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Scott ran the comb through his tail fur again and looked in the mirror to make sure he looked nice. His fur had been slicked back and he had dressed nicely in a collared shirt and nice khaki pants with no wrinkles.

He wanted to look nice for the recruiting officer. The officer had visited Scott's college campus earlier, accompanied by two soldiers who had answered questions about basic training from interested students. As he left his apartment, Scott felt his heart begin to race, he was nervous, but committed. He walked briskly along the sidewalk, brushing past a few other furs who were passing the other way.

"Hey Scott, why all dressed up?" Said a mocking voice, and Scott spun around to see a widely grinning Labrador. _Drake. _ Drake who had harassed him all semester, Drake the big shot.

"You going to see your boyfriend?" Asked Drake and Scott felt a surge of mingled anger and shame shoot through him as Drake's buddies laughed. Scott struggled to control his temper and kept his face emotionless.

"No, I'm going to join the Marines." He said, and Drake laughed, his friends joining in a second later. One of them, a Malamute snickered.

"I didn't know they let fags in." Scott sighed quietly and turned before they could see his anger. He thought of the sharp blue uniforms that the soldiers at the campus had been wearing and imagined himself wearing a similar one; that would show Drake and his asshole friends. But as he walked along he could hear Drake turning to follow him.

"This doesn't concern you Drake." Scott said angrily, wanting to run and leave Drake far behind. Drake just smiled in response.

"I just want to see if you actually do it." He said maliciously. Scott gritted his teeth and kept going, trying to ignore Drake's laughter, which was still ringing in his ears.

The recruiting office was small, but in a comfortable sort of way, there was a desk at the back of the room and as Scott watched, a grey fox sat down at it and glanced over at Scott, mentally inviting him to come in.

Without hesitation, Scot opened the glass door and walked in. The fox stood up and leaned across the desk to shake Scott's paw.

"I am Sergeant Bryant, I assume that you are here to recruit." Scott nodded, the nervousness in his stomach was beginning to resurface, but it was too late to turn around now.

Sergeant Bryant took a form out of a manila envelope and uncapped a pen.

"Sit down, and lets begin." Scott sat down, and Sergeant Bryant began to speak.

"Name?"

"Scott Hauge, sir." Sergeant Bryant looked at Scott and smiled gently.

"Mr. Hauge, I'm a non commissioned officer, call me by my rank please." Scott nodded, and the interview continued.

"Age."

"Nineteen, Sergeant Bryant."

"Species?"

"Wolf, Canis lupus, Sergeant Bryant."

"Do you have any illnesses or pre existing conditions that may affect your military performance?" Scott thought for a second, he had a lingering cough but, that was nothing.

"No, Sergeant Bryant."

"Do you have any metal plates, pins, or sockets in your body?"

"No, Sergeant Bryant."

"Do you have any mental conditions?"

"No, Sergeant Bryant."

"Do you suffer from arthritis or any other debilitating disease that would affect your joints, muscles or bones?"

"No, Sergeant Bryant."

"What is your blood type?" Scott had to think for a few seconds, then he remembered when he had given blood the previous year and it came to mind.

"A Positive, Sergeant Bryant."

"Do you have any previous military experience?" Scott thought back on his brief experience with the ROTC. He hadn't spent long in the organization, but had learned most of the rifle drills in that short time, something that he was sure would prove very useful during Basic Training.

"I was in ROTC last semester, but this semester I didn't do it because of money issues, Sergeant Bryant."

"In that case, which rank did you hold?" Scott thought back, he had held the second lowest rank but despite that it had been a great feeling of satisfaction.

"Cadet Corporal, Sergeant Bryant."

"That's good, you now have a greater chance of being elected squad leader during Basic now." Hearing that, Scott's ears pricked up, he could hold rank?

"If you don't mind me asking, what rank is squad leader, Sergeant Bryant?"

"Lance Corporal. Now lets move on, do you have any skin disorders or any diseases that affect your fur?"

"No, Sergeant Bryant." Scott smiled, if his luck held, he would become an officer.

"Alright, as a final question, what is your sexual orientation?" Scott felt shame well up within him, he didn't like discussing that with people, even with his family, who made a point of being very supportive. He lowered his ears, and his tail stopped wagging. He wondered how Sergeant Bryant would react.

"Homosexual, Sergeant Bryant." He said quietly. Sergeant Bryant glanced at him, then wrote it down and stood up, Scott waited for an angry outburst, but there was nothing.

"Well, we are done Mr. Hauge, you are to come back in two weeks time to catch a bus to Camp Pendleton in San Diego, only pack essentials, no medication, no music playing or media streaming devices, and no weapons, you may bring a cell phone but keep in mind it will be confiscated at the door and returned to you at the end of training." Scott nodded, saluted and walked out the door, feeling oddly drained, he had done it.

Scott thought of the date, it was June 4th, he would have to report back to the recruiting office on the 18th. But as he thought of the date he felt something nagging him, he was forgetting something. Then it hit him, it was family night, he was supposed to go have dinner with his family.

"Shit." Scott hissed and was about to set off to the restaurant, which was just a few blocks down, when Drake seemed to materialize behind him and wrapped an arm around him.

"Well, you did it! Good job my gay little friend, now the question is, will you show up?" Asked Drake in an overly enthusiastic tone. Scott twisted free and glared at Drake, his anger at the boiling point.

"I'm going to complete Basic Training, wait until I get leave, come back here, and kick your ass!" Scott yelled, pointing a threatening finger at Drake, who merely laughed.

"Please! You're going to be lucky if you even survive the first day, now I would beat your ass for saying that, but then again I'm feeling merciful today, so fuck off faggot, I've got bigger fish to fry." Drake sauntered off, leaving Scott standing in front of the recruiting office. Scott walked down the street, Drake had brushed him off like a fly, if he couldn't stand up to Drake, however would he stand up to an enemy soldier who wanted to kill him?

Hopelessness threatened to wash over him for a second, then his phone rang and Scott hurriedly picked it up. It was his father, Jim.

"Scott, where are you, we've already ordered." Scott, hearing that started jogging along the sidewalk.

"Sorry dad, got caught up in something!" In the background Scott could hear his mother, Jen, saying something, but he wasn't sure what.

"Got caught up in what?" Jim asked, Scott felt an urge to tell him what he had just done, but then decided that a face to face telling would be much better.

"I'll tell you when I get there, I'm practically within sight of the restaurant, see you there." He hung up and moved faster, dodging past a couple that glanced back at him momentarily before continuing on their way.

The restaurant that Scott was meeting his family at, was an old brick building that was actually split into two businesses, a bakery in one half, and the restaurant in the other. Scott slowed as he approached the door and pulled it open. A waiter approached him.

"Hello sir, a table for one?"

"No, I've got a party expecting me." The waiter nodded and let Scott past. His family was towards the back of the half empty restaurant, and as they saw him, Jim waved.

"Sorry I'm late, I had to do something." Said Scott, sitting down and spreading his napkin.

"Hey, how's college?" Asked Cody, Scott's younger brother was heading to college the next year and was seeking tips on how to survive it.

"Its alright, but, I have to tell you guys something..." Jim nodded and Cody looked at him, attentive and ready to hear what he had to say. As he opened his mouth to speak, Scott suddenly felt a surge of apprehension, what if they didn't like what he had done? For a moment, Scott considered lying about acing a test or getting a new job, but then remembered, he was leaving for Basic Training in two weeks anyways, his family would find out sooner or later. It was his responsibility to tell them the truth.

"I joined the Marines." He said less than confidently, more apprehension building up as Jim gritted his teeth, and Jen stared at him in surprise. Only Cody looked happy. He was the first to break the stormy silence that had descended upon the table.

"Are you going to Parris Island?" Scott shook his head and was about to explain about Camp Pendleton when Jim cut him off.

"Why? Did friends pressure you into it, did you do it on a dare?" He sounded angry and despite himself, Scott felt his ears flatten in shame. He didn't like angering his father.

"No, I did it of my own free will, I thought that you'd be happy, it's a legitimate career." Jim shook his head.

"As soon as you get to your base, you tell them that made a mistake and want to leave the Marines." It wasn't a request, it was a command. Scott tried to speak up but Jim silenced him with a single look.

For a moment Scott considered giving up and complying, but then he found his resolve and stood up at the table, eliciting strange looks from the nearby patrons.

Staring straight at his father, Scott took a deep breath and began to speak.

"Dad, I don't like my life right now, I'm getting harassed every day about my orientation, I have a shitty job at a book store, and I don't feel like I have a purpose in my life right now, joining the Marines gives me a purpose, I hope you understand that." Jim had retained a straight face throughout Scott's entire speech, but after Scott finished he got up and grabbed Scott by the arm.

"We're going outside," Cody was also beginning to get up, "sit down, stay here, Scott and I are having a discussion." Scott jerked his arm free of Jim's grasp but followed him outside, past the waiter, who shot them a curious look but didn't speak.

"I don't want one of my sons getting killed, I'd prefer it if you stayed alive and lived past the age of nineteen."

"We are not in a war right now, we pulled the last of our troops out of Afghanistan eight months ago, the American people are sick of war, we wouldn't go to war again."

"You think the government listens to the people? If they see something they want, they kill everyone else who wants it and then take it, regardless of who gets hurt, that's how we operate Scott. I can't stop you personally, but I hope that you make the right choice before its too late."

"I'm not having this conversation with you." Said Scott and began walking down the sidewalk. Jim watched him go, and sighed, the poor kid didn't know what he was getting himself into.

Scott walked slowly back to his apartment, thinking about the events of the past few hours. He had joined the Marines and alienated himself from his family, all in a single evening, what a day...

But as he unlocked his apartment and turned on the lights he cheered up a little, at least he had something to do now, a new direction his life was taking.

As he thought about it, he smiled, he was going to serve his country, something he was happy to do.

The next day Scott went to an Internet café and rented one of the computers. Calling up Google, he searched Marine Training and spent the next hour reading about how Basic Training went.

Scott was in reasonably good shape from ROTC, and knew most of the rifle drills by heart. But the idea of actually shooting the rifle was bothering Scott, he had never fired a rifle before. On his 16th birthday he had fired a pistol at a shooting range, but that was his only gun experience.

Scott practiced rifle drills with a broom in his apartment and ran in the park. But after a few days Scott did something that he hadn't done in a while, went to a gym.

Usually Scott avoided the gym since Drake loved to hang out there, but with only ten days to go until he had to report for Marine training, Scott pulled open the glass doors of the local gym and walked inside. He needed to put on some serious muscle if he was to survive training without any problems.

As Scott looked around the gym, a bear walked up. He was a good foot taller than Scott, and Scott could easily see his muscles through his fur.

"Hi, I'm Dan, the gym manager, how old are you son?" Scott fished his student ID from his pocket and showed it to Dan.

"Nineteen sir." Dan nodded, and let Scott past.

"We've got too many young furs sneaking into here, see if you start lifting weights too young you can really hurt yourself." Scott nodded and looked around at the various exercise machines that lined the gym floor.

"Dan?" Asked Scott, Dan looked at him, ready to accept any question Scott could throw at him.

"I need to report for Marine Basic Training in ten days, do you know anything that can give me some muscle before then?" Dan smiled and nodded.

"Kid, get a lot of protein into your diet, and I suggest the treadmill, it'll strengthen your legs up, aside from that, lift weights and do pushups and crunches, lots of them." Scott thanked Dan for the advice and stepped up to the nearest treadmill. Stepping onto it, he had just pressed the Start button when he heard a familiar voice behind him.

"...something like that, who knows." It was Drake, talking about something that Scott didn't know about. Scott kept running, pretending that Drake wasn't there, but his heart was pounding and he knew that things would get ugly if Drake saw him.

Scott snuck a look behind him and saw Drake chatting to one of his friends, the Malamute from the other night. Scott adjusted the speed a little bit and kept running, trying to avoid thinking of Drake.

Then suddenly he was there, leaning up against the side rail of the treadmill with a huge smile on his face.

"I knew there was something familiar about the wolf running on the treadmill." Said Drake, his friend right next to him. Scott turned his head away from Drake and kept running, determined to ignore him.

Drake smiled again, but less widely. The gym was nearly full with furs, he couldn't say anything rude without being kicked out.

"You know the thing about the Marines?" Asked Drake's friend. Scott didn't offer a response, he just kept going, checking the distance that he had run occasionally, he was nearing a mile.

"They've been full of gays since Don't Ask Don't Tell went down, so at very least you wont have to look far to get some ass." Scott hit the stop button, he had run a mile and needed to do something else. A rack of weights caught his eye and he sat down on a bench and picked up a ten-pound weight. Drake sat down next to him and picked up a weight of his own.

"You know the thing that's been making me sad lately?" Asked Scott. Drake smiled.

"No, what?"

"Most of the furs who make fun of gays are usually closet gays themselves, and furs like you make shitty mates." Drake's smile vanished, then without warning he swung a fist at Scott, who pulled up his own fists in defense. Something jarred his hand and he heard something crunch. Then Drake was on the ground, howling, cradling a broken paw. He had punched Scott's weight and broken three of his knuckles.

Scott watched as Dan called an ambulance and loaded a bawling Drake onto it, his demoralized friend left mere seconds later.

Scott sat on the weights bench, watching the whole thing and still hardly believing that he had just broken Drake's paw. Not on purpose sure, but he had still done it. As he sat, Dan walked up and sat down next to Scott, the bench creaking under his weight.

"You broke that fur's paw, I know he was taking a swing at you, but how?" Scott shook his head.

"It was an accident, he swung at me and I put my paws up to block him except I was still holding the weight and he hit that instead of me." Dan nodded and patted Scott on the back.

"You'll be a fine Marine, don't worry." Scott nodded, feeling heartened, his worst enemy was injured, and he had a place to prepare for Marine training, life was looking up.

The remaining ten days passed quickly, and before Scott knew it, it was the 18th, and Scott found himself standing on the sidewalk in front of the recruiting office. He was alone, the only fur to have been recruited from that particular recruiting office.

As he waited he felt glad, soon he would have a career, and a beautiful blue dress uniform. Scott was still smiling when the bus pulled up. It was mostly empty, and Scott guessed that he was at one of the first stops to pick up recruits. Scott chose a seat towards the middle of the bus and wondered how long it would take to reach San Diego.

After several more stops the bus began getting fuller, a few furs started sitting next to each other so they would have somebody to talk to during the journey.

Scott was joined by a tabby cat, who smiled when he sat down next to Scott.

"I'm John Graeme." He said, and Scott likewise introduced himself.

"Why'd you join, Scott?" asked John, Scott shrugged.

"I needed a direction in life, and the military seemed about right so I joined the best branch I could think of." John nodded, his luminous green eyes flashing as sunlight hit them.

"I joined because things are looking pretty bad right now, especially around Pakistan, and I want to be there if there's ever a war." Scott nodded, feeling a bit nervous at John's words, but then again Pakistan had been unstable for years, most likely nothing would happen.

John and Scott chatted for a few more minutes, talking about what they had been doing in college, and what they were studying before eventually falling silent.

Scott dug out a book on Marine training that he had bought the day before.

"John, can you run a mile and a half in less than thirteen minutes?" Asked Scott, John looked up from the magazine he was reading.

"I was running with the track team just a few weeks ago so yes, why?" Scott closed his book.

"That's the opening test to make sure that we're fit enough to deal with the rest of training." John nodded.

"Doesn't sound especially hard to me." He said and Scott smiled, after that they would be processed and given their equipment and instructions on how to properly live in barracks. It sounded easy enough, but then again, just about anything sounded easy on paper.

John leaned back in his seat, already half asleep. He yawned, showing sharp feline teeth.

"I wonder what the drill instructors are like." Scott frowned, he would find out soon enough...

"Get the HELL off of my bus you civilian scum!" Yelled the drill instructor as he marched along the aisle, hustling furs along, and practically tossing them off of the bus. Scott got up and hurried along, followed closely by John. The drill instructor was a German Shepard, big, tough, and loud.

"Line up there on those golden footprints...NOW!" Scott felt confusion well up in him for a second, then he saw, painted on the concrete, row after row of bright gold footprints. The departing recruits hurriedly placed themselves on a pair of footprints until they had all placed themselves in a square formation. The drill instructor circled them twice, first silently, then vocally.

"I am Gunnery Sergeant Ripley, your senior drill instructor, welcome to Camp Pendleton, headquarters for Marine Corps training on the west side of continental America!" Scott looked around him, it was dark outside and an earlier check of John's cell phone had produced the time of 9:02 P.M.

"Follow me inside the building, this is where you will receive your first instructions, do I make myself clear?"

"Sir, yes sir!" The recruits chorused, and followed Gunnery Sergeant Ripley inside of the building.

It was very bright inside of the building, and Scott squinted at the sudden change of brightness. In front of them was a large ornate door. As the gathered recruits watched, Gunnery Sergeant Ripley walked up in front of the door.

"You see this hatch?" He cried, Scott felt a slight confusion come over him, then remembered, hatch was Marine jargon for door.

"Sir yes sir!" The recruits thundered, Gunnery Sergeant Ripley continued.

"You will only go through this hatch once! And that is when you have gone from lowly civilian maggots such as yourselves, to proud Marines!" Scott wanted to see what was on the other side of the door, but knew that he would have to wait until he completed training to do that.

But before he could think much more Gunnery Sergeant Ripley was moving again, this time into a room that resembled an assembly line in a factory. But instead of putting together tractors or cars, Scott realized that they were putting together their footlockers.

"Make a neat, orderly line, and take one item from each pile, do this until you reach the end of the line, then assemble your footlocker according to directions given on that wall over there!"

"Sir yes sir!" The recruits cried again, and Scott got into line. As he waited for his turn to grab a footlocker he became aware of Gunnery Sergeant Ripley studying the line of recruits intently. He was looking for something, Scott realized, but what?

Then the line shifted forwards and Scott picked up his empty footlocker box. Next was a series of clothing and toiletries, followed by several trays to keep them all in. Finally, at the end of the line was a small pile of combination locks with their combinations written on pieces of scotch tape stuck to the bottoms. Scott dutifully picked one of each item from the piles until he reached the end of the line.

There was a large chart on the wall that detailed how to put a footlocker together. Scott put the correct items in each tray and lowered them all into the footlocker, one on top of the other. When he was finished, he read the combination off of the piece of tape attached to the bottom of his lock, memorized it, and tore up the tape. He then locked up his footlocker and stood next to it, waiting to see what Gunnery Sergeant Ripley wanted them to do next.

After a few minutes, Gunnery Sergeant Ripley slowly walked among the recruits, tugging on locks and making sure that the footlockers were properly put together.

"Good! Now that you've managed to do that correctly, we shall move on to the barracks, there is still much to do!"

Scott picked up his footlocker and wondered when the initial fitness test was going to be. Probably sometime after they had settled into the barracks.

Gunnery Sergeant Ripley took the lead and guided the column of recruits into their barracks, a large open room with twenty bunk beds on each side. Eighty furs could sleep in this room comfortably, it was huge.

"These are your barracks! Line up, and I will choose pairs of furs who will share a bunk, decide among yourselves who gets the top and bottom!" Again the recruits formed a line and swiftly Gunnery Sergeant Ridley moved along them pairing off furs and sending them to a bunk. Scott was paired with John, which was unsurprising since they were standing next to each other, and Scott was quietly pleased, he liked John.

"You get top bunk, you're taller." Said John, and set his footlocker at the foot of the bed, next to Scott's. Meanwhile, Gunnery Sergeant Ripley had finished pairing off the recruits and walked along them.

"Open your footlockers and remove the first tray, inside you will find your training clothes, once you have changed into those, follow me, we are going to take a test!"

"Sir yes sir!" The recruits again yelled and unlocked their footlockers. Scott did the same, and removed his top tray. Removing the clothes, Scott quickly changed, keeping his eyes on the ground. He didn't like changing while in the company of others but sensed that he was going to have to do it a lot in the weeks to come. Scott replaced the tray and quickly locked his footlocker. Then he stood in front of his footlocker with the other recruits, waiting for Gunnery Sergeant Ripley to take them to go do the test.

"Good, now follow me, we are going to do the initial fitness test of the United States Marine Corps!" A few of the recruits looked nervous, but John looked confident, after all, he had been running for the track team just weeks before. Scott felt fairly confident, he was fit, he knew that, but he just wasn't a particularly fast runner. But he'd pass the test, at least he hoped he would.

Gunnery Sergeant Ripley led them through another door and out into the night. There, lit up with a few floodlights was a flat concrete path that looked a little bit like a runway. Scott surveyed it for a few seconds, and smiled, it was flat, and concrete was easy to run on, of course he would pass this test.

"Now that we are here, I will explain the basics of the test, each recruit will have to complete, two full pull-ups, twenty full crunches, and ten full pushups, then they will run one and a half miles in less than thirteen minutes!" The recruits stared along the path, then noticed a large pad, complete with a pull up bar and a table containing bottles of water.

"Form a line, when you begin running, you will run to that orange half mile marker over there, and back, you will do this a total of three times! When you complete the test, you are free to take a bottle of water, if you fail, you will do it again tomorrow, now hurry up!"

Scott took his place in line, right behind John. John smiled at him and patiently waited his turn as the furs ahead of him began to run.

Gunnery Sergeant Ripley stood and timed the recruit's running times with a stop watch, writing each time down on a form. The first three recruits passed, then one, a ermine ran too slowly and came in with a time of thirteen minutes and twenty seconds. He was the first to fail the test, but not the last.

Another fur, a horse, slipped and twisted a knee, so two recruits had to carry him to the sick bay, where he would do the test again once his knee healed.

Then it was John's turn, and as Scott watched, John did the pushups, crunches and pull-ups slowly and methodically, then without warning, he started to sprint down the concrete path. The recruits watched in silence as he ran, even Gunnery Sergeant Ripley, who usually called out to the recruits to urge them to go faster, was silent. Finally John came in, his fur matted with sweat. But he was grinning and as Gunnery Sergeant Ripley told him his time, he saluted and grabbed a bottle of water before joining the other furs who had completed the test.

Scott stepped forwards, and walked down to the mat. Gunnery Sergeant Ripley looked at him blandly.

"Name!"

"Scott Hauge, sir!" Gunnery Sergeant Ripley wrote Scott's name down next to all the others who had done the test so far and beckoned for him to begin.

Scott did the pull-ups first, they were the most physically demanding, and Scott knew that the faster he did them the less energy he would expend. Pushups followed, and crunches came last. Getting up, breathing a little harder than when he had started, Scott looked at Gunnery Sergeant Ridley, who beckoned for him to start running. Scott saluted, and did just that.

The concrete was smooth, no bumps or loose rocks to mess up his running. Scott smiled and established a quick pace, something that wasn't ridiculously fast, but wouldn't cause him to fail the test either. Before he knew it he had reached the orange marker. He turned around and after that it was easy.

"Ten minutes, fourteen seconds." Said Gunnery Sergeant Ripley, writing those same figures onto a form. It was a perfectly average time, just what Scott wanted. As he grabbed a bottle of water, he saw John beckoning for him to join him. Scott jogged over and John grinned.

"What did you get?" Asked Scott.

"Seven minutes, exactly." It was an impressive time, probably the best time of anyone who had run so far.

"I got like ten minutes, but at least I passed!" John nodded and they watched the remainder of the recruits run.

"Good job, only three recruits failed the test, the rest of you are now in official training! Tomorrow you will learn how to live disciplined lives in your barracks, this includes laundry, showers, and bed making, now we are heading back to the barracks, lights out is in ten minutes!"

The recruits slowly walked back to the barracks, many quietly exchanging their times with others. Scott was tired, he hadn't slept much on the bus, and it was now close to midnight. He doubted that Gunnery Sergeant Ridley would let the recruits sleep in.

As soon as Scott reached the barracks he quickly stripped down to his skivvies and climbed in bed. The last thing he heard was a metallic click as Gunnery Sergeant Ripley switched off the lights. Then he was sound asleep.

Scott's second day at Camp Pendleton began with Gunnery Sergeant Ripley walking quickly down the center of the barracks, hitting an empty metal garbage can with a steel rod and shouting at the bewildered recruits to get up.

"Get up, get up! No more sleeping in you lazy slobs, civilian life is OVER!" Scott jumped out of bed and quickly got his training clothes out of his footlocker. Amid the noise of the recruits getting ready for the day, and Gunnery Sergeant Ripley's mingled insults and garbage can racket, the inside of the barracks sounded like a mad house. But slowly it stopped as the recruits finished getting ready, and Gunnery Sergeant Ripley set down his garbage can.

"Today, we are learning how to live like civilized, disciplined furs, in our beloved barracks! But first, we are getting breakfast, follow me, double time! Ooh Rah!" The recruits trooped after him, many still tired and bewildered from their abrupt wake up. As they jogged along the barracks and towards the mess hall, Scott looked around, Camp Pendleton was huge, he had heard somewhere that it was even larger than Parris Island.

The mess hall was likewise big, it had to be to not only feed but also fit the hundreds of Marines training at the camp at any given time. Gunnery Sergeant Ripley led the recruits inside to what looked like a regular cafeteria. A few Marine cooks stirred vats of food and Scott had a sudden thought that the mess hall looked exactly like his middle school cafeteria.

"Grab a tray and eat up, we need to hurry!" Yelled a Gunnery Sergeant to another group of recruits. Scott looked into the various vats of food that the cooks had prepared. One had sausages, another was full of boiled eggs. Then the cooks started serving food so he moved forwards. Scott sat down at a table and looked at the food he had been given. Two boiled eggs, four sausages, one piece of toast and a large mug of black coffee that smelled delicious and strong.

Scott dug in, and to his surprise the food wasn't half bad. The coffee however was another story. It smelled good but tasted stale and old. However Scott drank it all, he was already tired and had a feeling he could use all the caffeine he could find.

John sat down next to Scott and looked at the food with evident hunger.

