That Was Just Your Life

Chapter One

Krygil Base

December 15th, 2025

The two Special Operations soldiers approached the briefing room casually as they had been there countless times. As Alric closed the door, the Commander curtly spoke.

"Take a seat Gentlemen." The two soldiers sat down opposite to him. "Now, what I am about to tell you can never leave this room. Is that clear?" The commander says in a grave voice.

"As always, sir." Dmitri responded with a small chuckle.

"As you both know, this war is coming to an end and with the recent discovery of the threat of nukes the GRJMO is going to send you two with a code cracker to disrupt the launches. You'll be sent to the main control center within the enemy lines. I recommended you two and the GRJMO accepted due to your vast experience in high pressure missions. Remember, I recommended you, so don't make me regret it."

"Thank you sir, you won't have anything to regret from us." Promised Alric.

"Now then, let's go over the plan shall we? You two will take a fast and silent land vehicle of your choice and an armament of your choice. Suppressors are mandatory, for this is a stealth mission. You'll need to get acquainted with 'Nitro', who will be your code cracker tomorrow. He has already been briefed. Here is the location of the missile facility. We have confirmation that there is increased activity, because our UAV drones have picked up high activity. One of our agents from within their ranks also reported suspicious activity here. You two are to set up on the hills due west of the facility. We need visual confirmation that the nukes are being prepped at this facility and only then can you go in, get the codes and disrupt the launches." The Commander pauses to take a breath.

"If you do get into the facility and send them to us via comlink, wipe them from where they came. We suspect there is a central control hub and data base where you can find the codes near the center of the facility, but we don't have solid proof. You cannot let them detect you. And remember, you were not there, so don't leave any traces that you were. Are we clear? Any questions?"

"Just one sir. When do we move out?" Asks Dmitri.

"Tomorrow morning in the vehicle bay at 0500 hours. However, you need to prep up immediately after you leave this room. When you have chosen the vehicle you'll want to talk to the chief engineer and he will add any modifications if he deems it necessary. If that is all, you may leave." The Commander gets up and walks around the table to open the door just as he finishes briefing.

Alric and Dmitri get up and quickly move out the door and into the hallway. The Commander shoots a glare toward Dmitri as he's leaving and Dmitri returns it.

The armory wasn't a long walk through Krygil, but it was a relatively silent one. When the two arrive at the armory Alric decides to say what he usually says before an interesting mission.

"This is gonna be a fun mission isn't it?"

"They all are." Dmitri responds with a sly smirk.

The both soldiers start grabbing their usual gear. Dmitri grabbed his VSS Vintorez and Makarov PM and their respective ammo. Alric took his usual G36C and USP Compact and ammo for them as well. Since it would be a long mission they took a week and some amount of food and water for three people. Alric was going to bring a water purification kit so they can get as much water as needed while they're out there. Also accompanying them were their instruments, Alric's bass and Dmitri's guitar. They enjoyed playing them on longer missions because it helped them calm down. Metallica, who was their favorite band, was the most played.

They brought everything down to the vehicle bay which was almost next to the armory. While Dmitri kept a look out for the chief engineer Alric remembered something from the armory.

"Oh shit, do you think we should take the snow camo? It might prove useful."

"Don't you think we're carrying enough gear? We shouldn't need it, after all, we are in China. And it isn't exactly cold here." Dmitri assures Alric. "Plus, with this extra plating over my kevlar I don't think I will be running around much.

"Yeah, but we should get it in the morning. I want to at least be prepared." Alric says.

"Hey, anyone know where we can find the chief engineer?" Dmitri shouts to the rest of the people in the vehicle bay.

"Need engineer?" Questions a gruff voice in a heavy Russian accent. He slides out from under a Russian T90.

"You're the chief?" Asks Dmitri.

"Da. Have you chosen your vehicle yet?"

"Yes. We're going to take a GAZ-2975." Alric decides.

"A fine choice my friend. This one should do." The engineer says as he bangs on an armored truck farther down the row of vehicles

"I'll go ahead and mount a DSHKM on top so in case you need the fire power, you'll have it. It will also need extra plating because of all the gasoline and ammo you're taking. We wouldn't want you two to be cooked alive do we?" Jokes the engineer as they all share a good laugh. "Sounds good, da?"

