<div style="text-align: center"><div class="bbImageWrapper lazyload js-lbImage" data-lb-caption-extra-html="" data-lb-sidebar-href="" data-single-image="1" data-src="/proxy.php?image=https%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2Fc6J3nlTh.jpg&amp;hash=a81b66ccc608df3a67f462d22ca03907" title="c6J3nlTh.jpg">
<img alt="c6J3nlTh.jpg" class="bbImage lazyload" data-src="/proxy.php?image=https%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2Fc6J3nlTh.jpg&amp;hash=a81b66ccc608df3a67f462d22ca03907" data-url="https://i.imgur.com/c6J3nlTh.jpg" data-zoom-target="1" height="" src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" style="" title="" width=""/>
<noscript><img alt="c6J3nlTh.jpg" class="bbImage" data-url="https://i.imgur.com/c6J3nlTh.jpg" data-zoom-target="1" height="" src="/proxy.php?image=https%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2Fc6J3nlTh.jpg&amp;hash=a81b66ccc608df3a67f462d22ca03907" style="" title="" width=""/></noscript>
</div>
<br/>
<span style="font-size: 12px"><span class="fixed-color" style="color:rgb(51, 102, 0)"><span style="font-family: 'Courier New'"><br/>
<b><s> <s> <s>  //   	    </s></s></s></b><br/>
<b>ACCESS LOG</b></span> --&gt; <i><b><span style="font-family: 'Courier New'">DOSSIER</span></b> <b><span style="font-family: 'Courier New'">LOOKUP</span>.</b></i></span></span><br/>
<span class="fixed-color" style="color:rgb(51, 102, 0)"><span style="font-size: 15px"><b>CDR. CANAAN DRENNEN</b></span></span><br/>
<span style="font-size: 12px"><span class="fixed-color" style="color:rgb(51, 102, 0)"><i><span style="font-family: 'Courier New'">CURRENT STATUS --&gt; ACTIVE.</span></i></span></span><br/>
<span class="fixed-color" style="color:rgb(51, 102, 0)"><span style="font-family: 'Courier New'"><span style="font-size: 9px">access to subject records: denied.<br/>
<br/>
<s> <s> <s> <s>//		 	    </s></s></s></s></span></span></span><br/>​</div><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span class="fixed-color" style="color:#808080"><span style="font-size: 10px">Nothing could ever really begin to compare to the scene at the Operation Bloodmoon - a post-modern world ravaged by both chemical and biological warfare. Every night the officer dreamt of radioactive rain and the comrades that fell under his command: every cold, deadly night he was back there. The sting of a gamma round as it tears into the muscle on his shoulderblade, a roar of pain following and then determination; he fires back. The whole world around him is burning to ash and all he can do is bite back at the one thing standing between him and the enemys' big red button that hadn't yet been activated - but he knew it soon would be and for a moment he had it in his mind that his actions were futile. So he would take down a man, an assault drone. He would save his First Lieutenant from triggering a landmine as they focus on the horizon through iron sights. They would all be dead in not less than an hour. Why wouldn't he just tell them to fall back? Save themselves? His lips seem to be wired into a permament dutiful grimace, denying him the ability to do so. He was born for this. He was bred for this.<br/>
<br/>
Another grunt falls, another new round of lead to dig out of another wound he would have to stitch up. The Medics were the first to die. A grim tactic to take out the opposing armys' aids while they are bent over a dying man but a strategic one nonetheless. Defending themselves was a secondary objective; getting others back on their feet was their duty. Maybe the idealistic Commander should have become one himself - at least then he would have had a say in preventing the death of thousands who were probably drafted into the military anyway. <i>He didn't. </i>He is a marine. A commanding officer and a frontline combatant. Whether he likes it or not, leaving a man to his death comes with the armor.<br/>
<br/>
The air around him is clouded with black smoke and napalm. His eyes water in response to the toxins that cloud his mind. Is this rage being induced by a soldiers' last stand or the neurotoxin chemicals the D.O.Ds' top scientists put into the fray as a last resort? All he knows is that he can no longer breath or see. It's as if all the oxygen is being pulled from the Earths' surface and making its own retreat. The Commander falls back behind a jagged concrete remnant of what was once probably a towering skyscraper. There's a guttural grunt as his back hits the structure. All around him there are modded bullets flying. The sound of faraway bombs and nearer screams of men, women, and children as they face their final destiny. This is what the world has been reduced to, a black and charred hellscape where no one is safe from the unknown.<br/>
<br/>
