Chapter 6: Cethic, Pash, and Jericho
O.C. Credits:
1) Cethic, Pash/Pashie, Jericho/Bravo, Loyd, and Domino all belong to Cethic (On DeviantArt/Newgrounds)
2) All other O.C.s are by me (Spirit9871/Spirit9876) or Alias-Maxima
"Don'tchu get it, punk?!"
The words came from a thug of considerable bulk. His face contorted in rage as he breathed heavily. Cards and chips were scattered across the floor.
His victim: a smiling young man of twenty-three. His blood-red hoodie matched the color of his hair: a chaotic waterfall of crimson strands, streaking from his scalp to his shoulders. Printed in the center of his hoodie was a disembodied eye: dark and menacing.
The young man crossed his arms, his eyes twinkling. He said nothing, even as the criminal raised his shiv menacingly.
"Mebbe ya bluffed me out that round! Ya bluffed me real good! But, ya see, in my house, I always win!"
When the victim finally spoke, he did so calmly and deliberately, as if he were lecturing a small child.
"Let's get things clear, Mister Leroy. I called All-in, which means I'm putting all my money on the table. Maybe my hand was worse than yours, but you didn't know that. You folded because you thought it wasn't worth the risk of losing, right? That means I won, and you-"
"Bastard!" Leroy sputtered. "I know whadda fuck you did!"
The man shrugged, his voice becoming derisive. "Oh? Alright, then. Just wanna make sure the big boy knows how the game works. Basically, I won. So pay up, buddy."
Leroy exploded in anger. He raised his knife. "You... ragh! I'm gonna rip-!"
The young man yawned. In a flash of silver, a M1911 was in his hand, aimed at the thug's forehead.
"Now, now. No need to shout."
The formerly-bustling bar became silent as Leroy glared at the glistening gun. The thug threw down his knife and procured a large wad of bills from his vest pocket. He threw the money into the man's lap.
"Take yer money... Cunt!"
BANG!
"Tsk. That tongue of yours."
The young man blew the smoke from his gun barrel as Leroy's now-headless corpse collapsed onto the floor.
He pocketed the money and patted down Leroy's body until he found what he was looking for: a ring of keys, stuffed into the back pocket. He looked up and addressed the horrified bystanders.
"If it makes you guys feel any better, I wasn't planning on letting him live anyways."
The cashier recoiled in fear as the shooter strolled towards the counter, whistling a cheerful tune. A forceful kick from his black combat boots threw open the door, labelled "employees only."
Moments later, he came through the same door, trailed by a number of emaciated women and children, dressed in modest rags. The few bar goers who remained made a collective gasp of surprise.
"You guys are free now." The young man declared.
"Wh...who are you?" One of the women asked. "Who sent you?"
The sun shone through the windows, illuminating the young man in a deluge of divine light. "Who sent me? I came 'cause Tertia told me to come. You see, I don't fight for the oppressive AAHW or its murderous Anti. I fight for the little guys. So If you wanna help out the people of Nevada, Tertia always needs new recruits. And me? Well, you can just call me... Cethic."
He tapped a concealed earpiece. "Hey, babe, give me a lift."
"Roger that, Tertia Prime."
An explosion of splinters showered on everyone inside the bar as the roof blasted apart. A rapidly unfurling rope ladder fell right into Cethic's hands. Helicopter blades thrummed from overhead.
Cethic grinned as addressed the bar-goers. "Clear out, everyone! We're lighting this baby up!"
His gloved hand gripped the bottom rung as the air rushed around him, making his long hair flutter in the wind. He fished out a detonator from his back pocket and slammed the trigger.
Ten bricks of C4, concealed in the back rooms, ignited a hundred barrels of moonshine and bootleg alcohol.
The cartel building erupted into a fiery blossom of blinding orange. Shrapnel and flaming detritus streaked in a million different directions as the shockwave gently rocked the helicopter. After a few minutes of flight, the helicopter slowly descended to the ground. Cethic nimbly hopped off the ladder as his girlfriend, Pashie, climbed down from the pilot compartment.
Cethic put on his sunglasses and stared at the roaring conflagration. Pashie ran to his side, basking in his masculine glory.
"Ohh, Cethic~! You were so brave and manly! My little heart just couldn't bear it!"
Cethic grinned, facing the other way to strike a majestic, heroic pose. "It's nothing babe. The people of Nevada need my totally awesome skills."
Pashie demurely smiled, rubbing a finger down Cethic's chest. "Ooh baby… maybe you can show me some of those 'skills' tonight in be-"
"HEEEEY!" Pashie yelled, shattering the flashback as she slammed her hands down on the small round table. A glass of water fell, spilling off the side of the table. "That story smells super duper fishy! Like... a week-old cod!"
Cethic sat at a small table with his comrades-in-arms, Loyd and Pashie, outside a small cafe. Tertia had connections with the cafe manager, and the place was a favored hangout for Tertia operatives. The three blended into the bustling crowd as they conversed.
Cethic waved Pashie's words away dismissively. "... Come on, Pash, you know I'm telling the truth. Unless you're talking about the explosion, that is! It was a lot more dramatic and badass... yeah, I remember now! There were, like, 20 stacks of C4 instead of 10, simultaneously erupting in vibrant shades of-!"
"Pish-tosh, poppycock!" Pashie interjected once again. "There were no pretty orange explosions! None at all. Shame, I like me some pretty orange explosions. Heee hee!"
Cethic shrugged. "Heh. Well, whatever it is, I offed a human trafficker and got Tertia some fresh recruits. You should be thanking me, Loyd."
