VR WARS Volume II - Coalition Army

CLADDED IN DUST

Abruptly, an armored car appeared at their position, the speed of which must’ve been greater than the weight of the occupants inside it, seeing as the moment the driver hit the breaks, it took a few meters of sliding on the clay-type earth on the field for the vehicle to come to a complete halt. The gashing dust cloud it kicked into the air showered all in the near vicinity in a light brown, much to everyone's disdain. Then, just as the students were beginning to rouse their angry voices at the perpetrators, a single man lifted the hatch of the armored car and stepped out. Ironically, given his career's opening acts, his unexpected appearance was enough to subdue any further dissent.

“…It’s him!”

“What’s he doing at the front?!”

The first thing Mara noticed was the cold night color of his hair, then that cynical smile flashing across his face; his most distinctive trait handed down solely to him. Its hidden power, capable of sending shivers down anyone’s spine upon looking directly at it, was absolute.

To many, he was a bright star brimming its guiding light from the void to lead the fallen souls to salvation. To Mara, he was the exact definition of the opposite. Where her companions saw the light, she saw endless darkness. A massive black hole from which there was indeed no salvation, its mass engulfed everything in its path, and his ambition to claim victory over foe and ally was interminable. Mara admired and feared him at the same time.

…The Angel of Death…

Disliking, even more, the title he accredited himself after his grand debut at Bunker Hill, seeing that claiming lives to her was no laughing matter, Mara retreated from the overwhelming aura as Angelo approached the cluster of students. In a way, she could almost sense every warm feeling and thought inside of her being sucked out. Moreover, she found his nickname distasteful; she was there to save lives for one, and he was there to take them.

Although she understood its purpose, Mara saw it as an extension of her education, a valuable experience to see the different kinds of injuries that devastated people and practice how to treat them and prevent the worse from happening. The entire competition for her was a means to an end, that end being the continuation of her studies to become a professional medical doctor. Indeed, she was there and felt grateful for having such a rare opportunity.

Yet, contradicting her logical viewpoint of the entire situation, deep down, Mara hated it all. She didn’t take pleasure in doing what she did; having her job meant she had to deal with not only her companions' injuries but their feelings as well. Each person showed her what they really felt when on the brink of death; shock, sadness, and worse, disappointment. Mara came to pick up the habit of not looking at the faces of the ones she treated solely to prevent her emotions from spilling out. Unlike her Commander, whom she got the feeling enjoyed nothing more than the chaos and misfortunes of war. He embraces the fame, the constant obstacles placed to bar his way with a smile that screams for more…The change he underwent before this tournament is radical. Before, he was calm, walking like a ghost without drawing any attention whatsoever. But now…it’s like a different person took his body hostage—a person whose sole goal is to spread the ashes of destruction.

As if the elements favored Angelo, the dust thrown into the air seemed to resonate around him, almost like a staggering miniature-sized sandstorm shielding his appearance from the eyes of mortals. But the shape of it coming together portrayed something different; for some time, it looked like dust particles were taking on another form, that of a woman…embracing him.

Naturally, that had to be merely her imagination playing tricks on her; no way could that actually be happening. Still, even after blinking twice and narrowing down her field of vision with the focus skill, that ominous presence remained with arms wrapped around the young UAT Commander. Yet, all of Mara’s staring inadvertently drew attention towards herself, and the strange woman realized this as well, looking towards her with nothing but ominous intentions, then vanishing in a flash.

…W-what…was…that…? With her brain working at double the speed to unveil the mystery she had just witnessed, Mara overlooked her surroundings, ignoring all other senses that warned her that something behind her was not right. Feeling chilly in her back like she had been washed through with ice water, Mara turned around and saw the ghostly reflection of the woman from before, this time dressed in complete white.

Goosebumps rose in her arms.

The woman’s white bangs perfectly hid her eyes, yet her creepy presence was enough to shut Mara’s voice entirely and institute fear.

