No one knows where they came from, everyone had theories, but nothing had been confirmed. Their attack was sudden, fast, and efficient. They flew in from over the east coast and quickly swept across America as the armed forces scrambled to come up with a defense that worked against flying, fire-breathing, truck-sized, and armored lizards. A single dragon could take a squad of soldiers without much trouble. Tanks would have their hatches torn off and their crews torched. Jeeps and trucks could be flipped, crushed, and incinerated. Helicopters had trouble engaging multiple targets while out-maneuvering them. The fighters were the best tool to combat the threat.

It still wasn’t enough.

A single round of 5.56 ammunition that was standard in American weapons wasn’t enough to kill a dragon unless it was fired within 20 meters directly into the head with the prayers of the world behind it. Troops reported that the more armored areas of the dragons would deflect rounds more often than not while the less armored areas didn’t cause any serious wounds.

Tanks couldn’t angle their guns high enough to target most aerial threats.

Heat seeking missiles didn’t pick up on the relatively low infrared signature of the dragons.

The best weapons were larger caliber weapons, air-burst munitions for the flying dragons, and armor-piercing rounds for ones that are on the ground. 

All the high-tech weapons that America had at its disposal turned out to be a disability rather than an advantage.

Protocol, strategies, training, and maneuvers became useless against the type of enemy they faced.

There were no command structures to eliminate, no supply lines to cut, no production facilities to destroy, no countries to make treaties with.

If knowledge is power, the humans had close to no power.

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A raised fist signaled the small team to stop. The fist belonged to Captain Alexander Lee, a Japanese American who had ignored the stereotype of the scholar-like Asian and had joined the Army. From there, his excellent aim and leadership skills had gotten him noticed by the Navy SEALs where he breezed through the intense training and rose to the rank of Captain.

He led his small, six man team on numerous missions with a 100% success rate and one of the lowest casualty rates among the active teams. He had lost three men while they were under his command. It was six now.

His mission was simple: HALO jump into Washington DC under the cover of night, move to the White House, rig charges to collapse the building and the complex of tunnels under it.

It was typical bullshit from the higher-ups, the command was concerned that the dragons would access the building and discover how to use a computer then use the American nuclear arsenal against them.

The extraction of survivors was a secondary objective.

Of course it was never that simple. One of his team, nicknamed Gills had been picked out of the sky by a drake who had noticed them. The lizard alerted the rest of his kind and they had killed two more. One with a smash of its tail, and the other by fire.

Of course, the dragons didn’t get off easily either. One of them had taken a AT4 rocket and was now scattered around the road and another had been focused down by the squads’ M4A1’s.

The squad escaped into the nearby Smithsonian Air and Space museum. The dragons followed through a massive hole in the wall but couldn’t squeeze into smaller corridors that were inside the museum. They exited cautiously through one of the several rear entrances and had slowly advanced to the White House.

They proceeded from cover to cover until they were across the street from the famous lawn of the famous house. A green fence, a green lawn, and four green dragons were all that separated them from their objective. In fact, everything was a shade of green because of their night-vision goggles.

“What’s the plan Brains?” Stool asked. Stool was his codename of course. He had gotten it by being about as interesting as a stool and because he had beaten several hostiles to death with one.

“Distraction…” Captain Alexander “Brains” Lee loaded a HE round into his under-slung M320 grenade launcher “Get ready”

He angled his weapon high and West, over the South lawn of the White House.

The weapon fired with a quiet “thunk” and across the lawn, the grenade spiraled through the air and hit the side of a building.

A explosion ripped through the night sky, illuminating the area as a fireball rose into the dark sky.

The loud interruption got the attention of the four dragons and they quickly moved to investigate the explosion.

“Move”

The three-man team quietly sprinted across the street to the fence where they entered in one of the numerous holes that dotted the ornate fence. From there they went through the few trees and crossed the exposed lawn to the closest door.

They stopped to catch their breath and check to make sure they weren’t noticed.

“Stool, get West wing” He nodded to confirm and went to do his task “Snapshot, East wing”

Snapshot had earned his name by having almost perfect accuracy when making a snapshot. It had saved his life on several occasions.

“Wilco” he went off into the corridors of the dark building

The team had studied the layout of the White House for hours and knew where their explosives would do the most damage. Brain’s job was the tunnels and the central area.

