W00T! Third Gears fic EVER! W00T!
... Uh, yeah. Just read it. I promise you, it is SWEET!
Oh, by the way, if you have a Gears of War fic posted before me, I will kill you. I was waiting patiently for the Gears of War page to pop up so I could have the first fic, but NOOO, you guys had to get here two seconds after it opened! (don't give me that look! I was just kidding! now stop pointing your torque-bows at me. seriously.)
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The Gears of Gnasher Squad made their way through the ruined city blocks, Lancers, Gnashers and other assorted weaponry at the ready. On point was Sergeant First Class Avery Saunders, a veteran of the Pendulum Wars and an experienced soldier, armed with a Lancer assault rifle and Gnasher shotgun. Behind him was Corporal Raphael Santiago, fifth cousin of famed soldier Dominic Santiago (twice removed), and Saunders' childhood friend.
So far, not a single Hostile had been encountered. This was strange, considering that Gnasher Squad was deep into enemy territory with no support, no radio contact, and no way out. They should have been up to their necks in Grubs, Wretches, Grenadiers, Boomers and Snipers. But they weren't. And this made them all the more uneasy.
Dalton Custer, Private First Class, ran his gloved fingers through his dirty blonde hair. Why the hell wasn't he being shot at by Locust snipers yet? The thought occured to him that the Locust might be setting a trap. But where?
"Hey Custer!"
Dalton turned his head around to look at who was talking to him. It was Private Norman Terroll, better known by his nickname as "Target Terroll." Everyone in Gnasher Squad knew for a fact that Norman had been a runner-up in the Academy for "most likely to get shot," second only to some guy named John A. Carmine, who Dalton figured had probably been killed by now.
"What is it?" sighed Dalton, keeping up his steady pace.
"Just wanting to know," started Norman, his voice slightly muffled behind his helmet. "But how many of those sons of bitches have you killed?"
"What, the Locust?"
"Yeah, them."
Dalton thought for a moment. "Not really that many. About 6 or 7. Of course, my job isn't to rush out in the open and shoot stuff with lots of bullets; I'm a sharpshooter. I'm the one who stays back and avoids direct combat."
Norman looked slightly disappointed. "Well, what's it like?"
"To kill them? Satisfying, especially if you can hit them in just the right place. This one grub, he stood up behind a big piece of rubble, and I just shot him, right in the head. It was the most satisfying thing in the world. His head pop, like a watermellon."
"Really?" asked the young man eagerly.
"Oh yeah," chuckled Dalton, patting his trusty sniper rifle. "In fact, it didn't just pop, it frickin' exploded!"
"Wow! Cool!"
"Hey," snapped Jacob Edwards, a big, sturdily built black man armed with a shotgun and a ton of grenades. "Sorry to interupt your lil' conversation, but you fucktards better shut yo' fuckin' mouths, 'fore I kick yo' asses and let the snipers pop a cap in ya."
Jacob turned back to face the front, and for a moment there was silence. Then...
"Is he always like that?"
"Yup," replied Dalton. "Always..."
Then came the low, gravelly growl. Sergeant Saunders stopped immediately, holding up a hand to tell his squad to do likewise. Not only did they follow the order, they remained as still and silent as statues, their eyes flicking back and forth behind helmets and goggles. But nothing else was heard, not even the wind.
After a minute, Raphael spoke. "What is it, Ave?"
"Shhh..." warned the sergeant, holding his hand out to stop his friend. The corporal complied and remained silent.
For what seemed like hours, the six Gears stood stock still in the middle of the narrow, rubble-strewn street, nervously scanning each ruined building, each shattered window, for any sign of movement. Nothing. Not even the wind.
"It's quiet," muttered Saunders at last, his gravelly voice kept to the bare minimum of decibels.
"...Too quiet," continued Raphael, squinting at one of the nearby buildings.
Saunders just nodded. "Still, just sitting out here in the open isn't all that smart. We're sitting ducks out here."
"...Yeah..." Raphael continued scanning the alleyways and abandoned buildings.
