The US military does not condone the killing of unarmed or surrendering combatants. But this isn't real, so why should you care?
'Dear Princess Celestia,
Today I learned an important lesson about friendship! While me and my friends were out having a picnic we ran into a little bit of trouble and there was some arguing. In the end even though some feelings were hurt everything turned out to be okay and we managed to have a lovely afternoon together! In the end I learned that even though you have occasionally have conflicting opinions and ideals than those you care for, that doesn't mean that you shouldn't trust and support them whenever you can. I feel the experience has made us closer as a whole and I'm glad it was resolved peacefully! Anyways, as we were heading back to Ponyville we passed the Everfree and I noticed some rather large magical anomalies coming from within.
"W..why..., we c-came to t..-take you h..-home.."
Walker glances down at the bloodied solider as he speaks, emotionless eyes casually noticing the mans hand desperately grasping for the M9 pistol at his side that had fallen off of the hood of the Humvee and landed next to him. In response he grabs the man and throws him to the ground, stomping onto his hand with his boot and impassively noting the sound of bones snapping and the subsequent screams of pain from the solider. In truth Walker didn't know why he had decided to slaughter Falcon 1, but in the end he simply didn't care enough to think about it either. A small semblance of pity passes through him as he watches the man writhe on the ground in agony, so he raises his AA-12 and with a swift squeeze of the trigger turns the mans head to bloody mush, spraying blood and grey matter onto the front of the Humvee.
He raises his head as he hears the radio on the dead mans vest spark to life a concerned voice calling out "Falcon-1, this is command - Do you copy? We heard shots. Is everything okay? Sergeant Roberts, what the hell is going on?!"
He reaches out and grabs it, bringing it up to his face and gazing at it for a few moments, contemplating.
'After we got back to Ponyville I was unable to rest, so I decided to head out to the forest at night, I know. Not a smart idea, but I was concerned. After a few hours of investigating I found nothing and no further trace of unknown magic, so with confidence I do believe that it was nothing dangerous or that important, and even if it was me there's nothing me and my friends can't handle together!
Your Faithful Student
Twilight Sparkle'
"Gentlemen, welcome to Dubai."
Dubai
Time Unknown
Date Unknown
Year... Does it matter anymore?
Walker gazes around the ruined city as he walks through it's deserted streets. The only noise being the crunching of sand under his boot or the squelching of flesh every now and then as he tramples a forgotten and covered corpse. He had been doing this for hours now, walking aimlessly in his own personal purgatory. Even as he gazed at all the ruin he had wrought he still cannot let go of his belief that all of it was necessary, that he HAD to do it. The 33rd had left him no choice. Konrad had left him NO choice. At the Gate his hand was forced by the 33rd, everything that had happened was their own fault! They had brought it onto themselves...right?
At least that was what he kept telling himself as he wandered the broken streets, he had no real objective or place that he was specifically walking to, nor did he care about how even the sun seemed to be spitefully gazing down upon him, relentless heat doing nothing to stop him, doing nothing to make him care. His thoughts are brought to his deceased squad mates, his friends. John Lugo, the one constantly telling him to stop. To think about what he was doing, in the end he was beaten and hung by the very refugees they were trying to save. Walker remembers the blind rage he had felt at seeing his friend die, and remembers raising his rifle along with Adams and gunning down the entire crowd, slaughtering his way through the camp. They brought it on themselves just like the 33rd did. He wasn't a monster!
Adams had died sacrificing himself so that Walker could make it to Konrad's tower with him died the last of Walkers ability to care. After he had made it in the only goal or thought he had was killing John Konrad, the source of all of the suffering in Dubai. He still remembers one of the things Adam's had said to him earlier that day, ‘Lugo's blood is on your hands, Walker, not mine!'
Walker could understand why Adams had thought that way, but he also understood that Adams was merely hurt and speaking nonsense. Of course Lugo's blood wasn't on his hands it was the fault of the 33rd like everything else was! Walker is torn out of his thoughts as a sound breaks the silence of Dubai's streets - a cough and the crunching of sand.
"H-hey! W-whoever you are, I need help! I-I was wounded by those Delta fucks and I've been wandering around for...god I don't even know how long now! Please, I need help!" comes a desperate plead from up ahead, Walker looks up and sees a silhouette of a man among the blowing sand. Having nothing better to do he resumes walking, though this time in the direction of the plea. After a few minutes he gets close enough to see the man clearly, scowling as he sees the emblem of the 33rd on his armor.
"O-Oh..f-fuck..., Y-you're f-fucking him? Y-you're fucking W-Walker!" the man cries out in total fear, desperately drawing the M9 at his hip and raising it in an attempt to be threatening. "N-not one more fu-fucking step man! I-I'll blow your head off y-you fucking psychopath!"
Walker carelessly keeps approaching the man, watching as possibly the last member of the 33rd in Dubai drops his gun. When Walker gets within 15 steps of him, the damned solider starts scrambling backwards in an attempt to escape, but merely winds up falling backwards and desperately trying to back up.
