Hey guys and welcome to my SAS 4 Zombie Assault crossover!
I've been having this thought for a while, about a story where my OC is living in its universe while several other characters I grew fond of appears one by one. That's, more or less, the origin of this story. So, with that plan in mind, I just started to make this story by myself.
For early information, this will be a SAS 4 Zombie Assault universe X Kantai Collection X Panzer/Metal Waltz. The settings will be in SAS 4 world while the character from the other two universes will be appearing in the story one by one!
Please be reminded that this will be my Second-ever-written story, so please expect some errors, especially in grammatical ones since English is not my main language. (Also, not many difficult terms of words for sure. Possibly could be boring too.)
Disclaimer: I do not own any of these game franchises. All credits goes to their rightful owner as I only owns my OC's.
That would be all for now, if there is anything that I forgot to mention about in this note, I will put it up at the end of this chapter or in the future chapter.
Now with that out of the way, let's get started and hope you enjoy!
Chapter 1: First Encounter
Location: Planet Thera
Time: 00:21
Desert, is the only thing he could see.
Vast desert is the only thing in every direction where the eyes could see.
How many times has passed since he made a landfall on this planet again? Hours? Days? Probably almost a week already. But the only thing he could see is an annoying sight of huge desert plain which is getting old as times pass by.
Name: Henry Duke
Age: 29
Occupation: SAS Mercenary, [Medic-Class]
Approximate Combat Level: 60
Rank/Position: Chief Field Surgeon
Appearance: Silvery White Spiky Hair – Red Fiery Eyes (Unknown red haze hue often could be seen by fellow mercenaries on certain times) – Pale Skin, Possibly Albinism - 185 Centimeters in height
Uniform: Standard issued [Medic-Class] SAS Mercenary Uniform (From Character Selection Image from the Game). Currently wearing a set of [RED][Dragonfly] armor made by Shotlite Weapons & Armors Manufacturer Company.
Personal Description: CLASSIFIED
"This planet hasn't changed at all." Henry let out a long sigh as he proceeds to move forward, in the direction where his mission coordinates have been pointed out to him.
The planet that Henry mentioned above, is no other but the "Planet Thera" itself. It is a planet found by the human race in the Milky Way galaxy after they inhabit the Aartis planet. Thera was made of deserts, more deserts, and even more deserts. An endless desert planet that was used mostly as a testing planet, which is the short version of 'A planet of desert that was used for all kinds of research facility, ranging from simple mechanic engineering, to the high end technology, weaponry, and all those shit while also accommodating the workers in it.'
It is well known that Thera was one of the most successful business planets in the solar system at the time of its glory. But all of that changes when the report of an unknown alien virus broke out among the population of Thera that came from the workers stationed there. It was soon revealed that the virus are infecting the people living in the planet and turning them into walking corpses and undead monstrosities with a very aggressive nature which will attack anybody on sight without batting an eye. Soon, one of the most glorious places in the solar system for its research activity turned into the most deadly slaughter house in the solar system. And the virus's effects were so strong that it manages to find its way to spread to Aartis planet, where the human race resides, and the surrounding space station around Aartis.
Humanity is fighting what seems to be a one-sided war against its fellow humans that were affected by this unknown virus which turns them into hordes of terrifying, flesh eating undead for a long time. Local authorities and government military has been dispatched to stop the outbreaks that are occurring all over the planet but failed miserably while suffering heavy casualties. So many civilians' lives were lost, the police and the militaries are overrun, many countries crumbles from its former glory down to a ruined wasteland, and society soon follows to fall faster than a falling brick.
But, just as if all hopes seem to fade into nothingness, a small spark of hope made itself known in the face of many odds, gaining the attention of both civilians and government side, while also bringing a much needed relief for those who need them. They are a small group of individual that linked their palms together, and fight against the endless hordes of undead with iron fist while helping those who are in need with a soft heart as a pigeon, while also cunning like an owl. A group of mercenaries consisted of people that have their own reason to fight for their freedom and to take back what rightfully belong to humanity.
"SAS: ZOMBIE ASSAULT"
At the beginning of their career, The SAS Corporation had quite a hard time in dealing with the rapidly growing crisis all over the Aartis planet, but soon they're able to push back the hordes of undead from many of their territory. They managed to reclaim some of the smaller cities and towns which were converted into a survivor camp to accommodate those who have lost their homes. There, the survivors are given everything they need, ranging down from food, to proper medical attention for the sick.
As The SAS Corporation became well known, their numbers increases rapidly too. Now, with many hands available for deployment, The SAS began to make their way to reclaim everything that belongs to humanity that had fall into the hands of the undead. Even though the progress was so slow, but the proof of the Aartis's condition is improving is more than enough for the human race for now.
The SAS troops would have to go to the Mission-Counter in order to select a mission, or a contract, as some of the SAS said, that they will be partaking on. Those missions have their own sets of difficulties and time limit, and like any other common sense that exist in the world, the more difficult the mission is, and the more time required to complete the mission is going to affect the amount of rewards one will get. In Henry's case, around a week ago, he went to the Mission-Counter in order to pick one of many available missions that were offered at that time. Most of the missions are not suited for his taste. Either the missions would take too long or it is simply too difficult to do, even if it was conducted by a squad. But one particular mission peek his interest. Henry still remembers what was written down on the mission briefing paper, even right now.
Cargo Retrieval
From: Z-Arm Tech Industries
Z-Arm Tech has lost communication with one of its important cargo holding outpost on Thera. The last Intel received from its last known whereabouts reveals that an unknown epidemic have broke out among the population on Thera and the outpost was attacked by a group of unknown monstrosities. No further notices have been received from the crew on the spot since then. It is unknown what have befallen to the Z-Arm Tech's crews.
Main Objectives: Investigate the outpost's current whereabouts and retrieve all the important cargos.
Secondary Objectives: Find any possible survivors of Z-Arm Tech crew member.
Mission Rewards: If the contractor was able to find any leftover supplies; ammunitions, grenades, strongboxes, hardware, weapons, and a number of failed experiment items, it will be officially handed to the contractors. The Z-Arm Tech will also provide 500.000 SAS Dollars as compensation upon mission completion.
Hiking up another sand hill, he tried to scout out the surroundings, to see if there is anything he could find but nothing at all. It's still the same since the last two days. After sliding down the hill on his two feet, as if skating through the sand while going down the hill, Henry let out another sigh as he recalled what he had read in the mission paper. It didn't really sound THAT interesting, he must admit, but what got his interest is when the paper mentioned something about a 'failed experiment items'. As far as he knows, every weapons and armor manufacturer will never abandon their experiment, especially when they conducted that experiment in order to improve their bad reputation, and it's the Z-Arm Tech to top it off.
You see, Z-Arm Tech weapon manufacturer is one of the oldest weapon industries ever exist. They are a mainstream arms manufacturer from the 3rd millennium that specialized in their Z-series kits and equipment. However, this industry went out of business recently due to newer and more advanced weapons, armors, and technologies from other competition companies. Although many military departments still use the Z-series weapons as their standard issue.
'Can't believe that they still want to post some missions for us, even after they went out of business,' he thought to himself.
His mind then wanders back at the reason as to why he has to WALK to the designated area instead of being TRANSPORTED by the space transport shuttle a week ago.
'Who the fuck actually forgot to refuel before they do their flight?' he thought in annoyance.
Yes, the very reason as to why he was here, trudging through the vast desert by himself instead of being dropped off at the mission coordinates was because of a stupid mistake done by one of the Combot Pilot. A freshly recruited Combot Pilot who clumsily forgot to refuel his space shuttle for Henry's trip here, and now, the later was forced to walk by himself while the pilot went back to the closest space station in order to refuel. This could take about FOUR days of trip just to get there, mind you, because the pilot will have to go from planet Thera to planet Aartis! What luck!
But sarcasms aside, our protagonist better pick his pace if he doesn't want that pilot to land in the Area of Operation alone, which might be infested by those undead, while he was still trudging through the desert.
Henry spotted another rows of sand hills in front of him as he held up his arms to shield his face from the sand as another wave of wind passes by. "God damn it. Just how much farther this place is?" He cursed loudly under his breath. Not like anybody would be there to hear it. After the wind that blows the sand up around him subsides, he let down his arm and looked around him, only to find a huge column of sand storm is fast approaching from his left. "Ah, son of a bitch!" He cursed, again, and then he book it out of there by taking off into a sprint towards his right. As the sand storm is getting closer and closer by each passing seconds, his eyes frantically scans the environment for any means of protection from the incoming storm. Even if he was wearing a mask, a tactical combat helmet, and a gas mask which allows him to go through the sand storm without much to worry about, he still took cautious in case of any random wandering zombies see's him and decided to jump on him in the storm. Because facing an undead in an alleyway is still tolerable because your vision won't be hindered, but facing an undead in the middle of the open ground where you could get attacked from every direction with minimum line of sight, is another whole thing. Better luck with that.
He caught a small glimpse of a brown colored thing in the distance and soon found out that it was a small cave entrance. The mouth of the cave was small, but enough for him to squeeze through if he takes his change, to which he did. He ran with all his might as if life depends on the line and dived head-first into the mouth of the cave, breaking his fall by rolling on the floor, and saw the sand storm blows through and rages on outside in the last possible second.
