Bang! Bang! Bang!
Gunfire crackled violently in their ears.
Behind a shattered wall, a man's throat burst open in a spray of blood as his body fell backward, lifeless.
"Ah... hhhk... hhh..." The dying Arab fighter, still clutching the trigger of his AKM, let out a choking, gurgling moan. Blood spattered wildly, staining his mouth, nose, and keffiyeh red.
Two other militants lay dead within the collapsed ruins—one's chest cavity torn open, ribs jutting through shredded flesh; the other's skull blown apart, brain matter splattered across the rubble.
An AKS-74U and a discarded RPG-7 launcher with a conical warhead lay beside their hands.
"Former Iraqi soldiers?" Jill muttered, pressing her shoulder to the wall as she peered around the corner with her Militech [D5 Copperhead] assault rifle. The corpses wore camouflaged uniforms and Kevlar vests with torn-off insignia—models once used by the old Iraqi Republican Guard.
"More like discharged ones." Bang, bang. Carlos finished them off with two precise shots, speaking evenly as he reloaded.
Jill nodded. She had no objections to demobilization—nor was she surprised. Victors disbanding the defeated army was standard practice. Saddam's militarization policies had long swollen Iraq's ranks beyond reason.
"How many were cut?" she asked absently, eyes still sweeping the shattered windows and doorways.
"Almost all of them," Carlos replied.
"What? Then how does the Interim Governing Council plan to resettle them?"
"The plan isn't to," he said flatly.
"..."
"Fuck!" Jill swore, frustrated. Having only recently arrived in Iraq—barely past her first patrol—she still wasn't used to the political mess and corruption of the place. "What the hell are those idiots in the Interim Council even doing?"
She raised her rifle and fired, cutting down several zombies that had stumbled toward them from the opposite alleyway.
"Who knows," Carlos replied coolly. "But these new types of infected that can still distinguish friend from foe? Whether it's gas exposure or disguised injection... tch, I wonder where they even got their hands on it."
He pulled out an M67 grenade, popped the safety pin, released the lever—ping—and lobbed it smoothly through a gap in the ruins, his exoskeleton's servos assisting with perfect precision.
BOOM! The explosion shook the air, brick dust raining from above.
Faint screams and curses followed.
Moments later, short bursts of gunfire echoed inside the building.
A voice crackled over the radio: "Safe!"
Another room cleared.
"Advance along the street."
Carlos bent his elbow and gave a forward signal.
The M.B.C.S. elite operatives moved up in formation.
As one of Militech's top Biohazard and Counterterrorism Division commanders—and tactical leader of Coalition Task Force 3-1—Carlos handled every situation with calculated precision.
Working in tandem with Jill's B.S.A.A. squad, he alternated between suppressing fire on approaching infected, breaching buildings to rescue civilians, and gunning down lurking B.O.W.s hiding in the alleys.
Spotting a line of abandoned cars along the roadside, Carlos pressed his earpiece. "All units, steer clear of any intact vehicles—watch for car bombs. Tank One, don't spare the shells. If it's not burned out, destroy it."
"Copy that," came the tank commander's reply through the comms.
A moment later—BOOM!
The 120mm L44 smoothbore cannon of an M1A2 Abrams erupted in blazing light.
Several derelict cars went up in flames, bursting apart into molten scrap.
"Keep it up," Carlos said evenly.
For a while, the rhythmic thunder of explosions echoed down the streets, like the beat of a war drum.
Until—BOOOOM!!
"Get down!" ×N
A massive explosion tore through the air.
A plume of smoke and dust shot skyward. The blast wave rolled outward, carrying molten metal, glass, gravel, and plastic in a deadly ring. Within seconds, everything within a dozen meters was obliterated—storefronts flattened, even interior walls of nearby buildings crushed into piles of crooked debris.
"Shit! Car bomb!"
A soldier thrown to the ground by the shockwave got up, cursing in fear and relief.
"Phew!" Exhaling sharply, Carlos lifted his head, brushing off the thick layer of dust that had settled over his helmet and shoulders. Pressing a hand to his earpiece, he barked, "All squads, report status! Tank One, extend your firing arc! Sniper teams, keep alert—someone's watching us!"
Then he turned to glance toward the middle of the formation—Jill, the legendary "Iron Flower" of the military, was shouting to calm the terrified civilians.
Yes, shouting.
Soft voices couldn't reach the trembling refugees huddled beside an M113 APC. They had no noise-canceling tactical headsets like the coalition troops.
As the smoke cleared, Carlos crouched behind cover, watching the blast site through the haze.
