05-05-2025, 01:31 AM
Presidential Palace, Legionaria
October 25, 5637
Corporal Mason Kerr’s boots smeared blood across marble as he stepped over the shattered doors of the east wing. Smoke was already curling through the high-vaulted ceilings, tracer rounds whizzing above like angry fireflies. The Presidential Palace of the Legionary State—once a brutalist cathedral of power and vanity—had become a bunker of last stands.
And the final slaughterhouse of the war. The comms were alive with chaos.
“Etxean breach confirmed—northwest vestibule. They’re inside!”
“L-11 spotted! Repeat, Lazar’s personal guard are still in play! Heavy casualties, Etxean units falling back—”
Kerr’s jaw clenched. The L-11. The Legion's most loyal killers. Enhanced, brutally trained and conditioned to fight to the death around Supreme Leader Lazar. The rumor was they were all orphans raised in catacombs beneath Linark, their voices surgically removed so they could never speak a word of betrayal.
“Cut the chatter,” Lieutenant Bryce ordered coolly. “We’re not here to play catch-up with the Etxeans. We bag the prize. Kerr—you’re point again. Let’s end this.”
They moved fast, clearing staircases, silencing corner-fire with precise bursts. The palace was a labyrinth of brutalist architecture: endless stone corridors, gilded portraits of a thousand dead heroes, and scorched rugs soaked in blood. Resistance was fanatical. The Presidential Guard, not even regular army, just zealots, threw themselves into every engagement, often with just handguns and knives. Kerr felt like they were walking through the dying lungs of a mad empire.
In a shattered ballroom, they found the bodies of an entire Etxean platoon, ripped apart in a tight semicircle. Burn marks. Blade wounds. Two were still twitching, shot clean through the chest, heads twisted at unnatural angles. And standing above them, like black statues of war, were four remaining L-11, seven-foot monsters in black body armor, bearing massive light machine guns.
“Contact front!” Medina shouted.
Gunfire exploded. The room became thunder and flame. One of the L-11 charged with inhuman speed, leaping across twenty feet in two seconds. Medina got one shot off before the thing drove a blade toward his throat. Kerr responded it by shooting it through the neck, twice, then once more for insurance. It didn’t scream. It just twitched, then collapsed in place like a puppet with its strings cut.
Baker took down another with a lucky frag toss. Bryce went down in the struggle—chestplate cracked by a rifle butt, bleeding from the mouth but still conscious.
Kerr caught the final L-11 with a short burst—knees first, then the chest, and then as it turned, the face. The monster staggered, tried to lunge one last time, blade dragging through marble, but Kerr dropped to a knee and fired point-blank through its skull. The squelch was obscene.
The body hit the gilded doors to the Presidential Office, and Kerr, still catching his breath, gave it a boot. The corpse crashed through with a solid thunk, taking one of the oak doors clean off the hinge. Then there was silence. Longsword Five took a moment to breath and moved through the waiting doors.
Smoke and sunlight danced through the torn red drapes. The room looked more like a mausoleum than a command center. Every corner was pristine intact, untouched by the war that had devoured the rest of the city. The only noise was the soft click of Kerr’s boots and the metallic slide of rifles being readied behind him.
And then there he was: Supreme Leader Lazar.
The Kundrati dictator was dressed in black regalia. Medals polished. A strange calm on his pale face. No guards. No aides. Just a suicide vest strapped tight to his chest and a small black box in his left hand—thumb resting on the dead-man switch.
“You made it,” Lazar said softly. His voice had the calm venom of a cult leader, even now. “Tell your politicians and your kings… you’ve killed a dream. Not a tyrant. The Legion was never a country—it was an idea.”
Kerr raised his rifle.
Lazar smiled, and spoke louder. “One day, the world will remember we stood against you. Even as you surrounded us. Even as your bombs fell. Even as our allies failed. We stood! Hail Kundrati Forever!”
The thumb twitched. Bryce screamed. “DOWN! HE’S GONNA—!”
A white flash and a deafening boom. The room folded.
Kerr felt himself thrown backwards—heat slamming into him like a train. His back hit the far wall, his helmet flew free, and all he heard for five eternal seconds was static and ringing.
When he blinked awake, it was Baker—burnt, bleeding—slumped over his chest. He’d taken the brunt of the blast for him. Smoke curled up from what had once been the desk, the floor, the ceiling. There was no trace of Lazar.
Kerr breathing a long sigh. The war wasn’t officially over. Not yet. There was still Linark Province, the Legion’s last provincial holdout, clinging to the western mountains like a wounded wolf. But without Lazar, the government had no head. No command. No future.
Kerr walked forward and looked out the blown out windows, staring out at the burning city below. His face was scraped, armor cracked, ribs bruised. He’d been at Ketia and was now here.
The end was supposed to feel cleaner.
But instead, all he felt was the weight of Baker’s body, the smell of blood in his nostrils, and the final words of a madman echoing in his skull.
“The Legion was never a country—it was an idea.”
He lit a cigarette with a shaking hand and watched the sun try to rise through the smoke. Only Linark left. And then, maybe, peace.
