VR WARS Volume II - Coalition Army

PRELUDE TO THE PROM

As both left the library, Angelo decided to give her one last piece of advice… a lousy one. “Our fates are hagging on balance; even a tiny bit of information can help us a great deal. We need this to work, so a little flirting with the opposition won’t hurt…much. Use that elegant charm you have and make them spill everything.”

“Humpf…you started so well, but then you had to pull this ‘our futures are on the line’ sort of crap…come to think of it, you always do that whenever it suits your agenda! And, by the way, your compliments aren’t making a great impression here,” Vera argued, turning her back on him to hide the deceit; everything he had said before that last part shook her very core, so, now she had to hide her trembling hands filled with eagerness from him. “I will get what you…we need, and we will win.”

Angelo couldn’t even measure how relieved he was after hearing her answer; a great deal of pressure was leaving his shoulders, and his heart was still beating fast. At first, he thought that it was excitement, but that was not it; it was the anxiety leaving his body. Angelo was oblivious when he asked Vera to accompany him, but that had been the first time he asked a girl out, so the sweat accumulating under his armpits was him being nervous. Dayum, I can’t believe I actually pulled it off and to a girl of her caliber! The simple thought made his unconscious lust start to manifest. His dormant male instincts locked up for an eternity, aroused in the form of ‘what ifs’ corrupt ideas, which made him slap himself, completely forgetting that Vera was still walking with him. She, too, unconsciously erected her s*x appeal to its fullest, combing her hair while diverting her gaze when he tried to look her in the eye only to stare at him when he wasn’t paying attention. Angelo had to snap out of his senses more than once from her aphrodisiac allure, a fact that made her genuinely smile at him for the first time since they’d met.

Keep it together, man, don’t let her hypnotizing charms lure you in! The beast inside him that was his most profound and darkest secret, an alter ego, whispered to him as a warning. He began by focusing on the task, bypassing all the lust, with his workaholic obsessions and megalomaniac behavior. They discussed possible ideas to help search for information, subtle ways of persuasion, and how to bend topics to suit their needs. Although Vera was a novice to the concept of espionage, she was an avid studier. Taking notes was beyond her; she memorized every ‘lesson,’ every tip Angelo gave her, even going so far as to improve some of his ideas. With the help of her feminine senses enhanced by her superhuman abilities of perception, bringing Vera to the ballroom was perhaps one of Angelo’s greatest achievements, surpassing even his notorious coup d’etat.

By the time they looked up, the orange-stained sky had beckoned the impending dawn. The duo, who had barely spoken to each other before, managed to be together for hours without insults or, worse, blood being spilled.

Unlike last time…Angelo still couldn’t fantasize about the idea; it seemed unreal to him. Even some UAT students that happened to be in the area looked back twice to confirm what was happening. After the capitulation of Valadão and Marco’s turncoat to Angelo’s side, what little resistance remained was localized with Vera as its center, most of which belonging to the Elite ‘Phoenix’ Unit. But now, the mere fact that they walked together signified the end of all resistance to his rule. The hammer has struck; her coming with me to the ball is a statement that her will has been bent to satisfy my desires, my ambition.

For the first time in a while, the ‘Angel of Death’ managed to sleep right through the night, without having to worry about millions of things going wrong at the same time; his mind was at peace.

With new content being uploaded to the PXF for the ball, a file so big it took the entire day to download and install, the training inside the Virtual World was called off. Undoubtedly, it was a piece of good news to the wearisome students of the coalition who had been drilling nonstop since the preliminaries ended.

The ‘holiday’ also gave the selected few VIPs extra time to tie up loose ends before the main event later that night.

In the well-known main conference room of the UL that stank of politics, Angelo sat awkwardly with his feet resting on the big rectangular table, much to his allies' scorn. Even Vera, who sat by his side, looking ashamed by her commanding officer’s behavior, found his attitude distasteful and proceeded to elbow him in the gut repeatedly until he sat straight.

“Ahem…well, let’s get started,” the man known as the genius in the Portuguese coalition, Pedro, coughed up to signal the start of talks. “But, before that, I’d like to introduce Mariam Andrade from the UC and Silvia Nunes from the UL. They will be our companions at the ball. I thought we should all get acquainted.”