Pashie's eye twitched as her grin deepened. "No, no, NO! There wasn't any big bad human trafficker. We were being sneeeaky spies! Domino said there was some important guy for us to watch, yeeess? And we were just followin' him around in the shadows, mm-hmm. A spot of scouting, always healthy for the spine and the eyes, sez my granny. Anyways! There was no killing of the human traffickers."
Cethic rolled his eyes. "Meh." He then turned to his best friend. "You believe me, right Loyd?"
Pashie loudly slurped her can of NevaCola. Loyd blinked hard and shook his head, as if he was waking himself from a nap. "Huh? Oh, right... wait... what were you guys talking about again?"
"Goddamnit, Loyd." Cethic sighed. "You missed my epic monologue!"
"What a crying shame." Pashie chorused. "Crying, crying, crying!"
"Maybe," Loyd mused. "Though I'm honestly a bit glad I didn't have to suffer an hour of Cethic's adjectives."
Cethic huffed as he swirled his wine glass. "You guys wouldn't understand poetry if a bird shat it out on your faces."
Pashie licked her lips. "Mmmm. Shat."
Beep.
Pashie's hand rocketed towards her hip. She unclipped her cell phone and lifted it to her face. Her eyes darted across the screen, line by line.
"We have a mission." She read. Her voice was trancelike; the sudden change in her behavior would have been jarring had Cethic and Loyd not been used to it by now. "Civilian Search and Rescue. Jericho Bravo will pick up Tertia Prime and Tertia Epsilon in 0010. Our gear is in the chopper."
Pashie tossed her phone into Cethic's gloved hand. "Briefing attached," she added.
Loyd raised an eyebrow in confusion. "Wait? I'm not coming with you two?"
"Don't push yourself, Loyd. You did almost four combat missions in the past three days alone. Take a breather." Cethic reasoned.
Loyd on the other hand, wasn't in the mood to simply relax. "Oh goodie. Looks like I'm gonna sit here. Alone..."
Cethic read from the phone in his right hand. He extended his left arm in an attempt to pat his friend on the shoulder, but he missed, accidentally jabbing Loyd in the ear.
"The fuck, man?" Loyd sputtered, slapping Cethic's arm aside.
"Sorry," Cethic murmured, putting the phone down and taking a ginger sip from his wine glass. He did not sound sorry.
Loyd rolled his eyes. "Just get out of here and go on your mission, already."
Pashie shrugged, a grin spreading across her face once again. "Nopity-nope. We's gots-a waiting for Jericho Bravo to-"
She stopped speaking mid-sentence, and there it was: the distant, low thrumming of helicopter turbines.
Loyd flicked his eyes to the clock on the wall. "Right on time. Reliable as always, good 'ol Bravo."
Cethic twisted the corner of his lip. "A 'show-off' is more like it. Probably just doing it to rub Domino in all the right places. Come on Pashie, let's get a move on."
Pashie chugged down the rest of her soda, cracked her knuckles, and spat into the ashtray. "Yea, Cethy-wethy! It's time to EAT!"
The two walked off towards the rendezvous point: the roof on a nearby apartment building. Loyd cupped his hands near his mouth, yelling out to them as they crossed the street.
"Good luck. And don't get yourselves killed, you hear? Our budget for coffins is basically empty!"
Loyd turned back to the table and opened his wallet with a sigh.
"Great. And they left me to pay the tab. Again."
"Urgh!"
Cethic pulled himself into the helicopter, awkwardly clambering onto the corrugated-steel floor.
"Damn, I miss my old private chopper. Why didn't Bravo install carpets on this thing? Uncultured bastard."
Jericho Bravo readied his flight controls, ignoring Cethic's insult. After a short pause, he spoke, his voice low and gravelly.
"The incompetent always die young. Respect your elders, boy."
Cethic bristled. "Did you just call me incompetent?"
Pashie nimbly hopped in. "Incompetent? Hah! Ya know what's incompetent? Machine cheese! Nyeh heh heh heeee!"
Jericho cinched his harness. "Cethic, unless you die young, what I said doesn't-"
"You fucking just called me incompetent!" Cethic interrupted Jericho, storming up to the cockpit. "Why I aught'a-!"
Calmly, Jericho flicked a switch in front of him, activating the helicopter's rotor blades. The vehicle lurched off the ground as the rotors thrummed.
"WHEEEEEEEE!" Pashie gleefully squealed in the back.
Cethic was not so thrilled; he lost his footing, and he swore as he wildly reached for a handhold.
"Agh! Fucking... shit!"
He finally managed to seize one of the handles on the wall, gripping for dear life as the heli accelerated.
Jericho grinned. "Heh."
"Of all the assholes I had to get mixed up with…" Cethic mumbled under his breath.
Jericho leaned forward on the throttle. "Don't press down on that handle you're holding. You're welcome."
Cethic glanced at the steel bar he gripped to maintain balance. He realized the shaft was, in fact, a lever; it was attached to a door which read "EMERGENCY EXIT" in bold, red letters.
"Fuck you." Cethic spat as he found and grabbed another handlebar.
"Fuck him?" Pashie called out from the passenger compartment, "Jericho is all wrinkly and old and ewwww! Why not fuck meeeee?!"
Cethic looked backwards. "Not today-Wait, no, I meant… ugh, never mind."
The engines were fully revved now. The blades blurred as they slowly approached the cloud layer. Cethic covered his ears with a black headset and flicked on the noise-cancellation. Pashie followed suite with her own headset.
