• Published 30th Nov 2011
  • 11,060 Views, 188 Comments

Call of Duty - Equestrian Warfare - ChromeRegios



After a Disastrous mission gone wrong, Jackson was left for dead at a nucler explosion when he foundhimself to be the first human... in a whole new world.

  • ...
22
 188
 11,060

Chapter 7 - The Only Easy Day... Was Yesterday

Captain John “Soap” MacTavish awakens surprised to find himself still alive, on his back and staring up at a forest canopy far different than the evergreen one they had been in. But one thing that has not changed, he dimly realizes as he hears the all-too-familiar ring of impacting rounds around them, was that they were in a combat situation.

“Soap! Wake up, dammit! We’re under heavy fire! Help us out over here!” Lieutenant Gaz tries to shake him out of his daze, but the veteran SAS Captain remains disoriented and unable to help.

Seeing that, the others quickly move to compensate. “Gaz! Griggs! Lay down cover fire! Get those sons of bitches off our backs!” Captain Price, the ranking SAS officer, orders his subordinate and US Marine Staff Sergeant as he picks up Soap and takes cover with him in a rocky field near their area.

“Shit! Soap, come on! Snap out of it!” he all but orders, punctuating his words with a splash of canteen water and several sharp slaps. Finally coming around, Soap gets a grip on reality and wakes up fully just as the Rebels rush them.

“Wh… what just happened?” he asks, trying to shake off his remaining dizziness.

“Don’t know! We shouldn’t even be alive, but right now we need to take out the trash!” Price gives Soap an MP5 submachine gun and leveled his own SOPMODded M4A1, opening with a 40mm grenade round from its undercarriage launcher that takes out two rebels when it detonates. The surprise strike briefly staggers the rebel attack as Soap’s MP-5 opens up as well, scattering the Russians who had been previously concentrating on Griggs and Gaz.

The Rebels, who are experienced soldiers in their own right, quickly regroup and make to flank their opponents, a steady barrage of AK fire pinning them down while others advance on the wings. With their numbers, fanaticism and discipline, the American and British raiders know it’s only a matter of time before they’re all picked off… only to be saved when their enemies suddenly look up in the sky and gape, turning tail to ran away, not even bothering to drag off their wounded and taking no more than a few backwards potshots as they retreat.

“They ran away! Why would they run away? They should have stayed and finished us off!” a bewildered Griggs says while looking at the stampeding Russians. “They must be scared of us!” He smiles triumphantly… which only lasts until they hear a very loud and angry roar that they’ve never heard before, one that shakes the very ground around them.

“Uhh… Captain, I know this sounds crazy but I don’t think they ran because of us…” Gaz points with a shaky finger to the top of the slope, where they behold… a giant winged beast with scales and large snout, the latter with smoke coming out of its nostrils as it glares at the group from behind slitted eyes and large, bared, razor-sharp teeth.

“Jesus Christ!” Price exclaims, shocked at what he’s seeing. “That can’t be a…”

“What the bloody hell?!” Gaz says, backing away from the apparition in a growing panic of his own.

“RUN!!!” Soap shouts as the dragon lets out a loud roar and even more incredibly, releases a gout of fire from its muzzle that incinerates the position they were just in, the radiant heat painful on their bare skin.

They sprint down the ridge as fast as they can as the monstrous creature gives chase on its enormous wings—its fiery breath clearly meaning to cook them alive. They all begin firing at the massive creature, emptying their magazines. Somewhat surprisingly, it recoils slightly from the impacts, giving a pained growl and flying a bit higher as it chases the group down to the field to lessen the strange stings it feels.

“GO INTO THE FOREST!!” Price orders as he makes to cover the team, desperately fumbling for a fresh magazine and finally slamming it home. He opens up on the impossible creature again, trying to hold its attention and buy time for his compatriots to reach the relative safety of the trees, where they might at least hide.

Price fires at the beast until his rifle clicks empty, then turns and dives through the tree line himself bare moments before the creature reaches him, barely outrunning a swipe of the beast’s talons and a fresh gout of flame that is still enough to give him flashburns on the back of his neck. Having escaped with his life, he joins his comrades as they don’t stop running for another five minutes, trying to get as deep in the woods as they can.

Finally in relatively safety, all of them gasp and wheeze. Despite their superb physical conditioning, they’re all out of breath from their panicked dash, Price the worst of them all.

“Wh-what the fuck was that thing?!” Griggs asks between ragged breaths.

Price gives him a look of disbelief. “Didn’t you see? It’s a goddamn dragon for Christ’s sake! Think for once!” he snaps in fear and frustration, barely able to believe the sentence he has spoken.

