So many steps. The tower was too damn tall. Yet Nathan Hale and Joseph Capelli still had to get to the top. Both kept their guns at the ready; Hale with the M5A2 Carbine automatic assault rifle while Capelli used the HVAP Wraith minigun. Hale also kept the standard Chimeran Bullseye assault rifle on his back, and Capelli had a HE .44 Magnum at his side. Both soldiers had their weapons fully loaded and their fingers on the triggers. Years of fighting the Chimera had taught both men the value of being able to shoot in an instant. Capelli even had the Wraith's barrel already spinning.
"So," Hale began, "how's your family?"
"Shut up, asshole," Capelli replied, "and keep your focus on the mission."
Capelli's dislike of Hale was well known. When the Chimera had first began expanding out of Russia and conquering the rest of the world, Great Britain had been hit. As soon as the invasion force started to cross the English Channel, the United Kingdom had asked for help. Three soldiers had volunteered to be infected with the Chimeran virus after believed antidotes. Capelli and Hale were both in it. So was a friend of Hale, Jordan Shepherd. Capelli had been unknown to have partaken in the experiment, or Project Abraham, as it was known. Jordan Shepherd had turned into the now Chimeran leader, Daedelus. Hale had awoken and volunteered to go and help Britain, but was now showing many symptoms of turning into a Chimera. Capelli was a permanent survivor. Hale was also known to have been infected a second time in an attack while in Britain. Everyone knew that Hale was slowly succumbing to the infection, and Capelli considered him a threat already. And would be more than happy to shoot Hale when Hale's "usefulness" had come to an end. In other words, Hale would eventually turn into a Chimera, and Capelli hoped to be there to shoot him when he did.
Neither had been too impressed when they learned they would have to work as a team and get to the top of the tower. The Chimeran invasion fleet was advancing on the American Defence Parameter, and they had managed to deactivate the defensive guns at the top of the tower, and therefore it was up to the two best soldiers available, Capelli and Hale.
"Excellent!" Hale exclaimed as he ran up to a dead Chimeran Hybrid.
"What?" Capelli asked.
"He's an Advanced Hybrid. With the Bullseye Mk II!" Hale swapped his original Bullseye with the new one.
Capelli started rolling his eyes, but never got around to completing the gesture as a very large hole got blown into the wall, and a long tentacle reached in and grabbed him, throwing him to the ground, still carrying the Wraith. What he saw from his viewpoint, but Hale couldn't, was the eagle flying around the tower. Capelli then flipped himself over, let go of the minigun, and fell face up. He allowed a grunt as he landed in the bale of hay that had been under the tower.
"Oi! Get your own leap of faith!" someone cried out with a thick Italian accent.
Capelli looked around for the source and found a young man in very fine black armour.
"Ah, sorry Ezio. Got thrown out," Capelli said, climbing out from the hay. He then looked around, seeing about a dozen Hybrids surrounding him.
"Ohhhh crap," Capelli said as he looked around for his Wraith. Not finding it, he turned to the hay bale.
"Hey, uhhh… Ezio? Could I please borrow your sword for a minute?"
"Dumb bastardo," Ezio rolled his eyes, but nonetheless handed over the Sword of Altaïr.
Hale watched this all from the top of the tower.
"Wrong fucking game franchise, both of you! Ezio, aren't you supposed to be in Masayaf learning the secrets of the Brotherhood? And Capelli, you were supposed to get squished then!"
Neither of them payed any attention to Hale, as Capelli began a series of counter-kills, eventually taking care of all the Hybrids. Hale then got back to the task at hand, restarting the tower guns.
A few steps later, and Hale passed a large, blue police telephone box.
"Wtf?" Hale asked no-one in particular. Right on cue, the doors opened inwards, and a tall man with dark brown hair and a trench coat stepped out.
"Doctor! Wait up!" The source of the woman's voice was revealed quickly after as a sexy, young blonde followed the Doctor.
"Come on, Rose!" the Doctor said over his shoulder.
Hale cleared his throat.
"Oh, hello!" the Doctor said, "Just stopping by to see the celebrations for the end of WWII."
Hale laughed at that. "Well, Doctor, you must be a bit late. The Chimera have cost us pretty much all sense of celebration."
The Doctor seemed stunned. "The Chimera? But they were defeated hundreds of thousands of years ago!"
"Think again, Doctor. And I don't think a sonic screwdriver is gunna help here."