"Damn, that was too close!" He exclaimed as he stands up to his feet. Henry then went to the mouth of the cave to check on how bad the sand storm is going on outside and reach to a conclusion that the storm will not disappear anytime soon judging by how thick the storm was and by the loudness of the wind.
Henry stayed silent as he watches how the storm is raging on outside of the cave before he brought up his left arm, where a small wrist-watch-like device with round blue light that is emitting a soft blue glowing hue was strapped on his wrist. "ISAC… Tell me, how long does this storm is going to last?" He said to the devise.
The device then lets out several computerizing sounds before it buzzes to live. "Analysis indicates that the storm will last in approximately… Four, hours." The device on his wrist, ISAC, let out a robotic male voice as it answers Henry's question.
"Well shit. Looks like I won't be out of here for a while then. Thank you ISAC." Henry sighted loudly at his misfortune for being stuck in this cave.
"The pleasure is mine." The ISAC answered him.
Henry looked around the cave and notices that the cave, despite its small mouth entrance, is quite huge on the inside which ended up being a small surprise for him. He wonders how did a huge cave like this could ended up here of all places, if not for the crew members on this planet who blow this hole out, then he don't have any better idea. "Maybe natural occurrence…? Nah, couldn't be it. Even if it does, then who removed all the rocks out of here anyway?" Henry stares at the shape of the cave's surface is like before shrugging his shoulders and said, "Better check out what's in here," and walks off around the cave.
As he went deeper to the cave, he discovers that this big cave is indeed man-made. Around the deeper part of this cave, he found a lot of abandoned construction vehicles, several small sized cranes for indoor lifting works, and lots of both wooden and metallic boxes being stacked up neatly around the place. He tried to check out what does these boxes held inside that he could take with him, thanks for the Contract's reward rule that gave him the permission to do so, but he didn't really found anything useful, much to his dismay. He didn't mind though, since he had his own doubt if this, most probably a mining facility has anything useful like guns n' bombs left around. But hey, one can hope. (Bad um tsssh!)
BANG!
The entire facility suddenly shook violently for a moment, shaking off all the dust and rust that it had collected from all of these years being dormant before it stops completely, but not before it triggered a switch in Henry's muscle memory called 'Full Alert Switch'.
"What was that, ISAC?!"
"Sensor traces an extreme heat source appearing near the designated Area of Operation. Analysis indicates that an explosion had occurred in one of the main power plant. Suggestion reads the explosion is the cause of the sudden tremor." ISAC reported to him.
"Anything you recommend me to do about it? Cause' if you ask me, that doesn't sound too good. Do you think there's anybody still alive at the power plant?"
"Conducting scanning process… Scanning complete… The radar captured a panicked biological matter inside the power plant nearby, and it is currently moving around the power plant. Recommend the Contractor to investigate the area."
"Alright then, can you scan the area around here to find some sort of passage we could use to get there?" Henry asked again while looking around the place to try and find a way with his own eyes but didn't find any.
"The radar suggests a possible hidden passage hidden beneath the supply cache nearby."
Henry's eyes widened a tad bit at the mention of that. Hidden passage?
"Okay, transfer the location data to my HUD."
"Understood. Sending coordinates now."
Henry let his left arm down as he took a deep breath for a moment. Then the sound of a computerized system that came from his tactical combat helmet's HUD could be heard, indicating that he have received the coordinates from ISAC's 'Information Transferring System'. A small glowing line then appeared on the floor, leading down to a huge stack of metallic boxes that he have passed earlier when he was scavenging for things. 'Wait, I've passed that passage? How did I miss that?'
"Coordinates have been transferred successfully. Small underground passage has been discovered underneath this facility. Readings indicates that unknown signature with Light level threat are gathering inside the passage. Proceed with caution."
"I hear you." Henry said as he shook his head. 'Whatever, what's important right now is that I must find that survivor.' He then reached to his back and pulls out his [RED][Ronson LBM] before he cocked back the gun.
Personal Gun Intel
Owner: Henry
Gun type: Light Machine Gun
Damage Type: Physical
Augmentation: [Race Modded – Lvl.10] [Skeletonized – Lvl.10] [Deadly – Lvl.10]
Gun description will be showed below;
Ronson Large Bore Machine Gun (LBM)
A light machine gun that uses heavy clip instead of belt to accommodate extra large rounds which allows the LBM to devastate most targets with ease. But it has a major problem. Due to its larger rounds compared to other light machine guns, it has less amount of ammo per magazine which means the user will spend more time reloading and it weights the user down as slow as a turtle. But when the user Augmented the gun correctly using the 'Race Modded' that will lower the reloading time of the gun, 'Skeletonized' that will reduce the overall weight of the gun, and 'Deadly' which will increase the overall damage it will cause to a target, this gun could turn its user into a mobile killing machine.
"Alright, let's rock."
Henry leans his gun on the wall beside him as he swiftly removes the boxes one by one so he could get a clear access to the passage way. It was a square metal hatch with a diameter of half a meter with a bright red light beside the handle, which means that the hatch was locked. Henry then starts to press numerous small buttons on ISAC while making sure that the device stays near the hatch's surface. A single 'beep' sound erupted from the hatch before the red light turned into green, indicating that the hatch is now unlocked.
'Pffft, and they said playing with computer for too long doesn't grant you any good.' He thought as he lowers himself into the small hatch, not forgetting to grab his LMG first. In order for him to safe time, he let himself slides down the ladder as he sees that the way down is a little bit deep. Once landed smoothly and silently since he knows that there's a possible gatherings of undead in here, he dive rolled into the cover of a nearby metal create that is big enough to provide two people for hiding. Peeking from the box, he scans the area for any undead activity and found none, so he proceeds to move to another cover ahead of him, a concrete barricade. He sees that the passage is going down a bit and there's still no undead to be seen. After attaching a custom silencer for his [Ronson LBM], he silently moves out of the cover and down to the next part of this passage. When he spots another cover nearby after arriving at the next part of this passage, he takes cover behind a small stack of metal beams. As the light above him flickers, he takes a small peek from behind his cover and he saw someone… Scratch that, he saw SOMETHING, standing in the middle of the passage way.
A figure is standing in his path. Its form is already hopeless to be described as a human anymore. With what seems like a purplish skin and numerous cuts and wounds all over its body while wearing no clothes except for black pants that was shredded to pieces with all those cuts and tears on it, while its fingers already turned into sharp bloody claws, it's impossible for not recognizing it. The monstrosity he's looking at is the basic of the basics forms of the undead. It was named as the [Shambler] by the SAS Corporation. Basically, [Shambler] was once a normal human that somehow got affected by the already mentioned unknown virus and turned into a flesh eating monster that will attack any human in its sight. It is admittedly pretty weak and easy to be dispatched off, but what they lack in power, they often make it up in numbers. It means that in Henry's case, it is a rare occasion where one could see a lone [Shambler] standing in one place. But Henry, being one of many SAS who have vast field experience in doing solo missions, is not buying it. The HAS to be more of them somewhere along the passage. It would be bad if every one of them comes charging after him.
Henry then slung his LMG on his back and swaps his weapon at hand with his pistol, the [RED][Ronson 45] that had its silencer on it.
Personal Gun Intel
Owner: Henry
Gun type: Pistol
Damage Type: Physical
Augmentation: [Deadly – Lvl.10] [Adaptive – Lvl.10] [Capacity – Lvl.5]
Gun description will be showed below;
This Ronson 45 pistol is one of the most powerful commercially available hand guns. Although it lacks the ammo capacity, with only 16 ammo for standard version and 22 ammo for RED and BLACK variant, but it makes up for the sheer stopping power. With the capability of piercing up to 4 targets with a single bullet, all it needed left to make this gun even more powerful is to add the 'Capacity' Augmentation that increases its max ammo capacity, while putting the 'Adaptive' Augmentation which reduces the target's 'Resistance' by a certain percentage will help the user to deal with a constantly incoming waves of enemies.
After making sure that the coast is clear for the moment, Henry took aim with the pistol's sights and unleashes a single shot that struck the [Shambler]'s head from the side. Its head splatters in a small pool of blood as some brain parts exploded into tiny pieces as it fell to the cold hard ground like a ragdoll. Henry stays silent for several moments to find out whether any other zombies down the passage way heard the sound or not. But since no response coming from down the path, he continued down the passage with cautious stance. The passage way leads to a corner that went down to the right. Henry hugs the corner of the wall and pokes his head out to see three other [Shamblers] littered the way. He lines up another shot as he waits for the zombies to stand in a single straight line so he could take them out in one shot. When the slim change reveals itself, Henry pulls the trigger that unleashes another round of high powered and lethal bullet which strikes all three zombies dead on their head as they too, fell to the ground with a thud.
"Hmm? Oh, what do we have here?" When he was about to pass by the now dead zombies, he notices a sealed metal supply cache that had its seal's light shining green, which means it was unlocked.
"What a weird place for a loot box to be, but oh well, who cares? Might as well take it with me instead of letting it go to waste."
Accessing the sealed create, Henry acquired the containment inside the supply cache, which includes several standard military MRE along with 7 [M48 UHE Fragmentation Grenades] and 5 [RED Cyro Grenades]. After putting them all inside of his inventory, he proceeds to pick up the pace as he recalled the reason why he was going down this passage.
