Dreaming Storms

Chapter 3 Fire

Quinn struggled down the hallway, the alarms giving her a headache as she passed them, she decided that once this was all over with she was going to remove more than half of them and bury them deep in the forest. Once she reached the navigation room she plopped down in her seat and began to type on her computer.

Marcus finally ran in and over to where she was sitting, the same aggravated look he had on before. "What is it, are we being attacked?"

She didn't respond but began to read through the numbers that popped onto her screen. "Oh, shit." Was all she could say before she got up a little too quickly and ended up falling to the side on her hip.

"What the hell is going on?" Marcus was growing extremely impatient.

"We have an hour before the first wave hits us," Quinn grumbled as she wobbled up onto her feet while holding onto one of the computer monitors for support. "They have us surrounded… but I, um… Know a way to, um…" she began to rub her temples trying to clear her mind of the intoxicating whiskey. That was really good whiskey she had to admit to herself. Where did Roy get that anyways…

Marcus cut off her train of thoughts, "Damn it, I should have known something like this would have happened." He began to walk away from Quinn with his lancer in hand. "I shouldn't have allowed my squad to intoxicate themselves. Damn it…" He kept on talking to himself as he walked out of the room to see who wasn't drunk enough to fight.

Quinn shook her head. She could dwindle down their numbers, some of the waves are about to walk into some homemade explosives she made awhile back. All she had to do was detonate them once they are over them. Usually, they don't attack again in the same night. What she's wondering is how they got this many Locusts gathered in such little time? She knew Dale and she took out hundreds with their silverbacks, but how in hell did they mobilize this many in so little time? And why?

Quinn shook her head once more. This isn't the time to wonder, but the time of action. She stood back up and wobbled back over to her computer. She watched with her cameras as they began to advance forward. She began to calculate how many there are, and how many waves there are going to be.

She counted six waves, the first wave she was going to let walk,… or burrow… whatever they do underground, since it will mostly be grunts. The second wave she'll set off three of her explosives once they are close enough, and so on and so forth. That will take out about half to three fourths of the next five waves.

Cole walked in and made his way to Quinn. "We are going to head out now… Marcus wants you to stay here since you're the most drunk out of us all."

Quinn nodded, she wasn't going to argue. Once she's done with her calculations she'll catch up to them. By that time she should be able to walk and run. Now she just hopes that her calculation will be precise when the Locusts horde arrives to the location of her explosives.

"Um, head towards three o'clock when you head out the door, that's where the first wave of Locusts are coming from. They won't attack the base if they hear/see you coming. The other waves I'll dwindle their size down to half or less."

"Oh no, I know that look."

She turned around to look at Cole, a light smile on her face. "What look.?"

"That serious look you get when you're about to do something badass, and most likely dangerous."

Quinn laughed, "You know me Cole, I live dangerous, and I don't know how to live any other way."

Cole laughed, "This time, don't catch your ass on fire like last time."

Quinn laughed as she remembered the first couple of times she tinkered with explosives and Cole just happened to walk in on her as one went off near her ass because she forgot about it when she strapped explosives to a dummy nearby. Thankfully, it was only low volume of explosives because not only her ass would have been on fire when it happened.

"Then I had to chase your fire ass across the field because you wouldn't stop running and screaming like a little banshee." Cole laughed.

Quinn laughed too, but soon became serious once again. She had her fun today, now they had actual problems and she couldn't fool around at a time like this. Afterwards, maybe, but not now. "You guys should head out, tell Baird if I'm not out there on time I'll tell him the coordinates of the next wave. Oh, and tell Darius that I want him to stay here to look after the base, and to look after Roy. I don't want to leave him here alone just in case some Locust slips past us."

Cole nodded and headed out. Quinn turned around to her computer again and began to watch the locust movements. She watched to see how many bombers, grunts, etc where in each group. How slow each one should be with the amount of Locust in each wave. She calculated how long it would take them to get to her explosives and how many she needed to explode and how long apart each explosion will be.

Half an hour has passed and with each passing minute Quinn began to sober up. She was glad that at least, she didn't drink till she dropped like most nights. She was an alcoholic after all.

Delta squad and her brother took out the first wave of Locust with ease and Quinn praised them for that. They are good, but she was better.

