A/N: wow, hey everybody. So after, like, a two (was it two?) year hiatus, Allena finally sees her return. I know this story is long overdue, and I hope you guys will forgive me for that. A lot has changed in my life- I've graduated from high school (a while ago, actually) and now I'm planning on moving out on my own. I reread Revelations the other night and realized how very much I'd loved this story, and how much I'd had planned for the character of Allena Duke. So, here I am, bringing back a story I should have brought back a long time ago. Hopefully my writing skills have matured haha, we'll see. Also, regarding my handle change- I no longer have access to the email account linked to , and I can't remember the password (d'oh) so I'm using this account now. Hopefully all the people who read Revelations will find this story.
Without further ado, here's Gears of War: Redemption
Gears of War and all characters and places are copyrighted to Epic Games, and in no way belong to me.
"Dizzy, I thought you said this place was occupied."
Dom hopped out of the back of the pick-up, glancing around at the
town of Mercy. It was eerily quiet, the only signs of disturbance
coming from their trucks- if Mercy had any kind of population, they
kept very well hidden.
"Yeah, this place was busier then a fiddler's elbow a few months
ago," Dizzy said, his accent thicker when he was troubled or
confused. He pulled off his worn cowboy hat and scratched his head
as he looked around, a frown settling on his face.
"People don't abandon a fuel depot for no reason," he said, turning
to face the group. Marcus only grunted stoicly, although Dom could
tell something was on his mind- something about this felt all sorts
of wrong.
"Okay," he said after a beat, turning to Anya, Jace, and Sam. "Keep
an eye out for grubs. We may need to get out fast." Dizzy turned
away from the group as Marcus gave his instructions, wandering over
to a rusted red box.
"Well, shit," he exclaimed, slapping his hat against his thigh.
"Looks like they shut down the main pump."
"Well, the controls have to be somewhere along this pipeline," Dom
reasoned, pointing down the line. Dizzy muttered something that
seemed to be consent, peering down the line as far as he could.
"Dizzy, Jace, you stay here," Marcus ordered, ever the sergeant.
"We'll go check out the town." Dizzy and Jace voiced affirmatives as
Marcus waved for the others to fall in. Dom came in on his right,
Anya on his left, with Sam pulling up the rear. They entered the
town low and fast, lancers up and trigger fingers ready. They could
all feel it- the deep, inate sense that something was terribly,
terribly wrong.
"Hello," Sam called out, her voice reverberating through the still,
dead air. "Anybody home? We just need some fuel!" The path before
them was blocked- Marcus pointed them to an old, rusty door at the
side of the building next to them, his foot crashing through it like
metal through wet tissue paper. Dom couldn't help but let his eyes
wander, picking out vaguely familiar sights that made him both
elated and extremely sick. There were memories here, far more
personal than he'd like to handle. Sam came up a little closer,
seeming to sense his distress.
"When were you last here, Dom?" Her voice came out soft and low, her
eyes flickering across the area before them. He shrugged almost
uncomfortably, tallying up the years in his mind.
"Fifteen years...," he finally said, the numbers seeming about
right. "Maria's family- they're buried near the church. I wanted to
bury her and the kids there, but..." The words had come out before
he could stop them, and they left a huge, aching hole in his chest.
He actually winced, the pain swift and deep and merciless. He shoved
the thoughts aside, a steely resolve settling over him, but not
before Sam could give him a sympathetic look. He only nodded and
looked straight ahead, keeping his gaze just off of Marcus'
shoulder. He needed to stay in the moment- now was not the time to
grieve.
They continued on in relative silence, following the pipeline while
keeping eyes on their surroundings. Mercy was completely deserted,
it seemed, and the difference between now and the place he'd known
fifteen years ago was disconcerting and a bit scary.
"Hey, wait," Sam suddenly said, pulling the group to a stop. "Look,
the pipeline's rigged." Dom caught sight of a device attached to the
pipes, and paled- he knew an improvised explosive when he saw one.
"Stay sharp, people, could be an ambush," Marcus growled, his lancer
held at the ready as he approached the device cautiously.