Saunders turned to the rest of the squad. "Alright, Gears," he barked, "Move out!" Of course, the squad obeyed and within seconds they were moving methodically through the ruined, twisted masses of rubble, abandoned buildings, mangled cars and the occasional remains of several unfortunate Stranded.
As anybody could probably guess, but unknown to the Gears, a highly proficient Locust Sniper had them square in its sights.
What happened next was something that would scar everyone involved forever.
BLAM!!
With a cry of shock and surprise, Norman collapsed to his hands and knees, a bullet wound in his chest. The other five Gears scattered, taking cover behind various mangled cars and chunks of rubble. No orders were needed; instinct had taken over.
BLAM!!
Another shot rang out, showering Corporal Vinny Mclintoc with fragments of concrete. He pulled himself down lower, gripping his Vulcan flamethrower with both hands like it was the last thing left in the world beside him, the rubble he hid behind and the sniper that had him in its sights.
Nearby, Saunders raised his head over a gutted, burnt out car.
BLAM!!
He quickly ducked back down, panting hard, Lancer gripped white-knuckle in his hands.
BLAM!! Another shot rang out. This time, it managed to richochete off the hood of a truck and nick Saunder's cheek. Giving a yell of surprise, he stumbled backwards, throwing himself prone to the ground.
"Sare, you alright?" Jacob yelled from nearby.
"Goddamnit, yes!" the sergeant yelled back, breathing fast, his heart beating close to a million miles an hour.
"Ungh..."
Saunders looked over his shoulder and saw Norman, now sprawled out on the asphault, painting it crimson red with his blood. "My God..." he muttered.
BLAM!!
The sniper's bullet richocheted off the ground just a few inches from Norman's helmeted head. Realizing that the sniper was going to kill the young man, the sergeant leaped to his feet and sprinted forward, ducked low, to get to him.
BLAM!!
The bullet whizzed past Saunders' face, nipping his ear. Out of pure instinct, the hardened Gear dived to the side, landing behind a chunk of rubble. Beside him was Mclintoc, gripping his Vulcan flamethrower like a dead body with rigor-mortis.
"Vinny! Get Norman!" barked Saunders, pointing at the wounded soldier's position. "I'll cover you!"
For a split second, Vinny paused, but that hesitation quickly passed when Saunders started firing his lancer at the fourth story window the Locust sniper was hiding in. Hearing that, the Gear dropped his Vulcan and sprinted towards his fallen comrade. Fifteen feet... ten feet... five feet... There!
RATTATTATTA!! RATTATTATTA!! RATTATTATTA!!
On the other hand, he was now under heavy fire from Locust Drones. And by the looks of it, there were at least two dozen of them swarming down the street towards the beleagured Gears.
"Shit!"
Vinny quickly snatched up Norman's Lancer in one hand and Norman himself in the other hand. Like a cat on a hot tin roof, he skedaddled out of there, dragging Norman with one hand while firing at the Drones with the Lancer held in the other. "EAT LEAD, ASSHOLES!!"
As this was going on, Saunders was still shooting at the Locust sniper. The moment his clip ran dry he ducked back into cover and slammed another one home with a satisfying CLICK. Little did he know, he'd already hit his target, striking the Locust in the neck.
Inside the building, the sniper was recouperating from the shot. Though not fatal, the sniper being a Locust after all, it was still quite painful and was streaming blood. Even so, it was going to make Gear that had shot it pay. The sniper began to reload.
Just as Saunders was about to lean back out and start shooting, Vinny arrived with Norman, who had to be dragged by his armor the entire way. "We've got grubs!" he yelled, dropping his new lancer's now-empty clip and taking another one off of Norman's belt. He slammed it home and raised the Lancer, spraying bullets at the oncoming Drones. Saunders turned, saw them, and opened fire as well. Three of the grubs went down almost instantly, all of them dead and gushing blood.