“…a…”

Muffled sounds echoed in the proximity, but the fear had her trapped in a cage of her own body.

“…ra…”

The sounds began to clear up a bit.

“Mara?... Are you okay?!"

“Ye-yeah…” she muttered with a cracking voice. The fear still poured through her veins. However, all of her apprehensions at looking back soon were for naught as the almost ghostly appearance was nowhere to be seen. Was it a hallucination? I’m sure I saw something…damn, this heat is unbearable. Following her train of thought, guessing what she needed the most, a blinking debuff depicted by three circles and a transparent droplet of water lit up below Mara’s HP bar, alerting her to a dangerous status effect that came from thirst known as dehydration.

The steppe's hot summer days were a hazard bigger than bullets and a cruel reminder of the PXF’s potential for difficulty increase in every stage. Born in a tropical place, where the summers were mild and the winters non-existent, the UAT students struggled to acclimate to the weather more so than their counterparts. The IF students coming from the very center of the Iberian Peninsula were used to dry summers and the mainland's high temperatures. As the hours went by, it could be said that suffering from heat stroke was becoming a common occurrence. Dammit! Why is this happening?! I’ve been careful enough to drink water regularly…why is this showing up now?

Immediately she reached for her canteen to refill her dry body, and that’s when she noticed the big hole going from one end to the other. Without her noticing how close she came to becoming a casualty of war, an enemy bullet had traveled the fields to miraculously impact her canteen, saving her life, but leaving her without the only water source she could carry.

“Here, doc,” a limping man, the same who had called out to her seconds ago, handed her his own canteen, a small gesture in his long list to pay her back, somehow. “All that running around will make anyone thirsty, take mine, ”

“…Thank you.”

He smiled and watched Mara quench her thirst to clear the debuff that was already eating away at her precious hit points.

“Where’s Lieutenant Cristina?” The Commander’s cold voice that seemed like the prelude before the storm quickly put everyone on their toes, unsure what to expect. “Cris, where the hell are you?”

“…R-right here…sir!”

Angelo sighed, then nodded his head in a disapproving gesture, looking around the devastated battleground bursting with collapsed IF students and the sight of the destroyed half-track still bursting with flames close by. “Regarding your orders to bypass any enemy strongholds you encountered…care to explain?”

“Y-yes…sir…we tried,” Cristina said, looking apologetic. “But with the presence of anti-weapons here, we thought if we left them alone, they could snipe away at our tanks.”

“…How many?”

“Huh? Sir–”

“I asked you how many casualties you sustained. How many people have you lost since the start?”

Clenching her fists, Cristina could feel the pressure on her shoulders increasing; she knew that all her decisions thus far hadn’t been without reasoning; all of her efforts had paid off, especially when it came to a body count. This action was her third engagement in less than two hours. Under her guidance, the first company had completely obliterated all the opponents that had met them so far, with at least three hundred IF students having died at her student’s hands and her decisions. But doing so did not come without a cost.

And although she had a rough idea of the number, Cristina moved her fingers vertically to open up her menu so that she could better ascertain the number of students left still under her command.

“…”

Her silence more than confirmed Angelo’s suspicions.

“Sev-seventeen dead…thirty-two wounded,” she stumbled on her words as she finally realized the totality of her losses and the consequences of her actions.

Angelo scratched the back of his head as he contemplated the devastation inflicted by the 1st Company of Ricardo’s Battalion. In a way, Mara could tell from afar that he looked at Cristina and her students with pride, especially in her way of tackling the many obstacles that blocked their way—but not following his orders reflected another side to him.

“Next time, follow the chain of command, or I’ll find someone else who will,” his voice transmitted only scorn as the scolding began, but then, as if having an instantaneous change of heart, he approached the gloomy-looking Cristina and patted her shoulder. “…On another note, and I’m sure Marco will feel the same way when I say this…for sparing our tanks from falling into an ambush, our gratitude…my gratitude is forever yours. All of your sacrifices here have made my job a little easier. Good work, Lieutenant.”