Jericho clicked the intercom. His voice came in through their headsets, penetrating the screaming din of the helicopter turbines.
"ETA ten minutes. Prepare and persevere."
Once the helicopter had finally stabilized, Cethic pulled out the starboard ammo box from under the bench. Within, his gear laid, gently pressed into silken sheets.
Cethic closed his eyes in reminiscence. He remembered his old estate: grand and lavish. It was gone now. Pillaged; deconstructed; ruined. His helicopter, his investments, his money... they all disappeared before his eyes. Damn those AAHW bastards.
He had spent everything he had left on these weapons, and they were undeniably high-quality.
First, he removed his sword: a meter and a quarter of a custom alloy consisting mostly of sterling silver. It cost in the neighborhood of two million dollars to cast, forge, and finish. The silver made it resistant to heat, while the titanium core and the alloyed steel held a deadly, keen edge.
Cethic named his blade the "Bloodthirsty Bitch." Or "Bitch," for short.
His hand roved over his trusty sidearms. After a few seconds of deliberation, he selected a handgun: a Modern Colt 1911.
The featured a highly-polished oak handle, custom crafted by expert Japanese wood carvers. The pistol's chrome finish dully glinted in the dim lighting.
He christened it the "Badass Bastard." Or just "Bastard," for short.
That left the best for last.
His shades. The stylish, carbon-fiber frames were packed full with transistors and microprocessors. The tiny computers within coordinated with pinhole cameras to identify weak points in the foes he faced. The glass itself was coated with polystyrene sulfonate, a Transparent Conducting Polymer. With a push of a button, the polymer would light up and project an advanced heads-up display, highlighting mission objectives and enemy vulnerabilities.
Cethic dropped Bitch into his over-the-shoulder sheath and clipped Bastard into his side holster. His shades covered his eyes as he laced up his black combat boots.
Cethic pressed a button on his shades to start up his HUD. Start-up data scrolled before his eyes as he pocketed a double handful of mags.
ETA: One minute.
He was ready.
Pashie cheerfully sang to herself as she popped open her locker.
"Beep bap boop! I am a troop...er!"
She closed her eyes and reached into her box. Her hand sifted through the assorted, cluttered weapons. She picked three armaments at random.
"I choose... you! And you, and you!"
Pashie opened her eyes. In front of her laid two Desert Eagles and a hatchet.
One of the pistols was battered and scratched from years of service. As for the other, newer sidearm, she ripped it from an agent's fingers about a week ago, on some barracks raid.
Pashie grinned as she recalled the agent's horrified expression. She then wrenched the gun from his hands, spun it about her finger, and emptied the mag into her victim's head.
"Headicus EXPLODICUS!" Pashie yelled, recalling how the agent's head had blown apart like a ripe peach.
The macabre recollection made her laugh. "Hee haa hee haaa!"
The hatchet, on the other hand, was an ordinary-looking chopping tool, for cleaving logs and skulls alike. Pashie often used it to pick her teeth.
The pistols were shoved into the pockets on her skinny jeans. The barrels awkwardly bulged from her thighs. Pashie then stuck the axe in her belt and a finger in her nose.
She was ready.
The helicopter blades threw up a storm of sand. The skids made gentle contact with a dune as the engines continued to thrum.
The cloud settled, and Cethic and Pashie hopped out from the sides.
"The facility is one klick northwards," Jericho announced. "I suggest you get moving."
Cethic sighed. "Yeah, yeah. Go die, please."
Jericho's voice remained impassive. "Good hunting."
Pashie made an exaggerated salute and smiled, her disheveled hair billowing in the wind. "Thanks, Mister Bravo!"
Cethic put on his hood as the helicopter rose into the sky, covering the vicinity with a cloud of grit.
When the dust finally subsided. Cethic tapped his glasses to regain his bearings. He pointed northwards.
"This way, Pash."
"Roger-dodger!" Came the enthusiastic response.
They double-timed it through the desert. Cethic's red hoodie and Pashie's black tank top contrasted starkly with the beige sands.
A bead of sweat trickled down Cethic's face as he summited yet another dune. He raised his fist, and Pashie halted behind him.
In the distance, a grey, concrete pillar jutted from the ground, surrounded by chain-link fences. Cethic squinted, and his shades automatically zoomed in to 10x magnification.
He saw no one.
Cethic voiced his confusion. "I don't see any AAHW forces. What's going on in there?"
"They died of dysentery!" Pashie concluded triumphantly.
"No, seriously." Cethic mumbled, still scanning the building. "Something's up."
Pashie pouted. "Well, why're we standing around here, then? Let's go in and figure out!"
Cethic wiped at his brow and readjusted his glasses to normal magnification. "...you're right. Let's move."
The Tertia operatives cleared the last three hundred meters in under five minutes. They approached silently and swiftly, hiding behind dunes and zig-zagging to evade snipers.
Not a single bullet was fired against them.
Cethic raised his index and middle fingers in a "peace" sign, then brought them together. A signal for "stay close." Pashie wordlessly complied as they approached the outer perimeter of the compound.
Cethic balled his hand into a fist and smacked it into his open palm, then pointed at a segment of the gate which had been weakened by sandstorm erosion.
Pashie hacked the interlocked steel mesh open with her axe. Metal chips flew from the chain links as her axeblade hewed the fence open, chunk by chunk.
'Yeah, she's a bit insane...' Cethic thought to himself, smiling. '...still, she can really rip shit apart with those arms. Mm-mmm.'
Pashie kicked the fence, exposing an entrance. She turned and cocked an eyebrow.
