~ The Trail of Bones, The Charge Over the Grosser Priel ~
(CAN - ESL - EUR - MAT - MEK - WAR)
November the Twentieth, Twenty-One Forty-Two. The howling cantata of a blizzard rang like a death knell in the amber dawn sky, bringing in its song a razor chill to bear down upon the army travelling through the snow-bleached mountain forests. On the surface, the thump of hydraulic legs reverberated in the atmosphere as the AST-C hexapod assault walkers of the Eighth VDV regiment navigated the alpine forest in columns, walking fortresses bearing enough firepower to break open a mountain. Accompanying each walker was five tetrapod AST-N walkers, several of them with light anti-air missile pods to keep enemy warplanes at bay. Not far behind, a company of TU-48 bipedal mechwalkers, all bearing mighty fusion laser cannons and heavy stormhammer-arms able to break apart skyscrapers with a single swipe. At the very rear of the army was the artillery – TOS-50 Krikun rocket-flamethrower systems, ready to bathe the enemy in hellfire from their mounts on the backs of several AST-Cs.
Following each in their slow march to war, thousands of soldiers bound in black powered armour and bearing arms. Amidst the columns of troopers, the Chthonian hypersoldiers, fifteen in number and equivalent to a thousand in strength each – the fabled paladins of the Mechanocratic Ideology. Elena Trotskaya, Ajax, Persey, Kheraklz, Antey, Arkhantos, Odissey, Peley, Kalliopa, Akhilles, Dedal, Abderus, Telamon, Neley and Zetes: all bar one bore the name of a hero or heroine from ancient Greek myth, a reminder of their deeply-held values of honour, bravery and supremacy of antiquity.
Their destination loomed over the landscape like an immense sea of ivory spikes jutting forth from the mountain surface. The imposing Dead Mountain range, Totes Gebirge. At its peak, the crown of the mighty Grosser Priel mountain. After the invasion of Kosice, the firestorm in Bratislava, the conquest of Vienna's equine guardians that were the Schlachtross tanks and the metamorphosis of the Danube into blood, they had finally arrived at their main objective – the defensive line between Szczecin and Trieste, what was once the site of the fabled Iron Curtain of the first Cold War. The Totes Gebirge was the weakest point in the entire line – hence why today, it was to be assaulted, so that the Mecharussian Armed Forces could surge through the line from the east. Mission success would be achieved if the regiment were to cross the treacherous passage from Hinterstoder into the Ackerwald Forest and reach the village of Seehaus on the other side of the Totes Gebirge.
At the helm of the attacking army of men and steel – atop the right shoulder of one of her walkers, a TU-48 model named Begemot – General Trotskaya, the Red Tigress, power-armoured in black and grey, swathed in a hooded cloak as red as the blood that flowed through her artificial veins. Deymos, the longsword of her own design, lay clasped in her left armoured gauntlet, the tip of its monomolecular blade resting on the tank as the onyx-black pommel, fashioned so as to resemble an angry skull, matched with its eyes of ruby its wielder's gaze into the forest ahead. The task of the General's bionic optical augments, two burning crimsoned suns, was to survey the distant mountainside for defences, targets to be struck down by the heavy Gauss howitzers of her walkers. Eight miles away, from the staging area outside of Hinterstoder, the structure of a fortress could be perceived, nestled into the heart of the mountain. The heavily-gated pass between Grosser Priel and the peak to the immediate south; the first to break through before the rest of the mountain could be assaulted. As dawn began to emerge in the far distance, the time to begin the ascent to the Totes Gebirge was upon her and her army.
"Andropov," she used her radio set to convey an order to one of the colonels under her command with an authoritative shout, "prepare your left flank."
"Yes, Ma'am!" Andropov's crisp reply sounded. The replies of each commander of hers were just as eager, ready and waiting for the taste of blood.
"Rudnitsky!" she barked to another colonel whose forces were at her rear. "Have your walkers follow mine down the centre!"
"Yes, Ma'am!"
"Golovkin!" she addressed the starboard flank, where her latest officer stood. "Take your platoon right once we breach the forest!"
"Yes, Ma'am!"
"Go forth, brave soldiers, and fear not the forces of darkness!"
"YES, MA'AM!"