"Oh, it's been a while since I last ate!" Said John, digging into his eggs. Scott nodded, he had eaten before he had left for training, knowing that they wouldn't be given dinner, but many recruits, John included, had made the mistake of not eating, hoping for a dinner that never came. The recruits ate in near silence for another few minutes before Gunnery Sergeant Ripley took an empty steel coffee mug and rapped it against a table several times. Instantly every recruit under his command had quit eating and was staring at him, waiting for instruction.

"Two minutes left to eat, after which we return to our barracks and start learning proper barracks etiquette!"

"Sir yes sir!" Chorused the recruits, then returned to eating. John finished and returned his tray to the cooks before retaking his seat. Gunnery Sergeant Ripley took a final swig of coffee and thumped the mug back down on to the table.

"Follow me, back to the barracks, double time! Ooh Rah!" The recruits did so immediately, forever obedient to their drill instructor.

The column of recruits, with Gunnery Sergeant Ripley at their head, jogged back to the barracks, each fur wondering what exactly proper barrack etiquette was.

"Proper barrack etiquette is behaviors that keep the barracks, clean, safe, and comfortable, everyone got that?"

"Sir yes sir!"

"Good, now the first of these is the regular cleaning of the barracks, sweeping up loose fur, and mopping up dirt and other debris!" The recruits looked at each other, knowing where the talk was going.

"Now, clean the barracks! You will do this once a week when you arrive in real barracks, so you might as well get good at it!" The recruits got up and quickly began to remove anything from the floor that might impede the mops, including footlockers and anything that might have fallen out of them.

Scott was handed a mop, he knew how to use one, and began mopping at one end of the barracks. A few other recruits had been given mops, but as Scott watched they were dispatched to clean the hallway outside of the barracks and the head, or bathroom.

So Scott began to mop the barracks floor as other recruits dusted the bunks and the footlockers.

After a while the other mop-wielding recruits returned from the head and the hallways to help Scott mop and the work progressed much quicker. Barely an hour after Gunnery Sergeant Ripley's initial order the barracks were completely clean and the recruits standing to attention at the foot of their beds.

"Satisfactory, now we will move on to how to properly use the head!" Scott looked at the swinging wooden door and marveled at the thought that Gunnery Sergeant Ripley thought is nessasary to teach them how to use the bathroom. But as he walked in he understood why.

There were showers within clear sight of the toilets, and as the recruits watched, Gunnery Sergeant Ripley walked up to one of them.

"Form a line, this is how you will shower when the time comes!" The recruits quickly formed a line in front of the shower, Scott at the head of the line.

"In your footlockers, second tray from the bottom, you have a large bar of soap, bring that with you every time you shower!"

"Sir yes sir!" Gunnery Sergeant Ripley nodded and continued, stepping closer to Scott.

"This is how you shower! First you soap your left arm!" Gunnery Sergeant Ripley said, tapping Scott's left arm. Scott was surprised at the sudden contact but didn't say anything.

"Then you soap your right arm, same thing for the legs!" He said, tapping Scott's right arm.

"Afterwards, you soap the rest of your body and then wash yourself off, each fur gets exactly two minutes to do this, am I clear?"

"Sir yes sir!" Gunnery Sergeant Ripley nodded in approval and led the recruits back out of the head.

"As a final note, you will all shower once a day, after you return from training, but don't worry, there are about fifteen shower heads so you wont all have to line up at one!" Scott began calculating in his head. There were sixty furs in his group, and fifteen showerheads. That meant that he would only be in the head for at very most eight or nine minutes. That was manageable, right?

"But next we are moving on to proper bunk making, each recruit, go to your bunks!"

"Sir yes sir!" Quickly the recruits dispersed to their bunks, waiting for further instructions.

Scott knew how to make a neat bed, but probably not nearly as neat as Gunnery Sergeant Ripley would want it. He stood next to his bunk, John standing on the other side of the bunk.

"Now strip your bed of covers and sheets!" Called Gunnery Sergeant Ripley from somewhere down the line of bunks.

"Sir yes sir!" The recruits cried and began busily stripping their beds. Scott laid the mattress bare and watched as Gunnery Sergeant Ripley walked along the line of bunks. When he was satisfied that every bed occupied by a recruit had been stripped of covers and sheets he began to speak.

"Now put the very bottom most sheet back onto the bed, stretch it tightly so no creases or wrinkles show!"

"Sir yes sir!" The recruits did just that, Scott tugging extra hard on the corners of the sheet so that it wouldn't crease or wrinkle. A few furs made mistakes and received a few ill-tempered remarks from Gunnery Sergeant Ripley, but within minutes all sixty furs had put their bottom sheet on and were waiting for Gunnery Sergeant Ripley's next instruction.

"Now, put on the under sheet; but do not tuck it into the bed-frame just yet!"

"Sir yes sir!" Scott smiled to himself, this was much easier than he had expected, just like making a bed at his apartment. Soon the recruits had finished that step as well, and Gunnery Sergeant Ripley nodded in approval, glad that his recruits were learning so quickly.

"Now put the cover onto the bed, and do not tuck it quite yet!"

"Sir yes sir!" This step was carried out with equal ease and within seconds the recruits were being told the final step.

"Now press the cover and under sheet together and fold them over exactly four inches! Then tuck the sheets and cover into the bed frame!"

"Sir yes sir!" Chorused the recruits as they finished making their beds Marine style. Scott tucked the last bit of sheet into the bed frame and watched as Gunnery Sergeant Ripley walked up the row of bunks, inspecting the newly made beds. As he passed Scott his eyes flickered to the corners of Scott's bed.

"Hospital corners Private Hauge!" He called out, and watched as Scott quickly re-tucked the corners of the bed to Gunnery Sergeant Ripley's specifications. Nodding in approval he continued down the line until he reached the door.

"Good, I trust you remember the steps right?"

"Sir yes sir!"

"Then do it again! Faster this time!" Scott turned back to his bed and again laid the mattress bare. Gunnery Sergeant Ripley pulled a stopwatch from his pocket and pressed the start button.

"Go!" He shouted, and the recruits did just that. It took them almost an hour of bed making to cut their time down to Gunnery Sergeant Ripley's standards, and Scott sighed, glad that he wouldn't need to make another bed until the next morning. Making beds was about as far as you could get from physically demanding in the Marine Corps, but it was boring and Scott wanted to be doing something else, like firing rifles or learning new and unique ways to kill with only your bare hands.

But instead of target shooting or hand to hand combat, the recruits, under Gunnery Sergeant Ripley's watchful eyes gathered up whatever dirty laundry they had, and marched down to several bins that Scott had noticed when coming into the barracks but hadn't known what they were for.

"When you have dirty laundry, during your off time take it to these bins and put it in there, while we are out in the field it will be cleaned and stacked on top of your footlockers, do you understand?"

"Sir yes sir!" The system was good, Scott thought, he was grateful he didn't have to do laundry himself.

Lunch followed afterwards, and then to Scott's surprise, Gunnery Sergeant Ripley had everyone sit down on the floor of the barracks in front of him.

"Now," said Gunnery Sergeant Ripley solemnly, "is your last chance to back out of the Marine Corps, I do not hold it against you if you do this, but you are doing the Corps a disservice by depriving it of yourself. But the door is open, anyone may leave."

Scott remembered Jim's words, as soon as you get to your base, you tell them that it was a mistake, that you want to leave the Marines. Just thinking about them mad Scott uneasy, but he would stay, he hadn't gone this far just to quit now.

Gunnery Sergeant Ripley looked over the recruits, but nobody even made a move to get up, and after several minutes, Gunnery Sergeant Ripley nodded in approval.

"What do you know? I might have gotten a good batch of recruits after all, now give me twenty!" The recruits jumped, but quickly obeyed Gunnery Sergeant Ripley's order, doing the first of many, MANY training pushups.

The rest of the week passed quickly, with the recruits getting acclimated to the barracks and the Marine way of life. Scott began to grow used to the noisy wakeups and ersatz coffee. Even the very public showers didn't bother him as much.

But as the first week ended, Gunnery Sergeant Ripley walked into the barracks in the middle of the recruit's off time, holding a newspaper and looking worried.

"Listen up! Shits going down in Pakistan, the Chinese just moved an entire division of troops and armor into the Indus region, so we are going to start training immediately tomorrow, there's a war brewing, and you lot are going to be the front line!" Scott felt a little tremor of fear go through him, and the barracks buzzed with nervous chatter. John hurried over to Scott, his whiskers twitching in excitement.

"This is exactly what I was talking about! China is up to something and unless they remove those troops ASAP heavy stuff is going to happen." Scott nodded, a fur who slept in the bunk next to his shook his head disappointedly.

"The fucking war's going to be over by the time our training will be finished, shit! I'm going to miss out on a chance to mess with China!" Scott glanced over at the fur and laughed.

"That's what the soldiers marching off to World War One thought when they were training in 1914." The fur shrugged.

"Maybe, but this probably wont turn into a big war, probably just a few shots fired on both sides, that's what most of the wars have been lately, not even real wars, just skirmishes." Scott nodded, but he couldn't shake the feeling that something big was about to happen, something that he would play a big part in.

The second weeks passed without further incident, Gunnery Sergeant Ripley read any news regarding China's involvement in Pakistan to the recruits during their off time. Then one afternoon, along with the usual troop buildup in Pakistan there was more immediately alarming news.

"Greece has just gone Communist!" Announced Gunnery Sergeant Ridley as he led his column of recruits to the running road. The majority of the recruits looked up in surprise, they didn't read the news often and knew next to nothing about Greece.

"The reason I am telling you this is, the new Communist government is friendly to China and this could give them quite a bit of very unwanted access to the Mediterranean, so now we have a potential three front war, one front in Greece, another in Pakistan and a third in China itself, and if that happens then it will be a third world war!" The recruits remained silent, thinking about the possibility of fighting in a world war.

"But that doesn't concern you, what concerns you is finishing this two mile run, now GO!" The recruits took off a fast jog, sweating in the warm weather. As he ran around a bend in the running road Scott looked at the ocean, on the other side was China, Scott felt a chill go through him despite the warmness of the air. Scott thought of the other fur's words the week before, but this probably wont turn into a big war, just a few shots fired by each side. That's what the wars have been lately, just skirmishes.

Scott hoped that the other fur was right, but the way the world was set up right now was like a powder keg, just a single spark would set it all off.

As the recruits finished their second weeks of training, Gunnery Sergeant Ripley decided to begin hand-to-hand combat a day early. He marched the recruits out to an empty pavilion and stood in front of the gathered recruits.

"Alright, now the earth is on the brink of world war, you will need to learn combat skills. Among these are hand-to-hand combat, marksmanship, strength, and endurance, this week we will be learning Marine Corps Hand-to-hand Combat Techniques, do you understand?"

"Sir yes sir!"

"Good, now lets begin with how to deflect and/or combat basic punches, pair up!" Scott paired with John and they stood next to each other as Gunnery Sergeant Ripley, satisfied that his recruits had done what he had asked, moved onto his next instruction.

"Now if you are in combat, you find yourself face to face with an enemy, and he throws a punch! This is what you do to combat that!" Gunnery Sergeant Ridley chose a recruit randomly from the line and stood in front of him.

"Now throw a punch and I will show you what I will do to combat it!" The recruit, afraid that he would actually hit his drill instructor, stuck his fist out tentatively. Gunnery Sergeant Ripley caught the fur's fist and gave him a look of disgust.

"Punch me, you damn pole-smoker, are you even capable of that?" The recruit's ears flattened in anger but he kept his cool.

"Sir yes sir!" The recruit lashed out again, and suddenly Gunnery Sergeant Ripley had the recruit's arm over his shoulder. With a single downward tug he could break the recruit's elbow. Gunnery Sergeant Ripley let go of the recruit and faced the crowd of recruits again.

"Now that was probably too quick for most of you to follow so this time I shall do it step by step!" He again picked a recruit from the line and stood in front of him.

"First, when your enemy takes a swing at you, dodge to the side of it, got it?"

"Sir yes sir!" The recruit mimed taking a swing at Gunnery Sergeant Ripley as Gunnery Sergeant Ripley stepped smartly to the side.

"Next, when your enemy's arm is fully extended, grab his wrist with your hand, twist it, and put it over your shoulder!" Gunnery Sergeant Ripley did just that and smiled evilly at the gathered recruits.

"As the final step, grab your enemy's arm with your other hand and jerk downwards as hard as you can, this will disable your enemy long enough for you to perform a finishing move! Does everyone understand this technique?"

"Sir yes sir!" Gunnery Sergeant Ripley looked over the recruits and nodded.

"Alright, now practice this technique until you can do it EFFORTLESSLY, you understand that?"

"Sir yes sir!" Cried the recruits, and then split into their pairs. John volunteered to try to punch Scott first and Scott stood in front of him, waiting for him to make a move. Then John tensed and dodged to the side as John's fist flickered past him. Before John could pull it back, Scott grabbed it, twisted it, and put it over his shoulder. John laughed and Scott let him go.

"I pity the poor Pakistanis, Chinese, and Greek fuckers going up against us." Said John happily, then Gunnery Sergeant Ripley, satisfied that his recruits were learning, again stood in front of them.

"Good, now we shall move on to the next technique. When fighting an enemy weaponless the throat and eyes are always good places to go for, if you choke or blind your enemy he will panic, and you will win, now here are some techniques..."

Scott's head hurt at the end of the day, he now knew enough to kill and maim in a dozen ways. He could dislocate necks, gouge out eyes, shatter elbows, collapse windpipes, and even break knees and legs.

Now the next time Drake decided to throw a punch at him Scott would know exactly what to do. He smiled grimly at that thought and drifted off to sleep.

For the remainder of the week the recruits trained hard, learning to kill and disable enemies with nothing more than their bare hands. The situation in Greece was unstable, the people didn't want to interact with the Chinese, and protests were raging in Athens, just as they had been, on and off for the past four years.

Beijing had pretty much gone dark and refused to communicate with the US.

In response NATO was put on full alert, the geopolitical atmosphere was the tensest it had been since the Cold War, but this time nuclear weapons were not standing in the way of war. Both China and the NATO countries had nuclear missile shields so both sides didn't fear nuclear catastrophe.

America, France, and Britain agreed to lead a possible NATO operation, with Belgium, Germany, and Italy contributing materials, small numbers of troops, and funds.

Beijing greeted this news with concern, and promptly stepped up troop shipments into both Islamabad and Athens. The day afterwards, Russia expressed disdain with China and expressed support for the NATO alliance. NATO welcomed Russia with open arms, glad to have them, Russia had vast supplies of oil that NATO would need if they hoped to carry out a long-term war with China.

India also sided with NATO, it was a great opportunity to destroy their old enemy Pakistan and also cripple China which threatened India's long held supremacy of the Indian Ocean trade routes.

China was now quite literally surrounded by enemies. They had the European NATO countries to the west, India to the south, Russia to the north, and the United States to the east. They would need careful thinking to win the coming war.

Back at Camp Pendleton, Scott rubbed his aching limbs, they had picked up the pace on running and pushups, Gunnery Sergeant Ripley was well aware that a war was inevitable and wanted his recruits to be as prepared as possible for the coming conflict. They had ten minutes left in their off time and Scott wondered what they would be doing for the rest of the day. The third week of training was almost over and although hand-to-hand combat had been immensely useful and entertaining, they had finished the course just an hour before and Gunnery Sergeant Ridley hadn't told them what they were moving onto.

Scott was still thinking about that when John walked by.

"I've been reading the news, India and Russia just joined on our side, China is fucked!" Scott nodded, China was surrounded by enemies, strong, capable enemies. But China was also frighteningly strong. Combined, Pakistan and China's militaries had five and a half million members and quite literally millions of others who could be drafted if they needed to be. That was the problem with fighting Communist countries, they always had at least two million extra furs that they whipped out when you least expected it.

"I'm a little bit worried about this, China has easily enough troops to keep Pakistan protected for the next few years, so why'd they branch out to Greece?" John shrugged.

"Probably just protecting the only communist government in Europe, its understandable." John was right, China was just protecting its interests. But still, China was encroaching upon countries which it had no business in. If China took control of Greece then it could seriously disrupt NATO naval traffic in the Mediterranean.

Greece was still at least partially governed by its own people, but each day China took more and more control. Within a few weeks, Greece would be a Chinese controlled state. The people still protested on the streets and the NATO governments angrily demanded that China leave Greece. Germany's prime minister even went a far as to say that they didn't mind Greece being communist, they just didn't want China involved.

China responded with a five-minute speech made by their premier. The premier calmly explained that it was China's duty to help fellow Communist nations, and that the allegations that China was taking over Greece were exaggerated and China was only sending military units to help contain the riots in Athens. Greece's president made a similar response, but NATO refused to listen, citing incidences of civilian deaths and paramilitary brutality that were being reported from Athens.

Inside Camp Pendleton, the recruits read the news compulsively during their off time. They had moved into rifle drills, which most of the recruits despised. Scott however had his ROTC practice to help him and he did well at each individual drill. They were practicing with old Vietnam era M16s that were worn and rugged from use by year's worth of recruits.

In the middle of the fourth week the recruits moved onto target shooting which Scott wasn't quite as good at. The recruits were led to the shooting range and given brand new 2014 issue M16 rifles. Scott held the rifle carefully, being sure to keep the rifle's tip pointed at the air, that would be bad if he accidentally shot someone during training.

"These are M16A4 gas operated rifles! The standard issue assault rifle for our country's military! But before we begin firing them, you must learn to quickly and efficiently load a clip. Sure we have speed loaders but those might not be available, so you will first learn to load a clip manually before you use speed loaders!" The recruits were each given a single M16 clip and a package of live rounds. Scott wasn't sure what to do, he had never loaded a weapon's clip before and felt slow and clumsy in comparison with most of the others who knew exactly what they were doing.

Spotting Scott's confusion Gunnery Sergeant Ripley squatted down next to him and took the clip from him.

"If you hold the clip flat in your hand you will notice that the top leans slightly forwards, the tip of the bullet goes towards that lean, do you understand?"

"Sir yes sir!" With Gunnery Sergeant Ripley's guidance Scott quickly loaded the clip. Standing up, Gunnery Sergeant Ripley faced the group of recruits and held up a loaded clip. Picking up one of the M16s he snapped it into place.

"Put the clip into your rifle, and chamber a round but keep the rifle on safety!"

"Sir yes sir!" This order was significantly easier than loading the clip and all of the recruits did it easily.

"Now choose a shooting area and fire at the target directly opposite you, GO!"

"Sir yes sir!" The recruits chorused and each picked a spot.

Scott chose a shooting spot and aimed at a target that was marked 13-300. The 13 was which number target it was while the 300 marked how far away it was.

Scott aimed carefully, and pulled the trigger. The shot wasn't as loud as he had expected and the kick was minimal. Scott smiled and fired again, he liked shooting.

Once every recruit had emptied their clip, Gunnery Sergeant Ripley collected their weapons and they walked over to their targets. Scott looked at his. Most of his shots had hit the target, but the grouping was scattered and Gunnery Sergeant Ripley shook his head in disdain.

"This type of shooting is considered good in civilian life, but atrocious in Marine life. By the end of Basic I expect every single one of you to be able to put all twenty shots into an area the size of a fur's heart! Do you understand that?" the recruits jumped to attention.

"Sir yes sir!" Gunnery Sergeant Ripley led the recruits back to their shooting areas and handed them each another packet of M16 rounds.

"Again!" He called, and the recruits obeyed. Eventually they had to make way for another group of recruits and so they ran and did pushups. Scott liked firing his M16, but his grouping was still unfortunately bad. The recruits ran along the running path, they were used to such runs and their legs rarely ached any more. Scott smiled as he ran, he liked the regimentation of Marine life, but the situation with China was bothering him. China was surrounded and probably outgunned, but why weren't they giving up? It bothered Scott, just like it probably bothered every single other national leader on the planet.

As sharp shooting progressed the runs and exercises that the recruits did gradually became longer and longer. There were more pushups and more runs but Scott could feel himself getting stronger with each day of training. The recruits had changed. They thought about their actions more, they cursed more and got along very well. Scott felt like he was in a brotherhood. Gunnery Sergeant Ripley continued to read the recruits articles about the situations in Greece, Pakistan, and China. There was border skirmish between the Russians and the Chinese but despite artillery having been involved nobody on either side was killed. However tensions were raised even higher as both sides armed themselves for war. Israel sold America and Britain two thousand units of something called the Iron Fist APS and put their troops on standby in case America invited them to join the campaign. Curious, Scott read up more on the situation in Athens. The street riots had gotten larger and apparently Chinese paramilitary units were shooting people in the streets. Britain declared Greece a war zone but the United Nations was blocked from sending peacekeepers in by China, who insisted that everything was under control.

Then the shit hit the fan. An Indian military patrol intercepted a group of Chinese saboteurs near the Indus border and after a brief firefight captured every single one of them except one who committed suicide with a concealed pistol.

China denied that it had sent a sabotage unit into India, claiming that the furs had likely gotten lost, but the discovery of explosive charges and small bombs especially designed to blow up railroad tracks in the furs' rucksacks undid the Chinese' story.

India's prime minister officially denounced China and threatened to declare war on them if anything like that happened again. The world's eye was on China, Pakistan, and Greece. And the public was not friendly.

Rallies were carried out in France, India, and America, urging NATO, Russia, and India to declare war on China, Pakistan, and Greece. Politicians again urged China to get out of Greece and to leave India alone, but Beijing had gone into damage control and refused all contact from outside nations.

As the recruits read all of this in the newspapers they bought from the Camp Pendleton Shop Scott found himself wishing that NATO would just get it over with and destroy China, Pakistan, and Greece. Training was getting tough, Gunnery Sergeant Ripley had introduced the recruits to pugil sticks, three foot long padded rods that are used to train recruits in how to melee properly with an unloaded rifle.

Scott was alright with pugil sticks but got knocked down most of the time. This was alright because the pugil sticks were padded and hardly hurt at all. But after only a few days of this, once every recruit had gained the proper skills needed to melee with a rifle they moved onto bayonet training.

The bayonet used with the M16 had a blade that was seven inches long, and could also be used as a knife if detached from the rifle.

"Now, it is very unlikely that you will EVER have to use a bayonet in combat, the last time we routinely did that was in World War One, but bayonet training is useful to know, so lets begin!" Scott learned the basic lunge, and the underhand stroke that is preferred by most militaries in the world. He learned how to distract an enemy by slashing at his face then gutting him with the blade. They practiced on dummies made from old tires and tore the things apart. Bayonet training was tiring, but Scott felt proud of himself when Gunnery Sergeant Ripley congratulated the recruits, then made them do pushups, as was standard.

Scott liked the bayonet, but as Gunnery Sergeant Ripley had said, it was VERY unlikely that he would ever use it in combat. Even in most of the cases where it had been used, it hadn't been attached to the soldier's rifle.

As week six of training drew to a close, relations between China and America continued to worsen. America put all branches of its military on high alert, and had naval patrols scout around American bases on Okinawa for armed Chinese vessels and sabotage squads.

China had pretty much isolated themselves from the outside world, Chinese embassies in dozens of countries were shut down and evacuated. In London a crowd torched the abandoned Chinese embassy before police dispersed them and put out the flames. Pakistani embassies also faced a similar risk. But unlike China, Pakistan kept their embassies running, but dispatched troops to keep their staff safe.

China and Pakistan were both on high alert, waiting and preparing for the inevitable NATO invasion.

Athens however continued to melt down. A fur wrapped himself in the Greek flag, poured gasoline over his own head, and immolated himself in front of dozens of horrified Chinese and Greek soldiers who were unable to save him. The incident received worldwide media coverage and many news anchors drew parallels between the Greek man's case and the suicide of Thich Quang Duc in 1963 who killed himself in protest of the Vietnam conflict.

This strengthened NATO resolve to get China out of Greece, to do so NATO very directly threatened to physically remove Chinese forces from Athens if they wouldn't do it themselves. Beijing didn't respond, but Chinese troops continued to be flown into Athens and by August 3rd numbered about fifteen thousand, mostly paramilitary whose primary job was dealing with the rioting populace.

Scott read about NATO's threat and felt worried. He had no doubt that NATO would kick Chinese forces out of Athens, but once they did that, then what. Pakistan would be tough to fight in and China would be even worse. Scott thought of the sheer size of the armies facing each other. It would take years to shatter China's military strength.

America was willing to send at very most six hundred thousand troops to fight China. Britain would send two hundred thousand furs, France would send four hundred thousand. That by itself was one million two hundred thousand furs. Germany, Italy, and Belgium would also send troops but they hadn't decided on how many. India was willing to throw their entire military at Pakistan and China, and Russia was sending troops, but mostly just supplying oil for NATO vehicles. China and Pakistan had five and half million furs waiting to fight, and if they needed to instill a draft they would without hesitation.

Adding India to the balance evened out the equation somewhat, but China and Pakistan were still ahead by almost a million troops.

Scott puzzled with the figures in his head for a few more moments, then just hoped that they would be able to bloody Chinese forces so badly in Athens that China would give up. Without China as back up Pakistan would also quietly give up and the whole war would only have lasted a few days.

But deep inside of him Scott knew that that was wishful thinking. The Chinese had already put so much time, effort, and money into this that they couldn't give up now without humiliating themselves in front of the entire world.

War was imminent and everyone knew it. Training seemed to be a blur, Gunnery Sergeant Ripley was working them harder than ever, trying to get them as ready as possible for the coming fight.

Scott's marksmanship improved and he began competing with John for the best grouping. Bayonet practice made a brief return, just so Gunnery Sergeant Ripley could teach them how to knife fight with the bayonet in case their rifle ever got broken. Scott learned a few useful moves and added it to his steadily increasing list of ways to quickly, efficiently kill someone.

Then, Gunnery Sergeant Ripley surprised the recruits by marching in one morning without the customary garbage can and shouting.