"Hey, Cethy? You're staring again."
Cethic straightened his back. "Oh, uh, right! Heh! Sorry."
Pashie jiggled her finger towards the facility. "No biggie. C'mon, it's party time!"
"I smell with my little nose..."
Pashie sniffed the air and closed her eyes in thought.
"... Rotting people!" She exclaimed, with a smile of satisfaction.
Pashie seemed utterly undisturbed by the repulsive stench, while Cethic lurched forth, nauseous. He covered his nose, muffling his voice.
"Figures. AAHW toilets don't clog this bad." He joked.
They had been wandering these rooms for a good while now. Aside from bloody streaks along the walls, there were no signs of life whatsoever. But the deeper they went, the stronger the putrid odor in the air grew.
Something was off.
"Pash?"
"Mhmmm?"
Cethic tried blocking out the odor by squeezing his nostrils with his fingers, failing miserably. "Where's that smell coming from anyways? It smells like the shit of shit."
"Sorry, Mommy!" she whined. "I soiled my diaper again!"
Cethic groaned. "Seriously, Pash."
She used her thumb to point to the door to their left, her voice exasperated. "Smell's coming from thataway, duh!"
Through the door, they went. Up a set of stairs. They even had a brief stint crawling through a ventilation shaft when one of the doors was barricaded.
The further they went, the more intense the stench. The blood painted on the walls became longer, darker, more fresh. Save for the flickering lights and their sprinting shadows... nothing moved.
Pashie had long ago stopped her cheerful humming. Even she now walked with a cautious, predatory step. Cethic appropriated a face mask a few rooms earlier. It was speckled with blood, but he put it on anyways. Better than nothing.
Pashie bumped Cethic's shoulder. Cethic knew it wasn't an accidental gesture. He turned his head to follow his comrade's extended finger.
An AAHW Agent.
Cethic had almost missed the Agent; he was bleeding so profusely that he almost perfectly blended into the bloodstains surrounding him.
He was alive, but barely, making choking sounds . A long cut ran from his forehead to his chin. Blood flowed freely from his many wounds, glistening bright through the shreds of his tattered suit. But his chest still rose and fell, and he still held his standard-issue Desert Eagle in a dead man's grasp.
He sat against the wall, his life seeping away.
Pashie stepped towards the agent, her eyes wide with wonder.
"Wow..." she whispered. "...Even I can't cut someone up this bad! That's frikkin' amazing!"
Cethic stayed back and raised his gun. If the officer made any sudden moves... well, nothing a pull of the trigger couldn't handle.
Pashie gently slapped the Agent's face. His head limply rolled to face her.
"... Huh...?"
The Agent tried to lift his gun hand, but Pashie had already grabbed his wrist. Her powerful grasp tightened; Cethic could hear the bones crack under her grip.
"St...no!" The Agent whimpered.
Pashe leaned in and stared into the man's eyes. "What happened? Are you okay?"
Her pleasantly naive and innocent voice did not soothe the man in the least.
"Leave Thomas here! Leave Thomas here and RUN!" The man screamed, violently thrashing what was left of his legs, pointing at the door through which they came.
Pashie tightened her grip again, adding extra pressure. "Calm down, mister Thomas. Just tell me-"
"NO!" Thomas frantically shook his head. "No, no, no! Get away from Thomas! GET OUT, GET OUT, GET OUT!"
Cethic made sure his shades were recording what he saw; something told him that this information would prove vital. He watched the door in his peripheral vision, his hand lightly resting on Bastard.
The Agent's voice died to a fervent whisper. "The withdrawal! Huff... Jebus, Auditor...ahh..."
"Not very descriptive." Pashie retorted, pouting.
"Chorus of... of the damned..." the agent gibbered. His shattered Smith shades slipped down his nose, revealing his eyes, rolling in terror. Pink froth bubbled from his lips as he struggled to enunciate.
"Chain, my screams... to the chorus of the damned...my screams...to chorus...damned...my screams...damned...hunger..."
Thomas breathed heavily, unevenly. He closed his eyes.
Cethic felt nervousness flicker in his belly. "Pash. Step back."
Pashie tilted her head and ignored Cethic's warning. "Ooh! 'Chorus of the damned.' Fascinating! Did they sing nice songs?"
"The withdrawal!" The agent suddenly sputtered. "The withdrawal! Hunger! It's coming! It's coming, it's terrible! Oh J-Jebus!"
"Pash, seriously. Step back" Cethic firmly stated. Pashie turned her back to face Cethic, her eyes showing confusion.
The agent tried to lift the gun to his head, but Pashie turned back towards him and intercepted the man's wrist with both hands. With the fervent strength of rigor mortis, the agent lunged his head forwards and sank his teeth into Pashie's forearm.
"OWWW!"
Cethic lunged forwards. "Pash!"
The agent ripped his wrist from Pashie's temporarily weakened grasp and shoved the barrel of his pistol against his chin.
"Chorus..." he gasped.
BANG!
The Agent's lifeblood speckled Pashie's face as he blasted his own brains onto the wall.
Cethic cleared his throat. He didn't want to be here anymore, but he took his fear and shoved it aside. He had gained that skill through years of frontline combat.
"You okay?"
Pashie nodded cheerfully, rubbing the bite-mark. "Yep! Just an itsy-bitsy scratch!"
Turning to the fresh corpse, Cethic shook his head in disapproval.
"I've seen worse." He simply remarked, trying to mask his apprehension.
Pashie giggled, smearing the blood on her face with the back of her hand. "It was kinda funny, though, right? His head went all sploort!"
