23^rd March, 1636, Far West Island Chain, 5:34 A.M., a few minutes before

Havaldar Shekhar Purohit touched down on the dirt runway amidst a strong vortex of dirt, crouching down and securing a perimeter as the rest of his squad fast-roped down on alien soil. On his right and left were other Mayurs, hovering in the air as their payload dismounted. Under the dim purple sky, the large Indian helicopters looked imposing, ominously hanging in the air above the comparatively small wyvern base. As if looking down on a weak, insignificant prey.

“Move up!”

Shekhar commanded as his squad stood up and began lightly jogging forward. The dirt runway around them told the grim tale of death and destruction that preceded their arrival. Burnt and mangled wywern corpses were scattered all across the runway, mostly concentrated around the North end of the runway. All around were elf corpses; some completely dismembered into ugly lumps of meat, some partially recognizable. The faces of most of the Indian soldiers were distorted, reflecting their displeasure at the sight. Walking amidst all the corpses made some feel a little nauseous.

“Contact front, close!”

Shekhar shouted as he applied pressure on his trigger finger, sending rounds ahead. Immediately, more cracks resounded beside and behind him.

The building directly ahead appeared to be a extra large stable of sorts. Lurking inside the stables were dark elves, hiding in the shadows, waiting for a chance to ambush the unsuspecting demons. Naturally, they had no idea that the green, helmet-wearing ‘demons’ coming towards them had a dark magic called night vision.

Splinters of wood and puffs of dirt blew up. The shadows of the elves were seen crumbling to the ground, their swords and spears slipping out of their now-dead hands. One elf was thrown backward against the wall of the shed, his body now lifeless in the same sitting position it was before his death.

 “Move up!”

The Indian jawans continued moving, slowing down as they moved past the wyvern stables, rifles brought up to ready. Occasionally, they would deliver one or two extra rounds in a corpse, just to be extra sure.

Going past the wyvern stables, the jawans emerged into a small labyrinth of small houses and official buildings closely packed together. There, walking under the now dim, pink-purple sky, were dark elves. Some seemed to be trying to desperately hide in the shadows, some on their way to fight off the ‘demons’ face-to-face. All had swords, spears and bows in their hands, and some were in full armour, their purple-and-white, heavy looking armour set reflecting the pink sky above.

Two elves immediately appeared in Shekhar’s sights the moment he turned the corner. They seemed to have just jumped out of the nearby houses.

“Contact!”

Shekhar shouted as he pressed the trigger. Tracers streaked across the space between him and the elves, their loud cracks drawing the elves’ attention towards the source before cutting them down in a small puff of dust and blood. The elves collapsed, their swords and spears tumbling out of their hands.

As Shekhar began moving up, more of his men quickly filled in the base’s tiny town, spreading out, their rifles covering every sector and every empty window and half-open door. Some smaller houses were immediately breached by the infantrymen, as others kept watch on the windows, quickly clearing the smaller buildings.

Most of the houses here seemed to be clear, devoid of the captive civilians found in the targets further south. At the same time, the dark elves seemed to be in a much better condition despite how hard the wywern base was hit. Maybe it had to do with the fact that the fear of unintentionally killing civilians due to how close the houses were, had saved the elves from the devastation seen elsewhere. As a result, the elves here were much more active and possessed somewhat higher awareness of the situation they were in.

All of this, however, still meant nothing. Their comparatively better situational awareness meant little against firearms, and the carnage seen here was not so different from what was witnessed elsewhere.

Shekhar reloaded his INSAS as jawans from his squad and the other squads of his platoon began lining up to breach a rather large building in the centre of the tiny town. A perimeter had been established around the building, wary of any mischievous elves that might pop out of shadows.

Shekhar tapped a jawan’s shoulder as he lined up alongside the door of the building, as another jawan behind him kept his rifle trained at the small window directly above their heads.

“We got some pointy-ears in here?”