After several more zombie encounters, he finally reached the end of this underground passage which leads to a ladder going up. Climbing the ladder, Henry pushes away the metal hatch by using the seal handle and looks around him to make sure nothing is around. After he closes back the hatch, Henry brought up his ISAC device once more. "ISAC, gather the surrounding environment's data and upload it to my HUD's map. Try to find that biological signature you mentioned earlier while you're at it."
"Request confirmed. Gathering area's data…"
While waiting for his device to complete its job, Henry looked around and notices that he was inside of what looked like an abandoned factory. He wasn't sure what was made in this factory in its fully operational days, but he guessed it to be some sort of mining factory judging by the amount of conveyor belts and left over small sized rocks all over the floor while the machines here are all collecting dust and rust. 'That sure explains why there are so many boxes around here,' he thought to himself. 'I hope whoever is still alive around that power plant is doing okay,' he continued.
"Data has been gathered. This area was once known as Mining Facility Sector-576 on its operational days. No crew working under this facility is detected. An area map has been transferred to your HUD. Detecting the same biological signature nearby and it appears that the signature does not have any relations connected to this facility at all. Readings indicates the signature is still on the move. Proceed to investigate the anomaly with all forms of caution as the radar shows numerous high-level threats hostile around this area."
His map that was attached on his helmet's HUD began to shift its form as it reveals the entire mapping of the area around him and a bright blue dot somewhere around 498 meters away from him is moving all over the place while bright red dot was spotted all over the factory area, possibly including the power plant area too.
"Roger that. Keep an eye out for anything that might come up ISAC. I'll go after this 'guest' of ours." Henry said while adding a small emphasis on the word 'Guest'.
"Aye aye, sir"
Henry followed the blue line on the ground that his HUD have given to him in order for him to locate the person inside the power plant, who are still running around while avoiding all of the red dots that he/she encounters on the way. Poor person must be having a dilemma right now, Henry thought to himself as he went up the factory's stairs. It leads him to a small door frame which leads outside to an old and rusty metal bridge when he opens the said door. Crossing the bridge, Henry ended up in another factory building that looks like a copy-self of the one he just went out of. The line of his HUD leads him out to a long exit that probably used once for parking a truck or something as big. When he reached the exit, he was greeted by several undead that were roaming around the place. He swiftly aims his [Ronson 45] pistol at three of the undead and scored all headshots which cause their brain to splatter across the desert ground before they could understand what happened to them. The rest of the zombies were alerted at the sudden death of their friends and looked at the direction where Henry is standing at while holding his smoking muzzled pistol.
"That's right, come and look at me ya' bitches!" Henry professionally put his pistol back into its holster and swapped his gun to his [Ronson LBM] which still has its silencer attached to its muzzle. Snapping a couple more shots from his LMG, the undead received a lot more casualties before they could even get close to Henry by receiving one, if not more, bullets to their facial area, ripping their rotten and weakened faces off before falling to the ground, never to be alive anymore. For several more of those who are… fortunate enough to avoid instant death, they only could get so close to Henry before being ripped apart by a shower of hot lead. One particular [Runner] even got his body rip into two half from the sheer overpenetration by the [Ronson LBM]. Henry stops firing his LMG when a [Stalker] managed to get close enough to take a swipe at him with its sharper-than-knife claws, but its attack was blocked by him as he swings his LMG to the undead's attack direction, erupting a small sound of metallic clash.
CLANG!
"Oh no you don't!" Henry then grabs the [Stalker]'s arm that it used to swipe at him before lifting it from its feet, and smashing it to the ground behind him with a very loud thud and a small hint of 'crack!' from it. The [Stalker] hissed painfully before doing its best to get up onto its feet, but was met by a swift and brutal bash to its skull by the stock of Henry's [Ronson LBM], fracturing its skull, if not completely breaking it in the process before the said undead fell to the ground. But not before Henry shots it in the head to ensure that it stays dead, and not coming back to him when his back are wide open. The last two remaining undead, sensing that they are cornered let out a loud screech into the open air. Suddenly, the radar in Henry's HUD screamed in alarm by showing a yellow triangle with an exclamation mark right in the middle of it as it shows that all of the zombies around the area are headed this way.
"Alert: Huge number of hostiles approaching." ISAC also joined in the spray.
Henry rolled his eyes to the side while groaning loudly, "I know ISAC! Tell me something that I don't know, would ya?"
"Affirmative. Readings indicates that the hostile signature that once after our target is now approaching in this direction."
Henry could swear to himself that he face palmed hard mentally. He was being sarcastic and ISAC just answers him truthfully, rendering him unable to come up for some form of complain except, "Shut the fuck up, ISAC."
At the very least, he know that whoever is running around in the power plant are safe for now, if no more zombies would come after them. But that is not the case at the moment. What is important right now is that he must take out this imminent charge of zombies, or he'll be in deep shit.
He blasted a hole through both of the undead who called this horde here in the first place before reloading a fresh magazine into his LMG, preparing for the approaching horde.
"I hate those faggots."
As soon as he said that, more than 20 [Runners] and about 15 [Stalkers] came out from the building in front of him, charging at full speed in response of their late comrades call. Henry placed his LMG down beside his hip and begins to hip-firing the gun with a devastating accuracy. Scoring more than third fourth of the enemy kills with plain headshot while the rest were finished off by some more rounds coming from him. As the bodies littered the ground, while dirtying the ground with their blood, more zombies appeared from the building and were soon shot down by Henry alone, joining their dead friends. A deep loud growl came from one of the dark alleyway to his right. Turning his gaze and fixing his aim to his right side, the source of said growl reveals itself into the light. Its seemingly fat and tall appearance is already enough to tell Henry the category of the undead in front of him. The zombie in front of him wears what looked like a bloodied plain white t-shirt under a bloodied huge apron while wielding a rusty butcher knife in its hand.
"[Bloaters], huh? Eat some of this!"
Henry took out a [M48 UHE Grenade] from his back pack and threw it in front of the charging [Bloater] that had its hand in the air, preparing to strike him with its butcher knife. He shots a couple shot into the [Bloater]'s leg, staggering its advance and making it fell on top of the grenade he threw just moments earlier. Before the big undead could even TRY to get up, the grenade explodes violently, blowing the said undead into a huge bloody pulp while throwing all of its intensities everywhere.
ROAR!
A sudden attack from his left caught him off guard which resulted in him being sent flying back about 4 to 5 meters away. His body was enveloped by a sudden wave of pain coming from his left side. Henry got onto his feet while staggers a little from the sudden shockwave that shook him to the core and glared at his attacker. The very first thing he noticed is a big riot shield with the word 'Police' written in the middle of it. Several sharp and bloody spikes protruding from the smooth surface of the shield as it blocked his view from his attacker. As whatever is holding the shield erect removed the shield down, Henry saw the undead that bashed him with its shield. [Shielder], is a nickname that was given to zombies that once worked as the authorities but was infected by the virus and turned into a zombie.
The [Shielder] screeches loudly as more and more zombies came out from nearly all alleyways around him while they charged full-speed toward him. Henry cursed out loud as he grabs his dropped LMG from the ground, unattached the silencer, while wincing a bit since his left side is all itchy and starts to blind-fire the zombies around him. Many toppled over as the bullets passes through their nimble body while some managed to bypass all the bullets coming towards them just by the slightest inch. As the wave became too close for comfort, Henry took hold of four [M48 UHE Grenades] and threw it at four separated directions before taking hold of the forward end of his LMG while holding it like a baseball bat above him. This is the last possible effort that The SAS Corporation trained their soldiers to do; Close range combat, either empty handed, or with proper melee weapons, or just use the butt of your gun and smash it against the enemy's skull.
He feels as if time slows down around him. When the grenade went off, it will help him to gain some breathing space to move around so he won't be completely overrun by them, but once the undead hears the explosion, they would be coming in this direction to investigate and possibly hunt him down.
"…"
"I regret nothing."
BOOM – BOOM – BOOM – BOOM!
A [Runner] attempts to slash his head off but was met by the cold end of a [Ronson LBM] owned by Henry, sending it flying away from Henry with a broken skull as it screeches in pain. Two [Stalker] attempt to do the same thing but Henry ducked under their attacks which resulted in the two zombies to slash each other's faces off, one ended up with no jaws as streams of rotten blood spurting out of it as it fell lifeless to the ground while the other only suffers a huge gash on its bare chest, to which Henry responded by bashing its face from the side, making the zombie's head turned violently as its neck snaps from its proper position. Leaving the gurgling [Stalker] on the ground as it chokes in its own blood, Henry professionally did a swift swap on his hold from the muzzle of his LMG to its stock, and swings his LMG in swift deadly 180-degrees turn as it slaps a [Shambler] that managed to sneak its way behind him. The [Shielder] that bashed Henry earlier tried to bash him for the second time, but Henry side-steps its swing and planted the entire magazine he has in his LMG into its body, leaving it completely mangled as it fell lifeless on the ground while creating a pool of blood. Henry picks the empty magazine and threw it to the head of another [Runner] in front of him, stunning the said runner as it slows down in its track. He uses this change to drive the muzzle of his LMG THROUGH the [Runner]'s throat, and effortlessly threw the zombie to another one, making the said zombie fell down as it receives the weight of its dying friend.
