Stronghold In The Apocalypse

Following a reverberating shout, the rumbling sounds of engines followed along with the sound of something heavy moving.     

A convoy of vehicles exited the small airport and started cruising along the road that's full of mess with papers and plastic wrappers flying around, and abandoned cars pushed to the side.     

Under the watch of the two Pelicans flying in the skies, the Scorpion Tank was on the lead of the convoy, with anything in its way being crushed to pieces.     

"Damn, I'd like to ride on that thing someday" one of the newly recruited survivors said, his voice filled with longing.     

Along the road, zombies who were attracted towards the commotion gathered towards them, but they were quickly picked off by the experienced survivors, while those lone mutated zombies were taken care of by the soldiers.     

"Then you better do a good job this time, but the most important thing of all, you should first worry about how you're going to keep yourself alive later" said one of the soldiers who was near them and managed to overhear what the person had said.     

The survivor, including his friends around him, immediately grew timid and wary when they saw one of the soldiers who had just arrived today suddenly walking beside them and even talking to them.     

After all, they still remember Bella's warning to them to never offend or anger the soldiers if they ever wanted to live a peaceful life and to never again lead a dangerous life surrounded by zombies and mutated animals that could kill them any second of any day with just one careless mistake.     

Suddenly, burning with flames of ambition that suddenly appeared from out of nowhere, one of them hesitated for a bit before courageously opening his mouth and asked, "This…what do you mean by that, sir?"     

"Do a good job with our operation today and make a lot of contributions, and you will be rewarded" said the soldier, then he turned his head towards the survivor, his smile slowly turned into a smirk as he said, "That is of course, you come out alive and in one piece, only then can you enjoy your fruits of labor! Hahaha!"     

The soldier then continued, "The Armored Battalion is one of hardest to get in. After all, you get the chance to operate that tank at the front called Scorpion Tank, but even then, there's no guarantee that you'll be assigned as one of its operators as there's only two of them"     

Then one of the younger looking men who had been eagerly listening to the conversation taking place before them slightly raised his hand in the air, his eyes glanced at the exo-suit that the soldier is worn around his body and said, "Then what kind of military department are you in the force sir?"     

The soldier looked at the person who spoke, who just seemed to be around early twenties and said, "There are no departments, only divisions. There's the Armored Division, which those tanks are part of, then there's the Guard Division whose task are safeguarding the colonies, and lastly, there's us, we don't have an official name yet though, but the people calls us the Shock Troopers, Striders or most commonly known as Supply Runners"     

When the soldier mentioned the following names, the young survivor walking beside him suddenly realized something he didn't quite believe before, "S-shock Troopers? Then…are we really heading over to that place to hunt that monster down? I thought Bella was just messing…with me"     

"You…did you not listen to the briefing before this? Everything was explained to all of you before we set out!" said the soldier with a little frustration in his voice.     

The others around the young man, probably his companions, quickly stepped in to defend him as they spoke in turn.     

"He was suffering from diarrhea earlier sir, so he didn't get to listen to the briefing earlier, but we already told him a summary about it. He must have just forgotten about it" answered an amiable looking middle aged woman as she shot the young man a quick glare.     

"Yes sir, this kid tends to forget things, just ignore him sir"     

The soldier on the other hand, looked at them in confusion as he couldn't understand why they were suddenly so defensive towards him when he didn't even do anything towards the young man except for raising his voice.     

But what he didn't know is that when he raised his voice, it quite frankly frightened them as they thought that he would do something bad if they didn't appease his sour mood.     

Looking at their expressions, the soldier quickly realized something and hurriedly explained, "Relax, I'm not a bad guy that would get angry or offended at the smallest things"     

'They must have met some really vicious people for them to act like this, trust issues are quite scary these days' the soldier thought inside when he noticed the guarded looks of the survivors around him, and he couldn't help but sigh inside as he realized just how they were really lucky to be able to join Leo's community and not experience what the people around him had experienced.     

"Anyway, our operation this time is very dangerous. So make sure to be extra vigilant and follow orders obediently and don't go off on your own as doing so might endanger the rest of us. So whoever is a troublesome character here, rein in your unruly character or else I'll have to put you down myself!" said the soldier, as he made the latter part of his words unequivocal that they really wouldn't hesitate to kill them if they didn't heed his words.     

Shortly after that short episode between the few survivors and the soldier, every soldier and survivor focused on clearing the zombies around them, and along the way, they also met a few survivor groups, who didn't do anything but watched them either with fear or just plain wary.     

A couple of them tried to join the convoy, but all of them were rejected sternly as no one among the survivors that was recruited by Bella is familiar with those people even though some of them had already met each other a couple of times, even then, they were still considered strangers.     

In the end, all of them left with a belly full of anger as they couldn't vent their anger towards them, especially knowing that they were more heavily armed, more numerous than all of the other groups combined together and most of all, they possessed a damn freaking tank that could easily obliterate them!     

Meanwhile, on the naval ship stranded in the sea.     

The sailors were all standing on the main deck as they gazed into the land in the distance, listening to the intermittent intervals of gunshots and the sound of a cannon firing from time to time.     

"Is it the army?" one sailor voiced out his thoughts as the continued gunshots rang out on the distant shore.     

"Can't you see those things flying in the sky? It's those people who gave us supplies the other day" replied the person standing beside him with an eyeroll.     

The former rolled his eyes and said, "I can see that, and I'm not wrong to call them an army. You've seen how they are, possessing kinetic skeletons and aircraft of unknown origins. I wonder what power they came from"     

"Damn, they're really crazy"     

Inside the quarterdeck, the naval commander was muttering to himself as he lowered the binoculars in his hands that were trembling in excitement, along with that huge smile on his face that couldn't hide his anticipation for what was about to unfold.