Teeth gritted, Canaan reaches for the release of the pauldrons that connect his arm bracers to the rest of his body armor. Air releases from the joints that connect the pieces in a drawn-out hiss as his bracers and pauldron quickly give way from his arms and kick up dust where they fall next to him. Almost immediately, blood pours from the wound where the gamma round hit and trails down his naked arm. Bastard hit an artery.<br/>
<br/>
The commander growls in frustration.</span></span></span><br/><div style="text-align: center"><br/>
<span class="fixed-color" style="color:rgb(255, 255, 255)"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 10px">"</span></span><i><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 10px">God-fucking-damn it...</span></span></i><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 10px">"</span></span></span><br/>
<br/>
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span class="fixed-color" style="color:rgb(128, 128, 128)"><span style="font-size: 10px">(I should have backed down when I had the chance...)</span></span></span>​</div><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span class="fixed-color" style="color:rgb(191, 191, 191)"></span></span><br/><span class="fixed-color" style="color:#808080"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 10px">This dream always plays out the same. He reaches for the utility pack strapped to his leg armor, quickly unbuttoning the cotton pouch to retrieve a small roll of cloth and a tactical blade which he makes quick work of forming a makeshift tourniquet of. With his teeth and non-bullet riddled arm he torques it down until his shoulder goes numb. He does not cry out for his men to fall back nor does he retreat himself. T</span></span><span style="font-size: 10px"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'">he orders were given and the further in the platoon pushes the more good soldiers disappear. From above, the air pushes down on him - smoke turning to white under the moon.</span></span></span><br/><span style="font-size: 10px"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span class="fixed-color" style="color:#808080"><br/>
The Commander presses the pinhead button on his helmet to open the communications relay with his First Lieutenant. The relay opens to static and a lot of close gunfire, almost as if the poor kid had walked into an ambush without the guidance of her Commander. The man shouts over the action around him.</span><br/>
<span class="fixed-color" style="color:rgb(191, 191, 191)"></span></span></span><br/><div style="text-align: center"><span style="font-size: 10px"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span class="fixed-color" style="color:rgb(255, 255, 255)">"<i>Lieutenant</i>! Status report!"</span><br/>
</span></span>​</div><span style="font-size: 10px"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span class="fixed-color" style="color:#808080">Static answers.</span><br/>
<span class="fixed-color" style="color:rgb(191, 191, 191)"></span></span></span><br/><div style="text-align: center"><span style="font-size: 10px"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span class="fixed-color" style="color:rgb(255, 255, 255)">"McDermott! <i>Damn it, McDermott, what the</i><br/>
<i>Hell have you walked into over there</i>?!"<br/>
</span><br/>
<span class="fixed-color" style="color:rgb(128, 128, 128)">(Had you not abandoned your own squad she wouldn't be six feet under right about now...)<br/>
</span></span></span>​</div><span class="fixed-color" style="color:#808080"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 10px">He is gasping for breath at this point - any more of this shit gets into his lungs and it <i>will</i> kill him on the spot. With no response from McDermott, the Commander presses the release on his helmet and quickly frees himself from it. His breaths grow deeper. </span></span><span style="font-size: 10px"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'">Almost as if God himself extended a hand in disapproval over his actions, a shrapnel bomb hits the ground a few feet away from him, sending rubble and shards of metal flying into the air like a fountain of destruction. The Commander quickly falls to the side and puts his hands over his head in an effort to minimize damage. He has already taken a bad beating, and while he isn't not well-known in the Corps for taking a few bullet wounds in stride, every man dies if he bleeds long enough. The rubble rains down on him, and thankfully the only bits of shrapnel that hit are lodged on the surface of his armor.</span></span></span><br/><span style="font-size: 10px"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span class="fixed-color" style="color:#808080"><br/>
From the discarded helmet, the communications relay flickers to life and from it a muffled voice speaks, flat but harsh. Not McDermott.</span><br/>