"MY SONIC IS ALWAYS USEFUL!"
"Can it activate automated tower defensive turrets?"
"Actually, it can. Setting 456; activating defensive weaponry."
Hale blinked twice in surprise. "It does? Well, could I please borrow it for five minutes then?"
The Doctor thought for a little while. "No, but I can go with you and do it myself. History's going wrong again, and it's up to me to fix it. Lead the way!"
Meanwhile, on the ground, Capelli watched the last Chimeran fall. When the thud sounded, he handed the sword back to Ezio.
"Thanks for the loan."
With that, Capelli turned away to decide what to next. He opted for searching for his Wraith before more Chimeran showed up. While he was looking, he stumbled upon a large weapon crate with two glowing question marks on it. It also seemed to have music coming from it.
"Ooh! Fire sale. Brilliant!" Capelli exclaimed. He opened the Mystery Box and watched as illusions of different weapons cycled through, eventually settling on his Wraith. He reached into the box and pulled it out.
As he set the barrel to start spinning, the sounds of zombies moaning and screeching came from around the corner. Capelli watched as a man in a uniform came running up. A Nazi uniform, and a maniacal expression.
"Who the hell are you?" Capelli demanded.
The Nazi drew himself up. "I am Doctor Edward Richtofen. Now I recommend running before my children catch up and RIP YOU TO SHREDS!"
Capelli looked behind Richtofen at the swarm of zombies stumbling towards them.
"Your... CHILDREN? Are you mad?"
Richtofen just laughed with a psychopathic gleam in his eyes and turned to face the horde, having retrieved a ray gun from the Mystery Box. He then reached into his coat and pulled out a pair of cola bottles.
"Would you care for a speed cola?" Richtofen held out one of the bottles. Capelli looked at it, shrugged and took the drink. They removed the lids, clinked the bottles together, and drank
"I think the active ingredient rots your mind!" Richtofen exclaimed. Now turning to face the oncoming zombie horde, Capelli began spinning the barrel of the Wraith.
"Do you like my glowing green balls?" Richtofen cried out towards the undead, flicking the safety off his ray gun.
"Doctor, why can't we just go back to before the Chimeran invaded and warn everyone?" Rose asked.
The Doctor looked at her and raised his left eyebrow. "People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, when actually, from a non-linear, non-subjective point of view it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly, timey whimey... Stuff. In general, we are part of events now. If we were to go back and warn the earth, we would create a time paradox and tear a hole in the universe and destroy the planet."
Hale rolled his eyes "Wibbly wobbly, timey whimey? Wtf is that? Martian talk?" Hale shut his mouth at the Doctor's glare.
Eventually they arrived at the top of the tower. As Hale reached the open air of the roof, he heard a deep, rasping breathing sound. He turned around to see a tall man in black, futuristic armour stood with a cape around his shoulders standing nearby.
"Darth Vader? Aren't you supposed to be capturing Hoth at the moment?" Hale asked. In answer, Vader's lightsabre activated. As Hale looked around for a weapon that could help him, his eyes fell upon a large rock with an elegant sword sticking out of it just sitting on the tower roof. Hale ran over and as his hand closed around the hilt, a ray of sunshine fell just around the stone and Hale. With a grunt, he pulled Excalibur out from the stone. Just in time too, as he spun it around to block Vader's lightsabre. The enchanted blade was able to counter the sabre, and the duel began in earnest.
"Doctor! While I'm keeping this bastard busy, can you kinda get started on the guns?"
"Tiny little organ parts for everybody!"
Capelli rolled his eyes at Richtofen's obvious enjoyment from killing the zombies, as the grenade Richtofen had thrown exploded, creating a fountain of zombie flesh. Working together, Capelli and Richtofen were holding out, but the zombies were beginning to push forward, and the two men were running low on ammo.
"No rounds, no wounds, NO JOY!" Richtofen cried out as he threw away his empty Ray Gun. "Oh well. Without bullets I will have to resort to stabbing!" At that, the insane Nazi pulled out a massive knife, which would be more likely to be considered a machete. Capelli simply drew his US Armed Forces standard combat knife and got ready to fight the zombies with it. It didn't take long for them to begin being forced to retreat slowly from the zombie horde, especially when the hellhounds began appearing. But before they were overrun, the sound of a large cavalry force began to thunder throughout Chicago. A large number of mounted troops began charging through the streets. Without hesitation, they pushed their horses towards the zombies. With a break from the fighting, Capelli and Richtofen managed to get a look at the man leading the cavalry. Being followed by two banners – one white and with a dragon woven onto it, and the other with a black and white disk, close to the yin-yang but without the circle of white in the black and black in the white – and a beautiful, young woman with shoulder-length dark hair, the man walked up. He was very tall and had short, dark red hair.