“Not sure sir, but we do have sounds coming from the inside. We tried calling out, but no response.”

“Alright then. Prepare to breach, we gotta get inside and see for ourselves what the heck it is.”

Shekhar immediately hugged the wall on his side of the door as another jawan slung his rifle back and pulled out his 12-gauge shotgun.

“Why, if it isn’t the legend Shotgun Shah himself!” Shekhar threw in a joke, followed by chuckles from the rest of the squad. “You gonna do another Panipat with these pointy-eared fucks?”

 The person in question smirked proudly as he loaded a shell in the chamber, his hand firmly gripping the worn, seemingly old, black polymer pistol grip. His obsession with shotguns, coupled with his surname ‘Shah’, had earned him the nickname “Shotgun Shah” in the unit.

“Hahha, I didn’t pack enough 12 gauge for that, sir! Today I’ll have this sweet INSAS take the limelight instead!”

Shekhar chuckled as the rest of his squad lined up behind them both, ready to pour in from either side of the door.

“Alright, we good to go. Send it!”

“Roger!”

One loud shotgun blast. The handle was replaced by a sizable hole. A kick, and the door swung around loosely on its hinges.

“Go, Go, Go!”

Shekhar shouted as he entered the building, rifle at ready, other jawans pouring from right behind. Stepping inside, he found himself in a wide, spacious room, its rather luxurious interior giving a hint as to its use. Standing in the middle of the room on a large carpet, were a group of dark elves.

“T-They a-are h-here!? n-n-now this s-slave can s-show her r-real u-usefulne--”

One of the elves of the group screamed, lifting his staff in the air, as his other hand pointed to several human women lying naked on the floor, with heavy collars on their necks and their hands and feet tied up with chains. The other dark elves around them had their swords drawn in anticipation for what was about to come.

Loud cracks. An ear-piercing sound. A tiny cloud of dirt. The guarding elves hit the floor, unable to process what hit them. The elf mage fell immediately after, as Shekhar tapped the trigger thrice, his holographic sight’s reticle aligned with the mage’s torso.

“One down!”

“Got him! He’s dead!”

“Tango down!”

Loud callouts reverberated in the room as the jawans spread out, the muzzles of their rifles smoking. Shekhar quickly rushed over to the captive women, putting his rifle down as another jawan crouched down alongside him.

“Goddamn does this look bad….” Shekhar commented, frowning as he scanned one of the captive civilians. The lack of clothing on the woman’s exposed body narrated the grim tale of her suffering. The area around the wrists and the ankles had reddened, along with numerous scratches from the hard metal of the restraints, turning that spot slightly darker and redder. The faces of the women looked lifeless, almost dead if it wasn’t for the frail, rhythmic beating of their bare, exposed chest.

One jawan brought a blanket to wrap the women as Shekhar began unwinding their restraints. Their skin felt chilly to touch, just barely managing to conceal the weak pulse beneath. Other jawans carefully moved the women to a nearby sofa, wrapping them with blankets.

“Look at me, yes right, here you go. You’ll be fine, okay?” Shekhar comforted one of the women as she weakly turned her face towards him. Her face wore a myriad of emotions, none of which could be described as pleasant. Fear, anxiety, pain, and little curiosity thrown in the mix. Her eyes conveyed to him an emotion that he wasn’t unfamiliar to: hopelessness. She had probably given up on everything; given up on living a free, normal life, given up on returning to and seeing her family again. If there was any family left to return to, that is. Her eyes spoke of how she wished to wake up from this never-ending nightmare.

Shekhar continued unwinding her binds. Seeing that kind of an expression always caused a sharp pain in his chest. The fact that these were common people just like the people he sees everyday disturbed him. She wasn’t some terrorist or a combatant, she was just a civilian. She was someone’s wife, someone’s mother, someone’s sister. There is no bigger enemy on the battlefield than pity or empathy, whether for enemy combatants or civilians. Yet often, he couldn’t help but think about it. if tomorrow, the people he knew and cherished were in the same position as her….

