Alex Rider walked quietly down the hall,
MP 443 Grach silenced in hand. He paused at the end of the hallway, waiting for the footsteps he knew were coming.
As he had expected, soon enough there were the footsteps, barely perceptible coming his way. The silent footsteps were the sign of a wetwork specialist, probably from the Phantom section.
He steeled himself, weapon aimed at chest height, ready to fire .
Just as the man rounded the corner, he pulled the trigger, firing two shots.The first to the chest, the second to the head, then caught the man before he could fall and eased him to the floor.
He then proceeded down the hall, and into the stairway.
Two sets of footsteps, from below, coming up rapidly. He estimated at least two enemies, maybe more and acted accordingly.
Pulling out a ballistic knife, he crouched down , aiming at the stairway below.
Two men came up, armed with Silenced MP7 SMGs He waited for the both of them to climb the last stair below , then sprang into action .
He fired the ballistic knife straight into the skull of the first man , then shot the second with the entirety of his gun's ammunition.
Quickly reloading, and pulling out another ballistic knife, he rapidly went down the stairway .
Reaching the ground floor, he paused before the exit door and listened .
He quickly realised he was in for a fight. Judging by the footsteps , there was at least a few more gunmen , if not more .
Time to bring out the gadgets. After all, what better way to get back at MI6 than through their own tools.
He pulled out a what looked like a baseball ball from his pocket and then pressed a hidden switch.
The ball was a cluster grenade. Consisting of a liquid explosive gel condensed inside small pellets, and a single high explosive pellet in the middle, the explosive radius of the grenade was twenty meters.
After he had killed Alan Blunt, he had used the code provided by Smithers to steal some gadgets, including this. The gadgets had helped him survive well over ten hit squads sent by MI6 to kill him, and this was his last remaining gadget.
The hidden switch activated the timer, starting the pellet formation as well as the ignition process for the HE pellet.
Alex braced himself by the door, then swiftly in one move he opened the door, lobbed the grenade outside towards the sound of the enemies and then swiftly closed the door and took cover beside it.
The delayed timer on the grenade finished counting down to zero, and detonated right in the middle of the group of gunmen. First the explosive detonated throwing them away with the blast, outright killing some and wounding the rest . Then ejected by the blast, the pellets of liquid explosive went all around, before exploding in mid air and the ground, tearing and burning more gunmen .
Alex waited for the explosion to stop, then breached through the door pistol and knife ready, rolling. Coming up from the roll, he sighted upon the opposition, and started moving and shooting, paying no heed to the carnage created by the explosion. He finished his enemies on the move, sparing no one. Wounded got a single shot to the head and the rest got two.
He headed straight for the side exit, and barged through, coming upon another squad .
He fired rapidly, dropping two another with his knife, before they got him .
A single bullet to the knee dropped him to the floor, pain flooding his body and mind.
He watched as the gunman came, pistol in and cursed MI6, realising he was going to die. The gunman came to a stop in front of him and he said his goodbyes to Jack.
The gunman pulled the trigger. The 9mm bullet traveled less than a feet, entering his skull near the front. It shattered and splintered, causing massive bleeds and tearing his brain into pieces.
By then Alex was already dead.
Then he woke up.
~ Terrum~
Commander Irkish Ria Shepard was falling down, once again in re-entry, reminiscent of her earlier fall. She was without a weapon, except for her omni tool, and her Collector Armour was shredded at several places, which even its upgraded nano repair function would take a long time to repair. Ordinarily thus, she would have been turned to mush by now. However, a closer look would show the strange colorless forcefield that protected her from the effects of re-entry. This also kept the unconscious Shepard alive, as her helmet was gone.
It was this forcefield that kept her alive as she touched down with the force of a meteor, leaving a crater on the ground.
Soon after she woke, groaning in pain as she got up. Once she was alert, with a practiced motion of a soldier she checked herself for injuries. There were a few minor ones. Except for where the bastard shot me.
She looked around, stopping when she saw a boy, about 16 lying in a crater just like hers, to her left.
She slowly made her way to him, alert for any danger. The boy was unconscious, and considering the crater, which she assumed was from re- entry, she would have been more suspicious if he wasn't.
Seeing that he had a wound in his leg, she checked to make sure her omni tool was still working.
The blue coloured holographic display sprang into life, easily responding to her touch. Good, at least I'm not defenceless.
She scanned his leg, and to her surprise found a bullet, like one used before mass effect technology was discovered.
Deciding to remove the bullet before it could cause infections, she flashforged a omni extractor, then use it to pull the bullet out and stemmed the bleeding. Then she tore a piece of his shirt and wrapped it around the entry and exit wound, sealing it with omni gel.
She backed away as he started to wake, giving him space.
~ Terrum~
Alex woke up, briefly wondering where he was. Then everything came back to him in a rush. The attack, the gunfight and then the gunman shooting him and his death.
I was fucking dead. His mind screamed, panicking, hands and legs trembling. His instincts honed from the multiple combat training regimes he had gone through during his reluctant service to MI6 and several of its worldwide counterparts, kicked in. Realising the signs of the beginning of shock, he quickly started on his breathing exercises, designed to calm his mind and slow his heartbeat and breathing.