The army was ready, the guns were locked and loaded and the cloud-paved skies began to part, as though mighty Ares himself was readying his Olympian throne to bear witness to the spectacle of war. Chest pulsating as condensed air vented forth from her lungs as the billowing smoke of a terrible bonfire raging within, Trotskaya returned her sword alongside her and revolved herself to face the many amassed onyx soldiers below her eyrie, gathered to wage war at her side.
"
BROTHERS, SISTERS, SONS AND DAUGHTERS OF GREAT RUSSIA, ADHERENTS OF THE MECHANOCRATIC PROMISE!! FOR MANY LONG YEARS HAVE WE BEEN HATED, VILIFIED BY THE SCOURGE THAT IS THE EUROPEAN FEDERATION!! THEY CALL THEMSELVES THE VANGUARDS OF DEMOCRACY AND FREEDOM, IDEOLOGIES FAILED BY THE SUNDERING, ALL WHILE HIDING BEHIND THEIR FORTRESS WALLS, TAUNTING US!! THEY BELIEVE THAT WE ARE AFRAID OF THEM AND THEIR FRENKISH MASTERS ACROSS THE OCEAN, BLISSFULLY UNAWARE OF THE TRULY COLOSSAL FIRESTORM OF RAGE AND ANGER THAT IS ABOUT TO BE SET LOOSE UPON THEM, LIKE EVER-FAITHFUL HOUNDS OF THE HUNT!!"
The very forests seemed to shudder before her voice as its impassioned fury reverberated in echo through the woods, to be heard by any and all who she endeavoured to hearken unto it.
"
BUT NO LONGER SHALL WE STAND POWERLESS WHILE THIS MOCKERY OF A NATION LAUGHS AT US!! EVEN NOW, WE CARVE UP THEIR LANDS, WELCOMING THEIR EMASCULATED PEOPLE INTO THE FOLDS OF THE MACHINE RACE TO JOIN OUR GLORIOUS WORLDWIDE REVOLUTION OF STEEL!! IT IS ON THIS DAY THAT THE PLUTOCRATS WHO ONCE RULED THESE LANDS SHALL KNOW OUR TRUE POWER, OUR TRUE CAPABILITIES!! IT HAS BEEN A HARD RIDE FOR ALL OF US, SOLDIERS, BUT IT IS NOW THAT WE STAND UNAFRAID, UNPERTURBED BY THE EMPTY THREATS OF THEIR ARMIES, READY TO REAP THEIR PITIFUL LIVES ONCE AGAIN!!"
Ascending skyward, her sword of war was raised upward, its razor point challenging the great heavens themselves to stop her army's imminent onslaught.
"
ARISE, ARISE, WARRIORS OF GREAT RUSSIA!! GUNS SHALL RATTLE, ARMOUR SHALL BE SPLINTERED, AND VULTURES SHALL GORGE UPON FALLEN THOUSANDS!! TODAY SHALL BE A DAY OF SWORDS, A DAY OF BULLETS, A DAY OF RED, ERE THE MIGHTY SUN AWAKENS FROM HER NIGHTLY SLUMBER TO BEAR WITNESS TO OUR TRIUMPH!!! NOW FLY, FLY WITH ME AS ANGELS OF ESCHATOLOGY AND RUINATION!!! FLY WITH ME TO BATTLE, ANGELS OF WAR, AND TOGETHER, WE SHALL BE THE ENACTORS OF DEATH!!!!"
"UUURRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGHHHH!!!!!"And with the titanic, uniform invocation of that rallying-cry, an inferno was born, raging in the hearts of every one of Trotskaya's soldiers inspired by her sacrament. The assembled troops began their slow march into the forest, the hydraulic plodding of the battlewalkers not far behind. The Red Tigress herself was there to oversee the incursion into the Totes Gebirge, the crown of Grosser Priel looming overhead as she watched over the warriors under her iron command. With the three armies on the move to their target, ready to strike down the three gates of Grosser Priel as great Poseidon's trident, the attack on the Iron Curtain had begun.
A slow and steady traipse through the forest up the snow-bleached foothill of the Totes Gebirge, trees giving way before the thunderous advance of walking fortresses bipedal, quadrupedal and hexapedal. Behind them, the many soldiers of Trotskaya's regiment, not a single warrior afraid to enter the valley of the shadow of death, with no fear of evil. The distant, tumultuous roar of enemy artillery sounded like trumpets of war, an indication that the army had been sighted.
"Spread out your forces," the General coldly commanded on her radio. "Prepare your troops to fight. It is time."
