The hum of projectors buzzed low and steady in the thick, smoke-laden air. The scent of stale coffee, sweat, and oil in the underground command room clung to the concrete walls like a second skin. Men in black tactical gear filled the folding chairs, their armour creaking, their weapons heavy across their chests—the elite.
At the centre of it all, seated side by side as always, were Frank Armstrong and Bruce Redford — the Army of Two.
Frank leaned back, arms crossed, helmet resting on his lap, his sharp blue eyes focused on the massive holographic map projected onto the far wall. Beside him, Bruce shifted slightly in his seat, the reinforced steel frame groaning under his enormous weight, his expression a deep, unreadable scowl.
Around them sat the best special operations forces the government had ever quietly assembled.
The Specters — shadows in human skin, faces hidden by adaptive camo masks. The Grey Wardens — walls of muscle and steel, their heavy armour scuffed from countless battlefields. The Ghosts — lean, silent, deadly, eyes always moving. The Black Hand — saboteurs and assassins, breathing patience and death. Foxhound — experimental operators, part man, part machine. Task Force 141 — classic war dogs, weathered but unbroken.
Each unit sat grouped, weapons ready, faces grim but eager. They had all received the same call. The same final orders.
At the front of the room, standing like a mountain wrapped in general's stripes, was General Arnold Briggs — the legendary "Bulldog."
His eyes, hard as granite, scanned the room with predatory calm.
No greetings and no pleasantries.
Only war.
He jabbed a gloved finger at the map, where a satellite feed displayed a crumbling fortress buried deep in the Vermont mountains.
"Fort Blackridge," Briggs growled. His voice was low, gravel-thick, made to command.
"Cold War relic. Abandoned, forgotten, nothing but dust and rats. Or so we thought."
He clicked a remote. The feed changed — blurry drone footage of armoured convoys and mass gatherings.
"Three gangs," he said. "The Black Brotherhood. The Musicians Cartel. The Red Lions."
He let the names hang heavy in the air.
"They're meeting. Tonight. If they unite, it'll make Afghanistan look like a tea party. Washington won't admit it publicly, but you're looking at the biggest domestic threat since the Civil War."
The tension thickened. No one spoke.
Briggs clicked again — thermal imagery now, showing concentrations of heat signatures moving inside the fortress.
Hundreds.
Maybe more.
"You've got orders straight from the Oval Office," Briggs continued. "The president wants this dealt with quietly, surgically, and permanently."
He paused, letting his words hammer home.
"You are weapons-free. No quarter. No surrender. You see a heartbeat, you end it."
Frank glanced at Bruce. Both men nodded slightly.
No hesitation.
This was what they were made for.
Briggs snapped the projector off, plunging the room into semi-darkness broken only by the glow of weapon scopes and HUD readouts.
"You launch at 0200. Stealth insertion. Heavy resistance is expected, but nothing you can't handle. Prison guards, gangbangers, and some small arms. Maybe a few salvaged technicals. Nothing you haven't bled before."
The lies were delivered smooth as silk.
Frank felt it.
Bruce felt it.
But they said nothing.
Orders were orders.
Briggs' voice dropped into a low, final growl.
"You are the best this country has left. You are the sword and shield. So go remind the bastards why America doesn't need second chances."
He slammed his fist once against the metal podium.
"Dismissed."
Chairs scraped against concrete. Boots stomped. Guns clacked.
The soldiers moved in grim, efficient lines toward the staging area, toward the helicopters waiting in the mist.
Frank and Bruce stayed seated for a moment longer, letting the others leave first.
Frank cracked his knuckles slowly, thinking.
Bruce adjusted the massive minigun mount strapped across his back, saying nothing.
Finally, Frank stood, helmet in hand.
"You feel it too," he muttered under his breath.
Bruce gave a small grunt, a nod.
Something was wrong.
The whole thing stank like rot under new paint.
But it didn't matter.
They had a mission.
They had a promise.
They were the Army of Two.
And they would see it through no matter what waited at Fort Blackridge.
Together and outside, the storm was gathering over the mountains when they lifted off.
Rotors chopped the mist into swirling ghosts as the formation of black-painted helicopters roared into the frozen Vermont night, engines howling against the encroaching dark.