Cethic forced himself to join Pashie in laughter. "Haha, yeah. Stupid asshole probably didn't know which end of the gun went bang."
Pashie kept laughing, a completely genuine expression of mirth. Cethic felt his spirit strangely buoyed by her joy; it brought a smile to his face, even in this black, insane environs.
Just as Pashie's laughter had suddenly started, it inconceivably died. She closed her mouth and cupped a hand to her ear.
"Shh..."
The second she stopped laughing, Cethic's nervousness returned, five-fold. He clenched Bastard in his hands and steadied his breathing.
Pashie held her axe in one hand, a Desert Eagle in the other. With exaggerated slowness, she crept towards the next door. It opened with a swoosh.
There was another body. He- or whatever was left of him- laid supine across the ground, cold and lifeless. Chunks of flesh were ripped from his emaciated frame. He was clearly a prisoner before... whatever it is that happened to him. Something violent.
The body was already starting to decay. Some of the exposed flesh rotted, a repulsive, mottled green.
Cethic tapped his partner on her shoulder. "Pash, why do I feel like there's no one left to rescue?"
Pashie laughed again. "You mean that guy? Hah! Nothing a little CPR can't fix!"
Cethic couldn't help but notice that Pashie's exuberance was starting to sound somewhat forced.
As they went, there were more bodies. Sometimes, there were scientists, their white lab coats soaked red. Agents and unarmed civilians alike started appearing, three at a time, horribly dismembered with cold fingers clenched around makeshift weapons and empty firearms. Limbs and viscera sprinkled the ground.
Cethic stiffened as they approached yet another doorway; he heard something. Spectral voices, chanting a discordant tune. He shook his head and the singing faded away.
"Fuck." Cethic murmured. "I'm hearing things. Singing, maybe? I can't tell, but whatever it is, it sounds like crows getting garotted."
Pashie face showed genuine confusion. "Really, now? Queer, quite queer. I heard nothing of that sort. Is it a song? What're the lyrics?"
Cethic groaned. "Seriously, Pash."
Pashie imitated Cethic's groan. "I'm serious too, Cethy. What exactly didja hear?"
Pashie's concern caught Cethic off guard. He scratched the back of his head. "Eh, whatever...it's nothing! I've heard worse. Let's see what other shit this fucked-up freakhouse has to offer."
"Cethic."
Cethic brushed a strand of hair from in front of his eyes with his pistol barrel. "What?"
"That sound, it's not nothing." Pashie whispered. "It's the Chorus of the Damned."
Cethic rolled his eyes, assuming that Pashie was just being melodramatic. "How would you know? Okay, Pash, don't worry about me. Just... that smell is driving me insane."
"Maybe it is..." Pashie mused. Her eyes darted across the room as if she had seen a ghost, and her breathing was slow and steady.
Cethic turned and crossed his arms. "Don't worry about me, Pash. Let's... just fetch the survivors, if there are any, and get out of here ASAP-"
Swoosh!
The door opened. Pashie sprang into motion, stepping forward with one foot and brandishing her axe. In one, fluid motion, her arm streaked downwards, sending her axe flying towards the intruder, a blurred, lethal messenger of death.
Thunk!
The axeblade slammed into a soft object. Cethic whirred about, gun veteran eyes evaluated the situation quickly.
Someone… or something, was walking towards them.
The once-human creature shambled with an awkward gait. His... its putrid, green skin hung loosely from its bloated paunch; whatever this thing was, it had recently eaten well.
Where there was once a jaw, there was now a cluster of jagged, chipped canines jutting haphazardly from crimson gums. One glazed, fetid eye rolled crazily in its socket as it lumbered forth. Pashie's throw was excellent. The axeblade had sunk up to the haft into the thing's head, cleaving away the right side of its face.
The smell intensified tenfold. Even with his medical mask filtering the air, Cethic gagged upon inhaling a mere whiff of the foul odors.
That didn't stop him from firing three rounds, straight into the thing's brain. The monster lurched back with each bullet impact, grey matter spewing out of the newly-formed bullet holes.
It still stood.
Pashie, courageously insane as always, charged towards the monster. Cethic heard the creature's arms whoosh across the air as it swiped at Pashie. She ducked under the attack, seized her axe handle, and ripped the axeblade across the monster's body, from the cranium to the pelvis. She kicked the bisected remains, thrusting them backwards into the next room.
Cethic held his fire and his breath. He'd never seen anything withstand more three headshots from Bastard; a bear wouldn't have been able to stand up by the second bullet, even without an axe lodged in its head.
The two halves continued to twitch for a few seconds before they finally laid limp. Cethic exhaled in relief. He stood straighter and tried to ignore the miasma in the air.
"That was pretty easy," he declared, full of fake confidence.
Pashie frowned as she wiped her axeblade on her tank top. "Huh. All that work, and he didn't even scream for me. Not fair."
Cethic analyzed the body further, still keeping his distance just in case. His shades ran a quick scan over the 1337 Agent's remains before returning inconclusive results.
"Shades say that we should aim for the head." Cethic remarked. "Though, for some reason, I feel like those green walking freakshows don't give a shit about headshots."
Cethic turned to his partner when he didn't receive a response. Pashie blankly stared at the wall, rubbing a finger against her temple.
"Pash? You alright?"
She blinked twice, shaking her head. "What? Oh, I'm fine! I think I didn't drink enough cola for breakfast! Just a little... winded, is all."
This statement only added to Cethic's worries. Pashie was always the last to tire out during training and in-mission.
