User blog:Kadjem/IC Journal Entry: Scarlett - A Look Back

January 4, 2014 - 1912 Hours

So, how I got these scars... Three new ones. Bullet in the lower back, jagged shrapnel wound on my right bicep, and the burn scars on my thighs... None of them even happened at the same time, can you believe that?

OK... Let me see. The Lower Back... Friendly Fire. It was Late March of '13, about 2300, local (Cobra Unity) time.

We had decided to raid a Cobra Terrordrome near the border with Iraq. I, of course, was leading from the front, and we had snuck to without a few hundred feet of one of the entrances. If it had not been for the Firebat launch, we might have gotten closer, but when the Firebat launched, we were illuminated, and a squad of Range Vipers spotted us. The immediately opened fire on us, and I ordered the group forward, to assault the entrance to the Terrordrome, as I had enough C-4 to put it out of commission for awhile. I had just reached the entrance, and as I did, 10 Ninja Vipers started coming out to meet us. I engaged the first two with my katana, bottling them up in the doorway, with the rest stacked up behind them. While I was doing this, my rebel friends had cleaned out the nest of Range Vipers, and one of them had the bright idea to start firing fully automatic fire from their AK. Those things are not very accurate, and with all the weaving I was doing in the doorway, it was inevitable that I was going to get shot. Let me tell you, a 7.62 X 39mm round really messes up your day. It stunned me long enough for the Ninja Vipers to get out, and lay waste to my 12 man squad. Only my second in command, Ajeet, had not been killed, and he was able to drag me to the relative safety of a burning Rage Tank. From there, we were able to shoot the remaining Ninja Vipers, and with Ajeet's RPG fired through the entrance, we escaped. It took me two months to recover from the wound... and there was not a skilled enough Doctor in the Rebellion to remove the bullet.

As for the shrapnel wound, that came at the expense of an exploding B.A.T.. It was May or June of 2013, Cobra had deployed them to explore the caves we were hiding in, and they were destroying any cave they entered. I was on rear guard, letting the rest of the rebel's escape through the tunnels, and again, Ajeet was with me. This time, I had just shot a B.A.T. at point blank range, when the head fell off, and exploded in midair. What was left of the faceplate tried to take my arm off, and barely missed my Brachial Artery, and also missed breaking the bone. Left a nasty scar though. Ajeet, however was not so lucky, as the blast damn near blew his *head* off... The B.A.T.s must have decided I was dead, as I woke up a few days later, in a new set of caves the rebels had moved me to.

And now, the burns... I really hate to think about these... They came at the hands of a Viper, who had captured me, outside the caves, in the middle of the night. I had gone out to get some fresh air, and I had not brought any weapons with me. I was sitting on a ledge, 100 yards from the cave, and before I knew it, a lone Viper was behind me, and had a gun leveled at my head. What could I do? I surrendered. She kept her pistol on my head, as she cuffed my hands. She than sat me down, pulled out a small blow torch, and questioned me on the location of the Rebels. Every time I refused to say anything, she would burn me with the blow torch, a little. I have handled torture before, and let me tell you, a blowtorch to the thigh is about as painful as it gets. Searing, white-hot agony.... But, I did not give him anything, not even a scream at first. After she had charred about six inches of one of my legs, and was starting on the other, that is when I screamed....

Sorry, had to take a break for a bit. It is now 2200 hours....

...I do not know how long I screamed. I have a new appreciation of Snake's burns now. I was never told what the Rebels did to that Viper. I just know that a returning group of rebels were drawn by my screams, and they rescued me. I do not know if I told her anything she was able to pass on to Cobra Command, but I do know that we started to suffer defeat after defeat after that night. It was almost as if they had inside information... All our camps were systematically destroyed in one night. Luckily we had moved back to Iraq, so I could receive medical attention. When we finally got back into Cobra Unity in late September, we were the only Rebel Group in the entirety of Cobra Unity...

By late October, our group was down to 8 people. We started with 50, in September. By Thanksgiving, it was myself and Leyla, a female rebel who had moved into Al-Alawi just the week before Cobra invaded from Jordan. For a solid month, she and I were able to evade Cobra, and still do damage. We revisited that Terrordrome, and she snuck in, planting explosives. She never came out, and when the place blew (Not destroying it, but putting it out of commission for a while), I waited as long as I could for her. I had already hidden from 3 different patrols, and when Helicopters from Crown City started arriving, I had to leave her behind. For her sake, I hope she died in the explosion, because if Cobra had captured her.... death by explosion is a much better prospect.

After that night, I couldn't do any more... I was back in Iraq by the 20th of December.... I was in Atlanta by Christmas... Back at the Pit by the New Year...

Maybe some other time I will write about the good times.... but right now, I can put our successes into the light they deserve... Thinking on all that pain, and watching people die... People whose children I had held in my arms during our R&R times....

Nope, that's it for tonight.

-Shana