As he planted the shaped C4 charges in the building, Snapshot contacted him.

“Hey, you guys should come to the Oval Office before we leave”

He couldn’t help but chuckle a little. End of the world and death by mythical creatures didn’t change Snapshot’s childish mentality.

“Roger that, we’ll stop for photos before the fireworks”

The team, even though they were down by half, finished their assigned tasks with speed and efficiency then went to join Snapshot.

He entered the famous room which was surprisingly untouched. Snapshot wasn’t in the room.

“I can get used to this” the chair behind the desk spun around to display Snapshot with a smug grin on his face

“Take a picture and lets go”

Snapshot removed a digital camera from one of his vest pouches and handed it to Brains.

Stool joined them as Brains took Snapshot’s picture.

“Alright, back to being professional”

The elite team checked the exits and came to the conclusion that exiting to the East would provide the easiest escape.

The rest of their mission was where it got interesting. They would move away from the building, destroy it and confirm that the building was completely inaccessible before moving to one of several locations for extraction.

Their extraction was a V-22 Osprey. At their command it would quickly fly to their position with 6 ropes at the ready. The team would hook in and the VTOL would take off. Hopefully before the dragons knew what was happening.

The three of them reached the safety of a building just to the East of the White House.

“Fire in the hole” Brains quietly said to his team as he mashed the trigger to detonate the explosives.

Dull thuds reverberated from the interior of the White House and the windows blew outwards showering the well-kempt lawn with glass.

There was no fireball and no massive cloud of smoke. The dull thud was followed by the groaning of the building as the weight was suddenly redirected to weakened supports. A loud crackling sounded through the quiet night as the building slowly crumbled until it was nothing more than a pile of white stone.

“Alright, lets go to primary extraction”

Every planned extraction zone were large, clear, stretches of land that would allow the Osprey to swoop in with ropes hanging from the back. Primary extraction happened to be on the south side of the reflection pool, the team would wait on the west end while the Osprey would fly in from the east.

The trip took a little under half an hour while traveling cautiously. They sat in the small cluster of trees that bordered the area and radioed their command.

“Anvil Actual, objective complete. Awaiting extraction” he quietly said into his headset that was built into their helmets

“Copy that Anvil 1-1, Thunder 2-1 and 2-2 are inbound ETA three mikes. Evac is in four”

Their briefing hadn’t mentioned the Thunder element.

“Anvil Actual, please advise, we are not aware of any element called Thunder”

“Anvil 1-1, Thunder will provide a distraction and then move to provide cover as you exfil”

“Roger that. Anvil 1-1 out”

They waited for almost exactly three minutes when they heard the familiar roar of the A-10 fighter bomber. Two of them.

“Alright, IR strobes on” Brains ordered his team as they moved out into the open field

“Anvil 1-1, we have you on visual. Enjoy the show” one of the pilots said

The two A-10’s split from each other and one went to the north side and the other to the south, heading west.

They swooped in at a low angle over the buildings and fired with their main guns. Instead of the sound of the individual bullets firing, the guns let out a loud braaaaaaaap as they spit out depleted uranium slugs at a rate of 70 per second.

They broke off their strafing run, pulling up and letting loose a string of bright flares. Usually meant for distracting heat-seeking missiles, they served no purpose but to give the dragons something other than the incoming Osprey to look at.

The tilt rotor aircraft flew in until it hovered directly above the three SEALs. Six ropes dragged dangled just about the ground, ready for them to clip in and take off.

In total, the extraction took less than a minute and was executed flawlessly.

“Command gave us Warthogs?!” Snapshot shouted excitedly over the sound of the helicopter/plane hybrid that was pulling them through the air

As the rotors slowly tilted to the airplane position, a dragon took advantage of the slow moving aircraft and took of in pursuit.

“Thunder 2-1, 2-2, we got a drake in pursuit”

“Copy that, 2-2 coming around”

The fighter to the north made a wide turn and started to approach perpendicular to the vulnerable team. It started to fire and the would-be pursuer was torn to shred as the armor-piercing rounds smashed through the natural armor and ripped up the soft flesh underneath.

“Whooo! I’ve always wanted pulled dragon meat!” Snapshot yelled as the bloody remains of the dragon fell back to the Earth

The three were slowly winched into the back of the Osprey where they removed their heavy gear and relaxed in the uncomfortable seats.