Unfortunately, the drones were now taking cover and using suppressive fire to advance forward. Vinny and Saunders were forced back down to the ground, the worst part being that they had no cover, and little hope of killing every last drone. Unless the sniper was dead, and it wasn't, then these Gears were doomed.
"Dalton!" barked Saunders, firing at the exposed head and chest of a drone.
About twelve yards away, Dalton heard Saunders' yell and replied with a very loud "What?!"
Saunders hooked a thumb at the sniper's position. "Take out that son of a bitch!"
Dalton grinned and, raising his head out from behind a fallen block of concrete, pointed his longshot at the grub's position. He was a bit surprised to see it was already leaning out the window and aiming its next shot, but he quickly shook it off, pointed at the head, and fired. The grub's head exploded like a watermellon, leaving the body with no other choice but to tumble out the window and fall four stories to the ground below.
"Whoo yeah baby!" laughed Dalton, only wishing Norman had seen what had just happened. "You just got owned!"
Hammerburst bullets spraying his position quickly Dalton to get his head back down.
Meanwhile, Norman was losing a lot of blood. However, with the Locust sniper gone, Vinny and Saunders were able to drag him around to the other side of a chunk of rubble and begin tending to him.
"Hang on kid," muttered Saunders, dropping his lancer in favor of holding the medical supplies. It seemed the heavy caliber bullet had passed clean through him without so much as nicking a heart or a lung. The bad part was that Norman was still losing a lot of blood and his body had gone into shock.
"Will 'e live, sir?" asked Vinny in his trademark Irish accent. He'd grabbed his flamethrower, but didn't want to waste anything unless necessary, so he was sticking with Norman's dropped lancer.
"He's losing too much blood and he's gone into shock," Saunders yelled back over the sound of gunfire. "If we don't get him to a surgeon soon, he'll die!"
Nearby, a loud, brutish yell was uttered from the mouth of a massive Locust: "Boom!"
WVHOOSH-BOOM!!
Bits of rubble and clouds of dust covered the two COG soldiers. Being without a helmet, it was all Saunders could do not to choke.
"Shit!" cried Raphael from behind a truck. "It's a Boomer!"
"We already knew that, jackass!" yelled Jacob, as he took one of his numerous bolo-grenades and threw it in the general direction of a cluster of Drones.
"For Queen!" the gargantuan Locust gargled, pointing its heavy boomshot towards Jacob's position.
"Aw, sh--"
WVHOOSH-BOOM!!
What the Gear said next was drowned out by the explosion. What he said next was a different story.
"Alright, that sonova-bitch is dead! Cover me!"
Bullets flew by as Jacob rushed out, ducked low, and began to move like a mad-man towards the Boomer. As he did so, Dalton leaned out and took a quick shot at the big Locust, hitting it square in its bulging belly, though it easily remained standing. And, unfortunately for Jacob, it had just reloaded.
"Boom!"
"Aw crap, aw crap, aw crap!"
Jacob skidded to a stop and rolled behind a car. The next thing he knew, an explosion had sent him flying.
"Aww... Damn..." he groaned when he came to his senses. It felt like he'd just recieved a season pass for front-row seats at a very loud parade, and the sound of gunshots certainly wasn't helping any.
Meanwhile, Dalton had just reloaded and was leaning out to get a headshot on the Boomer, when a lucky Hammerburst shot knocked his Longshot clean out of his hands.
"Holy shit!!"
Dalton hunkered back down low, Hammerburst slugs richocheting off his position. The Boomer yet again yelled "Boom," announcing to all the world what he was about to do. Dalton ducked lower.
WVHOOSH-BOOM!!
Bits of debris and lots of dust covered the COG sniper; the shockwave of the explosion travelled through the concrete block he hid behind and nearly knocked him over.
A minute later, after shaking the ringing noise out of his head, Dalton scrambled to his feet. Dust and tiny bits of debris covered his already grimey face.
"What the hell are you doing?" screamed Raphael from his position nearby. "Get down!"