<span class="fixed-color" style="color:rgb(191, 191, 191)"></span></span></span><br/><div style="text-align: center"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span class="fixed-color" style="color:rgb(51, 102, 0)"><span style="font-size: 10px"><i>Commander... -- </i>do you copy? -- we have.. -- ..round support! --<br/>
<i>I repeat</i>... -- Commander, do you copy? -- ...<i>are coming in now!</i></span></span></span><br/>​</div><span style="font-size: 10px"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span class="fixed-color" style="color:#808080">Now more than ever before, he finds the air being sucked out of him. That voice is General Sugawara - his superior officer and brainchild behind the failure that has been this operation. But he is too late. The ground support the Commander called for an hour ago is too late.<br/>
</span></span></span><br/><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span class="fixed-color" style="color:#808080"><span style="font-size: 10px">He rolls over onto his back, arms splayed wide, and through the smoke in his eyes he sees the blood moon that so aptly made an appearance tonight shine down on him through the devastation. This is it. He is bleeding out - probably poisoned with radiation already from the round still lodged somewhere inside him - and can't get a good breath no matter how hard he tries. So he waits. This is how he'll die, on the battlefield making the last push to end this war.<br/>
<br/>
So what does the handsome, courageous and daring Commander of the 4th Regiment do now? Now, he reaches for the almost empty pack of cigarettes strapped to his other arm brace through the pain of it all and fishes the last one out of his pack along with the old oil lighter that has been with him since he first enlisted. With a flick of the wrist, the cigarette is lit, and the Commanders' head drops back down against the rubble. A fit of coughing follows. He'll be waiting for death with open arms.<br/>
<br/>
A shadow passes over the smoke, and his vision is quickly fading. The lack of oxygen to his brain throws him into delirium and it's as if time has slowed to near a halt around the scene.<br/>
<br/>
The shadow passes again - is... that the smoke clearing out?</span></span><br/>
<span class="fixed-color" style="color:rgb(191, 191, 191)"></span></span><br/><div style="text-align: center"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 10px"><span class="fixed-color" style="color:rgb(51, 102, 0)">Commander... -- ...the assault was a failure... -- ...sending evac... -- ...hold your posi...!<br/>
</span></span></span>​</div><span class="fixed-color" style="color:#808080"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 10px">The smoke... really is clearing. It's growing dark - that sound... that sound... <i>Sugawara, you sly bastard</i>. He chuckles to himself despite the situation being not that funny in the least. </span></span><span style="font-size: 10px"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'">That sound is of a Vantablack attack helicopter now hovering overhead. The Commander's head clears as he pulls the cigarette away from his lips and takes his first breath of fresh air in a long, long while.</span></span></span><br/><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span class="fixed-color" style="color:#808080"><span style="font-size: 10px"><br/>
From the Vantablack, a rope ladder is pitched out of the open side and lands at his feet. A figure emerges, dressed not in your typical military standard but in merc gear. Brows drawn, the Commander squints up at the figure now quickly descending down the ladder. He is no longer chuckling.<br/>
<br/>
The figures' moves are calculated and there is not a tremor to his body though he is dangling in mid-air. Is the General in the business hiring mercs to do his dirty work now? Everything about this man seems untousled, even his hair seems to be unbothered by the force of the Vantablacks' rotors. But when the man gets close enough for his face to be visible, the Commanders' confusion only grows. This is no scarred veteran. The complexion is untainted by moles or sun blotches or any other human imperfection. The eyes - a cold and unnatural deep crimson color. The logo on his chestplate? Metallic. <i>Sol-Soon Advanced Genetics</i>.<br/>
<br/>
And the way this thing, <i>this man</i>, addresses him so formally as a hand unfolds in his direction...</span></span><br/>
</span><br/><div style="text-align: center"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 10px"><span class="fixed-color" style="color:rgb(0, 0, 255)">"Commander Canaan Drennen... the General is waiting for you."</span></span></span><br/>
<br/>