Looking closely at both women standing there, Angelo immediately recognized Pedro’s secretary and aide-de-camp. Silvia was a brilliant and resourceful woman with luxurious auburn hair, whose unconquered curls sprang loose. They say perfection is impossible, a mirage that no one can reach. Yet, her lips defied reality with a perfect symmetry along the cupid bow. And although her looks felt to him average at best or fell below that of Vera’s, he knew she more than made up for it with intellect alone, as her tender lavender eyes guarded by round glasses firmly fixated on the meeting records she was so passionately writing conveyed sturdy diligence and uncompromised love in her work ethic.

However, there was more to Silvia than met the eye. There was something about her that felt wrong with Angelo. Though he could not pinpoint exactly what that something was, his trusted instincts advised him to raise his guard in the company of that woman.

The other woman, Mariam, was taller than Angelo, standing at nearly 1:80m; her beauty was without question as she resembled a true shield-maiden from northern folktales. Her long blonde hair tied behind her head in a ponytail shape did little to dissuade its Rapunzel’s length, as even tied, it still reached far into her lower back. Archery eyebrows looked down on sweeping eyelashes and a pointy nose. Her shapely figure was that of an hourglass where every grain of sand had been carefully placed not to sway the balance, while her ocean-blue eyes sparkled like stars in the darkness of a twilight sky. Such was the spark every time she faced Rui, it confirmed Angelo’s suspicions that Mariam was actually in love with him or perhaps even his lover. Searching deeply through the archives that were his memory, Angelo found no evidence of Mariam belonging to the upper echelons of the UC, which meant she was not a Prodigy or even an officer, not that it mattered much to him; most of his own officers were regulars in the end.

““It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance,”” both women politely acknowledged the UAT presence with a smooth and elegant bow.

“The pleasure is ours,” Vera retorted with an exquisite allure of her own, a spell that was nearly broken by her Commander's volatile manners, “Ye-yeah, likewise.”

Another accurate elbow strike landed on Angelo’s gut as soon as the words had spilled out from his mouth, nearly disabling him there and then. The psychological effect was so great it made him stand up straight throughout the meeting.

“Now, my advice is to stay clear of the bigger powerhouses, mainly Germania, England, and Romania.”

“Especially Germania and Romania,” Commander-in-chief Rui emphasized, typing a command on a holo keyboard inserted into the table to display on the wall a series of parallel photographs. As the lights dimly withed away, the faces of the two most dreaded men, reining on a Supreme-Commander position of their own and the people they would have to overcome in the VR Wars competition, revealed themselves.

The photograph on the left presented a man with exotic dark curly hair and straight eyebrows but a face so pale it looked lifeless. “Vladimir Stoica is the Supreme Commander of the Romanian Coalition, allegedly known among his peers and enemies as ‘Vlad Dracula,’” Pedro enlightened them on the identity of their opponents with stern resolve.

“Ah! That’s fitting,” Angelo acknowledged with a quick laugh at the irony of the man’s name that originated from the ancient country of Wallachia in Romania and its ruler, Vlad III Dracula, immortalized by numerous works of fiction as a vampire. However, the real Vlad Dracula was much more terrifying than his fictitious character, given its moniker, ‘The Impaler’, for his lethal treatment of Ottoman prisoners and devastating wars.

“A ridiculous name, much like yours ‘Death Angel.’

“It was enough to kick your teeth into the dirt, Commander-in-chief.”

“What the f**k did you just say—”

“That’s enough! You are Commanders with people to lead! Start acting like that and focus on the task at hand,” Pedro had to step in to make sure the threats didn’t escalate. “They outnumber us more than two to one, Romania has thirteen thousand students and the Germans fifteen thousand, their leaders are competent, their officers aggressive, their universities coordinated, and their students battle-hardened. So tell me now, can we really afford this pointless squabbling?”

He's got a point; the odds are severely against us…I can’t let that s**t stain Commander-in-chief rile me up. He thought about it, giving a quick wave as a form of apology to his fellow Commander, who, in turn, answered back. The need for information and their institutions to be battle-ready for the upcoming onslaught outweighed any and all personal grudges.

“All right, next we have the people’s favorite and most desired man to win, the leader of the German coalition, Schneider…aka ‘Blitzkrieg Schneider.’

“Blitz…” Angelo murmured, recalling that name spoken by Shaun Murray of Ireland when they had faced off at Teutoburg. “I’m strong enough even to give that Blitz guy a run for his money…”, I see, so that was whom he was referring to. “Yes, that’s how he’s also known, which is ridiculous given that Blitz and Blitzkrieg are completely different things,” Pedro educated, upon taking notice of the words Angelo had accidentally spilled out.