"Fuckin' glad they trained my strength!" He exclaimed after seeing his, more or less, successful body-throw before impaling another [Runner] in its chest before firing his LMG a couple times before pulling out his LMG's muzzle, letting the undead fell to the cold ground.
He notices that his moving space are starting to get a little cramped, so he forces his way through several zombies by smacking the zombies out of his way with the butt of his gun. He managed to get to a clearer spot to move around, but of course, he knew that it won't last for long as the zombies followed his movement. Henry begins to hip-firing his LMG again in hope to take out some of the zombies so they won't run him down in a close quarter combat. About 13 zombie kills later, Henry swings the LMG with such force that he managed to bash three zombies head at once, making them piled on the ground. He then slung the [Ronson LBM] behind his back swiftly and pulls out his [Ronson 45] pistol before taking hold of a [Stalker]'s throat while lifting it from the ground in the process, stopping it in its track, before he shot down the other three [Shamblers] behind it. Shooting the zombie in his hold on the head, Henry spotted several more [Shielders] among their ranks and snaps several shots at three of them which killed them instantly with headshots.
"Those shield loving bitches are going to be a pain in the ass if not taken care off quickly." Henry thought to himself before shooting two more zombies heads' at point blank range.
Clearing the remaining zombies alive around him, Henry thought that it was already over, but he was so wrong. Several loud screeches erupted from the factory behind him where he just came out of.
"There are still more of them?!" He complains while breaking another [Shambler]'s nose that tried to bite his neck from behind by simply bashing it with the back of his palm like a boss.
Glancing all around him, there is no means of cover out here. If he wants to take out these hordes, he will need a place where they won't be spreading too widely so he could use the penetration power of his gun to the fullest. With that set in his mind, Henry rushed into the next building. Running down many hallways that were still a little bit too wide to deploy his LMG where it could be used to its full capability. At this point, he didn't paying any form of attention to his HUD's map anymore except sprinting down every hall way he encounters while hoping that the next one would be less wide than before. To his dismay, he didn't found any after running around for more than one minute already. It doesn't sounds too long, but when you're being chased by a horde of undead? Yeah, no thanks.
"ISAC, is there any place that is not too wide enough for me to use my LMG?!" He said as he ran outside of the building into what looked like an artificially made park in the middle of industrial complex.
"Scanning for location…"
"Hurry ISAC. I could hear those faggots coming here fast!"
"Location detected. It is inside of a power plant nearby to the East. Readings states that our possible survivor is locked up inside a laboratory room in the power plant area."
"East?" He let his eyes wander toward the general direction of East is, and to his dread, it was the direction where the hordes are located. "ISAC, you've got to be kidding me!" Henry face palmed mentally.
"ISAC is not telling the contractor a joke at the moment."
Now he face palmed both mentally AND physically.
"Fuck this shit, I only live once." Henry then charged toward the undead horde while hip-firing his LMG once again. But this time, with the intention of clearing a path for him to push through the horde instead of clearing them. He could handle the rest of the horde later, for now, he need to go and find that damned power plant.
After mowing down quite a number of undead and bashed his way through the horde, Henry sped up to the fastest running speed he could get to get away from the horde, knowing that he needed a little time to deploy his [Ronson LBM] before he would hold the line.
Running for about 200 or so meters to the front, he could make a small outline of a building in the distance when he squinted his eyes while protecting them from the sands using his hand. Estimating the distance to be about another 300 meters, Henry decided to use his pistol to take down any zombies he encountered on his way there. Better to take out the small fry than letting them link up with the rest and causing trouble, he thought to himself.
It took him some times to get there, but he actually made it. To his surprise though, the entrance to this power plant were not like what he expected. He expected something along the line where a big square area to be fenced off and a big ass building here. But he was met by a small fenced off area with concrete floor while four guard towers were built around each corner of the area. There are several huge metal beams, wooden planks and other construction materials stacked up out here, but no power plant building. Instead of a building, he spotted a small stairway at the center of this place leading to the underground area.
"Underground power plant, huh? These engineers got some weird shit goin' on here." Henry said while holding the urge to sweat drop.
The hordes are starting to catch up, so Henry decided to camp the stairway, since it's was quite a tight squeeze that will only fit for 2 people going up and down if they are standing side by side.
When the hordes are close enough for him to use his LMG, Henry managed to take down about a total of 40 infected before he was forced to move from his position at the stairway.
"ISAC, try to scan this entire area and map them out for me. Count the estimated number of these faggots behind me too will ya'?" Henry requested to his device as he trudged down the stairs swiftly as he was skipping 2 steps at once.
"Affirmative. Scanning is underway…"
When he set his foot at the bottom of this staircase, he made some distance between him and the end of the stairs. Grabbing any nearby objects he could find, he made himself a small defensive line to stop the zombies from advancing further. He toppled a vending machine over and placed it vertically again right in the middle of the hallway and stacked a couple of tables on either side while blocking the top side of those tables with any available dormant miscellaneous items around him. It was quite a heavy work, but he managed to do it fast with a cost of spending his [Energy] points almost entirely. After the makeshift barricade was erected, Henry pulled out his [Ronson LBM] and set the bipod that came with the gun ajar before placing it on top of the vending machine. He was not THAT tall, so he used a chair to lift him to a comfortable height for shooting.
"Alert: Incoming wave of hostiles detected from the stairway. Estimated over 100 hostiles approaching. Possible enemy ambush from behind level is high. Placing automated turrets are recommended."
Henry breathes a small sigh as he went down from the chair and swiftly placing two [HVM Heavy Machine Gun Sentry] behind him on each side of the corridor to take out any zombies that might come to him from behind and placed a single [HIK Heavy Protector] on top of the vending machine beside him to assist him in taking out the incoming horde.
Soon, he could hear the cries of the zombies from where he was standing as the voice filled the stairway. Henry cocked the LMG while cracking both of his knuckles in preparation to welcome his 'unwelcomed' guests.
A lone [Runner] appeared from the stairway and stopped dead in its track when he sees the makeshift barricade Henry made while seeing two gun muzzles aimed at him while the stairway is still loud with zombie's cries.
"?" Henry raised his eye brow in confusion as to why do the [Runner] came by itself.
The [Runner] charged at him, and at the same time, the entire horde came raining down the stairway like how a tsunami wave would.
"!" Henry pulled the trigger in alarm as if there would be tomorrow as his gun gave the hordes a shower of deadly hot lead.
'That guy is waiting for his friends! WTF! OMG!'
The once quite corridor was now filled with living bullets and the loud sound of gun fire as empty ammo chasings littered the ground around a wooden chair where a lone SAS Mercenary are standing tall while occasionally pulling the trigger of his light machine gun. Many undead bodies littered the corridor ground either on the opposite side of the SAS Mercenary and the ones behind him. The undead have been appearing one by one through the small entrance of this corridor from a stairway of this underground power plant structures without any sign of stopping anytime soon. The undead keep on charging at him relentlessly, only to be shot in the span of less than 5 seconds later on. The mercenary's gun muzzle is smoking hot while it glows an orange hue from a constant non-stop firing. The once white corridor in front of him was now coaxed with blood. So many dead bodies filled the hall as they bathe in their own pool of blood while some of the corpses were missing their limbs and some of their intensities were spewed across the cold floor. The same could be said for the corridor behind the man. The two turret that the man placed before hand has their own fill for the fun. As the undead that resides in this abandoned power plant hears the cries of their comrades being slaughtered by the sound of machine gun fires, they make their way here in a rush, but only to be taken down by the turrets watching over the mercenary's back.
"God damn it, there's no end of them! I thought you said there would only be a hundred of them? Oi, ISAC!" Henry hollered loudly at his device in his left wrist amongst the loud sound of gun fire and the zombie's dying screams.
"Theories: It is possible that the horde attract many smaller groups of hostiles from the industrial complex we've passed." The male-voice from the device came to his ears.
"No shit Sherlock bruh. Say, ISAC, do you have any idea?"
"According to the radar, there are not much hostile signatures detected above the ground. The contractor could choose to either abandon this defensive line, throw a [Zombie-Antidote] bomb that is unique to your SAS Classes, or to hold the line."
"Copy that. I'll throw my gas bomb out then. The turret can finish the rest. Scan the entire power plant structure to locate any remaining hostile and find out the location of our survivor just to make sure." He said as he took down another batch of zombies coming towards him.
"Affirmative."
With that said, Henry slips his hand inside his 'specialized' utility belt, which is designed only for The SAS Mercenaries to use, that was strapped safely around his waist this entire time and took out a purple colored smoke grenade with glowing purple stripes around the top and bottom of the bomb while a small glowing purple symbol of two crossed syringe shaping an 'X' was engraved at the center. Pulling the pin out of its place, Henry threw the bomb towards the center of the horde. After the bomb let several 'beeping' sounds, the bomb exploded into a thick layer of purplish smoke that engulfed the entire corridor in front of him as loud dying screams of agony that the undead lets out could be heard throughout the hallway.