Frank Armstrong adjusted the strap on his carbine inside the lead bird and rolled his shoulders, feeling the armour plates shift against his frame. The cabin was tight and cramped with bodies and guns. Men who had fought and bled in wars the public pretended to forget.
Specters, Ghosts, Grey Wardens, Black Hand, Foxhound, Task Force 141 — the best killers America had left.
And at the heart of it, side by side as always, Frank and Bruce.The Army of Two.
Bruce sat silent, the minigun system latched against his armour, and his thick fingers drummed once or twice against the weapon's grip.
The bird rocked as it climbed higher. Snow flurries smeared against the cockpit glass. The pilots swore under their breath, fighting turbulence and frost.
Somewhere across the radio net, an old battle hymn played — crackling through someone's headset — a grim song from another time. "Bring on the thunder…" The bass pulsed low through the steel of the cabin.
Frank smiled slightly, remembering. The old training runs.The cold desert nights. Bruce dragging half a wounded squad out of a kill zone with one arm.
Good memories.
And maybe their last.
Spectres sat motionless across from them, faces masked, rifles across their knees.
The Ghosts checked and rechecked their gear, each movement a well-oiled machine.
The Grey Wardens, armoured in steel and kevlar, muttered prayers into the quiet.
The Black Hand operatives stared straight ahead, faces hidden, hands twitching near their detonators.
Foxhound's cybernetic eyes gleamed faintly under their helmets, tracking invisible enemy movements.
Task Force 141 chuckled and elbowed each other like brothers before a fistfight — seasoned, fearless.
All of them riding toward hell with nothing but steel and loyalty to keep them alive.
Frank leaned closer to Bruce, voice low over the engine roar.
"You believe it?" he asked. "Low resistance, small arms?"
Bruce snorted once — a deep, rough sound like an angry bear. "Nope."
Frank grinned humorlessly. "Me neither."
The flight commander's voice crackled over the internal comms:
"Touchdown in five. Check weapons. Check brothers. No second chances."
The helicopters banked hard.
The first real sight of Fort Blackridge loomed ahead — a jagged monolith of black stone and steel dug into the mountainside, framed by floodlights and towering concrete walls.
Frank's stomach twisted.
That was no abandoned prison.
That was a fortress.
Missile turrets disguised as guard towers. Tanks partially buried under snowdrifts. Machine gun nests along the ridge. Mortar pits. Bunkers.
A goddamn military base disguised as a ruin.
Frank's gut screamed.
Bruce's hand tightened on his minigun.
Before Frank could bark a warning into the comms, the first tracer rounds stitched the night sky.
Bright red lines of death arced up from the treeline, punching into the formation.
"Incoming!" the pilot screamed.
The helicopter jolted hard as something slammed into the left rotor. Frank grabbed a handhold as the floor pitched violently.
An explosion bloomed across the sky — one of the lead birds turned into a ball of flame and falling bodies.
Smoke. Fire. Screams across the radio.
"Specter-Three down! Grey Warden-One hit! Mayday, Mayday!"
More missiles streaked up from the woods, spiralling toward the vulnerable craft.
Foxhound's overwatch drones tried to scramble jamming fields, but it was too late.
The anti-air defences were too good and too organized.
This wasn't some gang's junkyard arsenal.
This was real military hardware.
Frank's mind raced.
The government knew. They knew what they were sending us into.
He didn't have time to be angry.
Only to survive.
The pilot's voice cracked through the cabin, raw with fear:
"Brace! Brace! We're going down!"
Frank barely had time to glance at Bruce.
Both men nodded once, without fear, without regret.
Then, the world turned upside down.
The helicopter screamed downward, rotors shearing trees, smashing through the fog.
The impact hit like a hammer, ripping breath from lungs and shattering the bones of weaker men.
Metal screamed. Fire bloomed.
Darkness swallowed them.
But Frank and Bruce crawled from the wreckage. Guns in hand. Teeth bared.
Ready for the real war.
Fort Blackridge was waiting.
And so was death.
The twisted metal carcass of the helicopter burned behind them, black smoke stabbing into the starless sky. The ground around the crash site was a crater of debris and fire, lit red by the dying sparks of rotor blades still spinning uselessly in the mud.
Frank pulled himself upright, coughing smoke from his lungs, blood trickling down his forehead.