"Yes sir. If that's all we will be off to get some rest." Dmitri finalizes as they head off to get their much needed rest. "See ya tomorrow Alric."

"Night." Alric says as they head to their separate rooms.

The next day Dmitri and Alric meet back up in the vehicle bay with their gear. They both spot their assigned code cracker walking up to them, with his gear of course.

"Hey, nice to finally meet you guys." Greets Nitro as they walk over to the GAZ with their gear. "We're taking this?"

"Ja." Alric answers.

"Nitro, I have a question." Dmitri says while everyone loads their gear into the GAZ.

"Shoot."

"You can handle yourself on a combat situation, right? You've been through weapons and combat training and all?"

"Yeah, I won't be a liability to you." Nitro answers. Everyone has finished loading their gear by now.

"I thought not, but I had to make sure. So, is everyone ready?"

"Yup." Alric answers for the rest of them. "We just have to let the engineers finish gassing it up and we'll be off." The chief engineer jumps off of the GAZ and makes his way to them. "Shit the winter gear!" says Alric.

"No time we gotta move out" Says Dmitri.

"Alright then ladies. She's all gassed up and ready to go. Have fun."

"We always have fun on these missions" Alric says while everyone hops into the armored jeep, Dmitri driving and Alric ready on the gun. The engine roars awake and they start their long six hour journey to the operating area. Driving there was pretty much uneventful.

When the GAZ arrived at the hills near the nuclear facility, on the very outskirts of Beijing the engine was cut. They set up a sniper's position, from which they were able to get a clear look at the facility. Nitro stayed in the GAZ setting up the comms with whoever his commanding officers were.

Alric got some binoculars and Dmitri was looking for a more powerful scope than his usually used PSO-1. They began surveillance. Every five hours they would contact HQ and relay their findings, which had been nothing promising so far. Other than a few soldiers, who just lazily walked around, there was nothing that promised such a high security facility being in this area. It was not until the next day, just about twenty-one hours later, when they saw nuclear warheads being loaded from what looked to be large storage containers.

Alric motioned Dmitri over to him. "Take a look, some warheads." He whispered as he handed showed him on his binoculars.

"Nitro, we've got confirmation." Dmitri said relieved that their recon teams were correct.

Nitro activated the comms. "HQ. Warheads have been spotted. Sending visual link..."

"You are confirmed to continue with your mission. Go to town. Over." The receiving end answered back.

*Present Time*

As the Type 99 tank rolled over the hill, knocking trees over in its path, Alric and Dmitri were making a frantic rush back towards the GAZ. Suddenly, Dmitri realized that Nitro was still in their vehicle and there was a chance that the tank would fire at their exit, maiming Nitro at the least.

"Alric, I'm going to distract the tank while you go get the explosives from the GAZ." Dmitri struggled out as he ran in pace with Alric.

"Alright. Don't get yourself blown to bits." Alric said and started to make a last effort to the GAZ. Dmitri quickly reaches into his left pouch and throws from within it a RGD-5, which was his preferred type of grenade, and starts blind firing with his Vintorez. The grenade was aimed at the treads and found its mark, exploding, but it didn't do much. The coaxial machine gun begins to spit out its lead at Dmitri, he dives to his left into a roll almost smashing into a tree. Dmitri sprints harder due to hearing rounds fly past him. The trees open up into a field with large boulders in it, some almost as big as the tank. Dmitri's radio emits out static and a voice.

"Dmitri! Where are you? I've got the explosives." Alric broadcasts to the private channel.

"Just drive towards the sounds of the machine gun! I don't think I can evade the tank much longer!" Dmitri practically yells into his radio. He breaks back into forest having cleared the field. The trees and rocks luckily threw the gunner's aim off. Suddenly, a second engine was heard. The GAZ drove up behind the tank using it's already cleared path.

The GAZ drove up to the side of the tank. Alric opened the passenger door and jumped onto the tank, momentarily burned by the exhaust. He had a good-sized brick of C4 in his hand, one strong enough to destroy a tank, which he shoved in the section between the turret and the chassis. Alric gives a signal to Nitro who drives the GAZ back off. He jumps off of the tank, rolling a few times to rid himself of his momentum. Nitro is already a safe distance away with the GAZ so he wouldn't be caught in the blast or hit by shrapnel.

