//------------------------------// // Chapter 1 // Story: Devil's Whispers // by Kazemino_Hikari //------------------------------// "The devil whispered in my ear, 'You are not strong enough to withstand the storm.' I whisper in the devil's ear, 'I am the Storm.'" SGT. GERALD 'BLITZWING' THUNDERTALON - 1ST PANZER BATTALION OCT. 10. 2023 - OPERATION RAPID THUNDER NEAR KLUDGETOWN, BADLANDS The sky seemed so blue, cool streams of air current through his feathers, as the Griffon stared blankly into the heavens above him. However, such a peaceful time was short-lived. Jet engines' unique roar slowly approached from behind, and a pair of black dots appeared on the horizon, as they flew closer, it was revealed to be two A-10s, as they performed a low-flyby, the folks on the ground cheered a little. A few moments later, explosions occurred several miles in front of them. Peace is now shattered once again. The Draconians caught the Equestrians off-guard, and they acted FAST. The Equestrians suffered heavy casualties during the beginning phase of the war, however, they were backed up by their allies as time went by. So far, the progress went well, the retaliation against the Draconian forces turned into a full push. The Draconians were now in a full retreat, driven back towards the Badlands Coast, where they'd eventually flee back to their mainland. And of course, the Draconians were fighting their hardest as well, further, they were driven back, the worse their resistance became. The 1st Panzer Battalion just lost four tanks not too long ago during an assault, drones killed two, one got blasted by a mine, and another one ate a sabot in the face. Gerald Thundertalon saw everything, and he regretted not firing sooner, he watched as the flames blew off the hatches from his friendly Leopard, and then the turret was thrown off of the enemy T-72. He just wanted to get out of here and go home. However, he won't go anywhere if the enemies are not driven back. Gerald looked down over the turret of his commanding panzer Leopard 2A6, which he and the crew nicknamed her 'Blitzwing', much to the reference of an effective panzer tactic used by his country many moons ago... Chattering came from underneath him, he peered at the one who was talking, of course, it was the loader, Arc. Arc Cleverbeak is an 18-moons-old boy who just joined his crew several months ago, and his talkative character turned out to be the core element of the crew. The crew couldn't stand this kid yapping for 10 minutes non-stop when he first came. He was scared shit. The other time when he pissed his pants when an enemy sabot ricocheted off their tank, the entire tank turned into a bathroom, and the smell lasted for a week. Egrold Sharpsight, the oldest of the crew and the pilot. He has been through much more than anycreature else in this tin can, he often stayed quiet, either reading a small novel or smoking cigars, staring out into the open for hours. Despite the age difference, Egrold became Gerald's battlefield mentor, and through the shower of war, some of his 'heroic play' ideas were completely wiped out. Kiper Hermane, the gunner, also Gerald's companion, joined the laughter with Arc. Kiper and Gerald had known each other since high school, they went to the same college, graduated together, trained together in the BootCamp, and made it through the war in the same tank. They are brothers. 'Blitzwing' scored 32 kills so far, most of them were enemy APCs and other armored vehicles, the tanks were a bit harder to kill, yet Kiper still got five tank-kills. Gerald would make fun of his decision back at BootCamp about joining the Army as a sniper, but his sharp-shooting ability wasn't something to be messed around with. "...And so I went up to him, man was he chunky. Ya know what I did next?" Gerald's thought stopped upon hearing Arc's funny tone, he rolled his eyes, Arc's always referring to his freshman year, the year he almost fucked up his entire academic career. "Yeah we know the rest," Kiper laughed, "You shoved a pen through his beak." "Nuh-uh, you're hallucinating, I never said I shoved that pen through his beak," Arc snickered, "I shoved that pen up his ass so deep down he moaned like like old griffs fuck GAHAHAHAHAHAHA-" "Bruh you kept changing the fucking ending." Kiper groaned. "Fuck yeah! That's where the fun part begins!" Arc snorted, "Then his entire goddamn dogs ganged up on me, holy shit was that epic; I sent three of them to the hospital and two down with black eyes, one