His armour was battered, cracked at the edges, but still intact.
Bruce emerged beside him — a mountain in shattered plate, hauling the mangled minigun mount from the wreckage like a man pulling his sword from a dead dragon.
The courtyard of Fort Blackridge lay ahead of them.
Concrete split by centuries of frost and neglect. Half-buried wrecks — school buses, old SWAT vans, even rusted APCs — stacked into makeshift barricades.
And behind every wall, in every window, the enemy waited.
Gangsters howled and roared, firing wildly — AKs, RPGs, M4s stolen from dead soldiers. Some wore body armour too large for their wiry frames. Some wore nothing but rags and madness, tattoos of the Brotherhood, the Cartels, the Red Lions covering their flesh like warpaint.
All of them screaming.
All of them shooting.
All of them were ready to drown the Army of Two in blood.
Frank didn't hesitate.
He slammed a fresh magazine into his carbine and checked the grenade launcher hanging under the barrel.
Bruce spun the minigun barrels once — the weapon whirred to life, hungry for war.
Frank glanced sideways at him, grinning through the blood on his teeth.
"You ready, big guy?"
Bruce just rumbled low in his chest, the sound more beast than man.
"Always."
They moved as one.
Frank sprinted left, laying down bursts of precision fire, taking heads clean off shoulders. Every shot is a death.
Every movement is a calculation.
Bruce went right, the minigun roaring to life with a deafening scream. Bullets tore through barricades, shredded flesh and bone, and sent bodies tumbling backwards like broken dolls.
The enemy faltered. Panicked.
But there were so many.
Hundreds.
And more pouring from the inner fortress doors — gangsters clad in scavenged military gear, hoisting RPGs, dragging heavy weapons onto jury-rigged tripods.
The courtyard erupted into complete chaos.
Explosions pounded the ground like hammers. Tracer fire stitched the night into a web of light and death.
Grey Wardens pushed up the main road, shields locked, SAWs rattling. Specters moved like phantoms along the outer walls, knifing sentries and planting C4. Ghosts cleared tower nests with flashbangs and surgical gunfire. Black Hand slipped through shadows, planting bombs on enemy fuel stores.
Everywhere was war.
Everywhere was death.
Frank dodged behind a burnt-out bus as a burst of heavy machine gun fire ripped chunks from the concrete at his heels.
"Bruce!" he barked into the comms. "We need to break their line!"
Across the chaos, Bruce's deep voice growled back: "On it."
The minigun roared again — a solid wall of thunder.
Bruce walked through the storm of bullets like an iron god, mowing down everything in his path. Barricades fell. Bodies fell. Even the enemy tanks hesitated to move forward.
Behind him, the surviving members of Task Force 141 rallied — following the mountain of a man through hell without hesitation.
Frank popped out from cover and fired two grenades into the densest knot of enemies.
The first shell blew apart a sandbag nest. The second detonated an RPG squad trying to flank Bruce.
Explosions lit the yard like midday.
Frank sprinted after the shockwave, clearing enemies with ruthless bursts.
They reached the main gate, a massive steel door that had rotted halfway over time but was reinforced with scrap metal and armour plating.
Frank clicked into the comms.
"Specter-1, we're at the breach. Blow it when ready."
A smooth voice answered back.
"Charges set. Countdown three."
Frank turned back to the door, weapon ready.
Bruce reloaded, minigun humming.
The courtyard behind them burned.
Gangsters roared their last charges, suicidal and wild.
The countdown reached zero.
The world cracked apart.
The main gate exploded inward, shards of steel and fire flying like the wrath of gods.
Frank and Bruce surged through the smoke without hesitation.
They weren't fighting for orders anymore.
They weren't fighting for a broken government.
They fought for each other.
For the oath.
For the Brotherhood.
Army of Two — until the last breath.
And Fort Blackridge would learn why they were feared even by the world's monsters.
The inside of Fort Blackridge was a labyrinth of smoke, broken concrete, and death.
Frank and Bruce pushed forward, leading what remained of the Specters, Ghosts, Black Hand, and Task Force 141 into the dark, crumbling corridors. The Grey Wardens held the courtyard behind them, fighting like ancient titans to keep the enemy from pouring in behind.