The calculations were complete. She stood up and walked out of the navigation room and down to her bedroom. She walked in to the familiar sight of hand grenades scattered all over the walls and some machines she tinkered with on her spare time, most were just sensors that she tried to enhance the frequency reading so she could separate them father apart than one mile, like Baird mentioned. Sitting at her desk was her warn out breast plate. It was a sight for sore eyes, especially after how she had to wear that damn man breast plate that was clearly too large for her.

Her breast plate was missing half of the bottom left part due to a boomer explosion going off right next to her when she wasn't looking. She was put in the hospital for over a week after that, but ever since then she held onto this gear. It saved her life more than once. She found her pants also lying on her bed where she lazily took it off this morning for some odd reason. Damn those late nights of drinking and not knowing what she was doing when she got up in the morning.

The pants were tight but gave her great flexible movements with a knee cap and shin armor hooked onto it. Nothing fancy, just the normal woman pants the army gave the woman when they first joined.

"I hope you know what you are doing?" Quinn heard Darius's voice from her door and she turned to look at him with a smile.

"When do I ever know what I'm doing?"

Darius smiled lightly, "Just don't get yourself killed, or have something burn your ass again. You know how I hate removing your bloody bandages off your ass."

"Why does everyone think all I ever do is burn my ass, Cole even said something today," she teased. But it was so, so true. It seemed most of the pain she ever endured in her life was centered on her buttocks.

Darius stepped out of Quinn's way once she began to walk out and into their little armory. There she grabbed frag grenades, a lancer, a oneshot, and a boltov pistol. When she began to walk out Darius stepped in front of her and grabbed her shoulders so he could look her in the eyes. "Just don't get yourself killed, promise me that kiddo?"

Quinn looked at him strangely than began to laugh, "Aw, is someone going to miss me when I leave, Isn't that sweet?"

Darius didn't laugh, he stayed serious. "I just have a bad feeling about this one, that's all."

Quinn just grinned her cocky grin, "Come on, it's me remember. I'm a bad ass fighting machine, everything always goes my way. And if it starts going the other way then I'll whine like a little baby till it's my way again."

Darius cracked a smile but let her go.

Once she made her way outside, she turned around to look back at her base. She, too, felt something was wrong, but she wasn't going to tell Darius that. Not after… enough. She had to get her head in the game. She could still feel the alcohol in her system so she had to keep her mind set on one goal and that as to defeat the Locust.

Dom took cover behind a tree when he saw a Grunt point its gun towards him when he was reloading. He heard the bark protest when it was pelted with bullets. Dom peered out of cover and took down the grunt with ease. That was the last of that wave. Dom ran back over to his squad as they began to reassemble themselves.

"Okay, now what?" Baird asked once he saw Dom join the group.

Cole began to speak in the com, "Quinn, where's the next wave coming from?"

"About four clicks to the east, this one has about ten boomers so proceed with caution."

"Tsh," Baird began to shake his head. "The only time she's serious is when we are in the heat of battle." Cole began to laugh and Baird glare at him. "What's so funny?"

"Wait, you'll see soon enough."

Marcus butted in this time, "I hope she isn't planning on meeting us out here. Okay, let's move out. The Locust are after the base for whatever reason and we have to make sure they don't make it there."

They all nodded and headed off east.

Quinn ran as fast as she could through the forest. So far, she didn't run into any random Locust yet and she began to feel lucky. She finally heard some gun fire and she knew she wasn't too far behind now. Another grin of hers showed on her face. Now, she had to decide if she was just going to slip in without anyone noticing, or, have a grand slam appearance.

The grand slam sounded more appealing for her.

"She wasn't kidding about their being ten boomers," Marcus yelled to whoever was near him as he ducked behind a rock when a boomer decided to fire at him.

"Quinn doesn't kid when it comes to things such as these," Dale said as he fired at a grunt.

Baird looked over towards the four boomers that stood next to each other as they scanned the area for their next target. He grabbed a frag grenade and began to twirl it, once he saw the best opportunity he took it and threw it to the middle of them. Two noticed right away and began to walk quickly away, once it went off only two were turned to shreds. The other two made it out alive. Baird swore and began to reload his gun. A shot ricochet near his head off the tree he was hiding behind and made him jam his gun when he was trying to reload it. He swore some more and began to hit the side of his gun trying his best to un-jam it.