nearly lost his eyeball. Hey! They deserved it." "For taking your girl?" Kiper asked, "I thought you got over it." "Motherfuckers, fuck that bitch," Arc grunted, "I smoked her as soon as I found out, fucking pussy-lookin-ass cheater." Egrold shoved his novel away as he checked the gears, then he banged the tank, "Alright chicks knock it out, we're moving in as soon as the bombardment stops." Gerald automatically looked down at his watch, "2 minutes, colts, get into your position!" Arc quickly pulled a cracker from his pocket and shoved it into his beaker before capping himself with the helmet. Kiper grabbed his helmet as he sunk into his seat and turned on the fire-control system. Egrold switched on the engine and the electrical system, the engine purred, and several loud purrs were heard from outside. Gerald quickly sheltered his ears with the helmet, then turned on the mic and headphones. He took out his binoculars and pointed in front of his view. The distant bombardment had stopped, and dark gray smoke trails rose from behind the hills. “Don't see the point of using an ancient bombardment tactic from like nearly 100 moons ago." Arc suddenly said, "Didn't seem like it hit anything." "Well yeah, they've got plenty of around left over from the last war, and the GPS-guided smart rounds are coming in to replace them," Kiper answered, "they're just making the best use of the old ones." "ATTENSION ALL PANZERS." The battalion commander's voice rang through everycreature's headphones, "WE JUST RECEIVED NEW ORDER FROM THE HIGH COMMANDS, WE'RE ADDING A NEW OBJECTIVE TO OUR LIST; A LARGE GROUP OF ENEMY TANKS WERE SPOTTED 10 MINUTES AGO ACROSS THE VALLEY 103, WHICH IS DIRECTLY 5 MILES AHEAD OF THE TOWN, OUR DRONE WAS SHOT DOWN IMMEDIATELY AFTERWARD. WE'RE LED TO CONCLUDE THAT THE DRACONIANS ARE BACKING UP THEIR REMAINING FORCES FOR A FULL-SCALE RETREAT." "Heh, funny," Arc murmured. "TAKE OUT THEIR BACKUPS, MAKE SURE WE KNOCK OUT AS MANY OF THEIR VEHICLES AS POSSIBLE." That concluded their short briefing. "Search and destroy," Kiper smirked. "Alright colts, let's make use of our hunter-killer capabilities," Gerald said to his fellow crew, who were getting excited. He looked down at his watch once more, just in time to see the timer hit the bullseyes'. "ALL PANZERS! MOVE OUT!" It was hell let loose. The Leopards roared their engines as they began the crawl through the sands, kicking up dust everywhere. Gerald made his command, "Auf gehts!" Egrold grunted as he stepped onto the accelerator, 'Blitzwing' jerked forward due to the sudden acceleration before rocking gently while going full speed ahead. Gerald, at this point, still had his upper body out of the hatch, he looked around, seeing ten other Leopards charging alongside, their commanders' some were in, some were out. The battalion was soon over the hills, and immediately right after the first Leopard tank crossed the line, an enemy shell whizzed by, screaming before hitting the ground next to them, sending debris flying everywhere. Gerald squeezed into his hatch and locked it tight, he pressed his eyes on the thermal sight. As he rotated the sight around, he spotted a flash of light from over the hill to his right, then the light came straight for them. The entire tank shook violently. Arc cursed loudly while Kiper had a sweaty back. "Damn that was close, it bounced off!" "Gunner! Sabot! PC! 2 O'clock!" Gerald's firm order came automatically. Arc quickly pulled out a dart-shaped sabot round and slammed it into the gun breach, upon hearing the satisfying clanging of the breach being closed, he shouted, "SABOT READY!" "Fire! Fire sabot!" "On the way!" Kiper blew a small breath before he squeezed the trigger. The tanks hook again as the gun breach jerked backward violently, ejecting the shell. Meanwhile, Gerald observed the trajectory of their tracer sabot. It charged up against the enemy tank, which was revealed to be a T-72, and slammed straight onto its frontal armor. Flares flashed before the entire enemy tank came to a sudden halt, followed by a huge explosion that sent the turret flying several feet into the air. "Target!" Kiper shouted. "Next target!" Gerald commanded, he quickly spotted another T-72, who was charging towards them with its turret turned 90 degrees, no doubt it was lining up on one of their Leopards. "Gunner! Sabot! PC! Traverse left!" Arc didn't waste another second as he slammed another sabot into the gun breach, "Sabot! Up!" "Identified!" Kiper shouted. "Fire!" "On the