Everywhere Frank looked, there was chaos. Every sound was a scream or a gunshot. Every corner promised death.
They moved like a machine — Frank sweeping left, Bruce covering right. Grenades rolled into rooms before they entered. Three-round bursts tore down fleeing gangsters before they could regroup.
The enemy fought with everything they had — AKs blazing wild, machetes flashing, even homemade explosives thrown in desperate arcs.
It wasn't enough.
Not against the Army of Two.
Not today.
Frank kicked open a steel door, clearing the entrance with quick, brutal efficiency.
Inside was a fortified checkpoint — sandbags, mounted PKM machine guns, riot shields — all manned by men wearing the patchwork colours of the Black Brotherhood and Red Lions.
The enemy opened fire instantly, turning the room into a hurricane of lead.
Frank ducked behind a broken desk and snapped off two shots — centre mass, clean kills.
Bruce stepped into the doorway like a nightmare-given flesh, minigun spinning into a roar of thunder.
The heavy rounds shredded sandbags, men, and armour alike.
Blood and gunpowder painted the walls.
Within seconds, the enemy position was silent.
Breathing hard, Frank keyed into comms.
"Command, this isn't a prison. It's a fucking fortress. Heavy armour, fortified interiors, Russian gear everywhere."
The only answer was static.
Bruce grunted, voice grim.
"They're not listening."
Frank's mind clicked through the possibilities.
He remembered the odd looks at the briefing.The overconfident assurances.The too-easy promises of "light resistance."
The truth hit him like a fist to the gut.
They hadn't been sent to win.
They had been sent to die.
No backup was coming.
No reinforcements.
No extraction.
This was a kill zone.
And they were the sacrifice.
Frank's jaw tightened.
Fine.
They would drag this fortress down with them if they were going down.
They moved deeper.
Room by room, hallway by hallway, and through the fortress-like fire through dry fields.
Every wall was rigged with traps — tripwires on the stairs, grenades hidden in wall niches, makeshift mines buried under rugs.
Frank spotted them first, guiding the teams around with sharp gestures and cold efficiency.
Ghosts covered the rear, shotguns roaring in the tight spaces.
Black Hand planted charges as they advanced, prepping every hallway they passed for future collapse.
Foxhound sniper teams marked enemies through concrete walls, calling in shots with eerie precision.
But the deeper they pushed, the worse it got.
The gangs fought harder underground — not out of courage, but desperation.
They knew what was down there.
Knew what was hidden beneath Fort Blackridge's crumbling floors.
Frank kicked in another heavy door — and froze.
Beyond lay a freight elevator.
And beyond that...a yawning shaft plunging down into darkness.
The underground complex.
The heart of the fortress.
Frank looked at Bruce. Bruce nodded once, wordlessly.
They both knew.
Whatever waited below wasn't just drugs or guns.
It was something worse.
And it was why they had been sent here to die.
Frank keyed his mic again, voice low, cold.
"Army of Two descending."
No one answered.
The rest of the teams heard anyway.
One by one, battered and bloodied, they rallied behind the two giants at the shaft's edge.
Frank looked at them all — Specters, Ghosts, Black Hand, 141 — men and women who had fought through hell to reach this point.
He nodded once.
"Follow us if you want to live."
Bruce stepped into the elevator first, hand tight on the minigun grip.
Frank followed, carbine ready.
The elevator creaked and groaned under their weight.
And with a jolt, it began to descend.
Down into the dark.
Down into the heart of betrayal.
Down into the fire.
The elevator screeched to a halt with a grinding metallic groan, the old gears protesting under the sudden strain.
The doors shuddered, then jammed halfway open, revealing a corridor swallowed by shadows and the flickering strobe of emergency red lights.
The air was heavier down here. It smelled of rust, gunpowder, fuel, and something worse—a sharp chemical stink that burned the nose and made the tongue taste like copper.
Frank stepped off first, scanning left and right with his carbine raised.
Bruce followed, his minigun whining softly, spinning with a low, hungry purr.
The surviving operatives—Specters, Ghosts, Black Hand, Task Force 141—fanned out, bruised and bloodied but unbroken.
They moved forward carefully, boots crunching on broken concrete and shattered glass.
Every hallway was a maze of shadows. Every turn, another potential killzone.