Goddamnit, what the fuck am I thinking about? Shekhar brushed aside these thoughts. Now wasn’t the time to dwell on such things.  

“How’s the situation?” Shekhar questioned a jawan, picking his rifle up as he got up from the floor. The absence of painfully loud gunfire indicated that the house-clearing had concluded. Muffled voices shouting in Hindi could be heard from the other rooms, with some signalling that more civilians had been found.

“Sir! Building’s clear, unless these pointy-ears have some cinema style secret door or anything.”

“Anything else?”

“So far, the entire base is under our control, though we got word of stragglers running into the woods to the east. We got the rest of the platoon as well as three other full platoons picking them off.”

“No way they’re having all the fun by themsel--”

A loud, guttural, distant roar. Shekhar was cut off, as he tensed up his grip on his rifle. All the other jawans in the room looked towards the direction of the sound.

“Oye oye, the fuck? Do these fuckers have Godzilla or what?”

Shekhar spoke as he scurried out of the house, followed by some jawans. Outside, the Indian side was in turmoil, trying to figure out the source of the roar. Everyone was alarmed. No one preferred getting chewed up by some fantastical monster this early in their careers.

The roars had been going on continuously, seemingly rising and sinking in an out-of-tune melody. Whatever was the beast behind it, it was probably quite far away. Yet its powerful howl did little to comfort the jawans.

Suddenly, Shekhar’s radio cracked to life.

“Bravo actual to all, be advised, we have confirmed visual on UBS-Zero entities approaching from the East, I repeat, we have multiple UBS-Zero entities approaching from the East….”

“Oh, fucking great…..”

Shekhar cursed loudly as he took cover behind a house. The house was at the eastern edge of the wyvern base. The forest behind it was obscured by the rudimentary stone and brick structure. Poking out from the corners of the house were jawans, delivering hot lead at whoever they could see escaping in the darkness of the woods. Elf corpses could be seen sprawled in a large quantity at the edge of the forest, a stone’s throw away from the house. Many more were lying dead in the forests, obscured by the thick foliage.

“What’s the situation?”

Shekhar grabbed the shoulder of a jawan who had returned to cover to reload his rifle, as another took his place, sending bright red tracers deep in the forest whenever he saw movement.

“We got some shit brewing in the jungle, that’s all we know!”

“What do you mean ‘shit brewing in the jungle’?! You got your brain fucked by those pointy-ears?!”

Shekhar spoke loudly as the gunfire around him began climbing up in volume. More and more jawans had arrived in order to brace for whatever was coming.

“No sir! I mean we got some weird movement in the jungle! First those fucks were running, then we got the sasta Godzilla, now they are all acting weird!”

The jawan pointed towards the forest as he spoke. Indeed, Shekhar could see in the darkness, dark shapes moving, with some seemingly holding a large stick in their hands, before being cut down by tracer fire and disappearing into the thick bushes below.

“And those Zeroes?” Shekhar acquired as he trained his rifle aiming towards the forest, his sights lined up with one of the moving shapes he had singled out.

“No idea, heard from command that all of a sudden, the tree cover started moving by its own and fucking dinosaurs started pouring out!”

Shekhar looked back to face the jawan, his rifle’s muzzle giving off steam, looking at the jawan incredulously. Behind him, his target, the moving shape in the forest, had collapsed on to the forest floor, hidden from view.

“…..the fuck?”

“I don’t know sir! That’s just what I heard, ask the commander!”

“And did you hear about how we are supposed to deal with the, uhhhh, dinosaurs? Or whatever they are?”

The young jawan shook his head.

“Command said they were having planes send to dispose them---”

GRRRRAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH

An ear-piercing, bone-chilling roar. For a brief moment the guns on the Indian side fall silent, their attention fully captured by the ominous, imposing sound that all of a sudden, seemed as if right next to their ears.