"Yes, Ma'am!" all three of her junior commanders responded as crisply as each other. Trotskaya herself had readied her winged flight pack, preparing to leap into the fray to wage battle alongside her warriors as first among equals. Drawing forth her shortened assault rifle from her back, wielding it in her hand freed from the left's duty of bearing Deymos, she prepared to call once again.
"
CHTHONIANS, ON ME!!!" she bellowed as she leapt forth from Begemot's shoulder, flight pack breaking her fall as she struck the feathery forest floor. Arms spread like an eagle preparing to dive upon its prey, she prepared to sprint into combat as the wolven howls of falling shells invaded the morning atmosphere.
Like the hammer of Thor did the artillery strike, the thumping cacophony of explosions wracking the air. The forces of each impact threw dense clouds of snow into the empyrean, broken body parts amidst some of the gelid cirri behind Trotskaya. Rowdy shockwaves shoved their way through any extant tree in their path, dashing them to the cold floor. In four volleys the Europeans pounded the rocky anvil beneath the Mecharussians' feet, the artillery their hammer; most missed their marks, but some crashed into the heart of the Red Tigress' advance, tossing into the sky hapless soldiers and a few walkers that were flipped onto their backs alike turtles capsized onto their shells, beyond help.
A simple hammer could not break the infallible bravery of the Eighth VDV regiment and their Chthonic guardians, however. Even as soldiers clad in ivory and azure began to take shape amidst the hoar-dusted conifers and the great exchange of blue and red tracer fire, the European moon and the Russian sun at war, commenced its deadly lightshow, they continued their immovable charge. At the head of the offensive, assault weapon in her right hand disgorging flechettes at a pace of six hundred rounds per minute, was the Tigress herself. Incoming fire was practically absorbed by the flaming warblade borne in her tight left fist, commanded by Trotskaya's augmented perception and superhuman reflexes. The knights Chthonic joined their battle-sister and her armies in the fray, melee-oriented soldiers breaking into a charge into enemy lines and rangers at the General's side, suppressing any and all European soldiers who would dare to consider outflanking their commander.
Every now and again the brutal, electric thump of a Gauss howitzer would sound, followed two seconds later by a distant explosive crash. The AST-Cs were firing for maximum effect, pounding the mountain fortress and busying enemy artillery. TU-48s would follow suit, their shoulder-mounted fusion laser cannons lashing the fortifications with their crimson solar death-rays. Comfortably returning fire was an array of laser towers, arising from their bunker emplacements like vicious sapphire eyestalks, azure beams coalescing and blaring forth from the focusing lenses atop their masts. More than one Mecharussian battlewalker found itself impaled by a furious cerulean heat ray, speared through the heart like a beast.
"We must destroy those laser towers before they tear us apart!" Trotskaya shouted into her radio amidst the adjacent roar of angry gunfire. "All forces, continue to press your advance! Abderus, Dedal, Zetes, follow me into the sky!"
"Yes, sister!" was the triple response that crackled through her radio.
The Red Tigress was soon airborne, leaping into the sky the second her flight pack was active and bursting over the treetops. From the height of one hundred metres off of the ground she could adequately survey the battlefield, bearing witness to the primal exchange of fire crimson and cerulean. One of the laser towers, now ascertained to be an X-40 Prétorien Tactical High Energy Laser emplacement, caught sight of her and turned its menacing icy gaze toward her, charging its death ray and forcing her to weave through the sky to dodge the incoming blast.
Good, thought she, for if the enemy's heavy weapons was focused upon her, then they were not so upon the more vulnerable ground troops below. Effortlessly evading the azure beam carving into the snow-clouds above the warzone, she witnessed the three Chthonic soldiers following her into the air from their prior positions, and prepared to fly her way to the laser tower that had dared to accost her. Sword powered up and ready to bring to bear, she waited for the laser to cease its assault before jetting toward it for a low pass.
Thrash. As a flaming knife through tender flesh, Deymos' monomolecular plasma-augmented blade reaped the tower through its mast, causing the structure to collapse with a cascading explosion. Making touchdown in the trench guarding its bunker once the startled Federal troops discovered that they were under attack from the Red Tigress, she unleashed her blade against the hostile belligerents. Once again, bullets rocketed off of her blade and armour as she carved her way through their ranks.