After doing the exercises for several minutes, the trembling on his body stopped, and his heartbeat and breathing rate came down to just about the normal.
He used his calm state of mind to analyze his surroundings and himself.
He immediately saw the woman near to his right, wearing strange chitinous armour. Seeing him composed, she asked him in a soft but clear voice
" Are you alright?"
" Yes. " though i shouldn't be he thought to himself. He started to get up when she spoke again.
" Careful, you've a wound in your leg. I've removed the bullet and stemmed the bleeding but you should take it easy".
Getting up, He balanced himself. " I'm fine. Who are you?"
Shepard looked at the young man carefully. He was dressed in old fashioned armor, had pockets clearly meant for either weapons or equipment on his belt and he had wounds that could only happen from a fight. The gun wound just confirmed it. This youngster was a warrior. He was too disciplined to be a gangster, and even a odd child soldier.
" Name's Shepard. Who are you?"
" Alex Rider. You have any clue as to how we got here? " he asked, looking around at the surrounding.
" Immediately, from Orbit, but before that i don't know" maybe the catalyst had something to do with that, that slimy bastard she thought to herself. She also noticed the way Alex's eyes kept checking the surroundings of the crater, a fairly dense wood. She herself noticed the thinner edged on some parts and what looked like a path at one edge towards their east.
Before they could chat further however, a roar came from the direction of the path. Shepard immediately tensed, shifting herself to a combat stance, and bringing up her omni tool arsenal, ready to fire. She saw Alex get into a more martial arts stance, one she recognised as a stance from Sambo.
Alex gritted his teeth as he switched to his combat stance just after the roar. He had already seen Shepard getting into the stance.
Within seconds, a grotesque humonoid came out of the path. It was short, about 5 ft and slimy in appearance. It stopped when it saw them or rather sensed them, consider it had no eyes to speak off, then let off another growling roar, revealing two rows of spike like teeths , beforearged at them.
Shit. Its fast Alex thought, before backing away from the creature, adrenaline pumping extra fast, preventing any musings on the strangeness of it.
Shepard saw Alex back away, as she recovered from her shock, then sighted upon the creature. It was running fast, as fast as the husks back in home. She brought up a Incinerate charge then fired it straight at the creature.
The creature let out a shriek as it got hit by the fireball, before burning away.
Shepard sighed. At least it is easy to kill. Honestly what's with husk like creatures and me.
She was brought out of her musing by dozens of more growls, then even more. This was followed by a veritable horde of the creatures charging at them. Musks maybe? She mused as she ran to Alex, stopping only to grab him by the elbow and run once again.
Alex was shocked. That didn't of course prevent him from starting to run, as Shepard grabbed him and started running once again. What the heck is happening, what are the fuck in the world are these creatures. Where the fuck am i? And who the hell is this woman?
Alex couldn't find a answer as they disappeared north west, into the forest.
~Terrum.~
Shepard was tired. They'd been running through the forest, being chased by the Musks, as she had officially named them, although for the last couple of hours, it was more her dragging Alex, than him running. By her estimate, it had been about 6 hours, and she would have been exhausted to, except for her Cerberus made cybernetics enhancements. Occasionally she would stop to thin the horde and then keep running. Problem is they have the whole bloody forest infested. She thought to herself as they stopped once again, Alex falling down on the ground, exhausted beyond limit. He would have been exhausted even more, if not for the adrenaline booster she had administered every hour or so. Although a traditional adrenaline booster would have been detrimental to take more than one in a day, these short hour long boosters made by the Turians were designed to deliver nutrients as well as adrenaline at the same time. The Alliance had reverse engineered it to work for humans, and issued it to N7s and marines.
She looked around, noticing the sound of the horde coming closer. By her estimate she had five minutes, maybe less. She administered another stim to herself, and then one to Alex.
Then she used a omni blade to cut branches down, hopefully slowing them down.
She went back to Alex, helped him get back on his feet, noting his increasingly haggard face, which she was quite sure was reflected in her own. If we don't find someway to drive away the Musks or find shelter, we're fucked.
At around the time one minute of her five minute estimate, they started running, only stopping for a moment as she fired a Incinerate into the branches and the underbrush, hopefully setting them on fire, and slowing them down.
At this point the crashing could be heard quite close, as the Musks horde chased after them quite literally with everything they had.
They ran and ran, and just as they were about to give up and stand their ground, Shepard saw smoke, coming from a little distance ahead. But glancing at their state, she realised they might as well had been miles away. They couldn't run anymore, not at their state. What i wouldn't give for Joker's voice over the radio and Normandy at the skies.
Shaking her thoughts away, she injected herself with the last combat stims, picked up the now passed out Alex, and started running, her lungs burning with the effort to provide oxygen to her rapidly giving up muscles.
Five minutes later, she could run no more. She could hear the Musks charging… Then a shout brought up her sagging head up.
She saw a woman, with what looked like pointy ears saying something to her and then promptly fell down, unconscious.