"Today, since your marksmanship has improved to a tolerable degree we are simulating combat by going paintballing!" The recruits smiled, excited and got on their training clothes. Gunnery Sergeant Ripley was smiling evilly as he led the recruits to the paintballing range and Scott only knew he did that before he did something painful to the recruits.

They reached the paintball range a few minutes later and Scott looked at it in surprise. It was a small, city like layout, with mock buildings made out of plywood. They were already splattered with paint from earlier groups of recruits. As the recruits gathered, Gunnery Sergeant Ripley started handing out flak jackets.

"These are old, shitty Vietnam era flak jackets that we are STILL trying to get rid of, so you will wear these as body protection during our match! Keep in mind, we will be simulating a number of environments, like a sniper attack and just good old regular urban combat! There are helmets and face protectors over there!" The recruits quickly grabbed a flak jacket and shrugged it on over their training clothes. Scott grabbed a facemask and put it on, he had never been paintballing before but had heard that it was a great deal of fun...as long as you weren't shot.

Next came the guns, standard issue paintball rifles with a hopper that sat next to the next to the barrel and a pressurized air tank that acted as a sort of stock. Scott picked one up and had a bottle of paintballs pressed into his paw by Gunnery Sergeant Ripley who began handing them out to the recruits as well.

"Also, keep in mind, I am the enemy, do not let me shoot you! Formality is dead, call me whatever you want!" The recruits nodded, suppressing the instinct to shout out 'sir yes sir!'

Scott opened the hopper on his gun and poured the bottle inside. The paintballs were blue and about the size of a small gumball. Curious he rolled one between his fingers, it was hard as a rock. Definitely not fun to be shot with.

"I will be firing green paintballs, so if you get shot with a green paintball in the chest or head, you are dead and must lay where you got shot for the rest of the round. If you are shot in the limbs or stomach you are wounded and must call for your Corpsman, who I will appoint. Ten of you will face me at a time, because that is standard patrol size! You may pick your own leaders! GO!" Quickly the recruits divided themselves into six groups of ten. Gunnery Sergeant Ridley walked amid the recruits, randomly picking furs to be Corpsmen. It was a Corpsman's job to rescue the wounded. He passed Scott but tapped John and handed him a white armband with a red cross on it. John put it on and looked at Scott who shrugged.

A fur named Jenson elected himself as leader of the squad and nobody argued, they were still wondering what Gunnery Sergeant Ripley was going to do once they started the match.

"First, we are going to simulate a sniper attack, I want to see your reactions, then I will teach you the proper way to deal with such a threat, I will be the sniper!" And with that Gunnery Sergeant Ripley disappeared into the miniature city block. After about a minute of waiting the recruits heard a shout of 'ready!' coming from inside the city. Jenson beckoned his team forwards and they began to move forwards.

"Where is he?" Wondered Scott out loud, then something green hit Jenson in the arm and Scott automatically ducked behind cover, in his case a building. One other fur wasn't as lucky and was hit in the chest before he could get to cover. Scott was surprised at the suddenness of the attack. The sniper had just knocked out two furs in about as many seconds.

"Hey, corpsman! You going to come get me?" Asked Jenson from the middle of the street, John nodded, then said something to the others. Looking across the street at Scott he mouthed 'cover me' and readied himself to go out and get Jenson. The other fur, the one who had been 'killed,' sighed angrily and watched from where he had fallen.

John dashed out and Scott started firing up the street. It had no effect at all. John was hit twice in the legs before he had even gotten to Jenson.

"Ow! Fuck! Geneva Convention!" he yelled up the street angrily. John was right, the Geneva Convention forbade the shooting of medical personnel who were trying to rescue the wounded.

"The Chinese never signed the Geneva Convention!" Shouted Gunnery Sergeant Ripley from somewhere up ahead. John sighed and reached out his arm so that someone could rescue him. Another fur grabbed John's paw and dragged him behind cover. He had fallen so close to cover that the fur rescuing him didn't even need to expose himself to potential sniper fire.

"Alright, our leader is wounded in the middle of the street, we need a new fur to lead us." Said John as Jenson quietly swore at Gunnery Sergeant Ripley. The others nodded and one, a fox named Caldwell, raised his hand.

"I'll be the leader if that's fine with everyone." He said, and the remaining squad members nodded.

"Alright, lets move up, using the other side of this building." John shook his head.

"What about Scott, he's on the other side of the street from us."

"He'll just do the same thing, now move up!" The surviving squad members slowly progressed up the street in that manner until they reached the building that they suspected the sniper of hiding in.

"Scott, you go around the left side of the building, we'll go around the right and flush him out. If you see him, shoot him!" Scott nodded and moved up. Then something hit him in the upper chest with a noise like a ruler hitting a blackboard, he saw green paint spread out over his flak jacket and lay down on the ground where he had been shot. The sniper had 'killed' him. But as he watched the remainder of the squad rushed inside of the building and a moment later came out smiling, with a paint splattered Gunnery Sergeant Ripley following close behind.

"Not especially bad! Though you did suffer four casualties killing one sniper and also left your squad leader out on the street to die. But aside from that you did alright considering that you even got me, I've shot down entire squads before because they were too afraid to move up." Scott nodded, wiping a little paint off of his fur. The next squad stood up, and Gunnery Sergeant Ripley smiled at them, mentally picking out which one he would shoot first.

After Gunnery Sergeant Ripley had hidden himself, the squad split into two groups of five. One advanced up the main street while the other used one of the back roads. The group using the back road came under fire almost immediately, the sniper again shooting two furs before they could get to cover. Watching, Scott suddenly recognized that Gunnery Sergeant Ripley was deliberately only wounding one of the furs in order to draw out other furs. It was a devious tactic, but horribly effective as Scott came to see.

Two more furs were shot down before the one survivor ran out to tell the group going up the main road where the sniper was. But as they talked one of the furs was suddenly shot from a completely different direction. Gunnery Sergeant Ripley had switched positions and was now raining fire on them from a new location.

The five remaining furs took shelter in one of the houses an started firing upon the house that they thought the sniper was in. After a few minutes Gunnery Sergeant Ripley left the house, a new splash of blue paint on his helmet. He had shot six of the furs, and Scott was heartened that they hadn't done especially terribly.

The other four teams did similarly, and not one squad was completely wiped out by Gunnery Sergeant Ripley's sniper tactics but a few of them came uncomfortably close. Out of the sixty recruits that he had faced, Gunnery Sergeant Ripley had shot thirty-five of them, nineteen of those had been 'killed' Scott included.

Tired and aching from wherever they had been shot, the recruits returned to their barracks at the and of the day for some well received off time.

Scott bought a newspaper and read the World section, looking for any articles on the situation in Greece.

Apparently China was moving surface to air missiles and auto-cannons into Athens to defend against NATO aircraft. That news made Scott uneasy, war would probably be declared within weeks, if not days. He was only on week eight of training. Most likely he would miss the Athens battle. John walked by and saw the newspaper.

"Can I borrow that later?" He asked, Scott was about to say yes when Gunnery Sergeant Ripley strode into the barracks, looking angry and worried. Scott immediately stepped to the foot of his bed and stood as straight as he could.

"The shit has hit the fan!" He announced to the recruits. "The war is on!"

India had been on high alert for nearly a month since the incident with the Chinese sabotage squad. So they had been in perfect condition to deflect the attempted bombing of a munitions factory in Lahore by a squadron of Pakistani and Chinese planes.

Pakistan's less sophisticated aircraft were decimated, and without their support the surviving Chinese planes had flown off, dropping their bombs on the hills outside of the city. India had lost twelve planes compared to Pakistan's twenty and China's six. The dogfight had lasted barely an hour but the war it sparked was going to last much longer than that.

Training seemed to blur again, and the weeks flashed by in a myriad of marksmanship, early morning runs, hand-to-hand combat practice and seemingly endless rifle drills. India had moved several divisions of troops closer to China and Pakistan's borders, and there were prolonged artillery duels between Pakistan and India, but despite that the casualties stayed low and world began to wonder why the countries weren't mauling each other like nemesis' ought to be.

The truth was, India was afraid of China's numbers and didn't want to do anything to set China off, while China was afraid that launching a full on attack on India would bring down NATO and their frighteningly sophisticated weaponry on any of China's armies located near the border. Russia also began massing at China's northern borders, afraid that China might attempt to invade and capture their oilfields in the Caucasus. If that happened the results would be catastrophic for the NATO war effort.

Beleaguered by India from the south and threatened by NATO from the west, Pakistan asked for more troops, India's army outnumbered their own three to one, and even with Chinese troops pouring into the northern part of the country India could roll over Pakistan and cripple it at will. The only thing stopping India was China, which was stopped by NATO, which was also afraid of China. It was a sort of Mexican standoff, except with most of Asia at stake.

As Scott finished his ninth week of training, Gunnery Sergeant Ripley began telling the recruits about the Crucible, the final test that they would have to take before they could become Marines. Scott couldn't believe he was so close to finishing Marine training, he was going to become a Marine in just about two weeks.

The war between India, Pakistan, and China had turned into border skirmishes with artillery duels between the nations thrown in at random. So far only a handful of furs from each country had been killed and that was good. Perhaps this wouldn't be an overly bloody war after all.

The tenth week of training opened with news that NATO had put a no fly zone over Athens, barring any Chinese planes from entering.

Enraged, the Chinese tried to bring it up in the United Nations but their request was swiftly vetoed by Britain and America. NATO put its militaries on the highest possible alert and waited for China's next move.

Meanwhile at Camp Pendleton, Gunnery Sergeant Ripley began explaining what the Crucible was.

"The Crucible is the final test on your journey to become a United States Marine, it is exactly fifty four hours of drills, tests, and live fire exercises, accompanied by several long distance marches and runs. It is basically a final run through of practically everything that you have learned while at this fine facility, any questions?" A few recruits raised their paws, Gunnery Sergeant Ripley picked at random.

"Will we get to sleep, sir?" A red fox asked.

"You will get a four hour rest period about mid way through, most recruits choose to sleep through that."

"How far will we march in total, sir?" An Akita asked.

"I don't know for sure, but somewhere around thirty or forty miles."

"Will we go to the mess hall for meals, sir?" Asked a brown bear.

"No, you will not. Each of you will instead get three MREs to sustain you for the fifty four hour Crucible."

"What happens if you fail, sir?" A nervous looking horse asked.

"If you fail the Crucible then you come back in one week and do it over. However if you fail that too you will be discharged from the Marine Corps." Scott tried not to think about failing, he had always been encouraged to think positively when he was about to do something difficult, but he was finding it hard to focus. Fifty-four hours? With minimal sleep? That was going to be tough.

But then again he hadn't sweated through ten and a half weeks of Marine training just to fail at the very last second, he was going to succeed, and claim his title of United States Marine.

Smiling at the thought, Scott envisioned the splendid blue dress uniform he would possess, and of course the Eagle, Globe, and Anchor, the very symbol of the Marines. After a recruit had passed the Crucible he would march to the main pavilion, a distance of four or five miles, and take part in a ceremony in which he would receive a brass Eagle, Globe, and Anchor emblem which symbolized that he had just become a Marine. After which the new Marine would be served a very large breakfast at the mess hall and allowed to sleep for as long as he wished, a suitable reward for completing Marine training and earning the title of United States Marine.

"After this you will pack up your things, go to graduation, reclaim your cell phones from the front desk, and be sent to Camp Lejeune and added onto the ranks of the 2nd Marine Division until needed. Most likely to aid NATO in kicking the Chinese out of Athens." There was a stir of excitement at this last sentence. It would be interesting to fight Chinese troops, especially in an ancient city like Athens. But first he would actually have to pass the Crucible and become a Marine. That in itself would take two or three days. NATO was continually edging closer and closer to doing a full on invasion of Athens and destroying every Chinese unit inside of city limits. Britain was particularly angry because they had been in the middle of a potentially lucrative trade deal when the Communists had taken power and China had started sending troops in.

Chinese troop numbers were hovering somewhere around twenty thousand, so far the Chinese had respected the no fly zone that NATO had put up, but it was only a matter of time...

"The Crucible will take place in just four days, so we best prepare, follow me, we're going for a run!" Said Gunnery Sergeant Ripley, and the recruits followed, excited at being so close to becoming Marines. The column of recruits jogged along the running path, enjoying the temperate weather and slight breeze, as he ran Scott hoped that he would pass the Crucible, if he failed and was discharged how would he ever face his father? An inner resolve stirred within him and his smile turned hard, he would avoid failing even if it killed him.

Gunnery Sergeant Ripley didn't train them hard at all the day before the Crucible and Scott silently thanked the drill instructor for that. The last thing he wanted was to be deathly tired during the biggest test he would ever have to face.

As Scott drifted off to sleep he wondered how hard the Crucible would be, and whether or not he would fail.

Scott was awakened by Gunnery Sergeant Ripley's customary garbage can entrance, and bolted upright in his bunk. There was a high window directly in front of his bed, but no light was shining through, it was pitch black. But if it was still night why was Gunnery Sergeant Ripley waking them up?

"Sir? Its not morning yet, sir!" Called John from the bottom bunk. Gunnery Sergeant Ripley laughed and set down the garbage can.

"Technically it is Private, now get your ass out of bed, we are going for a run!" Scott blinked the sleep out of his eyes and slid out of bed, wondering what time it was. Hopefully it was only an hour or two early and he hadn't lost too much sleep.

But as he unlocked his footlocker and retrieved his training clothes, Scott heard Gunnery Sergeant Ripley begin to speak.

"It is now two fifteen in the morning! I want you all outside of the barracks by two TWENTY! You got that?"

"Sir yes sir!" Replied the bewildered recruits.

"That sounded a bit sluggish, why don't we try that again?" The recruits shouted this time.

"SIR YES SIR!" Gunnery Sergeant Ripley laughed and departed from the barracks, taking the garbage can with him.

As Scott made his bed in the Marine style he wondered why Gunnery Sergeant Ripley hadn't made them aware of the fact that he was going to wake them up three and a half hours early. Probably to keep them on their toes, or something of the sort.

Quickly the recruits filed outside into the cool night air, the dim form of Gunnery Sergeant Ripley just barely visible amid the pitch-blackness of very early morning.

"Now we run to where we pick up our equipment, this includes packs, full battle dress, MREs, and rifles, follow me, it gets the blood moving!" The recruits jogged after Gunnery Sergeant Ripley, each one of them wondering why they couldn't have started three and a half hours later.

Several minutes later they reached an area piled high with all sorts of military equipment, there were M16 rifles, packs loaded with everything that a Marine rifleman would ever need in combat, flak jackets, and MREs. Scott hadn't tasted one before but imagined that it couldn't possibly be very good. Scott chose a flak jacket and stuck the MREs into the web belt, then he shrugged the flak jacket on and picked up a pack, which to his dull surprise contained what felt like a hundred pounds of gear.

Buckling the pack on as well Scott picked up a rifle and the provided five clips of ammunition. As the recruits picked up the last of their equipment, Gunnery Sergeant Ripley appeared in front of them.

"We will now simulate a night infiltration. Follow me!" The recruits jogged after Gunnery Sergeant Ripley, slowed considerably by the seventy pounds of equipment each one of them was carrying. Scott knew what a night infiltration was, it was when you tried to sneak into enemy lines so that you could ambush or otherwise destroy them when they least expected it. It was difficult, and would be made even more so by the packs they were carrying.

After a few more minutes of running the recruits came to a pair of shallow trenches dug into the ground and separated by razor wire. As Scott watched, Gunnery Sergeant Ripley took his own M16 and fired a round into the air.

"Crawl through the trench, do it quickly, do it stealthily so that the enemy cannot see you! GO!" The recruits dove forwards and crawled quickly forward, only stopping to occasionally free their pack from a piece of dangling razor wire. Scott made it through without complications and stood up with the others who had made it. Once everyone had finished Gunnery Sergeant Ripley fired another round in the air.

"Good! Now you are going to do it under fire!" Scott looked at Gunnery Sergeant Ripley's face to see if he was joking, but the drill instructor was serious, so Scott dove back into the shallow trench and crawled forwards as M16 fire split the night.

Once the recruits had managed to get through the night infiltration course to Gunnery Sergeant Ripley's satisfaction they moved onto another scenario.

"Now we will simulate an after dark medevac, now organize into teams of three, one of you will be the casualty, the other two of you will rush the casualty over to that spot over there! You got that?"

"Sir yes sir!" The recruits divided themselves up, and Scott found himself with John and Jenson. Gunnery Sergeant Ripley walked up to them and tapped Scott's helmet.

"Bam! You've been shot, you two, carry him over to the medevac zone, NOW!" Scott rolled onto his side and went limp as John and Jenson each took an arm and started to carry Scott before suddenly Gunnery Sergeant Ripley appeared and began shouting.

"No! You should be no more than two feet from the ground at all times, do you want to be killed when you are actually doing this under fire?"

"No, sir!" Jenson answered.

"Are you sure? You seem pretty damn keen to become KIA!" Jenson lay back down and took hold of Scott's arm again. Shuffling along the ground, Jenson and John finally managed to reach the medevac zone. Once there Scott stood up and adjusted his pack. Gunnery Sergeant Ripley walked up and clapped slowly.

"Well, you all survived! Two hours down, fifty-two to go!"

The gathered recruits saluted and followed Gunnery Sergeant Ripley away from the night medevac simulation. It was going to be a long fifty-two hours.

Meanwhile, half way around the world, every single piece of Indian artillery facing Pakistan's Indus region fired, blanketing a Pakistani military base in flame and flying shrapnel. Dozens of Pakistani soldiers and vehicles vanished into the flames. Immediately afterwards, two companies of Indian regular infantry breached the base's walls with American supplied C4 explosives and killed or wounded any surviving Pakistanis who tried to resist. Upon achieving this, the Indians tore down the Pakistani flag, replaced it with an Indian standard, stole several dossiers of important information concerning Pakistani troop strengths in the area, and re-crossed the border before Pakistani reinforcements arrived several minutes later.

In retaliation Pakistan launched a surface-to-surface missile at an Indian troop depot but it missed and instead killed four Indian soldiers out on patrol. The raid received worldwide attention and a reputation for having been a complete success for India as well as a complete humiliation for Pakistan's armed forces.

India reported no deaths and only three wounded, while Pakistan shamefacedly reported twenty-nine deaths and fifty wounded.

It was India's first victory in the long war to come, but not their last.

Scott was exhausted, the days had melted into a blur of training exercises, sharp shooting, and teamwork building challenges. He, John, and Jenson had elected to work together, and had passed each exercise, though with great difficulty and effort. Scott kept going, his eyes were bleary and he was barely aware of John shaking his shoulder.

"Scott, we did it! The crucible is over, now we just need to march over to the pavilion, come on!" Scott slowly joined the slow moving column of equally tired recruits. But as Scott joined the column John's words finally found meaning in his fogged brain and he felt an intense surge of joy briefly burn through his fatigue.

"Just four more miles, then we're Marines." Muttered Scott, he smiled faintly and marched onwards, towards the end of his training.

It took the recruits nearly an hour to march the four miles, a few recruits collapsed from exhaustion but were helped up and pushed along by other recruits, who talked to them and kept them from falling asleep on their feet.

Some furs stayed awake by thinking of the ceremony that they were soon going to be attending. A few others pinched their arms and pulled their fur, focusing on the pain so that they wouldn't fail this close to victory. Scott envisioned the blue dress uniform he would wear at graduation, and the Eagle, Globe, and Anchor emblem that he would sew to the breast of it.

John seemed more awake than most of the other furs and wandered through the column, waking up furs who were falling asleep on their feet and reminding them of how close they were to becoming United States Marines.

The encouragement worked, and soon the furs were marching a little bit faster, eager to get to the ceremony before their strained, fatigued bodies shut down on them.

Scott marched numbly along, he was tired, but the marching and the thought of finally earning the title of Marine after all the hard weeks of training kept him going.

Then after what seemed like an eternity, the recruits reached the pavilion and watched as the ranking officer who ran Camp Pendleton climbed onto a podium and began to speak, gazing out over the rows of exhausted but happy young recruits.

"Today you are no longer recruits or civilians of any kind. Today, you fine young furs claim the coveted title of United States Marine. You are no longer part of the civilian world, but part of a Marine brotherhood. Whenever you meet another Marine you may call him 'brother.' Because you have all earned this title! Congratulations Marines, Ooh Rah!"

"Ooh Rah!" The Marines thundered back at him, the relief and happiness washing away their fatigue. The drill instructors, who had left during the short speech, returned with trays, each holding exactly sixty brass Eagle, Globe, and Anchor emblems. Scott watched as Gunnery Sergeant Ripley walked up to him and placed the emblem into Scott's outstretched paw. He then shook Scott's paw vigorously and smiled.

"Good job Private." He said, and moved on to the next Marine. Scott looked at the little piece of metal in the palm of his paw and slowly closed his fingers around it. He had done it. He was a Marine.

Scott smiled and felt tears of joy dampen his fur. He was no longer a civilian, or a recruit of any kind, but a United States Marine. The process was finished, Scott had been reborn.

After the ceremony concluded several minutes later, the drill instructors returned the empty trays and led their happy, exhausted young Marines to the mess hall for their first good meal in nearly three days.

As he walked through the mess hall doors and smelled the scent of freshly cooked pancakes and frying bacon, Scott felt the happiest that he had been in a very long time. Scott turned to John and Jenson, who were behind him, and embraced them both.

"We did it!" He exclaimed, then let them go and yelled it again to his entire company!

"WE DID IT!" The company cheered, reinvigorated by both the joy of finally becoming Marines, and the smell of good food.

As Scott dug into his pancakes, he felt euphoria. He was happy, on his way to becoming well fed, and surrounded by his friends and brothers. But best of all, he was now a Marine...Ooh Rah!

The next morning, after ten hours worth of sleep, Scott and the other Marines from his company were awakened, not by Gunnery Sergeant Ripley's usual garbage can racket but instead by him running into the room and shouting.

"Reveille, reveille! Pack up your equipment, rifles, and footlockers, you are leaving for graduation in five minutes!" Scott sat up in bed and immediately got dressed, not in his usual training clothes but instead in the blue Marine dress uniform that he had been given just before he had gone to sleep. Tucking his shirt in, he put on the white cap and tucked his Eagle, Globe, and Anchor emblem into his pant's pocket. Then, picking up his footlocker, Scott joined the stream of other Marines leaving the barracks and set his footlocker next to a growing pile of others.

"Your rifles are here, insert an empty clip and flip the setting to safety, once you have done that, march in formation to the pavilion, there you will parade once around the circumference of the pavilion and stand for attention! Does everyone get that?"

"Sir yes sir!" The Marines replied, not a single one unsmiling. Gunnery Sergeant Ripley, bedecked in his Marines finery, and wearing his ceremonial saber, looked over the company that he had just spent three months training and smiled.

"You make me proud, now follow me! Double time!" Scott grabbed his rifle, inserted a clip and flipped the setting to safety. Once he had done that he shouldered the weapon and marched in formation with the fifty-nine other furs that he had spent three months training with.

As the sixty new Marines entered the pavilion, Scott snuck a glance at the bleachers that had been moved to the edges of the pavilion, forming makeshift arena of sorts. There were dozens of furs, all clapping at the sight of the column of Marines, but Scott saw his family nowhere among them. Feeling a slight sense of worry, he continued marching, the smiles and clapping of the on-looking family members of the furs of the company becoming somewhat annoying.

"Company, halt!" Scott halted at Gunnery Sergeant Ripley's command and turned to face the onlookers, who smiled and clapped, happy to see their family members as United States Marines.

Scott scanned through the dozens of furs on the bleachers, there were foxes, horses, Akitas, dogs, and cats, and many other types of furs, but no wolves in sight. Scott ground his teeth and wondered where his family was.

_They're probably just running late. _ He thought, trying not to let himself arrive at the conclusion he was envisioning.

"Company...you are released!" Said Gunnery Sergeant Ripley from somewhere to the left of Scott, and furs of the company wasted no time in breaking formation and going to see their families for the first time in months.

Scott walked slowly forwards, scanning the bleachers more carefully this time, but again he didn't see his family among the furs who got up and embraced their brother, son or father who was now a United States Marine. As Scott looked, he felt a tap on his shoulder and turned around to see John grinning, four other furs gathered around him.

An older fur stepped forwards and shook Scott's paw. He beamed at Scott and Scott tried his best to smile back.

"Hi, I'm John's father, Craig, you must be Scott." Scott nodded.

"Nice to meet you, sir." He said. John stepped forwards and looked around Scott.

"Hey, where's your family?" Scott shrugged and looked around the milling crowd of furs, most of whom were busily chatting with their family members.

"I don't know, maybe they're just late...wait!" An idea popped into Scott's head and he smiled happily as he thought of it.

"I brought my cell phone here and the front desk now has it, maybe they left me a message." John nodded and turned to his family.

"Excuse me for a moment, I'm going to go help Scott find his phone." John's family affirmed his decision and the two Marines hurried over to Gunnery Sergeant Ripley, who was watching the festivities with a relaxed smile on his face.

"Excuse me sir?" Asked Scott, Gunnery Sergeant Ripley looked up at him.

"Yes Private?"

"May Private Graeme and I depart from graduation early and retrieve my phone so I can possibly contact my family, sir?" Gunnery Sergeant Ripley nodded.

"Go ahead, just ask the front desk." Scott and John saluted and left, running to the building that housed the front desk in record time.

"Hello, front desk, may I retrieve my cell phone please?" Asked Scott, the receptionist in response placed a tray full of cell phones onto the desk. Scott thanked her and dug through the assorted phones until he found his.

Turning it on, he was gladdened to see that it was still about half charged.

"Well, that's good luck!" Said Scott and pressed 1 to access his voicemail.

"You have four new messages." A robotic voice told him. Scott waited patiently as the machine played his first message. It was, predictably, from Jim.