"The [Zombie-Antidote] active ability. Only designed for Medic-Class SAS and it could be devastating for any zombies that dares to touch it. Capable to last for quite a long time, which is around 15 minutes MINIMUM, and the time could be increased if a medic were willing to dedicate a lot of time to develop them." Henry muttered to himself.
He sighted loudly while he toss away the empty magazine and exchange it with a fresh one. "This is one of those times where I'm glad I developed this bomb so hard that it could last for half an hour. Good thing I was used to use this bomb as last resort." Henry folds back the bipod of his [Ronson LBM] back to its former place and slings the LMG back to his shoulder. "Better get moving."
"Alert: Map data has been collected. Transferring to contractor's HUD now. Readings indicates that our possible survivor is still locked within a laboratory room."
"That guy is still there? What, did he barricaded himself in there?" He wondered out loud. It's not like he was complaining anyway, considering he could bash down an iron door that was locked from the inside with little effort. He's just amazed at the thought of how long that person has survived. Not many people are capable of doing such feat if he takes the fact that most people died as soon as they found themselves in the middle of dead zone into account.
Shaking the thought away, he followed the direction his HUD showed him. He turned right and goes forward for about two more corridors before he turned to the left. After some 5 more corridors, the HUD showed him that he needs to go down the stairs on the next corridor to reach the next floor. Then, he passed by a big hall that seemed to be used as a meeting room for the crews that worked here once. Exiting the hall, he turned left and down a couple more stairs before he spotted a sign above him. It reads, "Research and Development Complex".
Henry snorted, holding his laughter in his stomach. "Who would actually build an R&D in a power plant complex?"
Entering the small underground complex, Henry spotted many rooms widely spreaded throughout the area, making him confused as to which one of these rooms are the one that houses the survivor he was looking for. But after putting a bit more effort in finding any traces left by the survivor, he notices that the room around the middle section of this area was blockaded from the inside. Well, if the objects behind the see through glass panel of the door were not clear enough. He smirked inwardly while muttering to himself. "Bingo."
He knocked on the door's glass panel while asking, "Sir/ma'am? Anybody in here? This is The SAS Corporation Mercenary soldier. Could you let me in?"
Nothing came out from the survivor inside the room.
"Report: It appears that whoever is inside the room is still alive. Either the person cannot speak caused by a certain circumstances, or is deliberately ignoring you."
Henry clicked his tongue in annoyance. He already wasted enough time handling the zombies while trying to get to this person inside the room, and now whoever is in here are planning to waste more of his time? Not happening, he still has to locate those important cargos the Z-Arm Tech asked him to find.
"Look, whoever is in there, you better open up quickly. I'm on a mission, so if you're not cooperating, I will blast the door myself ya' hear?"
A tick mark appeared on his head as no answers came from the door. Having enough bullshit to deal with for the day, Henry made his point clear to the person on the opposite side of the door by cocking his [Ronson LBM] loudly. Although it sounds normal for him, but in reality, the cocking sound was so loud that whoever is on the opposite side could hear the sound clearly. This scares the person enough to let out a loud 'Eeep!' in return.
"O-o-okay! I'll uhh- I'll open the door, j-just… don't shoot me!"
Hearing a panicked female voice, Henry let his gun down, but still holding on to it just in case, while noting down that whoever is inside is a girl. He waited patiently while listening to a lot of sounds coming from various things being moved from the other side of the door, clearing a path for him to enter without a hitch. Making sure that nobody is around to sneak up on his ass later on, he went inside the room and closed the door behind him.
What greeted him inside is a young girl, perhaps around ten to twelve that stands at the height of his waist, with a long slick black hair adorned with a simple black headband that almost blends together with her hair if one wasn't paying attention. Glistening emerald eyes that were wide open in a mixture of terror and fear at the sight of Henry who is still holding on to his gun and smooth looking tanned skin. She is wearing a dirtied, if not tattered, gown with all those tears and cuts on her clothing while a pair of worn down shoes adorned her feet. She has a lot of bruise and cuts all over her body, while also covered in a lot of dust and filth which adds more weight to how heart clenching condition she was in.
Henry couldn't help but raises his eyebrow in great confusion under his combat helmet and gas mask covering his facial expression. What the hell does a kid still doing here? Isn't she supposed to be evacuated along with every other civilian in the last rescue operation? Does the bunker know about this? So many questions linger in his mind, but he can't let this surprising discovery got in his way. The young girl is still here, it's his job to protect her with his live because that is what he was trained for.
"Hey kid, what are you doing here? Aren't you supposed to be evacuated along with the others a week ago?"
"I-Uhhh… Umm- I… d-d-wha…" The young girl stuttered her words, causing Henry's eyebrow to even rise further.
He notices that the girl looked like she was having a nervous breakdown while pointing meekly at his [Ronson LBM]. "Hmmm? Oh! Uhhh, sorry kid, didn't mean to scare ya'" He said while switching the safety of his LMG on and slung it back to his back, while the girl let out a sigh of relief.
"Anyway, with my gun out of the way, what are you doing here? You're supposed to be evacuated out of this planet since a week ago." He repeated the question.
"Y-yes sir… Umm… I… I was…"
'She's shy' was what Henry thought to himself, seeing the little maiden in front of him. But when the girl broke down into a small fits of sobs out of the blue, Henry was struck by an arrow to his heart. 'Gagh! She's too pure!'
"H-hey, what's wrong little fella? Did I do something wrong?" He tried to ask while failing to keep his composure at the sudden turn of event.
"N-no s-s-sir… It's just t-that… I was g-going back to m-my living quarters when th-th-the evacuation is under way… b-b-but… W-when I got back… p-pa-papa… mama… everyone… t-they…" She tried to tell him but broke down into a cry at the last moment where she buried herself in Henry's chest. Seeking a warm and the most comfortable place she could find to spill her tears out.
For Henry however, it doesn't take a fool to know where her story will end.
'She was too late to get back to be evacuated and was left alone in this planet?! Wow, that must've been sucked ten-folds.' He thought to himself as he wraps his muscular arms around the young maiden's figure who are crying her eyes out while rubbing his hand at the back of her head in order to comfort her. Looking back a little bit, he saw that the barricade this girl made earlier was only a bunch of chairs and smaller sized boxes that every normal kid could carry. But to survive a whole week alone is a very admirable act that he could respect a lot. Not everyone could do that feat.
"Shhhhhh….. It's okay. You're safe with me now." He said while continuing to rub her head to comfort her. When he felt that her crying is under control, he took hold of her shoulders and lifted her small chin to look directly at his eyes. "Look at me. I admire your capability to stay alive by yourself all this time. Cause I'll tell you what, you just coincidentally put some of my friends in shame by your feat, ya' know?"
"Is that… true, mister?"
"Why, it is kid. Not many people in the world could do that. Now that I'm here, I'm gonna need you to stick by my side and not to go too far away, okay? I need to complete my mission, and then we can go back to Aartis and get you back to your parents. How does that sound?"
The young girl smiled brightly at the idea of returning to her parent's embrace. She wiped her tears off her face and gives Henry her innocent smile of happiness. "Yes! Thank you so much mister!"
Another arrow struck into his heart. 'Gah! Innocent moe-blob is so dangerous!'
"No problem. Now let's get out of here, shall we? The quicker we finish my mission, the quicker you'll get home." Henry said after he quickly regained his composure at the sudden Kawaii Attack.
"Yes mister!" The girl said as she was about to follow Henry's lead but refrains from doing so when she remembered something and turned around to the corner of the room, to which Henry notices too. "Ah!" She exclaimed as she picked something up.
She went back to Henry and flashes him a small blue dolphin plush. "Mister, I want you to meet Mr. Blue! He is a good friend of mine. He always sticks by my side when I am wandering around this place." Unconsciously, Henry formed a small smile under his gas mask at her antic while the girl turned her head to face the plush. "Mr. Blue, say hi to this good mister." She said while she used the dolphin plush's fin to wave a 'hi' to him.
Henry couldn't help but chuckle at the sight he's witnessing in front of him. A girl who survived for a week after being abandoned by the rescue team somehow still has her innocence intact. He kneels down to her levels while still wearing his smirk under his mask. "Hey there, little guy. This mister's name is Henry Duke. Nice to meet cha'." He said while he shook the plush's fin.
"My name is Amelia! Amelia Amanda, nice to meet you Mister Henry!" The once meek maiden now turned into an energetic little girl responded to his introduction, making him chuckle in amusement once more before straightening his back and offered his hand for Amelia, which she took gleefully.
At the corner of his eyes, he spotted 2 huge canisters that were made from some sort of metallic material being placed on each corner of the room, and they are connected to a single terminal between the two of them that has a blinking green button on it.
He turned to Amelia and ushered her out of the room. "Amelia, could you please wait outside of the room for a bit? I want to check something out." He said to her to which she responded with a big nod before leaving the room.
Henry approached the worn down terminal while tapping on his ISAC device twice, as if poking someone to gain their attention, and the said device booted up back. "ISAC, what's with these two canisters? What are they doing here?"
"Unknown. Analysis indicates that the canister tubes are made of strong titanium materials that have been modified to resist all sorts of damage, including heat, toxic, and radiation. It is suspected that the creator designed it in order to prevent any damage to whatever is contained inside. Lack of data prevents the making of further details."
