After the Cyma Unit got formed, they decided we needed a bit more training because apparently, "not dying immediately" required a refresher.
Nothing much happened.
There was one highlight, which was the Knight.
Eight feet tall. Armored like a tank. Armed like a gunship. The kind of walking death machine that made every nerd's wet dream come true and gave actual war planners a hard-on.
Originally, they were made for construction. Digging, lifting, clearing rubble, good, clean industrial work. But some genius looked at one and said, "You know what this needs? A missile rack."
So now they're battlefield-ready mechs.
The kind of walking billboard that screamed, Shoot me first.
Sure, they're mobile—barely. They've got jump thrusters on the limbs and a backpack, which made them look cool leaping over trenches, but really, they handled like a semi with ADHD.
Still, I was hopeful. I had clearance. Did the tests. Got the certification. Thought maybe, just maybe, I'd finally live the dream of becoming a full-on robot pilot.
And then came the punch to the gut.
The Knights were usually for soldiers who don't have superhuman strength.
That meant me? Too enhanced to qualify.
Apparently, being able to bench a truck disqualified me from driving the truck. Go figure.
My dreams died quietly in the back of the training lot, buried under sarcasm and laughter.
Dan, Foster, and Gino made sure I didn't mourn in peace. They treated my mech dreams like a childhood pet that had to be shot in front of me. Relentless assholes.
Berta and her squad? Oh, they joined in like they'd been rehearsing. Stacy even mimed a little robot walk while doing a sad violin impression. Berta, of course, gave me her usual taunt with that shit-eating grin of hers.
"Oh no," she said, "is our big strong Wilson sad because he can't play with the big robot toy?"
I warned them that I was in the mood to punch someone.
Berta, always the opportunist, leaned in closer. "You wouldn't punch a lady."
I smiled. The kind of smile that said I've got a list and she just made the top three.
"My hands are gender neutral. Equal opportunity ass-kickers."
She looked like she wanted to test that theory, but then got distracted by Stacy and wandered off to flirt instead.
Crisis averted. Barely.
That's when word came in.
Sector 12. Forward units hit resistance. A fresh warband of Orcs pushing into the region.
No recon. No demands. Just blunt, green aggression marching toward us like we owed them something.
Orders came in fast.
Gear up.
Lock and load.
Time to see if Cyma Unit was good for more than bad jokes and bunkhouse drama.
* * *
Dan drove the Humvee like he had something to prove and nothing to lose. We were in the lead, grinding down old asphalt and skeletons of roads while Berta's squad trailed in the rear, her Humvee occasionally bumping along like it had ADHD. The terrain shifted from dead fields to the husk of what was once a city—high-rises now broken teeth gnawing at the sky, glassless windows staring like eye sockets.
The name of the place didn't matter. It used to be something on the maps, probably had a coffee shop every corner back in the day. Now it was just another reminder of how quickly civilization can take a nosedive when magic and monsters hit the fan.
At first, nothing happened.
Quiet. Too quiet. That kind of cliché, yeah, but it still applied.
We entered the city core, the Humvee's tires crunching over debris and bones bleached pale. That's when the sky turned black.
Arrows. Hundreds—maybe thousands—raining down from above like we pissed off a medieval god.
"CONTACT—ABOVE!" I shouted, but it didn't matter. Everyone knew.
Arrows hit the armor and bounced off, metal tapping like rain on a tin roof. One punched through the windshield, sent a web of cracks across the glass, and embedded itself halfway into Dan's chest.
"FUCK!" Dan screamed.
I turned to him. The arrow had stopped at his chainmail. Good thing we weren't cocky enough to skip on layers.
"Still alive?" I asked.
"Just pissed off," Dan growled, yanking the arrow out like a splinter.
Gino dove into the footwell, covering his head, muttering something about how this wasn't in the job description. When the barrage slowed to a trickle, he popped up like a jack-in-the-box, climbed up, and manned the .50 cal.
And then it was our turn.
