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Entry tags:
- * setting: gallipoli 1916,
- armitage hux [star wars],
- ashitaka [princess mononoke],
- bucky barnes [marvel],
- daenerys targaryen [asoiaf],
- eren yeager [attack on titan],
- hei [darker than black],
- heine rammsteiner [dogs],
- kylo ren [star wars],
- lup [dungeons & dragons],
- mamoru hijikata [until death do us part],
- merlin sawall [the chronicles of amber],
- midnighter [dc],
- mordred [fate],
- morrigan [dragon age],
- noctis lucis caelum [final fantasy],
- prompto argentum [final fantasy],
- rey [star wars],
- ryuji sakamoto [persona],
- siegfried [fate],
- soldier 76 [overwatch]
AND THE ANZAC LEGENDS DIDN'T MENTION...
AND THEN SOMEONE YELLED OUT "CONTACT!";
and the bloke behind me swore
THE SILENT WAR
The news of the day of the retreat spreads like wildfire through the Trenches. Leading up to the final date, all soldiers on the ground are instructed to limit their gunfire, to make it look like the usual traditions for warfare, which have determined much of human history up until this point: no one really goes to war in winter. Everyone is to maintain a verbal and physical presence, but the time to confuse the Turks has really become paramount. At times, whole sections are ordered to be perfectly quiet until the last possible second and then spring out before the Turks can get too close.
Which is just how it is supposed to be. In fact, for COST recruits, there's a real sense that this might just go according to plan.
Around this time, the Rear Guard signup starts. COST recruits are met with some surprise by Captain Lewis; he will blink in surprise at a group so new wanting to volunteer so readily, but he's glad and gives everyone who joins a big warm handshake.
Each day gets closer and the mood of the soldiers becomes more jubilant and tenser; the erratic sense of relief that they might be leaving what has become the graveyard of so many friends and, often times, family, combines with the frustration of not being able to do anything but wait. This leads to more than a few fights breaking out, often over nothing important. Just the edge of temporary relief.
Then, before dawn on Jan 7th, the evacuation begins in earnest. It's possible to see it from the top of some sections: a bustling populace until it trickles down to the ghost of the Trenches, where there is nothing left but the rear guard. It's a smooth, efficient evacuation.
The Rear Guard
This is a skeleton army, just enough to make it seem no one has left. Everyone is encouraged to come up with ways to make it seem like there are more men than there actually are.
The local soldiers have come up with a particularly sneaky one - a rope is wrapped around the trigger of a rifle, just loose enough not to pull it, and from the end of it hangs a bucket. Another container slowly drips water into the bucket until it fills and drops, pulling the rope around the trigger and firing the gun. Soldiers are tasked with emptying the water, refilling the cannister, or checking the gun if it looks like it has jammed.
Outside of that, if someone has a sneaky idea to keep up the ruse - even if it's lighting small fires or singing loudly in a chorus to give the notion of people still around - it's all encouraged.
THE THUNDER OF GUNS
Everything is going well. It's not even that worrying when a thick mist comes up, heavy and difficult to see through. But, for those with powers, it prickles oddly on bare skin, followed by a pressure that builds in the back of the mind. It seems to dull any extra powers or senses; magic and its ilk are still usable, but require more concentration to reach now.
In the stillness of the night, however, there is no breeze to move the fog on and it settles like oil through the trench.
It's 1am when the first shell drops. It falls to the east of the recruits' position at Lone Pine. It's a shell that comes down and splits apart the night air in an explosion of shrapnel, dirt and heat. Then a second, then a third, now starting from both sides.
All the soldiers' clamour out of the way and Captain Lewis can be heard shouting over the din: "Into the Tunnels!"
But not everyone can make it. The shells are coming steadily now and one step in the wrong direction is the difference between life and death in such a small space. It's chaos - some soldiers are killed outright. Others get buried under the debris and dirt. Others catch shrapnel that, if not fatal, is enough to throw them and make it hard to get up. But COST's mission is the same as it always is: save as many of these men's lives as possible.