"Oh… Then, what does this button do?" He asked while pointing at the green button that had been blinking non-stop.
"Unknown."
Without much thinking, Henry pressed the green button out of pure curiosity. Usually, something are bound to happen right away, but after waiting for a solid five minutes, nothing happened as the room was filled with utter silence while the button already ceased its blinking. Henry just shrugs his shoulder, thinking that probably whatever system that button triggered, it's probably just so old that it broke itself at one point and stopped working ever since.
"Um… Mister Henry?" Henry turned at the short black haired child who is peeking from the doorway. "May I ask what are you looking for?"
He simply shook his head while heading out of the room. "It's nothing important. Just checking out if the electrical system in this area is still fully functional is all." He lied blatantly to the young child. Although it gives him the slight feeling of guilt to lie at the face of such an innocent girl, he just don't have the heart to taint her pure heart with the filthy world they live in for now. Not as long as he knew that her parents might be worried sick for her return, so he would have to leave her under the care of her proper guardian. "Let's go, Amelia." He offered his hand to which Amelia took hold of as the two of them back track their way to the exit of the power plant.
But unknown to the SAS Mercenary, the spot where he just stood for five minutes after pressing the button are littered with two small pools of blood with two snake-like object with a sharp syringe-like end resting beside it, while small trail of fresh blood are seeping through his [HVM Combat Boots] and tainting the path they walked on with a small red trail. As for the two canisters inside of the room, they let out a faint machine whirring, and seconds later, they began to let out a thick column of steam.
PSSSSSSHHH…
The two of them, Henry, and the little maiden, Amelia, were talking amongst themselves as they made their way back to the exit of this underground power plant. Occasionally, Henry would shield Amelia's eyes to hide the dead corpses of all the zombies that littered the ground in their path. Occasionally too, Amelia would bury her face to Henry's tall figure whenever the later shielded the former's eyes, since the little girl cannot handle the sheer amount of grotesque just from looking at the corpses. It did not take that long to reach the same corridor where Henry fend off the entire hordes of zombies that is coming after him earlier. He concludes that he didn't wasted too much time on getting Amelia out of her hiding spot when he saw that the [Zombie-Antidote] gas is still floating around the corridor. While the corpses on the ground has piled up, forming a small stack of dead bodies that has no traces of bullet wound which means their death was caused by Henry's special ability bomb.
"Alright Amelia, I want to close your eyes for a moment, and do not open your eyes unless I said so, okay?" Henry said to her while he kneels in front of her. Amelia gives him a nod as she closes her eyes shut which causes Henry to smile once more. Henry lifts the small girl's frame and fragile looking body on top of his back as the girl used the piggy back ride style in response. After a small moment of the grown up man packing all of his turrets, that still has quite a number of ammo left in their ammo boxes which could be refilled once he return to the bunker he was assigned to, he transferred those turrets back into his 'Secret Personal Inventory' that could only be accessed by him alone, before fixing the girl's position on his back. He climbed over the chair before jumped over the toppled vending machine before he winced in disgust as he stepped on top of the dead corpses next to the makeshift barricade.
*SQUISH*
'Urgh… Disgusting.'
"Hey kid, hold your breath for a bit."
Hearing Amelia taking a short breath of air and holding it in her lungs, he quickly went to the stairs before making sure that the stink smells are gone. And after making sure that there are no more dead bodies around, he turned his head to the side so he could get a small glimpse of her figure. "Okay, we're out from the building. You can breathe and open your eyes now."
When she let her eyes flutter open, she sees that they were already outside of the building. Henry let the girl down and gives Amelia a pair of protective mask and a goggle with blue colored visor. "Here, this should help you to avoid sand getting into your eyes and nose. I know it's a little oversized since it was not designed for kids your age, but this is better than nothing, yeah?" He said to which Amelia nods and took the mask and goggles from his hand. After putting them on, the protective mask shielded the lower half of her face while the goggles were a little loose, to which Henry helped her to tighten the goggles so that it fits her face perfectly. Now Amelia looks just like some other female SAS Mercenary on the field in a mission if not for her apparent young age and small frame. To the point where Henry let out a small whistle after noticing this and decided to compliment her looks. "Whew, if you were an adult, you would look just like any other female SAS Mercenaries you know? If to be combined with your dark colored schemed clothing, those mask n' a goggle fits you perfectly."
"Huh?! D-do you think it d-… does?" Amelia stammered at the sudden compliment from the adult man in front of her while she could feel a small rush of heat rising up to her cheeks.
"Well, style is not my forte, but hell yeah it does for me."
"O-oh… Th-thank you…" She replies while hiding her face in her palms as if the mask and goggle she was wearing was not enough.
Henry raised his eyebrow in confusion but shrugged the weird act off, thinking of it as nothing as he offered his hand once more to the child. "Anyway, let's go. We better hurry up."
"Ah, okay!"
Linking their hands together, they set off toward the coordinates that tells them exactly of where to go to next.
Several moments have already been passed as the two made their way to the coordinates that ISAC have shown for Henry. On the way there, Amelia let out a small yawn which Henry took notice of.
"Are you tired?"
"H-huh? N-no! Not at all!" Amelia exaggeratingly said, failing to convince the older man as she let out another yawn to escape her lips at her futile attempt to resist her tiredness. He then decided to stop for a moment and gave the young girl a piggy-back ride so she could rest her head on his back, which the former do so without the later telling her to do so. Poor girl must've been gone through hell and back this past week, the man thought silently while watching as Amelia went straight to sleep in a matter of seconds.
It still impress him, no matter how many times it would take, at the thought of a twelve year old girl surviving in a planet infested with a massive number of zombies all by herself. Not to mention that aside from a few cuts and what not on her person while having her dress tattered which comes natural, if not surprising since he could overlook that fact, Amelia is in fact, more or less, still intact without getting infected. When he first met her back inside that room in the power plant, Henry secretly runs a small diagnostic scan on her to find out whether she was infected by the virus or not, and the result stated that she was not infected and was healthy, aside from both trauma and stress she had from her effort to stay alive this past week.
'Perhaps transporting her back to Aartis's survivor camp to reunite her with her parents might help her to relieve her trauma and stress. But if it didn't work, then I have no idea of what to do to her next.' He silently thought to himself.
Henry was well aware that it might sound weird, if not a ridiculous claim from him. Because when people mix in the fact that he was a [Medic-Class] SAS, it WILL sound weird coming from him since the terms MEDIC speaks for itself. Even Henry himself thought it was strange if he imagine himself as a normal civilian who doesn't know any better at the thought for a [Medic] that didn't know how to treat a traumatized patient. But well… he was a combat-medic type to begin with. And bitch, he ain't no psychiatrist. Combat-medic type SAS ain't-got-no-room for treating traumatized soldiers. Their main focus is to dive headlong into a hot hellfire that we call as 'Warzone' and 'Battlefield' in search for injured soldiers to patch them up so they could keep fighting, and when the Combat-Medic SAS didn't find any injured allies around them, they will pull out their guns and start dumping all ammunitions they had at the enemy lines.
But there ARE people who dedicate themselves to become a full-fledged Support-Medic type of SAS where their main goal is to treat those who needed it the most, civilians or soldiers alike. Some of them also specialize in treating people who suffers from trauma and soldiers who suffers from PTDS. So if Henry wants to help Amelia, he will need to leave it to those Support-Medic folks. However, there is a certain… girl, that he had difficulties in the past that he could ask a favor for. But that problem could be solved later. Right now, he must focus on the task at hand.
After some times of silence trudging through this empty vast desert plains while silently listening to the sleeping child's heartbeat, he reached the position where he came from earlier. The exit of the underground passage he found when he was taking shelter from the sandstorm earlier. (Remember?)
"Help me out here ISAC." Muttering silently to his device, ISAC let out a small series of engine hums.
"Affirmative, switching shown coordinates."
Listening to the sound of ISAC's small engine hums, Henry took notice of the new marker that appeared inside his built-in HUD radar. Using his 'Range-Finder' function that was programmed into his HUD, it occurred to him that his primary objective location is a mere half a mile away from here. It could be considered as pretty close if you think about how many days he have wasted to WALK here thanks to a certain rookie pilot who forgot to refuel his drop off shuttle which leads to him being dropped FAR away from his primary objective. Henry fixed his grip on Amelia's sleeping form on his back while grumbling several curses about the rookie's klutziness to himself as the unfortunate memories comes back to him, before he walks away. When he reached the areas where the ground was made of concrete and cement, which is another industrial complex area, Henry made sure that he didn't go to fast, but not too slow either. Most importantly however, he kept his noises down. He… or more like, nobody would ever want to attract unnecessary attention from zombies whether you're alone or not. But when you're carrying a helpless girl who is sleeping on your back, you definitely want to be more extra careful.
He successfully avoided unnecessary detection from several isolated groups of zombies on the way. As he was getting close to his destination while the sandstorm still rages around him even in this industrial complex areas (though not too violently), Henry spots an outline of a large building ahead.
"Alert: You are now nearing your primary objective area."
"Mark out all the cargo I need to retrieve and scan for a location where the transport shuttle could land."
"Affirmative, marking on map."
