For the last month and two weeks he had been fighting. No matter how far he ran, no matter how far he marched: there was no escaping the reality of his profession, his job. It sickened him, yet he still had a job to do.
His job… No amount of training would ever prepare him for being isolated in the way he was now. Even though he still had his brothers, the cries of the crickets and the chirps of the crows would never hide the fact that no CASEVACs, no MEDIVACs, no resupplies, no CAS missions, no reinforcements missions had been run. Even now he was alone with only a single person by his side. With Lecca's abnormal and supernatural abilities perhaps the tides of war could change, yet she was just a single person like himself.
All he saw was a fight. And all he wanted was to get out alive.
Rustling on the opposite side of town, the sudden crash of a building caused Mike to look up alarmed. Even in the near-pitch black darkness, the limited light shed by the moon showed a figure moving the opposite direction of both the wind and the collapsed building. He slowly picked up his M-5 carbine and aimed down its sights. Beside him Lecca mimicked his actions with his pistol.
Removing his left hand from his carbine, the sergeant motioned his hand towards a nearby building that was still standing. Silence was a must; their position would be compromised if any loud noise were to escape.
Snaking her arm around the soldier's torso, Lecca lifted him off the ground and supported him on her shoulder. Though the building was less than one-hundred meters away, it felt like an eternity walking there under the constant gaze of the moon. Entering weapons raised through a destroyed door, Mike helped himself onto a nearby wooden chair next to a window, as Lecca looked at a bloodied sword sitting on the ground and thereafter materializing a sword in her right hand while holding Mike's pistol in the left.
"You okay, soldier?" Lecca called out as she aimed his pistol at the open doorway.
Sergeant Randall gave her an amused look without moving from his rested position on the window ceil. "I'm operational, Chieftain." He said sarcastically in a quiet, buttery-smooth voice.
Biting her cheek, Lecca swallowed her hesitation as she addressed the problem she created, "I apologize sergeant. I should've called our return to the capital city once we learned the status of the Volunteer Corps. I needlessly got good men killed."
"Ma'am we're well over twelve klicks behind enemy lines. We're well surrounded by unknown hostiles, and we have nothing, not even force multipliers to get us the hell out of here." Mike dully said as he tracked another building that collapsed across town, "I think worrying about those men's deaths should be the least of you worries."
"Sergeant were separated from your comrades, and we are both stuck out here without food or water." She said in a harsh whisper, "If your men are killed, I find it hard that you would forgive me in any realistic situation."
"If you dwell on it too much, you'll lose yourself in the field." Mike barked back looking away from his rifle. "You're going to go insane if you focus on all the mistake and shit you've been through. People make mistakes, least the most we can do is learn from them."
Lecca fell silent with no way to retort.
"I've had officers that made mistake, deadly mistakes. The only problem you have; is that you are not willing to step up to your role and take the lead. We can't keep treating you like a VIP, but we will until you figure yourself out." Listening to his words, she thought the sergeant was about to recall his entire life as a Ranger and some more, yet he shut his mouth after with no words to add on to the statement he just made.
Focusing on the doorway in front of her, she focused on the nothingness that just laid on the other side of the walls. This was hell. There was no other way to describe it. It was now curiously rather than later that she accepted her fate in this destroyed world. Her eyes still stung from the gun powder from the bullets she shot hours earlier. Soot covered her face and hair, and her clothes were now mud crusted. She hated it, but such was the life of a soldier.
In the darkness she and her Reclaimer stayed silent within their shared coffin.
Looking out the window, Mike's breath stabilized as he raised the rifle that was sitting idle in his hands. He covered a group of shadows moving towards the building with the red dot reticle that laid atop in the holographic sight. A light whistle escaped his mouth. Lecca quickly turned around, her unbounded hair shifting due to her erratic movement.
Whistling twice, Mike patted the seat next to him. Seeing that he was in a defensive position, Lecca aimed the pistol she was given towards the window. Under the moon she spotted three unknown individuals approaching the building with what looked to be rifles in hand. She was confused on why Mike had yet to call out to them. She would have her answer in the next minute.