Originally posted by nicoper:

The heck is this?

Originally posted by Ludek:

?

I know neither of you has seen a short story in your lives.

But you should still know what the definition of it from school.

"Dad?"

"What's up, Marc?"

"Dad, I found this photo of mom, and-"

"What photo? Show me that, son."

The child gave up his hold on the photo and let his father take it. He turned it over and looked at it. For a moment, his heart stopped, a distant sadness welled up, then disappeared as fast as it took. The picture was blurry, old, still dirty, and from a bygone era. It was a reminder of times he tried to forget about so many times before. But the story followed him everywhere. He wanted to spare his son that story and everything it came with.

He just wanted him to live out his life without ever having to hear about what he had to do. Without seeing his pictures. Back then he felt it was a good thing to remember everything that happened, to turn immortal the lives and experiences of those soldiers, human or teph. To make sure someone knew they didn't go silently into the void. That in the darkest hour, they stood as one, in the face of the worst of evil, they refused to bargain a way out with another's life. That in the Unity War, there were no bystanders.

"Dad? Why's mom carrying a gun in that picture?"

"Because, Marcus... because back then none of us could choose not to."

...

The Unity War was a desperate effort.

Nothing made it more obvious than the personal level at which both human and teph troops gave way to one another.

By the end of the war, ships were operated by combined crews, both side's medics were fluent in xenobiology, and human soldiers trusted their teph counterparts with their lives on a daily basis.

But that trust had to be forged in the fires of battle. The first men and women to serve side by side with the teph in combined forces are of legend.

The most known among these forces is the 401st Orbital Insertion Infantry Company, more commonly known as the "Fiery Feet"
...

The last pods hit the ground mere seconds after the first one. Not one malfunction, not one shot down. Another perfect insertion for the four-o-first.

Creek jumped out of his pod as soon as its front panel dropped to the ground. By the time he landed on his feet, he had already shouldered his rifle and trained it on the corner of one of the buildings straight ahead. Seeing nothing, he swept to the other corner, then after confirming it too was empty, let go of his weapon. It fell a few centimeters before the strap swung it under his arm.

He took a quick glance towards the sky. A sense of relief forced him to smirk when he saw no more pods up above. The lack of slowly falling debris was good news. It meant that his friends were still alive and well.

The short marine turned around and ducked next to his pod. He started extracting the gear inside, checking every piece as he riffled through the secure containers on the side of the sarcophagus he just exited. He strapped two shrapnel grenades to his belt, then did the same to one flashbang. A pistol was extracted next, quickly loaded with a new magazine before it found its place in the holster by his right side. As he continued to place the various items to, his hand unwittingly slapped over his left thigh, confirming the combat knife was still in place. Deep down, he hoped he wouldn't need it for the "combat" part this time.

Two more sidearm magazines found their way to his back pocket. The last thing, all the way at the bottom of the first container, was a small and sturdy-looking camera, a tiny box for taking pictures. He took that item too, and hid it in one of the pockets on his chest.

The other container's contents were simply more rifle magazines. Five total. He took all of them, placing them next to eachother onto the magnetic strap running from his shoulder to his side. They all weighed exactly the same, containing the same ammunition mix the Fiery Feet swore by so often.

*Two standard, one tracer, depleted tip. Two standard, one tracer, depleted tip. Remember that, Creek, because a good ammo combination will save your life out there.*

The last item he took out of the pod was a large rectangular battery. With a well-trained move, he slung it over his shoulder and placed it in its slot on the back. The satisfying click and the visor on his helmet coming to life marked the end of the entire procedure. It took him less than thirty seconds in total.

Turning his back to the now-empty pod, he consulted the HUD for information. The map showed him several dozen green dots scattered across the city, the presumed landing locations of his brothers and sisters in arms. They were tightly spread across fifteen hundred square meters. Not quite their best landing, but it was pretty damn good.

Creek opened a channel and spoke into his helmet.

"Creek, alive and well, no contacts. Orders?"

"*Ustea nat trew*, Creek," responded the sleek male voice of a teph. "Regroup at grid 9H. Alone until then, I'm afraid."

