Chappy screams over the radio as I watch the carnage from the treeline. "Fly, they're attacking the locals!"

Fuck. "Hold fire! It might be a military action Sergeant- Hold fire until command says otherwise." I respond.

Everything was nominal minutes ago; Chappy and Hobo were providing overwatch as we moved closer to observe the native populace better. Then It all went to hell.

I press one of the buttons on my earpiece again- this time radioing to the commander.

"Zeus this is team one. We have a situation at settlement one; an unidentified native force has stormed the village and are attacking the local inhabitants. Requesting orders. Over."

Te-zzzzrrrk can-rrrkkzz er-zzzrrkk-"' The incomprehensible, static-filled response comes.

"Zeus, can you say again? I cannot read you. Over." I say as my brain strain to comprehend the transmission.

"Te-rrrzzzzkkk un-zzzzkkkrrr-"

"I can't read you Zeus- too much static. Over."

There is only static this time. I cursed, and then a brief thought of what the cause could be come into my thoughts; equipment malfunction, atmospheric problems- or god forbid, Area Zero is under attack.

I press the team transmission button again to update my team. "I can't reach command, there's problems with the comms. Everybody hold fire and I'll keep trying."

I kept trying for a few more minutes with no success. As I attempted to reach command for the filth time from a less dense part of the treeline, Chappy radioed in.

"Sir, the assaulting force are dragging locals out of their houses and executing them in the streets. Requesting permission to open fire as to protect them." He says, voice tense.

I cringe. As much as I can understand where he is coming from- the directive is clear; there is to be no interference with any native populace without permission.

"Negative, permission denied- we aren't risking any possible repercussions by interfering." I respond.

Chappy is probably is cursing on his side when I finished the transmission- the horrible things we see and do as delta force operators don't always sit well with him.

I shake my head. It's ironic how the marksman- who is expected to deliver precise and accurate killing shots is the second most empathetic person in the team, next to our medic.

"Command this is team one, respond if you read. Over." I say into the radio, and again receiving only static.

"Sir the-" Chappy tries to radio in, but I cut him off. He needs to know that I am not going to act without clearance from the Major.

"Lieutenant, look; I know we've seen bad shit back in Brazil, and that we had to do all those things back in Colombia but that-" I was speaking mid-sentence when he cuts in.

"Sir, no, you should see what this local is doing!"

I turn around and hear some odd noises from the village; so I run back to see what is causing it. Upon getting a line of sight- I see a local seemingly deflecting or outright preventing blows from landing on them without physical action, and while blasting away rocks and dirt like a shotgun after levitating them from the ground.

"The fuck is that shit?" Jackie says from nearby.

We watch as a local blasts rocks to a group of attackers- who promptly fell bleeding or unconscious- except for one who managed not to get hurt too badly, and hurled a spear that impaled the local.

"I wasn't the only one who saw that shit right?" Romero asks through the net.

What the fuck was that? I think as the local's body is bypassed by more attackers.

"Sir, the locals with this ability seem to be limited in numbers- we need to act now or we might lose them all." Chappy says through the comms.

I breathe in, weighing the options.

"Can confirm that one Fly, there were only seven seen demonstrating similar abilities- six now with the latest one getting speared... make it five." Hobo confirms Chappy's intel.

We'll be lucky to grab one or two with the ferociousness of the attack. But are they worth breaking the directive for?

I took a few seconds to decide.

"Fuck it." I say before I press the transmission button.

"Team you're cleared to engage, open fire but DO NOT risk hitting the locals!"

Mere moments after giving permission, the EBR barked as Chappy fires a shot. I signal for Romero and Jackie to advance with me into the settlement. We move out of the treeline and eliminate multiple targets in our immediate vicinity.

"Hobo, watch us from up there and give us reports of any large enemy concentrations." I radio after I put two bullets into a hostile.

"Roger, you have a concentration of twelve hostiles thirty meters and a left of your current heading."

The three of us move towards the location while Hobo updates us with the situation nearby. Chappy's EBR barks as he fires at his targets.

