VR WARS Volume II - Coalition Army

SUDDEN DEATH

““…Me-medic!!!”” The wounded cries for help instantly proved too much for Mara to stomach; she raced from her seat in the half-track to the onslaught, stopped in her tracks by Gizelle’s strong embrace before she stepped out of the vehicle.

“We’re still under heavy fire! Can’t you hear the bullets bouncing off the armor?!” Although Mara was acquiescent to her friend’s point of view, she knew the longer the wounded were left unattended, the fewer their odds of survival were, which prompted her to refute logic altogether. “All I can hear is their screams. All I can ever hear is their call for a medic, for me!”

Looking closely into her watery baby-blue eyes, Gizelle got a glimpse of what Mara had been feeling all along, understanding her impulses to quickly jump into the action. For months, the cries of injured people served her friend as a church's bell-ringing so often that the user became addicted to its calling. In a distorted way, the similarity of the ‘cry for a medic’ was as powerful to Mara as any drug, one she could not do without anymore.

“…All right,” Gizelle said unenthusiastically about the prospect of possibly getting killed, even if it was a game, but understood the significance it meant to her friend; it was Mara’s duty to aid the wounded, and protecting her was hers. “I’ll go with you…Stay behind me and keep low.” Nodding in agreement, Mara adjusted the straps of her helmet and took a pistol from her holster, her only means of protection.

“We’re getting out; cover us!”

Instructed to obey the chain of command, at Gizelle’s orders, as she was the one in charge, the half-track’s exit door split in half to allow its cargo to drop off. As soon as it did, both women were instantly confronted by the enemy.

Caught by this sudden appearance, both sides froze with their weapons lowered below the waist; neither seemed willing to attempt stupidity, knowing retribution would come just as soon as they performed the deed. The hands of the two men facing the two women trembled slightly, and sweat dripped from their terrifying faces, the visage of which appalled even the bravest of the bunch.

The lull occurring seemed to last for ages until the IF students unbroke their shackles and opened fire with their bolt-action rifles at point-blank range, not even needing to aim. The bullets miraculously flew past the women, breaking a few loose hairs on Mara’s but otherwise missing them entirely, only to find other victims in the wounded that remained inside the vehicle.

“…Argh! Fucker hit me…in the ass!” The sole student on his two feet operating the heavy machine gun yelled, falling to his side in a pool of blood.

“…”

With the truce broken by the sudden shots, Mara and Gizelle delivered their own justice in rapid succession. First, destroying the face of the closest man with a high-powered German Mauser rifle, Gizelle quickly pulled the bolt back and forth to insert a new round in the chamber, finishing the process at the exact same time the surviving IF student had; their reaction speed in reloading was remarkably equal, but would their shooting be also? Once Mara interrupted their duel, the answer to the question came momentarily, shooting twice from her handgun; her shots punctured 9mm holes in the man’s neck and chest.

Blood flowed from the man’s wounds like a river stream overflowing from a canal; in mere seconds, he was dead, unlike his partner, who perished promptly before his still warm body hit the ground.

“Doc!”

Distracted by the gushy sight of the dead to their front, the frantic women were unmindful of the ongoing to their rear until the distressed shouts of the wounded brought their senses back to the game. While some saw the open bullet wound in his neck jerking everlasting red liquid, Mara saw the one-legged man she had gone above and beyond to save, dying in his seat. And that was not all; she saw the pain in the eyes of the ones still living unharmed and the trauma they were experiencing in that battle, whose sole purpose had long ago crossed the line of a mere game. The burden they all shouldered, even the ones who lay cold in silent greyness, stretched beyond the realms of possibility. Even after jumping to his aid, as soon as their eyes met, Mara could do nothing but watch the man’s health bar being depleted number after number, blood by blood. When the light in his eyes finally gave out, she could not hold back the tears; they resonated not just for him who had died, for he finally found his way out of the nightmare, but for everyone who still found themselves trapped in that digital hellhole.

‘Only the dead have seen the end of war.’ Plato’s lesson echoed in Mara’s heart, ironically conveying the truth of the whole thing; every dead body that littered the field was nothing more than a vessel. But even so, to allow people’s hearts and minds to witness and actively partake in spreading the flames of war was absolute insanity. A generation born to wage war, regardless of how well they performed in the competition, more battles would follow their success or demise, one way or another.

“I didn’t even know his name….”

“You can ask him when we get back,” the firm yet gentle touch of her best friend found Mara’s wavering back when so many desired to do so but failed to muster the courage to answer the call; Gizelle looked her in the eyes and put a stop to the flow of tears. “This is a game, remember? No one dies for real…Come on. They’re still calling for you out there.”

“…I know,” Mara replied, reinvigorated by the hollow cries for help that faded in the distance. “Let’s go.”

Without pausing to catch their breath after making sure the wounds on the wounded students in the vehicle weren’t life-threatening, Mara and Gizelle leaped out of the half-track in a frenzy.

Rushing past fire and lead, they made their way through the smoke-covered field towards their goal, all the while bullets were flying centimeters above their heads. Time ticket by as time does, neither accelerating nor flinching. Still, it felt like an eternity had gone by when they reached their first casualty, who happened to be none other than their commanding officer, lieutenant Cristina.

“What the hell took you guys so long?!” A sneer from one of the students who had been guarding Cristina all that time held the same amount of anger as he did in concern. “She was hit ten minutes ago in the back!” He had to scream to Mara’s ears to make his voice noticeable amidst the explosive rain dropping in the vicinity. “I applied my bandages to her, but the bleeding just doesn’t stop; what the hell do we do?!”

“I-I…blood…bloo—I…hel…me,” she mumbled between sentences, not sure where to start. The gibberish coming from her was an adverse effect of the debuff that constrained her speaking ability: shock.

“Her HP is dropping fast; she needs plasma,” Mara quickly analyzed the situation with her triage skill and figured out a counter to the situation. “There’s an exit wound above her…breast…You don’t want to be here for this.” Mara faced the loyal bodyguard that had been protecting Cristina throughout her ordeal. Putting his common sense into play and knowing that she meant business, the man keenly nodded, wished them all good luck, and left the site; his shadow was last seen vanishing into the chaotic struggle.

While she worked her hardest to get Cristina stabilized, her watchful guardian took the job of protecting her back just as the other student who they dismissed had done a brief moment ago.

All around, people screamed, allies and foes alike, the fighting at a distance had shifted to a more personal level, one immensely preferred by Angelo. Utilizing everything the IF could get their hands on when ammunition ran out, grenades were thrown. When these were depleted, Albert Einstein's famous remark about fighting World War IV with sticks and rocks came into being, to a certain degree.

“Wooaah!!!” Inbound warcries threatened to put a stop to Cristina’s recovery just as she was about to finish patching her holes. “Zelle!” A scared Mara hastily called out half her partner’s name without breaking eye contact with her patient. “…Gotcha.”

First, a loud ring nearly distracted her from her encompassing job. Then, a second later, a new vibration followed just as an empty round fell into the grass. Then a third round was ejected from the rifle’s chamber until, at last, her friend gave her the all-clear sign and began reloading her rifle.

“Good wor—” Already were the words being uttered, and new tracer rounds light speeding into the unknown left a golden trail that could not be followed. Their supersonic impact had expanded to the size of a quarter dollar coin the moment it pierced the skin. Mara was too slow to pick out the location from where the sound of those shots had come from. All she knew was that the guardian angel that watched over her now watched from the ground, resting next to Cristina, motionless.