A boomer realized where the grenade came from and began to make his way to Baird's position. Dom noticed and began to shoot at the boomer. There are so many trees around that most of his bullets ended up hitting the trees rather than the boomer itself and he was only a couple of inches away from Baird.

Finally, Baird un-jammed his gun and stood up to shoot again but found himsefl face to face with the boomers guns.

"Boom," it said. Dom began to yell Baird's name and started to run over towards him as fast as he could ignoring the gun fire around him.

Everything began to slow down for Baird. He heard Dom yell his name and he glanced over to see him running towards him. He could see the bullets whiz past him and Baird thought it was stupid of him to risk himself like that.

Baird knew his time has come.

At least, until something jumped down from the rock behind him and a loud bone crushing sound echoed through the forest of someone's foot meeting a certain Boomers face. The boomer feel backwards with Quinn's foot lodged into its head. The thing died instantly from its neck being snapped in from the force. Baird was so dumbfounded that he just stood there and looked at Quinn not believing what he just saw. Quinn killed a boomer with her foot?

Quinn turned quickly towards Baird with that cocky grin she always has on. Then she ran up to him grabbed his arm and pulled him back towards a boulder where she made him take cover.

"By the way," she said to him as she grabbed her lancer from her back. "You owe me big time, let's say breakfast tomorrow morning?" She teased. She stood up from cover and began to shoot at the un-expecting grunts and boomers. "Oh, and by the way, we should all probably move back here pretty soon. Where sitting on some very, very, very high explosives that are about to go off in about thirty seconds."

Marcus nodded and told everyone to fall back. Baird stood up and began to run back with Quinn following behind. He still didn't have anything to say about what just happened.

"Uh," Quinn said as she picked up the pace. "We need to run a little faster." She said once she caught up to Baird.

"How big is this explosion supposed to be?"

"Um… enough to take out a football field."

"Shit," he said then began to run faster.

The explosion was massive. Quinn and Baird flew forward from the shockwave but thankfully, neither of them got hurt.

"Wooohoooo," Quinn yelled when she picked herself up and looked behind her. Everything was in complete rubble, no Locust could be seen. "I am so awesome sometimes."

"Yeah, in almost getting us killed," Baird said as he dusted himself off of the rubble that ended up landing on him. "You are a fucking genius."

"I know right?" Quinn teased but she became serious once again once the rest of delta squad made their way over to where Baird and herself are standing. Her brother walked over and patted her on her back.

"Nice job, I didn't think it was going to be that big though, knocked me clean off my feet." He smiled.

"Now we need to head this way," she pointed the left of her. "There's another wave coming from that direction, but if we make it in time we can keep the entire Locusts wave in one spot over another explosive I have planted out there. Then we don't have to worry about the next wave because we should finish them all by then." Quinn smiled feeling accomplished.

"Sounds good to me," Dom said nodding his head.

Marcus nodded, "Lead the way."

She turned towards the left and began to run over to where the Locust are all gathered. They should be sending out the next wave after hearing that explosion, so they had to hurry. To no surprise they are exactly where she calculated them to be. Give or take a couple of feet.

Quinn was the first to fire. Everyone followed and ducked behind cover. "Where's the explosives planted at?" Marcus asked. He was ducked next to Quinn as he covered her while she reloaded.

"Right under where the Locust are at now."

"When are they going to go off?" There are hundreds of them. Why would they send hundreds of Locust to a small compound that gamma squad occupied?

"In exactly," she looked down at her wrist watch. "One minute."

"Good, because I doubt we have enough ammunition to last another five minutes."

Baird and Dale are on the other side of Quinn. Dale has a smile on his face and Baird… Well he still had the same old scowl he always has on. Baird looked over at Quinn as she continued to fire on the enemy. He simply shook his head and said, "She's truly out of her mind."

"No," Dale said. "It's how she copes."

"Copes?"

Dale shrugged, "Each person copes differently to this war, some try to forget it by drinking their problems away. Others join the COG's and fight with their problem. Quinn, likes to have fun."

"Uh… I still don't get it. So she's a bitch because that's the only way she can cope?"

