Ever have a bad day at work?  Well I hate to tell you my bad days are probably worse than yours.  For example, last week I was fighting in the ruins of New York and I nearly got my head shot off by a sniper using anti-tank shells.  Anti-tank shells for a lowly solider looking around the corner; I mean what the hell is up with that?  But let me go back to the beginning.  The year is 2067 and right now is being invaded in the third world war.  Do you want to know who the opposing faction is?  Everyone.  Every fricken person who survived not dead after the nuclear Armageddon, which wiped out 80 percent of the population, is allied with these new “Neo-Nazis” or the New World Union.  The reason why everyone would find communism so fascinating all of a sudden is because of the “cure” they developed for the nuclear fallout that is decimated the world’s population.  Anyway, today was one of those bad days. 

I and my platoon were still in New York clearing out gorilla soldiers when I spotted landing boats.  I signaled to my platoon to spread out and take over, which was plentiful because of the ruins of the surrounding buildings.  I crouched low to the ground in case of look outs on the vessels and ran over to Jason, who was hiding in the foyer of a deserted hotel. 

“Can you get HQ on the com?”  I asked Jason our communications officer, even though I saw him turning on his equipment already.

“Give me sec sir; this equipment takes time to start up.”  Jason replied with a hint of irritation in his voice.  I sighed, and backed up to the entrance of the hotel, knowing that if we had the com equipment active at all times then the enemy would be able to track our position every time we sent a message.

“SIR INCOMING!!!!!”  Shouted Liz, our Demotion expert, pointing at an incoming NPD. (A NPD is a Nuclear Powered Detonator with the ability to act as an anti-vehicle weapon, as well as a remote detonator.  It has a small explosion radius of about 9 meters, but death is instantaneous if you are in said radius.  The blast kills with radiation so the body is not incinerated, but the body will remain radioactive for a long time after the initial blast.  This fact caused many horror stories when the weapon was new.)  

I looked up and saw the NPD flying at, not me, but Jason.  “JASON!” I shouted as I saw the NPD struck the ground about a foot from him.  Time seemed to slow down for me as I saw the look of horror flash across Jason’s face, before detonation.  There was no fire, just a flash of bright that momentarily blinded me.  When my vision returned I saw Jason lying on the ground, as if asleep.

“No.  Not you Jason.”  I said as if in a trance.  I still remembered the day he was transferred to my platoon, so young and full of hope…

Liz signaled the rest of the platoon to hold, and ran over.  “Sir, snap out of it” she snapped as she shook my shoulder.  I turned to look at her, and in the time it took me to turn my head, I had steeled myself to Jason’s death.  “What’s you’re assessment officer?”  I asked reaching for the machine gun slung across my back.

Liz turned and surveyed the area.  Opposite our hotel there was a restaurant and between us there was a four lane road.  Down the road there were shops of all kinds, until you hit the dock, which was at the moment being used as a landing site for our enemies.  From this position you could easily see the three remaining members of our platoon, one behind some debris from the hotel roof, and two were behind a flipped van.  The urban camouflage made them easily identifiable as members of the military.

“The enemy is well armed, too well armed for common gorillas.  The whole situation reeks of a preplanned ambush.  But why stop at one man if you went to the trouble of planning this whole thing out?”  Almost as soon as those words were out of Liz’s mouth another NPD flew from the roof of the restaurant, killing the two men hiding behind the van.  As soon as the second NPD we heard shouts and about fifty men ran out of the restaurant.  The last surviving member of out platoon besides me and Liz noticed the Nazis too late.  He turned around his gun at his side but before he could fire a shot he was mowed down a hail of machine gun fire.

Liz raised her own custom gun she named Shoket. (The gun resembled a shotgun, except no chambering mechanism and a large revolver like chamber which stored and reloaded the gun.  It also fires rounds similar to that of a modern day RPG) “You’ll pay for that” Liz said grating her teeth.  She squared her body and pulled the trigger five times in quick secession.  The resulting explosions wiped out almost all of the Nazis, and caused a cloud of dust and debris to fly into the air.  Liz turned to me smiling.  “That should teach those bast-” All of a sudden a bullet went through her shoulder and she stumbled forward.  “Run” was the last thing she said to me as a second bullet tore through her leg.  She then collapsed, blood quickly pooling around her.  Twelve Nazis stepped into my field of vision, wearing infrared scanners, and raised there guns.  I knew it was over so I closed my eyes.

“Is that all you got?” I heard a man’s voice say.  I opened my eyes and turned to see a man with dyed blue hair standing behind me.  He was dressed in civilian clothing and had and a laid back look about him.  Then the sound of machine gun fire filled my head as the Nazis open fire.  I winced as I expected to feel a hundred bullets pierce my body, but nothing happened.  I turned my head to look at the Nazis, but what I saw instead was both terrifying and amazing.

A woman with blazing red hair, stood above the dead bodies of the Nazis covered in there blood.  Looking into her eyes I saw madness and a bloodlust never before witnessed by man.

The man craned his neck so he could see what I saw and sighed with a wry smile dancing across his face, “Geez, Ash, look at the mess you made.”