"Hello. I am Rand al'Thor, the Dragon Reborn, and this in Min Farshaw. We heard of your plight and came as soon as we were able. The Shadow will not have its victory here." With that simple statement, al'Thor raised his arms and called up Saidin. Capelli and Richtofen watched as lightning fell from the cloudless sky.
Hale was wearing down as he and Darth Vader continued to duel atop the tower. Hale knew that while the enchantments on Excalibur protected the blade from being melted away every time the weapons met, he was still only flesh and bone, and the lightsabre would slice through him like a hot knife through butter. Over at the guns, the Doctor and Rose were still trying to sonic the defences. Out of the corner of his eye, Hale saw lightning falling from the sky, but there were no clouds. Hale had no time to dwell on this however, as Vader pressed the offence.
"Got it!" The Doctor's cry of excitement was punctuated with a loud bang, and Vader was sent flying off the rooftop as the tower defensive target locked onto the machinery keeping Vader alive and blasted him.
With the work done, the Doctor looked at Rose and said "Well, I think we have done our share." He then looked to Hale and said, "We'll be off now, I'll drop by in a few hundred years or so and see how you went. Allons-y!" With that last, the Doctor and Rose Tyler ran off for the TARDIS.
Now Hale just had to go and see how Capelli was doing. "How am I going to get down there?" He asked himself, looking to where a large force of cavalry was fighting against a zombie invasion force. Despite the distance, Hale was still able to make out one of the banners at the cavalry's command point. A white banner with a red and gold dragon inscribed to it.
"Maybe I can help with that." Hale spun raising Excalibur out of instinct. He was surprised to see a young man with very messy black hair and round glasses.
"Harry Potter? What are you doing here?"
Harry grinned and said, "Luna had claimed to invent a time-travelling spell and no-one else had the balls to allow her to test it on them. Now I just need to figure out how to get back."
"I can't help you, but if you could apparate us a few floors down, we might be able to catch the Doctor before he buggers off." Harry complied, grabbing Hale's hand and shifting them both down a few floors, landing right in front of the TARDIS.
"Nice work, Harry." Hale banged on the door, but the Doctor's voice telling him to hold on came from the tower stairs. Hale and Harry looked to see the Doctor and Rose coming down.
The Doctor had a derpy expression when he saw that Hale had beaten him to the TARDIS. "How did you get down here before us?"
"Harry Potter here apparated us down here. He needs a lift back to the future and I thought that maybe you could help him out."
The Doctor thought for a couple of seconds, then sighed. "Oh, alright. I guess we have room for one more. Maybe you can keep Captain Jack talking so Rose and I can ignore him."
"Captain Jack Harkness?" Harry asked
"No, Captain Jack Sparrow. He somehow drove the Titanic into my TARDIS a few days back. And not the spaceship Titanic, the real one that was supposed to crash into the ice-berg." I took him onto the TARDIS planning on taking him back in straight away, but he charmed Rose, who charmed me, into letting him stay for just a little while. I left him trying to figure out how to get the Black Pearl out of that bastard bottle to stop him from getting into trouble again."
Harry had a think, "Just let me take Mr Hale here down to his friend and I'll be right back."
With that, the pair apparated.
Capelli looked around as he heard a loud pop. He was surprised to see Hale and Harry Potter standing there.
Thanks for the lift, Harry." Hale said, and Harry apparated back off. Capelli then turned back to were al'Thor's men were finishing off the last of the zombies, and Richtofen was walking away, muttering about a person called Samantha.
"Well, that was interesting." Hale chuckled at Capelli's remark.
"I agree. I don't think we should tell Insomniac about this when they make this level in Resistance. It might be a bit weird." Capelli agreed to that, and they decided to invent the idea of a Queen Leaper Chimeran strain.
"We'll say there was one of them on top of the tower, and that's what took so long."
Both soldiers had forgotten about the tentacle that had thrown Capelli out of the tower to begin with, and neither noticed the Queen Leaper watching them walking to their pick-up's landing zone.