Shattergrounds

John is seen seated on a bench, he is in his PanOceania dress uniform. He thinks for a moment how long he has had this uniform. Muttering to himself "Five years, I have been a soldier for five years" John had only been a knight for three years the two years prior to his knighting he had served first as a fusilier and later as a crosier. It had only been the attrition of the past few years that he could climb the ranks so quickly. His every was broken as a middle-aged woman in a nun's habit "Sir, Valdez they are ready for you now". Without a word, John rose and moved to follow the woman; the local command had requested him in his best. After his last few missions, John was worried; his record was mixed on a good day, and he had only just been fished out of the drink after stalling that Morat assault on one of the Montalban sea labs. He stewed in his thoughts as the nun let him into another room.

"Sir. Valdez I presume?" Said a man in a dress uniform. John knew this man it was no less than Brigadier General Bolt of the Neocapitalin Army. "Yes sir" Jogn returned with a quick snap to attention. "Good, good" General Bolt said. "Hexadron assets have given us reason to believe that those Yu Jingese agents you found a while back are making back-end deals with a known Spiral Corp asset. We need someone to intercept their coms and get us a clearer report on what they are doing." "I am confused sir" John asked with the question in his tone. "There are better tools why would you need a knight?" Bolt approached the knight, stopping a foot away from him. "We have reason to believe that this is a rogue ISS asset more commonly known as "Durian" you would be the foremost expert on him and his tactics." John stared impassively not giving a thing, but his mind was in turmoil with various thoughts, and most of all his head began to feel odd. "As such" Bolt continued "it has been deemed important that you are to be provincially given the rank of Knight of Justice and are to command a task force." "Questions?" John only had one "Who is my team?"

A few hours later John and his chosen men had inserted themselves deep into the occupied Huaqiao anomaly zone. With barely any time to breathe, a sniper shot rang out dragging a crosier to the ground. "Damn, we have no lines of sight" Due to his spotty experience with the Knights of the Holy Sepulcher a holo echo was blocking the potential for an order sergeant rocket to return fire. With hardly any time to think the ISS force was tossing smoke and advancing on one of the antennae. The Panoceania forces were unable to get any beads. "Sir, an enemy approach I am moving to engage" A young voice sounded off in John's helmet. "Wait I haven't given the command" John tried to say but it was too late. A young Trinitarian had dropped his advanced active stealth systems to attempt to take down an ISS agent later recognized as "Adil" Before the Trinitarian could do anything a series of shots broke through the smoke tearing chunks of flesh out of the soldier.

"Forward, IN HOC SIGNOR VINCES" John roared out. The KOTS dropped from the roof top revealing its true form as a sniper ripped through the echo. Finally able to get a solid bead on the sniper the sergeant was able to burn it away with rocket fire. Shots went wide as the KOTS advanced on the enemy positions. John and his companion, a Knight of Santiago, were not far behind. John laying down covering fire with his spitfire as he was advancing. It was only after glancing a Su Jian a flash of light blinded John. His head was beginning to pulse. Quickly dodging out of the way of more deadly fire he and his brother and arm found themselves pinned behind a wall. Wordlessly the Knight of Santiago moved to lay down suppressive fire before he was torn apart with counterfire.

John's head was in great pain now. He tried to force himself to focus, but he failed. He failed to even hear how an enemy soldier had managed to drop into his rear lines wounding and destroying HIS MEN. John was in pain his head was a constant throb, if alerts had appeared on his HUD he didn't notice. For a moment he stopped thinking properly, his vision beginning to slowly turn white. In this state, John moved. Ignoring the odds of his being cut down he charged forward and forward; one two three. It was as if his sword had fused to his arm, John charged through the enemy lines making his way to the only thing he recognized. The only thing he knew; was Crane Agent Yu Fei. "DURIAN" John had roared bringing his sword down the momentum of his charge driving Yu Fei to one knee as he blocked the sword strike.

John was brutalizing Yu Fei. He didn't even register his blade snapping around to decapitate "Adil". John pushed past Yu Fei's sword bringing him within his arc. With a quick movement, John brought his leg down upon Yu Fei's knee power armor straining against his hardened armor. The armor did not hold for long; as John was able to break both the armor and the bone. His head pulsed harder than he had ever thought possible. His grip changed to hold the blade backward; John drove it downward piercing the powered armor and then the flesh of the crane agent.

Ten minutes, for ten minutes John was in this state. Mission forgotten he had been unable to intercept the data. He hadn't noticed until another ten minutes had passed. It was only after he had properly noticed himself standing over the broken body of a State Empire ninja had he remembered. But it was too late; he had failed his mission. So many dead and wounded for nothing. His first real command and he had failed at every point, going so far as to lose himself in bloodlust. He could not bear to look the wounded in the eyes as he got everyone back onto the shuttle that brought the strick force here. He could only sit there in the shuttle bay with his helmet on. It was a long and quite flight back to PanO HQ.