Gino grinned like a lunatic, opened fire, and turned the skyline into a fireworks show of blood and dust. Kate leaned out the window with her rifle, popping shots with practiced rhythm. Amiel was radioing in reports, her voice flat, calm, like she was ordering groceries. Stacy, for once, wasn't talking about sex and was busy emptying her mag at a cluster of shapes above.
I scanned with my binocs, eyes sweeping up the half-collapsed structures above. The bastards were on the old skywalks—makeshift wooden platforms strung together like scaffolding built by drunken giants.
Then Berta did what Berta does.
"Watch this!" she cackled over the comms.
She grabbed an RPG from her vehicle like it was a lunchbox, aimed at the base of the platform holding the biggest cluster, and BOOM—sent the whole thing down in a glorious mess of splinters and Orc limbs.
The scream was almost musical.
I checked our GPS, confirmed our position, and pushed out the coordinates. We weren't the only ones in trouble. Forward units were reporting ambushes up and down the district. Looked like someone in the enemy command finally decided to stop charging headfirst and try a little finesse.
Too bad for them we had gunships and a bad attitude to non-humans.
"Wilson," Berta said over the comms. "I've got a fresh wave of greenskins charging us."
I lifted my binocs again, and saw the dust trail. A party of about ten to twelve Orcs barreling down like a wrecking ball with legs.
"Copy," I said, reaching for the M203 slung under my rifle.
I opened the Humvee door, dropped to one knee, aimed, estimated the arc, and thump—fired a 40mm grenade right into the pack. It landed square, erupting into a mess of limbs and confusion.
The rest of the team opened up, bullets cutting through the smoke. Berta was already out, LMG roaring as she laid down suppressing fire like a one-woman storm.
One of the Orcs had looped behind her, thinking he was clever.
Big mistake.
She caught him with her left hand mid-swing, pulled him in close, and punched him so hard his jaw probably landed in another zip code. Then she used his body like a bludgeon, slamming him into another charging Orc before slinging her LMG over her back and drawing her axe.
It was barbaric. Beautiful, in a disturbing way.
She cleaved one from shoulder to waist, grabbed another by the throat, lifted it off the ground, and hammered its skull until it looked like mashed fruit. There was blood everywhere, but she didn't even slow down.
Foster joined the mess, bayoneting one in the gut and kicking it down while Gino raked the remaining stragglers with the .50 cal.
I kept shooting center mass, short bursts, until the last of them figured it wasn't worth the trouble and ran.
Dan wanted to chase, of course. So did Gino.
"Oi," I said, standing with a bit of disdain. "If we go charging after every green bastard that runs away, we'll be turning this whole lovely ruin into our graveyard. Let the gunships deal with it. That's what they're paid for and more importantly, it keeps me from sweating."
"But they're getting away," Gino said, half-pouting.
"Let them run," I replied. "Maybe they'll trip over their own dicks on the way."
We radioed in the direction they fled and got confirmation that air support was inbound.
Then came the show.
A few minutes later, the gunships rolled in, sleek and loud, and turned that part of the city into a pile of flaming regrets. The sound alone made my teeth vibrate. Buildings collapsed, flames licked the sky, and the smoke that followed carried the sweet stench of carbonized Orc.
"Beautiful," Dan muttered.
"Like poetry," I agreed.
And that was that. Another notch on the rifle, another fight survived, another section of the map we could start calling ours after we fucked up the rest.
As we regrouped, I lit a smoke and leaned against the Humvee. The squad came together, sweat-soaked, blood-splattered, and riding that post-fight high that always felt like being halfway between alive and insane.
Berta sauntered over, hips swaying, wiping blood off her axe.
"That's enough action for the day, Rus?" she asked.
"For now. I'd like to not die from exhaustion, thank you very much."
She grinned. "You're no fun."
"I'll be fun when there's a shower and no one is trying to shove a spear in my ass."
Stacy gave me a wink. "Still sounds like a good weekend, if you ask me."
I rolled my eyes and looked up at the smoking skyline.
***
After the ambush, Command Post decided to stop playing nice. Brass issued the order that we were going to flush the green bastards out of the ruins the old-fashioned way…mustard gas.
Nothing subtle. Just a slow, creeping death cloud to smother every last crevice of the city.