Frank's HUD flickered briefly — interference. Jamming fields.
Someone down here knew they were coming.
They were walking straight into an engineered death trap.
Good.
Let them try.
Let them all try.
The first firefight hit like a hammer.
Gangsters in black-market tactical gear spilled from side rooms and barricaded positions, opening up with AKs, shotguns, and stolen Russian PKMs.
Frank dove into cover behind a crumbling support pillar, returning fire with short, surgical bursts.
Bruce took the opposite approach — stepping into the open and laying down a wall of lead that tore men apart like wet paper.
The Specters moved like ghosts, picking off flankers with suppressed shots. The Ghosts cleared rooms with flashbangs and quick hammer blow entries. Black Hand operatives planted charges behind every squad — traps for those who dared chase.
Task Force 141 surged forward, grenades thudding into barricades, boots pounding into blood-soaked hallways.
The deeper they fought, the worse it became.
The gangs fought like demons — no tactics, no discipline, just raw fear and desperation.
They knew what was stored down here.
They knew what they would lose if they fled.
Frank slammed open a blast door with his shoulder — and stopped dead.
Beyond it stretched a cavernous chamber.
Massive concrete pillars held up the mountain itself. The walls were lined with rusting racks of Storm Shadow missiles — hundreds of them, some cracked and leaking. Pallets of fuel drums stacked floor to ceiling. Crates marked with Cyrillic warnings about chemical agents. T-90 tank parts.Rows of stolen American weaponry. Bioweapon containers buried under tarps.
It wasn't a warehouse.
It was a goddamn arsenal designed to burn a nation.
Bruce stepped up beside him, visor scanning the room.
He muttered low, grim.
"Russian Storm Shadows. TOW missiles. Fuel. Chemicals. Biowarfare packs."
Frank exhaled slowly, controlling the surge of rage in his chest.
"They didn't just want us dead," he said. "They wanted this gone. All of it. And us along with it."
Bruce nodded once, face grim under the helmet.
"And they'll call us heroes for dying."
Frank's fists clenched so tight his gauntlets creaked.
No time for anger.
Only survival.
On the far side of the missile chamber, enemy forces dug in, setting up makeshift defences — heavy guns, machine gun nests, and RPG teams.
A kill zone.
Frank keyed into local comms, barking orders.
"Army of Two on point. Ghosts and Specters, clear the left flank. Task Force 141, suppress center. Black Hand — prep charges, rig the fuel dumps."
He locked eyes with Bruce.
"Fast and brutal."
Bruce grunted approval, flexing his massive fists around the minigun's grips.
Then they moved.
The firefight that followed was pure carnage.
Explosions rocked the chamber, sending missiles clattering from racks. Tracer fire crisscrossed the red-lit air like angry gods lashing whips of fire.
Frank moved like a wraith—shooting, stabbing, blasting—a one-man spear thrust into the enemy's heart.
Bruce tore through defensive lines, his minigun chewing flesh and steel with equal hunger, laughter rumbling from his chest like distant thunder.
Specters blinked in and out of the shadows, dropping targets without mercy. Ghosts cleared fortified nests with grenades and pure aggression. Black Hand planted charges on fuel tanks, igniting new waves of chaos.
But it wasn't enough.
The fortress was crumbling faster than they could kill.
Missiles toppled from racks, fuel leaked across the concrete floor in black rivers, and the chemical drums hissed and popped under the rising heat.
The whole mountain had become a bomb.
And the fuse was burning fast.
Frank skidded behind a heavy pillar, breathing hard, blood dripping down his temple.
He keyed into all surviving comms.
"Evac now. Repeat, EVAC NOW. The whole damn mountain's gonna blow!"
Static crackled back.
Broken voices.
Screams.
And then silence.
Frank turned to Bruce, grim and steady.
"Move, brother."
Bruce nodded once, no fear in his eyes.
No hesitation.
Army of Two — until the last breath.
Together, they plunged deeper into the collapsing underground, into the final crucible.
The air grew hotter with every step.
Frank could feel the rising pressure in the tunnels, the way the heat clung to his skin, the taste of burning oil and chemical fumes thick on his tongue.
Above them, the fortress crumbled piece by piece, the explosions cascading through old walls and rusting steel beams.