"I've gotta get my rifle!" yelled Dalton in reply, sprinting towards the weapon. It wasn't that far away, and looked to be still operational. Dalton should have known better than to go after it.
Amazingly, though at least a dozen Locust drones were firing at him with their Boltoks and Hammerbursts, Dalton wasn't hit once. Adrenaline was pumping through his veins, spurring him to new heights of bravado. The thought occurred to dive on top of the longshot, grab it, and roll back to his knees to take a shot at the Boomer. It would have been better if he'd just grabbed the Longshot and dived behind something.
The action went perfectly. Everything seemed to go in slow motion, and those who could were watching; namely Vinny and Raphael. Saunders was busy with a pair of grubs giving him the bum's rush.
Dalton dived, grabbed the Longshot in mid-roll, brought it up to eye level, finger on the trigger, and came up to one knee for the perfect shot on the Boomer. All he had to do was pull the trigger.
Unfortunately, a bolo-grenade had just clattered down at his feet.
"What the hell?"
"For Queen!" the Boomer yelled.
WVWHOOSH-BOOM!!BEEBEEBEEP!BA-BANG!!
The grenade and the Boomer's shot exploded at exactly the same time, at exactly the same spot. Chunks of meat and assorted body parts flew in all directions, accompanied by a spray of blood, scraps of armor, and lots of dust & debris.
Raphael gasped. "Holy mother of..."
A second grenade that had landed nearby blocked out whatever the shocked Gear said next, along with knocking him clean off his feet.
"Grenadier!" Raphael managed to yell as he pulled himself off the ground.
Saunders heard his friend's yell and quickly whipped around to see not one, not two, but three Locust grenadiers moving in with Gnasher shotguns and frag-grenades in hand. And then there was the small matter of a second wave of Locust following behind them.
"Shit!" the sergeant yelled, pulling his lancer up to bear and firing at the grenadiers.
Meanwhile, Jacob had recovered from his near-death experience and was now almost face to face with the Boomer. He just had to wait for it to fire, then attack while it reloaded. The drones beside it made that strategy a little hard to accomplish, however.
"Boom!"
Jacob grinned a toothy smile. He knew his cue when he heard it.
"Oh, yeah baby, bring it on!"
Jacob sprinted out from behind cover the moment the Boomer fired its boomshot. A drone whipped around to face him with its Hammerburst, but Jacob was quicker, quickly blowing half its upper body off with a single gnasher blast. The Gear ignored the other drone, pulled out a grenade, and lashed out at the Boomer with all its might. Slow and dimwitted, it didn't notice him until right up to that moment, giving him plenty of time to dive out of the way.
"Tag, bitch!"
BEEBEEBEEP!
BA-BANG!!
Big chunks of Boomer went flying in all directions. Its heavy boomshot arced through the air and struck the nearby drone square in the face just as it was pulling the trigger, knocking its aim off just in time for it to miss Jacob by the narrowest of margins.
Seconds after this had happened, over at the other end of the battlefield, the first grenadier jumped over the wall of rubble that seperated it from Raphael. Seeing it coming, the COG soldier stood up and revved up his chainsaw bayonet.
"Suck it!"
The grenadier yelled long and loud in agonizing pain and horror, its arms flailing in all directions, as Raphael buried the bayonet deep in its exposed flesh. Flesh, meat and lots of blood sprayed in every direction, before the body finally collapsed, splintered ribcage and sheared spinal column exposed. Raphael quickly ducked back behind cover, warm, red blood streaming off his armor.
Seeing the other two grenadiers and at least four drones coming up on Raphael, Saunders turned to Vinny and said, "Take care of Norm, don't let yourself get shot."
"Yesiree," laughed Vinny, switching out the lancer in favor of his trusty Vulcan flamethrower. Superheated napalm flames streamed forth, disintegrating flesh and scorching bone and rubble alike. "Ha, ha, ha, ha! Die Bitches!"
Saunders ducked his head and ran, firing his lancer at the drones and grenadiers as he went. Raphael was blindfiring over the edge of his fallen pillar, and had already killed two drones.