Dedal was about to make landfall ahead and clear out the trench after Trotskaya when he spotted a rustling in the snow. Something was arising from within, having been meticulously hidden from sight. What that something was became immediately clear when he landed on the top of its turret...
Trotskaya turned at the sound of a succession of explosions, and her eyes dilated when she watched the warrior Dedal be ripped to pieces by shrapnel from the proximity mine belt of a Schlachtross tank. Her attention was then turned to a rumble from some twenty metres away as the snowdrift seemed to erupt, heavy railgun glaring at her. Just as it unleashed its attack with a thunderous crash, she raised her sword to a defensive position, relying upon her phenomenal reflexes to duck, sweep and cleave the incoming explosive round in half with the edge of her blade.
"SCHLACHS IN THE SNOWDRIFTS!!!" she frantically bellowed into her radio, just as she gracefully leapt behind a trench wall to dodge incoming laser fire from the tank's pintle-gun. "DEDAL IS DEAD! ABDERUS, ZETES, SEEK COVER!!"
"Yes, sister!"
"Yes, sist-AAAGH!!"
That last cry from Abderus did not bode any good. In the trench after where Dedal had fallen, Trotskaya could only watch as the Chthonian began to grapple with a Schlach that had burst out of a pile of snow and attacked him. Waddling out of its ambush position, the tank impressed its huge, stubby leg onto Abderus' chest, the warrior struggling to stop himself from being crushed. Fighting off a bear trying to squash him was one matter. Doing the same with a sixty-tonne tank was quite another, something that became patently obvious when his armour eventually buckled and splintered under the colossal pressure and, after vomiting up blood through his mask, the Chthonian was defeated with a sickening crunch.
"ABDERUS!!" Trotskaya shrieked in manic desperation, only to catch the attention of the offending Schlachtross. Before it could end her with a cannon blast, however, the tank suddenly burst into flames per mandate of a crimson laser light, cast forth from one of the TU-48 walkers below. Specifically, the walker astride which Trotskaya had been when she made her grandiose speech.
Begemot was sprinting up the hillside as fast as his goliath legs could carry him, attracting the ire of the laser emplacements. Before one of them could charge up and finish him, however, the forty-metre tall mechwalker grabbed the mast of the cannon in his left fist, twisted it to the side and caused it to unleash its terrible blue beam against its own lines, gouging a blazing trench into the mountainside as it tore through the remaining Prétoriens and their EFAC custodians. Once the fortifications had been satisfactorily ravaged, Begemot yanked the THEL tower upward out of the ground like an offensive weed in the garden.
The Schlach that had dared to target Trotskaya was facing its own attack from the Chthonian Persey, shield raised and spear-tip blazing with fiery ichor. After the aspis soaked the proximity mine shrapnel like a sponge, the Unbreakable Wall thrust the plasma-coated spear into the underside of the tank, impaling it through the belly and causing its ammunition stocks to detonate with a mighty crash.
As debris rained down from the sky, Trotskaya herself caught sight of an all-too familiar shape in heavy red power armour and a wendigo-horn helmet, shotgun muzzle smoking as if he had just cleared out a nearby bunker.
"Don't tell me the tanks are giving you a hard time, sister!" the familiar bass of Ajax's voice japed as he offered his hand to the General.
"Do not be absurd!" she returned the banter with a grin as she grabbed the warrior's crimson armoured gauntlet. Once she returned to her feet, the smirk fell from her into a frown. "Dedal and Abderus are dead. Schlachs got them both. Bastards were hiding in the snow..."
Ajax nodded in acknowledgement. Though she would be loath to openly state her emotions, there was a way for him to decipher that Trotskaya was upset and angry: her usage of a curse word. Every time a brother or a sister perished, it hit her with the force of a burning hammer to the back of the head. Still, she was a strong commander with nerves of titanium: there had been many worse battles fought than this so far.
"We shall mourn them after we're done here," Ajax sympathised. "Persey and I have already swept the south trenches; Antey, Kheraklz and Neley are clearing out the north, while the remaining siblings are keeping ground forces occupied in the forest."
A mighty crash sounded from the centre of the trenches as the giant mechwalker ravaging the central trench brought his stormhammer to bear, its unstable fusion core disgorging the massive shockwave from which the hammer derived its name as it slammed into the ground.
"Oh, and Begemot and his walkers are pushing the centre. Now come, sister: let's win this fight! The valley gates are less than a kilometre from this position!"