"Hell of a show," he muttered.
The scene was carnage—charred craters, burning vehicle frames, shattered debris, flames crawling along the leaking fuel. Scattered furniture, cloth, and rubble lay strewn across the cracked street, while from the ruins stumbled the charred figures of the walking dead—living torches ignited by the car bomb.
Rat-tat! Gunfire rang out.
The flaming zombie's head burst apart.
Jill lowered her rifle.
"They deliberately caused a biohazard," she said coldly. "Using civilians as shields and bargaining chips—completely indifferent to their own people's lives. These bastards are worse than animals."
If the convoy had been even slightly closer to the car bomb, no one could say how many coalition soldiers would've died—but the unarmed women and children certainly wouldn't have survived. At best, they'd suffer shell shock and permanent hearing loss.
"These people are harder to fight than any virus or B.O.W.," Carlos said, shrugging, his tone carrying that familiar rough humor.
Just then—
Beep beep. A communication alert.
"Captain Carlos, we've located the targets. Coordinates transmitted." The UAV operator's voice came through.
Carlos and Jill raised their left arms simultaneously, checking the tactical displays strapped to their forearms. The live feed showed the Fallujah map, synced through Militech's encrypted datalink.
Thermal imaging from the UAV: at their one o'clock, ninety meters ahead, several heat signatures slipped out the back of a residential house overlooking the car bomb blast site.
...
They carried weapons—one had an RPG, another a long-barreled rifle.
No doubt, a sniper.
"Don't shoot yet. Shadow them," Carlos ordered. "Requesting deployment of suicide drones. Tank One!"
At his command, the tank fired.
BOOM! From the UAV's perspective, the Shanasheel-style Iraqi home erupted—bricks flying, smoke billowing.
"Move in!"
"Go! Go! Go!"
The tank engines roared, louder now, trembling the ground.
The treads crushed obstacles as they rolled, carving deep tracks into the cracked asphalt.
While the Humvees and M113 APCs loaded with civilians began retreating toward the outskirts, the rest of the unit pushed deeper into the inner city.
Rhythmic gunfire echoed with sporadic explosions as Task Force 3-1's main column advanced, rolling past the site of the earlier car bomb blast.
Squish. Jill looked down—she had stepped in something sticky.
Chunks of flesh, blackened and dust-caked, scattered among the debris. A few hard lumps nearby—bones, maybe.
She knew they were human remains—but couldn't tell which body parts they came from, or even if they belonged to people, zombies, or B.O.W.s.
Caught in that kind of blast, everything was reduced to the same—unrecognizable pulp.
The next instant, more gunfire cracked through the air.
Inside a half-collapsed shop—
"No survivors found. Just a few zombies with broken spines from the blast... huh, a crippled zombie dog. Uh, Sergeant, a dead bird—was that a parrot or a starling? Do we put it down too?"
"In Fallujah, the only living things you hesitate to shoot are humans—and even then, only until you know whose side they're on. Everything else—kill on sight. Got it?"
A short exchange followed by dull gunshots echoed.
Moments later, several soldiers emerged in close-quarters formation.
"Found a tunnel entrance!"
"There's movement in the basement—could be survivors."
"There might be wolves among the sheep. Keep your eyes open. If anything moves wrong, you shoot. Simple as that. Remember your training—do what needs doing. Understood?"
"Alert! Male with a headscarf approaching our position—he's shouting for help! Zombies on his tail! Hey! Who speaks Arabic? Tell him to get down!"
"You, follow procedure—receive the rescuee. Have him strip, remove his scarf and headwrap. Could be a human bomb."
"Damn it! I'm hit! Medic!"
...
Gunfire and shouted orders interlaced across the chaotic streets.
Tat-tat! Carlos crouched at the corner, glancing at Jill, who matched his pace flawlessly—if not faster.
"Where were we?" he asked casually.
"Oh right—the esteemed Interim Council and what they're up to," he continued, swapping magazines mid-conversation to lighten the tension. "Probably got so high off skimming Baghdad they forgot which side they're on."
"Fuck off! Say something useful," Jill snapped, swearing back without hesitation.
It felt almost nostalgic—like the old days in Raccoon City, back-to-back again.
Carlos didn't take offense. "Don't get reckless, beautiful. Between Saddam's fall and the Coalition's takeover, Iraq was in full-blown anarchy. No one knows how many weapons slipped into civilian hands."