The marine snorted at the old teph sergeant calling him a brother. It was one of the traditions that he and his human friends in the unit could easily respect, until they realized the man was a solid seventy years older than them. But this was nothing, compared to how the old teph reacted to their pre-drop banter the first time they were working together.

He set those thoughts aside for another time, and with a couple precise eye movements asked his visor to give him the shortest route to grid 9H.

With a clear head and target, he set to walking through the abandoned streets, looking out for trouble.

...

Trouble found him.

Before he arrived to the rendezvous, he could hear the gunfire. It was coming from up ahead, the complete soundscape of a battle in progress. Knowing that meant his friends had company, he decided to speed up, sprinting through the dead streets. There was only one task that mattered, and that task was helping his companions.

Creek ran up to the next crossing, then pressed his massive form against the building's wall. A quick peek around the corner revealed quite the firefight.

Two humans and the distinct shape of a Teph were pinned behind a fountain, keeping their heads low and occasionally taking barely aimed potshots at the oncoming enemies. On the other hand, the Biar were advancing on them step by step. The massive, disgusting alphas paid no mind to any of the cover offered to them, only interested in shooting one plasma round after another towards the Allied marines.

He counted the enemies. Six. No secondary weapons visible. Easy enough.

Taking a knee next to the corner, he slammed the rifle's brace against his shoulder and tilted his head slightly. With one eye closed, he lined up the first shot at the back-most alpha, then held his breath, and put the first burst straight between the Biar's natural armor plates. Colorless slime splurted out of the gun wound, and the massive creature fell on its side. Shifting just slightly, he let the rifle's barrel line up with another alpha, then pulled the trigger again.

Two dead. Four still up.

Seeing the Biar finally turn to him, he jumped back behind his own cover. It was up to the rest of the team.

They didn't disappoint. A cacophony of impacting bullets and cracking guns echoed across the street, so in contrast to the silent snake-like sounds of the plasma weapons Biar took a liking to. The firefight was over before any more of those sounds had the chance to come into existence.

Creek jumped out of his cover, ready to empty his weapon's magazine full auto into whatever biar was still alive. There was no need for that however - Feet didn't miss quite often enough to have been wiped out yet.

One of the soldiers waved Creek over. But before he reached them, he took out his camera, and took a picture of the dead Biar.
...

"Plan?" asked Creek as soon as he reached the rest of his fireteam, hiding his worried expression.

"We're scattered. Push to grid H11, three streets down, lock in, and set up in one of the buildings. We let the Biar start an attack on us, then retreat." The old teph's words were tired already. He was sure something was going wrong.

"Riiiiiiight. So we do this bullshit, and then what?"

The woman who spoke this was a small, muscular person, even under the armor. Creek liked her. She was very direct, though, and not very friendly. He never even saw her without her helmet. She was kind of too real with their odds of survival. The Feet's usual attitude was that odds were for pussies - and denied their existence on multiple occasions.

"Then we deny the damn odds. Again." Creek spoke up. The last soldier, Creek couldn't remember his name, nodded. The old sergeant just sighed, and pointed to the street with his rifle.

When they arrived to the rendezvous point, the place was a mess. Not a firefight, just a mess. People, no, trained soldiers, were milling between the buildings, trying to find places, being directed to defensive position. Their sergeant told them to find a place high in one of the buildings and dig in.

But before that could happen, the Biar artillery found them.

...

In the battle that followed, the vast majority of the 401st met their end. A whole city block was leveled only to wipe them out, followed by five companies of biar that marched through the area

But the Fiery Feet yet again denied the odds. After fifteen hours of war, they found themselves in an empty hellscape, surrounded by no man's land, having wiped out a force six times their size. They were out of ammo, wounded, but alive.

A marine only known as Creek took dozens of pictures from that day, pictures that showed the true side of the Unity War.

They showed the fire that raged in the city for three weeks after the war. They showed the mangled and torn body of a female marine in the 401st's armor. They showed hundreds of dead biar, with grunts literally drowning in their own blood. They showed hundreds of spent shell cases covering the ground. They showed the survivors, exhausted after the battle, some unable to stand up.

...