They rolled out the canisters by the truckload. Old world-style shit, still painted with cyrillic and rust. We watched logistics crews in full hazmat gear dragging them through the ruined avenues like pest control for monsters.
Our job in all of this? Escort, deploy, and make sure no Orc decides to go hero and interrupt the operation.
So there we were. Fully geared up—masks on, suits zipped—trudging through the city-turned-smokehouse, dragging toxic death behind us like some cursed parade float.
The streets filled with a yellow haze, thick and greasy. You could smell it even through the filters, like rotting rubber and old piss. Buildings disappeared into the fog, and the only sounds were the hiss of valves opening and the occasional shriek of something dying in the smog.
Amiel perched on a half-buried car, her rifle resting across her lap. She picked off stragglers, aka the Orcs too dumb or too desperate to hide. Each shot cracked like punctuation in the silence.
"You know," she muttered through the comms, "this reminds me of my prom night. Just with more gas and less crying."
From another frequency, Berta cut in with her usual brand of vulgar poetry. "Bet you weren't wearing this much rubber that night."
"Berta," I said, tone dry, "if innuendo was a fuel source, we'd have powered the entire campaign by now."
"Don't act like you're not enjoying it, Wilson," she fired back. "You keep playing hard to get, but I know you're into our verbal foreplay."
"I'd rather tongue-kiss a barrel cactus," I replied. "And at this rate, the goon squad behind me won't even be able to walk straight, much less shoot when they're staring at your ass."
That made Dan, Gino, and Foster chuckle, though it was more nervous laughter. Gino tripped on a pipe and muttered something about suing someone.
Berta wasn't done. "They already got a piece of my ass, so they can just wank it away whenever they feel lonely. I don't give a shit."
"Ah yes," I said, voice smug, "truly, your virtue shines like a radioactive turd in a flooded toilet. We are all so moved."
She laughed. "Virtue? Get the fuck outta here. Virtues don't make you feel good, and they sure as hell don't earn you a citizenship stamp. You think the embassy gives a shit if I'm chaste? Maybe after all this, I'd go back to my true profession, bartending."
"And here I thought you were in it for the knitting," I quipped. "Maybe a little baking on the side."
That, apparently, was my mistake.
Stacy, of all people, chimed in. "Actually, we do know how to knit and bake."
I blinked behind my visor. "...what?"
"Yup," she said, almost chipper. "Even Berta's got a killer lemon tart recipe. We should make one, if we get some lemons"
There was silence.
Even the gas seemed to pause.
Berta's voice cut in, sharper than usual. "Of all the shit I've said and done to piss you off… that's what shocks you?"
I shrugged. "Well yeah. I mean, you talk like you were raised in a locker room by sailors and horny bears. I didn't peg you for the domestic type."
"Wow… you really are a miserable, pessimistic pussy," she snapped.
She didn't say another word for hours after that.
Which, honestly, was the quietest she'd been since I met her.
Which made me note that if she ever gets on my nerves, I'd try to jab on that sore spot again.
***
By late afternoon, the city looked like a diorama from Hell. Gassed streets, twitching bodies, and melted faces poking through collapsed rubble. The mustard cloud still hung low over the buildings, turning the light a sickly gold.
We took a break inside what used to be a hotel lobby, now just dust, shattered tile, and bones.
Berta sat on a broken sofa, arms crossed, radiating silent fury. She stared at the wall like it owed her money. Stacy tried to cheer her up with a half-melted ration bar. Didn't work.
Dan leaned against a cracked pillar, Gino smoked through a special filter, and Foster checked his rifle like it was a nervous tic.
Amiel laid flat on the front desk, still with her rifle out. "You guys ever wonder what the world was like before the Rift?"
"Cleaner," Foster muttered.
"Less chance of catching fire mid-breakfast," Dan added.
I sat on a beam, flicking ash off the end of my cig. "Probably boring as hell. No anything like this."
"You think people are happier?" Stacy asked.
"No," I replied. "Just distracted."
No one spoke after that.
The gas kept hissing outside, rolling down the alleyways like death on a schedule.