"Scott, since you haven't returned by now, I'm assuming that you have chosen to stay in the Marines rather than be safe and return home so that you can live a normal, safe life. We miss you Scott, I wish you'd chosen to come home." Scott deleted the message, Jim hadn't changed his views at all. Scott waited a few more seconds then the machine began to play his second unheard message. To Scott's surprise it was from Cody, his younger brother. Cody rarely if ever called him, this was a pleasant surprise.

"Hey Scott, its Cody, and I just want you to know, you joining the Marines is awesome!" Scott smiled and remembered how excited Cody had seemed at the restaurant when Scott had broken the news to his family.

"But anyways, I've been researching a lot about Marine training and it looks pretty tough, especially the hand-to-hand combat shit. Well, I hope you complete training! Four more weeks to go! Bye!" Scott laughed and saved the message, John was talking to the receptionist about something, but Scott didn't care, he wanted to see what was in the other two messages.

The third message was an automated call from some politician or other, asking him if he wanted to vote for said politician. Scott deleted the message in disgust. He hated automated calls, they were annoying as hell. He waited another few seconds and began listening to his final message. It was another one from Jim, but this time he sounded angry.

"Yesterday I caught Cody trying to forge my signature onto a Marine Corps recruitment form, he said it was because he wanted to be just like you. So Scott, I hope you realize that this is for the best, but we are not showing up for your graduation, you've already put enough bad influences on this family." The message ended and Scott looked at the phone in shock, feeling the rage build up in him.

Then with an enraged cry he threw the phone to the ground and started stomping on it in fury, shattering the screen and cracking the plastic case. Scott stood where he was for a second, feeling anger well up inside of him. He had joined the Marines to get a direction in his life, why couldn't Jim just accept that. Scott gave the broken phone a last desultory stomp, sat down on the nearest chair, and buried his head in his paws. He was barely aware of John and the receptionist both staring at him in shock. John moved away from the receptionist and sat down next to Scott.

"What happened? Its alright, you can tell me." Scott sighed and raised his head.

"My fucking dad, he didn't want me to join the Marines in the first place, so he apparently caught my brother trying to join as well so he forbade the family from coming to see me at graduation...the fucker!" Scott stared down at the floor, shards of plastic and pieces of broken metal from his phone littered the floor. The receptionist came out with a broom and dustpan but Scott stood up.

"Its fine, I'll deal with it." He took the broom and dustpan from her and quickly swept up the remains of his busted phone. Dumping the pieces into the trash Scott shook his head.

"The one chance he gets to see me before I go off to Camp Lejeune, then Europe, and he doesn't fucking take it. What an asshole." John watched silently as Scott bitterly cursed his father, well, furs had to get their anger out somehow...

It was another hour before the graduation ceremony ended, and then Gunnery Sergeant Ripley handed each Marine a plastic wrapped bundle and instructed them back to the barracks.

"Once you arrive at the barracks unwrap the bundle. Inside are your fatigues and dog tags! Once you have put those on, retrieve your weapon and follow me, you are going to Camp Lejeune ASAP!" Scott nodded, and saluted with the rest of the company. He was excited, he was on his way to Camp Lejeune, then very possibly Greece.

The run back to the barracks didn't take long, but Gunnery Sergeant Ripley seemed bothered by something, and periodically asked the Marines to hurry up before vanishing into his own quarters and coming out less than a minute later dressed in his own fatigues.

Scott tugged the fatigues on, they were slightly too big, but that was much better than too small. As he put the shirt on he looked at the Private's stripe on his shoulder and felt proud. Just another reminder that he was now a part of one of the world's most dominant fighting forces.

Anger still burned within him, but he ignored it, he wasn't going to see Jim for a long time; that was good. Scott put on his dog tags, and looked at them.

PFC. SCOTT HAUGE

2ND MARINE DIVISION

9019741

The first tag contained his name, rank, outfit, and serial number. The other tag detailed his blood type (A Positive) in case a Corpsman needed to perform a blood transfusion. Scott tucked his tags under his shirt and neatly folded his dress uniform. Walking outside he put the dress uniform into his footlocker and picked up his M16, making sure that the fire indicator was still firmly on Safe.

As the remainder of the Marines filed out of the barracks, Gunnery Sergeant Ripley looked upon them with a broad smile.

"You guys make me proud. Now follow me, you are going to be loaded onto a bus and driven to the airport, once there you will go to Gate 15, your flight will arrive in two hours! No need for tickets, it's been pre arranged. Now GO!" Scott began jogging, cradling his rifle and wondering what he was going to do with it once he reached the airport. As he ran he snuck a look over his shoulder at the barracks and silently made a farewell, he would miss the place.

The Marines trooped through the main building and out into the parking lot where several busses were waiting. Gunnery Sergeant Ripley directed them to the nearest one and the Marines loaded on.

Scott watched through his window as Gunnery Sergeant Ripley saluted them, and they saluted back. Then the bus bean moving, and the company left Camp Pendleton behind for good.

It took them a while to reach the airport, but the traffic was fairly light and people moved out of the way when they saw the Marine Corps emblem on the side of the bus. Scott watched as people waved from their cars and waved back. Never before had he actually been the subject of such a positive reaction from such a large number of furs.

Then the bus creaked to a halt and the doors opened with a pneumatic hiss. The company quickly departed and halted outside of the main doors, unsure of what to do with their rifles.

Scott looked around, the weather was uncomfortably warm and the long sleeved fatigues that everyone was wearing didn't help much.

Then to Scott's surprise, three other furs walked out of the airport, each dressed in Marine fatigues as well. The first one, a leopard, stepped closer to the company and spoke.

"Hello, I am Staff Sergeant Holliday, your commanding officer, you may call me Sergeant or Sarge, these are my Corporals, Burke and Green, now follow me, don't worry about your rifles, you will check them at the gate."

"Yes Sergeant." The Marines chorused and followed their new commanding officer into the airport.

The first thing that the civilian furs in the airport looked at was the Marine's rifles. They weren't used to seeing weapons in an airport besides perhaps an occasional pistol carried by a door guard.

The company bypassed security, practically everything that they were carrying had some kind of metal in it, and as military personnel, TWA had no control over them.

As they trooped down the long hall, looking for their gate, Scott noticed that several other gates were occupied by large groups of military personnel as well. A group of US Army privates was grouped by a gate that would take them to Fort Benning, and Scott saw another group of Marines that was headed for Honolulu.

Finally they arrived at their gate, which was devoid of other furs; apparently it had been reserved especially for them. Scott set down his footlocker, it was small enough to take as carry-on luggage, but too big to fit in the overhead compartments, so it would be put in the cargo bay but still only billed as carry-on luggage.

Sitting down next to John, Scott looked up at their destination, North Carolina, the home of Camp Lejeune, which in turn was the home of the 2nd Marine Division.

"You know, the 2nd Marine Division is the division that usually leads attacks on places." Said John, he had pulled a book about the Marine Corps from his footlocker and was leafing through its pages, looking for the section where it described each division. Once he found it, he began to read aloud.

"The 2nd Marine Division was put into action February 1, 1941. It participated heavily in the Second World War, leading the assaults on the islands of Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Saipan, Tinian, and Okinawa. The 2nd Marine Division also participated in Operations Desert Shield, Desert Storm, Iraqi Freedom, and innumerable others." John finished reading the brief description and smiled.

"Well, we're going into a good outfit, and also to North Carolina, I've heard that the cuisine is delicious down there." Scott nodded, Camp Lejeune was probably going to be similar to Camp Pendleton, except probably with less training.

"Do they let us leave the camp ever?" Asked Scott. John nodded.

"They're supposed to let us off base on weekends, but we have to be back by a certain time in the evening, so that rules out night clubs and other night time entertainments." Scott nodded, that didn't bother him too much, he wasn't the partying type anyways.

Looking at John's book, Scott realized that he had nothing to read on the plane. It would be a long flight, and also an extremely boring one if Scott didn't have anything to do. Looking around he spotted Sergeant Holliday and his two Corporals sitting a few seats away from him. He got up and walked over to them.

"Sir, may I go buy a book to for reading aboard the plane, sir?" He asked, and Sergeant Holliday nodded.

"But first, call me Sergeant, not sir, I'm a non commissioned officer, I work for a living, alright?"

"Yes si- Sergeant!" Scott walked away and quickly found a Border's Book Store, which seemed to be everywhere in airports. Walking inside Scott bought a Tom Clancy novel that he hadn't read before and a newspaper. As the cashier rang the items up, she asked.

"We have a military discount, would you like that, sir?" Scott nodded, and the cashier smiled.

"Here you are, thank you for coming in." Scott smiled back and returned to the gate. The Tom Clancy novel was long and he was a slow reader, so it should be enough for the flight.

Sitting back down next to John, Scott looked up at the departure time; he had almost an hour to go. John was reading his own book, so Scott picked up his newspaper and started to read.

The situation between India, and Pakistan had grown worse. Surface-to-surface missiles were flying across the border regularly, and it wasn't uncommon for a dozen furs on each side to be killed every day. China had so far held back, not contributing to the fight anything besides ammunition, which it gave to Pakistan, but it was growing tired of Pakistan's incapability to deal India any serious damage. NATO forces were massing in Italy, ready to attack Athens. Russia was also looming above China's poorly defended northern border, and America was turning out tanks and aircraft at an alarming rate.

China still outnumbered its enemies, but they were ready to attack from all sides, it was only a matter of time.

Scott had finished his newspaper and was thinking about the growing war between India and Pakistan. So far the two countries hadn't even put a dent into each other's military capabilities, but the fighting was growing in intensity and Scott knew that within weeks at very most, there would be full on war in China, India, and Pakistan.

Then he looked at the time and saw that the company would be boarding in just five minutes. As he waited he looked at the picture on the front of the newspaper, it was a burned out Pakistani tank with a few small fire burning next to it. The headline was ominous.

A THIRD WORLD WAR? It asked. Not yet, thought Scott, but soon it would be.

The plane was fairly small, big enough to fit the company comfortably but the ceiling was too low and Scott could feel the tips of his ears brushing against the top whenever he sat up straight, so he slouched in his seat and read his Tom Clancy novel as the flight attendants passed out snacks and drinks.

The plane stopped to refuel at Dallas, and the Marines stayed aboard, eating innumerable bags of cashews and salted pretzels as they chatted with the flight attendants about Camp Pendleton and how keen they were to get over to Athens and start pushing the Chinese back. Scott talked a little, but mostly just stayed silent.

If only I were attracted to females,_Scott lamented mentally, _that would make my life so much easier.

He wondered if John would still be friends with him if he came out to him, he wanted to tell him but was too frightened of what could happen. It was no secret that many soldiers were not exactly friendly to gay furs.

Scott stared out of the plane's window and sighed sadly as the fuel truck moved away. The plane was finished refueling and was about to take off again.

Scott tried to get back into his book but the feeling of sadness and worry refused to leave him.

John tapped him on the shoulder and Scott looked around, John was holding a small tube of tablets.

"You look a little sick, take some Dramamine." Scott, to be polite took a tablet; it was bitter and made his mouth feel terribly dry.

"Ms." Said Scott, the flight attendant walked over and looked at Scott.

"Yes sir?" She asked.

"Can I get some water please?" The flight attendant nodded and Scott flipped down his tray table, accidentally dislodging his newspaper. It fell open to reveal a headline that read: GAY RIGHTS STRONGER THAN EVER, and Scott knew that he had to act. It was a sign.

"John?" Asked Scott, John looked over.

"Yah? What is it?" Scott looked down at the newspaper, summoning his courage.

"Do you support gay furs?" Asked Scott, John looked confused and looked at Scott curiously.

"I don't know, why?" He asked, and Scott felt his heart speed up and was disgusted with himself. Even after becoming a Marine he was still afraid of his own orientation. He looked downwards, it was too late to back out now, he had to tell John.

"I'm gay." He said quietly, and waited for the angry outburst, or the abrupt change of seats, but nothing happened. Instead John put his paw on Scott's shoulder and looked at him seriously.

"I'm fine with that, Scott, just don't you dare hit on me!" And with those words Scott knew that he was fine, John was still his friend, and he felt a great deal of relief flow through him. Everything was alright after all.

They arrived at Camp Lejeune late in the afternoon, and departed the plane gladly. It had been a long day of travel and as they grabbed their footlockers and rifles from baggage claims, another bus with the Marine Corps emblem painted on the side pulled up outside of the main terminal and the company hustled aboard. It was just as hot in North Carolina as it had been in California, but this time it was much more humid, which made it worse.

Scott was curious to see Camp Lejeune, it had taken him three months of hard training, and another long day of travel to reach this spot, so despite the heat and the stench of engine oil that seemed to rise from the buss's seats Scott smiled.

"John, do you think we'll ship out immediately or will NATO just keep taking their time?" John shrugged.

"I can't predict the Europeans, they've all got their own agendas, France is being bloodthirsty, wants to attack immediately, Britain is being cautious, wants more troops to be sent over, and Germany and Belgium are sending armor and troops over like clockwork to support the whole operation, oh, and Italy is providing air support along side us, so this should be interesting." Scott nodded; he hadn't heard anything about Italy's air force, but it must be good or else America would just assume full responsibility for air support during the operation. Scott had heard various figures, but apparently the Chinese troop strength in Athens itself was somewhere around twenty thousand. They hadn't been able to get any more troops in due to NATO's no fly zone and knew that they couldn't defeat the hundreds of NATO planes enforcing the zone.

So the Chinese waited, they were under siege, but neither side was firing a shot.

So far America hadn't shipped over many troops, its reasons for doing so was that the 2nd Marine Division, its main combat element was still sadly under-strength from the recent war in Afghanistan and the number of Marines who's enlistment papers had expired, leaving them free to go home. Of course they were getting Marines fresh from the boot camps as Parris Island and Camp Pendleton, but it wasn't enough, America was expecting heavy casualties and wanted the Division to be as close to full strength as possible before it was shipped over.

The economy was also worsening, without trade with China, America had lost quite a bit of income and its debt was rising. The American people were unhappy and the approval ratings on the war were disappointingly low.

China was affected as well. They had lost their biggest trading partner and although they were sitting on a heap of surplus goods their credit was declining, and just like America their debt was beginning to rise.

Scott looked at Camp Lejeune and marveled at how similar it looked to Camp Pendleton.

As Scott got off the bus, Sergeant Holliday looked at the crowd of Marines and smiled.

"Welcome to Camp Lejeune, the biggest Marine Corps troop depot on the east coast. You have been assigned to the 2nd Marine Division as you already know, now follow me to the main desk where you will be assigned a regiment."

"Yes Lieutenant!" The Marines chorused and followed after him, Camp Lejeune was bigger than Camp Pendleton, but had many of the same features. The barracks looked similar, and the building that housed the main desk looked identical to the one at Camp Pendleton. The only difference was the sign, which read: CAMP LEJEUNE instead of CAMP PENDLETON.

At Camp Lejeune there was not a receptionist behind the desk, but another Marine, a Burmese Mountain Dog, who wore not stripes on his shoulder, but the gold oak leaf of a Colonel.

Scott had never been so close to such a high ranking officer before so he acted on instinct, straightened up, and saluted.

Seeing Scott's reaction, the rest of the Marines realized just who the fur in front of them was and did the same. The Colonel smiled, appreciating the Marines' formality.

"I am Colonel Dichasia, commander of the 5th Marine Regiment, and your second most senior officer, the only one above me is Brigadier General Kelso, who commands the division, now that you are in my regiment you must understand, we are the unit that spearheads the American part of the assault on Athens. This is no secret to the Chinese, they are well armed, and well prepared, so for the next week you shall train in urban combat, then you will be going to Europe. Does everyone understand?"

"Sir yes sir!" Said the company. Scott felt a little surge of exhilaration and excitement go through him. Finally, after all this time, he was going to war.

For the rest of the day, Sergeant Holliday led the company on a running tour of Camp Lejeune. They deposited their footlockers in the barracks and shared the same sleeping arrangements that they had during Basic Training at Camp Pendleton.

As they left, Sergeant Holliday pointed towards a concrete path that led off into the distance and led the company onto it.

"This path leads all the way around the camp, before we go back to the barracks for off time, you will run all the way around this fine facility, to make up for all the time you haven't been training. Now GO!" The company sprang into motion, jogging swiftly along the concrete path, with Sergeant Holliday at their left side. As they ran, he began to speak.

"Now, you will have to keep in mind, Athens is very large, tightly packed city! A lot of the streets are dead ends and many are too narrow for tanks for pass through, so the Chinese will be using that to their utmost advantage." Scott looked over, slightly worried by the new information that the Sergeant was presenting them with.

"We know that the Chinese have about twenty thousand military personnel in Athens, they are backed up by Greek Army units, however the Greeks don't like the Chinese much, so they may not fight, they may even turn against the Chinese." A few recruits smiled at that. The Chinese being killed by their own allies would be fitting.

"However, despite knowing their numbers, we do not know what they have with them in terms of anti tank guns, artillery, and armored vehicles, so be prepared for them to throw just about anything at you, flamethrowers, tanks, aircraft, there's even a chance that they could break out chemical weapons." Scott shivered at the thought. He had watched a documentary about Saddam Hussein once and remembered vividly the part that detailed his nerve gas attacks on his own citizens. If the Chinese used a similar weapon in Athens it would be nightmarish. He raised his paw and Sergeant Holliday pointed at him.

"Shoot." He said, and Scott spoke.

"Are there still large numbers of civilians in Athens, Lieutenant, surely the Chinese would have evacuated them by now." Lieutenant Holliday thought for a second.

"Yes, the Chinese have been evacuating civilians from Athens, but if our estimates are correct then there are still about one hundred thousand Greek civilian furs left in the city. Either because they want to either aid or impede Chinese military efforts, help us when we get there, or are just too scared to leave and possibly have their home looted or destroyed. It's a very complicated situation, the Chinese are just fucking with us every step of the way." The company continued running, mulling over the information they had just received. After a few minutes Sergeant Holliday spoke again, this time in a lighter tone of voice.

"But despite the obstacles we are facing, we not only outnumber the Chinese, but we own the skies, and have superior training, and weapons, and just the right furs to wield them." The Marines smiled. Then another fur, further back in the column raised a paw. Sergeant Holliday picked him.

"Who is joining us in taking the city, Sarge?" The fur asked. Sergeant Holliday smiled at the thought of the NATO forces accompanying the Marines into the city.

"We are being accompanied into Athens by a regiment of British Royal Marines, German regular infantry, and some French Marines as well. We and the other three regiments are the vanguard; our job is to clear the streets of anti armor teams and anyone who could likewise destroy our heavy stuff. That way our armor can go through and rip the fuckers a new one!" Sergeant Holliday grinned savagely, obviously envisioning the complete and utter destruction of Chinese forces in Athens. Scott was beginning to feel reassured, the Chinese People's Liberation Army was highly capable, but not especially well versed in urban combat, the last time that they had faced off against a dedicated foe in urban combat had been when they had been kicked out of Seoul in 1951 during the Korean War. Scott smiled; quite a few Marines in the 2nd Marine Division had experience clearing buildings in places like Kabul, Fallujah, and Baghdad, they would, as Sergeant Holliday had indelicately put it, rip the Chinese a new one.

"Luckily however, to prevent deaths from rockets and other projectile explosives, the British are sharing something with us that the Israelis cooked up a few years ago. Its called the Iron Fist APC, and it can deflect just about any type of missile or rocket the Chinese care to throw at us." Scott remembered the article that he had read back at Camp Pendleton, mentioning the sale of such things to both Britain and the US.

"We have some too, but the Army snapped them all up before we could request any, so we will just have to stick close to the British." Scott sighed; the Army usually got the newest technological achievements before the Marines did.

"Also, one more thing, do not let the Chinese capture you, they did not sign the Geneva Convention and as a result have practically no rules regarding the treatment of POWs. If you are about to be captured, you can do either of two things, mow so many of them down that they have to kill you, or kill yourself, we do not want any captured Marines being tortured to death." At Sergeant Holliday's words Scott felt a chill advance up his spine. He had read about the terrible conditions in Chinese run POW camps during the Korean War, and hoped that he would never be put into a situation like that. A few other Marines shot worried looks at Sergeant Holliday, they were nervous already, and the idea of fighting in a tightly packed city like Athens against enemies that had no rules regarding weaponry and POWs wasn't helping.

The company returned to the barracks an hour later, their fur matted with sweat. The weather was hot and humid, torture for the more thick furred Marines. However the barracks were air-conditioned, which was a great source of relief to the overheated Marines.

"Tomorrow you are going to begin training in urban combat techniques, this includes how to clear buildings, defeat snipers, and destroy armor, because in cities like Athens, armor makes all the difference."

"Yes Sergeant!" The company chorused, and dispersed for they're off time before dinner. Scott dug out the Tom Clancy book that he hadn't quite finished yet and started reading again. But although the novel was pretty good Scott couldn't focus on it. All he could think about was Athens and how difficult the combat there would be. Sergeant Holliday had made it clear that the high command was expecting high casualties, and the Chinese would not give up, they were outnumbered, but were also well prepared and well armed by Chinese standards.

After a few more fruitless minutes of reading Scott put down the book and mentally went through the information that Sergeant Holliday had given him. The Chinese had possession of everything from aircraft to possibly chemical weapons. They were determined to hold the city, and had all the ammunition they needed. The situation looked grim.

As Scott lay down on his bunk, staring at the ceiling above him, thirty five hundred miles away in Naples, Italy, the NATO alliance began to draw up plans for pre invasion bombardments.

The main problem that they were facing were the batteries of Chinese 35mm auto-cannons that dotted the western heights of the city. So far they hadn't fired upon the NATO planes circling above them, but surveillance footage showed the barrels of the cannons swiveling with deadly precision to follow the jets across the wide blue skies. The Chinese were determined to make NATO pay a heavy price for attacking the city of Athens. They had armor, almost one hundred Type 96 tanks, and a myriad of armored troop carriers that the Chinese had stored away in underground garages. But NATO thermal cameras could see the heat of their engines through the ground. The Chinese had to run the tank's engines every day for a certain amount of time or else the engines would clog up and fail during combat.

NATO had been watching the Chinese very closely. They had spies among the Greek citizenry who gave them important details about troop morale and strength. Thermal cameras aboard high flying spy planes gave them the locations of Chinese armor, and other cameras from satellites, planes, and surveillance drones picked up yet more information on the Chinese lines of defense within the city, artillery, and the question that was haunting the NATO high command, did the Chinese have chemical weapons?

So far the answer was inconclusive, there had been sightings of pallets of canisters being loaded into armored vehicles, but they had turned out to be tear gas that the Chinese were packing up, they wouldn't have much use for it once NATO forces were confronting them with much more lethal weapons.

The Chinese also had a number of helicopters, mostly the new Z10 anti armor variety. But the NATO commanders were unconcerned by the Chinese helicopters, there were barely fifty of them and they could be easily shot down with an FIM92 Stinger, that was, if they got into the air at all. NATO already had air superiority and it wouldn't take them long to destroy the Z10's on the ground.

Even regular M16 fire, with its steel core armor piercing rounds, could damage a Z10, the helicopter was infamous for its touchy and easily damaged hydraulics system and Chinese pilots didn't like the things. But they were armed with 30mm cannons and HJ9 guided anti tank missiles. The HJ9 was particularly worrying to the NATO high command. It was very similar to the American TOW2A, and had many of the same characteristics, including the ability to punch through large amounts of high-grade armor. Even one could seriously damage or even destroy a NATO tank, and precious few of those would be able to pick their way through Athens' tangled streets.

The pilots of the planes circling above Athens would have to be extra careful to destroy every last Chinese helicopter, or else they could seriously damage NATO's armor capability.

NATO had sixty thousand infantry soldiers ready, with another twenty thousand in reserve, and the United States was promising to send over six divisions, four Army, the other two Marines. That would add another ninety thousand highly trained effective soldiers to NATO's task force. The US would almost certainly lead the invasion, their troops were the best equipped among the NATO alliance, and they had recently received new body armor. The body armor was called Dragon Skin and was something that none of the other NATO armies possessed. Dragon Skin was supposed to be able to absorb AK47 rounds, even at close range, something that its predecessor, Interceptor, had not succeeded in doing.

Back at Camp Lejeune, Scott awoke the next morning, not to the rattling crash of a garbage can being bludgeoned with a steel rod, as he had become accustomed to, but to a trumpet reveille.

The company was used to getting up early, and immediately set about doing their morning duties, making their beds, and changing into fatigues. Sergeant Holliday, who had already been up for nearly an hour, looked over them and then began to speak.

"Report immediately to the main pavilion, Colonel Dichasia, who you met yesterday, has some new information he wants to tell you! Now GO!" Scott saluted, and hurried out the door, grabbing his rifle as he went.

The pavilion was barely a quarter mile from the barracks, and the company jogged there easily, it was too early for it to be hot yet and Scott enjoyed the morning cool.

As he jogged, rifle held in a neutral position, Scott wondered what the Colonel was going to tell them. Had NATO called off the attack? Were they leaving early? Were they leaving at all? It was possible that China had agreed to withdraw its armies from Pakistan and sign a treaty. Scott pondered upon that thought even as they entered the pavilion, hoping that it wouldn't be true.

As the company filed into the pavilion, Scott noticed several other Marine companies already standing at attention. Up upon a podium in front of them, next to a large pile of backpacks, in a scene eerily similar to the graduation ceremony back at Camp Pendleton, was Colonel Dichasia. As Scott watched, he held up a piece of body armor. It looked like any other piece of armor that Scott had seen, but unlike the ones that he had worn back at Camp Pendleton, this one had shoulder and groin protectors, a definite difference from the old Vietnam era armor that he had worn during training.

"This, said Colonel Dichasia happily, "is Dragon Skin, the newest, and best body armor on the market!" The Marines stirred, many of them had worried about facing off against Chinese soldiers armed with rifles that fired 7.72 rounds, and were excited not to have to wear Interceptor armor, which was less than perfect at holding off those kind of rounds.