We stack up just around a corner adjacent to the street where the concentration is. I ask Hobo for a final confirmation.

"Yes sir, they're still there with the addition of two locals being dragged behind them." He responds.

I turn to Romero and Jackie. "Stay on burst and semi. Romero, you take care of the ones near the captives; Jackie, you and me are going to take out everyone else. Understood?"

"Affirmative." Nods Jackie.

"Roger." Romero says while switching to semi-auto.

I extend my arm to my side, hand wide open. "On my mark." I say.

A shot from Chappy's EBR rings out- giving us ample noise to mask our movement.

I crumple my hand into a ball. "Mark!"

I step around the corner and into the view of two hostiles looking at our direction. They were too confused to react before I lodge a bullet into their heads. Jackie doing the same to those who are not holding the captives, while Romero took out the ones doing so.

"Move up." I say when the last of the targets is eliminated.

We approach the two captives- the one seemingly male is slowly crawling to the one that seems female.

"Romero, go check on on them." I say as me and Jackie form a perimeter around the two captives.

Romero kneels beside the two shaken natives as he checks up on their wounds. I look back at him to inspect him handling the locals- they're pale, and have a tint of purple- Injuries maybe?

After a while, Romero looks up at me and shakes his head.

"The female is bad shape Fly. I've done what I can but she won't survive long without proper attention." He says.

I nod. "We'll worry about that when we've cleared the village. Now let's move."

"Fly, wait." He says before I could completely turn my head.

He lifts the young woman's golden hair and I see her ear. Its shape is different from ours; like the elves in stories and movies that I've seen.

I open my mouth, meaning to say something about it- but decide against it and opted for something else instead.

"Doesn't matter right now. Point them somewhere safe, and let's move." I say.

Romero took a glance at the two... whatever they are. And pointed at the building that we confirmed as clear earlier. And just as Romero stands up, Hobo radios in again.

"Sir, hostiles are converging at a large tree building at the center of the village, one hundred meters left of your current facing. It seems large enough to hold most of the locals- might be a refuge."

"Copy." I acknowledge before signaling to Romero and Jackie. "Come on, let's hustle."

We hurry on the dirt path to the center of the village- eliminating hostiles as we see them. Nearing the center we hear shouts of what sounds to be commands, and a bashing of something into wood.

"Hobo, are there any civilians in the vicinity?" I ask.

He takes a moment before replying. "Can't tell what's in-front of the doorway of the large tree-building. But there is a concentration of locals located in or near the center. There's also a large number of hostiles on the path right beside the tree building- should be clear for Jackie's Mark forty-six."

I turn to Jackie. "Jackie, full auto. Targets are right beside the tree building."

"Fuck yeah." He responds.

Then I look at Romero. "Romero, we're advancing to the center of the village. You take out any hostiles around the civilians, and then help me out in thinning the numbers outside the door."

"Yes sir."

"Let's go!"

Jackie kneels as he turns around the corner and then fires full auto into the mass of bodies- they were unable to react in confusion and surprise. While me and Romero make our way to the center.

There is a big guy, and I mean a BIG guy that is holding a BIG hammer. He was bashing on the door before the commotion that we made drew his attention-he turns around, charging straight at me.

"Shit!" I curse as I shoot at the armored torso- 5.56 failed to penetrate. So I then proceed to shoot the helmet- no effect.

The giant man is ten meters way from hammering me into a pulp when he suddenly collapsed mid-sprint, the sound of the EBR following right after.

The rest of the hostiles saw the big guy collapse and that seemed to be the end of the fight for them. They drop their weapons and tried to run away- Romero firing off shots to the retreating hostiles before turning to tend the civilians.

"Ah fuck!" I hear Jackie shout. I turn as quickly as possible and point my HK416 at his direction.

There is a straggler that managed to sneak behind Jackie with a sword. Jackie seems to have managed to evade his attacker's first swing. I aimed at the straggler and fired.

Click!

Fucking hell.