"I guess. Listen, we get these HVTs, and get out of this building fast as we can. We can jump out the window, for all I care. The Anti-AAHW isn't capable of this level of destruction. So just keep focus. Seriously."
Pashie nodded, making a thumbs-up sign. "Okie-dokie, artichokie!"
She hid her exhaustion well. But, just to be safe, Cethic opened a private channel to Jericho Bravo and spoke quietly, hoping Pashie wouldn't hear.
"Hey, asshole. Tell HQ to scan this building. We have to make sure there's any life signs in here or... uh... poisons and shit."
Jericho circled the building, high in the sky. Cethic was late. This trivial mission should have been finished twenty minutes ago. Adding Pashie to that equation should've made it even shorter.
Jericho thought of the young couple and closed his eyes in introspection. He wished that he was young once again. He wished that he was filled with that naive exuberance. He wished his friends and comrades had survived the-
"Hey ah...zzz...tell...scan th...building...make sh...zzz...life...poison..."
Jericho sat straight and tapped a button on the side of his headset.
"Tertia Prime, say again? Your signal is breaking up. Over."
A pause. No response.
"Tertia Prime, do you read me? Over to you."
Only percussive gunshot blasts penetrated the buzzing static. It seemed as though the duo had their hands full.
"Tertia Prime-"
"zzz...SCAN!..."
Jericho smirked. That was definitely Cethic.
"All this trouble for such a trivial mission. Also, fix your comms, boy."
He only heard gunfire and faint, gargled screams. Then, an eerie silence as Cethic severed his communications mid-packet.
Jericho's smirk slowly disappeared. Cethic and Pashie sounded like they were actually struggling. Perhaps they were fighting another AAHW, freak-experiment abomination? Like the ones that had claimed the infamous Alpha Squad's lives, so many years ago?
Regardless, Cethic's urgent tone heralded bad news. Jericho changed the frequency on his transmitter and set it for priority alpha.
"HQ, requesting scan of AAHW Outpost SF-097. Repeat, scan of Outpost Sierra-Foxtrot Oh Nine Seven. Over to you."
"Copy that, Jericho Bravo. Hacking into AAHW surveillance systems now…" A gruff voice replied.
Jericho laid back. It would normally take a good ten minutes for HQ to return any sort of data, but judging from this facility's mediocre size, he assumed the ETA to be seven.
After what seemed like an eternity, the transmitter buzzed again.
"...Uh, Jericho Bravo? Do you copy?"
"I copy."
"Extract Tertia Prime ASAP. Scans show a Class-five biological hazard."
Jericho was taken aback. He had seen, cleansed, and even helped cause Class-four biohazards... but Class Five? Five was considered to be the unreachable limit. It should've been impossible…
"Say again? Class-five? Uh... Over."
"Confirmed, Class-Five biohazard."
"Elaborate, HQ."
"Surveillance picked up something… off. Surveillance cameras show nothing but blood and corpses ripped to bits in the hallways. But… but something's crawling around. This is where it gets strange: those anomalous contacts? BioScanners show flatlines across the board. They're... dead."
Walking dead AAHW agents? Could it be…?
He shook his head, expelling the thoughts. Preposterous.
"... HQ, are there any life signs in the Area of Operations?"
"Other than Tertia Prime and Tertia Epsilon, no...I think. No, wait. Data also states that there's two lifesigns, west of Tertia Prime's position. Regardless, they can't be saved. We're scrubbing this mission. Extract the operatives and blow up that building, by any means necessary. Leave nothing but ashes. Domino's orders."
Jericho furrowed his brow. Zombies? No. Project Nexus was dismantled years ago, burned to the ground. Besides, he should stay focused on what's going on right now.
"Copy. Moving in for extraction. Over and out."
Jericho twisted the dial on his headset and changed the frequency and setting transmission power to maximum. Maybe the AAHW would intercept it. But he needed to make sure Cethic and Pashie heard the scan results.
If the AAHW were attempting the shenanigans they had tried at project Nexus, a mere interception of data would be utterly irrelevant.
Sword in one hand, pistol in the other, Cethic was the center of a whirlwind of lead and silver. He levelled Bastard and unleashed a withering storm of .45 ACP. Three, four, five bullets slammed into a rotting skull, blasting it to bloody chunks.
He had survived hundreds of missions, often, against impossible odds. He was determined not to fail here.
Cethic spun about, silver sword held high. Bitch blurred down in an arc of silver, decapitating yet another green-skinned horror.
Pashie broke through the opening Cethic had created, both her pistols aloft, pumping out volley after volley of high-caliber slugs. Even these monsters couldn't survive such a lethal fusillade.
She squeezed the trigger on both guns and revelled in the bloodshed and chaos.
"HA HA HAA!" Her piercing laughs were audible, above the sounds of gunfire and the garbled screams of the creatures. Her mane of disheveled hair looked even more chaotic than usual as she fought.
"BOOP!" Pashie blurted as she exploded yet another zombie skull with brutal accuracy.
Her onslaught was stopped as a green hand raked the skin on her forearm with sharp fingernails. She yelped sharply in pain.
The zombie recoiled and withdrew as a bullet tore through its wrist.
"That was my last round!" Cethic cried, holstering Bastard. "I'm out!"
Pashie stumbled backwards, bumping into Cethic. A menacing semicircle of Zeds had formed around them.
'Pash doesn't normally make dumb mistakes like that...' he thought, as he clenched Bitch with both hands.
"Pash!" Cethic shouted, "Get your shit together! Seriously!"