"Today you will receive your gear, this includes, your armor, your helmet, eye protection, grenades, and grenade launcher! Do you understand me?"

"SIR YES SIR!" Colonel Dichasia smiled and set the Dragon Skin down on the podium in front of him.

"Your gear is contained in those packs next to me, now form a line by company, and pick your gear up! After you do that, prepare yourself, we are about to train!"

"Does anyone know what this is?" Asked Sergeant Holliday, holding up an oval olive drab grenade. The ring stuck out to the side, dangerously close to Sergeant Holliday's paw. Every single fur in the company raised paws simultaneously.

"It's a grenade Sarge." Said a Marine, unsure of what Lieutenant Holliday was doing.

"Good, now tell me, what type of grenade is it?" The Marine remained silent; his knowledge didn't extend that far. Sergeant Holliday scanned the company.

"This is an M26 fragmentation grenade, it has a constant kill radius of five yards, and a casualty radius of ten yards. When you go into combat, you will carry two of these in your web belt, along with one smoke grenade and one flash bang. Now come up and take two grenades, you will now practice throwing."

The grenade felt cold and heavy, and Scott looked at the pin, wondering if there would be some freak accident in which the grenade went off prematurely. The other grenade was in his web belt and rested against his thigh. The web belt itself wasn't terribly comfortable to wear, but Scott knew that he would need it to hold a lot of his gear. They were standing behind a low wall of sandbags, in front of them, about twenty yards away was a crater filled ditch. Sergeant Holliday paced behind them, sounding grimly excited.

"You will use grenades only when the enemy is too close to use grenade launchers! Your current target is the ditch in front of you!" He paused; making sure that the company was listening. They all held their grenades nervously, wondering how loud the blast would be.

"Now to properly and effectively use a grenade you must hold the grenade for two seconds before throwing, that gives the grenade two more seconds to reach its target and kill the unlucky fuckers you just threw it at, lets practice!" The company quickly counted out two seconds and Sergeant Holliday shook his head.

"Do not rush your counting, or else the enemy will just toss the grenade back at you, and that would just be tragic! Now practice again!"

After a few more practices Sergeant Holliday deemed the company ready and smiled.

"On my command, take the pin out of your grenade, count out two seconds, and toss the bastard into the ditch! Be sure to get down once you've done that, there WILL be shrapnel whizzing around!"

Scott hooked a finger around the pin, he had no doubt that he would be able to toss the grenade far enough, but Sergeant Holliday's warning about shrapnel worried him. He didn't want to be killed or injured before he even got into combat.

"Ready...GO!" Called Sergeant Holliday, and Scott pulled the pin in unison with the fifty-nine other Marines, then clenching the grenade in his paw he counted out two seconds and threw the grenade into the ditch.

As he ducked down, he heard a series of loud pops, and saw puffs of smoke rising into the sky. After a few more seconds, Scott stood up and looked at the ditch, which had a fresh set of craters in its bottom. Behind him, Sergeant Holliday clapped slowly.

"You did alright! Now get your other grenade out and lets throw again!"

Scott had thrown twenty grenades by the time Sergeant Holliday led the company back to the barracks for off time, and wondered if he would have to use them once he reached Athens. Most likely, he thought, and felt a familiar fear bubble up in his gut. But before he could dwell on it for too long, Sergeant Holliday swept past him and began to speak.

"Tomorrow we learn how to operate an M207 grenade launcher, and focus on urban combat, remember, six days until Athens!" Those words did nothing to help Scott's anxiety, and as he again picked up his Tom Clancy novel, to try to finish the last few pages, he found he could not read without his thoughts drifting to Athens. One thing was bothering him.

NATO outnumbered and outgunned the Chinese forces in Athens, they had complete air superiority, and knew exactly where their armor and main troop concentrations were, and the odds were hopelessly against them, so why did they continue to hang on. They had something prepared. But what?

At NATO headquarters in Naples, the guesses ranged from tactical nuclear weapons to nerve gas. France was of the opinion of equipping all troops with chemical weapons gear in case the Chinese laid down nerve gasses on the NATO advance, and the US began reviewing the strategies that they had used to prepare against possible chemical attacks by Saddam Hussein during the first Gulf War. This included full body suits that went on over the uniform and restricted movement; gasmasks that impaired vision and were horribly hot, and pills to prevent the immediate incapacitation of soldiers by nerve gas if they didn't have enough time to get their suits on.

While China had signed a Chemical Weapons Convention decree in 1997, they had repealed it in 2012, and were now free to do whatever they wished with chemical weapons.

Nerve gas was a yellowish orange in color, and unlike other gasses, lingered in the air for hours before dispersing. It also limited vision, if soldiers were to be fighting in clouds of the stuff, then they would need some sort of vision enhancing equipment or else they would be effectively fighting blind.

The US, Britain, France, and Germany all had that sort of technology, and immediately began to rush it to the units that would spearhead the attack on Athens.

The next day began with renewed border fighting between India and Pakistan. Each side pounded their enemy's borders with rockets and exchanged small arms fire, but there was not an invasion of Pakistan, although India was fully capable and easily had the resources to do so. Both Pakistan and China knew; India was merely biding its time until NATO started fighting in the west. Then it would begin for real.

It wasn't until the third day of urban combat training, just three days before they were to leave for Greece that Scott's company received their chemical weapons protection suits, gas masks, and thermal scopes.

The reaction from the company was far from positive. Many furs swore and complained bitterly about heatstroke, while others recounted stories that they had heard from relatives who had had to wear similar equipment during the first Gulf War.

Scott looked at the suit; it was made of black rubber, and was heavy for its size. Scott however despite disliking the suit like the rest of the company, did not voice any complaints about it, he knew what nerve gas could do to a fur if he was unprotected, and felt a chill run up his spine at the thought.

"Shut up! Since you don't like Uncle Sam actually giving a shit about your safety for once, lets make sure that you actually do care!" The company quieted almost immediately, and looked over to see Sergeant Holliday wheeling in a cart that held a VCR. He plugged it in and inserted a tape that looked older than Scott.

"Now sit down! And watch!" Sergeant Holliday said, and the company obeyed, sitting on the floor in front of the VCR, which flickered for a few seconds before beginning the tape.

It began with a short clip of President Bush Sr. wishing the audience good luck on their military venture in Kuwait." At this point Scott realized that the tape was an old film from the first Gulf War that he had watched before warning about the effects of nerve gas and how to properly utilize a suit. He sat through Bush Sr.'s good luck address and then watched as old footage of Saddam Hussein's nerve gas attacks on the Kurds played while a voice over listed the immediate effects of the gas.

"The first symptoms of nerve gas poisoning are a feeling of overheating, and an intense feeling of itching, often on the face or paws." Scott watched as the camera panned over the survivors of the gas, many of which were scratching themselves desperately.

"Shortly afterwards the fur on the regions affected will begin to loosen and fall out, this will happen on all areas of the body over the next few hours." Scott looked at the other Marines, many of which looked ill as pictures of nerve gas victims, already sporting furless patches on their bodies, were shown.

"After this has taken place, the victim will break out in lesions and blisters all over the affected areas, while simultaneously beginning to have difficulty breathing as fluid begins to fill the lungs." More graphic pictures flashed on the screen and more and more Marines began to look ill. Even Scott, who had seen the film before and knew what was coming, was beginning to feel uneasy.

"The gas will begin to affect the nerves at this point, causing violent convulsions and a complete stop in breathing, death will follow shortly."

There was a brief fade to black and a few Marines were beginning to get up when the film resumed.

"Long term effects of nerve gas include poor motor control, psychosis, cancer, and birth defects." Scott began to think of the Chinese, perhaps readying such a weapon even as he sat, watching the film, and wondered how they could even think of using such a weapon.

The film ended a few minutes later after a crash course on how to use the suits. It was simple, put on the main body of the suit as you would a wetsuit, then slip the gasmask on, and snap the two pieces together. Putting such a thing on would require no more than thirty seconds, assured the video, but most of the Marines were too shell shocked by the graphic content of the movie to listen too carefully.

As the credits rolled, Sergeant Holliday shut the VCR off and glared at the recruits, a grim half smile on his lips.

"Do you want your suits now, or should I just return them to the government?" The Marines nodded, the video had served its purpose beautifully, and not one Marine in the company had any more complaints to offer about the suits. Although they were almost certainly uncomfortable, and movement restricting, no one wanted to end up like the poor Kurdish furs in the video, writhing on the ground as the nerve gas slowly killed their nerves and filled their lungs with fluid.

John shook his head as he walked over to Scott. He looked troubled by what he had just seen.

"That is fucked up, are we really going to have to fight in that shit?" Scott shrugged, he hoped not, but it was more likely than not that the Chinese were going to gas the advancing NATO troops, as a lesson of what they could, and would do to win the war that was slowly unfolding across the world.

As Scott unpacked his new gear, he paused as he came to the thermal scope. He recognized what it was, but didn't get the purpose; it was against Marine principals to fight extensively at night. Seeing Scott's confusion, Sergeant Holliday lifted the scope from Scott's paws and held it up so that the entire company could see.

"This is a thermal scope, it is easily attachable to your M16 in case the Chinese start throwing gas at us. If you are fighting in the middle of a cloud of nerve gas, you will not be able to see shit! But with the thermal scope you can see the heat signatures of your enemies, and put them down, even if they can't see you!" The Marines looked at the little scope and felt a little better. They had suits, and now thermal scopes, a definite advantage over the Chinese.

"Alright, now keep in mind, it is now the end of October, Athens will be fairly cold, so you will be able to pick off the Chinese even better, they stick out like sore thumbs; and they do not know that we have these, try to keep it that way." The Marines nodded, looking at the scopes, hoping that they would give them an edge if the Chinese decided to send a cloud of nerve gas in their direction.

Lieutenant Holliday left several minutes later after telling the company to keep their suits accessible. Scott sighed, envisioning drills while wearing the bulky thing.

But as he lay down on his bunk, something much different happened. Suddenly Sergeant Holliday rushed through the door and began yelling.

"Gas! Gas! Get your suits on, NOW!" Scott was shocked into action. He knew that there was no gas, but Lieutenant Holliday's sudden appearance had scared him. He pulled on the suit bottom, the rubber catching his fur and being very uncomfortable. The suit was tight and Scott could barely bend over enough to get his gasmask. But he put that on as well and snapped the two pieces of suit together.

Mere seconds later, Sergeant Holliday, who had been watching with a stopwatch from a few bunks away, called for the company to stop.

"Well, it's been a minute, by now the nerve gas would be killing all of those without suits on...which is most of you." Scott looked around, nearly three quarters of the company had not managed to get into their suits; only him and a few others had completed the drill.

"Now take off your suits, which shouldn't be too difficult for most of you, and get ready, we are going to be practicing in these things for the duration of our stay here at Camp Lejeune." A few Marines cursed quietly, Sergeant Holliday was up in a flash and was face to face with them.

"Oh so the suits are too good for you? You want to end up like those Kurds we just watched? You want to be the first names on the casualties list? Be my guest!" The Marines shamefacedly apologized. They needed the suits to survive a chemical attack, everyone knew that. Turning his attention away from the Marines that he had just bereted, Sergeant Holliday faced the entire company.

"Things are going to get ugly in Athens, we're going to be facing weapons we haven't seen since the First World War, and I don't want any of you to get killed. But if the Chinese start throwing gas at us, you NEED this suit, so when the nerve gas starts closing in around you, just put on the damn suit and you'll be alright. Got it?" The company nodded. They were all nervous and jittery from the constant warnings about nerve gas, but it was better than going in uninformed.

"Sarge?" Asked a grey squirrel the next morning, as they put on their gear and grabbed their grenade launchers and suits. "Why can't we just bomb the Chinese until they give up?" Sergeant Holliday grimaced.

"If we bombed the Chinese forces in Athens into submission then we'd level about half the city. Athens is an important place and we want it intact, going in on foot only levels about five percent of the city, which is preferable to the horrible damage a bombing campaign would cause." Scott puzzled over Sergeant Holliday's words. Of course capturing Athens intact was preferable to having it be completely destroyed during the course of the fighting, but why risk thousands of soldiers for the sake of a couple of buildings?

"Sarge?" He asked, Sergeant Holliday nodded.

"Well why exactly are we risking thousands of lives just to preserve part of a city, that doesn't make much sense to me." Sergeant Holliday sighed.

"Private, our country is not doing very well economically, wars are expensive, and we are trying to avoid making this one even more expensive, fixing cities costs money and we don't have a whole lot of that, you see, we have everything to win, and everything to lose as well, this is an economic war, this will either destroy America as a country of launch us back into superpower status, if we take over China's trade market, then us and our allies will become the richest, most powerful countries in the world once again, and nobody will be able to match us." He paused, looking at Scott.

"You see the benefits?" He asked, Scott nodded, feeling somewhat relieved, this was for a good cause. They would destroy China and reinstall America and her NATO allies as the top countries once again, all they had to do was kick the Chinese out of Athens to prove a point, and then it was off to the races. The third world war, which the planet had been dreading for nearly seventy years, was about to kick off. And Scott was beginning to look forwards to it.

"This fine piece of equipment that you are now holding is an M203 40mm grenade launcher, the standard issue for our armed forces." The M203 was nine inches long and was fastened under the barrel of the M16. It launched a wide variety of 40mm grenades, and Sergeant Holliday never stopped smiling as he showed the company what their main grenade round would be.

"This is a HellHOUND 40mm grenade, used in everything from blowing down doors to clearing bunkers of enemies. The HOUND anagram stands for: High Order Unbelievably Nasty Device. Now put a round into your launcher." The company obeyed. They were behind the same low wall of sandbags that they had been when they had thrown grenades a few days before, but instead of the blasted ditch, they were aiming at a group of mock buildings about fifty meters away. Sergeant Holliday waited until everyone in the company had loaded a grenade, and then looked at the buildings.

"Aim, and then fire on my command." Scott leveled his own rifle and sighted on the buildings. He was wondering what type of damage the HellHOUND grenade would do to the buildings, when Sergeant Holliday shouted.

"FIRE!" Scott squeezed the trigger and with a pneumatic THWUMP, the HellHOUND exited the grenade launcher and sailed towards its target, along with fifty-nine others.

The buildings disappeared in a cloud of smoke and flame, and Scott winced at the noise, the explosions were louder than the grenades and made his ears ring.

Scott looked at the cluster of mock buildings and was pleased to see that the company's combined grenade fire had blasted them all down. The wooden bits of the building threw off smoke, and the ground was littered with rubble.

"Good, you've killed your enemies, next we progress on to using anti tank mines, those interested in anti tank warfare can also take a course on how to use a SMAW anti tank weapon." Scott smiled, he had always wanted to fire an anti tank weapon.

"The SMAW is one of the more effective anti tank weapons in the world, it fires NE thermo baric rounds, which will rip Type 96 tanks open like a tin can! The launcher weighs twenty pounds, the rocket weighs another ten. The rocket is loaded into the rear of the weapon. Now load the weapon, and stay away from the rear of the weapon, the back blast WILL kill you if you get too close to it!" It was the second to last day before the division shipped out, and Scott was kneeling, waiting for his loader to load the SMAW.

He had been training for the past few hours, and was surprised at how easy the SMAW was to operate. It was heavy, but manageable, the only downside was that Scott couldn't carry his M16 along with the anti tank weapon. Instead he had an M9 semi automatic pistol. It made Scott uneasy to think of walking into a potentially bloody firefight with only a pistol for close range defense.

His loader, a tiger who had introduced himself as Donovan, quickly loaded the rocket and moved away from the end of the weapon. The back blast was indeed horribly dangerous, standing directly in the path of it would crush your ribs.

"Ready." Donovan intoned, Scott looked down the sights of the SMAW and focused on his target, a steel plate propped up against a pile of sandbags two hundred yards away.

"Get ready..." Said Sergeant Holliday, standing well away from Scott.

"FIRE!" Scott squeezed the trigger and with a deafening crack, the rocket sailed out of the barrel and hit the steel plate with another crack.

Scott looked at the cloud of lingering smoke hovering around the sandbags and smiled at Donovan, his ears ringing. The SMAW felt significantly lighter and Scott stood up, looking at the effect that his rocket had had on the steel plate.

The plate had been shredded, and the sandbags behind it were smoldering and leaking hot sand. Scott thought of what a rocket would do to a Type 96 tank and imagined the tank going up like a Roman Candle.

"That was standard thickness tank armor!" Said Sergeant Holliday from behind Scott. Scott's ears were still ringing and he could barely hear him.

"When you see a Type 96 tank rolling up the street, shoot the thing in the turret, preferably from the side so that you disable the cannon and blow up the magazine. Just stay a safe distance away while doing that or else you might blow yourself up, and we do not want any kamikaze Marines do we?" Scott saluted and nodded, Donovan loaded a new rocket into the SMAW and Scott aimed again. He was to become the firer of his company's anti tank weapon.

As Scott aimed again, he smiled, and squeezed the trigger, sending another rocket down range. Nerve gas or no nerve gas, they were going to kick some Chinese ass.

Beijing was locked down. Military units were on every street corner, watching for dissenters and any acts of defiance against the government.

Islamabad had expelled every single American and British citizen living or visiting within their borders, and Beijing was in the process of doing so. But there was no real need. All NATO agents had either gone deep undercover or left the country weeks before.

American forces were massing on Okinawa and preparing their defenses. They knew that the Chinese launched an attack they would certainly overrun the American garrison before reinforcements could arrive from Hawaii and Guam.

Although American forces would be able to do substantial damage to the attacking Chinese forces, they would not be able to hold off the fury of a full-scale Chinese attack.

The Chinese garrison in Athens waited and continued to prepare their defenses. The auto cannons were primed and ready, the one hundred Type 96 tanks sitting in their fortified underground garage, while the soldiers themselves took up positions all over the city in a carefully orchestrated pattern that would shred the NATO attack before they even made it to the main part of the Chinese defenses.

The general in charge of the defense knew that NATO planes were undoubtedly scanning Athens with thermal cameras, so he began to take precautions.

Machine gun crews strapped ice packs to various points on their bodies until they were determined to be invisible to thermal detection. Auto cannons were placed in wide ranging batteries that could at a moments notice spray a deadly hail of 35mm shells thousands of feet into the air. Guided missies were placed on the heights, prepared to destroy any NATO helicopters that strayed into their sights.

Claymores and mines were placed in alleyways where only infantry could pass, and machine gun nests were sprinkled liberally over the entire east side of the city.

Almost overnight the city had grown teeth, when NATO came to bite, Athens would bite back.

"Up, up! This is the day we've been waiting for! Change into your fatigues, we are going to Naples, the invasion is about to begin!" Scott sat up and despite himself laughed. He had always been worried that he would be worried and nervous, but instead he felt a sense of exhilaration, he was so close to combat it hurt.

"Private Hauge, your SMAW is outside, you will leave it with the front desk along with your other weapons and equipment, you may bring your footlockers and any books you possess with you, nothing else!" Scott saluted, as Sergeant Holliday moved further up the row of Marines. Walking outside, Scott hefted the SMAW and the holster containing his M9. His equipment had already been neatly packed up the night before, and the extra weight as he picked that up, made him frown.

Scott was used to carrying extra weight, but the extra twenty pounds of the SMAW was bothersome. Running with it would be tough.

Scott waited for the other Marines and shifted the weight of his pack. Donovan stepped outside, looking nervous, John and Jenson were a few steps behind him. John broke out in a smile as he caught sight of Scott.

"Fucking Rambo!" He said, and Scott laughed, then with Sergeant Holliday at its head, the column of Marines began to troop down to the front desk.

Scott laid the SMAW down on the desk, and almost laughed at the surprised look that the soldier loading the weapons into boxes gave him. He was used to dealing with M16s and grenade launchers, not full on anti tank weapons. He fumbled with it for a few moments, then leaned it in a corner and took Scott's pistol. This he was more sure of and he expertly packed it into a crate full of identical weapons.

Once again, Scott walked into the camp's main garage and once again piled onto a bus along with the rest of the company.

The Marines were a mixture of emotions. A few sat quietly and stared out the window, a few had developed nervous tics, blinking and tapping their feet. Scott sat and looked at the Marine who was sitting in front of him. Over the buss's engine he could hear snatches of a prayer.

"Most sacred heart of Jesus,

I accept from Your hands whatever kind of death

it may please You to send me in the days to come,

with all its pains, penalties, and sorrows,

in reparation for all my sins,

for the souls in Purgatory,

and all those who may die in the days to come,

and for Your greater glory.

Amen."

The fur's voice started shaking as he entered the final verses, and Scott suddenly felt a pang of fear enter him. Scott didn't believe in a god, but the sight of the Marine in front of him preparing for his own death chilled him.

The coming battle was going to be brutal, many furs were going to die, there was no doubt about that. Scott closed his eyes and tried to steer his thoughts away of the subject of death, hoping that he wouldn't have to meet it when he arrived in Athens.

In Naples, fourteen hours later, the first planeload of 2nd Marine Division troops, Scott included, arrived, and the nervous, jet lagged Marines piled out and immediately began to unload their supplies from the cargo bay of the plane.

Each plane carried three hundred Marines and all of their supplies, an amount that surprised the British.

The Marines carried on average about ten pounds more supplies than the British, mostly in ammunition and 40mm grenades.

The British Royal Marines however, unlike their American counterparts had several Humvees mounted with .50 Browning M2 machine guns. The .50 caliber bullets fired by the Browning could rip through more than eight inches of cement and still have enough energy to kill someone on the other side, ideal for urban combat.

As Scott found his SMAW and set it on the cement along with his other supplies he looked at the nearest Humvee, which was proudly sporting a Union Jack, and wondered how they were going to protect themselves from rockets and anti vehicle missiles. The streets of Athens were tight, and the British wouldn't be able to simply dodge an RPG or guided missile.

As he puzzled over this, Scott picked up his equipment and began to walk towards a nearby hanger, where the other Marines were streaming into with their equipment.

As he passed the British Humvee he saw something that made him pause, it looked like a short stubby four barreled rocket launcher, except instead of staying stationary, it swiveled slowly, like a radar dish. Stamped on the base was a small emblem that read IMI-Iron Fist APS. Scott smiled and thought back to months ago when he had read that Israel was selling them to Britain and America. He had never seen one before and looked closely at it, wondering how it was supposed to work.

"Move along Private! Called out Sergeant Holliday, and Scott saluted, leaving the mysterious Israeli rocket defense weapon behind. If he couldn't figure out how it worked during the last few days of peace, then he'd no doubt see it in action when they went into Athens.

The hanger was spacious and already crowded with Marines. Scott saw Colonel Dichasia briefly, then the regiment commander disappeared from view and Scott saw him exiting through the rear exit, a Major tagging behind. Scott set his SMAW down and joined the rest of the company. Even more of them looked nervous than before, even John and Jenson.

"Well, we've done it, we're about to start off the third world war." Said Jenson quietly, John smiled slightly.

"Well, it'll be interesting to tell the kids about. You know, ever since I was a kitten I always wondered what being shot at would feel like, looks like I'll finally find out." Scott shrugged off his pack and set it by his feet, the pack weighed almost fifty pounds, and combined with the SMAW, Scott was lugging around a total of seventy pounds of equipment. Although, Donovan was almost certainly off worse, he had to carry three SMAW rockets, each of which weighed ten pounds.

Donovan had taken off his own pack and was sitting about twenty feet away, nervously flipping the safety switch on his M16 between Safe and Semiautomatic.

"Donovan, come over here!" Called Scott, Donovan looked up, and Scott could see that the tiger was visibly shaking. But he still got up, picked up his heavy pack and moved over to where Scott, John, and Jenson were.

"Alright, this is Donovan, he's my loader." John smiled, but Jenson merely nodded in acknowledgement, too nervous to speak.

"Private Hauge, Private Donovan, come here, bring your shit, I've some good news for the both of you!" It was Sergeant Holliday, and Scott sprang up, hefting his gear and slinging the SMAW launcher over his shoulder as he did so. The tip of the tub banged against the backs of Scott's legs as he walked but that didn't bother him, he wanted to know what Sergeant Holliday had to tell him and Donovan.

"Privates, you have been selected to be part of the head unit. As furs that have been trained to use anti armor weapons, you are indispensable, those Type 96 tanks are tough and we need to kill them before they fuck up our advance. Are you up to this?" Scott nodded, stunned at the opportunity. Not only would he be part of the first division into the city, he would be part of the very first unit, now that was something!

In Athens, the Chinese garrison detected the numerous American military planes flying into Naples and realized that the Americans were arriving not in a trickle as they had hoped, but in a flood of near Biblical proportions. The Americans had brought to bear every single troop plane that they owned and were flying half battalions across at a time. The garrison in Athens grew agitated at the news and sped to perfect the defenses, always under the watchful eye of NATO. But what the NATO surveillance planes didn't realize was that the Chinese had constructed a false defense line a full block away from the real one. The Chinese piled pillows up in place of sandbags and used painted brooms as machine guns. It was an impressive deception, and NATO was none the wiser.

As Scott walked back to the main hanger, he felt exhilaration rise within him, he was going to be part of the leading American element in the third world war. As he sat back down next to John and Jenson, they looked up at him.

"I've been put in the unit leading the assault!" He said, but John just frowned.

"Just be careful." He said, then suddenly a paw tapped his shoulder and Scott looked up into the eyes of a coyote wearing the stripes of a Staff Sergeant.

"I'm Staff Sergeant Mantel, you must be Private Hauge, and Private Donovan, right?"

"Yes Staff Sergeant!" Scott replied and Mantel smiled.

"I'm your new unit commander, come with me." Scott and Donovan followed as Mantel turned and walked towards a door. Scott recognized it as the same one that Colonel Dichasia had exited out of just minutes before, and looked outside before stepping out into the Italian sunlight.

"Colonel Dichasia just set a time for the assault, 09:00, tomorrow morning, you got that?"

