Refinement: A War of Europe

Chapter Forty-Six: West: Foreign Grounds

Eloise~ West (England)

The sound of the hover craft whirring in my ears was enough to make me mortified as to what I was about to do. I was positioned in between Lex and Arielle, standing in full suit. There were only twenty soldiers going. We were walking into a suicidal mission and the only thing I could assume was that the General wanted to knock us out as soon as possible. We were the twenty. Most likely elected to die. Grayson stood in front of us, ignoring the servants handing us guns. Saphire stood to the left of Lex, unknowing of the force we were being thrown into. It was hard seeing someone fight in the same ignorance as I once did. I was handed a hand gun, a rifle, and three ammunition clips.

"We are going to infiltrate the East's base. Our objective is simple. Kill as many people as you can. Ten of you will go through the back left enterance, five of you will go to the front left enterance. Saphire, Lex, Arielle, Eloise, and I will be infiltrating the main enterance. We will be landing in 3.2 hours. Prepare yourselves. This is not a drill, and sure as heck not a dream." He sighed hard, and closed his eyes tightly. Frustrated of how terrible this plan was. "Eloise, I need to talk with you about strategies. The rest of you are dismissed." I stood silently until all of the soldiers had filed into the dock.

"Eloise, I honestly do not know what to do. These kids are going to die, and all they can come up with is KILL AS MANY PEOPLE AS YOU CAN?" I let out a long deep breath, and massaged my temples.

"Alright, Grayson, you have sister here. Would you be confident enough to trust her?"

"I don't want to bring her into this."

"Grayson, I feel like she has been into this a lot longer than you think." His face was rewritten.

"Yes. I can trust her." I nodded slightly.

"Well, I think the most obvious thing we can do to get her attention is to get captured. But we need to make it clear that we are NOT trying to do so. Are you good at playing dead? Because I think that is what we are going to have to do to keep the General's hands off of us."

"I am very good at that, actually. Did it once." I had to shut my mouth tightly to refrain myself from asking questions.

"Good. Once we are in there, you need to act hysterical. Call her name repeatedly, and crazily. Do you understand?"

"Going all commando, I see. Yeah, I get it. It won't take much acting, believe it or not. Now go in there and explain it to your friends."

I did as he told me, but as quiet as possible. The room was stifling. I could feel the heat bounce off of every person in the room. I tried to focus on the words I was saying, but my head was in a million places other than there. As my mouth did its job, my mind was filled to the brim with unanswered questions, and unsolved dilemmas.

"So, we are going to walk in there, and get captured." Saphire mumbled with a uncertain tone. I pulled my mind back to the crowded hover craft drifting over Russia where I had just dissed our own general in a war against the innocent.

"Yep." She was clearly hesitant at the idea, but she nodded slowly. Lex was silent, I assumed trying to take in the information given. He stared at the gun in his hand.

"So, the General killed Jenny. No reason to back it up. He just held out the gun to her head and pulled the trigger." Arielle glanced at me, and held Lex's gaze.

"Listen. East is not the enemy anymore-"

"East was never my enemy. As soon as the General said those terrible things-" He inhaled, failing to maintain his anger, "Now there is a way that I could kill the General without betraying you." The universal 'you' that I had assumed meant all of West dissapeared into oblivion as soon as he kissed Arielle. He didn't have to betray the girl he loved. I glanced at Saphire, who's boyfriend hadn't made it as a soldier. He had stayed behind to do in-base work, of which I did not know. She apparently broke up with him after that.

"Guys. We are here." The hovercraft yanked to a halt, and started lowering rapidly to the ground. Grayson was shouting demands, but kept his eyes on me. I locked eyes with him almost to say that I had prepared my friends, and we were ready to go. I loaded the bullets into my gun, and cocked it. The door of the hovercraft opened silently, and the soldiers started to file out into the unknown to their death. Lex, Arielle, Saphire and I stayed to the back, waiting for Grayson. Saphire handed me three clips of ammo.

"Just in case things don't go as planned." I looked at the clips in horror, and back into Saphire's blue eyes, with a fiercness behind my own that I had not known for a long time.

"If you think for one second that we are going to shoot these innocent people, you are wrong. It'll work." She set her jaw.

"Oh, so you're all kitties and rainbows now?! This is war, Eloise. Some of those Easterns, innocent or not, would not hesitate to shoot you through the eye-socket. Despite the fact that they may not know who they are killing for, does not mean that they are lost puppies!" I opened my mouth to object, but nothing sprung forward in my behalf. She was right. I took the clips from her, and looped them into my belt. Grayson yelled over the sound of gun shots and the hovercraft.

"GO!" I sprung out beside Arielle, my gun positioned in front of me. It was cold. Very cold. The wind danced around us, laughing harshly as it circled around us, chilling our blood. The terrain was bare, sprinled with the occasional bolder, and dead plant sprouting from the grey snow. My boots hit the pillowed ground hard as I ran, my gun still stiff in front of me.

"Here we go," Lex muttered to himself as a wall of young, but qualified looking soldiers approached us. They were superior both in number, and in skill. I bit my lip hard as I prepared myself for a fight. Though I wanted to keep my number of kills to a minimum, I had to let things fall into place naturally, and in order to do that, I had to fight until I lost. Either by dying, or by getting captured. Guess which one I wanted.

The soldiers fell upon us.

I dodged a bullet, pulled back up and shot in the direction it came from. I heard fighting, screaming, and fists colliding with faces. We were losing, and I knew that this was our plan, but I still felt the full blow of the loss. The feeling where your stomach twists around your heart, and you are in so much pain but you cannot cry. Your muscles ache, and burn for a victory, but you know that the victory is so far from your grasp, and you are just desperate. So desperate for any sign of life, but there is nothing.

But then those eyes came. The eyes that I was sure were put together my God himself. Colors weaved in and out of themselves in perfect harmony. I almost did not notice the expression of anger that brought all of these colors together. I dodged a gun whose aim was my head. I jumped back up and punched him in the face. A little blood trickled from his cheek bone. He had this face of overwhelming calmness, but a fierce sneer took his face along side it. He kicked me in the stomach, sending a painful blow that made me stumble back and fall to the ground with a hard breath.

"ALL OF YOU STOP!" A voice like thunder erupted the sky. "Stop fighting, or she dies." I focused on a gun aimed at my forhead. Th sound of guns dropping rung in my ears. Nobody had died. Our plan had worked. The boy with the amazing eyes sighed. "Take them to the prison cells. We will interrigate them later."

"Yes, Caption Adric." Ah, so he did have a name. Lovely. A girl with bright red hair took my arm harshly and led us into their base. Their base looked like an abandoned house that is not abandoned. It is filled to the brim with soldiers marching in green, staring at us.

I tried my best to look fierce, and uncaring, and scared.

But I didn't need to act out the scared part, because we were in the middle of a battle field. I battle field, and we were the target. Smack dab in the middle of it, and it is a miracle that we made it that far without dying.

"Lord help us." Arielle muttered, and I couldn't agree more.