"C-C'mon man...I-I'm a Solider...A US Soldier. I...I n-never wanted to stay here! I-I didn't agree with the c-colonel disobeying orders, b-but I'm j-just a Corporal m-man...", he stammers out eyes desperate and pleading.
Walker stops a few feet away, looking down at the man as he reaches into a pocket of his vest, taking out a worn picture of a young woman cradling an infant in her arms. "P-please man... I-I got a k-kid and a W-wife man....Just let me go. Please. If I make it back I'll turn myself in, I'll do whatever the fuck you want! I just don't want to die here, sir!" he cries out, tears starting to streak down his face.
Walker stands still for a few moments, contemplating before he simply and coldly says "No.", and draws the Desert Eagle from his holster and fires six of the seven shots in the guns magazine into the mans head.
The soldiers legs give out and he drops to his knees, missing most of his head and neck as a fountain of blood spurts out of where it once was.
The broken Delta Captain reaches down and grabs the dead mans pistol, ejecting the magazine and letting out a coldhearted chuckle as he sees it's empty and tosses it onto the ground.
All clear. It's silent; no sound of voices, no distant voices. No sign of anyone at all. Bereft of guidance or a goal he just wanders aimlessly through the empty streets, the corpses offering him no clues. Walker is at a dead end now, with no way to escape. He had been sitting in a half fallen apart chair under the partially collapsed roof of an abandoned cafe for hours now, puffing on a cigarette he had found being clutched in the hands of a bloodied corpse, one of the ones he had made himself earlier in the day.
He sighs to himself as he thinks of everything that had happened over the last seventy two hours. It was supposed to be such an easy mission, he and his team went in. Do some recon, possibly get Konrad, his men and the civilians out of the wretched hellhole and then return home as heroes. But of course nothing in life is simple nor will anything in life ever be simple. So as the cigarette burns down to barely a bud his brain focuses on a single thing. 'Why am I still here?', he had won; there was no reason for him to stay around. So with that final thought in his head he starts to chuckle, an insane and unpleasant sound as he grabs his pistol placing it against his temple. It all was really so simple in the end, wasn't it? Just one simple fact that he had been missing for so long.
No one leaves Dubai.
He pulls the trigger.
Author's Note
The absolutely most heart wrenching thing about the story of Spec Ops: The Line is that everyone, absolutely everyone is only trying to do what they think is the right thing.
Konrad disobeyed orders to attempt to save Dubai. When the evacuation failed, he tried to keep everyone safe by creating some form of order in Dubai with the military power of the 33rd.
The looters fought back because they felt like the 33rd were exploiting them and treating them as slaves.
Riggs doomed Dubai because he wanted to protect his country.
The Radioman and the 33rd fought back because of their loyalty to Konrad.
And Walker just wanted to be a hero.
Look how that turned out.
This story was born of a simple idea, is Walker a monster? Can be be redeemed? Or is he simply doomed to repeat his mistakes over, and over, and over again.
That dear readers is up to you to decide.
I am by no means an experienced writer nor do I claim to be one. I'm writing this because I had an idea and I saw no one else had written anything like it so here I am. In the end I am simply writing this for fun.
How many Americans have you killed today, Walker?
Do you feel like a hero yet?
Can you even remember why you came here?
This is all your fault, Walker.
It's time for you to wake up.
With a gasp Walker awakens, quickly standing up and by instinct reaching for his rifle. To his surprise he actually grabs one, looking down at the M4 carbine in his hands with shock. He had ditched his primary after Falcon-1 and even then it wasn't an M4.
He around and sees nothing but empty desert for miles on end. He's perplexed by the lack of the City, but perhaps he had simply just wandered out and forgotten about it? In fact there wasn't much he could remember past the...he falls to his knees as he remembers the Gate, how could he have left himself do it? He growls and shakes his head, standing once more. They had brought it on themselves, it wasn't his fault that the cowards of the 33rd had been hiding among civilians!
He shakes his head once more to clear his thoughts, glancing once more across the empty desert. Walker quickly takes stock of the supplies he had on him, finding two full canteens that he wasn't aware he even had on him and seven MRES. While being mildly surprised at the refilling of food and drink, Walker certainly wasn't complaining and after a few more moments the last surviving member of Delta turns and starts walking north.
Lieutenant Starshield had been flying over the Badlands with his squad for several hours on their weekly patrol and was starting to get rather bored. He didn't expect to find anything out in this wasteland and he didn't think command expected him to either. They prattled on about the 'changeling' threat when everyone knew that the bugs had run off and probably wouldn't be back any time soon. Yet he did reluctantly agree that it WAS smart to keep an eye on this, the disgruntled guard just wished it wasn't him and his squad that had to do it every single time.
Starshield glances around and notices that the other Pegasi in his squad of six seemed to share his general sentiment, if the expression on their faces was anything to go by. Deciding it would be good for morale and that it wouldn't hurt anything he comes to a stop.
"Alright everypony, we've been flying for quite a few hours now so I think it's time to take a quick rest stop by these clouds. All of you feel free to take five minutes to catch a breather, but after that we're back in the air."