"Hit the deck!" Alric yells, warning Dmitri to dive to the side behind a small alcove. Alric squeezes the clacker and detonates the C4. The turret of the tank is blown off in a fiery explosion and lands not too far from the tank. The tank remained a twisted hunk of metal, with no survivors from the blast.

"Sweet merciful vodka, that was close." Dmitri pants as he climbs into the GAZ. Alric is leaning on the tank, catching his breath. "You're so slow, Alric. I almost died" Dmitri taunts Alric.

"We definitely got heard, you know." Alric says while he walks up to the GAZ.

"We better infiltrate the base while we can. They're going to send a shitload of troops here soon." Nitro says.

"I second this. Alric, we brought another charge right?" Dmitri questions.

"Yeah, why?" Alric answers.

"I don't think that shooting that terminal to Swiss cheese will result with us leaving with our lives." Dmitri says as they all chuckle. Alric finally climbs into the back seat ready to go up to the DSHKM should he need to.

"Yeah, we should really get moving." Says Nitro, starting up the engine and starting the drive back to the facility. When the group arrived a far enough distance away from the gate, Nitro turned off the GAZ. There were only three guards around it.

Alric and Dmitri moved in as silent a shadow. Dmitri snipes the enemy in the guard tower, careful to shoot him in a way that he doesn't fall off. The guard standing in front of the gate itself was shot by Alric. The soldier in the gate control box saw his comrade fall down and he raised up his QSZ-92 to shoot Alric. Dmitri quickly shoots through the glass and kills the guard. Unfortunately, when glass is shot it makes noise.

"Shit." Dmitri whispers. A patrol that just happened to be walking near the checkpoint heard the noise and began to approach on the teams position.

"Shit Nitro get out of here wait for us near our camp, we're going in." whispers Alric into his radio.

"Roger that see you soon." says Nitro over the radio. The duo then proceed to run into the nearest building which they had identified to be the entrance to the underground facility.

"That's a shit ton of stairs." mumbles Dmitri as they find a very long stairwell leading down.

A very long ways down...

"Why couldn't these bastards have installed an elevator." Pants Alric once the two had reached the bottom of the dark stairwell, which had vault door.

"Damn the door won't budge, see if Nitro can help us out." Says Dmitri as he tries to pull the door open.

"Hey Nitro we have a little problem, we have a door that looks like it is password unlocked." says Alric.

"Can't you just shoot it open?" Asks Nitro, although with a bit of static due to their underground position.

"No, it seems pretty sturdy of a door, metal and all. Plus, why the fuck would we shoot a door if we want to keep stealthy?" Replies Alric.

"Oh yeah. Well, what does it look like?" Questions Nitro.

"Alright, there is a huge metal door with wires leading to a metal panel with the digits 1 through 9 on it." Alric describes.

"Alright are there three wires connecting to the right of the panel?" Questions Nitro.

"Yeah. How'd you know? Do you have video feed or something?" Says Alric cautiously.

"Those are ancient Chinese tech all you need to do is pull the top wire out. You're welcome" Says Nitro knowingly. Dmitri proceeds to pull out the top wire as the panel lights dimmed and flickered a green light, the door then depressurized.

"Thanks Uncle Nitro."  Alric says sarcastically as he pulled the door open and they moved through the opened door. They moved through a very long scaffold within a very large room containing many malicious looking missiles and personnel. There were countless guards patrolling around, leaving them with little areas to move in. They continued through a long system of hallways while evading various soldiers until they reached a doorway with two Chinese soldiers guarding it. Dmitri motions for Alric to stay behind the cover of the hall corner. He spots a couple of boxes close to them. Dmitri purposely moves the boxes alerting the guards. One of the soldiers points over to his position a says something unknown to the soldiers behind their  cover.