The first of many tears hit the picture.

A man, feeling older than he truly was, was curled up on a couch, with his head hung low between his knees. He held the photo close to his chest, as if it was the last thing in the world that mattered to him. His expression was that of indescribable pain. It was the expression of a broken man. He felt as if the burden of all universe resided on him. On what he had done. On the sins he couldn't atone for.

He used to think the war should be remembered, so that it might be avoided next time. He used to carry a glimmer of hope about the hell around him being useful for something. He used to feel like there was a purpose to him, but that was long gone. He only felt empty. It reminded him of the empty void in which so many of his friends and comrades died so needlessly.

After the war, he felt empty for what seemed like eternity. It took *her* to save him.

He looked at the picture again, and saw a teph soldier. She was bruised and battered, covered in mud, standing on an empty street of a ruined city, the dawning sun illuminating her face, almost as if it was a divine aura. One of the shoulder pads, part of the issued armor, was missing. A rifle was hanging by her right side, held up only by two of the three large fingers, with the last hanging broken next to it, the strap that held it around her shoulders long snapped, barrel pointing blankly at the ground. Her left head horn was gone, shot off in the heat of combat. Yet in face of all odds, like was the 401st's tradition, she was smiling devilishly right into the camera.

Then he felt a three-fingered hand on his shoulder, and along with it, a warming presence.

I'm whiter than your average photo of the Alps.

Originally posted by Shadowcon66:

Originally posted by Café de Joey:

Is there a problem there?

other than the game Paladins itself being a bootleg of Overwatch
such a shame they butchered Aondrox's original design to copy Reaper's, too.

lmaok

Originally posted by Blingie:

Originally posted by Hellewin:

You sex-crazy teenagers

It's 18+ !!

A) That double exclamation mark is fucking hilarious.
B) Lewin is still right.

Originally posted by Prusak the Difficulty Tweaker:

Originally posted by Lagger:

Or did it?

I NEED ANSWERS

No, really.

It was a good one. But I still belive he wasn't lying. Not about saving the guy anyways.

Originally posted by Prusak the Difficulty Tweaker:

Friends in High Places had the plot twist, amirite

Or did it?

Originally posted by Prusak the Difficulty Tweaker:

OI, LAGGERY LAG, COME HERE YOU BEAST

I watched the campaign after I wrote that first bit lad.

I like the style so I'll write more, but I'm not basing any of it off the stories in BF1.

Thanks BF1, even though I'm not playing you either way. That speech was great.

---

Just like every invasion these days, it started in space.

The Biar were pushing us nowhere near as hard as they were pushing the Teph. At first it even seemed like they weren't interested in us at all. They attacked a few outlying patrols and transports, but nothing that couldn't be brushed up under the carpet to avoid a full-scale war with a few handshakes and diplomatic speeches. The Teph, on the other hand, mobilized.

Their fleets turned around and fought. We squandered and fortified ourselves, they went and tried to take the worlds they lost back. Tens of thousands of them died, while we did nothing but cower. Yet after a few weeks, we were proved wrong in our attempt to stay out of that war. It was a simple way of being wronged, too. The worst of the Worst.

Lee's World was *glassed*.

Fourteen million human souls gone within two hours. They set the atmosphere itself aflame. And by God, that was their biggest mistake. Humanity would've let them do whatever they wanted with the Teph. After Lee's World? Oh no. We don't like worlds getting glassed. We turned and suddenly unified against a common threat. Political enemies threw away all their pride in the face of imminent destruction, and we got shit done. When humanity, as a whole, mobilizes, the galaxy itself takes a few steps back and drops its jaw.

Third, Fifth, Sixth and Seventh Fleet, turned from thinly spread safeguards into an assault force bigger than anything in history in the span of two days. Entire frontier worlds signing up and voluntarily becoming militias. CMC had an influx of new recruits. Men and women were signing up for FleetCom's rapid insertion programs faster than the Fleet could replace losses and sign their papers.

The Teph fought their war alone up to then. They lost fifteen colony worlds to Biar ground invasions and were being pushed back. We lost one, and never gave the Biar a break after that. Teph fleets lost system after system, station after station. Ship after ship. The Biar beat them back to their homeworld. We nuked every fleet we spotted until it was nothing but dust.

