0700 May 15th, 2020 CE

0630 Sun 45th, 196 AE

Port City of Filanneas

An M1A2 Abrams from the 1st ABCT took the lead. Bullets pinged off of the Abrams. Rockets landed on it and exploded. The machine guns on the Abrams fired at the shooting elves.

<<<“This is Hawk 1-1. Are these buildings confirmed hostile?”

“Yes! They are shooting at us from the windows!” >>>

An AH-1Z Viper flew over and hovered a few yards behind the lead Abrams. Its 20 mm three-barrelled rotary gun opened up on the elves in the buildings. It raked the windows of the side of the building. Bricks and glass were ripped apart as bullets went through them.

The Abrams fired an M908 Obstacle Reduction round at the barricade blocking the road and moved forwards. Bullets and rockets hit the front of the tank but it shrugged them off. The remote-controlled .50 cal machine gun on the commander’s hatch of the Abrams, a part of the TUSK (The Urban Survival Kit), swiveled to the building to its right and opened fire.

An elf shouted in panic. “It’s not doing anything!”

“Why isn’t it?!”

The elves watched as the rockets from their PAMs seemingly did nothing to the human magipanzer. A chopping noise was heard permeating the air.

An elf in the window on a building pointed towards the hovering object. “What is that?”

Suddenly bullets rained down on them. “GAHHHH!”

“We have its sides exposed! Fire down onto it.”

Elves came out of the windows beside the Abrams. One of the elves readied their PAM. The machine gun on the turret of the magipanzer turned towards the elves at the window.

“The machine gun is turning by itself!”

“What is this magic?!”

The machine gun opened up.

Convoys of American units moved into the surrounded city from all sides. The entire city basically had its back to an ocean.

“We got the windows suppressed! Clear the insides!”

Blake threw a flashbang into the building. It detonated and he rushed inside with Curtis and 2 other Marines of the squad right behind. Three armed civilians occupied the first floor of the building and were quickly killed.

They moved upstairs and quickly cleared half of the top floor. Curtis opened the door and stopped in his tracks. Blake, who was behind him, shouted at his sudden halt. “Curtis! What are you doing!?”

A shot from the elf child’s pistol hit Curtis in the leg and he collapsed.

“Fuck! Curtis’s been hit!”

Blake rushed forward and shot the boy. “Goddamit Curtis! Why didn’t you shoot?!”

On the other side of the city

Issac opened the door with his finger on the trigger. He aimed his M4 into the room. He nearly shot the cowering figure who had their hands up. Issac was somewhat surprised to see a surrendering elf. He shouted to the others behind him. “We got an elf surrendering.”

This was only the third one. Issac slowly moved towards the figure with his gun raised. He soon noticed that the figure had human ears. “It’s a human!”

A few blocks away

Renout didn’t really know what to do. A heavy amount of gunfire could be heard outside. He hid in the room that was assigned to him and prayed that his master didn’t show up to shoot him. If the elves were losing, he would likely be executed to prevent him from becoming free. He also hoped that the invaders were humans.

0824 May 15th, 2020 CE

0712 Sun 45th, 196 AE

A very old-looking elf sat on a small wooden box outside of his house. He smoked a pipe. A shout came from the window of the second floor of his house. “Feno! Get inside!”

He continued smoking.

“Feno!”

Feno glanced up at his much younger friend. “I’m 197. I don’t have a family. I don’t care about your silly little war.”

“You are going to die out there!”

“If I die, I die. I will welcome a bullet anytime. Not like I’m going to live any longer than a few more years.”

“Fine!”

The window above slammed shut.

A few minutes later

Feno sat there as bullets whizzed around him. However, none of them hit him. Either the humans had terrible accuracy or they didn’t care about him. Feno blew a puff of smoke.

A soldier looked down his scope and stopped. “There’s an old-looking elf sitting outside of the house.”

“Is he armed?”

“No. He’s just smoking a pipe.”

The squad leader hesitated. Almost all of the elves that they had encountered put up a fight or were armed. He was worried that the old elf was hiding a grenade and would detonate it if they got close.

“Don’t shoot him then. Focus fire on the armed ones. Stay clear of him though and keep an eye on him.”

