User:Spartan 501/A Life Stolen/Chapter 6

1200 Hours, September 14th, 2523 (Military Calendar)

Epsilon Eridani System, Reach Maneuvers Simulation Complex,

planet Reach

Thousands of stun rounds scythed through the thin bamboo trees that Leonid had been slowly crawling through, chopping them to tiny pieces. A dozen ricocheted into Leonid but he merely flinched at the extreme pain and sprinted forward. Calls of combat and anger exploded behind him, but all he could see was the tree line ahead. Inside it: hundreds of stun mines that Red Team had commandeered from warehouses under the control of Mendez. And Green Team, led by Kurt, was running right into their trap.

"Bird's flying the coop!" yelled Leonid into his chin mike as more rounds pelted the ground near his feet, throwing up clumps of dirt.

"Copy." yelled someone who's name Leonid hadn't learned over the other end, and Leonid fired his stun round M7 over his shoulder. A scream of pain echoed across the grassy plain.

Ahead, Leonid spotted two of his team members, M7 submachine guns in hand, firing suppression fire at the charging green team from behind a row of sandbags a meter high. Thanks to an ambush by Blue Team, Red was down by more than half their guys, and Green Team hadn't lost a man yet. Damn Kurt and his stupid instincts. One of the suppression gunners dropped, a hail of black rubber blurs slamming into his side. He fell to the ground and squirmed like a fish out of water, writhing in pain. The other gunner shifted his aim and cut down a Green team member who was sprinting after Leonid firing a M6 pistol. Two rubber rounds bounced off of the Green's bare face, and he fell to the ground, unconscious.

Leonid sprinted and dove behind the sand bags, and as he landed he felt dozens of stun round impacts through the sand. Not a good sign.

"On your feet!" yelled the remaining suppression gunner, and Leonid rolled to his feet and leveled his M7 at the open space.

"I'm going!" he roared, and punched the other trainee, hard, in the face.

The trainee reeled backwards, clutching his jaw, but then they both turned and saw a massive tide of Green Team soldiers swarming over the tall grass straight towards them. Leonid cursed and they both let their M7s loose, cutting down three Green soldiers. A stray round blossomed in the suppression gunner’s gut, and the other trainee crumpled to the ground. Leonid felt a moment of strange satisfaction seeing the other kid fall, but a sense of terror overcame him almost immediately. The entirety of Green team, 20 soldiers in all, sprinted towards him, firing a combination of stun round M7s, MA2Bs, and M6 pistols.

Leonid felt a round bounce off his elbow and he fell to the ground in a heap. He felt pain like he had never experienced, and a fog settled around the corners of his vision and began to creep slowly inward. Time seemed to dilate and slow, and the Green team members around him moved in jumps and had blurred outlines. They moved behind the sandbag bunker, weapons sweeping the area, and spotted the first suppression gunner to go down lying squirming on the ground. Kurt-051, well known for his miraculous ability to sniff out ambushes, walked up to the kid, aimed an M6 at each of his limbs, and pumped single rounds into each of them. The trainee jerked violently, and then lay still, blacked out from the pain.

Leonid went rigid.

The Green members looked towards Leonid, and then turned their gaze to the Red team member's weapons. They looted them then moved in a large group into the woods, straight into the trap. Leonid gazed through one badly swollen eye as Green team walked slowly into the target area, relaxing for a moment and congratulating each other in victory. Suddenly, Kurt spun, and looked directly at Leonid. For a moment, their eyes met, and Leonid spotted recognition in Kurt's gaze. Too late, Kurt.

"Close the cage, mark." whispered Leonid into his throat mike.

The woods Green team had entered exploded into a shower of wood shards and rippling outlines. The stun mines, planted in the ground and inside the newer and smaller trees, detonated in clouds of splinters and plumes of earth. Green team members were thrown about like rag dolls, limbs flailing. Immediately, a hail of rounds tore into their stunned and weakened formation from the tree tops, Red team finally springing its own ambush. Kurt went down with seven rounds to the gut, enough stun rounds to put even CPO Mendez out of commission for an hour or so. Green team's line didn't break however, the trainees stood their ground and open fired, and two Red team members fell from their perches. But it wasn't enough; the Greens were too exposed, and after only seconds, the last Green lay face first on the forest floor.

Red team trainees descended from grappling lines, sweeping M7s and MA5Bs over the Greens, pumping rounds into stragglers were needed. They landed and moved swiftly, rounding up the limp bodies and tying them up. They looted the weapons and handed them out. Leonid's vision began to clear, and he got up off the ground, picking up a M6 off of the ground. He glanced down at his elbow, and saw it was thoroughly swollen. That would be a hassle, especially in the field like this.

Joshua-029, their temporary leader, walked up to Leonid, a pair of M6s tucked into hip holsters and an M7 in his hands.

"Nice job Leonid." he said, but Leonid ignored him and walked past him to collect weapons off of the "dead" Red team members.

Suddenly, something stirred behind him, and Leonid turned and saw the suppression gunner who had been downed by the gut round get up and look around slowly. Suddenly, he looked right at Leonid, and their gaze's met. Leonid finally recognized the kid, he was Edward-077, not Leonid's favorite person. Edward walked towards Leonid, and Leonid dropped the M6 and sprinted towards him. The kid was meat.

Leonid walked up to him, and pushed him.

"You want to fight?" asked Edward, challenge ringing in his tone.

""DON'T. MAKE. ME. KILL. YOU." said Leonid with an icy venom, but Edward merely laughed.

"What's with the accent?" asked Edward, his voice mocking.

"Stop asking me about my accent, or I'll beat your face in, meat." growled Leonid, and Edward laughed.

"Really?" He whispered.

Edward exploded forward faster than Leonid could track. He swung his leg out and swept Leonid off his feet, and Leonid had to roll at an awkward angle not to avoid breaking his neck. Edward lashed out cobra quick, sending two sharp jabbing punches at Leonid. Leonid came out of his roll and twisted to the side to avoid the blows, then jumped in mid turn and brought his leg up in a spinning kick that caught Edward in the brim of the nose. Edward reeled backwards, blood spurting from his nose, and grabbed it with both hands. Leonid recovered his balance and attacked, bringing his toe out and into Edward's knee joint, and the other bigger trainee toppled to the ground.

Leonid stood over Edward and brought his booted foot down on one of his arm joints, snapping it, and then proceeded to do the same thing to the other one. He was mad, not only at Edward, but at everyone, at life in general. Leonid looked away from Edward's bloody body and gazed around him. Red Team members stood in a semi-circle, too shocked for words.

But not for action.

They drew their weapons and aimed them at Leonid, and he could hear a symphony of clicks as they thumbed off safeties. His chances of winning a fight were zero. He was unarmed, outnumbered, and already breathless from the fight. In short, he was dead.

But perhaps not. Joshua flicked a finger and the circle parted, and Leonid saw him point.

"Get out of here." Said Joshua in a low voice, odd due to his usual cheerfulness.

Leonid knew when to leave. He gathered up the M6 pistol he had dropped earlier, grabbed a M7 from the ground, and shuffled his way out of the circle, and out into the grassy field. Leonid was not new to these types of situations; he knew that the others disliked him, thought him strange, and didn't trust him due to incidents similar (though not as extreme) to this. It was fine with him. He didn't trust them either.