Gaz looks at him like he’s gone mad.“But there’s no such thing as dragons!

“Well, tell that to him!” Soap replies, pointing back the way they’d game and still shaking badly. “And where the fuck are we?! This isn’t the forest we were in! And we got caught in a nuke blast! How are we even alive!?”

Discipline starting to reassert itself, Gaz checks his electronics gear but can’t get anything from any of it. “I-I don’t know… the GPS doesn’t work, comms are out too—but that could just be EMP damage.” Gaz looks back from the field where they were a minute ago and starts to think, trying to examine their situation rationally. “You’re right, Captain. Weren’t we caught by the explosion? So where’s the debris? Where’s the compound?” He looks around in bewilderment. “And there should be a crater of some sort here, right?”

Finally able to catch his breath, Price loads another fresh magazine and a 40mm grenade into his M4A1. “Look, I don’t know; and right now, I don’t really care. We’re alive! We shouldn’t be, but we’re alive!” for all his combat experience, the veteran SAS captain finds himself shaking at the realization, resisting the urge to pat himself down looking for wounds. “And in any event, we should find somewhere to hide out. It’s getting dark and never mind the bloody dragon, the rebels are still around. Those bastards might come back for us so we best find somewhere defensible to settle,” he finishes, his training and authority reasserting themselves.

The others immediately obey, not just because he is the ranking officer but because they know from long experience that once he gives his instructions, no argument will be brooked. Reloading their weapons, they fall into formation and follow their Captain deeper into the woods.

At some length, Griggs breaks the silence. “Hey… aren’t dragons only supposed to live in like England or Japan or something?” he asks nobody in particular.

“What, you think that was Godzilla?” Gaz snaps, still trying to comprehend it himself.

“Or that this is King Arthur or Harry Potter?” Soap chips in. “It couldn’t have been real. Probably some rebel trick.”

Griggs gives them both annoyed looks. “Okay, then what the fuck do you call that thing that attacked us, huh? A lizard?! A robot? I’m not stupid man, that thing was huge and REAL!” Griggs fires back.

Price only listens to them at first, but then decides to speak up, sensing the fear and tension in the group. “Tell me Soap, we all saw that right?” the SAS captain asks in a low voice. “And if you think that thing was some ultranationalist pet, then why did the rebels ran away from it too?”

Soap opens his mouth, then closes it again. “Yeah okay, fine. We all saw that thing and it shouldn’t even exist. So the question is… where did it come from and why is it in Russian territory?”

Price bit off his response that he wasn’t even sure they were in Russian territory any longer. “To tell you the truth… I have no idea,” he replies. “All we can do is report it when we get back.”

The group falls silent again, nobody wanting to voice the thought that they might not even be able to get back. Instead, they walk through the deepening dusk, going deeper into the woods in search for shelter. The group having trouble seeing and making way through the thick, jungle-like underbrush in the darkness, Price orders his team to don their night vision goggles and stay alert. It isn’t long before he sees movement on their left and he signals them to hold fire, the group focusing on the scratching and digging sounds coming from behind a nearby brush line.

As they fan out to cover Price while he checks the source, the SAS Captain is suddenly jumped by a large dog-like creature, one that seemingly springs directly out of the ground, blindsiding him. Taken by surprise, Price cannot bring his rifle around fast enough before the strange bipedal beast is on him, only able to use it as a club as the others come up to aid. Before they can even fire a single shot, Price gets hold of his knife and sinks it in the beast’s chest, killing it instantly. He has barely thrown its gamey body off him before four more of the same creatures come out of the same hole and rush him. This time, however, his alerted team doesn’t wait for a weapons-free order before gunning down the dogs, killing all four on the spot.

Approaching cautiously, Gaz looks at one of the beasts they have just killed. “Are these dogs?” he asks in a low voice, keeping his rifle leveled as he pokes at one with his boot.

“They look like dogs, but did you see how they stood up?” Griggs whispers back.

“They were walking like us!” Soap adds as he turns towards Price. “And they’re wearing jewels and some kind of vest?”

“First dragons now werewolves?” Price can’t help but chuckle, seeing so many creatures that he’s only known from books and movies. Where the bloody hell ARE we? he still has no answer for.

“Lets just go, all right? This place gives me the creeps,” Gaz says, taking point while the others follow.


After several hours of hiking, they reach what seems to be the other side of the forest, finding themselves before an apple tree.

“Just in time, I’m starving!” Griggs kicks the trunk of the tree causing some apples to fall.
“Yeah, that’s what I’m talking about!” he announces, making sated sounds as he crunches happily into the sweet fruit.