House to house combat raged on. Rogers conversed with one of his company commanders.

<<<“Almost all of the civilians are hostile! The infantry is taking casualties trying to clear the houses. My tank has taken multiple RPG shots.”

“You are free to destroy any hostile buildings with tank rounds.”>>>

0833 May 15th, 2020 CE

0716 Sun 45th, 196 AE

An M1A2 Abrams aimed at one of the houses where a lot of small arms fire had been coming from. An M908 punched a hole in the wall of the house. Within seconds, the entire house collapsed into a heap of stone.

A Hellfire missile from an AH-1Z blew open the top floor of a building. Its rotary cannon swept the inside and shredded the surviving elves.

0955 May 15th, 2020 CE

0757 Sun 45th, 196 AE

Brandon McKey stood next to an Humvee. Holding a microphone, he looked at the camera.

“As you can see behind me, intense fighting has broken out in this elven port city. US forces are trying to secure a port for ships to dock at but have encountered heavy resistance. I have been informed that this isn’t the elven military but armed civilians who are fighting.”

A large explosion was heard in the background and Brandon looked behind.

“A building was just blown up in the city. Not sure if it was done by the elven civilians or US forces. Fighting has been going on for the last three hours with no end in sight.”

1108 May 15th, 2020 CE

0834 Sun 45th, 196 AE

The sun started to set but the fighting raged on. Albery’s platoon came to a halt and pulled back for a moment of rest and to quickly eat their dinners. Blake leaned against a wall as he munched on his MRE. “They are arming their children now. Curtis was shot in the leg by an elven kid. He’s doing fine currently.”

Finn sighed. Blake continued. “Also we found a few humans who had been kept as slaves.”

“Well, good thing we didn’t blow this place up.”

Blake shrugged. “Probably acceptable casualties at this point.”

Finn raised one of his eyebrows. “This isn’t a video game. There are elves who don’t want to fight. You got quite a few surrendering didn’t you? They were just forced into doing it so they weren’t lynched by their own people.”

“I know but one day of fighting and we have already lost around 30 men in total fighting for just this one city.”

“In wars like these, it’s hard to distinguish who’s good and who’s bad. Nothing different from what we experienced in Afghanistan or Iraq.”

Blake felt irked by that. “It’s different! It totally is! You know it too! We were in Afghanistan. It wasn’t this bad! It was never this bad! Not every single Afghan took up arms against us. It was only a few baddies hidden among a majority of innocent people. The opposite is true here. The majority of elves here are out to kill us.”

“Do you really want to forsake those who are innocent?”

“Stop living in your dream world Finn!”

“I’m not living in my dream world. I know what war is. It’s suffering. It’s pain. But to resort to killing innocent people…”

Blake interrupted in anger. “The lives we save by bombing this entire place to oblivion will outweigh the innocents that will be killed!”

Finn took a deep breath. “Even if we argue about it here, what will this even change? We are mere grunts.”

Blake sat down. “Those damn elves.”

Annallee snapped her fingers. “This is the best time to strike. The fighting has died down and the darkness will cover our movements.”

The four other elves nodded.

Annallee looked at one of the elves. “Goras. You have gathered the explosives right?”

“5 bundles of explosive mana. Enough to destroy any magipanzers. If we stick them onto the human magipanzer’s sides, we are sure to destroy them.”

“Ready?” Annallee swept her determined eyes across the four other elves. They nodded. “Let’s go.”

The atmosphere outside was tense. Many battle-weary elves rested here near the front. The wounded were also being tended here. Avoiding the streets where intense fighting was occurring and using their knowledge of the alleys to navigate, they were able to move past the frontline. It was a perfect night with the moon shrouded by clouds. Annalle stopped. “This should be human territory. Keep away from any lights and stay in the dark.”

Before they knew it, flashes started and the sound of gunfire erupted. Goras was shot in the head and fell backward.

Annalle panicked. “What!? How did they see us?”

She was soon cut down with the others.

Issac looked over at a dark corner. “I think I saw some movement through my NVGs.”

One of his squadmates confirmed it. “Elves, they are carrying weapons. One of them seems to have bundles of dynamite.”

Jacob looked and confirmed before nodding. “You are all free to fire.”