October 25, 5637
Corporal Mason Kerr’s boots smeared blood across marble as he stepped over the shattered doors of the east wing. Smoke was already curling through the high-vaulted ceilings, tracer rounds whizzing above like angry fireflies. The Presidential Palace of the Legionary State—once a brutalist cathedral of power and vanity—had become a bunker of last stands.
And the final slaughterhouse of the war. The comms were alive with chaos.
“Etxean breach confirmed—northwest vestibule. They’re inside!”
“L-11 spotted! Repeat, Lazar’s personal guard are still in play! Heavy casualties, Etxean units falling back—”
Kerr’s jaw clenched. The L-11. The Legion's most loyal killers. Enhanced, brutally trained and conditioned to fight to the death around Supreme Leader Lazar. The rumor was they were all orphans raised in catacombs beneath Linark, their voices surgically removed so they could never speak a word of betrayal.
“Cut the chatter,” Lieutenant Bryce ordered coolly. “We’re not here to play catch-up with the Etxeans. We bag the prize. Kerr—you’re point again. Let’s end this.”
They moved fast, clearing staircases, silencing corner-fire with precise bursts. The palace was a labyrinth of brutalist architecture: endless stone corridors, gilded portraits of a thousand dead heroes, and scorched rugs soaked in blood. Resistance was fanatical. The Presidential Guard, not even regular army, just zealots, threw themselves into every engagement, often with just handguns and knives. Kerr felt like they were walking through the dying lungs of a mad empire.
In a shattered ballroom, they found the bodies of an entire Etxean platoon, ripped apart in a tight semicircle. Burn marks. Blade wounds. Two were still twitching, shot clean through the chest, heads twisted at unnatural angles. And standing above them, like black statues of war, were four remaining L-11, seven-foot monsters in black body armor, bearing massive light machine guns.
“Contact front!” Medina shouted.
Gunfire exploded. The room became thunder and flame. One of the L-11 charged with inhuman speed, leaping across twenty feet in two seconds. Medina got one shot off before the thing drove a blade toward his throat. Kerr responded it by shooting it through the neck, twice, then once more for insurance. It didn’t scream. It just twitched, then collapsed in place like a puppet with its strings cut.
Baker took down another with a lucky frag toss. Bryce went down in the struggle—chestplate cracked by a rifle butt, bleeding from the mouth but still conscious.
Kerr caught the final L-11 with a short burst—knees first, then the chest, and then as it turned, the face. The monster staggered, tried to lunge one last time, blade dragging through marble, but Kerr dropped to a knee and fired point-blank through its skull. The squelch was obscene.
The body hit the gilded doors to the Presidential Office, and Kerr, still catching his breath, gave it a boot. The corpse crashed through with a solid thunk, taking one of the oak doors clean off the hinge. Then there was silence. Longsword Five took a moment to breath and moved through the waiting doors.
Smoke and sunlight danced through the torn red drapes. The room looked more like a mausoleum than a command center. Every corner was pristine intact, untouched by the war that had devoured the rest of the city. The only noise was the soft click of Kerr’s boots and the metallic slide of rifles being readied behind him.
And then there he was: Supreme Leader Lazar.
The Kundrati dictator was dressed in black regalia. Medals polished. A strange calm on his pale face. No guards. No aides. Just a suicide vest strapped tight to his chest and a small black box in his left hand—thumb resting on the dead-man switch.
“You made it,” Lazar said softly. His voice had the calm venom of a cult leader, even now. “Tell your politicians and your kings… you’ve killed a dream. Not a tyrant. The Legion was never a country—it was an idea.”
Kerr raised his rifle.
Lazar smiled, and spoke louder. “One day, the world will remember we stood against you. Even as you surrounded us. Even as your bombs fell. Even as our allies failed. We stood! Hail Kundrati Forever!”
The thumb twitched. Bryce screamed. “DOWN! HE’S GONNA—!”
A white flash and a deafening boom. The room folded.
Kerr felt himself thrown backwards—heat slamming into him like a train. His back hit the far wall, his helmet flew free, and all he heard for five eternal seconds was static and ringing.
When he blinked awake, it was Baker—burnt, bleeding—slumped over his chest. He’d taken the brunt of the blast for him. Smoke curled up from what had once been the desk, the floor, the ceiling. There was no trace of Lazar.
Kerr breathing a long sigh. The war wasn’t officially over. Not yet. There was still Linark Province, the Legion’s last provincial holdout, clinging to the western mountains like a wounded wolf. But without Lazar, the government had no head. No command. No future.
Kerr walked forward and looked out the blown out windows, staring out at the burning city below. His face was scraped, armor cracked, ribs bruised. He’d been at Ketia and was now here.
The end was supposed to feel cleaner.
But instead, all he felt was the weight of Baker’s body, the smell of blood in his nostrils, and the final words of a madman echoing in his skull.
“The Legion was never a country—it was an idea.”
He lit a cigarette with a shaking hand and watched the sun try to rise through the smoke. Only Linark left. And then, maybe, peace.