"Then we shall tear down the gates and press our offensive!" Trotskaya stoically acknowledged Ajax's recommendation. "Zetes, status report!"
"Alive and well, sister! We're pushing into the centre now!"
Great relief washed over Trotskaya's psyche as it was evident that a third Chthonian had not fallen on this day. Her latest concern, however, revolved around for how long that would actually be the case. With the forests below the fortifications aflame with the mania of battle, she could have been forgiven for believing that there were tens of thousands of Federal troops bearing down upon the advancing Mecharussian army. The solace derived from the knowledge of Zetes' continued battling expanded as she bore witness to growing numbers of enemy soldiers retreating to the mountains across the bare snowfields, thin veins of trenches sprawling from the forest-border fortification to the colossal main gates, its wall joining the Grosser Priel mountain to the peak to its immediate south.
"Set the trenches before the gates afire with napalm," Trotskaya commanded into her radio, "Burn out any tanks hiding beneath the snow! Walkers advance across the trenches before the troops! Make no error, we are dealing with determined and well-equipped foes in these trenches! Golovkin! Once the flamethrower-walkers fire on the trenches, take them and advance eastward as we planned! Andropov, follow Rudnitsky and my men until we get past the gates, then split off from us and go around the southern mountain! Begemot, lead the charge against the gates on my mark!"
"Yes, Ma'am!"
"Yes, Ma'am!"
"Yes, Ma'am!"
"My pleasure, General!"
Just as the offensive was about to commence, a dull, thundering clank resounded from the direction of the gates. Slowly, the behemoth fortifications began to sink into the ground, as though to grant the retreating troops ahead salvation from the wrathful Mecharussians. Once the gate collapsed into the ground below, however, what was sighted was no welcoming hand for the retreat, which had instead taken up positions close to the gate, but an iron fist poised to crash upon their aggressors. Tanks. Panther 1A3s. Panzer Schlachtrossen. All in V-formations. Guarding them, a greatly-dreaded sight that forced Trotskaya's eyes to dilate.
Landkreuzer 1A1s. One for each of the three gates: three towering supertanks, monstrous laser cannons glaring at them like terrible azure eyes.
"What do we do, sister?" Ajax enquired.
At the pressing question, Trotskaya narrowed her eyes toward the rolling fortresses that sought the destruction of the Russian army. Her army. But faced with a threat this great, there was little choice but to enact her next command.
"We take them head on," she replied to Ajax, before bellowing into her radio again. "Form ranks and prepare to charge! Keep moving, do not reload your weapon, and get up close to their troops – so that we may face them as warriors! Walkers, suppress their tanks! Artillery, open fire on the fortifications! The time to wage Excidium is now!! Not a single step back!!"
With an almighty breath, she turned to the Chthonians by her side, the General's godlike voice at its apex in thunderous volume.
"BROTHERS AND SISTERS, I CALL UPON THEE!!"
"WE HEAR YOUR VOICE AND HEARKEN TO IT, SISTER!!"
"IS YOUR FAITH AS STRONG AND YOUR BLADE AS TRUE AS MINE?!"
"AS STRONG AS THE MOUNTAINS AND AS TRUE AS WE STAND BEFORE YOU, SISTER!!"
"FOR AS LONG AS I REMAIN STEADFAST BEFORE THE FORCES OF EVIL, I SHALL NEVER KNOW FEAR!!!"
"OUR RESOLVE SHALL BE UNBROKEN, SISTER!!!"
"IF YOU, MY SIBLINGS IN WAR, STAND AS TALL AS I BEFORE THE FORCES OF EVIL, I SHALL NEVER KNOW DEATH!!!"
"WE STAND SO TALL AS TO THREATEN THE HEAVENS, SISTER!!!"
"IF YOU ARE AS FEARLESS AS I BEFORE THE FORCES OF EVIL, WE TOGETHER SHALL NEVER KNOW DEFEAT!!!"
"THE FORCES OF EVIL SHALL KNOW OUR DEFIANCE, SISTER!!!"
Overhead, the roar of artillery rockets so numerous in number as to darken the morning sky shuddered through the gelid air of winter. Golovkin's offensive was an evident success, to Trotskaya's great relief. On prompt, Deymos was uplifted from its resting place on the ground, its baleful blade levelled outward to point to the enemy charge.