Just as Raphael's clip ran dry, Saunders arrived at his side, slamming up against the fallen pillar.
"Satisfying?" asked Saunders, referring to the chainsaw incident.
"Yeah, just great. I think I've got some in my eye."
Raphael wiped at his eye, allowing Saunders a rare laugh. "Son of a bitch got what he deserved!"
Raphael just nodded and stuffed a new clip into his lancer. "Flank right, I'll flank left. 3... 2..."
Saunders quickly switched out his lancer for his gnasher. Making sure it was ready, he steeled himself for combat.
"...1... let's do this!"
The two hardened Gears rushed out from behind opposite sides of the fallen pillar, guns blazing. Raphael downed the second grenadier just as it was preparing to throw one of its grenades, and as he ran past he kicked it hard in the face, knocking out at least half its front teeth. At about the same time, Saunders made chunks out of one of the drones, before diving over the hood of a car. What he ran in to was the third grenadier. And it had a grenade.
Saunders was in no position to fire his shotgun. So he swung it. Hard. The Locust stumbled backwards, spitting teeth. The bad part was that Saunders had had a bad grip on the weapon, and the blow he delt sent it flying out of his hands. Still, he didn't have enough time to grab it or go for another weapon, so he decided tackling the grenadier was the next best thing.
The Locust and the Gear traded numerous punches, before the grenadier went in for the kill with its grenade. Saunders ducked, and the grenade's spikes buried themselves in the car door. Surprised, the grenadier froze up for just a second, giving Saunders a chance to rise up and deal a devestating right hook to the chin. It fell against the car, even as Saunders was picking up his shotgun and diving for cover.
The grenadier looked over at the grenade, just inches from its face.
BEEBEEBEEP!
"Graa--"
BA-BANG!!
The first thing to go was the right half of the grenadier's face. The next thing that happened was the grenadier's body was ripped apart by the explosion and scattered over half the block.
Meanwhile, Vinny was quite preoccupied with an overeager Locust drone.
"Would tha' be extra-crispy or well-done?" laughed the Mclintoc, coating the grub in a ball of firey napalm. It shrieked aloud and fell dead on the ground, thick black smoke billowing off of its scorched corpse.
And then the emergence holes started opening up. Two appeared in front of Vinny, another popped open near Dalton's remains, and a fourth opened up not too far away from Saunders and Raphael.
"Shit!"
The nearest hole was about average size; it was just about small enough for a grenade to seal it up, and only two drones popped up. The other one was a different story; from it, three Boomers, at least a dozen drones, and several grenadiers came up. Soon after, a car tumbled down into the gaping hole, seemingly swallowed up by the darkness.
Taking cover, Vinny took a grenade off his belt and primed it. Waiting just a second, he tossed it over his head in the general direction of the hole, hoping to close it up. He got lucky. In the ensuing blast, one of the drones was torn apart and the second killed when shrapnel carved through the back of its skull. The emergence hole collapsed in on itself from the shockwave, killing or trapping anything that might have been coming up out of it.
Vinny had one more grenade. He decided to use it, and threw it as hard as he could straight at two of the Boomers, before quickly ducking back down. One of the two Boomers fired, not noticing the quickly-beeping grenade at its feet. The second Boomer looked down with a confused look on its face as the grenade rolled up it its feet with a barely audible clank.
BEEBEEBEEP!
"Ugh?"
BA-BANG!!
The Boomer was blasted up into the air, blown apart and missing both legs, before coming back down on the lip of the emergence hole. It gave a low moan, and then slid backwards into the darkness. The second Boomer was a little luckier; it survived the blast, but barely. The bad thing (for it) was that it fell backwards into the hole, firing a rocket from its boomshot as it went. The little rocket went up, almost perfectly, eventually arcing off to the side and crashing into a building with a loud BOOM!