As soon as ISAC finishes its sentence, the pinpoint mark that was once located above the building ahead of him disappears and was replaced with several separated pinpoint marks spreaded all around the building. Then, another lone marking with a pulsing indicator appeared somewhere around 200 meters to the West.
"Alert: A suitable landing pad for contractor's pickup shuttle is located nearby. Reporting the location to the pickup shuttle is advised."
Henry just nods his head in confirmation. "Alrighty then, let's get this shit done already." He cracked his knuckles carefully not to wake the sleeping girl on his back by accident. He arrives in front of a large warehouse with concrete walls that was painted with white paint with red tiled roof. No windows, the walls are all worn down, and the heavy looking double doors made of thick wood reinforced by a layer of metal beams that was blasted away from its original place made the warehouse looks kind of creepy. Not to mention several dried splats of blood painting some parts of the walls too. God only knows how long this warehouse has been abandoned since the infection took place.
Scanning for any signs of hostile in the area, he readied his [Ronson 45] pistol in his left hand (He IS a left-hand user) while keeping a steady hold on the sleeping Amelia as she is still fast asleep. Once he was inside, Henry could get a better understanding as to why he was told to find those Z-Arm Tech cargos here.
Whatever is the name of the industrial company that owns this warehouse in the past must've been one of the richest ones around. Because no matter where he looks, this warehouse is filled to the brim with tons of high end gears, equipment, and materials. For once after a long time, his eyes were filled with stars at the thought of being able to own all of this stuff. He could've even sworn that his mouth is watering a bit. But then again, all of these good looking loots are old, if not outdated. So much for that, but there is no use he could get out of these junks. After resting the sleeping Amelia on a small stack of soft fabric nearby, he went to check on a huge pile of supply creates being stacked neatly at the corner of the room. He could easily recognize an accessible loot containers or just plain supply creates like these ones from miles away since they always had a pad lock on them.
He played around with his ISAC device on his wrist while standing near the supply create stacks, and after he typed down the last line of command code on the device, all of the pad locks that was attached to the creates in front of him unlocks at the same time, including the creates itself.
Inside all of these creates were what looked like a whole lot of miniature sized Metal Alloys. These specifically made Metal Alloys are manufactured to be turned into a weapon or armor pieces that is made to be used by SAS Mercenary only. The government has made it so that the rules will restrict any unauthorized military or non-military related company from using these Alloys. Not only that, in order to use these Metal Alloys, a specifically made equipments and machinery is required too, and every bunker that rightfully belong to the SAS Corporation are the only one who has them, which means that no civilians or military organization could use them at their leisure. But the thing about these Metal Alloys is that it was very difficult to be manufactured, thanks to the component that was mixed in these Alloys. They would need a steady stream of iron, aluminum, steel, and titanium matter to be manufactured.
"Alert: Large amount of Metal Alloys have been acquired by the contractor. Proceeding to store the Alloys into the contractor's personal safe vault." Suddenly, ISAC displayed a large net of hologram screen filled with numerous floating computer codes that keeps appearing and disappearing out of sight. A few seconds later, every Metal Alloys inside the supply cache begins to glow a bright green hue before disappearing completely in a blinding green flash. Soon enough, everything vaporized from its normal form to thin air just in a matter of second. That is when a small hologram screen appeared in front of the man.
Metal Alloy Cache Acquired
Amount: 5700
Loot(s) Condition: Old, Rusty
Estimated renewal fee: 22.800 SAS Dollars
[Confirm]
Henry could feel a small tick of sweat drop going down the side of his face when he read what was written in the hologram panel before him.
'The cost to polish all of those Metal Alloys back to its former pristine self is 22.800 SAS Dollars?! That's like four bucks for each Alloy!'
Finally, with a bit of a heavy heart, Henry taps the 'confirm' button, making the hologram panel to blips out of existence. He couldn't help the urge to sight heavily at the misfortune that befalls him today. "Damn it, there goes my 23 grand." But then again, those Metal Alloys are going to worth a lot more than his 23 grand if it was used to make weapons and armor pieces instead of buying a new one. Because the quality you could get by crafting new equipment from the Metal Alloys is not something anybody could get at times like these. If the metals were to be molded into weapon components, and then was made into a whole new weapon, it would rarely break either under normal or extreme conditions.
Remember that [Ronson LBM] that Henry loved to carry around? Those guns are one of many examples that are available. Having been made from the finest materials available, Henry never had a problem with his guns breaking or malfunctioning in the middle of a mission before. Even when he used the gun itself as a makeshift baseball bat to bash his enemy's skulls to kingdom come, it just never breaks or stop working. So, the point of 'resistant to extreme condition' could be added too.
Anyway, with nothing left for him to do after another thorough search in case if he missed any loot, he decided to wrap things up around here and contacted his pick up transport shuttle.
Pressing down a small button on the built-in earpiece of his helmet, he managed to get a hold of his transport shuttle. "This is [Chief Field Surgeon] Henry Duke to transport unit 502, do you read me?"
A small moment of buzzing that he suspect comes from the transport pilot that is trying to contact him back, Henry was in for a small world of surprise. "This is transport unit 502, we hear you loud and clear Chief."
Henry's eyebrow rose at the voice of a familiar person to him. "The heck? Carrel? What are you doing all the way out here?"
"Oh, well… meh, the rookie pilot who dropped you off some days ago was punished by the [Vice Commander] when he found out about the rookie's mistake. I heard from the other pilots around that he was grounded for a whole week ever since." His friend 'Carrel' spoke out nonchalantly, causing the medic to wince at his pilot's misfortune.
"Oooof… I pity that boy."
"Don't be Chief. I don't think you should be feeling bad about him. If that kid wanted to work as one of us SAS's, then he gotta deal with our high standard. Cuz if he failed to do so, he can just kiss his bloody ass goodbye."
"Well, yeah I know about our high standard and all that. But he was just a greenhorn Carrel. Give him some slack wouldn't hurt."
Henry listens as a small sigh escaped Carrel's lips from the other side. "Look, Henry. I understand where you're coming from, and honestly, I kind of agree with your way of thinking, okay? But this ain't no peaceful world we once live in the past. There is no way for a guy to survive in the bloody field when he is working as one of the SAS mercenaries. That kid never went through hell and back like the two of us and some others did at 'that' time. So don't get your hopes up too much about the kid getting any mercy from the [Vice Commander]."
"Ugh… Carrel-"
"No means no, Chief. Don't forget, I was participating in that hell of an operation too, and I am proud to tell anyone I met that we had went through hell and back at that time. Not to mention you saved my sorry ass by activating that nuclear antidote bomb. Possibly the lives of everybody else that is still alive at that point."
"Enough, Carrel!" Henry snaps into the earpiece out of the blue, silencing the speaker on the other side. "You can go ahead and tell everybody that I went through lots of shit in that op, but you keep your mouth shut about me detonating that nuke when I'm around, you understand me?" Not hearing any further response but sensing that the comms are still up and running, he continued, "My squad covered my fuckin' neck Carrel, and they're the one who paid the price… My. Fuckin'. Squad… so quit your rant about me being the hero of the day. Henry out."
Cutting the comms abruptly, he cracked his knuckles while turning around to face all the cargo boxes that were stored inside the warehouse. "Let's just get this done."
About an hour later…
"And down you go!"
*BANG*
The huge cargo landed on top of the other cargo with a loud banging sound of metal being clashed by metal as Henry let go of his hold on the cargo. He stretched his back as it let out a satisfying 'pop'. "That's six down, three more to go." Muttering to himself, he made his way back to the place where he lay Amelia down to check up on her, wondering if the later is still asleep despite the loud banging he caused when moving the cargos around. As he took the last turn, the sight of several stacks of white sacks containing unknown stuff to him came into view, but no sign of the child he was looking for.
"Huh?!" Henry exclaimed loudly as his eyes began to scan around the place frantically in search for the said girl, with a large question mark floating above him.
'Where did she went off to?! Ah, this is bad! If she gets injured or even worse, infected, how the eff am I going to explain it to her parents?!' He thought frantically while lifting everything around the place, including ones that was not supposed to be lifted by normal human beings, in a comical fashion. But a sudden movement at the corner of his view however, managed to catch his attention, and when he snaps a glance at whatever it is, he caught a small glimpse of Amelia's dress fluttering away at the corner of this warehouse's door.
"Hoy, Amelia! Get back here, now! It's dangerous outside!" He sprinted for the door in hope to catch up with her. But when he turned around the corner, he saw three figures standing not too far away from the door. One of them is Amelia, but the other person is, more or less, a new face for him.
...
Correction… the other two GIRLS, standing beside Amelia is a new face for him. And they are currently looking back at him.
The first girl looks like she was around her twenties. Her slightly pale skin looks so smooth as if it was being tended with the utmost care, but her sparkling, yet sharp blue eyes glared at him like a predator would against its prey. Her ridiculously long grey hair (as in cement themed grey) was tied into a double tail that still reaches down to her bottom with bangs covering her left eye. A small sign of an eye patch she wore for her left eye poking out from her said bangs too.
