The Sign of the Eagle

[A Pink Cheetah]

Chapter ZERO: The Prologue

Tony held the rifle to his shoulder, taking each breath slowly. About three hundred feet in front of him, his last target stood, a cutout, built in the most simplistic human shape possible. He squeezed the trigger, and the round from his M40A3 tore through the center of the target's head, leaving a spray of pink mist as the bullet penetrated the the Kevlar helmet, bringing Tony back to reality. He wasn't on a practice range. He was hidden under some brush, and he had to move fast, otherwise the enemy, the Russian Resistance Army, would find his position. He crawled back out of the brush, and turned, crouching, to face the road that was behind him. He looked left, and the right before starting, stepping back into the bush behind him, a truck rumbling past. He waited for it to go an adequate distance away before he ran across the road. Shouts called up behind him, the body of the assassinated Russian General having been found by his body guards.

"Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit." Tony muttered under his breath, now sprinting with the entire length of his legs. He tossed the sniper rifle to the side, smashing it on a tree. Tony slid to a stop, turning around so that his ghille suit blended him into the snow of Siberia as he dropped to the ground. The snowfall around him had covered most of his tracks and the slide that he did. He lifted his body upward, pulling two stolen Skorpions out from under him, burying them in the snow in front of his body. He kept his head up, watching as a team of 5 Russian guardsmen scoured the area slowly. They were barely visible through the thickening snowfall, but they were getting closer. Tony's grip tightened around the submachine guns, and he waited as the guards passed, easily mistaking him as one of Siberia's low-lying bushes in the now dense snowfall. Tony sighed inwardly and relaxed, then steeled himself for his next action. He stood up and lifted both guns, pointin them at the guard in front of him, who shouted in surprise as Tony squeezed the triggers....

(Continued in Chapter 2)

Chapter One: The Silence

Tony squeezed the triger of his M40A3, the bullet tearing through the cardboard cutout's head. "That's five dead center shots in a row. At 300, 750, 1,000, 1,200, and 1,550 feet. I'd say that's enough." Tony's spotter said, chuckling to himself. Burt was a wise-cracking asshat as far as Tony was concerned, however, he also depended on him for his own survival.

"No. Pop up the 2k, 2.5, 3k, and the 3.5." Tony said, reloading the next five rounds in his rifle. "You're joking, right? Even the Major has problems with 3k and up."

"If I was joking, I wouldn't have reloaded. Now pop them up before I pop you." Tony growled, looking down his sights. The target at two thousand and fifty feet out popped up and Tony adjusted his aim, squeezing the trigger. The target's top half of his head sheered from the impact. "Too high, wasn't dead center. But at least it was a kill shot." Burt said, popping up the 2,500. "Take your time, this time. You're almost at half a mi-" Burt was cut off by the retort of Tony's .308 Remmington rifle. Burt checked through his binoculars. "Nice shot. You blew a hole in his heart." Burt said, flipping up the three thousand foot target. Tony sighed, and released his magazine, opening the bolt-action and removing his next round. He set the round back in the mag and set the gun and magazine off to the side, picking up the Army issue M24 to his left. He checked the round calibre, a .338 Lapua Magnum. "I missed my target with that last shot, I meant to hit his head." Tony grumbled, sighting the rifle.

Burt covered his ears, the M24's retort much louder than the M40's. He squinted down at the target and grabbed his binoculars. "Holy.... The head is completely gone. Nice shot." Burt said, then grabbed the other set of ear protection from the table. As he slipped it over his head, he sighted the binoculars, the final target raising. "Three thousand five hundred feet out!" He shouted, gauging the windspeed through the binocs via a scarf around the target's neck. Tony squeezed the trigger.... And found himself in South Africa, an AWS (Arctic Warfare Silenced) over his standard AWM (Arctic Warfare Magnum) in his hands. He had just let off a round, the suppression system silencing the shot to a third of its normal volume. His target's head exploded, as did the right arm of the militiaman behind his target, falling completely off of his body. In the confusion after his first kill, he slipped away, evacing through some trees. "So, Ghost. How are you liking your job now that you're actually in the field?" His CO asked through his headset. "I couldn't be happier." Tony replied, relaxing in his chair. "The silence is killing me, though. I want to go into a real war zone, not clean up after PMC fuck-ups."