But here, deeper underground, the real danger was waiting.
The mountain wasn't just collapsing.
It was cooking.
Frank and Bruce led what was left of the survivors — scattered Ghosts, a handful of Specters, two limping Grey Wardens dragging a wounded Black Hand demolitions man between them.
No backup.No cavalry.No command channel.
Only the Army of Two, moving forward with bloodied fists and shattered armour.
Frank tapped into his dwindling comms, sending a last grim message:
"All units. Underground unstable. Evac if able. Good luck."
There was no reply.
There would be no reply.
They followed the emergency evacuation lights deeper into the subterranean tunnels — blinking red strobes leading them toward the central exit shaft.
But every step forward was a fight.
Gangsters scrambled through the smoke and rubble like rats, firing blindly, screaming prayers in English and Spanish, guttural chants twisted by fear.
Frank led the charge without mercy.
He moved like a blade — precise, ruthless — clearing hallways with short, brutal bursts of gunfire.
Bruce covered him, the minigun roaring through the darkness, shredding barricades, sending bodies flying in clouds of blood and Ash.
The tunnels shook under their boots.
Steel groaned and snapped above their heads.
Fires licked the ceilings.
Somewhere behind them, another warhead detonated — the blast wave hitting them like a hammer, throwing men off their feet.
Frank coughed blood, wiped it from his mouth, and rose again.
Bruce heaved two wounded soldiers over his shoulders and kept moving.
No surrender.
No retreat.
Not now.
Not ever.
They reached a vast underground warehouse — the true heart of the fortress.
Hundreds of missiles.Thousands of gallons of fuel. Chemical weapon stockpiles stacked like cordwood.
And in the middle of it all — a frenzied last stand.
The surviving gang leaders — the Black Brotherhood's warlords, the Cartel capos, the Red Lions' officers — had dug in around the missile racks, desperate, cornered animals fighting for their lives.
RPGs, machine guns, belt-fed monstrosities — everything they had left they poured into the chamber.
Frank didn't hesitate.
Neither did Bruce.
They stormed into the chaos.
Frank vaulted over a burning crate, landed behind two cartel soldiers, and took them down with two clean shots.
Bruce charged straight through the centre, his minigun screaming, cutting down anything that moved, the spent casings raining like brass waterfalls around his feet.
The surviving operatives rallied to their side, shouting war cries into the smoke.
They pushed forward, step by brutal step, carving a path through hell.
Bodies fell. Walls shattered. Blood soaked the concrete.
But it wasn't enough.
Somewhere in the madness, a panicked gangster shouldered an RPG — his hands shaking, his mind broken by fear.
He fired.
The rocket slammed into a leaking fuel drum near the missile racks.
The first explosion roared like a wounded god.
Then, the second.
Then, the third.
Chain reaction.
Frank watched it unfold in slow motion.
Missiles fell from their racks, fuel tanks ruptured, spraying flames into the air, and the ceiling buckled above them, sending chunks of stone and rebar crashing down.
And behind it all — the blinding, monstrous surge of fire spreading through the underground.
Frank turned toward Bruce, heart hammering.
Bruce was pinned under fallen debris, blood pouring from a gash across his scalp.
He struggled, trying to lift the shattered beam crushing his leg, but even his strength faltered now.
Frank didn't think.
He moved.
Bullets whined past him. Flames seared his armour.
He reached Bruce's side, grabbed the twisted beam with both hands and heaved.
Muscles screamed. Bones cracked. Pain shot up his spine like a thousand knives.
But he didn't stop.
He didn't let go.
He would never let go.
Bruce looked up at him, blood running into his eyes.
"Leave me," he rasped.
Frank snarled back.
"Not a chance, brother."
Bruce tried to argue, but Frank cut him off, his voice raw and fierce.
"Army of Two. Until the last breath. Remember?"
Bruce's hand tightened around Frank's arm.
A silent oath was renewed.
Together, through sheer force of will, they dragged themselves toward the central shaft, crawling over rubble, bodies, and fire.
But the blast wave caught them.
A wall of pure heat and fury.
Frank had one moment, one heartbeat of time.
He wrapped himself around Bruce's broken body — shielding him with his own, arms locked tight.
And then the mountain exploded.
A flash of white light swallowed them whole.