Shekhar’s fingers dug hard into his rifle’s handguard and pistol grip, almost drilling through them. It was here. Here to crash the party. They really might end up like the side characters in a stupid monster movie after all, it seemed.

The forest in front of him suddenly seemed strange. Something was moving. Something that wasn’t human, something big. Powerful thumps could be felt travelling through the ground underneath them.

Shekhar strained his eyes, staring through the darkness, as if trying to penetrate and see through the veil of foliage. It was coming closer, yet Shekhar just couldn’t make out what it was. The darkness of the night, despite the use of night vision, snatched away the answer mere moments before his mind could grasp it.

A loud creaking, crushing sound. The sound of wood and twigs being twisted, crushed, trampled. The foliage surrounding one part of the wall of wood began bending and moving apart, revealing a short narrow dirt path. Standing in the middle of the dirt path was one robed figure, holding out his arms above him, his hands seemingly cradling a small ball of light.

Shekhar’s eyes went wide in realization, and his hands moved automatically.

“OPEN FIREEEEE!!”

Triggers were pulled, casings were ejected, sent tumbling to the ground, still bellowing smoke. Loud cracks resounded in the air again, tracers screaming towards the robed figure. The figure crumbled backwards, as a tracer completely shattered his skull.

The valiant elf’s effort however, wasn’t wasted. Trailing behind the falling body of the elf was something. Something moving. A large number of ‘something’, in fact. The roars suddenly went up several decibels, and so did the rumbling. Finally, the large mass of things tore through the veil of darkness, slowing down near the corpse of the dead mage, revealing themselves to the jawans.

They looked huge. Or rather, seemed huge considering how close they were. They were massive, four-legged creatures. Probably reptiles, as could be inferred visually from their skin. Massive spikes could be seen protruding from their backs, which in itself as if it was armoured, visually appearing to be thicker and of a darker colour tone than the rest of the skin. Their heads seemed large and imposing, having a large frill hiding the entirety of their necks. Their mouths reminded one of an alligator, the large, pointed teeth protruding teeth poking out of their jaws of their short, stubby but thick snouts giving a hint about its appetite. Mounted on the back of the creatures were elves on saddles, gripping would Shekhar could make out to be halberds and spears.

The creature leading the horde grumbled, its elven companion raising his spear. His attire seemed visibly different from what Shekhar had seen from the pointy-ears he had seen lying dead before.

“DIIIEEEE DEMOOOOON!!!”

 The elf screamed loudly as his mount grumbled loudly. The other creatures behind him began stirring, and Shekhar’s ears could pick up similar battle cries, some distinct and some not.

Instinctively, Shekhar pulled the trigger, and gunfire that had briefly halted, now erupted again. Everyone opened up with everything they had; riflemen emptied their entire magazines on the creatures, machine gunners splurged belt after belt, their guns still smoking despite clearly pleading for a rest from the heat.

“Take this, you Harry Potter fucks!!”

Shekhar slapped a new magazine in, his fingers slightly trembling due to all the adrenaline. His hearing felt a little numb, constantly being bombarded with the incessant crack of gunfire around him. It had been a while since he had been in such an intense fight, after all.

The creatures winced and groaned in pain, having almost thousands of small pieces of metal tearing through their hard skin, blowing off chunks from their spikes and their hardened skin. Their pace slowed, trying to lower their heads in order to shield their eyes, trying to protect themselves from the pricking pain of so many sharp needles stabbing them at the same time.

“Heads up! We got a helo inbound! Danger Close! I repeat, danger close!”

One jawan called out. Immediately, Shekhar’s attention was shifted away, now being made aware of a fast-approaching, chopping noise that he had failed to register in the heat of the moment. Quickly, he began stepping backwards, sending shots down in the mass of creatures, as others began backing up.

