Chapter 1
Lampro sprints from the door to the room, his assault rifle held close to his body, before sliding behind a crate. He brushes his dirty blond hair out of his grass green eyes.
{Damn too long already}
Behind him his team slides into place. Liz with a shotgun to his right, Amy taking a few precious seconds to move a crate for better support for his sniper and a bit of cover by the door, and Ben further to his right behind some piping aiming his assault rifle across the room.
Lampro smiles glancing at his team.
{The best team one could ask for} He straightens his black hoodie and jeans.
The room itself looked like it should have been from a comic, or bond film. A pair of nodes are indented in the floor and ceiling. With lightning snapping between them. Pipes in patterns that don't look possible peek through gaps in wall, randomly sending a runner out to the center. A large vault door on the other side of the room completes the aesthetic. Lampro glances nervously at that door.
{Just a couple minutes}
"Liz plant the explosives" Lampro orders. She nods moving quickly to place them.
"Ben shift forward but stay right I'm going left" Lampro moved as soon as the words left his mouth, he didn't have to check for Ben, they had fought together so many times that he knew his reaction on instinct.
{We have an army with us but I don't want any surprises} Lampro thinks as he moves into place.
There's silence for a moment.
"Finally an end to this hell" Amy mutters. Her British accent carrying across the room.
Lampro grins and nods "What are you guys gonna do after?"
Ben smiles "Sleep for a week and then catch up on anime"
The group chuckles. Liz gives Ben a mock glare "Well I'm going to do some research. Something that you should really help with" Directing the last words at Ben.
"Hmmm naw I'm good" He says grinning back. The team chuckles at the banter.
"That's all well and good but I'm excited to meet everyone in the coalition. Can't wait to see what come out of that" Amy said. The group grins, glancing at Lampro remembering the feeling when the transports showed up responding to their call. That camp was the best hope for humanity's future they had seen yet. There was silence of a moment.
"Lampro?' Amy poked.
"I… I just want a better world." The rest of the team grins at their leader's predictable response, knowing full well that despite him being only 17 the leaders of the groups already respect him for bringing them together. It has been two years of brutality and chaos, and now an end is in sight.
Gunfire roars behind them.
{Damn!} Lampro thinks.
Liz finishes the last explosive.
"Go, Go!" Lampro shouts.
The rest comply sprinting towards the open door and hoping that they can get back in time. Shots whistled behind Amy, whose rifle was still trained on the other door. They're close, Liz and Ben are on the left with Ben nearest the door when they hear their soldiers yelling at them to stay put and hold that door. They skid back into cover further from the vault. Their weapons trained on it.
A pounding sounds through the massive door and the gunfire seems to cease for a moment.
Then the door bursts, black lupine beasts pouring out roaring and growling.
{Damn! So close!} Erik and the rest of the team open fire on these… things. The Italians who some of the first to respond when they first got a radio set up, call them Rabbia, anger in Italian. It certainly fits these black monstrosities that seemed to be attracted to human suffering.
It takes a few seconds to realise that the assault rifles that have always sliced through the enemy so easily, are too weak, and the sniper and shotgun are much to slow to take down enough. They hold for a moment before the line breaks
A claw strike sends Liz's weapon skidding across the ground and slams her into the wall. Ben charges, firing from the hip trying to get the attention of the Rabbia. It works, but only leads to him being disabled as well, his weapon skittering away. Lampro grits his teeth and glances around. A grenade resting by Amy's crate unnoticed. Amy is barely slowing the hoard as it is and if she stops there's no way they'll survive
{If I can just get to that grenade then maybe…} He makes a mad dash for the unnoticed grenade.
The Rabbia roar and chase him but he fires blindly behind him hoping against hope to slow the hoard. Around Liz and Ben, the Rabbia seemed to savor their victory howling as they advance slowly toward the scared teens. Ben holds a knife in front of him and beside him, Liz holds a pistol steadily trained on the encroaching monsters, not firing for fear they would charge. Lampro is almost to the door when he sees a figure.
"Amy!" He yells. She twists backwards but the figure catches her gun with one hand, crushing it, as he hoisted her by the front of her shirt with the other. Lampro fires him only to have the figure blur and cross the distance faster than he thought possible. His weapon is slammed out of his hand in an instant and he slams against the wall.
A bang sounds from the other side of the room as Liz finally fires. One of the smarter Rabbia smashes the gun away and uses the momentum to bring his claw to the ready before bring them down blindingly fast. Ben pivots into the way and as it comes down...
"Enough" The word is so quiet that he could barely hear it over the din of claws on steel but every Rabbia in the room stops. Ben stands in front of Liz calmly staring down the claw he had almost taken. The figure's head swivels to Lampro and speaks at a more normal volume.
"So you're the leader." His tone brokers no argument, contempt, dominance, and blood lust vying for control in it. The giant almost casually tosses Amy across the room to Ben and Liz, narrowly avoiding the lightning in the center, her swearing only pauses when she hits the wall. He picks up Lampro bringing him to eye level. Pale. His face is so pale but his hair is the opposite a deep never ending black that's cut short. Lampro stares into his eyes refusing to back down even as the scarlet orbs scream of bloodshed and death.
"You don't look like much but after so many setbacks I suppose you do deserve punishment." The voice comes again dripping with contempt.
Lampro mind is reeling {Kick his face? no he can LITERALLY CRUSH METAL. Um... That pistol! On his belt!} But his thoughts cease when pale giant looks at his friends, his face splitting into a smile.
"Line them up" He orders in that strange, soft voice from before.
{NO NO NO} Lampro roars in his head while pounding frantically trying to do something. At some point his mouth opens and he's talking offering the giant everything he has from his belongings to swearing his servitude.
The Rabbia line them up.
Amy struggles and swears, Ben catches Lampro's eye and gives him a nod that only starts him fighting even harder and Liz... she just looks at him with a small, sad smile.
The giant turns his predatory grin to Lampro. He savors Lampro's terror, his pleas for a moment then
"The price of failure" He pulls his pistol.
BANG
BANG
BANG
There's silence. Lampro hangs from the giant's grip limp. The demon drops him, shooting him once in the gut offhandedly before striding out of the room. He doesn't even jerk when the bullet pierces him. The Rabbia follow the giant, their claws clattering in the sudden, empty silence. There is strangely no gun shots or even explosions.
Just silence,
thick,
heavy,
silence.
Lampro staggers to his feet, the grief having more effect on his stumble than the wound. Then stumbles toward his friends.
{We'll die together.} Tears are beginning to form as he gets closer. Liz is the closest. Laying on her side with one arm stretched out to the left. Ben lies on his back next to her his face calm. Amy's propped up against the wall staring hatred towards the floor. She was the last to fall. Lampro stumbles closer. His head lolls.
Liz gurgles.
Lampro's head jerks up. She extends her hand a little, barely able to lift it. A hand that holds the detonator. She looks at him a smile on her lips even as her life blood pools around her. It takes her a second but finally she rasps out.
"Take it and get out"
Lampro shifts his course, stumbling to kneel next to her. His hands are clumsy as he takes the small cylinder from her grasp. He watches as Liz nods and her eyes slowly fade.
True silence reigns again. Lampro stares down at his hand.
{Take it and get out} He can't leave. Not now... not... ever. He promised never again would another friend die. And it had been broken. It had been broken again.
{Never again.}
"I'm sorry."
He presses the button.
It takes a second, as he kneels tears truly start streaming down his face. He looks up at the bombs, at the two chemicals mixing.
"I'm so sorry"
The world goes white.