There are four direct entries into the tunnels, all about four or five meters apart, and they're all interconnected within the tunnels themselves.
One by one, however, shells fall and destroy the entrances to the tunnels.
WARTIME ARCHEOLOGY
It takes another three hours for the bombardment to stop and, once the tunnel entrances collapse, it becomes very dark in there. Might be time to fish out a match and strike up a torch.
While Officers previously told soldiers to keep out of the tunnels and otherwise left them ignored, these tunnels are huge. Not like the ones in other sections of the coast; here, they seem to go far into No Man's Land. They're crudely constructed and only some sections are reenforced with heavy beams of wood. But once journeying into them, there are all sorts of things to be found. There are old gas lamps that can be used to light your way or hung on a secure nook or cranny. The stone has been worn smooth in some sections, and other parts have been carved with graffiti of the soldiers who cut them out.
Some locations go down a few steps, while others go up and small holes seem to have been dug through the roof of the tunnels.
It's definitely best to get away from the front of the tunnels, where the bombing is still going on. There are wounded to be seen to and secured from bleeding out, people to find to make sure everyone is still alive. Maybe you want to go farther into the interweaving tunnels to see what else can be recovered. Or maybe you're being stubbornly sensible and looking for a way to dig your way out again, once the bombs stop firing.
Either way, it's a long, exhausting wait in the dark as the ground shakes, showering dust and rocks over everyone.
INTO THE DAWN
The sun has risen when the firing stops - and it's time to search for a way out of here.
Stepping into the light reveals utter destruction. The concentrated bombing has done its work; everything is strewn or buried in dirt and rubble. Machine guns are overturned and parts of the Trench have collapsed; going over the top would be disastrous, given that the Turks have no idea what is happening and will pick off anyone who sticks their head up.
There also isn't...anyone else around. All that's left is this one segment of the rear guard, just 500 men and the COST soldiers. It isn't possible to discern if the other groups have been evacuated or killed at this point.
It's time to consolidate, count their losses, see who is alive and who isn't, and salvage what supplies are left after some digging clean up is done. Work out who needs to stand watch. For now, Captain Lewis' orders are to use the tunnels as a new base of operations.
SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES
They appear first as a shimmer of off-light, no more than a haze against the resettling mist. A faint shape against the grey - the long lines of a dog's face, almost Jackal-like, in a clean black uniform that gives more to the appearance of shadows - moves closer, but not too close. They could almost be a trick of the light, out of the corner of your eye. Almost intangible.
They're not moving closer, however, choosing to hang back in the rubble of the Trenches. The ANZAC soldiers don't seem to notice them at all.
Ten minutes after they're first spotted, Commander Grothia issues a priority message:
Contact. Regency soldiers. Do not engage.
If a shot does get fired that way, whether it's from Turkish or ANZAC soldiers unknowingly or from COST operatives: it's quick but, as the bullet seems to come into contact with them, the air around them shimmers blue, like it's hitting a field of light. This effect seems to be stronger when they're standing close together and, as of now, they remain unhurt.
Moving closer to them increases that feeling of mind fog on powered characters; for the unmagical, a sense of unease prickles up. It's a feeling not unlike the beginnings of the time-step, the hum of sensation that marks a transfer through time. Veteran recruits will easily recognize the buzz that dances through their bones before it stills as they move away; rookies might recall it from their initial arrival from BASE.
READ THE OOC INFOPAGE.
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Anyway, the lack of reaction actually reassures Prompto, at least until Midnighter points the barcode out. He pauses in his embarrassing attempt to get the rag tied around his wrist one-handed—he has some practice with that kind of thing, what with his bullshit fashion statement of wearing a bandana around one arm, but it's still not great—and there's a long, uncomfortable silence where he's just at a total loss on what to say.]
...Uh. No. It's...definitely not that. Be cooler if it was? [He gives a short laugh and it's a painfully awkward, nervous sound.]
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Noctis told you anything about me?
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...Not really. [How can he sound so sure a question like that has a wrong answer and he happened to pick it.]
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[Were that we all could talk about chickens all day.]