The lead creature got up on its hind legs, roaring as it did. His elven rider screamed in joy, and Shekhar could make out words such as “…retreating….the Demons…..afraid” being shouted, and echoed by the ones behind the lead.

The elf’s joy however, was short lived. In that brief moment as the lead creature was up on his hind legs, a large shadow sped past above Shekhar. A helicopter. As it did, smoke trails erupted behind the rocket pods on its sides, followed by a long line of smoke leading to somewhere deep behind in the horde of unearthly reptiles.

Screams, explosions. The lead creature fell down on its legs in haste, having narrowly dodged the attack run. What it couldn’t dodge were the shockwaves from the explosion and the pieces of debris, including pieces of flesh being flung as far as the Indian jawans feet. Both the elf and his mount writhed and groaned in pain, having struck by multitude of things, recovering from the barrage of thousands of small stones as well as the inside of their brothers in arms.

The helicopter’s attack run, while devastating for the new creatures, couldn’t cleanse them all. Trying to hit the foremost beasts meant the risk of friendly casualties due to how close they were. Meaning there was no time for cheering. The threat was still there, standing directly in front of them.

“Back up! Back up!” Shekhar began stepping back, halting momentarily to deliver rounds into the creatures. Machine gunners stood alongside him, pressing the somewhat disoriented beasts with suppressive fire, while other jawans sprinted ahead. Some stopped and assisted the gunners, their rifles spewing empty, smoking casings from the side, and death from the front.

By now, the jawans had managed to retreat quite far inside the base. Shekhar now found himself taking cover from behind the large building when he had heard the roars first, peeking around a corner, along with the rest of the jawans.

“Where are the civilians?!” Shekhar asked a jawan of his squad behind him.

“They were relocated to a house back there sir!” The jawan pointed a finger behind him, towards the west.

“Any suggestions from command as to how we are supposed to deal with these things?!”

“Uhhhhh…” the jawan seemed to rack his brains briefly, then spoke,” command said they were sending tanks to deal with them! Said they’ll be there in about a minute or two!”

“For fuck’s sake, they better be here soon or---” Shekhar was cut off again, this time by a large crashing sound. He turned his head, and what greeted his adrenaline-fuelled eyes was a cloud of dust and sizable chunks of rocks and stones being flung away. One of the houses had been demolished, or rather crushed. A large shadow could be seen approaching from within the dust cloud, and sounds of stone and metal getting crushed by something large, coupled with loud, low grunts could be heard.

The creatures were here, and if the jawans didn’t hurry, they would be turned into exotic reptile food.

“Clear backblast!”

Shekhar turned towards the source of the shout, towards a pair of jawans. One jawan, an AT gunner, was crouching on one knee on the ground, his eyes firmly planted on the target. On his right shoulder was a Carl Gustaf M4 recoilless rifle. His assistant gunner was standing right beside him, his hand rested firmly on his rifle. Their expressions were tense, their grips tight, ready to take on whatever came out of the smoke.

“Clear!” In came the reply as the jawans cleared out of the vicinity of the pair of jawans quickly and skilfully. The smoke began to settle down a little, the shape and identity of the displeased creature became clearer.

BANG

A small explosion. A bright flash. Dirt and dust kicked from the ground where the jawans stood, with smoke pouring out of the rifle’s back and front. The Tandem HEAT round screamed towards the head of the creature, its impact blowing up another cloud of smoke and a dirt, and what Shekhar could make out to be a faint red mist, and wet, slippery, red-coloured bits of flesh.

The dust settled, and the result was in front of everyone to see. The creature was dead. A large hole dripping with dark-red liquid could be seen, now carved in its head. The Tandem round had probably penetrated its large frill and taken out its rider too, for Shekhar could swear he saw a human leg lying near the dead creature that had collapsed on its legs.