"Yes Staff Sergeant." Mantel nodded and kept moving. They passed a few dozen British Royal Marines, who were carrying mortars, and Donovan waved at a group of German Army infantry, who were smoking in the shade of an auto cannon.

The airfield was littered with equipment of all sorts, and Scott didn't know how they would get it all ready by 09:00 the next morning.

Then suddenly, they stopped and Scott saw a small convoy of Humvees approaching. As they drew closer, Scott saw a small string of flags fluttering from the driver's side door.

There was a Union Jack, an American flag, and the German and French tricolors. Mantel smiled.

"This unit is made up of one company of US Marines, which is why you are here, a company of British Royal Marines, a company of French Marines, and a few units of German regular infantry. As you can see, the British supplied the vehicles because our own Humvees wont be here until tomorrow afternoon, fortunately we have our tanks, so we'll be able to smash them with American armor at least." Scott nodded, watching as the Humvees came to a halt. Out spilled a unit of German infantry.

"I studied a little German in high school." Said Scott and watched as the Germans walked up. The nearest one, a silver fox with Corporal's stripes smiled and began to speak, not in German, as Scott had expected, but in accented English.

"Hello, welcome to Italy, you are an addition to our battalion, am I correct?" Scott nodded.

"Yes, I'm the gunner in an anti armor team, this is my loader, Private Donovan." The German smiled, and shook Scott's paw before moving on to Donovan.

"The British have taken command of the battalion, but now that the US Marines element of the battalion is up to strength, we shall take command and lead the advance, meaning that you and the rest of the company will be first furs to go into Athens." Scott felt another thrill of excitement go through him, but just saluted.

The first American fur in Athens? That would be one hell of a thing to achieve. Other soldiers were coming out of the other Humvees and Scott spotted French, British, and Marines coming from the vehicles. A few glanced over at Scott, and smiled when they saw that he had a SMAW, anti tank weapons were always excellent for urban warfare, they could take down buildings, blow holes in bunkers, and most importantly, stop a tank in its tracks.

"Hey, come here!" Scott looked over and saw a lion beckoning for him to come over. He was dressed in fatigues and had the stripes of a Specialist, one rank higher than Scott. Scott walked over, the lion looked friendly and so did the other Marines. As he joined them, the lion smiled.

"Always good to have a Marine with a SMAW with you when you're going up against a hundred Type 96 tanks. What's your name?"

"Scott Hauge, and this is my loader, Stuart Donovan." The lion nodded.

"I'm Joe Schmidt, now follow me, we have to get you two ready for tomorrow, it'll be one fuck of a day." The barracks that the battalion had set up camp in has actually an abandoned hanger, but it was the only place large enough to accommodate the entire force.

"They only gave you a pistol for self defense?" Asked Joe. Scott nodded and showed him the holster that held the M9. Joe shook his head and called out something in German. One of the Germans looked over and smiled. Then from seemingly nowhere pulled out a sub machine gun and held it up.

"Yes, thank you!" Said Joe, and retrieved the gun. Scott looked at it and took off the M9 holster.

"A pistol is a shitty weapon to get into an urban firefight with, this however will rip your opponent open. This is an HK MP7, best submachine gun in the world!" Joe handed the gun to Scott. Scott looked down the barrel and looked at the gun. It wasn't made of hard plastic like the M9 or M16, and instead was formed from black painted steel. It looked deadly, and Scott liked it already.

"Thank you!" He told Joe, greatly relieved at not having to rely on his 9mm pistol.

"If you kill a tank for me, you can keep it." Said the German from his bunk. Scott nodded, he was good with the SMAW, and had no doubt that he would be able to blow a Type 96 tank to shreds with the thing.

Scott couldn't get to sleep that night. He knew that he would be getting up early and needed at least a few hours of sleep, but he was just too keyed up to sleep. He was finally going into combat, the thought was so overpowering that Scott could think of little else.

In Athens, just two hundred miles away, the Chinese garrison sat nervously in the dark and wondered when the NATO attack would come. The vast majority of the civilians had been evacuated from the city, but there were undoubtedly a few left, too afraid to leave their home. The Greek Army units holding the western side of the city were unhappy and nervous. The Chinese didn't trust them and had no doubt that most of them would desert to NATO as soon as the western forces entered the city. This would be bad, but not catastrophic. The Chinese still had a lot to throw at the NATO armies even without Greek support.

The auto cannons were ready, guided missiles of all varieties prepared to destroy NATO armor and air support. Snipers and machine gun crews were posted in houses close to the main road, and the road was littered with mines and claymore mines ready to fill any attackers with shrapnel. And that wasn't even the main teeth of the Chinese defense. The garrison was ready for a surprise attack, and the sentries scanned the streets endlessly with their few thermal scopes, and clutched their rifles, ready to unleash a fusillade of hot lead at any ambushing enemy.

At five in the morning, with four hours to go until the main attack on Athens, the NATO forces were roused by a trumpet reveille and urged by their squad commanders to gather their gear and report to the airfield to board helicopters and begin the journey to Athens.

Scott's heart was racing ad it wasn't from the exertion of carrying his seventy pounds of equipment. He was going to war. As Scott started for the door, the German soldier who had given him the HK MP7 tucked three clips into Scott's ammunition pouch and patted him on the shoulder.

"Kill some Commies!" He said, and departed to his own unit. Scott shouldered his SMAW, grabbed Donovan, and hurried out to where the rest of the company was standing, next to four CH47 Chinook helicopters. Each helicopter could carry fifteen soldiers, and Scott jumped onto one, Donovan and Mantel right behind him. The rotors were already starting to revolve, and Scott set down his SMAW for a second. He was shaking, he didn't know what was going to happen. A few soldiers started to put on their suit bodies and Scott did the same, putting his body armor over the suit. That way if a bullet him it wouldn't tear through his suit first. He didn't put on his gasmask though, after all he would need to see the tank clearly to be able to hit it.

Behind him, Scott could see the British Humvees that they would use as transport being loaded into cargo planes behind their helicopter.

"We are going to land on the western side of the city, in the middle of an airfield held by a company of Greek Army commandos, once you land, secure the airport, and if the Greeks surrender, then strip them of weapons and send them to the rear. Once you secure it, tell the command and they will start landing planes, but do it quickly, we wont be able to circle for long before the Chinese start blowing us out of the sky!" Scott and the rest of the soldiers in the helicopter nodded, then with a jolt, the bird lifted off and began moving.

"We will arrive in Athens in just about an hour, once you arrive, then you have two hours to take the airport before we start landing large numbers of troops. If the airport hasn't been completely secured then we will take casualties, and that will be bad for morale, so kill or capture any resisting forces, alright?"

"Yes Sergeant!" Replied the soldiers. Scott readied his SMAW, and looked out the small clear window at the darkness rushing past them.

In Athens, the Chinese high command was soundly asleep when NATO fighters suddenly swooped low over the city and released their missiles with flashes and explosions. The false Chinese defense line was shredded by the missiles, and the auto cannons began to fire.

The helicopters were just beginning to pass over the Greek mainland when Scott saw the faint, distant flashes in the distance from the thousands of 35mm auto cannon shells exploding over Athens. Scott felt a chill go up his spine, then the helicopter suddenly dipped and Scott grabbed onto the bulkhead as the helicopter began to lose altitude.

"Sorry." Said the pilot over the intercom, "I have to lose altitude of else the Chinese will see me and start shooting shit at us." Mantel nodded and chambered a round into his M16, they were so close to Athens that they were beginning to hear the auto cannons and the explosions of NATO missiles. The pilot flew even lower, and Scott began to see the dim forms of houses on the ground. They were flying over the abandoned suburbs of Athens, the airport had to be close.

But as Scott thought that, the sky suddenly exploded around the helicopter and shrapnel whip-cracked around Scott as jagged chunks of metal punched through the steel walls of the CH47 Chinook. One of the soldiers in front of Scott jerked and fell, something warm splashed Scott's suit and in the light of a second explosion he saw the unreal brightness of blood.

Scott stepped back, in all of his imaginings of war, in all of the day dreams that he had enjoyed throughout his life, never had he imagined war like this, with blood and death in a crowded helicopter hundreds of feet over an abandoned city.

"Hey, what happened back there?" Asked the pilot, he knew that the helicopter had been hit, but didn't know about the casualties yet. Mantel walked forwards, stepping awkwardly over the corpse of the dead Marine and opening the door that separated the cockpit from the troop compartment.

"One KIA, none wounded, we need to put down right now, the Chinese know where we are, they're probably finding the range right now." The pilot nodded and turned back to his controls, putting the helicopter even lower, the skids in danger of scraping the rooftops of the passing houses. More shells exploded above them, but the shrapnel carried over them, only one piece sparking off of the rotors.

Donovan was shaking, even more frightened than before, the Chinese were actively firing on them, and the fear was threatening to overwhelm him.

Then something hit the bottom of the helicopter with a dull thud and Scott realized that the Greeks on the ground were shooting at them.

"We are now over the airport, put us down! NOW!" Called Mantel, and the pilot obeyed, the skids lightly touched the cement of the runway, then there was suddenly the sound of shattering glass and Scott heard the pilot give out a pained cry. Mantel jerked open the door, and Scott caught a brief glimpse of the pilot slumped over the controls, blood staining the dashboard before bullets whipped past Mantel and dropped another Marine behind him. The Marine writhed on the ground, his face shattered by the unforgiving steel of the bullets. Mantel kicked the door shut, more bullets passing through it, shattering windows and ricocheting off of the bulkhead that Scott was standing behind.

Mantel opened the main door and rushed out, firing his M16 towards the main airport building, the surviving Marines following closely after him.

Scott stepped outside, the SMAW blocking his vision for a few terrifying seconds before he stumbled behind the helicopter and joined the surviving Marines. All over the runway other helicopters were landing, bullets sparking off of the belly and sides. One helicopter keeled over onto its side, the rotors buckling and the glass shattering. A few dazed soldiers ran out and began to return fire.

"Private Hauge!" Mantel shouted; and Scott turned his attention back towards the Greeks.

"The Greeks are shooting at us mainly from the terminal tower, blow that fucker up!" Scott nodded, his heart skipping a beat. He had only spent thirty seconds in combat and already they wanted him to kill. But what had he expected. Scott knelt on the concrete and aimed at the tower as Donovan shakily loaded an NE thermo baric rocket into the SMAW.

Taking a deep breath, Scott aimed at the tower, waited until Donovan and the others had moved away from the back end of the SMAW, and fired.

With a roar, the rocket erupted from the end of the SMAW, raced towards the tower, and exploded, right on target.

The blast was extraordinary. The entire front of the tower peeled off from the main building and seemingly in slow motion, fell onto the runway with a tremendous crash. Mixed in with the rubble were bloodstained corpses and several machine guns. Donovan reloaded and Scott took his finger off the trigger. Mantel nodded in approval, Greek fire had been cut by half, and more and more troops were landing.

Several of the helicopters had been destroyed and were burning on the runway, and several more, like Scott's had lost their pilot, and as a result were dead on the ground.

Scott was numb, he had just killed, and the fight was nowhere near to over.

"Move up, get that SMAW ready Private Hauge, we may need you again. The rest of you, protect Private Hauge, he's valuable!" The Marines moved up, Scott and Donovan in the middle of the group.

Greek fire raked past them, but the covering fire from the dozens of other US and British Royal Marines kept the Greeks down long enough for the squad to gain cover in the rubble of the tower.

Scott threw himself into cover, moving aside a shattered Greek machine gun, and surveyed the airport building.

The Greeks had retreated into the building once the helicopters had come into view, and were laying down a ferocious fire on the other Marines. Scott aimed at the front of the building, seeing that, Mantel warned everyone to move away, and once they had done that, Scott fired again.

The building exploded, the windows that hadn't already been shattered were blown out, the fragments tinkling against the concrete. The front half of the building collapsed, tons of concrete burying anyone who had survived the initial explosion. The surviving Greeks who had been taking cover outside of the building, already dispirited, began to surrender.

Within minutes the remainder of the airport had been secured. They had captured more than fifty Greeks, who gladly went into custody, happy that the fighting was over.

Mantel had lost four furs in the fight. Three killed and one mildly injured by a piece of concrete sent airborne by the back blast of Scott's SMAW.

Other units had suffered similarly, but the Greeks had been mauled, mostly by Scott's well-placed SMAW rounds. The number of Greek casualties hadn't been determined, there was simply no time. As planes flew in, and took off under constant harassing Greek fire, the number of troops steadily swelled, and vehicles were stockpiled on the runway that was still littered with damaged and destroyed helicopters.

Scott had traded his SMAW for the German submachine gun, but so far hadn't fired a shot. The Greeks hadn't made themselves seen, but were firing from cover at the troops coming out of the planes. So far none had been killed, but it was only a matter of time.

"Hauge, I think I know where those fuckers are, get your SMAW." Said Mantel. Scott saluted and picked up the anti tank weapon. His ears were still ringing from firing the thing earlier, and he was still shaky from left over adrenaline. It was barely eight in the morning, but to Scott it seemed like the day had gone on forever.

Scott picked up his SMAW and beckoned for Donovan to come over. Donovan had picked up a fresh supply of SMAW rockets, and quickly loaded one into the SMAW.

"You see that blue house with the white door and the second floor balcony?" Asked Mantel; Scott scanned the area and nodded, it was a rather distinctive house, and as Scott watched, he saw movement in the upper story window.

"Move away from the SMAW." Mantel called to his men, and they cleared away, not wanting to be killed by the back blast from Scott's SMAW.

Scott fired, the blast again made his ears ring and he felt his head begin to throb. The upper story of the house was blown practically off of its foundations, and crumbled down into the first story of the house as well, raising a cloud of smoke and dust that obscured the house for a few seconds. Scott saw a few figures run out of the house, stumbling and supporting a wounded comrade. Mantel raised his M16 and fired at the group of Greeks on full automatic.

Puffs of dust rose all around the group, and two of them fell, one crawling a few more feet before a second burst from Mantel dropped him again.

The remaining figures fired a few more shots back at the Marines but quickly withdrew, chased away by more M16 rounds.

"Good job Private." Said Mantel and stood up to leave. He made it about three feet before more shots rang out and he went to his knees, clutching his wrist, where blood was dripping from tiny holes in his suit.

"Fuck!" He yelled, and Scott abandoned his SMAW and crawled over to help Mantel, who was cursing vividly, the pain evident on his face. Scott took Mantel's M16, the stock had been shattered by a second bullet and Scott saw little slivers of hard plastic peppering Mantel's suit.

"We need to medevac you, come on." He said, and guided Mantel along. Blood continued to drip from his suit alarmingly, and Scott knew that Mantel was bleeding pretty badly, he needed medical help immediately.

"Corpsman!" He yelled, and almost instantaneously a Corpsman, his white armband crooked appeared.

"Yes Private?"

"Sergeant Mantel is hurt, he was shot in the wrist, and needs to be medevacced before the Chinese gas us." The Corpsman nodded, and took Mantel by the arm. The Sergeant was woozy from blood loss and Scott could see that he was now standing in a small puddle of Mantel's blood. Moving away, he was about to walk back up to retrieve his SMAW, when he heard the scream of incoming artillery and felt a cold fear run through him. He was in the middle of a runway, no cover anywhere.

The first shell impacted the runway, far away from any troops and Scott felt a sense of heavy relief, as he ran towards the potential cover of the collapsed terminal tower. Scott remained low as he ran, and pulled out his HK MP7, knowing that he would likely not get a chance to retrieve his SMAW.

More shells fell upon the runway, but still far away from the soldiers, who hurriedly grabbed their equipment and ran for the destroyed buildings around the runway. The plane, now empty of troops and equipment, began to taxi and was starting to build up speed when a Chinese 122mm shell tore through the left wing, and exploded next to the engine. The wing was blown in half, and the fuel line ignited, engulfing the plane in flames.

Blazing, the plane slowed and stopped on the runway, where the crew jumped out of the cockpit and ran for it as more Chinese shells pounded the cement further along the runway.

Scott, from the relative safety of the rubble, watched the shelling, puzzled. Then with a terrible feeling of dread, he realized what the Chinese were trying to do.

If the Chinese destroyed the runway, then the soldiers already on the ground would be cut off, and the planes in the air, easy targets for the Chinese auto cannons on the heights.

"Shit." Said Scott quietly, they were trapped, the invasion had been off to such a great start but now it seemed that it was over before it had even begun.

The Chinese high command however was far from pleased. NATO fighters were blasting their auto cannon positions, and previous surveillance was making sure that each strike was increasingly accurate and deadly.

They had shot down a number of NATO fighters, but for each one that fell flaming into Athens, five more seemed to appear and kept on dive bombing the auto cannons, blasting more and more cannons and soldiers to ash.

But despite the losing battle to clear the sky of NATO aircraft, the Chinese still ruled the ground. The Greeks had been kicked out of an airport in the western part of the city, but the runway was now destroyed and only two companies of troops had landed, one American and one British.

They needed to reclaim the airport if they wanted to be able to make absolutely sure that NATO would not get the city. Tanks would do the trick.

NATO high command was worried as well, two companies of troops had been cut off and were surrounded by Chinese and Greek troops. But despite that, NATO had complete air superiority and fighters were busy destroying the numerous auto cannon batteries that dotted the eastern heights of the city. Once the auto cannons were destroyed, then they could helicopter troops into the city to reinforce the cut off companies.

From an underground garage on the eastern heights of Athens, twenty engines started up, and began to move out. NATO fighters, busy battering the auto cannon batteries, noticed the tanks and began to attack.

TOW2A rockets rained down upon the tank column, a tank exploding and showering shrapnel upon its comrades every few seconds. For a full minute the NATO fighters rained death upon the Chinese, then the surviving auto cannons got the range and began to roar once. The surviving tanks scrambled back to their garage, only two continuing on towards the airport. Their radios had been short-circuited and they didn't hear the order to retreat.

Shattered airplane parts rained from the sky as several NATO planes exploded in the air, crushing houses and cars as they plummeted into the city. Then the surviving fighters turned their attention back to the auto cannons and called in gun-ships, if the tanks made it to the cut off battalion, then things would get ugly fast.

Scott heard a rumbling in the distance and cautiously crawled out of cover, eager to grab his SMAW, just in came the Chinese started throwing armor forwards.

The shelling was sporadic, and Scott knew that NATO fighters were pounding the Chinese artillery or else it would have been much worse. Reaching the area where he had left the SMAW, Scott picked up his weapon and looked out over Athens. A huge plume of smoke was rising from an area in the eastern part of the city, and the rumbling was growing louder. As he looked, shots suddenly rang out, and Scott ducked as bullets chipped the concrete just a foot to his right.

Getting back to cover, Scott wondered what the rumbling was. The only command had been to hang on to the airport, he didn't know what to do.

"Holy fuck! Tanks, tanks!" Cried someone, and Scott felt a stab of dread go through his stomach. Grabbing his SMAW, Scott got up, and keeping low, moved over to the panicked Marine, who pointed towards the blue house that Scott had destroyed just minutes earlier. Sitting behind it, like a crouching jungle beast was the squat form of a Chinese Type 96 tank.

Scott had never seen a Chinese tank in real life, and just looking at the machine made his skin crawl. Behind it was another tank, they were obviously lost, and to Scott's relief didn't realize how close they were to enemy forces. Then the hatch on the front tank opened and Scott saw the Chinese tank commander scan the surrounding area with binoculars.

Scott called Donovan over, and waited as the loader pushed a rocket into the SMAW. Then, aiming at the tank, he squeezed the trigger. The back blast threw up chunks of concrete and peppered several Marines standing a few dozen yards away. But Scott's attention was not on them, he watched as the rocket whizzed towards the Chinese tank.

The rocket hit the front of the tank with a hollow boom, before glancing off and exploding in the air, peppering the tank with red-hot shrapnel and killing the tank commander.

Scott cursed and realized that he had hit a section of sloping armor, and that the rocket had merely slid off of the armor instead of scoring a good solid hit.

The tank quickly back tracked away, and started to move its cannon, searching for the attacker that had nearly killed it mere seconds before.

Scott waited as Donovan reloaded, his heart was pounding and he had nearly given his position away, but luckily the tank had chosen to back away instead of attacking, and had pushed itself into another vulnerable position.

Scott aimed at the tank again, and aimed at the tank's turret this time, eager to put the tank out of action once and for all. The other tank had withdrawn behind a building, looking for a way to flank the attacking force. Scott took a deep breath and then fired again, the blast didn't seem as loud as before and Scott knew that the constant explosions were probably seriously damaging his hearing.

The rocket crossed the gap in less than a second and exploded against the turret, melting the armor and blowing apart the hydraulics system. Inside of the tank, the surviving crew were knocked unconscious by the sudden concussive force, and the tank ground to a stop and burst into flame as the fuel ignited. Scott withdrew back into cover, half of him wanted to cheer, the other half wanted to scream. He had just destroyed a tank and killed however many soldiers. He set down the SMAW and realized that he was shaking, the violence was jarring, the ultimate shock.

"Come on Private, there's still one more tank." Scott got up and picked up his SMAW, he had to do his duty, and that was far from over.

Scott, Donovan, and three other Marines hurried along the rubble, heading for the building that the second tank had gone behind.

But as they ran, suddenly a machine gun opened up and the Marine in front of Scott fell, a round had torn open his throat. He kicked and writhed on the ground as Scott dove away and took cover, dragging Donovan with him.

A second Marine tried to help the wounded soldier on the ground, but as he bent over to grab the wounded Marine and drag him away, a round shattered his elbow and he fell away, shrieking in agony. Scott reached out and tried to grab the second Marine, but a round buzzed past his ear and he fell back down as more machine gun rounds tore into the wounded Marines, making them yell and scream.

Scott hunkered down as the machine gun continued to fire, the wounded Marines were almost certainly now dead Marines, and they were pinned down.

"Come on, over here! Those guys are dead, lets go!" Hissed the surviving Marine, and Scott started to crawl after him, Donovan close behind.

"Fire from here, the tank is out in the open, that was its machine gun that just fired at us." Scott nodded as Donovan hurriedly loaded the SMAW, then he slowly moved up until he could see the tank. It was slowly moving up, past the building where it had ambushed Scott and his group. In the corner of his eye Scott could see the bloodstained corpses of the two Marines that the tank's machine gun had killed. Then he squeezed the trigger and fired. The rocket smashed into the side of the tank and blew a hole into the engine, stopping the tank dead and filling the crew compartment with flying shrapnel. The tank-stopped dead, smoke billowing from the hole.

"Good, we stopped them, but those were probably just scouts, now lets get back, there'll be more." Scott nodded, and crawled back towards the shattered airport tower. The other Marines had emerged from their shelters, and stared at the returning Marines.

"We killed two tanks, now dig in, it'll be a while before NATO will get their shit together and rescue us." The Marines obeyed and made for the shattered buildings. The rubble made for excellent shelters.

Back in Naples, NATO high command received the first report of the fighting in Athens. The Chinese artillery batteries had been badly damaged, and no more than a quarter of the auto cannons remained functional. And more than a quarter of the Chinese tank force had been destroyed by NATO fighters. A few Greek Army units had deserted to the countryside, but the majority of them were still standing by China.

NATO had lost twenty-one planes and several dozen soldiers dead or wounded, surprisingly light casualties for such heavy fighting. China's losses were unknown, but presumably heavy. Beijing remained dark, and refused all attempts to begin negotiations, while Pakistan and India's border disputes began to include ambushes and bloody tank battles that littered the landscape with burnt out vehicles and dead soldiers.

There was another brief border battle between Russia and China, but this time nearly a dozen soldiers died before the fight was stopped.

It was barely noon and already more had happened than in the past few months alone.

The third world war was on, and neither side was backing down.

Scott lay down, his SMAW at the ready, looking for more Chinese tanks. But instead of tanks, he suddenly heard the steady flat sound of helicopter rotors and looked up to see ten AH64 Apache attack helicopters roaring towards the eastern heights of the city, ready to blast the remaining auto cannon batteries off the face of the earth. They were flying too low to be hit by the auto cannons, but little did they know, they were in the sights of Chinese firepower anyways.

Two FD60 anti aircraft missiles launched out of the city and sped towards the helicopters, homing in on the heat of their engines.

One missile connected, and the Apache didn't just explode, it disintegrated. The other missile was drawn to the heat of the explosion and hit a piece of shrapnel, exploding in mid-air. The remaining Apaches rode resolutely on, firing off AGM114 HellFire missiles and chain guns, strafing the Chinese auto cannon positions.

The effect was undeniable, auto cannon ammunition exploded and missiles sent vehicles and soldiers flying through the air. Another missile was fired, but it went wide and fell back into the city, blowing up an empty shop that had been a bakery before the war.

Peeling off, the Apaches blasted the rallying Chinese anti aircraft crews with AIM92 Stinger missiles. Normally Stingers were supposed to be used against aircraft, but the Apaches had run out of all other missiles and needed to delay the Chinese, who were beginning to set up anti aircraft missiles. The missiles exploded with devastating effect amid the crowded Chinese, littering the ground with corpses and shattered bits of equipment.

Another Apache was shot down by an auto cannon as the helicopters swung around to return, and the remaining eight were all damaged to a certain degree, but overall the mission had been a success, Chinese artillery capabilities had been muted enough to risk a troop landing to reinforce the two isolated Marine companies at the airport.

Scott watched the Apaches fly back overhead and looked at the new plumes of smoke rising over a horizon already hazy with the burnt remnants of destroyed enemy equipment. More than anything, Scott realized, this was an air war.

But as he watched, the smoke began to fade, the Chinese were putting out the flames, and trying to suppress the smoke, which was undoubtedly making life on the eastern heights uncomfortable.

The Chinese high command was nearly panicked, a full sixty percent of their artillery was gone, the interlocking artillery batteries had taken a toll on NATO air power, but now many of them were just smoking piles of rubble and torn corpses. Missiles were raining down upon the surviving batteries, and the anti helicopter missiles had not proven nearly as effective as promised. But despite the heavy artillery losses, Chinese and Greek infantry remained almost entirely intact, as were the squirreled away Chinese Z10 helicopters.

