposed face.
"Is that what I think it is?" Trish blinks as she stares at the black bludgeoning weapon on the ground beside Eve's leg. But there's no more time for questions as the first tank rumbles into view, gunfire pinging off the armored plate from the Mud Dogs' troops. The large cannon twists to aim at their small gathering. Luther grabs both Eve and Trish, yanking them to the side with a shouted "Run!"
They don't get too far before the ground behind them explodes with the impact of a tank shell, sending the three face first to the ground, ears ringing and heads spinning with vertigo. There's barely a registering of the rest of the fighting, and two more tanks that roll down the hangar strip towards the airfield where the main fighting is happening.
“Stop! Don't touch me there! This is my private squar-” Eve is cut off from fighting off the soldier holding her down by the sound of gunfire and then Luther and Trish are coming to the rescue. She hoots with laughter and kicks one of the downed men with a wild grin. “Teamwork make the brain farts baby!!” Whether she got the saying correct or not Eve is checking her body for bruises or wounds with a wide eyed expression, “Holy Bananapancakes, your hands went like AHHHHHHHH and then his face is like GAH GAH GAH GA- TANK!!”
Eve screams at the same time as Luther does and then they are all running and not making it out of the blast radius totally. She gasps as she hits the ground and cries out, her body scrabbed all over. Head ringing, she tries to lift her head but it falls back with a light thud on the pavement.
“That.. wasn't..” the seer grits her teeth. “FUN.”
The pale woman slams one hand at a time on the ground to help her come to a kneeling position where she looks at the tanks coming in. Eve’s hand snatches out into her bag and she digs out two grenades. “Explosives are really simple!” She says with a loopy look, a bit dazed. “You just pull,” She hangs the pins of both out with her teeth before spitting them out in front of her. “AND THERE’S A PARTY! OW!” A cut in her arm had started bleeding but she throws the grenades in the direction of the first tank before rolling away and crawling on the ground to nearby cover of an overturned vehicle. “Face, check. Eye, check. Tatas..” She feels down her chest and sighs in relief. “All clear!” She screams out and winces as she tries to wrap the cut before the bleeding gets too bad.
“How are my sailors?!”
“…I gotta get in one of those!”
More than anything, there’s just the chaos of the battle. It, coupled with a flash of memories of Eve’s vision of this battle, becomes clearer as she sees Luther and Trish push up painfully from the ground where they’d been thrown by the impacting force of the tank shell. She can remember it now, the hazy dream coming to focus and clearing like the ringing in her ears.
A pack of dogs - no, wolves - circles a huge brown bear. Fangs snapping and darting in and out, the smaller predators have managed to bloody the giant beast, but the pack has yet to bring the creature down. A pair, one scarred grey and one lighter golden brown, jump in from the bear’s flanks. The grey latches on, dull ended claws scrabbling and teeth finding purchase. The golden brown, smaller, lighter, catches the rear paw and mauls it to the point the bear roars in pain. The bear rears up on to hind legs, huffing and growling loudly, facing down the gold-brown. Then seemingly out of nowhere, the scarred grey leaps up and chomps its jaws onto the bear’s face. Blood spills, and it’s the grey that winds up trapped beneath the bear’s paws. The bear, one eye destroyed, roars in rage, blood-flecked spittle flying in the wolf’s exposed face. Huge jaws open, a maw full of fangs clamp down onto the scarred grey…
The tank that Eve tosses her grenades at sees the explosions and comes to a stop with a smoking exterior, but it doesn’t seem like there was much actual damage to the war vehicle. “Hey! You got another one of those?!” shouts Trish from the side, louder to be heard above the fray. “Get that rear tank and throw it at the treads!” As if by example, one of the teams of Mud Dogs militia throws a large grenade under the second of the three tanks and it explodes in a fiery boom of noise. The tank stops in its tracks, smoking from the bottom and leaning against a damaged tread.
The blonde woman bolts forward, stopping now and then to provide cover fire for Eve and Luther.
The latter man catches up to the stopped first tank, hands grasping at rungs on the outside of it until he’s managed to climb up. His hands start to glow as he goes for the hatch that leads into the interior of the tank working on melting the metal locks before he yanks upwards with a straining grunt. As the latch comes open, Luther is forced to duck behind the exterior mounted machine gun as bullets from inside the tank shoot out at him. But they stop abruptly when he retaliates in a supernatural shot of fire blasting into the interior of the tank. The soldiers inside scream, and then they’re shot. Luther waves his smoking pistol at Eve, motioning to the inside of the tank.
“Hey Ducky! I got a present for you,” he calls at her. “You know how to drive one of these thi— nngh!” The gunfire is lost to the sound of battle, but Luther pitches backwards as one of the tank drivers, still alive, emerges, lurching out of the tank’s insides with his BDUs still smoking from the fire blast.
“Not my wolves, not my pack. Oh no oh no!” Eve whispers frantically to herself as she pushes herself forward chasing after Trish and Luther. Hot Hands’ display of ability gets a whistle from the mad woman and she cackles. “That's how you show em! Old wolf who! I don't see one! A young, strapping, strong- WATCH OUT!!”
Finally coming to the point where the tank is she sees Luther rear back as the soldier on fire breaks loose.
Lifting her gun, she fires three rounds into the man’s back before leaping onto the tank with a victory cry. It's almost seamless how she kicks the soldier out of the way and falls into the hole that is the tank’s opening with a “Wheee!” Slamming onto the ground she waves away the smoke and uses her coat and limbs to bat at the stray flames. “Ouch ouch not today little flames, not today. Oooh!”