Blitzkrieg was the term used by the British during World War II, nearly a hundred years ago, to describe the series of lightning-fast successful German campaigns at the start of the war. Initially spearheaded by Heinz Guderian, who first suggested the use of radios in tanks to allow each unit to support each other and other branches of the army to achieve decisive success, Blitzkrieg encompassed the use of combined arms at a maneuverable warfare level to break through the enemy frontline, surround its units and destroy them. Highly mobile units, such as mechanized, motorized infantry, and armored units, would surprise the enemy with hard and fast strikes, dislodge, confuse them, encircle and finally destroy the enemy with the help of air superiority, mainly close air support.

On the other hand, the Blitz was Nazi Germany’s bombing campaign of the United Kingdom during 1940-41. Despite both names being ultimately different, each conveyed an old and forgotten fear that gave birth in those dark times to the myth of German invincibility on the battlefield. The reason Schneider, the rising star of Germany, was entitled as such, resounded in his fast victories against near equal-sized opponents in modernized warfare scenarios. “Aras, Kasserine Pass, Brody…he won them all under two hours?!” Angelo’s high-toned voice in amazement bounced off the walls across the room. Being a vivid history buff meant he knew well all of those battles; the period, the terrain, who fought who, and the reason for it. But worst of all, he knew of the factors they all held in common: all saw extensive use of tanks, and all were won decisively.

The number one in all of Germania had such an elegant figure; it reminded Angelo of the Arian myth, with blonde hair, and blue eyes that held such a fierce determination to see the job through that any cost was worth paying. His record spoke for itself, and Schneider looked the part like no other. The ‘master race’ once more descended onto the global stage to make its comeback in humanity’s newest conflict—the search for evolution.

If we come across that man in a modern scenario, we won’t stand a chance, not with our numbers. “Did any of you fight in 20th-century conflicts?”

“We fought at Passchendaele, but there were no tanks involved there…” Rui passively answered, giving Pedro a turn, who simply shook his head before answering Angelo’s question with another. “Didn’t the UAT fight in Okinawa during the preliminaries?”

“Yes, but the terrain hindered tanks, so the poles didn’t make much use of them. The few we saw simply stayed behind, providing covering fire for the infantry,” Vera reacted in turn, knowing that Angelo had been the only one to miss out on that battle. This fact prompted Pedro to begin assembling the bits and pieces left out of the puzzle, and favored by his brilliant sense of perception, he quickly arrived at the hidden factor the UAT so desperately tried to contain from leaking out to the public.

“So, you weren’t there.”

“I wasn’t there.”

“Explain?”

Under strict instructions by their academic board to not disclose any classified information that could potentially lead to repercussions for herself and the remaining Prodigies at the UAT, as well as sensing that Angelo’s back had hit a wall placed by Vera’s careless choice of words, she steadied her nerves for the worst. But the moment she opened her mouth to explain, her Commander burst into action. “Let’s just say I had to visit a certain health facility. You’d be surprised what a common cold can do these days,” he justified by making full use of his best trait, lying, giving at the same time a sly look towards Vera. The latter found the joke so funny she had to conceal her porcelain smile with the back of her hand.

“Sure, I’ll bite,” Pedro sarcastically retorted, finding no disposition to pursue the matter any further, “I guess we’ll focus on that problem when the time comes. Now my advice for today’s event is to keep a distance from these characters. I’m fairly sure they won’t bat an eye at us. Still, let’s play it safe and go for the smaller fish.”

““Understood.””

A full hour passed by.

The discussion was sidetracked time and time again, not due to any misbehavior by any of the coalition's factions, but by the immensity of details they had to figure out before committing to any plan. Supreme Commander Pedro, being inflexible as he was, abolished Angelo’s simple idea of enjoyment and “having a good time” and come out of the whole thing empty-handed. Diplomacy wasn’t his forte, but with Vera’s help sorting out his ideas and elaborating on them with her dexterity for words, a compromise was reached. Each ‘couple’ was given certain countries to infiltrate and extract whatever piece of information they could, whether it was their officers' identity, a list of their favorite tactics, or if they had an AWP user in the mix. No matter how small, any and all information could prove the deciding factor in the battles to come. Consequently, to avoid arousing suspicion, the couples would only share information once they had safely logged out of the Bermuda System. All countries except Germania, Romania, and England were game, targeted for an immediate approach, while the big three were to be kept under a watchful eye from afar.

And so, with everything ready, the time had come.