Dmitri steps out from behind his cover of boxes and raises his hands in mock-surrender. The two soldiers quickly raise their rifles and approach him cautiously. Meanwhile, Alric has moved around the hallways to another one that crossed their target room, into a flanking position around the corner. Alric waits for them to approach Dmitri, where they won't see him as he pulled out his handy KM4000 and holds it with the razor sharp blade pointing down. He walks up to the soldier on the right and cut's his throat right as they were about to apprehend Dmitri. Blood pours out of the soldiers throat as he makes a gurgling sound alerting the other. He then looks at Alric and his eyes widen he lifts his rifle to point at Alric's head.

Before he could pull the trigger Dmitri tackled him and managed to wrestle the rifle out of his hands and onto the floor a couple meters away. He grabbed the soldiers neck and began to strangle him, the soldier tried reaching for his sidearm but it was to late darkness had enveloped his vision.

"Shit that was close we are going to have to speed things up" says Alric as Dmitri gets off the unconscious soldier.

"Let's stack up to breach, you have the charge right?" says Dmitri. "Yeah let's do this" states Alric. The two Special Forces then form up on either side of the door. Dmitri then kicks open the door and the two rush in sidearms in their hands. The room strangely was clear, which was strange to Alric but it didn't stop him from running up to the main terminal of the facility, this is where all commands were issued from. Alric shoved the charge into an opening through the many monitors and the two quickly exited the room.

They retraced their steps to the surface all the while noticing the almost disturbing lack of soldiers. When they burst through the door of the building previously entered they saw Nitro driving up to them.

"GET IN THERE'S A NUKE!" Shouts Nitro at the two. Dmitri gets into the front seat and Alric on the mounted gun. Alric keeps an eye on the facility which is completely empty. The GAZ quickly drives off towards the nearby forested area. Alric hears engines not too far from themselves and advises the rest of the team to be on alert.

When the GAZ makes it up over the hill they are greeted with the sight of a man stumbling away from an overturned car. Dmitri gets out of the GAZ wanting to find out who the man is. He has his hand on his Yelan machete just in case the man was hostile.

"Who are you and what are you doing here?" Inquires Dmitri.

"Ah, I expected you dogs to show up, and now we all die. Let's see if your GRMJO considers loosing their finest operators a victory." Says the man as he turns around holding a detonator in his hand. Dmitri identified the man as Jiang He a Chinese scientists who was last seen working on nuclear warheads.

"Shit!" says Dmitri as he runs back to the GAZ having left his guns in it. "Get out of here he's got a detonator" Was all Dmitri could spit out before the deafening sound of a missile taking off was heard. The group looked at the Nuke flying high over the city of Beijing before crashing back down.

"Step on it!" shouts Alric as the GAZ speeds away from the explosion in an attempt to get away with Dmitri literally hanging on the side. Alas, the attempt proved futile as the explosion engulfed them. Just before Dmitri blacked out he could have sworn he saw a glint of purple shining against the windshield.

*5 minutes earlier*

I wonder what Rarity will have me do tomorrow? thinks Spike as he lays in his comfy bed, about to sleep his hard day away. Just as he's about to fall asleep, a loud noise then proceeded to almost rupture Spike's eardrums as he jumps out of bed and is jolted awake.

"AAAHHH" shouts Spike as he attempts to slow his rapidly beating heart. "Sweet Celestia what was that?" Spike says rubbing his aching head. "Must be Twilight with another one of her projects." Says Spike as he finally succeeds in calming himself. He walks downstairs with the intention of investigating what exactly Twilight was up to.

Spike opens the door to the basement and shouts down the stairs. "Twilight are you down there?".

"Yes Spike just working on an assignment the Princess gave to me." Twilight replies. Spike reaches the bottom of the  stairs and peers into the room. He sees Twilight standing on one side of the room with her horn emitting a light purple hue, with a clear crystal in the middle of then room.

"Twilight when are you going to be done with the experiment because I really need my sleep!" Spike yells over the sound of Twilight's horn and the crystal humming with magical energy.

"Not much longer Spike I just have to add a little more magic... And done!" Shouts Twilight as she aims a beam of magic at the crystal that she had obtained from Princess Celestia for her research on other dimensions. Suddenly the beam made contact with the crystal, it refracted the magic all over the room and a bright light filled the basement...