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[What is this video game bullshit SAYS THE CLONE.]
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[He taps his temple.]
If anybody's not gonna give you shit for a fucking barcode, it's me.
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[He hesitates, giving Midnighter a searching look, before he looks down at his hands.]
I just...didn't want it to be there anymore. I thought I'd at least be able to do that much.
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[Their situations probably aren't the same. Midnighter doesn't want to just assume, but-]
Take it from me. Even if you hide the obvious shit, it doesn't change the uglies deep down. Better to just own it.
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[Own something that declares he came off a production line, that he's as disposable as a cheap toy you'd get from a vending machine?]
...I'm not a soldier. I don't have a computer in my brain or anything like that, I'm just—I'm not anything. A "contaminated unit". [Yeah, he literally uses air quotes there, with a short, helpless laugh.]
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[He does try, for this kid's sake, to think a little before he comes up with anything more.]
I'm not a person. Not a real one. I don't know how people live. Don't gotta eat or sleep, stronger than them. I don't remember anything before they made me. But you know what? [He looks up to catch the kid's eye.] The people who made me can get fucked. I am me. I know better.
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He envies that kind of surety.]
Then... What do you do when you know the whole reason you exist is to ruin your best friend's life? That you're a copy of someone who— [He blinks rapidly and looks down.] He destroyed the crown city. I should've told Noct, but—I couldn't.
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[This isn't a pissing contest of who has the shittiest life, though.]
Can't change it. Just point it in the right direction.
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You make it sound easy...
[Prompto rubs at his branded wrist, beneath the barcode and burn.]
I don't know what the right direction is. [He says it slow, confused, trying to piece together his own thoughts.] I don't even know where to start; I'm not good at anything, not even at being what I was made to be. If someone from COST hadn't come to get me, I'd probably still be stuck in a lab.
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Escaped the lab when I was your age. Maybe younger. Hard to tell. [Fucking ages, how old is he? How old has he ever been? No one will fucking know now, he fucking sure made sure of that.] Didn't know shit about shit when I first got out. Fought a car. Freaked out at a zoo, thought it was a prison. Threw a cop out a window.
[He turns back to Prompto.] Sounds like you're doing okay.
[What he meant to say is it takes a long time.]
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[He feels the need to clarify his situation, though; Midnighter's life is so far beyond him, it feels disingenuous not to say it.]
Um. I didn't grow up there; someone got me out when I was a kid. So I knew I was from Niflheim, but not where... Couldn't really ask, either, which, you know, I get it. Not many people would want to be friends with someone from an invading country, let alone one of the things doing the invading. [He scrubs at his nose, thoughts inevitably turning back to the train.] I just...ended up back where I started.
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[As jokes go... he's told worse. He shrugs, leans back a bit more, trying to find a comfortable spot among the rocks and dirt and mud.]
Back where you started... physically? Or the other thing? Because it doesn't matter where you are, trust me. I have to visit where I was made all the time. [Mutters,] glowing IKEA furniture from hell...
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[It might help if he sounded surer about that.]
What's IKEA?
[I cannot believe you distracted him with furniture, only I can.]
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[He chews his lip, eyes downcast.]
Yeah. I didn't know what was going on at first, to be honest. Kinda figured I was a goner before I woke up there.
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[Which ends up stifled by Midnighter's question, but rest assured, Prompto is going to ask again later about those aliens.]
Uh, I tried to figure out where I was... How to get out. Ardyn showed up before I could even leave the room, though.
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[What the fuck is Final Fantasy.]
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Anyway, his tone of voice makes it very clear what he thinks of Ardyn.]
He's Niflheim's chancellor. He's the reason I ended up at the Magitek facility, but I don't know why or what he wanted out of it. [He shakes his head.] It's probably his fault I got separated from Noct and the others, too. Or it is his fault, I just—don't know what happened. But I guess that isn't anything new. [lol bitter.]
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[Wow deep.]
The important thing is, you made it through, right. Or are you a really convincing ghost?
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Wouldn't a convincing ghost look extra dead?
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