VR WARS Volume II - Coalition Army

BONDED BY FATE

Battleground: Left

Hill 253.5

Mirabilis & Terras Unit sector of operations

Crawling along a narrow path covered in desolation with nothing but his rifle, a lone student from the Mirabilis Unit peeked up through the tall grass to get a sense of where he was. It hadn’t been ten minutes since the assault began, and he had already lost track of his company. The cries of wounded people and machine-gun fire confused his senses about the direction of both. Even so, he continued his slow crawl forward, hoping to find an opening in the IF defense from which he could exploit and take shelter from the rain of steel showering all around.

Brushing aside the mutilated limbs of friend and foe that were now a common sight in that graveyard of the unburied, the young student whose face appeared to be barely out of his teens leaped onto an occupied enemy trench. The Iberian students' broken bodies in that half-blown trench still hung onto their weapons with their fingers pressing on broken rifles with empty chambers and eyes fixed onto the burning wreckage of a tank belonging to the Terras Unit.

The sun still shone, and the strong wind blew, but the souls of the innocent had long departed to quieter places in another world. To the few that remained, locked in bitter combat, the once yellow and peaceful plain was now dyed in scarlet.

Pillars of fiery smoke and dust boiled up the earth, marking the exact spot where the many shells had landed, proof that the tanks from the Terras Unit were not sitting idly with the c*****e unfolding ahead of them. What was meant to be a coordinated barrage to suppress the IF students and allow time for the Mirabilis infantry to regroup and try another assault, by now, was nothing more than a series of gun vs. gun duels. All of which only made his job of exploiting the enemy’s weakness that much harder with all the shells detonating around the hilltop.

But the ability to move and fire instantaneously gave the Terras Unit members downhill, an edge over their counterparts who could only rely on their immobile yet fortified artillery pieces.

“!”

A blinding flash suddenly came from the junction of the trench the student was about to cross. The shockwave of which was enough to bend wood and steel made him lose balance and hit the ground hard while shrapnel found his arms and one of his legs. The people present in that section, the ones he was about to eliminate, could only spill out a final hoarse howl.

That elaborate trench system had taken numerous direct hits from the high explosive rounds of the 88m guns mounted on the Tiger thanks below, knocking out of the confrontation multiple IF students and, in the odd case, inflicting several friendly casualties. A fate that the lone brave from the Mirabilis miraculously eluded, although not entirely unscathed.

Angry at shells from his own allies inflicting injuries on him, the man cursed and waved his wounded arms to anyone that could see, signaling his presence in that place. Soon enough, the continuous fire began to die down, and just when a few grey helmets lifted from the dried grass and slowly crept up to the young man’s position, something new made them rush back to cover.

Tuntuntun!

That unmistakable sound of someone hitting the keys of an old typewriter belonged to a DP-27, a soviet-era light machine gun. After patching himself up with bandages from his medkit, the man once more resumed his search for enemies that brought him deeper into the enemy trench system. He could feel the sweat running down his cheeks as his venture into the unknown brought him closer to that deadly sound.

Finally, after minutes of nerve-wracking search, he came across what he had been looking for…

An IF woman in a brown uniform completely in tatters and colored red from her many wounds stood like a giant, fending off his comrades with deadly precision. She shook off debris from the many explosive rounds discharging like they were grains of sand stuck in her clothes while small arms fire ricocheted all over her position. He could tell she was missing her helmet as her dark hair arranged in two exquisite braids violently bumped off her slim shoulders that were sustaining the recoil of the machine gun. Such was her desperation to keep the Mirabilis students off her that she emptied two entire clips of forty-seven rounds in thirty seconds.

The way she faced that mortal danger with grinning teeth almost put him to shame for the way he had sneaked his way inside the Iberian lines. But no matter how he felt about it, this was war and what mattered was surviving enough time to kill as many as he could. And so he lined his sights at her with his Mauser bolt action rifle and pressed the trigger.

“!”

Nothing came out of the barrel. There was no sound, no shell casing, no vibration, absolutely nothing.