"Silence? Son, there were multiple gunfights raging around you while you sighted that bastard." Tony's CO replied, shaking his head on his end of the line. "Really? I didn't hear a thing. Must have been really focused...." Tony responded, nodding off to the sound of the rotor wings of the chopper.

Chapter 2: The Run

Tony released the pressure on the triggers of the Skorpions and ran passed the falling guard. As the other four turned toward him, he hid behind a thick Siberian fir, the thick trunk of the tree stopping the bullets fired from the others AK-47s. Tony waited, cowering as bits of bark and splinters from the impacts flew everywhere. As the last shots were emptied from the clips, he sprinted from cover, straight toward the nearest of the four shooters. He covered the distance in less than two seconds and tackled him to the ground, shoving both of his Skorpions in the man's mouth, releasing a single shot each. He then dropped one of them and snatched his AK, taking a fresh clip and hoisted up the now dead guard's body, putting him and his Kevlar vest between him and the other three guards. Tony grunted with each impact of the 7.62mm rounds, and even winced in pain as a few of the rounds tore through the remains of the guard's jacket and into his own under his ghille suit.

He finished reloading the AK and fired off a few badly aimed shots, but managed to catch on of his assailants in the shin, dropping him to the ground. Tony tossed his meatshield to the side and aimed, killing the other two guards before they had finished reloading. He then walked over to the one he shot in the shin. "Sad, isn't it. That not even five of you can kill me." He said, firing one round into his head. Tony then dropped the AK and looked at his ghille suit, now completely covered in blood. "Perfect. Nothing I can do about it." He said, then turned and continued his run toward the evac zone as more guards crested the hill from the direction that he came from, bullets flying toward him. "This is Ghost, I have hostiles following me on foot, backup sent by the-" Ghost was cut off as a bullet snapped a rather large limb above him, dropping it rigt infront of him, causing him to trip. "Mother FUCK!" He shouted, scrambling to his feet and limping to cover. "Ok, the reinforcements sent by those assholes are closer than I thought, and I think that I might have broken my shin. Advise you leave now, over." Tony finished, checking the clip left in his one Skorpion. With only twelve rounds left, he flipped up the stock on it and rolled over, crawling toward the branch that broke his shin. He pulled out a small mirror and glanced over the branch. 'Three of them at least. This won't end well.' Tony thought to himself. He lifted his head up and the Skorpion with it, and released a three round burst, killing two of them as they lined up with their search pattern, two perfect headshots. As Tony turned to the last one, he saw that he was in trouble.

A few rounds from the guard's assault rifle, pointed right at Tony, caught him in his uninjured leg, Tony shouted in pain and focused it all into nailing his attacker with the last remaining nine rounds in his carbine. Tony let the hose of death release and the last Russian fell. Tony sighed and rolled over carefully, now lying on his back. "Hoverking, ignore that last order. Come and get me, both of my legs are shot to hell. One of them literally." Tony said into his radio. "Over."

"Copy that, Ghost. We're heading toward your beacon." Hoverking responded. "I'm sending some of the crew to your position right now."

A few weeks later....... Tony laid in his hospital bed, watching a soap that he didn't care about in the slightest, when the door to his room opened. "For the eighth time, I don't want to get back in the fi- Oh. You aren't General Washburn." Tony said, looking at the woman who walked through the door.

"I would hope not. However, I do have a proposition for you." She said, sitting in the chair next to Tony's hospital bed.

(Continued in Chapter 3)

[Yuki]

Moar gogogo

[A Pink Cheetah]

Bumping this up for more readers.

[Kai Ogre]

Nice work! You have a thing for Russian Generals, don't you? O.o