"Oopsy daisy," she mumbled. "Sorry, I'm just… pooped aannnd~"
Before Cethic could question her, he noticed Pashie keel over to the side.
"Stay with me!" Cethic pleaded, shaking her shoulder. "C'mon! You're stronger than this!"
"Apple and cheese..." Pashie whispered, eyes half-closed. "Please don't sneeze..."
Pashie pressed her face against the concrete wall and let her hand dangle loose. One of her Desert Eagles clattered to the floor. The other, she loosely gripped in her fingers.
"Shit…"
Grabbing her arm, Cethic dragged a nearly-unconscious Pashie quickly down the hallway behind them. The zombies pursued, wildly shambling after their prey.
Cethic turned a corner and dashed down another hallway, only for two more zombiefied Grunts to intercept him. Just as the two undead soldiers sensed Cethic's and Pashie's presence, Cethic took Pashie's remaining pistol from her hand and fired until the gun was empty. He bisected the surviving Grunt with a diagonal slash from Bitch, spraying his blood across the ceiling.
Swoosh!
The next door opened.
Cethic readied himself with Bitch yet again, preparing to make a last stand. So long as he was still standing, they could make it out of here alive. But, with attackers on both sides, survival seemed-
"Get inside!" muffled voices shouted. "Quick, before it's too-!"
Cethic didn't need to be told twice. He dove into the room, dragging Pashie with him.
Swoos-kkzz!
The door was jammed. A zombie had tried to crawl through as the door closed. Cethic kicked at the monster until it reluctantly withdrew. Impedance removed, the door slammed shut.
With a groan, Cethic pushed himself off the ground. The first thing he noticed, now that he wasn't fighting for his life, was how fresh the air seemed. He tore off his medical mask and took a deep breath.
"Filters," the muffled voice said, as if it could read the fighter's mind. "They keep this room relatively clear of the infection."
Cethic looked at his and Pashie's saviors, still keeping a tight grip on his sword.
"Who are you two?"
The man stared at Cethic and Pashie with wide eyes through his gas mask and raised his hands in the air.
"Us? We're scientists. We were a part of an AAHW Science team that made the bioweapon you two had the pleasure of experiencing firsthand. But if you don't consider that significant, then we're really not really special in particular-"
In a blur of movement, Cethic slammed the speaking scientist against the wall, watching his eyes widen underneath the gas mask.
"You made those things?"
The scientists' lab coat heaved as he breathed heavily. "Uh...Yes...? No? I had orders, damnit!"
Pashie groaned, clutching her stomach. "Hungry... hmm... snickerdoodles..."
Cethic lightly pressed Bitch against the man's throat. "My girl's hurt, I'm out of ammo, and there are like twenty of those monsters outside right now. Fuckin' AAHW... Give me one good reason why I shouldn't slice your heads clean off!"
"Because if you do that, then your companion will soon cease to be human." Another scientist behind Cethic calmly answered.
Cethic turned towards Pashie, panic setting into his mind. He noticed how bad she looked: sweat glistened on her forehead as her breathing patterns worsened: now erratic and halting.
"Pash!"
Cethic released the man he held against the wall and turned towards her. The once-pinned scientist sighed in relief, turning to his partner.
"Good save, Archibald."
The other scientist, Archibald, nodded. "Consider yourself welcome, Bard. Though, next time, let me handle the diplomacy."
"Yessir."
The AAHW scientists turned to Cethic. He felt Pashie's forehead with one hand and uttered a long string of cusses under his breath.
"Fuckin' fuck, of all the times... you're breaking out with a fever now? You're never sick!"
Pashie weakly smiled. "NevaCola?... I'll take five cans..."
Bard's eyes widened. "Huh? She's infected? We should just shoot her now before-!"
"We are not shooting anyone!" Archibald sternly warned, stopping Bard before he could say another word. "Have you no confidence in our cure?"
"Cure?" Cethic whirled about. "You have a goddamn cure, and you still let your own guys outside die?!"
"What we've got now is more like a... prototype." Bard explained nervously. "And and we still don't have a method of dispersal, aside than injection. Uh, I think you've noticed, but it's... difficult, to inject a zombie once it's fully transformed."
"But there's still a chance it can work." Archibald quickly reassured. "Your friend... Pash, was it? She seems to have a strong immune system. The infection still hasn't progressed to an advanced state, even with two points of injection."
"Zombies?! What is this, some corny horror story now?!"
Archibald sighed. "Pentacyclic Praseodymium Arsenic Bromide-based Reanimated Organisms. That's quite the mouthful, so we resort to simply calling them Zombies."
"Cethy…" Pashie whispered, her face pale, "... can you sing me a lullaby?"
"Hang on babe." Cethic replied.
He turned to Archibald and Bard. "This antidote of yours. Give it."
Archibald shook his head. "Now, now. Were it so easy, there would be no guarantee you'd let us make it out of here with you two, would there?"
This time, Cethic pressed Bitch against Archibald, his piercing gaze increasing in ferocity.
"Say that again. I fucking dare you." Cethic growled.
Unlike Bard, who was pressed against the wall in fear, Archibald showed no signs of wavering.
"You must take us with you when you exfiltrate." Archibald answered back coldly.
"Oh yeah? Says who?"
"Says Pash over there. If you kill me or my partner, we're not giving you anything. For now, we'll give you the antivenom to slow the effects. But the only way you'll receive the cure is if you get us out of here. Alive."
Cethic continued to press Bitch against Archibald. Biting the bottom of his lip, he holstered his sword, forcing himself to turn away from the lead AAHW scientist.