way!" "Blitzwing' rocked again, as the T-72 was immediately turned into a burning wreckage. A friendly Leopard was spared, "Target!" More and more T-72s roamed all over the place, their guns roaring their rage at the Leopards, but thanks to the protective exterior armor, none were seriously damaged, however, the T-72s were annihilated. A nearby Leopard fired a sabot, that went right through a T-72's turret, the shrapnel immediately killed all of the crew members. However, this Leopard was also targeted by four other T-72s at the same time. One of them, a leader apparently, acted first. A single high-velocity sabot and its charges around was pushed into the breach by the autoloader, then with a deep roar, it flew to the leopard in less than a second. This sabot would be wasted if it hit the Leopard's modular armor. It did not. Instead, it went for the lower glacis. With an ear-piercing impact against metal, the sabot went right through the thinner armor section, and unfortunately for the crew, it reached the ammo rack on the right side of the tank. An entire unused stack of HEAT rounds was detonated immediately, and the driver screamed in agony as he was cooked alive, luckily it lasted less than a second. Then the entire tank was engulfed in flames. The hatch was blown open with a pillar of flame shooting up several meters high. There were no survivors. "Damn it! Silver 4's down!" The battalion commander gritted his beak, "Angle your tanks! Bounce their rounds off!" The enemy infantry were also having their gears ready. Back to Gerald's crew; Kiper locked another advancing T-72 as Arc shoved a sabot into the breach, "Sabot! Up!" "Fire!" Came Gerald's command. "On the way!" The T-72 went up like a firework. "DRIVER! HARD LEFT! NOW!!!" Gerald's eyes widened in fear as he spotted two enemies lying on the ground with a huge anti-tank missile system aiming straight at them. the laser warning system began to scream, as the anti-tank missile was fired. It was followed by the flames of Tartarus. Without hesitation, Egroald jerked the steering wheel left, Arc yelped as he was thrown backward, nearly knocking him out cold. The anti-tank missile whizzed by with a sharp whistle, hitting the ground behind them. "Motherfuckers!" Kiper growled as he sprayed the coaxial machine gun rounds at the anti-tank crew, two of them were instantly killed. However, not all of the Peoards are as lucky as Gerald's. Another explosion came from a Leopard, this time, the entire turret was blown apart; seconds earlier, Silver 2 was on a killing spree, knocking out one tank and then another, until it was targeted by two anti-tank crews; both missiles were fired at the same time. The driver of Silver 2 reacted fast enough to successfully evade the first missile, but the second one caught up. It flew right into the side of the Leopard's turret, the HEAT warhead was triggered as a molten metal jet was injected into the ammo rack. With a loud boom and several short-lived screams, Silver 2 is knocked out. The anti-tank crews immediately began to reload their missiles but were cut short when a HE round detonated right between them, blowing them into chunks of flesh. Their remains were crushed and mushed by another Leopard 2 as it charged forward, ending the lives of another T-72. The battle went heating up for another minute; Leopards suffered their first losses, the ratio was acceptable though, and more T-72s were knocked out. With the last T-72 being blown high into the air, it marked the end of the Draconians' first wave of retaliation. "Cease fire!" Gerald ordered as he unlocked the hatch. His talons are on the trigger of his MG3, scanning around for any surviving enemy troops. The battlefield suddenly cooled down, hard to imagine a fierce tank brawl just ended several seconds ago. "We're in the clear!" Came the battalion commander's voice, "All panzers, report in." Gerald sighed, he remained silent for a moment for the loss of his comrades. "Silver 3! Standby!