<span class="fixed-color" style="color:rgb(64, 64, 64)">✭</span><br/>​</div><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span class="fixed-color" style="color:#808080"><span style="font-size: 10px">It'd been six months since the failure that was Operation Bloodmoon when Drennen had found himself awoken in his tent -- and the scar from where the gamma round hit still refused to heal. Granted, the cot he had been passing out in was never really the most sleep-inducing, but the loss of Lt. McDermott did nothing to inspire any good sleep since then. The Commander picked his head up from the pillow and squinted with half asleep stupor at the stick of burnt-out ash that was once a cigarette. Sugawara would probably have him tarred and feathered if he found out Drennen had finally managed to get some sleep with a lit one in hand, but the Commander took great pride in reminding his General that 'they don't make these tents out of flame-retardant material for nothing, sir'. His helmet had apparently fallen haphazardly on the ground beside him sometime during the night and the comm relay was lighting up yet again. The source of what roused him from sleep.</span></span><br/>
<span style="font-size: 10px"><span class="fixed-color" style="color:rgb(191, 191, 191)"></span></span></span><br/><div style="text-align: center"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 10px"><span class="fixed-color" style="color:rgb(51, 102, 0)">Commander. General Sugawara requests your presence at his tent post-haste.<br/>
</span></span></span>​</div><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span class="fixed-color" style="color:#808080"><span style="font-size: 10px">Sitting up on his cot, the man slouched and ran a dry hand over his face. When he spoke, his voice was cracked.</span></span><br/>
<span style="font-size: 10px"><span class="fixed-color" style="color:rgb(191, 191, 191)"></span></span></span><br/><div style="text-align: center"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 10px"><span class="fixed-color" style="color:rgb(255, 255, 255)">"Morning to you, too, Russo. Any idea what about?"<br/>
</span></span><br/>
<span class="fixed-color" style="color:rgb(51, 102, 0)"><span style="font-size: 10px">Wouldn't give me many details. Told me to tell you this if it gets you out of bed faster: it has something to do with the squad.<br/>
</span></span><br/>
<span class="fixed-color" style="color:rgb(255, 255, 255)"><span style="font-size: 10px">"My squad? I've told him before I deserve a fucking medal and a promotion for putting up with these lunatics. If Choudhury and Killian are at each others' throats again he can have them discharged."<br/>
</span></span><br/>
<span class="fixed-color" style="color:rgb(51, 102, 0)"><span style="font-size: 10px">Not your regiment, sir, this is about your actual <i>squad</i>. Your ground team. How early is it anyway?<br/>
</span></span><br/>
<span class="fixed-color" style="color:rgb(255, 255, 255)"><span style="font-size: 10px">"Talk to me like that again, Russo, I'll have you scrubbing the latrines."<br/>
</span></span><br/>
<span class="fixed-color" style="color:rgb(51, 102, 0)"><span style="font-size: 10px">Anyone ever tell you that you're a real ass, sir?<br/>
</span></span><br/>
<span class="fixed-color" style="color:rgb(255, 255, 255)"><span style="font-size: 10px">"Tell the General I'll be there in five."<br/>
</span></span></span>​</div><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span class="fixed-color" style="color:#808080"><span style="font-size: 10px">The Commander took some time to pep-talk himself out of bed before grabbing the tank-top hung over the stand at the side of the cot and striding over to the mirror propped up in the corner of his tent. At this hour of the morning he never looked quite like a living, breathing person. It had been a couple weeks since he had the time to shave, even longer since getting his hair cut high and tight again. His eyes, ringed with dark circles and a darker shade of green-flecked brown than usual, were a telltale sign of his years fighting this war. He examined his stature in the mirror for a couple of minutes before pulling the shirt over his shoulders and turning his dog-tags back around to the front.<br/>
<br/>
The march to General Sugawaras' tent was uneventful but still somewhat intimidating. He needed to meet with the Commander about his squad. They were probably some of the most resilient people he had ever known and probably deserved a higher rank than him - but he could think of one that had told him she had purposely rejected a promotion in status more than a couple times.<br/>
<br/>
Passing through the barrier into the Generals' tent, Commander Drennen stood tall behind him.</span></span><br/>
<span class="fixed-color" style="color:rgb(191, 191, 191)"></span></span><br/><div style="text-align: center"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 10px"><span class="fixed-color" style="color:rgb(255, 255, 255)">"General. Private Russo said you wanted to talk to me regarding my squad?"</span></span></span>​</div>