"Ah goddammit!" I say as I eject my magazine to confirm it is empty, then reached out for a new magazine.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Jackie assume a fighting stance and dodge another swing of his attacker. Then he charged forward and tackled his attacker down, bringing out his combat knife and plunging it into his attacker's neck.

I have just managed to finish reloading before the swordsman started to drown in his own blood. I look to Romero and it would seem that he needed to reload too as he just finished doing so. Jackie pulled out his knife after giving his attacker a wide gash in the neck.

"I could have gotten skewered by the fucker!" He exclaims while sheathing his knife, and looking at me.

I shake my weapon. "Ammo problems."

Jackie gave me a questioning look before turning back to look at where Chappy and Hobo are providing overwatch.

A moment passed before chappy realized he is being questioned.

"Needed to reload too." Chappy radios to the team net.

Jackie looked back at me and then to his attacker. Then exclaiming "Fuck!" in the ridiculousness of his situation before picking up his Mark forty-six.

I couldn't help but chuckle and shake my head- almost died but didn't; a summary of our status after most of our missions overall.

"Now you lot seem more like Adamson's team, notice the bodies people. And there still might be some hostiles out there." Romero says through the comms for everyone to hear.

He's right- we are finding humor while being surrounded by corpses of civilians and those we eliminated. the group of shaken survivors that Romero has patched up were staring at us in fear.

"Uh, right. Chappy, Hobo; come down here and sweep the left side of the Village. Me and Jackie will take the right." I say after setting my mind back to the objective.

"Gotcha Fly." The Hobo responds.

I organize my magazine pouches while Jackie reloads his MK46. When we were good and ready to go we started to sweep the village; clearing it house by house, and scanning every single alley we pass through.

We just finished clearing the last house that's ours to do so- Chappy and Hobo were clearing the house across of us as we got out.

Chappy shouted- and for a moment my grip on my weapon tightened, before I made sense of the shout as a command to drop weapons.

I didn't get my hopes high for whoever Chappy encountered; the fourteen fuckers we found in the houses fought back and two of those were in the middle of raping a local and tried to do a number on me as I tried to pull them off. Jackie put a bullet into their heads.

Surprisingly on this one though- Chappy did walk outside with two similar-looking young men wearing similar garb to those who assaulted the village. Hobo stepped outside next, escorting three natives; two females and a young boy.

"Get back to Romero and help him out as best as you can." I say to Jackie.

"Yes sir."

I approach Chappy, who is in the middle of restraining the two young men with a zip tie- he looks up and finished as I approach.

"Jackie is pretty pissed at you." I say.

Chappy smirked and snorted. "I can't just make ammo appear from thin-air now can I?"

I sigh. "No, I guess not. So, what's up with these two?"

Chappy looks at the two captives. "Well, I found these two hiding the natives instead of raping or butchering them- they were amiable enough to drop their weapons after I shouted at them, so I decided not to kill them."

I look at the two as I haven't gotten a good look as to who we have been shooting the whole time; the two Chappy have captured seemed human, no weird ears or skin. And they pretty much look like someone in their early twenties.

Then I look back at the three we have rescued. I haven't noticed it before because of the urgency in combat; but their eyes seem to be slightly slanted, and their faces seemed to be consistently pointy. With skins in the hue of violet, purple, and blue. One of them has green hair.

I look at Hobo and Chappy, both of whom just shrugged.

"I dunno." Hobo says.

A moment passed, then I gave out orders. "Let's get back to the village center."

"Roger." They respond before nudging the prisoners forward and beckoning the natives to follow.

The village center was no less cleaner that when we left it- corpses are still everywhere. Though there are now more wounded being tended to by Romero.

"Sir." Romero acknowledged my presence, before looking at the captives Chappy is escorting, one of whom is throwing up.

"Chappy found these two hiding some of the locals, they might be more amiable to interrogations later." I say.

Romero nods, and looked at the bloody mess that is the village center.

I notice that Jackie is nowhere to be seen. "Where's Jackie?" I ask.