“ ”Silver 5! Standby!" Silver 8! Standby!" Gerald picked up his mic, "Silver 6! Standby!" "Remain stationary, we'll scout them before another move is made." Then, with a clustering buzzing of rotor fans, a small drone was deployed from Silver 1's turret, it quickly vanished into the horizons in front of them. "Can't be all of them, even for large forces like the Draconians." Kiper whispered, "Gotta be some sort of decoys..." The battalion commander's face darkened, he shut his drone control pad down as he picked up his mic, "All panzers, spread out and advance! Do not remain stationary for too long! Their rocket artillery had already aimed directly at us! Move out!" Then he sunk into the hatch as his Leopard charged up. The rest of the Leopards immediately began diverging into three branches, following their commander. Just as they left their earlier ground, screams of hell came from above; Gerald's original spot was hit by an explosive warhead, all that was left was a 20-meter square-sized crater, and then the rain started. Soon after the 'rainfall', there were no flat zones exist of that ground. The Leopards fastened their movement, taking advantage of the reloading rocket artillery. Another hilltop lies directly in front of the battalion, Silver 1, the commanding tank charged headfirst, followed by the rest of the battalion. Immediately right afterward, the commander's shocked voice rang, "Hostile PCs! 99s!!!" then followed by an explosion right next to the Leopard. Gerald looked into his thermal view, "Holy shit..." The entire hill was filled with hostile tanks, not just T-72s, there were even ZTZ-99s, these tanks that weren't as common as the ZTZ-05s they had encountered a while ago; as well as some other armored vehicles such as BMPs and APCs. The leading ZTZ-99 had its smooth-bore gun aimed straight at them, and it fired. A terrifying whistle screamed by Gerald's Leopard, they won't miss the second time. "GUNNER! SABOT! PC! TRAVERSE RIGHT!" Gerald shouted. "SABOT! UP!" Arc slammed the designated round into the gun breach, "SEVEN SABOTS REMAINING!" "ZTZ! Target!" Kiper shouted, "ON THE WAY!" The breach jerked backward as the shell was ejected, and the fin-stabilized sabot reached the stationary ZTZ-99, however, due to the angle, the sabot failed to penetrate through its armor, instead it bounced off. "INEFFECTIVE HIT!" Gerald shouted, now with a little bit of panic, "SABOT! FIRE AGAIN! SAME TARGET!" "SABOT! UP!" Arc began to sweat. "ON THE WAY!" The second round didn't add to the Leopard crew's anxiety as it slammed onto the turret of the ZTZ-99, but at the same time, the hostile tank fired at them as well. Gerald felt as if he was thrown around like a doll, an ear-wrecking collision between metal exploded in his ears, and the entire tank turned into a bell as the noise banged throughout the crews' ears, nearly bursting their eardrums. Arc screamed as he covered his ears, bending down to his knees. Egrold shut his eyes and gritted his beak, his expression twisted in agony. The enemy sabot, luckily, did not penetrate through the turret armor, however it was stuck there, with its frontal body glued onto the deformed head. The ZTZ-99 was hit, and the reactive armor tried its best to protect the hull armor but was ineffective; inside the turret, there was blood everywhere, that sabot's shrapnel had turned all three crew members inside the turret into a bloody pile of dead meat. The driver was knocked out, he survived though. "Urgh... Is everyone online?" Gerald shook his head and asked. "Still in one piece!" Arc answered. "Driver active!" Came Egrold. "Gunner standby!" Kiper pressed his face against the targeting screen. "Gunner! HEAT! BMP! Traverse left!" Gerald spotted a speeding BMP, it had two anti-tank missiles on the turret, and one of them had already been launched; they had to act fast. "Argh... HEAT! Up!" Arc gritted his beak as he shoved a HEAT round into the gun breach, still feeling the sting. "Fire! Fire HEAT!" "On the way!" The HEAT around sprinted toward its target, upon contact with the thin layer of metal, its warhead went off with a bang. The copper-built inverted cone-shaped liner was detonated, forming a molten hypersonic metal jet that shredded through the paper armor of the BMP. All crew members were cooked into steaks. "Target!" Kiper confirmed the kill. Suddenly, a crackle came from the radio channel and then came another explosion, unfortunately, it was from one of their Leopards. One of the ZTZ-99s managed to flank to their side and scored one kill. "Gunner! Sabot! Hull traverse left, 9 o'clock!" Gerald ordered he wouldn't bet that 125mm gun wouldn't penetrate his side armor at this distance. The ZTZ-99 aimed its turret at Gerald, his eyes widened, "DRIVER! HARD RIGHT! NOW!!!" Just as Gerald's order came, the enemy tank opened up on them, and a HEAT round exploded onto the Leopard's original spot. "SABOT! UP!" "Target!" Kiper shouted, "On the way!" The sabot rammed into the tank's frontal armor, however, nothing seemed to be affecting the