Sharp Shooter

Clam Before The Storm

The 4Am call time the next morning reminded me of all those mornings spent in the desert with my parents. It was dark, windy and there wasn't any absence of thunder as we once again readied ourselves to meet the KA head on, neither side taking any consideration for tactics other than brute force. Find the enemy, pummel them to death, repeat. As tired as I was, I couldn't help but think about somethings that Raji had told me the night before. When he first escaped KA activity, the first thing he'd done was go home, looking for me. He told me he had gone in expecting the fight of his life, but what he found instead was a burnt out ghost town, only the rusted steel frames of houses and globs of burnt glass and plastic remained of what used to be a very up scale place. When I asked about his Dad's Panic room, Raji said the front entrance had been welded shut, but he managed to sneak in through the back entrance, where all he found was his Mom's empty AK-47 and a ton of spent cases. He found his Dad's AKM as well, but his body was no where to be found, which he said didn't make sense because the two back doors to the bunker were both locked tighter than a bank vault and the keys had been unmoved. Raji bringing up the KA attack had brought something else into my mind, a quote from Vortex.

"It's gotten three dragons under my protection killed."

It was something she said when she got the call from Amir Asham on the Texas. I had done some digging after I woke up this morning and what I found was this. One of the SW's, a female named Fenna, had been blown up at the Icestorm lab and if you counted that, along with Raider, as deaths to Icestorm, that left one. This dragon was no where to be found in the files. I asked Jace, John and even Huang, none of them had any idea what I was talking about. The SW's had only suffered 5 casualties and only 2 of those were attributed to Icestorm, two went to a single dragon, someone named Tyro, while one was shot to death by a 2IE Light machine gun. So who was the Sixth SW casualty that everyone had shut up about? The one it seemed no one was willing to talk about or acknowledge had even existed? Who was he? Why did no one even acknowledge his existence? It seemed the longer I fought for Fireblood, the more questions that were raised. I had access to nearly every document Fireblood had, not including serum files, but absolutely nothing on this Sixth SW casualty.

But setting this aside. That entire day was spent preparing for the battle. Tanks and supplies were being loaded onto the massive C260 aircraft and then disembarking at about 6 in the morning. It wasn't till we touched down at nearly 3PM that I realized the scale of the operation. Fireblood Elites were coming in from all over the planet of all shapes and sizes. I was a target for most of them because of my size, but only until a familiar face showed up, the little, Mint green dragon with the crazy .357 Magnum Machine gun, M.

"Ren!", He called from the back of the hangar, "back here."

"M", I said as Raji and I rang back to him, 'where have you been brother?"

"Various, secret places", M smiled, "I'm stationed overseas in Iraq on highly top secret shit that no one can know about."

"Not even me?", Raji said making the big puppy eyes.

M growled and looked away, "no...puppy eyes...must...resist!"

"Resistance is futile", I said, "you will tell all!"

"Never", M said making a finger gun and blowing his brains out.

Raji sighed, "well that didn't work."

"Nope", M said, "but seriously though guys, I can't say shit about what I'm doing OS, only that it's beyond classified. On that note, what have you been up to?"

"Do you know about the team Shadow walkers?", I asked.

'Who doesn't?", M replied with a shrug.

"Maybe you can help me then", I said, "I read in the Project's files that the SW's have suffered five deaths, Maris, lost to a 2IE Belt fed, Inken and Blaze lost to some unknown dragon named Tyro, and a translator Fenna to a grenade. Now, on a battleship a few weeks ago, Vortex commented that three dragons she was protecting had been lost to Icestorm, counting Fenna and Raider, who drowned on a sinking ship, that leaves a Sixth SW casualty. I've asked nearly everyone about him, but it seems that no one knows anything. It's like this guy never existed."