Finding the controls, Eve looks up at the sky above her, “All aboard! Now, this.. one.. here. Turn here. Lewis said to never press.. well maybe later. AH HA!” The tank lurches forward with a crawl.
One of the other stranded tanks abruptly explodes in a fireball as a smoking drone drops onto it from above. A young man, barely visible in the night, whoops before he soars off back into the starred sky.
Luther finds a pistol in his face, the smoking tank driver’s fire-burned crazed visage a bloodied mess. The man doesn’t even look all there when Eve’s bullets finish the job. And then Luther’s got a bloody dead soldier on him that coupled with Eve’s kick, he’s rolling off to the ground below. That’s the second dead soldier he’s had to crawl out from under tonight and likely not the last.
The inside of the tank is a gross combination of three other dead tank soldiers in very close proximity to Eve, one in the coveted driver’s seat. He was a young man - most of them were - possibly just caught on the military’s side of the war. But that’s a moral dilemma to face another night. She’ll find it’s not quite as simple to pull the dead driver out, but doable. It’s either that, or sit uncomfortably atop the corpse.
Pulling himself up, Luther calls into the tank hull once Eve’s in it, “You ok in there? Do you actually know how—” His question is answered by the lurch of the tank, and he grabs onto a handle to steady himself. “Nevermind. Put it in reverse and we’ll bust through that wall! We’re going in!” He doesn’t appear to aim to use the tank for much more than a glorified battering ram, which is about as much as it’s useful for.
“VROOM VROOM!”
Is not the sound a tank makes but Eve likes it anyway. The dead pilot shoved to the side with a, “Thank you for your service! Pull over!” Snort, fidgeting in the seat as the thing moves forward the seer takes a look around the cockpit with wild eyes. No booms but this thing was a tank. as they crawl forward picking up speed, “HONKHONK!”
She feels alive, herself. Eve never wants it to end, this was the war she had been preparing for. With PARIAH, Phoenix, The Ferry. The dark haired woman thinks of these people as they plow forward.
“For Liberty! For Justice! For the holy pizza!! AHHHHHHH!!”
It’s crowded in the tank and it reeks of burnt flesh and death and gunpowder. But so has the entire war. As the tank picks up speed, Luther can be heard yelling out commands and the tank takes some small arms fire that bounces harmlessly off the armored shell. The loudest boom is the sound of the tank crashing through the concrete wall of the command bunker without regard, the impact rattling the vehicle in its core.
“Go! Go go go!” Trish’s yelled prompting disappears, swallowed by the loud barks and bangs of gunfire exchanged.
“Blondie! You are fierce girl!!”
As Eve emerges from the tank cockpit to rejoin the fight, the sensations and stimulus of the battlefield are overwhelmingly strong. Mixed with the flashes of other futures and wild visions, it’s hard to separate which is the real and which will be the real. But with the wildest, hardest vision slams in with the force of an explosion going off. A brilliant flash of bright, blinding light. It seems to be coming from the tall, dark coated man leading the second team of Mud Dogs into the bunker, but at the same time it mixes with a dreaded feeling that knots the pit of her stomach as she watches the rebels charging in. The future is not necessarily set in stone, but the feeling nevertheless washes over the seer, a black veil pulled over the highlights of the night.
It was the dream that brought her to Luther and rest of the Mud Dogs in the first place. The echo washes over her as her eyes swirls to milky white. “Boom.” The oracle whispers to herself.
The teams converge.
…
A line of soldiers dressed in their BDUs kneel in the mud, just off the runway of the base where piles of smoking metal and other implements burn in active fires. Surrounded by a mismatched militia and a couple of actual military-turned-rebel squads, the line of prisoners are silent as Slag paces in front of captured. He’s roaring, shouting out curses and taunting one particular man - the broken, bloody-faced base commander - and stopping just shy of striking the handcuffed man.
The others have survived the night. They’ve taken the base.
“And we have won! It’s over for Sergeant Shithead,” snarls Slag triumphantly, pumping his fists in the air, superheating the points at his knuckles to the point that the air combusts with a localized pop and puff of flame.
“For you,” the commander snorts back defiantly. Smugly, even. “You think this is a game? You haven’t won shit. You bunch of freaks won’t make it to the Pacific. You’ll die before you s—”
Slag turns as the commander speaks, backhanding the man in the face. “Shut the fuck up, Shithead.”
“We’re coming for you! You’re all dead! You freaks of nature!” goads the commander further, blood and spittle flying as he spits at Slag. At all of them. “Human Is First! Human Is First! Human Is F—”
“Yea we're coming for youuuu! And all your friends!” Eve yells with a snort as she holds her Desert Eagle in the air, “You sniveling, wet dog smelling, filthy mother—”
The sound of a lone gunshot startles the entire gathering as the commander keels over back and to the side. One eye and the back of his head bleeds in a near black pool of liquid in the darkness, lit only by the glowing fires. Slag whirls around considering the gunshot came from someone behind him. A few eyes find the shooter as Luther lowers his pistol, barrel smoking. He nods to the others before turning and walking away to head towards the encampments in the distance. Others start after, but Slag growls out a low “let him go” before barking a command to the Mud Dogs to haul the prisoners away. The same goes for the other militias and their leaders.
Trish lifts a dirty hand to clasp on Eve’s shoulder and with a small, tired smile, she quietly thanks the seer. “You were badass tonight. I’ll see you in the mess later.” Then the blond woman breaks off from the activity and jogs off after Luther to catch up.
The night wears on, and some time in the hours at dawn just before the sun rises over the eastern horizon, the sounds of distant gunfire crack with the morning light. As sure as the rising sun, the whole encampment knew by then they would be packing to march west. And there would be no prisoners to slow them.