"Look out, it's got a motion sensor," Anya said, as the device
beeped. Marcus dropped his Lancer and hurriedly disarmed the bomb,
grunting as he finished the work and got back to his feet. Dom
exhaled, relief flooding through him.
"Well... so far, so good," Sam said grimly, as they moved away from
the explosive and continued to follow the line.
"There's no signs of fighting... or grubs," Anya noted, sounding
worried. They were all thinking of the same possibilities- ambush,
either from grubs, lambent, or crazed Stranded.
"Look, another charge," Sam hissed. They fanned out to cover Marcus
as he disarmed the device yet again. Dom felt something crawl down
his spine, and he knew he was being watched- but from where, or by
whom, he couldn't tell. The town was too still, too cluttered with
debris and dilapitated buildings that he couldn't spot a clear
threat.
"Clear," Marcus said, and the group moved out, along a walkway that
showed more of the town beneath them.
"Marcus, we've got another charge," Sam said, having taken point.
She had a quicker, keener eye than Marcus, and was apparently very
good at finding the explosives.
"Someone obviously wanted to blow some shit up," Marcus grumbled, as
he finished disarming the bomb. They went up another set of steps
and around a corner, and were met by the sound of a gunshot tearing
through the air.
"Take cover," Marcus roared, as the four instinctively found a place
to hide. High caliber weapon, maybe a sniper rifle, Dom's mind
snapped out, as he peered around for the threat. An old man in
threadbare clothes stood in the middle of the courtyard before them,
a gun craddled in his arms like it was a child. "Hey, check fire,"
Marcus shouted at him. "We're Gears!"
"Get your hands off those goddamn charges," he snapped at them,
obviously agitated. Marcus growled, and before Dom could stop him,
he stepped out into the open, his eyes narrowed and fixed on the
man.
"Did you rig those pipelines," he asked accusingly. "You wanna blow
this place up?"
"Yeah! I gotta stop this thing from spreading," the old man cried
out, and Dom could hear the desperation in his voice as he backed
away from Marcus. "Just let me get on with the job!" He staggered
back into the building behind him and struggled to pull the door
shut as the others came out of cover.
"What thing," Dom asked skeptically. "You got an epidemic?"
"How the hell should I know what it is?" The old man continued to
struggle with the door, pausing when it was almost closed. "It's,
it's, it' some kind of... fever! People started burnin' up,
screamin' and fightin', going crazy!" Dom and Marcus exchanged
glances- this was news. "I'll be damned if I'm going to turn up like
that, like some rabid dog, not even human anymore!" Dom could hear
the desperation in his voice, how frantic he was, which told him how
dire the situation must be. Marcus approached the door before the
man could close it, grabbing the edge and pushing it back open
easily.
"You better come with us," he said, towering over the man as he
scrambled back. "We can get you some help."
"No, it's too late," the man screamed in terror, the whites of his
eyes showing. "Leave me alone!" He turned and bolted before Marcus
could grab him, disappearing from sight.
"Wait, come back," Sam yelled after him, following Marcus into the
building. "We need to know where else you've laid charges!" Dom and
Anya brought up the rear as Marcus sighed, shaking his head before
motioning them forward and into the building.
"Well, he was, ah, interesting," Dom said, slightly unnerved.
"Well, whatever fever he was talking about, I hope it's not
contagious," Sam said, in such a way that Dom wouldn't be surprised
if she tilted her nose up and sniffed in disdain.
"Let's just follow the pipeline, and get the pump started," Marcus
said, breaking through the chatter and refocusing the group. They
continued on across another courtyard and through a building,
hopping down into a chamber that was lit by flickering torches set
on the wall.
"Oh god, look," Sam said, pointing as they came around the corner.
Dom inhaled sharply at the sight before them- the old man lay on the
ground, his throat torn open as his eyes stared glassily at the wall
before him. "I wonder what got the poor bastard."
"Well, whatever it was, it wasn't a fever," Marcus snorted, eyeing
the man's body before turning to survey the area for a possible
threat. Dom did the same, ticking through a list of things that
could have done this- wretches? Nah, they would have seen them by
now. Maybe another Stranded who was tired of the mad old man running
around and threatening to blow up the whole town. It was a more
probably answer, but it didn't feel like the right one, and Dom
prided himself in having a pretty good sense of a situation.
