Army of the Damned

VOLUME 2 Chapter 4

He exits the helicopter hastily, weaving through the soldiers dug in the soil with tanks scattered a hundred meters from one another deep in their own trenches where only their turret could be seen peeking out. He stops and looks around, some soldiers in their trenches peeking waiting to shoot something while others could be seen twitching. The true skeleton soldiers on the other hand were rock solid and like a statue, kept their weapons trained at the open field.

"Skeleton, where are the commanding officers?"

The lifeless skeleton points his hand to his right, behind the entrenched M1A2 Abrams. Directly pointing to where his commander is at.

"Ahahaha, we're so proud of how we scripted you guys. Where's your player squad leader?"

The soldier once again points, but this time to the left where he could see this very animated skeleton with a tankman, looking at the grass and chatting about something while performing wild hand movements in an attempt to convey his point to the other player.

"Are they this jumpy or just bored? They weren't this crazy when I recruited them."

"Master, your duties."

"Aw shit! Thanks for reminding me."

Following the direction of the skeleton, he finds a tent attached to the back of an APC with tanks from his army scattered around it. There he sees General Matthew in combat uniform like the rest, the only thing distinguishing him from the others was his Beret with four stars on it, busy as ever as he talks to players and replies to radio transmissions.

"So after this, we'll perform a counter attack? What aircraft will we board?"

"UH-Sixty Blackhawks, if we manage to break their attack we'll quickly blitz them. Now go back and attend to your skeletons Sergeant. General Paul will lead an armored arrowhead straight into their camp."

"General sir, I got the report from the forward recon. They say the combined army has amassed at least four hundred thousand soldiers. More on the way, they want to use their numbers to overwhelm us sir. The first army group seems to be moving through the night using magic and is currently about one hundred and eighty thousand strong."

"Ah crap, that's a lot Lieutenant. But they could still fit within the three kilometer free fire zone. Have the field artillery boys load up airburst clusters if they can."

"Yes sir."

Paul walks in the tent. It was full of Officers of varying ranks, all with questions and reports to give. They notice him and make a snappy salute.

"What a party, you seemed to be having a grand time."

"Why are you still in service uniform? Get some ACUs on."

"Uhhh, I don't have any?"

"Then pick one up. There's some on the crates next to the tank."

He follows the suggestion and changes to a basic OCP uniform used by the United States Army. Its patch depicts Skeleton Knights crawling out of a hole and the flag of Eldwood facing forward above it. Though now, he looks the same as the other skeletons and carefully, he moves the little Bahamut to his Kevlar vests' ammo pouch and immediately makes it home. Rubbing its body with the fabric and balling itself up.

"Got anything that might make me look apart?"

"Yea, hold on a sec. Yea, Catapult. I want you to load cluster munitions. Save the Thermobarics for when we'll attack them." He drops the call and picks up an item next to him "Yea, uh just get a Beret. Take this spare one."

"Ohhh fancy. Never wore one of these. Am I doing it right?"

"Ugh, if a real soldier were to see us, we would've had our asses canned. Straight across the forehead and one inch above your eyebrows. You see that excess part? Make sure it's lowered to your right ear and have the eagle with the stars above your left eye."