His ears flick and he grins slightly as he hears the sighs of relief coming from the ponies under his command as they too come to a halt and land on the nearby clouds. The youngest member of them, a private named Dead-eye lets out a groan of contentment and flops down onto the cloud he had chosen. Starshield chuckles softly, Dead-eye had only been in the guard for a few months when he had gotten transferred to this post, but he was a good pony if a little snobbish at times.
Soon small conversations started up among the guards ponies and in the break seemed to almost fly by as five minutes quickly came, then went. As Starshield rises from his spot and takes flight once more, noting that his squad had done the same a small amount of movement in the distance catches his eye.
"Hold up a second, everypony quiet.", he says squinting slightly to get a better look. After a few seconds the shape comes into better view, revealing what seems to be a Bi-Pedal creature walking in their general direction, though even being this far away he could tell something was up with it, just by the way it carried itself; like a viper, coiled up and ready to strike at any given moment.
After a few moments of thought he decides to confront it, after all there was nothing better to do in this accursed desert and if it tried to fight them it would be a good to get some entertainment and practice in for his squad. Though he doubted it would try anything, after all they were the Princess's Royal Guard, nothing would dare try to take them on. With that thought in mind he gestures for his squad to follow him and takes flight, heading towards the creature.
Walker had been walking for hours now in the beating heat of the sun, it seemed no matter where he goes there was no way for him to escape from it's unending wrath. Coming to a stop he takes out of canteen screwing off the cap and taking a quick gulp of precious water. This was only Walker's second time drinking from it, after all conserving water can save lives. For a split second his mind takes him back to Dubai, remember as the water trucks exploded and with them, any remaining hope for the people still living in the damned city.
The sound of beating wings and a loud cry of "Hold creature! Stay where you are and do not take another step forwards.", echos out across the empty desert as several small... horses? - land around him. His jaw drops as he realizes there's no way anything else could have spoken to him aside from them. They were evening wearing armor and wielding spears with their wings! Walker chuckles to himself and smiles to himself before he starts walking forwards again, of all the things for his mind to come up with for a mirage talking pegasi was the best it could think up? It was almost believable to.
He stops smiling when the creature directly in front of him thrusts its spear at him, not intending to kill but to push him back. Though the tip of the weapon collides with the armor Walker had salvaged from the Zulu squad members of the 33rd back in Dubai.
"Are you for real right now? Of all the shit in the world that I could have thought up of that would end up being real you assholes are what I get?", Walker growls out.
"Hold your tongue creature! We are her majesties Royal Guard and will NOT tolerate being spoken to in such a disrespectful tone. In fact, since you seem to be in the mood for resistance why don't you just come with us and spend a nice night or two in the Dungeon to reflect on your attitude?", the lead 'Guard' says, a smirk plastered on his muzzle.
"You jokin' shithead? Because I'm not in the mood to deal with this right now.", Walker says growing more annoyed by the minute.
"Listen creature, we tried doing this the easy way but since you seem to have no intent to submit... well I guess we'll just have to take you in by force.", Starshield says, angry at the creatures stubborn refusal to submit to it's clear betters.
As the talking equine with wings to his left starts to advance on him, Walkers hair trigger goes off and he lunges forwards grabbing the thing by it's muzzle and drawing his M9, stuffing it in it's mouth and pulling the trigger one, two, three times nearly decimating the upper half of it's head and spraying blood in all directions.
The other guards ponies stand for a few moments, stunned by the blatant and brutal execution of their squad mate before they rush forwards, intent on taking this murdering creature down. Walker rolls to the side, narrowly evading a thrust from a spear and quick rises to his feet once more aiming his M9 firing off several shots into the group of guards ponies, wounding two of them and flat out killing one.
In response the two remaining rush forwards letting out cries of rage and thrust their spears in sequence, one of which Walker fails to evade and gets stuck into the meat of his left thigh.
The Delta member grimaces, and in response fires off two shots that kill one of the guards and grabs the one that had gotten the hit on him. It was coincidentally the one that had ordered the attack in the first place.
"Let it be known that you brought this on yourselves. Just like the 33rd in Dubai and just like them I'll kill you to.", Walker spits out, grunting lightly in pain from the spear head in his leg. He knew he'd live, after all he's faced far, far worse than a few horses in fancy getup with glorified pointy sticks. Walker starts to slam the things head into the ground over and over and over again until it's well beyond dead and even afterwords he stands and slams his boot onto it's head. The other two injured guards ponies he simply dispatches with a shot to the head each from his M9.
The only thought that crosses his mind as he leaves the corpses for the scavengers and continues on his path is 'There's no escape, is there?'
Author's Note
I didn't really like how this one turned out, especially with the combat sequence, but I'll probably go over it some other time and revamp it. I'm too tired to do it right now.
And I'll give a quick little mini spoiler here for those interested Walker's past with eventually catch up with him, no matter how hard he tries to run from it. And he isn't the only one to have been freed from Dubai.