He paused briefly before adding, "There's another theory—that before his capture, Saddam ordered his supporters to 'scatter and blend,' stash weapons, go guerrilla, bide their time to rise again. The hardliners are still out there—"
Before he could finish—
A soldier at the front shouted, pointing toward a tan-brick building ahead: "Eleven o'clock, 150 meters—third-floor window! Enemy sniper and grenade team!"
In an instant, the street lit up with muzzle flashes. Dozens of bullets ripped through the air toward the target.
Precision didn't matter—volume did.
Then—whoosh! From the pockmarked wall's breach, a flash of fire streaked out.
"RPG!!" a U.S. Army sergeant near the M1A2 tank bellowed.
But Militech's M.B.C.S. wheeled IFV reacted faster than any human reflex. Whirrr! The vehicle halted mid-column, its radar flaring to life. The land-based close-defense system activated—rotary autocannons tilted upward and fired short, rapid bursts. Trr-trr-trr!
BOOM! BOOM! A dozen 35mm programmable shells detonated midair.
Spiraling shrapnel burst out, weaving a dense steel curtain that shredded the incoming RPG.
KA-THOOM! Midair detonation.
The blast wave rippled outward—dust billowing, sand scattering, nearby walls crumbling under the shock.
"Suppressing fire!" the squad leader barked through comms.
The lead tank's turret swiveled, main cannon locking on target—BOOM!
KRASH! The HE shell blew apart half the wall, silhouettes flickering inside the structure.
No hesitation—concentrated fire followed.
Bullets, grenades, shells, rockets—all raining down in a violent chorus.
The militants fired back, but their resistance was weak.
Under the barrage, cracks spread through the structure. On the second floor, a fighter with an RPG took a hit; as he fell, the weapon discharged upward—detonating midair, collapsing the third floor. The chain reaction tore down the entire façade.
Dust filled the air. Those too slow to escape were buried under stone and concrete.
Faint groans of pain and fear rose beneath the rubble.
Crouched behind cover, coalition soldiers cheered as they reloaded.
"Advance!" Carlos gestured to the handler of a robotic attack dog, signaling the push forward.
Then he turned. "Precision fire—get ready." Kneeling, he extended his arm, his EXO-assisted throw launching a sleek, conical grenade with perfect force.
The small black device traced a clean arc through smoke and debris, landing dead center in the ruins.
Bzzz—whumm.
Not an explosion—an electronic pulse.
From the grenade's center, red energy waves radiated outward like ripples.
It was a Militech threat-detection grenade, effective radius ten meters.
Instantly, humanoid red silhouettes appeared on Carlos' helmet HUD and optical sights—some prone, some crawling, some running. Even fresh corpses and buried militants were outlined through walls.
Without needing orders, the M.B.C.S. unit opened fire in unison.
Every coalition soldier equipped with an EXO-compatible tactical helmet—or using Militech's latest smart optics on their rifles, or riding in armored vehicles upgraded with Militech's fire-control and observation systems—could see the targets highlighted by the red pulse markers through their integrated sensors.
Through his scope, Carlos saw it clearly: amid the rising dust and smoke, a militant attempting to reposition was the first to take a bullet to the chest.
Then those crawling near the collapsed edge of the ruins were picked off by precise bursts.
Next came the ones hiding behind furniture or partition walls—some shredded by .50-caliber rounds from vehicle-mounted M2 Brownings, others obliterated outright by autocannon or tank shells, their remains vaporized.
Only when the red outlines faded did the thunder of gunfire finally cease.
By then, the handler had already deployed an armed robotic hound, remotely guiding it through the barricades the Fallujah insurgents had built from barrels of rubble, sandbags, and old furniture.
While the mech-dog scouted for mines, and the hovering drones circled above, several Militech prototype wheeled IFVs launched loitering munitions from their vertical cells, while tanks fired to clear obstacles and sharpshooters covered the flanks.
Carlos' combat group, for the moment, found itself in a rare lull.
No one complained.
After all, war wasn't an FPS game—each life was real, and you only had one.
Amid the pause, the distant echoes of battle rolled across the city—gunfire, explosions, sporadic bursts from every direction, near and far.
BOOOOM—!!!
Another massive detonation.
A mushroom cloud rose from the southwest.
Carlos and Jill exchanged a silent glance.
That direction—Sector 2-1. Leon S. Kennedy's zone.
A suicide truck, perhaps?
Instinctively, Carlos checked the life-sign monitor in his M.B.C.S. exoskeleton HUD.
Leon's name wasn't grayed out.
"Hey, Leon, this is Task Force 3-1. We're closest to your position—need backup?" Carlos radioed into the M.B.C.S. command net.
Leon's reply was short and urgent: "Bridge blockade—two of them. Move, now!"