Whatever was going on here, it was something they hadn't faced
before. They continued down into the sewers, the walls around them
coming closer and closer together.
"Close quarters down here," Marcus noted gruffly, stopping and
turning to face them. "We'll split up, give each other a little
elbow room. Dom, Sam, go right." Dom made eye contact with Sam, both
nodding as they turned to their sector. "Anya, stick with me." Dom
wondered, deep down inside, if Marcus had any ulterior motives with
the splitting. It was more him being fanficul than anything else, he
decided after a moment- Marcus was pretty black and white. Besides,
as much of a brute as everyone liked to see him as, dark, cramped,
smelly sewers were not his style.
Dom could see Anya and Marcus as they came around a corner and
stepped into a passage below them. He spotted a lone figure crouched
at the end, maybe a woman, her hands near her face and low groans
coming from her throat.
"Ma'am, are you alright," Marcus asked, as he and Anya cautiously
approached her. For all they knew, she'd been the one to off the old
man. "Who did this?"
It was a still, tense moment, time slowing to a crawl as the lady
lifted her head to look at them. Dom's eyes widened as he caught the
yellow glow of imulsion, of sickness and infection, a growl escaping
her throat as she got to her feet.
"She's lambent," Sam yelled, sounding as surprised as Dom felt.
"It's spreading to humans!" The revelation seemed to draw more out
of the woodworks, as Marcus quickly finished off the one before them
as she launched at him and Anya. Dom couldn't watch much more, as a
lambent human came running down the walk at him with arms stretched
out. He fired into the creature and downed him as another came
running, and another behind that, screams and bullet chatter filling
the air.
"Marcus, they're everywhere," he shouted down to the other man,
fighting his way through the horde.
"We gotta find a way out of here," Marcus instructed from below, the
sound of his chainsaw revving reverberating through the air. "Go,
move!" They ran through the passage ways, shooting their way through
waves of Lambent humans. Dom realized grimly that he finally knew
exactly why the town had been so empty of life.
Finally, they found a moment of reprieve, as they found a way to
escape the hellish nightmare of the sewers. "Is that what we're
going to become," Sam asked, her voice full of dread. "Former
humans?"
"It was my great idea to come here," Dom said, hating how miserable
he sounded but unable to help it much. This place was just
oppresive. "Sorry Marcus."
"It's just as well that we did," Marcus said, as close to comforting
as Marcus usually got. "Now we know the whole human race could go
Lambent if we don't do something about it." It made Dom feel a bit
better, more than Marcus' brisk analysis might have done for anyone
else, but it still wasn't a lot. They climbed out into the open
hair, a cool breeze caressing Dom's cheek softly as he inhaled the
fresh, sweet air. He hated sewers, and small, cramped places. If
they could avoid doing that again, he'd do anything they asked of
him.
They came into another courtyard, and Dom realized he knew this
place- they were close to the church. He felt sick, and it must of
shown, because Sam was at his elbow, asking if he was alright. He
nodded as he leaned against the crumbling fountain, looking up to
where he knew the belltower of the church would be. He knew it
wasn't the time nor the place, but he suddenly needed to go there,
to find his wife's family and say sorry. To apologize for not
protecting Maria, for not protecting the kids, and to maybe find
some closure.
"We got more lambent," Anya shouted suddenly, drawing their
attention to the courtyard. The lambent were moving in from the dar
side, forcing the Gears to back up into the steps of what had once
been the town hall.
"Hey! Over here!"
The group looked up and spotted a lone figure waving to them
frantically from atop the balcony above, thin and forlorn against
the stone behind them. "Can you get to the machine gun? It's fully
loaded!" the figure called in a voice that was definitely female,
and that tugged at something in Dom's memory. He couldn't tell much
about her except that she was thin and had inky, short hair that
barely brushed her shoulders. That was all he could get before she
looked over her shoulder and moved away from the balcony,
disappearing from view. Dom glanced at Marcus- something about the
female had gotten to him too, he could see it in the way his brow
furrowed, hear it in the small "huh" that escaped his lips.