I don't know who suggested we help them. But I'm sure it wasn't an act of alturism. Command thought that we could use them on our side, that they could take pressure off of our forces. Anything of the sort.

But the soldiers... we felt with them. We felt we were coming in there not to accomplish a tactical objective, but to save the arse of that neighbor who never gave you grief, that nice guy next door who sometimes took care of your cat and never took your parking spot on the street or clip your car. That guy you occasionally had friendly banter with over the fence.

And it was a bloody majestic sight to behold, us streaming into the system.

At the time, I was your standart issue newbie officer. I enlisted because it seemed like the right thing to do. Months before the war. My grandfather served as a first lieutenant on a battleship at the end of his career. His stories from the military were always in high demand among me and my siblings. But in the end, the only one who enlisted was me. He was very proud when I did, he went there to my officer academy graduation. When they called me into active service with the Third, he came there, too. Saluted me as I took off.

And then the war started, and the only message I got from him was to stay alive and kick the Biar back to where they came from.

I was naive. I thought war was about glory, honor and tactics. The five months of war in Teph territory were more about death and loss than either of those things.

But that one moment of glory, when we came in, the cavalry saving Teph warships - that was the moment I kept remembering in my sleep months later. There indeed was something to fight for.

I served onboard a destroyer, a new and shiny Eisenhower-class ship by the name of "Jester". We were the assigned escort to the battleship "Unrelenting", one of the frontline warships, into the fray. It was standart procedure. We'd go in along them, provide cover to their weakspots, repairs if things got hairy, a second pair of eyes to see what was going on. In turn, the almost ten times our size battleship would cover us with its guns and defences.

We didn't expect the Biar to board us. But the enemy always gets you with what you don't expect.

Instead of fighting ship to ship, the fifty men and women onbaor the "Jester" fought with their sidearms against a never-ending wave of Biar. Tiny, eight-limbar things with claws, just trying to get close. Three- *Three* of the crew stayed on the bridge, piloting. Everyone else was holding the critical parts of the ship.

I saw the gunnery officer, a young black girl with a knack for ballistics I haven't seen for the rest of my time, get torn up by those creatures. As well as dozen more I knew, lived and ate among for the past three weeks. I shot the little things, over and over, until I ran out of ammunition. Then I ran, reloaded and did it again. Then I grabbed the pistol on the belt of a mangled body with an enineering vest, I don't know who it was, and shot them again. Until I was pressed up against a wall.

Someone saved me then. A shadow around the corner, a figure roughly the shape of a woman, but with horns and a tail. Streams of bullets killed all the little grunts, and then she steppped out.

She - or it, as I thought in the moment - was about as tall as me, a solid meter eighty. Scales stuck out on the tiny bits that were still visible under the skin-tight uniform and armor. Horns, large blue eyes with no iris, a three-fingered hand, slightly different posture. Even the boots seemed shorter, as if she had no fingers on her feet. I was dumbfounded.

She opened her mouth, and in perfect english with a slight british accent, told me to get up and reload.

That was the first time in my life I saw a teph face to face.

For the months to come, we served along one another onboard the same ships, on the same battlefields. Teph medics saved our lives and tended to our wounded, teph soldiers used our guns and vehicles, teph navy did our recon. Human fleets provided orbital bombardment to teph marines, our transports moved relief supplies to their colonies. Teph and human engineers shared their genius in constructing the next generation warships, repairing the infrastructure. Today, the Alliance builds statues of humans and teph holding hands. But back then, that was when the bond was sealed. In the face of the worst we've ever faced, we rose up and unified. We owe one another too much to repay.

Because in war, we are all brothers and sisters for as long as our goal is the same.

Originally posted by 𝓚𝓻𝔂𝔃𝓽𝓪𝓵~:

Originally posted by 𝓚𝓻𝔂𝔃𝓽𝓪𝓵~:

You look like a chubby fucking harry potter.

Lagger might be a huge nerd and have acne, but he genuinely looks cute.

You d o n ' t .

I feel honored now.