Immediately he retreated to a hidden place, besides the dirt and wood frames of the trench, afraid he might’ve given away his position to his prey. Yet, the woman’s frenzied shooting and sheer focus on the Mirabilis students to her front, as well as the earful roar coming out of the DP-27, made her oblivious to her surroundings.

Attempting to find out the problem with his rifle, he pulled the bolt back and checked if there was ammo inside. Three bullets still lay in wait for their turn to leave the chamber, so the problem was not ammo-related. Then, as a series of questions beginning with how and why began circulating his mind, a small magnifying glass appeared near the centerpiece of his weapon – a universal signal for the standard function of search.

In no time, a single line of text made itself visible on his vision screen.

Weapon status – broken.

“…Great,” he exasperated soundlessly and thought about how to proceed. Quickly making a count of his inventory, he realized how poorly armed he was when he went on his ‘recon mission’ behind enemy lines.

He had no grenades, his pistol had somehow jumped off its holster, and to top it all off, while he did have ammunition, his only means of protection – his rifle – was now out of commission. And while he had seen a few soviet rifles and sub-machine guns lying where IF students had fallen on his way, he had no idea if they were still working. Not to mention the fact that his comrades down below were in dire need of help and probably could not afford the time it would take for him to go back and retrieve a new weapon. Especially not when he still had a last resort in which to put his faith.

Click

The isolated man unsheathed his bayonet, and with a simple click, attached it to the barrel of his broken rifle. To gain the courage he would need to get the job done, he refueled his heart with hate, reminding himself of who they were fighting and what they had done to his nation. He fed on the words he had heard over the radio like they were a spell to boost his confidence; Angelo’s words resonated strongly within him.

And so, as soon as the woman emptied her third magazine and kneeled on the ground to reload her weapon, he straightened up his rifle like it was a spear, left cover, and screamed as he had never before.

“f*****g die!!! Iberian cunt!!”

It wasn’t his taunting that stupefied her; it was the speed at which he jumped her. No sooner had she finished loading her machine gun, than her hands were at work once more, attempting to stop the sharp blade from piercing her stomach.

“Huff…erk…” she struggled as best she could, yet the pressure exerted by the Mirabilis student in coordination with her bad positioning got the better of her. The blade cut through her hands and struck true. “Ar-argh…Oaa-aa.”

“—Ungh,” he squirmed, surprised at the strength remaining in the dying woman. “…Take your reunification bullshit and shove up your ass b***h!” He planted his boot in her crouch and pulled out his improvised spear only to strike the mortally wounded woman again, then again, until finally, the light from her eyes faded, and her soul returned home.

“Aahh…shit,” the man threw his rifle aside and picked up the loaded DP-27, but not before giving the all-clear sign to his comrades. Instantly, two heads popped up from the tall grass to see if it was a ruse or some dirty trick for them to reveal themselves so they could be shot more easily. But when they shouted out the challenge sign and the man gave the correct counter-word, they felt relieved for that ordeal to be over and finally left cover while giving the man a small consolation in fistbumps from a distance. “Ha-haaa, I…did it.”

Just before the disorganized unit of the Mirabilis finished giving aid to their wounded and resuming their advance, a new series of small arms fire erupted. This time not at them, the sounds of weapons fire came from within the IF position itself that had mere seconds ago been cleared. Those few separate shots were answered in kind with several steady bursts from a high-caliber gun in no time. Fearing an enemy counter-attack, the two closer members of the Mirabilis rushed the hill quickly to set up a good firing position. They entered enemy territory only to find two male IF students lying dead in a corridor leading to another portion of the trench, their bodies riddled with holes.

Closer to the place from which the DP-27 had poured fire onto the Mirabilis unit below, seconds ago, sitting side-by-side and resting their bodies against the dirt wall, was a woman with hair tied in braids and a man wearing the same grey uniform as they.

That soviet-made machine gun that had given the Mirabilis Unit so much trouble rested in between the IF woman and the Portuguese man; smoke could still be seen expelling from the melted barrel.

In a cruel twist of fate, no matter whose side they belonged to, that weapon bonded both to the same drastic fate in a conflict both had given their all until their last breath.