It wasn't hard to find the machine gun, sitting in the open like a
christmas present, and soon they were blasting through the ghostly,
glowing hordes of gaunt human shapes. Dom was sure he'd have
nightmares about those figures for ages to come, about how they just
disintegrated in a puff of smoke when shot at. The machine gun
definitely helped them mow through the wave of ghouls, and Dom found
himself falling into the old rhythm of aim, pull, breath, aim, pull,
reload. Before he knew it, the courtyard had been cleared.
"Hey, quick," the girl from before called, kicking down the ladders.
"Get up here!
Dom followed Sam up, pulling the ladder in behind him before joining
her inside. Anya and Marcus were already in there, and staring at
the balcony like... well, like they'd seen a ghost. Anya was pale,
her mouth opened in an o of surprise, and even Marcus looked like
he'd had one pulled over on him. He turned to see what they were
looking at, and instantly understood why.
The silence that fell over them was heavy and palpable, charged with
shock and... fear? Dom couldn't tear his eyes away from the girl,
but he was sure Marcus and Anya were feeling the same things as him.
He almost couldn't believe it, and didn't dare to hope, although
he'd never known any other female with such dark hair and such
clear, icy eyes.
"Allena," Anya finally said, her voice small and hesitant as it
broke the silence. The girl only stared at them, eyes wide open in
surprise, her mouth opening and closing several times before she
just nodded in stunned disbelief. "Oh, my god..."
"Is it really you?" Dom found his voice, pushing past the statue
that was Marcus to the bottom of the steps. Upon closer inspection,
there was no mistaking who she was- she had developed a slight tan,
and she was scrawnier now than she had ever been, but he recognized
those eyes, and the scar that sat high on her cheekbone. "How are
you alive?" She only stared wordlessly, her eyes fixed on Dom as he
took a hesitant step closer. With her on the platform of the
balcony, she was very nearly the same height as him. She searched
his face, a plethora of emotions dancing across her face faster than
he could read them.
"Are you hurt," Marcus asked, as if this was a perfectly normal
situation, as if Allena had simply been a soldier seperated from the
pack for a short while. Which she kind of was, except a short while
had been a year and a half. Her gaze drifted to him, and she seemed
to find herself again, straightening up as she shook her head.
"I'm alright," she said, then glanced at them. "What about you? Did
those things touch you at all?"
"We're okay," Anya confirmed, still shaky from shock. Dom couldn't
help but stare at Allena, still unable to believe it. Allena was
here, she was alive and real and here in front of them. How she had
survived, he couldn't figure out, but the scars of her fight to live
showed clearly on her body.
"We need to get out of here," Allena said, turning to Marcus. She'd
shaken off some of the surprise, although her eyes still had a
vaguely shell-shocked look to them. "That was one of the worst
attacks this week. If you guys hadn't been here..." Her words
trailed off, the implication clear. Dom realized she wasn't just
trembling from shock- there was relief, too, the kind that came with
knowing there was a chance to survive after the odds seemed stacked
against you, the kind that Dom was intimately familiar with.
"Are there any other survivors," Sam asked, unphased by the
familiarity the others shared with this stranger. Allena averted her
gaze to her worn, scuffed boots, shaking her head.
"Just me," she confirmed, her voice tight. Dom felt a pang of pity
for her- just what had she gone through, the past 18 months? He
rested a hand on her shoulder, causing her to jump slightly. Her
shoulder was tense under his hand, but she didn't shrug him off.
"Let's go," he said softly, squeezing gently to reassure her that
everything would be okay. She nodded and gave him a ghost of a
smile, and he realized he couldn't find any traces of the girl he'd
met what seemed like a lifetime ago. She held her pistol steady in
her hands and nodded to Marcus, alert and ready to take orders.
"Alright, let's finish this job and get back," Marcus said after a
moment. He gave Dom a brief look, one that said they'd need to talk
later, before motioning for them to fall into position behind him.
Allena fell into place behind Sam, and Dom wondered how they were
going to bring her back home.