Dale smiled, "She's only a bitch to you. She always looks for the hard ass or stick up their ass type of people and end up pissing them off with her immature comments making everyone else have a good laugh. In the end, they always end up liking her. She copes by making people laugh and just… well, having fun. Believe me, don't make a big deal about her comments and she'll end up stopping. Well, not stopping completely, but stopping with the embarrassing comments."

"Yeah, well, I highly doubt that I would ever get along with a girl like that. If it wasn't for Marcus I probably would have shot her by now."

Quinn looked back down at her watch and yelled, "Everyone lay flat on your stomachs, it's going off in five seconds."

Everyone followed her command, when the five seconds past nothing happened.

Quinn looked at her watch again. "Okay, maybe I missed…" before she could finish the sentence the bomb finally went off. Thankfully, they are all behind rocks and boulders as fire burned over the rocks. Quinn covered her ears with her hands. Once the fire ceased everyone dusted themselves off and stood up to look at Quinn's creation.

"Wooo, baby, they are all dead!" Cole yelled as he walked forward with both arms in the air. Then he turned around towards Quinn and picked her up for a huge.

When he let her go she began to rub her arms, "Still hurts like before too." They both laughed.

Before anything more could be said another explosion went off in the distance. "Was that another explosive you planted?" Dom asked.

"That came from the base," Dale said and began to run towards it.

"Oh no," Quinn whispered and ran after her brother.

She ran with all her might, each step felt longer than normal. She couldn't seem to move fast enough. Once she reached the site she stopped dead in her tracks. Cole almost ran into her but stopped before he knocked her over. Her base, her home, was on fire. The roof was completely gone and everything that was there base laid on the grown in nothing but rubble.

She ran forward, her brother who was a couple of feet in front of her grabbed her before she could jump in the fire looking for her squad members, her friends.

"Roy! Darius! No, this can't…NO!" She yelled and fell to her knees with her brother still holding tight in fear that she might try to run in the flames. Tears began to stream down her face as she looked at the sight before her. "They can still be alive in there, waiting for us to save them. Please let me go," she pleaded but didn't make any efforts to get away from her brothers grasp.

"Their dead," he whispered. She shook her head. He grabbed her shoulders and turned her to look at him in the eyes. "Their dead Quinn, don't risk your life over something that is not worth risking. They are dead." Tears threatened the corners of his eyes as well, but he wouldn't allow himself to cry. He had to stay strong for his big sister.

She shook her head again but tilted her head down towards the ground. "I promised them," she sobbed. "I promised them that I would keep them alive. I promised that if they stick with me they didn't have to worry about dying." Dale hugged her and let a couple of tears escape his eyes when she wasn't looking.

Cole walked over to them and kneeled down next to her, he didn't say anything he just patted her back to comfort her. He looked upon the base that the Locust set fire and he glared. "This damn war takes everything away from us."

Quinn slowly stopped crying. Once the sobs ceased she pulled herself away from her brothers' shoulder and began to wipe her eyes. The stood up with her lancer in hand and looked at her base. The base she worked so hard fortifying. Where all her mechanical work took place, hell even her silverbacks are destroyed. All she had left now was her brother and Cole. She looked at both of them and lightly smiled.

Right then she promised herself that she would do anything in her power to keep them safe. No matter what, they are going to survive this war.

"To bad for Roy," she lightly laughed as she wiped another tear away. "I was finally going to let him into my pants tonight. You know, he's been trying to get in them for the last three years."Everyone smiled, even Baird's lips twitched up into one.

Quinn looked up at Marcus, "So, what's next?"

(Oh me goshers! I updated in one days time? Okay, maybe a day and one hour but close enough. Thanks for all the reviews, favs, and alerts! Believe me, it inspires me to write more! I liked this chapter more than the other two, I think I'm going to keep Quinn at this pace with her witty remarks here and there. Of course, she's still going to be perverted mostly because I'm perverted as well, but not over doing it. This weekened I'm going to be focused on improving my first and second chapter grammar and spelling wise. And probably adding a little more details to some situation. Please tell me what you think! Reviews are what motivate me the most, and of course, I'm a review whore so you guys need to sustain my hunger for reviews!)