The Chinese forces had been bloodied, but not defeated, and NATO's ordeal in Athens was only just beginning.

Scott checked his watch and wondered how so little time could have passed. It was half past noon, and the sun hung heavy in the smoky sky. The Chinese had stopped shelling the trapped Marines for fear of provoking another bruising NATO air assault. Instead, it was sniper fire.

A few of the snipers were holed up in the buildings near where Scott had destroyed the tanks, and were laying down a thin screen of fire on the mixed squad of US and British Royal Marines covering the southern end of the airport.

"Private, come over here, I think I'm seeing some Greek army units massing behind that white building right next to the second destroyed tank. Once they show themselves, take them down." It was the Marine that had led the brief tank hunting expedition only an hour before. Scott still didn't know his name, but he wore Corporal's stripes and thus outranked Scott.

Scott moved up towards the edge of the rubble and looked at the two destroyed tanks, both of which were still smoking; flames licking at their undercarriages from spilled oil that was taking its time to fully burn up. The white building was two hundred yards away from Scott, right next to the second destroyed tank.

"As soon as you see motion, tell me, then once I tell you that you are clear, go ahead and fire." Scott nodded and looking into the SMAW's scope, scanned the building.

At first he saw nothing, but as he looked, he saw a brief movement inside of the building's upper floor. There was someone in there, and from the way he was moving around he was likely an enemy.

"I see movement on the upper floor." Said Scott, not taking his eyes away from the house as the movement continued.

"Clear." Said the other Marine, but Scott didn't fire, he instead looked on as the fur in the upper story window brought out not a gun, but a computer and began to type something.

"He has a computer." Said Scott and he heard the Marine next to him sigh.

"I don't know what the hell he's doing, but get rid of him before others come." Scott nodded, and squeezed the trigger.

The rocket hit the house just below the window and exploded, neatly severing the building at the second story.

The detached portion of the house was shredded by the explosive force of the rocket and crashed down through the first story's floor, effectively gutting the house in less than a second.

Dust billowed out from the door and shattered windows, and through the haze Scott watched as several figures ran behind a different house.

The Greeks were learning the hard way that the houses were not safe. Ironically, staying out in the streets now offered them the best chance of survival.

NATO high command watched the latest developments in Athens closely, looking carefully for the smallest weak point that could destroy the operation. So far the biggest risk that the NATO operation was facing was the two isolated companies of Marines that were holding the airport.

So far they had brought down about half of the buildings within an immediate vicinity of the airport, and were battling Greek snipers in the southern end of the airport buildings. But the Greeks were slowly building up, and the high command knew that they would need to helicopter in reinforcements before the Greeks started to press the attack. So far they were just probing, seeing how many Marines there were and what weapons they had.

After they knew, they would start to attack and there was no way that the outnumbered Marines would be able to hold them off for very long. By now they would have exhausted a good portion of their ammunition. Reinforcements were needed now, before it was too late.

Scott set aside his SMAW and looked over the mass of destruction standing before him. The buildings were blasted shells of themselves, the roads were pitted from explosions and shrapnel. Athens had once been beautiful, but now it was just a rubble ridden combat zone.

"The Greeks are moving up, a few of them have rockets, how many rockets do you have left?" Scott looked over at Donovan, who held up two fingers.

"Three, including the one in my SMAW at the moment, and I can't waste them all on buildings, I need them for armor." The Marine nodded, then looked over at the collection of British vehicles that were sitting on the runway, half of them shredded by the Chinese shells.

"If we roll that Humvee over here, then we have a clear field of fire with the .50. Come and help me." Scott got up, and being careful to stay low, ran onto the runway after the Marine, who disengaged one of the Humvee's emergency brakes and carefully started the engine.

The Humvee didn't sound like it would survive for too much longer, the engine had a sickly rattling sound to it, and was throwing off an unhealthy amount of grey smoke. But the Marine goosed the gas all the same and slowly managed to get the ailing Humvee over to the edge of the runway, where they had a clear field of fire on the Greeks.

Almost immediately, stray sniper fire began to strike the Humvee, and the engine began to smoke even more.

"Get up on the .50 and shut those fuckers up." Said the other Marine, flinching as a round took off his left rear view mirror, the windshield was supposed to be bulletproof, but quite frequently they were much weaker than they were supposed to be, and shattered when shot.

Scott scrambled up and looked at the .50, the heat shield obscuring him from enemy view.

There was box next to the gun that contained a single belt of ammunition, and Scott hurriedly loaded it into the gun.

The Greeks noticed him at this point, and Scott heard a round bounce off of the heat shield in front of his head. But then he was ready, and unleashed a hot stream of lead at the dug in Greeks, riddling each building individually with .50 rounds.

In the drivers seat below him Scott could hear the Marine chuckling and cursing the Greeks vividly as Scott unloaded burst after burst into any suspected Greek positions.

A Greek rocket arced out of a cluster of buildings near Scott, but to his surprise didn't complete its arc towards the embattled Marines on the ground, and instead went upwards and disappeared in pursuit of a NATO fighter, which effortlessly shrugged off the missile and continued on its path towards the eastern heights.

The belt ran out, and for a brief moment there was complete silence. Then a Greek round smacked against the windshield, leaving a large white splotch. But the majority of the Greeks had either fled from or died under the hail of .50 fire and as Scott looked over the bullet riddled buildings in front of him, he felt rather proud of himself.

"Is there another belt?" He asked the Marine sitting in the driver's seat.

"Yah, let me get it, it's in the back ammunition box." Scott looked out over the buildings again, being careful not to expose himself any more than nessasary.

"Hey wait." Said the Marine from below, "you hear that?" Scott ducked below and listened, but his ears were still ringing from the repeated blasts from the SMAW and now the .50, he really needed to get some ear protection.

"I think I hear helicopters, they might be reinforcing us." Scott smiled at the thought, then they could actually assault the city itself and end this battle before it claimed too many more lives.

The Marine was right, fifteen CH47 Chinook helicopters, protected by another ten AH64 Apaches, were bearing down on the airport, determined to land more troops, and ammunition before the Greeks decided to press the attack.

The Greeks had moved nearly a whole battalion into the vicinity of the two pinned down companies and were preparing to attack when the helicopters roared into view and began to home in on the airport.

Scott looked up and cheered as the first Apache flew low overhead and opened up on the surrounding buildings with its chain-gun. By now every single Marine was cheering as the first Chinook touched down on the battered runway and began to disgorge troops and boxes of ammunition.

More Greek fire began to direct itself at the Apaches and incoming Chinooks, and as Scott watched, something flashed in the upper story window of an off white house near Scott and as he watched, something passed through the air near him and suddenly, an Apache was in flames, and lurching wildly from side to side as it tried to put down on the runway.

More missiles launched from nearby houses, and Scott opened up with the .50, shredding the missile teams, but it was too late.

A Chinook was struck in the tail rotor, and started to spin. It listed, struck the side of a three-story building, and exploded in flames.

"Fuck." Said Scott as he watched the residual fuel in the mangled Chinook combust, an entire squad of troops was gone, wiped out in seconds.

A second Apache was blasted in the side by a missile, and smoking horribly set down on the runway, where the crew barely made it away before their bird exploded.

The Greeks began laying down fire from the streets, and Scott felt the Humvee rocking on its chassis from repeated bullet hits. Scott fired randomly at each building, He didn't know if his bullets were having any effect, but helicopters were still landing and slowly, despite the intense fire coming from the buildings surrounding the airport, the new troops began taking up positions and replacing marines killed or wounded throughout the day.

Another Apache was blasted from the sky by a FIM92 Stinger missile, and fell flaming to the ground next to the two destroyed Type 96 tanks, and the remainder began to use missiles.

An AGM114 HellFire missile leveled a building near Scott, and the concussion made the Humvee shiver. The Greeks were putting up a fight, but they had no planes and the Apaches were ruling the air and pummeling the ground.

High above the vicious battle for the airport, a NATO spy plane recorded the footage and broadcast it in real time to the NATO commanders, who watched the battle in shocked silence. None of them had seen such heavy fighting since the invasion of Iraq eleven years before, and were shocked by the number of helicopters being shot down. So far they had lost three Apaches and one Chinook, but the Greeks were being pushed back and the remaining buildings hosting Greek missile teams systematically blasted to pieces.

The airport was nearly fully secured, if the Greeks were pushed back, then the day would be won and they could spend the day reinforcing before invading the city proper the next day. Chinese artillery and armor power was broken and the Greeks had been scattered and confused by the airport battle. They had lost many of their soldiers, and were on the verge of breaking, the American missile and rifle fire was simply too heavy to withstand.

The Chinese high command watched grimly through binoculars as their Greek allies were systematically destroyed by the American helicopters. They had shot down four helicopters, but now their missile teams were being blown to shreds by American firepower, and new troops were landing at the airport with every new helicopter that flew into Athens.

The Chinese auto cannons had been silenced, the Greek rocket teams had been massacred, and the airport was secured, good work for a half day of fighting.

Scott sat in the front passenger seat of the Humvee and watched the troops that had just arrived securing the destroyed buildings that until mere minutes before had been crawling with Greek troops.

Now those same troops were in retreat, they had lost the airport and a goodly number of their comrades. The rubble was littered with corpses, but NATO losses hadn't been light either.

Many of the corpses were too charred to identify by visuals but by the end of the day, thirty-two NATO soldiers and air crew killed during the battle for the airport had been zipped into body bags and put onto a Chinook pocked with bullet holes from the day's fighting.

Wreckage from the four helicopters still littered the airport. The entire ground area had been wrecked, the runway was pocked with shell holes, wrecked planes and helicopters littered the grounds, and rubble lay everywhere. It was a horrible scene, and smoke still rose from the various pieces of wreckage.

Night fell, but the activity didn't cease, helicopters lifted off and landed, unloading troops and equipment, and loading up the wounded and any damaged equipment that needed repairs. The holes in the runway were filled in, and finally Beijing lifted their diplomatic blackout only to say that they would not use chemical weapons, which was a tremendous relief to the NATO troops on the ground.

Scott slept little, he was too keyed up on left over adrenaline to close his eyes for long. He kept thinking of the buildings and tanks that he had blown up and the soldiers that he had undoubtedly killed. But that would have to wait until later, first they would have to capture Athens, no small task in itself. If the Greeks and Chinese were willing to fight this hard just for an airport, then how hard would they fight for the rest of the city? The thought frightened Scott, he had come close enough to dying just in one day of combat, how would he survive the many others to come?

But finally he slept, only to be rudely awakened, by the sound of rotors. Looking upwards he watched as several UH60 Black Hawk attack helicopters roared overhead, homing in on the surviving Chinese artillery batteries.

It was early morning, early enough for a tingle of blackness to still remain in the sky, and Athens was pleasantly cool. Scott stood up, his head ached from the constant explosions he had heard the previous day and it took a few seconds for him to remember what had happened the day before.

"Private Hauge, good to see you, yesterday was the biggest invasion since Iraqi Freedom!" Scott looked up to see who it was and jumped when he saw Colonel Dichasia. Straightening up Scott snapped a salute.

"Sir!" He said, and Colonel Dichasia laughed.

"This is a combat zone Private, formality is dead, we refer to each other as ranks, nothing more, and also, if you salute in combat the Chinese may shoot the soldier you're talking to, they love to shoot officers." Scott nodded, it felt a bit wrong to refer to his regimental commander as anything but sir, but if the Colonel wanted it, the Colonel would get it.

"Are you accompanying us into the city si-Colonel?" Colonel Dichasia shook his head, he looked weary, and Scott sensed that he had been up late the previous night, organizing reinforcements and supply drops.

"I'm going to be following the troops in an APC once each area has been secured, if I could I would go with the vanguard, but I'm too important, so I simply stay in the rear." Scott nodded, he was covered in dust and splotches of blood, and probably looked worse than the Colonel.

"Should I get rid of my suit since the Chinese said that they wont use chemical weapons, Colonel?" Colonel Dichasia shrugged.

"You can't trust the fuckers, so I'd keep it, but anyways I've got to go, nice speaking to you Private." Scott nodded and despite the Colonel's earlier order, snapped a salute. Colonel Dichasia walked away, flanked by several other soldiers, and a nervous civilian reporter wearing a helmet that was much too big for him.

"Private Hauge, Private Donovan, we just got some more SMAW rockets, load up, you'll need them." It was the Marine that had accompanied him into the Humvee the day before.

"Yes Corporal..."

"Franz, now go before they pack them up and make them inaccessible." Corporal Franz turned, and Scott followed him over to a newly opened crate that held ten SMAW rockets. Scott had fired six the day before and knew that he would need even more for the coming battle.

"Keep your suit on, the Chinese might double cross us." Scott looked up as Corporal Franz, a prickle of unease rolling up his spine.

Donovan packed four rockets into his pack and with Scott's help, moved the crate into one of the more intact Humvees that still sat on the edge of the runway where they wouldn't get in the way. The .50 caliber machine guns had new belts of ammunition in them and had been fit with the Israeli Iron Fist APS that was supposed to be able to stop missiles and rockets of all kinds.

There was now closer to a battalion occupying the airport, too large of a force for the slowly regrouping Greeks to kick out of the airport.

The NATO invasion had gained a foothold and was now tensing for a leap into Athens. The Greeks had delayed NATO forces for a full day, but now they were ready to strike.

In Naples the NATO high command set a time for the invasion, the surge into the city would begin at noon, once the runway had been repaired enough to allow supply planes to land and give the invading battalion with new undamaged vehicles.

More planes and helicopters flew into the airport, and although there were sporadic mortar attacks, none did any serious damage, and the mortar teams were all shot down by the advance teams that were dug in to the rubble of the houses that they had been fighting over just the day before. Inside of the city there were explosions and new clouds of smoke rose each time a Chinese artillery piece was destroyed. Radiating from the eastern heights were small areas of shattered buildings that had been caused by falling pieces of NATO planes and helicopters, but despite the NATO losses the eastern heights had been charred and were virtually denuded of all life. But the Chinese clung to the heights, firing back at the NATO fighters with every anti aircraft gun that they possessed.

The Greeks had largely pulled back to the base of the eastern heights but there were still clusters of troops hanging on to various strategic strong points.

It was eleven 'o clock, civilian time, just one hour until the surge into Athens.

Everyone was nervous, they remembered how fiercely the Greeks had fought just for an airport the day before, and didn't enjoy the idea of trying to take an entire city from them.

Scott put the SMAW's fire indicator on safety and looked over at the burning city. The sky was still clear and blue, but the smoke was beginning to stain the blueness, turning it into a muddy blue-grey.

In the distance Scott could see the eastern heights, they looked blasted and it was hard to imagine that just thirty-six hours before they had been completely intact and full of tall buildings.

Scott remembered Sergeant Holliday's words from Camp Lejeune, rebuilding cities is expensive. Athens would be no exception, the eastern heights made up a quarter of the city and from the looks of it they had been almost completely obliterated by NATO air power.

Through the smoke Scott could see the odd building still standing, but they were torn by shrapnel and each looked like they had been put to the torch, only the concrete exterior surviving.

It was a perfect portrait of destruction, a vision of an apocalypse come too soon. Thinking of the apocalypse Scott suddenly remembered December 21, 2012.

He had stood outside and chatted and partied, shivering in the cold and trying not to slip on the ice that had formed in the gutters. And throughout the entire night as midnight approached, Scott, although he had never given the concept of 2012 a single thought before, began to wonder if possibly the furs that he had regarded as crazies might be right, could the world suddenly, really end? It wasn't a very strong feeling, but it was nagging and bothered Scott.

It was that morning in Athens, as Scott peered out over the ravaged landscape that the same feeling began to rise up in him, maybe NATO wouldn't win, perhaps the Chinese would drive them back and crush them. It wasn't a very strong feeling, but it was nagging and Scott turned his eyes back to the soldiers accumulating on the runway.

He felt unnerved and tired, he had seen enough death already, he wanted no more.

But within him called the voice of duty, so he straightened up, hefted his SMAW and walked over by the Humvees, looking for the one that he and Donovan had put the SMAW rockets into. Finding it, he sat down in the back seat and lay back, staring at the ceiling and wondering what the hell he had gotten himself into.

"Private Hauge, good to see you, glad you found our Humvee already, now help me with this gear." Scott looked down to see Corporal Franz hauling an ammunition box packed with M16 clips and .50 machine gun belts along the ground, sweating from the exertion.

Scott hopped out of the Humvee and helped Franz haul the box into the Humvee, where he set it next to the box of rockets. Franz looked at the rockets and smiled grimly.

"At very least if we get hit by an RPG then we'll die quickly. With all of these extra explosives in here, this thing will go up like a Roman Candle if something hits it." Scott felt a cold flash of fear, but kept a straight face.

"But what about that Israeli missile defense thing on the roof?" Franz's eyes flickered upwards.

"Well, I haven't seen it deflect anything, so I don't know if it works or not." Scott frowned, and shifted uncomfortably.

"But I shouldn't worry," said Franz, partially to himself, partially to Scott, "we're the fifth vehicle in line, we wont get hit by anything." Scott nodded, hoping that Franz would be right.

The Chinese high command had gone into damage control mode, and they began placing more and more mines and cluster bomb booby traps on the streets unoccupied by Chinese troops. That way NATO would have to battle against not live enemies, but remote controlled and pressure sensitive traps that would undoubtedly take a toll on the NATO forces.

If that failed, then they would have to break their word and use nerve gas. The NATO troops would not be wearing their suits, and quite possibly thousands would die, giving the surviving Chinese enough time to resupply, reinforce, and hold the city. It was a low blow, but it would win them the city.

The NATO high command were nervous, the operation securing the airport had sustained more casualties than initially planned for, and had for several hours, been completely cut off from the rest of NATO forces. But fortunately, they were now ready to invade the city itself and end this thing once and for all.

NATO high command had no illusions about casualties. Judging from visible weaponry and possible booby traps in the street casualty estimates were wavering between ten and fifteen percent, a tremendous toll.

NATO had landed troops by the sea as well, and they were advancing in land, they would invade along side the battalion that had landed in the airport.

Twenty five thousand furs were going to invade Athens, and if estimates were correct, then four thousand of them would not return.

The fight had already claimed the lives of nearly two hundred NATO personnel, and many, many more were due to follow, the public would not like the news.

Scott stood on the runway with the rest of the battalion, his heart pounding, Colonel Dichasia had called them out to bid them a farewell and a good luck.

"This coming fight will be tough, I will not lie about that, the Chinese and Greeks have nearly fifteen thousand troops dug in on the eastern heights and the surrounding areas, but luckily for you, you will not have to deal with most of that. You are being joined by the 3rd Marine Division and the 1rst Assault Group." He gazed over his men and sighed.

"Headquarters is estimating fifteen percent casualties, prove them wrong! You are dismissed, good luck out there Marines!"

"Sir yes sir!" The battalion bellowed, even the British, who liked the American commander.

"Come on, let's go." Said Corporal Franz, heading for the Humvee. Scott followed him, Donovan at his side.

"You're manning the .50 if we get into the shit, so stand up." Corporal Franz addressed Scott curtly, Scott nodded and jumped up into the Humvee, grabbing an extra belt, he stood up and slung the belt over his shoulders.

"Donovan, keep that box of rockets away from the door, I don't want to exploded if an RPG hits us." Scott could hear Donovan scooting the box away from the door, but still felt nervous. He didn't like the idea of going into the city with so small of a force. Sure they would be accompanied by two other divisions of troops, but that didn't assure him much.

"And we're off!" Announced Corporal Franz from below. Scott felt fear rising up within him and took a few deep breaths to calm himself down.

The convoy went around the piles of rubble and was beginning to approach the city proper, when Scott caught motion in the corner of his eye. He turned, swinging the machine gun with him to see the form of a Greek with an M72 LAW anti vehicle weapon.

Fear took over Scott's mind and he swung the towards the Greek, but it was too late, Scott saw his finger squeeze the trigger; then without warning there was an explosion and just as suddenly, the Greek was on his back, scarlet blood seeping out of dozens of shrapnel wounds in his chest, stomach and face. Scott wondered numbly if the rocket had exploded in the barrel of the weapon, but then he looked at the Iron Fist APC in front of him and saw one of its four barrels smoking gently. It had just saved his life. Scott felt his heart rate slowly steady and he realized that the Humvee had ground to a halt and that Corporal Franz was tapping impatiently on his leg.

"What the fuck just happened? Did his rocket explode inside of his weapon?" Scott knelt down and numbly shook his head, still stunned by how close he had come to dying.

"It was the APC, it detected the rocket and blew it up right in front of the Greek...that thing just saved our lives!" Franz nodded, looking a little shaken.

"Well that's good, load this canister into the empty barrel." He said and handed Scott a small black canister from a steel box next to the driver's seat. As Scott looked around he noticed just how many explosives there were in the Humvee. There was the box of SMAW rockets, the crate of ammunition next to it, various grenades and phosphorus flares were stacked neatly inside of a cardboard box, and of course there were the black canisters that the APC fired. The Humvee was packed with explosives, if the rocket had hit them, the Humvee would have gone off like a bomb.

"Get back up there, and keep your eyes peeled, the next time those fuckers might have a sniper, and the APC can't protect you from those."

Scott slipped the canister into the APC and resumed his stance at the .50, watching for trouble, Corporal Franz was right. If the Greek had decided to shoot at him instead of firing a rocket, he would be dead, after all the APC could not protect against bullets.

The city itself was fairly intact, but Scott didn't trust it, each building could hide a sniper team or a group of soldiers ready to drop grenades on the passing Humvees. Scott looked around, watching the gunner in the Humvee in front of him doing the same thing.

Then the APC on the lead vehicle fired on a rocket hissing down the street towards them, and with burst of flame and a window shattering explosion the battle was on.

It was a terrible fight, street by street the Greeks opposed them, and constantly the APCs required reloading, as they constantly had to block against ground to ground missiles and RPGs. The lead Humvee was blown up by an anti vehicle mine, and Scott had to retreat into the interior of the Humvee as flaming debris slashed past his head.

The Greeks fired from buildings and the streets, even tossing grenades and firing rifles from bars and churches.

Soon instead of being the fourth vehicle in line, Scott's Humvee was the second, then after witnessing the first vehicle's disastrous encounter with an RPG team and an unloaded APC, they were the first.

"This is bad, this is really fucking bad." Scott heard Corporal Fritz say, but he couldn't afford to ask, because the Greeks were tossing grenades at his vehicle. The shrapnel shredded the tires, but the Humvee was moving so slowly that it didn't matter, the ravaged rims of the now rubber barren wheels throwing up sparks as they grated on pieces of shrapnel in the streets.

Corporal Fritz screamed obscenities at the Greeks and fired his pistol out the window as he drove, peering through the limited clear patches in the windshield, the rest was obscured by the white haze of fractures from repeated bullet hits.

The bullet proof windows had suffered a similar fate and Scott could only imagine that the exterior of the Humvee looked like shit as well.

"Come on mother fucker! You aint gonna get me!" Hollered Corporal Franz out of the shattered window, firing his pistol wildly at an upper story window that a wounded Greek soldier was hiding behind. Scott gave the window a liberal dose of fire, then jumped as the APC fired again, the canister intercepting a potentially deadly RPG that would have struck the front of the vehicle.

"Give me a canister!" Scott yelled, the APC only had one more canister, and as Scott watched, it fired it upward and intercepted an anti helicopter missile that a Chinese anti aircraft team had shot at a low flying Apache.

Franz tossed the canister to Scott, who caught it and slipped it into the APC, sighing in relief and retrieving three others.

The road had been torn to pieces by the NATO air strikes of the previous day, and was bumpy and unpleasant to go over. But that was the least of Scott's problems, the endless wave of Greeks had been joined by a thin trickle of Chinese, a sign of just how close they were to the eastern heights.

If they took the heights, they would cut the city in two, if they cut the city in two, then they would carry the day and the city would fall.

"Fuckers, they're starting to break through the windshield, this Humvee is falling apart!" Scott frowned at Franz' words, then had a sudden thought. His legs were within easy view of the windshield, and now that there was nothing between him and the enemy, who were now sending rounds into the Humvee itself, Scott suddenly felt very scared.

I'm going to die here, Scott thought suddenly, _any second now some lucky Greek or Chinese paramilitary soldier is going to shoot me, and I'm going to die. _ Scott felt the fear well up even further within him and knew that he was dangerously close to panic.

Then suddenly something fell onto the roof of the Humvee next to him and Scott recognized the olive drab shade of a hand grenade.

Scott's every instinct was to throw himself into the Humvee, anywhere away from the grenade, but he overrode the instinct and flicked the grenade off of the Humvee. It exploded on the ground and Scott heard Corporal Franz cry out.

"Are you alright?" Scott asked, he could hear Corporal Franz gasping in pain below.

"Some shrapnel came in through the side of the Humvee, I'm hit pretty bad!" Scott ducked down and gritted his teeth at Corporal Franz's wounds.

There was a jagged hole the size of a golf ball in the door, and light streamed through.

"Donovan, take the .50!" Screamed Scott, and turned the Humvee over to the side of the road and let the other Humvees pass. Then he turned his attention to Corporal Franz.

His arm had taken the brunt of the shrapnel, several jagged pieces clung to his body armor, but Scott didn't pay attention to them. Blood coated his arm as if he had dipped his arm into a vat of it, and dripped steadily onto the floor.

"Shit, they hit an artery, I'm going to tie a tourniquet, stay still." Franz nodded, his pupils were dilated from shock and his movements seemed sluggish.

Tearing the roll of gauze that he kept in his web belt into large pieces, he tied one of them tightly around Franz's arm, just above the shrapnel wounds.