Far from being happy, Price stares blankly at the ordered rows of apples trees, clearly visible in the bright moonlight. “This is an apple orchard,” he says almost self-evidently.

“Yeah, so?” Griggs was already starting on his second apple.

“So… apples don’t grow in northern Russia. And certainly not at this time of year!” he picks a fruit himself, studying it with his night vision goggles.

An uncomfortable silence resulted. “Look! there’s a barn and house over there! Maybe we could stay the night there!” Gaz points to a large red barn a few yards away from them.

Powers immediately holds him back. “Wait… we don’t know where we are and there might still be rebels around. So we secure the perimeter first before entering either structure.”

Five minutes later, they creep close to the barn. Finding no tripwires or electronic sensors, they discover the door unlocked and enter cautiously, weapons at ready, Gaz and Griggs from the back while Soap and Price take the front. Finding it empty except for a hay loft and some rather old-fashioned tools, they then check the country house near it, peering inside with their night vision goggles but finding nobody home and no farm equipment, cars or tractors outside; not even the older kind you would often find on Russian farms. Finally satisfied, Price gives the ‘clear’ signal and they go inside, surprised to find the door unlocked there as well.

Griggs is unimpressed at what they find. “Wow, this place is a dump! I mean look at this! Old furniture, no power, only candles for light, no television… hell, not even a radio? These people are lame, man.”

“Well, we’re not in a luxury hotel, so stop your grousing, Griggs! Just be thankful that we got a place to stay for the night well away from… the rebels and whatever the bloody hell those things were. Tell me, would you want to stay out there with werewolves jumping you and a bloody dragon flying around?” Griggs’ only response is a grunt as he sits down in a rocking chair, finding it creaking under his weight. Soap lights the candles while Gaz goes to the kitchen to see if there is any food available.

As he sits, Griggs notices some photos on the far wall in the dim candlelight. They’re black-and-white, and incredibly…

“Captain Price, check this out” Griggs gets up and motions the Captain to come closer, the two examining the pictures together.

The both stare for a moment. “Now who in their right mind would put a hat and a bow on horses? And would you look at that… an old horse with a walking cane? That’s just weird, man,” Griggs rubs his head, thinking that the longer they stay in this place, the less sense it makes.

Price shrugs. “Perhaps they just love their horses and dolled them up for these pictures?”

“Maybe, but look over here!” he motions to a new picture. “This is what I really don’t get at all, these brand marks on their butts! See one has three apples, and another has a big green apple, and the last one has a pie stamped on all of their asses!” Griggs laughs a bit as he looks at the last one. “But the small one has nothing.”

“Of course she has nothing, she’s still young. I mean, who in the right mind brands a filly?”

Griggs gives him a look. “A filly? How do you know it’s a girl?”

“I just do,” Powers says, but suddenly isn’t certain himself.

“Surely you’re not serious?”

“I’m dead serious. And don’t call me Shirley,” Prince deadpans to lighten the mood.

Griggs stifles a laugh as Gaz returns from the kitchen and lets out a frustrated sigh.

“Guess what? We have hay for dinner. And if you don’t like it, We have apples all around!” he tosses a couple to his comrades.

“Just apples?” Powers asks as he plucks one out of the air.

“Well, apples, carrots, celery stalks, colorful flowers too…” Gaz admits. “But no meat. No fridge or freezer. Just hay and canned veggies for the most part.”

Soap comes down from the 2nd floor and hears what Gaz says. “Hay? Why in the world would these people keep hay in the kitchen?”

“I don’t know mate, maybe these people are crazy or something…” Gaz sits down on the couch beside Price as Soap just sits on the stairs… and has a sudden thought.

“Hey guys, I’m just thinking… what if the owners aren’t away? I mean look at this place. The room are well maintained, the beds are made, and the furniture is dated but not at all dusty. So don’t you think that we maybe we shouldn’t be here…?”

Price looks at him and realized he has a point. This house is recently inhabited, and if the owners are rebel sympathizers who come home to find them…

“You’re right. We should move, now!” Price quickly packs up and goes to the door. The others follow suit, blowing out and putting the candles back in their place and then leave the house as silently as they had entered, with no trace of their presence left behind.

The only easy day was yesterday… Price thinks as he walks out, resuming their nighttime march. It is the motto of the US Navy SEALS, but certainly holds for their SAS brethren as well. Their lives have gotten immeasurably harder not because they failed their mission, but the fact that their communications have gone out making them unable to call for extraction, stranded deep in hostile territory that for the impossible presence of dragons and werewolves is now even more dangerous.

Needing answers and resupply, they walk along a road leading away from the farm towards the town lights in the near distance.