“Whoooooohhhhhhh yeeeaaaahhhhhh!!!!” Some of the jawans cheered, seeing the monster’s dead body. After all, it wasn’t every day one got the opportunity to kill monsters straight out of a Hollywood movie. A loud grunt from behind the carcass however, silenced their cheers, as another one of those monsters appeared, baring its fangs.

“Clear backblast!”

“Clear!”

The AT gunner’s assistant had already loaded a new round, ready to fire as the beast began moving. Another blast, another cloud of dust and dirt. This time, it was followed by a loud, bird-like shriek, followed by a crash and loud thud.

Shekhar turned his head, and saw the creature lying over on his side, its rider lying a distance away from it, seemingly motionless, yet oddly unharmed considering what he was hit with. The creature sounded distraught, confused and shook after the attack from the unknown weapon. A puddle of blood could be seen near one of the front legs of the creature.

It seemed the Tandem round had missed the head, and instead impacted another part of the body, probably its limbs, immobilizing it. How long it would stay that way though, was not something he could say with utmost confidence.

More loud grunts reached his from the north and northeast. Shekhar realized immediately that there were more of these beasts were now starting to swarm around the edge of the wyvern base. Above him, he could hear helicopters hard at work thinning the hordes of monsters still pouring in from the forests, and the continuous barrage of explosions deep in the forests drummed in the background.

“Alright pull back now! To the West! To the West! Now!” Shekhar ordered his squad as the jawans begin pulling further back, to the west. To not have single casualty reported was something Shekhar considered a miracle, considering how problematic the things in front of them were. It was no exaggeration that what each one of those monsters was effectively as troublesome as a tank, meaning that his meagre infantry platoon was up against what was possibly a division or a brigade-sized armoured unit. That too, at an uncomfortably close range.

Machine gun fire tore between and through the weak stone walls from one side, suppressing the monsters as they tore through walls from the other side, slogging through the thick hail of lead towards the Indian men. More jawans supported the machine gunners, taking turns firing at the creatures before moving, maintaining the distance between them and the oversized reptiles.

 Yet, the creatures pushed on, knowing that they were pushing the Demons back, and that every step they took was slowly starting to decrease the gap between them and their uninvited prey. Cheers and shouts from the elves’ side could be heard amidst the short-lived pauses in gunfire, reflecting their new-found hope and joy, knowing that there was something that could finally ‘vanquish these demons’.

“What the heck is command doing!? Tell ‘em if don’t get support soon we’re fucked!” Shekhar shouted as the last round went flying from his rifle’s ejector, the bolt being locked in the rear position this time. His rifle was out of ammo. Quickly drawing his pistol, he lined up his iron sights and unloaded his entire magazine, the slide locking back as the gun went dry. The rounds impacted near the large, bony frill of the creature, with some hitting the soft, meaty body of the rider trying to peek from behind it. They were now near the last rows of buildings of the base at the western edge, where all the civilians were being kept. Any more than this and ammo shortage wouldn’t be their only problem.

Suddenly, in between the erratic gunfire, Shekhar’s adrenaline-fuelled, sensitive ears caught a sound. A low rumble. From what he could pick up in between the lulls in gunfire, it sounded familiar. A grin slowly surfaced on Shekhar’s face as he loaded a new magazine in his pistol.

“Sir! The Armoured boys are here!” his squadmate yelled.

“I know.”

They had arrived. The fat bastards in their fat toys. The rumble became louder and louder, as a mechanical whirring became noticeable. It wasn’t too long before the source of the sound made its presence known: DRDO Zorawar light tanks from the 16^th Light Cavalry of the Armoured Corps.

One tank pulled up right beside Shekhar’s position, the .50 cal RWS on the commander’s side and the coaxial machine gun opening up on the monsters. Jawans scurried behind it, finally relieved from their positions. Using the main gun wasn’t an option. There were friendlies all around, after all. Overpressure would kill them before the monsters did.

The commander’s hatch opened up, and a head popped out.