She wore a dark grey swimsuit that threatens to cause a nosebleed for Henry if it's not for what he presumed as a custom cargo jacket that was made to fit her slim and curved figure perfectly, even though she seemed to be not zipping the jacket up by purpose. She had a pair of same colored stockings covering her legs up to her mid thigh section and what looked like a mechanical looking shoes/boots (?). Her fingerless gloved hands are holding a big-ass cannon with a hand grip installed resembling the grip of a portable minigun in movies that looked like some sort of tank turret (muzzle? I dunno), and it was pointed at him. The 'turret' itself is so huge to the point where Henry could remember the last time he saw a [Heavy-class] SAS carrying one of those grenade launchers that spelled 'Fuck You!' to their opponents.
The second girl looks like she was the same age as the first one. Her shoulder length blond hair was tied down into double pigtails with red colored ribbons as they softly waving around when another gush of wind passed by. Her weirdly dark teal-colored eye that was filled with slight curiosity is eyeing him up and down.
She wore a light brown sleeveless sweater with red ribbon on the collar section, that acted as both shirt and 'pants' for she doesn't seem to be wearing any 'pants' as far as Henry concerns, but her sweater is a little bit too short for his comfort since he could almost see her 'pantsu' even from this safe distance. Some sort of utility belt crossed her stomach from her left, down to her hips on the right. She also wore matching brown colored stockings that reached up to her mid thigh with a white star symbol inside a white circle at its end, and weird looking shoes with miniature tank wheels and threads strapped to its side. Beside her left and right hips, she has what Henry assumed as the tank thread chasings that has the same star inside a circle symbol on its side. Her palms were protected by a pair for clean white gloves that looked as if it was still brand new and a small tattoo that reads 'M4 Sherman' on her right shoulder. Finally, a small, oval shaped thing came up from behind her shoulder. It looks like some sort of miniature of a tank turret… and it was pointing his way!
'Oh…'
"Enemy sighted! Don't let him get to Amelia!"
'-SHIT!'
*BOOM!*
An explosion erupted from where Henry once stood. Snapping back to reality when the silver haired girl bellowed to her friend, he managed to take about two steps away from his original position before a miniature AP round smashed the ground beside him. The explosion sent him flying for about ten feet away before landing with a loud 'thud'. A sudden rush of adrenaline flows through his vein as he trashed himself back up and he ran back into the building, while dodging another two rounds of AP shells sent to his direction at a neck breaking speed.
"Fuckin' Christ!" He propels himself to dive into the cover of the warehouse's wall beside the door way.
"Zoe-san, Evelyn-san! S-stop it!" Amelia panicked while tugging on Zoe's jacket to gain the later attention, but unfortunately, her plea fell on deaf ears.
"Amelia-chan, please stand back. I have a feeling that he was dangerous." Zoe replies while pushing the child back away gently.
"Y-you've misunderstood! That person is-"
"There he is!" Evelyn cuts Amelia short as the former fires another shot of miniature AP shell at Henry's figure that are peeking slightly from the warehouse's doorframe, forcing him to yanks his head back into cover and let the shell misses him as it explodes across of him.
"No! Stop hurting him!" Amelia shouts at the sight of her new 'friend' being shot at without mercy by Zoe and Evelyn. But then again, her plea fell into deaf ears. This was proven by Zoe who loaded another AP round into her floating tank turret shaped 'pet' and unleashes another shot that scored a direct hit at Henry's last known hiding spot.
Amelia felt very weak, as she was forced to watch how her new friend being obliterated helplessly from the sideline with a horror filled eyes that were wide as a plate.
Unknown to the three standing outside of the warehouse, Henry had long since moved from his original spot which were now destroyed completely by Zoe's Armor-Piercing shell. But unfortunately for him though, he was not able to take his fourth step from his original spot before the shell blast its way through the concrete wall. So the explosion threw him out of his feet AGAIN while soaking him with tons of small white particles and dust from the explosion.
Struggling to get up with so much ringing noises, he knew that the close ranged blast managed to knock his hearing senses and the concussion effect is still too heavy for him to move properly. He forces himself to move back to sit beside the now destroyed doorframe while ignoring the painful ringing and concussion, he peeked from the corner to see that Zoe is ushering Amelia away to hide behind a thick tow cable roll. This triggers a small grin to appear in the man's facial expression, because with the child gone from his line of fire, he could have the freedom to rekt the other two.
"Heh…" Henry cocked his [Ronson LBM] once more before readying himself. "By leading the kid away from my line of fire will become your greatest mistake… if not the last!"
A sudden hailstorm of deadly projectiles smashed the two girls who are still standing in the open ground, making them an easy target. Even though most of the bullets that was aimed for them veered off course thanks for the shooters certain 'condition', some are still accurate enough to score several direct hits.
Evelyn, who are standing the closest to the SAS medic, and being the one who attacked the man first, gets the first dip of the meal. A sudden rush of pain caused by several bullets striking her forearm, legs, and near her shoulder blade caught her off guard which actually allows the attacker to plant more shots into her. Fortunately, due to the shooters 'condition' after the near miss blast, none of the bullets strikes home. While still lying with her belly on the ground, Evelyn watches on with a sweatdrop rolling on her side as all of these bullets missed her completely. 'Does he even know how to aim?' She thought while wincing a little from the pulsing pain across her body. 'Ugh… his gun packs quite a punch.'
"Evelyn-san! Are you okay?!" The voice that belongs to her companion, Zoe, snaps her out of her thought. She grabs a firm hold of her turret shaped gun that she dropped earlier and took off in a slow sprint, away from the incoming hailstorm of hot lead. Zoe then snaps a shot at the general direction of their attacker in hope to suppress him, if not hitting him, so that Evelyn could have some more time to run away. But her shot misses by a small margin and explodes violently near the door frame, but somehow, it only seemed to agitate their attacker more, as a new stream of fire came smashing Zoe's figure with a ruthless accuracy.
She shrieked loudly as she experienced a hellish pain all over her body before her legs gave out and let her fell to the ground. Evelyn could only watch in horror as her friend went down like a falling brick. The silver haired girl points her gun turret at the door and let another AP round flies away in pure rage at the downfall of her companion, before turning around to grab her friend and drag her off behind a large dumpster.
"Zoe, can you hear me? Please, wake up!" She shook her friend's limp body in order to snap her friend back to reality but no response came from her. "Zoe, wake up, please! Don't leave me behind!" Tears starts to swell in her reddening eyes, never had the courage to accept that her friend just left her. She brings Zoe's face closer to her figure and hugs her friend tightly, not wanting her friend to go away. "No… Please, Zoe… Don't you die on me…"
"Eve…"
"?!" Evelyn looked down to see Zoe looking back at her in her weak state.
"I'm sorry, Eve. I failed so badly."
"Shut up, don't tire yourself anymore! You're gonna be fine, I promise!" Evelyn shushed Zoe, having hope coming back to her that she still could save her friend.
"I'm… Sleepy… Eve."
Evelyn's eyes flew wide at the statement. "No, Zoe, stay awake! Don't sleep, okay? Whatever you do, just don't sleep!"
"I'm… Tired…"
"I said no, Zoe!" She shook her friend again, but shocked when she received no response.
"Zoe?" She shook her again… nothing.
"Zoe?!" She shook her again… still nothing.
Slowly, the realization hits her like a speeding train.
"No…" Hot tears went down her cheeks, cannot taking in the reality. "Zoe…"
*SCHACKHAK*
Her eyes shots open and she looks up slowly. Standing beside Zoe's body, stood a tall and slightly muscular figure of a man. Nothing could describe how her heart tightens at the sight of him. The man was covered by white dust particles and blood splatters that sticks on to his armor-covered body. Evelyn couldn't see his face due to his face covered by the helmet that has no transparent visor to look through what so ever. But one thing is for sure, all light generating components of his armors are shining a bright red light, and his gun is pointing at her.
"No…"
The man took better aim where Evelyn could see the hole of his gun's muzzle.
"No way…"
*SMASH* *THUD*
It was too fast for her to process, but the last thing she saw, is that the man moved so fast and violently before a solid object made contact at her side. On the process of blacking out, she could only see his iron boots standing inches away from her face.
After that, she enters the world of blackness.
There you go. It took quite a long time to adding some details bit I've finally done it. Even though I feel there are still some missing details, but it's done anyway. (Added the disclaimer and did some more editing too)
This might be a bit sudden, but this story will be replacing my FIRST fict, the "SAS 4 Zombie Assault: Another World". I have several reasons for that.
First, I do not have too many ideas on what to do and what to make with the world's setting (Economic, Religion, Races and ect).
Second, I feel like the story doesn't have any objective or path that would lead to a much bigger event, just the simple live of a group of SAS soldiers in fantasy world. Even the POV are somewhat were messed up.
Three, although I've been gaining some more people who read the story, including 'ABuzzmann' and 'attackonthings' who follows the story, not many people write down their reviews for my story in order for it to become better. I highly appreciate your time, ABuzzmann and attackonthings. Let me know what you think of the story and I hope you enjoy your day.
Anyhow, I will be focusing on this one for now. I'll see if there's anyone who request me to continue the other story and giving me some idea's for world setting or story line idea via reviews.
With all that out of the way, hope you enjoy this story. Let me know what you think! Any suggestion, ideas, request, criticism are welcomed warmly. If by any change you are familiar with Kancolle / Panzer Waltz or both, feel free to request any character that you want me to add to this fict.
Take care guys, and I'll catch you next time.