"IF YOU SHOULD DIE, MY EVERY WORD AND MY EVERY BREATH WILL RESONATE WITH YOUR UNDYING LEGACY!!!"
"YOUR LEGACY WILL SHARE OUR IMMORTALITY, SISTER!!!"
Plasma, blazing with heat in advance of the inferno that raged upon the surface of Sol herself, crept up the blade of Deymos to enshroud it in vermillion fire.
"IF I SHOULD DIE..."In the distance the incendiary rockets crashed to the floor, the trenches bearing the massed Federal infantry soaked in hellfire and smoking brimstone.
"...THEN I SHALL TAKE EVERY LAST MOTHERFUCKER WHO FIGHTS FOR EVIL TO HELL WITH ME!!!!""UUURRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGHHHH!!!!!"Once again the bellow of resonant thunder rolled through the mountains, the angry cries of soldiers with ironclad determination to wage war and destroy those who would dare to threaten their beloved nation. Sword outstretched in one hand and rifle in the other, Trotskaya was the very first to break into a sprint. Followed soon was she by the knights Chthonic: Ajax and Persey at her left side, Kheraklz and Antey to her right, and the rest in formation on all sides of the offensive.
Like the Gjallarhorn did the magmatic thump announcing the discharge of the hexapod mechwalkers' magnetic artillery rampage through the alpine air, heralding the beginning of the attack. Within minutes, thousands of soldiers flooded into the trench-veins before the gates, covered by the thunderous barrage of howitzers whose heavy shells slammed into distant encroaching tank formations. The flamethrower-rockets kept up the firestorm for a kilometre ahead, a creeping barrage holding the enemy's infantry at bay with a wall of flame. Close behind the Chthonians leading the charge, Begemot and his warband of TU-48 mecha, their giant laser cannons blaring like the trumpets of the apocalypse as they ripped into the enemy armoured formations. In retaliation, flashes of blue were spotted in the distance as the tanks unleashed their own barrage of shells to wage ruination upon the incoming mechwalkers.
The inferno threatening to consume the Federation's soldiers forced them from their defensive positions and into the open. Seeing little recourse but to follow the tanks into the valley of the shadow of death, they too sallied forth into a charge to challenge the black-clad Mecharussian warriors forging their way through the storm of laser blasts, tank shells and bullet fire. As both sides waded into the flames deposited by the Krikuns' incendiary rockets, the Landkreuzers blasted their devastating main guns into the lines of Mecharussians wading through the trenches, all while autocannons distracted the walkers. The Panthers and the Schlachs ceased their tremendous charge, came to a halt and blasted their guns into the approaching formations of TU-48s. Most shells ricocheted off of the armoured hulls of the walkers, but a handful blazed through their hulls. Two went down within the first few minutes of the conflagration, but not before they closed upon their targets, stormhammers ready to shatter the counter-charge.
The central Landkreuzer, attention focused upon the incoming assault walkers, loosed a massive blue death beam into the main group, Begemot at the head of the charge being forced to dive out of the way of the sweeping laser blast to avoid being carved up by it. Other walkers were not so quick, and the blistering swipe of the luminous ray tore several of them in twain.
"GONNA NEED SOME HELP HERE!!!" the colossus Begemot called through the radio as he grabbed a nearby Panther tank in his left hand and hurled it at the offending Landkreuzer, striking its laser cannon and taking it out of commission.
"I am on them!" Trotskaya, already preparing to jump into the air with her flight pack, responded in earnest. Sword aflame, she bounded into the air and proceeded via flight toward the stricken Landkreuzer, which along with its two fellow supertanks began to reverse in order to distance themselves from the attacking mecha. Missile and rail turrets dotted the frame of the titanic war machine and were already firing their payloads at the Mecharussians in lieu of the crippled laser cannon.
Successfully outflanking the tank, Deymos at the ready, she braved dense gunfire from the ground to tackle the rolling fortress. First, a swipe through the vulnerable right 'leg' carrying the starboard treads: Trotskaya, sword at her side, dragged the plasma-coated blade through the thick armour, circling around the huge strut as she did so. The fixture immediately began to bend and flex under the tank's colossal weight, the Tigress sweeping her blade through the behemoth's four central treads at the rear to bring the death machine to a crashing halt. With a squeal of metalloid agony and anger, the strut snapped, and the mighty Landkreuzer keeled over onto its starboard side with a tumultuous crash.