“Good work boys! We’ll take it from here!” The commander showed a thumbs up, his other hand adjusting his visibly dirty helmet.

“Quite late to the party, aren’t we?”

“Hahah, the real saviour of the show always turns up late!” The tank commander laughed as he ducked back in the turret. Time to get to work.

The tank lurched forward, as the jawans quickly retreated. Inside the tank, eyes were fixed on screens, showing the mass of monsters in glowing white against a background of various shades of grey. The scene in front of them was chaotic. The monsters that had been steadily pushing forward braving small arms fire, now were moving erratically. Staggering, even. .50 cal rounds seemed to be quite effective against eldritch abominations, it seems.

“Alright, gunner! Sabot, Big lizard, right! Target, Engage!”

“Engaging!”

A muffled explosion. A little shaking. On the screen, a small cloud appeared, briefly hiding the target. The cloud of smoke cleared, and the result revealed itself for every pair of eyes in the dark, cramped interior.

The head of the monster was completely gone. Its frills, its rider hiding behind the frills, all gone. A large portion of the spikes on its back were also gone, shattered and pulverized. In between the place where the spine should have been, a sizable hole was barely visible, almost completely hidden by the dark red blood.

“Damn, that is one way to cook a lizard, huh.” A casual remark left the tank commander’s mouth as the tank moved forward, entering an open space. All the buildings ahead had now been flattened and demolished by these monsters, meaning the tank had much more space to maneuver. As it did, three more monsters appeared in front of it.

“Gunner, sabot, big lizard again, right, target engage!”

“Engaging!”

Another blast. Smoke poured out of the muzzle. The front of the tank was eclipsed by a cloud of dirt. On his thermals, the commander could see the result. The creature’s belly had exploded, hit from the side. Its body was torn into two large chunks.

The other creatures appeared stunned. Their riders could not comprehend what just transpired. One moment, they were confidently pushing the demons back, the other moment, their fellow beasts simply exploded. What magic could possibly do such a thing….

“Gunner, sabot, big lizard, traverse right, target, engage!”

“Engaging!”

The commander sent another round to the creature directly beside the first. The creature and its rider exploded, spraying the surroundings with red splatters and bits of meat.

On the thermals, the commander saw the third one move. It had probably recovered from its state of shock, afraid of meeting the same fate as its friends. It grunted, then opened its jaws wide. On the thermals, a white-circular shaped glow appeared inside its mouth.

“Shit! Brace for impact!” The commander shouted, his senses warning him about what is to come.

As if suddenly ejected, or catapulted from its position, the glowing circular mass hurled itself towards the tank, its shape becoming bigger on the thermal camera every moment. Every crew member grabbed on whatever support they could grab onto, bracing for the other worldly attack coming for them.

A thud. The tank shook a little. The crew’s heartrate spiked. One second. Two seconds. Nothing happened. The commander looked around. Everything seemed fine. There were no alarms, there were no damages. His thermal sights were running completely fine.

“Crew, sitrep! Any damages?” the commander inquired.

“All systems green sir! No problems of any kind.”

“Everything green, sir! The gun’s still active, no problem!”

“Well… that was rather anticlimactic. Guess we got blue-balled by some giant alien lizard. Not that I mind though, I’d prefer that any day over getting home in a body bag.” The commander remarked, readjusting his helmet as he aligned his thermals once again with the third creature.

“Gunner, sabot, big lizard, right, target engage!”

“Engaging!”

Another blast, another sabot round. The long, dense tungsten rod tore through the air towards it target, which had still not recovered from its state of shock and horror over the alien beast shrugging off his attack. The commander got a glimpse of his shocked expression, before an explosion eclipsed the shape of the third creature.

“Cease fire!”

The commander shouted as the tank slowly began trudging forward, as more tanks streamed in from behind, ready to retake the wyvern base once again.

 

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Note from the author:

Discord server is up, for anyone who has suggestions or questions for the story:

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