And the world ended.
The first explosion cracked the earth open like an angry god's hammer.
A single blast, deep underground, blooming outward in a perfect sphere of fire and pressure.
It was not the sharp crack of a grenade or the rolling boom of artillery. It was a roar — a sound so deep it shook the bones of the mountains, a low, monstrous bellow that ripped apart everything in its path.
From the crumbling underground tunnels, shockwaves ripped upward through stone and steel. Storm Shadow missiles, long forgotten by their makers, cooked off one after another, filling the bunker with fireballs larger than houses. Fuel tanks detonated in a chain reaction, each explosion feeding the next — a furious heartbeat of destruction.
Concrete pillars snapped like brittle twigs, metal beams melted into slag, and Fort Blackridge's very foundations shattered.
Above ground, the surviving gangsters and battered soldiers barely had time to scream.
The courtyard buckled.
The walls caved inward.
The guard towers, once proud sentinels, collapsed into fire and dust.
The snow around the base vaporized into steam.
Even the ancient pines that had stood watch for centuries were torn apart, their trunks flung into the air like kindling.
A final detonation — deeper, angrier, louder — tore through the mountain.
From high above, from the circling drones and the scrambling satellites, it looked like a flower blooming — a massive, incandescent blossom of white and gold swallowing the entire valley.
Fort Blackridge ceased to exist.
Gone in an instant.
Gone as if it had never been.
The shockwave rolled outward in a wall of devastation, flattening trees, flipping trucks, and shattering rock faces miles away.
The earth shook for minutes afterwards, trembling like a wounded beast.
And at the heart of it, there was nothing left at ground zero.
No bunker.
No weapons.
No bodies.
Not even Ash.
Only a smoking, cratered scar gouged into the flesh of the earth — a silent monument to betrayal, sacrifice, and loyalty until the end.
Above all, the winter sky remained dark and cold, snow falling gently over the devastation.
And far away, in glass towers and secure bunkers, men in suits smiled thinly and shook hands, already spinning the tale:
"Heroes fallen in the line of duty."" America's last sons."" Martyrs for a new future."
They would never speak of the betrayal.
They would never admit the sacrifice.
But the blood had been spilled.
The stage had been set.
And the world would soon burn anew.
But as for Frank and Bruce, there was no pain anymore, no sound. Only the slow drift into darkness.
Frank floated somewhere between life and death, the taste of blood still thick in his mouth, the roar of fire still ringing faintly in his ears.
Above him, through the smoke and the swirling Ash, he could see only the black, endless sky — cold stars winking like distant fires already long dead.
His body wouldn't move. His armour was shattered. Everything that could bleed had bled.
But he was not alone.
A hand gripped his wrist, weak but unyielding.
Bruce.
Still alive.
Still fighting.
Still here.
Frank turned his head, muscles screaming in protest.
Through the flickering shadows, he saw Bruce's face — bloody, battered, half-hidden behind a broken visor.
But the eyes were clear.
Clear and steady and stubborn as hell.
Just like always.
Frank coughed a rough, broken sound.
He tried to smile, but there was too much blood, too much-broken bone.
Instead, he whispered, voice cracked and raw:
"Army of Two… until the last breath."
Bruce's lips twitched into a broken grin, blood trailing down his chin.
He nodded once.
Slow.
Final.
The oath was renewed.
The oath was never broken.
Even now.
Even here.
The ground beneath them rumbled again.
Another explosion deeper underground. Another surge of fire boils up from the roots of the earth.
They were out of time.
Frank tightened his grip around Bruce's arm.
Not out of fear.
Not out of desperation.
Out of loyalty.
Out of love stronger than any brotherhood blood could forge.
If they were going to die, they would die together.
Just as they had lived.
The final shockwave hit them like a hammer from the gods.
Blinding light swallowed the world. The mountain roared. Stone became dust. Steel became smoke.
And the Army of Two — Frank Armstrong and Bruce Redford — vanished into the fire.
But somewhere, even as their bodies burned away, something deeper remained.
A bond.
A promise.
A spark.
Two souls drifting through the collapsing world, reaching for each other even in death.
They had been brothers once.
They would be brothers again.
Somewhere.
Somehow.
The world had ended.
But their story had only just begun.