Romero didn't take his eyes off the corpses- specifically the ones that were on the bench earlier. They are now on the ground and respectively covered. "I sent him out with a local to call survivors that you've found earlier and escort them here."

I nod, pulling my stare away from the carnage. "Roger, so, what's the sitrep?" I ask.

Romero looks at the patched-up survivors and captives. "Well, fuck, I lost about five natives while trying to keep them from dying. I didn't even bother with the dying hostiles and focused on not losing more of the villagers. Six of them are in critical condition, the worse one I'll be giving less than two hours before they go. Half of the ones that aren't in critical condition are either unconscious or keep losing consciousness."

I look at the large tree building. "What about the one's inside?"

Romero shifts his gaze to the tree.

"They haven't done shit."

I breathe in and then pull down my mask because I was overheating inside. As much as it is cruel to let the others die- the people taking refuge inside would've died the same brutal way had they not took this drastic measure.

A cry of anger snapped me out of my trance, just fast enough to see one of the local inhabitants charging straight at me.

I tried to react but was too slow- the young woman tackled me quite effectively and knocked me off my feet.

"Get her the fuck off of me!" I shout out loud as my assailant put down a hail of less impressive punches onto my head, which is thankfully absorbed by my MICH helmet.

Romero tries to pull her off, but he screams as he got bit by the local.

I took this opportunity to push my assailant off me. Then I attempted to get a grip on her, but she avoided it and punched me in the face.

She was about to punch me again when Jackie's voice sounded from around the corner.

"Ok, right here, don't be scared you little valkyrie- we'll get you patched right up." I heard Jackie's voice along side a female one- who is speaking in an unintelligible language before they rounded the corner.

Jackie is holding a small girl in his arms seemingly no older than thirteen. The girl has a gash across her cheek and is bleeding into the gauze pad that Jackie had put over her wound.

Romero didn't waste any time- he got up and took the girl from Jackie's arm, setting her down on a bloodied bed sheet he utilized as an operating area.

There are two, younger children that is being led by the young native woman- her hair is nominal, brown, although she retains the other quirks of her kind.

Romero sighed after placing more gauze pads on the girl. I look at him and his patient- which I already admire for being able to take the pain of a large gash at such a young age. Romero turns his head to me, and spoke in a fatigued tone.

"I'm out of threads, I can't sew this up. Fly, can't you still contact command?" He asks.

"Wait one." I say as I press the button on my ear piece- my eyes looking at my earlier assailant who is staring at Romero while he patches up the girl.

"Command this is-" I stop mid-transmission, hearing a noise from the distance.

The sound of beat that can be only attributed to one thing can be heard, coming closer and closer.

"Do you hear that?" Hobo asks.

"Yeah, sounds like a chopper." Chappy replies.

We all wait in anticipation as the sound grows louder and louder, till a flight of Black Hawk helicopters flew overhead.

The locals are understandably terrified. The brown-haired local screams in terror before running to cover; while the gold and green bi-colored hair girl- my assailant. Seems to look around for something.

"Team one do you read? This is Pigeon flight leader, respond if you read. Over." My earpiece sounded with the voice of the flight leader.

I activate the local channel in my earpiece, then pressed it to communicate with the flight leader.

"Pigeon flight leader, this is team one. We read you loud and clear, what the hell is the matter with the comms? Over." I ask.

The Black Hawk banks and turns back around. "Atmospheric interference they say- technicians are working on it. And what's that we're seeing down there? Over." The flight leader asks as he circles the village with his wingman.

I turn around to the very visible mess that is the village center. "We were observing the settlement when it got attacked by what seems to be humans. Some of the locals demonstrated some superpowers or magic shit- I decided to grab them and now we need a medevac for the wounded locals. Over."

A brief moment of static.

"Seem to be humans? Over." The flight leader asks.

Now how to explain this. "Yeah, the locals of the settlement look like some pale violet-ish elves or some shit, while the ones who attacked seems human. We're giving them an hour or so before the ones who had it worse are going to die. Over."