As the victorious Trotskaya swung around the port side of her kill, an explosion blossomed mere metres just before her, filling her face with shrapnel and causing her to shriek with pain. Another struck just above her frame, crippling the flight pack and forcing her from the sky. One of the other Landkreuzers, flak cannons on its top blaring into the sky, had caught sight of her zooming through and opened fire on her, so she realised as her lissom frame careened into the ground with a crash.
Breaking her right arm against the mountainous rocks as she struck the floor with another grunt, blood cascading down her face from shards of metal, she briefly fell unconscious on the field. When she awoke, thirty seconds later, she sprouted a horrified gaze as the Landkreuzer had drawn to a halt, judgemental azure eye gazing upon her as it prepared to fire its laser cannon.
So this is how my tale ends? At least, I shall die on the battlefield. Forgive me, Ivan. Forgive me, father, for my shameful death...As the thunderous roar of blue laser light seemed to consume her, her eyes were narrowed as she gazed into a second sun, enraged and cerulean. It was then that she bore witness to a man before her, death ray breaking against an all-too familiar huge aspis shield like an oceanic wave against a wall. Once the laser died down, the Landkreuzer expending all of its power into that one hateful blast, she heard the rattling, hoarse voice of one of the Chthonians:
"You're not allowed to die while my shield stands."
"Persey...?" Trotskaya mumbled. "You came to save me?"
Persey, the Unbreakable Wall, had come to her salvation at the very last second. Before the Landkreuzer responsible for her near death could retaliate, the frame of Begemot brought his heavy stormhammer to bear, a thunderous ringing resonating across the landscape as he struck the top of the supertank like a colossal gong, the war machine exploding into a thousand shards as Begemot smashed the titan apart.
"Golovkin," Persey turned and growled, shield weeping metal liquefied by the laser blast. "The General requires medical aid. I shall protect you."
"I'm on it!" the Lieutenant acknowledged as he made his way to the wounded Red Tigress, the Wall maintaining his guardian posture as a periodic icy crack resounded from the gun on his shoulder – his favoured cryogenic blastgun, flash-freezing Federal troops foolish enough to get close. At once Golovkin produced a repair kit to fix up Trotskaya's broken right arm, applying his skills in medicine to where the limb had snapped at the elbow joint.
"Where is Ajax?" Trotskaya enquired as Golovkin proceeded to repair her, noticing that Persey's best friend was nowhere to be seen.
"He is dead," the Wall responded. "Arkhantos, Zetes, Neley and Telamon went down with him. They bought me and Golovkin time to come to rescue you."
"Ajax..." Trotskaya whispered, tears growing in her eyes. "I ... led them to their deaths...?"
"No, sister," Persey consoled. "It was he who led himself to his doom, with the knowledge of his noble sacrifice. If it is any consolation, he and the other brothers took down many hundreds of enemy troops while they created their distraction."
"Then we must fight on," the General pronounced, fighting back a tide of lachrymation as she got to her feet, picking up her dropped rifle with her newly-fixed right arm. "For our fallen brothers – not just Chthonic, but Mecharussian too! We shall conquer these gates!"
"I shall fight alongside you, sister," the Wall grinned and encouraged.
"I'm with you all the way, General!" Golovkin followed up.
"And wherever
he goes," a heavily-built armoured soldier behind him, breastplate tagged with '
SGT MIKHAILOV' and lugging an RPN-66-3 microgun, "
I go!"
"Don't think for a second I'm missing out on the action!" a fifth voice called from the radio as Begemot lumbered toward the impromptu fireteam. The walker himself.
"Then let us proceed to
TEAR DOWN THESE GATES!!!" Trotskaya chanted, sword levelled forward and challenging the mighty wall that lay before her.
"
Uraaaaah!!!" the four men called, emulating the titanic chant that resonated through these mountains twice before.
Stolid warriors taking positions as they prepared to battle their way to the behemoth gates, Trotskaya with her sword and Golovkin, Mikhailov, Persey and the giant Begemot ever faithful by her side, they faced the European soldiers before them as the thrilling cacophonies of war in all of its brilliance thundered around them, they unleashed their might as they strode forward to conduct their epic conquest. On this day, a bond would forever be forged as the five fought through the enemy azure, black Chernydrakony close behind them, their collective victory as assured as the blood spilled on this day by the General's sun-blade.