"Two down an' one ta' go," grinned Vinny as he switched to the lancer and opened up on the drones. One of them, running at full tilt towards an overturned truck, caught a bullet in the eye and flew lazily towards the ground. Another was hit repeatedly in the chest and collapsed on all fours, blood rushing out of multiple wounds. The third Boomer was hit as well, reacting passively to the hits as it reloaded its boomshot for another attack.
"Boom!"
Now, you may think that the Boomer was firing at Vinny. Well, you're wrong. It was firing at good ol' Jacob Edwards, who was hunkered down with a few more grenades and his trusty shotgun.
As the dust from the boomshot blast settled, a drone gave Jacob's position the bum's rush. The hardened Gear replied by blindfiring around a corner and tearing the grub's head apart with buckshot. Hardly in one piece, it continued forward a few feet before sliding headfirst up to Jacob's block of rubble. The Gear looked down at the mess of gristle and blood that had once been the drone's head and chest.
"Woo, baby!" he yelled at the corpse. "This is my kinda' shit!"
Two more drones rushed Jacob, but these were wiser and took cover. Unfortunately, they took cover in the wrong spot, and the big man blew them to hell with one of his handy-dandy frag-grenades. After the explosion of body parts and rubble, a drone's hand landed in Jacob's lap, which he gleefully held above his head for all the grubs to see. Angry barks and growls shortly followed, and when Jacob looked around the corner, he saw two things:
1: the Boomer was getting very close.
2: the grubs had brought wretches.
"Crap!"
"Boom!"
Jacob quickly ducked back down and weathered yet another explosion. The Boomer was only about ten feet away, and closing in one lumbering footstep at a time. Several wretches sprinted past it on all fours, shrieking like banshees. One came around the corner. Another jumped up on top of Jacob's cover. The third went around the other side.
"Ah, shit!" Jacob yelled, rolling away from a blow by one of the Wretches. All three came at him, from both flanks and the side. Running backwards, the Gear fired at them with his shotgun, taking two down before running dry on shells. With no time to reload and little hope of outreaching the wretch's attacks, Jacob pulled out his snub-pistol and fired five times into the wretch's head. Dead, it fell face-first on the sidewalk and skidded towards him on its own blood.
"Yah baby, that's what'cha get for messin' with Jacob Edwards! I'ma gonna represent yo' ass all over the hood!"
"Boom!"
Jacob looked up at the approaching Boomer, which was pointing its boomshot straight at his chest
"Oh damn!"
Realizing he was without cover, Jacob gave a yell of fear and dived backwards, landing flat on his back. The boomshot's heavy-duty shell zoomed just over his face, the heat-wave it left practically cooking Jacob's already black features.
"Oh, that's it ya' big ugly bastard!" the big Gear yelled madly as he got to his feet and shoved a shell into his shotgun. "It's on now!"
The Boomer continued walking forward as it reloaded, a loud, deepthroated growl slowly building up in it's chest. Surprised to see the big black man walking toward it, gnasher shotgun swinging in one hand, it faltered. Most Gears ran from the Boomers in fear! Why not this one? Still, it didn't matter, just made it easier for the Boomer to kill him with its boomshot. The Boomer felt the new clip click into place and raised its boomshot to bear.
"Boom."
RATTATTATTATATTATTATATTATA!!
Lancer bullets began to hit the Boomer by the dozens, stripping flesh off its skull and sending blood spraying out of bullet wounds in the neck. The Boomer froze, finger still on the trigger, before slowly falling off to the right onto the asphault of the street. As it fell, it managed to pull the trigger on the boomshot, though the rocket went wide and hit the brick wall just a few feet in front of Jacob.
"Holy shit!" Jacob yelped, shielding his eyes from shrapnel with his arms.
"You owe me for that one!" came Vinny's voice from the other side of the street, where he hid inbetween a wrecked car and a chunk of rubble.
Jacob looked over at his squad-mate with an pure anger. "Hell no! I don't owe you nuthin', asshole! You just stole my kill!"
"Din't see yore' name on it!" Vinny yelled back, turning his attention back to several grubs and a grenadier moving in on his position.