ZTZ as it continued to charge at them. "SAME TARGET!!! GUNNER!!! SABOT!!!" Gerald shouted, Arc grunted as he shoved the last sabot into the breach, "Sabot! Up! That's our last sabot." "GUNNER! AIM FOR THEIR TREAD!" Kiper thanked the hydraulic system as his crosshair lined up against the rolling enemy tread. "ON THE WAY!!!" The sabot exploded out of the smooth-bore barrel, the dart ripped through the enemy tank's tread like nothing, and it bounced into the steering system as well. With a sudden jerk forward, the ZTZ came to a halt, however, its turret was still turning toward Gerald's Leopard. "DRIVER! GO AROUND IT!!!" Gerald ordered, his words now at a rapid pace, "GUNNER! HEAT! AIM FOR HIS ASS!!! LET'EM BURN!!!" Arc pulled out a HEAT round from the frontal ammo rack and shoved it into the gun breach, "HEAT! Up!" "ON THE WAY!" Right before ZTZ's gun could fire, Leopard's HEAT reached them first, the engine was instantly wrecked, the fuel tank set off by the metal jet, with a detonation of fuel. this ZTZ-99 is completely offline. The fight went on for several minutes, the Leopards lost another one, the good news is, due to heavy losses, the enemies retreated. With the final BMP being blown apart, the rest fled, exiting the Leopard's visual range. They were spared for now. "ALL TANKS CEASE FIRE!" Came Silver 1's voice, "They're gone for now. Report any losses." "Silver 5! Standby!" "Silver 6! Standby!" Silver 3! Standby!" Silver 8 is gone. "Damn it! They're good griffs too..." Gerald hammered his talon against the turret. Just as Gerald opened the hatches, he heard something familiar, some sort of whistling... "SHIT!!! INCOMING!!!" Rocket artillery reached their position, they hammered down with absolutely no mercy, Gerald sunk back into the turret, "DRIVER! GET US OUT OF HERE!!!" The remaining Leopards scrambled off, however, the sudden attack still caught them off guard. Gerald nearly threw himself off his feet several times, explosions boomed all around the rapidly moving tank. Suddenly, the entire tank rocked violently as another explosion landed next to their tank, its shrapnel rained upon the turret. "Driver! Get us into the valley, that should be out of their impact radius." The Leopard then jerked right, it dove into the rocky entrance, Gerald's gut was correct, and rocket artillery ceased their hammering at where 'Blitzwing' was. "Alright! Stop the tank!" Gerald let out a relieved breath, "Status report!" "We're good!" Came Arc's voice, "Uh, we have a problem here; We've only HEAT rounds left, 12 of them and five High-Explosives." "Damn it, the FCS is acting funny as well, must've been the rocket strike," Kiper growled, "laser range-finder is dead, we'll have to manually calculate the distance." "Let's hope these buys won't find us first, call in the commander." Arc switched the radio on, but the continuous fuzzing noises meant nothing positive. "No joy cap, the radio's dead as well." "Radio's not the problem, mine's working well," Kiper said as he clicked his helmet-mounted radio, "something's preventing us from communicating with the outside forces." "Goddamn EMPs." Gerald sighed. "We're by ourselves until we get out of their EMP range or destroy the source." The night quickly falls, as the sun's final ray of light vanishes from the horizon, bone-chilling coolness reaches the valley... A lone wounded leopard roams the dusty valley, seeking their way out. Gerald and Arc had their heads out of the hatch, even with the howling wind, they could still hear gunshots and explosions coming from the distant battlefront. "Wonder where the rest of our guys went." Arc sneezed as he shivered a bit from the coolness. "Hope for the best, prepare for the worst," Gerald said as he climbed back into his turret, now switching onto night vision mode, nothing seemed to be moving except for small critters that were on their hunt. "Driver, halt. We'll stop here for the night, we all got the emergency blankets, use these. Oh, anyone got those steak-flavored MREs?" Gerald asked, attempting to light up the mood. "Yeah I packed three," Arc said as he poured some water into the MRE bag, it warmed up immediately, and he sighed in comfort upon the contact with the warmth from the cold. Gerald leaned against the steel cover, in his blanket, now with the engine off, quietness became his companion inside the turret... Along with his stranded crew. Gotta get out of here... All of us, Gerald thought as he stared into his opened MRE, smelling the funny sense of 'steak'.