Scott knew that tourniquets were dangerous, if you cut off the blood flow to an area you ran the risk of building up toxins in the blood stream that could kill the paitent when you released the tourniquet, or even cause the paitent to lose the limb. But Scott was pressed for time, Corporal Franz had lost quite a bit of blood and was going into shock. So Scott tied the tourniquet, covered the wounds in gauze and with shaking paws injected him with a half needle of morphine. Morphine lowered blood pressure, and Corporal Franz's was already low, too much morphine would put him into cardiac shock.

"Hey, you got any wounded?" Asked someone from the door. Scott jumped then turned to see a shell shocked corpsman, his gloved paws and his suit already stained with blood. They were obviously taking casualties, quite a few of them.

"Yes, my Corporal got hit by shrapnel from a grenade, I tied a tourniquet, but he's still going into shock, he needs blood." The Corpsman nodded and slung Corporal Franz's good arm around his shoulder, then led him at a slow run across the fire swept street. Scott turned back to Donovan, who was firing the .50 at something up the street. Scott tapped him on the leg and Donovan ducked down.

"I can take over, drive the Humvee, we need to keep up with the column." Donovan looked at the shattered windshield and shrapnel ridden driver's seat apprehensively, but after only a few seconds, took it, put the Humvee into gear and began to drive again. This time they were closer to the middle of the column and Scott was glad, he was sick of being the first in line for the slaughter.

Scott looked up the street, then something big exploded up the street from him, and a large chunk of concrete bounced off of the roof of the Humvee right next to him. Scott hunkered down and stared through the .50's sights, looking at the smoke rising from the anti tank mine that had just torn a Humvee in half.

Scott heard his ears ringing again and frowned, his poor ears had taken way more than their share of punishment in the past forty-eight hours. But the battle was far from over, so Scott turned his attention back up the street, then saw something that made him pause.

The Greeks were running. He could see units running through the back alleys, they had lost many of their heavy equipment and only one was carrying a machine gun.

Scott opened up on them with the .50, but they managed to get to the safety of an alleyway, and Scott cursed, but inside he felt an undeniable feeling of optimism.

If the Greeks were running then that meant that they had just smashed the first of the enemy's armies, the battle was half won. Only the Chinese remained.

NATO high command received this news with mixed reactions. The two reinforcement divisions had encountered heavy resistance and were stalled at the westernmost base of the eastern heights, fighting against well entrenched Chinese troops with anti tank guns and the remnants of the heavy artillery.

But to do this they had moved most of their troops away from the easternmost side of the eastern heights, which was where Colonel Dichasia's battalion was attacking. They had scattered an entire Greek regiment and badly mauled a blocking Chinese platoon. But they had also sustained heavy casualties and needed the support of the two divisions that were stalled at the base of the heights, barely two miles from them. But three regiments of Chinese troops stood between them and the pinned down divisions.

In all likelihood they would have to retreat and try again the next day. The two opposing sides were too close to each other for air strikes, and artillery was still being unloaded form the planes back at the airport.

The battle for Athens was big enough that the smoke could be seen from the Macedonian border, and the explosions were heard by helicopter crews refueling on battleships off of the coast, fifty miles away.

The media was going off, and stories about the ongoing battle inside of the city flooded both the papers and the internet.

India greeted the news that NATO had invaded Athens with large fireworks shows, soon Greece would fall and Pakistan would be next before a final plunge into China itself. Russia watched with distinct unease, selling NATO whatever oil they needed. And China stewed, they could not reinforce their garrison, and knew that the city would fall before too much longer, it just wasn't possible for them to win.

The Chinese high command greeted the news of the Greek retreat with contempt and bereted the Greek commander before gathering whatever Greek soldiers that they could salvage from the shattered regiment and reforming them as a battalion. They stayed in the rear, and the Chinese sent forwards a fresh regiment of special forces soldiers.

The Humvee's engine quit five minutes after Scott had first observed the Greek soldiers running, it had simply taken too much punishment to keep running. Donovan parked the Humvee against a building and Scott got out, being careful to stay low. Bullets were flying just yards up the road and occasionally they whipped overhead, sparking off of the passing Humvees. Scott grabbed his SMAW and helped Donovan grab the box of rockets.

"Hey! Can we get a ride?" He asked a passing Humvee, the driver, a scared Private ever younger than Scott, nodded and opened the door. His gunner wasn't much older and looked down as Scott and Donovan hefted the box of rockets aboard.

"Oh, a tank killer! Good to have one of those around." Scott nodded and the gunner turned his attention back to the .50. Scott climbed into the Humvee and only then noticed an older Sergeant sitting in the back seat. He clutched his M16 tightly but his face was emotionless. He hid his fear well.

"You ever been in combat before Athens Private?" He asked as the Humvee began to roll again. Scott had to shouted over the roar of the explosions and gunfire.

"No Sergeant!" The Sergeant laughed and looked out the window as an anti armor missile exploded against a building several hundred yards away, throwing pieces of steel and concrete against the sides of the Humvee.

"What a fucking way to lose your combat cherry..." The Sergeant trailed off and stared grimly ahead.

Scott looked at the windshield of the Humvee, it had only a single bullet impact mark on it, and Scott could see that they were beginning to go uphill. A flare of excitement passed through him, they were penetrating the Chinese's final line of defense, the battle was won after all.

But as Scott thought, that was when the special forces regiment struck. Hiding undetected on roofs, they suddenly rose, and without warning, the two Humvees in front of Scott's exploded into flames. The gunner twisted around a plastered the surrounding roofs with .50 rounds. Scott drew his HK MP7, and held it ready.

"Fuckers are on the roofs!" Said the gunner, and suddenly Scott thought of the SMAW sitting behind him.

"I'll blow up the buildings with my SMAW, let me up!" He cried and the gunner gladly left his post as Scott grabbed his SMAW and popped up, leaving the .50 alone and instead aiming at the nearest roof. Suddenly a form straightened up, and from less than eighty feet away Scott and the Chinese special forces soldier locked eyes. The Chinese soldier raised his QBZ95, but Scott fired first and the roof of the building caved in. The blast wave knocked Scott backwards and it was only by supreme effort that he didn't fall back into the Humvee. A few stunned Chinese soldiers stumbled from the front door as the front wall began to collapse as well. Scott pulled out his pistol and fired.

The nearest soldier caught a round in the neck and fell, but the other two aimed and before Scott could duck they fired.

A heavy weight hit Scott in the chest and there was a burst of pain. Scott slid down into the Humvee and fell against the far wall, his chest stinging. Looking up he saw the driver open fire out of the front window with his M16 before turning his attention to Scott, who coughed weakly.

"Thank God for Dragon Skin." Said the driver and helped Scott back up. Scott rubbed his body armor and saw the gleam of a flattened slug stuck to his body armor. The Dragon Skin had absorbed a 5.56 round from less than twenty feet away, and although Scott had a feeling that his sternum was cracked, he could continue fighting.

Donovan reloaded the SMAW expertly and handed it back to Scott. Scott retook his position back at the .50, but instead of using the gun, he aimed the SMAW and looked for movement.

He wasn't the only one not using the .50. One was wielding an M72 Vietnam era grenade launcher, while another was taking shots with an M80 LAW, the multi use successor to the M72 LAW.

Explosions sounded non stop, smoke rose from the numerous fires set by the battalion's advance. But as Scott stood, looking for a target, a missile team advanced up the alley parallel to Scott's Humvee. They reached an intersection between two shops where the alley was narrow and quickly set up a Swedish AT4 shoulder fired missile, good for taking out anything from vehicles to lightly armored tanks. The fur firing the missile watched the front fender of the Humvee come into view, took a deep breath and fired.

Scott saw a flash of a figure running through the alleys when suddenly something exploded in the mouth of one of the alleys. Scott caught a glimpse of a group of Greek Army furs grouped near the back of the alleyway, and fired. The SMAW rocket hit the wall of the alley about halfway to its target, but the damage was still done. The fur that had fired the rocket was knocked backwards by a chunk of shrapnel that went through his lung, his men sent sprawling by the blast. But before Scott could draw his HK MP7 to finish them off the Humvee had passed them and the scared Greeks were dragging their wounded leader away, unsure of what had caused their missile to explode early. Scott looked at the Israeli APC and sighed. The thing had saved his life again, for what seemed like the millionth time, perhaps the science fiction writers were right, maybe machines were better at war than actual soldiers.

"Some Greek soldiers just took a shot at us with a shoulder mounted missile, hand me a canister!" Donovan tossed him one and took Scott's SMAW for reloading.

A block of C4 exploded near the Humvee in front of them, rocking it on its chassis and coating much of the side nearest to the explosion in a sheet of flame. Scott's Humvee steered around the flaming vehicle, and looked towards the roofs. Most of the fire was coming from the roofs where the Chinese were hiding, but the NATO soldiers were catching on, Scott saw a foot soldier run past him and lob a grenade onto the roof of a two story building a few yards in front of him.

"Donovan! I need my SMAW!" Scott yelled, and seconds later, the weapon was quickly handed to him. Scott aimed at a building down the road from him and was about to fire, when something hit him in the side, the SMAW went off, and Scott fell over.

It felt roughly like someone had just hit him with a baseball bat, his side ached, and Scott could taste blood in his mouth. He sat up, grabbing his side in pain and realized that he had lost his SMAW over the side of the Humvee. Looking down, he saw a small metal fragment the size of a BB lodged in his side armor, barely an inch from the edge. From the force that it had hit him at, if it hadn't hit the Dragon Skin it would have torn him apart.

"They hit us with a claymore! You dirty bastards! I'm gonna fuck you up!" The Sergeant was leaning out of the shattered window and screaming at the Chinese. The driver was dead in his seat, blood leaking from a slash in his throat. Scott tore his eyes away and looked at the door instead, it was peppered with small holes and as Scott pulled the driver out of his seat, and laid him down on the floor, the Sergeant turned his attention to Scott.

"You drive, I'll man the .50." Scott nodded and sat down in the driver's seat, painfully aware of the holes in the door and the shattered window that gave any snipers a clear shot at his head.

"Give me a new ammo box!" Yelled the Sergeant from the .50, Donovan moved to get the requested box as Scott started the Humvee moving again. Even halfway down the column the fighting was still heavy. Scott felt tense and his heart was pounding as he hunched over the wheel and tried not to expose himself to the Chinese bullets that snapped past the window every few seconds.

"Donovan, toss the rockets, we don't need them, and they'll just contribute to an explosion if we get hit by anything." Donovan nodded and Scott could hear him tossing the rockets out of a small hole in the corner of the bullet proof window.

That made him feel a bit better, now he had a slightly better chance of surviving if the Chinese decided to drop a grenade onto the roof.

The .50 chattered non stop from the roof and Scott wondered what the Sergeant was finding to fire at, the Chinese fire seemed to have slackened, and Scott hoped that they were close to defeating the Chinese. Maybe the top of the heights were just a hundred yards away. Maybe the other two divisions had defeated the rest of the Chinese and these troops were the only ones left. Scott smiled a little, but jumped as renewed Chinese fire ricocheted off of the hood of the Humvee, the battle wasn't over yet.

NATO high command looked at the aerial footage of the battle in disbelief, the two divisions had finally shattered the Chinese defensive line and were slowly advancing under heavy Chinese missile fire. They didn't have APCs, so casualties were mounting and supplies of medical vehicles and supplies were stretched thin.

However Colonel Dichasia's battalion was performing beyond all expectations, partially due to the APCs, which had prevented countless casualties already. Aerial footage was showing the Chinese retreating to stronger positions as the battalion advanced relentlessly onwards, scattering and destroying every attempt to rebuff them.

"Send them helicopter support, they'll link with the reinforcement divisions within a half hour if they continue advancing at this rate!" Said Brigadier General Kelso, who commanded the 5th Regiment. This battle needed to end before casualties got too high.

Chinese high command was panicked. NATO forces were barely a half mile away from their headquarters, and the Chinese were debating the use of nerve gas. They had the launchers, but the only thing stopping them was the fact that nearly a regiment of Greek and Chinese troops were still scattered behind enemy lines. A single battalion had just shattered two regiments, and was still going strong.

"Do it." Hissed one of the generals, fear apparent on his face. They needed to stop NATO then and there.

Twenty large shells arced out of the sky and exploded practically on top of the first half of the NATO column. Seven of them were destroyed prematurely by ACP canisters, but the remainder exploded on the ground and released a large yellow cloud of nerve gas.

Forty yards from the edge of the gas cloud, Scott felt cold fear constrict his chest. He fumbled for his mask and to his horror realized that he couldn't find it. He looked down, and to his relief saw it lying on the floor of the Humvee where it had fallen out when he had been hit by the claymore fragment.

Scott scooped the mask up and hurriedly put it on, the constant practice from Camp Lejeune paid off and he had the suit on before the gas had advanced within twenty yards of the Humvee.

"Get your fucking masks on!" Yelled Scott over the column of vehicles, already he could see soldiers convulsing on the ground through the yellow veil of gas, it was a horrible sight and for a moment Scott had trouble controlling his nausea and was worried that he would vomit in his suit. But the nausea passed, and Scott dug out his thermal scope, snapping it onto the driver's M16 so that it formed a continuation of the normal scope.

"I'm heading out to see if the Corpsmen need any help, Donovan, man the .50!" Donovan obeyed and Scott jumped out of the Humvee, bullets were still snapping past, and Scott stayed low, looking through the thermal scope, which was now making a low humming sound.

Body heat signatures showed up white, and Scott could see several of them on the ground, rapidly cooling. They were gas victims.

"Hey, where are the Corpsmen?" Asked a Marine as Scott passed, his voice muffled and barely visible.

There were bodies everywhere, several of the front Humvees had been wiped out, and many of the corpses were still twitching, their eyes glazed and bloody spittle flecked on their lips. Scott tore his eyes around and shut them for a second, trying to get his growing fear under control.

Despite himself Scott remembered back to Camp Lejeune and the nerve gas cautionary film. He unconsciously smoothed the front of his suit, glad that he had his body armor over it. The gas was yellow and muted the light as it clung to the column. The passing bullets made it shift and ripple, so Scott avoided those areas where the gas swirled and instead stayed behind the Humvees, where several other Marines were. Each was visibly shaking.

"Fuck," said one, his voice fraught with terror, "I think I breathed some in, look at my leg, its shaking and I cant control it, that's the first symptom right? Shaking?" Another Marine turned, his expression hidden behind his mask.

"You're shaking because you're scared, now move forwards, we need to see if anyone's trapped in the Humvees." Scott joined them as they moved up, there were distant flashes in the chemical fog, and Scott realized that they were Chinese muzzle flares, they were closer to the enemy than he had originally thought.

"I'll provide covering fire," Scott offered, he was the only one with his thermal scope on, and the others could see that, they nodded, and Scott aimed towards where he had seen the muzzle flares. A white body heat signature was crouched behind some sort of obstacle. Scott aimed carefully and fired, the figure jerked and fell, the heat beginning to cool. The steel core armor piercing bullets of the M16 could pierce walls and although the Chinese were not familiar with that fact, Scott was and used it to deadly effect, dropping another advancing Chinese soldier with a three round burst that caught the soldier in the groin.

Disconcerted by the surprisingly accurate American and British fire coming out of the gas, the Chinese retreated back to more secure positions, wondering if they were going up against special forces.

NATO high command received the news of the Chinese gas attack with horror and demands for lists of casualties. Casualty estimates rose quickly to thirty and even forty percent as it became clear that the Chinese had dropped gas on the advancing reinforcement divisions as well. But to their surprise, the troops were still advancing, and still driving the Chinese back.

Ammunition was beginning to run low among the Chinese, they had used so much on the advancing battalion that little remained for the defense. The Americans and British however still had plenty left and were bombarding the retreating Chinese units with M80 LAW rockets and all sorts of 40mm grenades.

The battalion was angry, the Chinese had just tried to gas them, they needed to die.

The Chinese high command withdrew, the NATO column was so close to them that they could hear the individual gunshots and even the NATO soldiers calling orders. Most of the high ranking Chinese officers were gone already, their documents burned and the flash drives and disks containing more sensitive information smashed and buried beneath the rubble outside of the headquarters building.

The commanding Chinese general stared out at the devastation with terror and shame. He had failed, there were twenty five thousand NATO soldiers advancing from the south, and the seemingly invincible battalion charging from north, it was a perfect pincer attack and the Chinese armies were being crushed between it, more and more dying with each minute.

As he thought of that, the lead NATO vehicle came into view and at the drivers seat sat a gas mask wearing NATO soldier. More advanced along side the battered vehicle, all wearing they're anti chemical equipment. The Chinese general raised his arms in surrender and allowed his enemy to take him, the battle was over, what was the point of resisting further?

Chinese resistance all over the city continued for another few hours, but with the surrender of the Chinese commanding general, many of the surviving soldiers surrendered as well, tired of the fighting and the battle that they simply could not win.

The Greeks had collapsed like an empty salt done and without their support the Chinese had been mauled by NATO, but at a terrible cost.

Burning and abandoned NATO vehicles lined the roads, and corpses were strewn along side them, torn and mangled by all manner of weaponry. Even worse were the wounded, screaming and howling in agony as they were transported back to the airport where they were loaded onto planes and shipped back to Italy where they would be professionally treated in Naples. Blood ran in the gutters and wisps of nerve gas still floated in the air above the dozens of soldiers that hadn't managed to get to their masks in time. Every single Humvee that had accompanied the battalion into the city had sustained some sort of damage, from bullet holes to shredded tires and shrapnel gouges in the doors. Many had been filled with rockets and grenades and had gone off like giant bombs when they had gotten unlucky and been blown up. Some were still on fire, the flame feeding off of the Humvee's fuel and whatever flammable materials still remained untouched by the explosion.

Smoke rose above Athens in vast clouds, visible even from Naples, where the NATO high command looked upon it with concern, wondering how much of the city was destroyed.

Scott stood atop of the twisted wreckage of a Chinese auto cannon and looked at the path that his battalion had taken up to the eastern heights, and tried to shut out the distant cries of the wounded as they were driven across the ruined city to the airports, which were tasked now with evacuating the wounded.

The road that the battalion had advanced up looked like shit. Scott counted at least fifteen destroyed Humvees in just the short stretch that he could see and realized that the road had had a clear field of fire from the majority of the Chinese missile positions. But they had won, and now the surviving Chinese were prisoners and once again Athens was a democratic city.

Donovan and the old Sergeant had survived, but despite that fact, Scott felt curiously numb.

The last forty-eight hours had been a horrible yet exhilarating experience, and Scott felt strange, the sudden peacefulness of the city seemed strangely false, as if it could explode back into war again without warning.

Scott wiped some grime off of his face and stared over the destroyed city.

Worldwide reactions were almost instantaneous, the UN decried China's use of chemical weapons and the families of the soldiers slain by nerve gas, demanded compensation for their losses.

Beijing was shaken by how swiftly and completely their armies in Greece had been destroyed. And on November 1rst, three and a half months after China had first moved troops into Pakistan's Indus region, and five months after Scott had entered Marine Basic Training, a drawn and exhausted looking Chinese Premier announced that China was willing to sign an armistice with NATO, the war was over.

In Athens, Scott was helping with the rebuilding of the city, he had been stationed there, as had most of the troops who had fought there just three weeks before.

Ten percent of the city had been destroyed, and the bodies of Chinese artillery personnel were still being unearthed from the blasted ground where auto cannon batteries had once stood.

Scott had allowed himself to be checked into a clinic two days after Athens had been secured, as a mandatory check up. The Chinese bullet that his body armor had indeed cracked his sternum, but it was already starting to heal, so they let him go.

Chinese forces dutifully withdrew from Pakistan and the communist government in Athens was overthrown by the returning citizens of Athens. They put up a socialist government in place and the British were happy when they offered to continue the deal that the old republican government had been carrying out with Britain when the Chinese helped take over. The Chinese economy plummeted as a result of the war, and at America's demand dissolved American debt in China. This in turn jump started the American economy, and Wall street once again became a place associated not with recession and debt, but with money and success.

But of course despite the good that the war had done, there was a tremendous cost as well.

Twelve hundred NATO soldiers had died in the battle for Athens, nine hundred taking the eastern heights alone. Countless Humvees and ATCs had been destroyed as well, but many more had been saved by the ingenious Israeli APCs, which many a soldier claimed had saved their life more than once. Three thousand NATO soldiers had been wounded in some way or another, and Scott despite his insistence that he had not been injured received a low grade Purple Heart for his cracked sternum.

Chinese casualties were terrible, only a quarter of their two thousand man artillery corps had survived the battle unharmed, NATO airpower had killed or wounded out the rest. Another two thousand infantry had died during the ferocious fighting on the eastern heights. Greek casualties remained unknown but presumably high. It was NATO's finest hour since the first Gulf War twenty-three years before, and the world constantly reminded them of that fact.

And now that China had signed an armistice, the war was over, and the troops would return home.

Scott sat down in the plane and looked up at the ceiling. He had trained for three months, only to fight for forty-eight hours. Scott sighed and put his seat back, the war was never far from his thoughts, and not one night went by without him laying awake, trying to forget the screams and the terrible slog up the hill.

The plane lifted off, and as he watched the ground shrink away, he suddenly felt a little better. He was going home, closing his eyes Scott smiled and fell asleep.

Home had not changed at all. Scott walked down the street, looking at the familiar sights and smelling the familiar smells. Scott passed the college and stopped, staring at the main hall and watching the students passing back and forth. It seemed hard to believe that he had once gone there, it seemed so normal.

Walking onwards Scott looked down the street and spotted the distinctive glass front of the recruiting office, where what seemed like years ago, a very different Scott had walked in and begun the journey to get where he was standing. It seemed like a giant loop, and all Scott had to do to complete it was take a few more steps forwards. Scott wanted to see Sergeant Bryant again, maybe he could talk to him, maybe he knew what the strange emptiness inside of Scott meant.

Walking inside made Scott think back, he had been nervous then, but just felt empty and numb now.

There was someone looking for something behind the desk and Scott sat down in the plastic chair.

"Hello Sergeant." He said, and the recruiter stood up, Scott frowned, it was someone else.

"Hello son, you here to enlist?" Scott shook his head, disappointed.

"No, I...I was looking for Sergeant Bryant." The recruiter looked crestfallen.

"He was killed at Athens, are you a relation?" Scott was silent for a second, maybe he should just head to his apartment.

"No, never mind." Scott sighed, Sergeant Bryant was gone? So things had changed, but underneath the visible fabric of society, where you couldn't notice it as easily.

Scott walked out of the recruiters officer, feeling even worse than before, the changes unsettled him, he felt fragile and weak.

"Shit." Scott said, he wanted a drink, he had been allowed to drink an occasional beer in Athens, but as a nineteen year old fur drinking was forbidden, perhaps it was for the best.

Walking up another street, Scott spotted his apartment building in the distance, he walked towards it and had made it nearly a block when he heard a very familiar mocking voice.

"Hey fag." Said Drake, Scott turned around, feeling nothing at the insult. Drake had changed, he looked bigger, thicker.

He was definitely angrier, Scott could see a thick scar on the back of his paw where Scott had no doubt that the doctors had had to perform surgery to repair his shattered paw.

"You wont get away this time you little fucker." Hissed Drake, one of his friends had appeared next to him, the Malamute. He looked at Scott with a malevolent.

"Drake, get away from me and nobody will get hurt." Scott said softly, slowly he slid his left foot into a ready position.

"Fuck you, you broke my paw, and now you're going to pay you ass wipe!" And without warning there was a knife in Drake's paw. At the sight of the weapon, Scott's instincts took over and he swung his foot around and kicked Drake's feet out from under him.

Drake crashed to the ground with a painful exhalation of breath. His friend rushed forward, and Scott dodged to the side, the Malamute's fist singing past his face, suddenly he remembered Basic Training, the first technique that they had learned.

_First step to the side of your enemy's blow. _ Scott dodged a second blow, moving fluidly to the side of the Malamute.

_Second, take a hold of your enemy's arm, just above the wrist. _ Scott grabbed the Malamute's wrist, the Malamute looked at Scott with surprise, but Scott was already moving on.

_Third, twist the wrist and put your enemy's arm over your shoulder. _ Scott twisted the Malamute's arm and smiled, feeling savage elation spreading through him.

Fourth, pull downwards, it'll disable him for long enough for you to perform a finishing move. Inhaling, Scott jerked downwards, and felt rather than heard, the Malamute's elbow shatter. The Malamute screamed and Scott let him fall forwards, one arm bent the wrong way. The Malamute curled on the ground, sobbing. Then Scott saw a flash of movement in the corner of his eye and ducked as Drake's knife swept over him, the tip fluttering by Scott's ear.

Scott stepped backwards and rammed an elbow into Drake's gut. Drake wheezed, and Scott spun and kicked him in the jaw, shattering his teeth.

The fight had lasted less than thirty seconds. Scott stood back, looking at his enemy, laying on the ground, bloody fragments of teeth scattered around his mouth. His accomplice curled in the fetal position, his elbow shattered and sickening to look at.

But his work wasn't quite yet done. Kneeling down, Scott lifted Drakes head from the ground by his fur and hissed into his ear.

"Remember when I said that I'd come back from the Marines and kick your ass? Well next time, I'll fucking kill you, so don't doubt me this time you worthless mass of scum." Scott smacked Drake's head back down, Drake groaned through a mouthful of shattered teeth. He was defeated and wouldn't get up any time soon.

Scott walked onwards, ignoring the shocked and horrified looks coming from the surrounding buildings. A woman drew her shades as Scott passed, but he didn't mind, he felt much better.

Unlocking the door to his apartment, Scott frowned at the layer of dust covering everything and switched on the television. It was set to the news, two political analysts talking about something important in an animated fashion.

"You know, now that the Third World War has ended, world peace just might be possible!" Said one of the analysts, Scott sighed, when would they understand? War was embedded in every fur's genes somewhere, maybe right alongside the gene that made Scott gay. World peace would likely never be achieved, all Scott saw on the television screen were two fools pursuing the impossible dream.

THE END