Jacob too turned back to the battle at hand, advancing forward to blow apart another couple dozen wretches and drones.
Of course, it was at about that time that Saunders' voice came rumbling from down the street: "Fall back! Fall back! Get the hell out of here!"
"Aw, c'mon chief!" Jacob yelled back, "I was just startin' to get my kill on!"
Vinny cupped his gloved, smoke-smelling hands over his mouth and yelled at Jacob from across the street.
"Jacob, help me with Norman!"
Jacob looked over at Vinny from his position in the middle of the street. "Why the hell should I help you? I should kick yo' ass for stealin' my kill!"
Vinny fired a few dozen shots into the unarmored chest of a grenadier. "Ya', ya', I'm so scared I just soiled me kilt. Now are you gonna' help me with him or do ya' want tha' poor kid ta' die?"
Jacob sighed, took his last grenade, and tossed it at over the top of a car, where it landed in the lap of several unfortunate drones. Using the blast of rubble and body parts as a distraction, the big man got up and made for Vinny's position, head down and gun at his chin. Bullets richocheted off the ground around him, some narrowly missing him and others practically making a point to hit as far away from him as possible.
"What took ya' so long?" asked Vinny, switching to his Vulcan and torching a hammerburst-wielding drone.
"The Train wuz' late, now stop talkin' 'fore I put a cap in yo' ass!"
Vinny complied, hooked his flamethrower onto his back, grabbed onto one of Norman's arms and picked up the lancer with his free hand. Jacob grabbed the other arm and switched to his pistol. Together, (if grudgingly) they helped drag him back towards Saunders and Raphael, the latter of whom was gleefully adding to his chainsaw-kill count.
Now, it would have been a bad idea to move Norman, but Vinny had managed to stop most of the bleeding and the young man was much closer to consciousness than before, but he was still in critical condition, and the two Gears had to be careful not to hurt him or jolt him; then there was the small matter they were under heavy fire and had a good chance of being shot again.
As Vinny and Jacob were dragging Norman towards them, Saunders and Raphael were also on the move towards the center of the battlefield. On the way, Raphael took one of his two remaining grenades and tossed it into the emergence hole beside the pitiful remains of Dalton's body, sealing it shut and obliterating two drones & a grenadier who were slowly clawing their way out.
Saunders pumped nearly a full clip into the chest of an advancing drone, and put the rest into the brain of a charging wretch. Unfortunately, as he reloaded he realized that he was on his next-to-last clip.
"I'm almost dry!" the sergeant yelled.
"So am I, quit bitchin!" replied Raphael, switching to his pistol and blowing the brains out of a wretch.
Vinny and Jacob arrived with Norman, who was groaning in pain. "Present and good ta' go, chief," yelled Vinny, mowing down two drones and a wretch.
"Where to, Ave?" asked Raphael, capping the skull of a Locust sniper that had just crawled out of one of the emergence holes. The corpse toppled back into the opening, longshot and all.
Saunders, crouched low, gave the area a quick onceover and decided their best choice was the alley behind him.
"The alley, go, go, go! Move it!"
Jacob and Vinny led the way, dragging Norman with them, and Saunders followed. Raphael only stopped long enough to pick up what had once been Dalton's Longshot sniper rifle; it was a little scratched and dirty, but otherwise no damage had been done to it. He put the rifle on his back, then followed the others into the alley while at the same time blowing out brains with his pistol.
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Well, did you like it? As far as I can tell, it's pretty descriptive, absolutely chock-full of action, and the only thing it lacks is some backstory (just like the game!). So here's the rundown of what happened to Gnasher Squad:
Their King Raven was shot down by a Boomer as they flew over the outskirts of Ephyra, and they crashed. The pilot and co-pilot were killed instantly, but not one of the other Gears received so much as a scratch. So now Gnasher Squad has to make its way back to the nearest COG base.
Please leave a review. And no, I'm not really going to kill you if you posted a Gears of War story before me. I'll just be upset that I didn't get this posted sooner. :P