The comms is again silent for a moment, but pigeon flight leader soon transmitted again.

"Roger that team one. We have space for the wounded but you have to fly back with us to base with the first batch. The rest of your team can stay to assist with the medevac but command is requesting for a sitrep from you when we find you. How copy?"

I nod. "Solid copy. Out." Then I take my hand away from the ear piece, and looked back at my team.

"The birds are picking up the wounded. Hobo, Chappy; get on each of the choppers and assist the wounded being boarded. The rest of you guys; stay here and help."

"Yes sir." My team responds before moving to their tasks.

Just then, the door of the tree-building opened; an old native stepped out- wielding a glowing staff.

"That shit doesn't look safe!" Jackie says as he cocks his Mark forty-six and takes aim.

The staff-wielding local stared right at me and my team before looking up to a passing Black Hawk.

"What is going on down there team one?" The flight leader asks as he pass.

The old local raises her staff to the Black Hawk- I quickly realize what she is doing.

"TAKE EVASIVE MANUVERS NOW PIGEON LEAD!" I shout through the radio and raise my weapon to the native.

The Black Hawk quickly banks hard, just narrowly avoiding some sort of fireball coming out of the local's staff.

Jackie then immediately fires bursts at the local- who seem to recoil from impact, but not get wounded.

It is then that Chappy started to fire from his EBR; this seem to have the punch to break through the local's protection. He hits her on the shoulder and she falls down.

A scream comes from my left. The girl with a bi-colored hair is now running to the local we just shot.

Romero- who was making sure that the wounded are prepared for medevac. Now had to rush to the new patient and started to stabilize the her while the conscious locals looked on in shock.

"What the fuck was that team one?! Is the ground clear or not?" The flight lead angrily asks through the radio.

I am still in shock of what I just witnessed. That is magic- and it just nearly killed killed our guys.

Snapping out of it, I radio back my response. "Uh- Sorry pigeon lead. We couldn't enter that building and know that the locals have AA capabilities."

The flight leader sounded less pissed this time. "Fucking hell... So, is it clear now? Can we evac you guys out of there or not?" The flight leader asks.

I look to the tree-building. "We'll clear the building- proceed with landing and loading the wounded civilians." I respond and make my way there.

"Chappy, come with me." I say as I pass by him on the way to the tree-building.

He walks beside me- never taking his eyes off the local he just shot till we got to the door.

We enter the tree-building, carefully scanning for any threats or surprises. The inside is spacious and have a lot of big books and scrolls.

"Did she just hide in here when she could have brought most of the village in with her?" Chappy says as we walk in.

"Dunno. Let's check the second floor." I say.

We make our way to the stairs, and while climbing I notice that the lamps giving light off to the room did not have fire- but instead have dust that emits it.

I disregard the odd source of lighting as we reach the top of the stairs. I slowly breathe in as we climb past the floor of the second floor.

I am ready to open fire were there a threat- but the second floor had none.

It is empty and as large as the first floor.

"What the... she- this is enough space for all the dead bodies out there!" Chappy says in disgust.

Yeah, that and more.

"Lets go." I say, heading back down to the stairs. Chappy just stood there- staring at the spacious room, and taking a moment before he went down the stairs too.

When we got outside we immediately start to help load up the wounded. It took quite a while to convince the non-critically wounded locals to board. They kept away from the Black Hawk and the pilot is getting annoyed. It was only when little girl Jackie was carrying early stepped into the chopper that the rest followed.

I board the chopper with Chappy and the ones who are critically wounded. the Black Hawk has enough space for six to lay down on but it was reduced to five as the rest of the space were occupied by me and Chappy.

The helicopter takes off, I see the locals down below staring as their wounded neighbors take the skies and fly off to somewhere they don't know.

The flight is silent, Chappy is holding his EBR between his legs while the wounded groan.

"Will the major be pissed at you for making that call?" He asks while staring at the afternoon sun.

I stare at the afternoon sun too. And honestly, I have no idea.

I shake my head. "We'll see."