"Damn it… fine. Fine. Give her your shitty antivenom."
Wordlessly, Bard pulled out two items from his labcoat: a pneumatic syringe gun and a capsule filled with a transparent, yellow liquid. With a hiss, the syringe gun emptied the contents of the capsule into Pash's bloodstream.
"I swear to God, if this doesn't work, I'll feed you to those green bastards next door."
"It will work." Archibald affirmed. "Though we are enemies on the battlefield, right now, we face a common foe."
Cethic said nothing as Bard disposed of the empty vial and replaced it with a fresh one. Already, Pash was showing signs of positive change.
"Mmmh..." she sighed.
"Antivenom applied." Bard confirmed with a nod. "Effects look positive."
"Great." Cethic turned to the door. "Now let's get out of here."
"Uh w-wait!" Bard shouted. "The second you open that door, the flood of undead waiting behind it are going to rip us all to shreds! There's a reason why the two of us were originally holed up here you know!"
"Well then, we're in a bit of a pickle." Cethic retorted. "I guess we'll just wait here until we starve to death, then."
"Worry not!" Archibald intervened, his voice optimistic. "Where there's a will, there's a way. We're in a laboratory right now, are we not?"
"Yeah, I'd say this is a laboratory." Cethic said, pointing towards scientific paraphernalia arrayed on the tables. "Your point?"
Archibald pulled off his gas mask, revealing his thinning brown hair and a mad grin on his creased, aged visage.
"We kill them the same way we built them: science! Just give us a firearm and ten minutes, give or take."
Cethic sighed and reached for his pistol.
"End of the line, Badass Bastard," he muttered mournfully.
"...Cethy...?"
Pashie weakly lifted her her remaining Desert Eagle with both hands. Her arms quivered from the strain.
"...take it..."
Bard delicately plucked the pistol from her hands and tossed it to Archibald. The veteran scientist went to work, disassembling the slide and removing the clip.
Bard removed his mask as well, his young face showing equal amounts of excitement. "Ooh, I get it now! Awesome! Let's show these outsiders the AAHW's ingenuity, eh Archi?"
"Precisely!" Archibald agreed, pistol to a workbench, while Bard pulled out vials chemicals from a nearby shelf.
Unsure, Cethic crossed his arms. "I'm glad you two are excited about your little science fair project, but what exactly are you guys doing?"
"Enjoy cooking?" Bard asked back.
Cethic raised an eyebrow. "Uh, no?"
"Well, let's just say you're going to love to now. Satisfaction guaranteed!"
A small clump of the undead continued to aimlessly roam around the hallway, uncertain as to where to go or what to do next, while others continued chewing on the leftovers of corpses here and there in the facility. Just as Bard warned, about seven of the zombies were clustered in front of the laboratory door. Escape seemed impossible.
But "science," on the other hand, would prove otherwise.
The doorway to the laboratory ascended, attracting the attention of the seven zombies congregated nearby. With outstretched arms, they stepped towards the room only to see a lone figure confront them.
Cethic.
With both hands on the holster of Pashie's Deagle, he lifted the gun and pulled the trigger.
The tube connected to the back of the pistol's slide flooded with a slurry of chemicals, pushed by a large, pressurized tank of oxygen.
Propane. Acetaldehyde. Carbon Disulfide.
And a tiny, trace amount of Chlorine TetraFluoride.
These volatile chemicals infused and violently reacted. The Chlorine TetraFluoride sparked as it reacted, releasing a small burst of light and heat.
A spark was all it needed.
The chain reaction spiralled out of control. The chemicals combusted, fought against the hardened steel barrel of the Desert Eagle. The miniature explosions rebounded and thrust outwards, amplified tenfold.
Ignition.
The zombies had no time to react as searing flames consumed their bloodied bodies. Their mangled forms danced crazily in the inferno as the flesh boiled and bubbled away.
In a matter of a minute, nothing but bones and ashes remained.
Cethic turned the Deagle in his hand, a grin on his face. "Huh. Cooking ain't so bad after all."
Bard raised his hands in joy. "Yeah! Whoo! Success!"
"It's still too early to celebrate." Archibald reminded them, pointing towards the zombies who had just spotted them from the end of the hallway while carrying Pashie. "This is our only chance. We have to break through now. There are more zombies in this facility than there is fuel to burn them with. Put on your gas masks."
Bard offered Cethic a spare mask, which he slipped on over his shades. Planning to waste no time, Cethic pushed forwards, burning any would-be threats into a crisp.
Just as they managed to make the first turn, his transmitter started fizzling yet again.
"Tertia Prime? Do you read? Do you read, Tertia Prime!" Jericho's voice came in, loud and clear.
"A bit busy here!" Cethic responded, burning down two more zombified 1337 Agents.
"Cethic! Listen up. HQ scrubbed the rescue op. That building contains a Class-Five biohazard-"
"I'm three steps ahead of you. I already have the only two scientists in the world who can cure this 'Class-Five' clusterfuck!" Cethic shouted in response.
Jericho audibly sighed.
"Good. Where is Tertia Epsilon? She usually has more of a... radio presence."
Cethic grit his teeth as a tongue flame flickered over his hand; one of the hazards of using a pistol for a flamethrower nozzle. He bit his lip and kept himself from crying out in pain.
"Pashie's incapacitated!" He managed to speak.
"Is she MIA?"
"No. I guess that 'Class-Five biohazard' infected her, but I'm dragging her along for the ride." Cethic continued, raising his flamethrower to burn down another Zed Grunt.
"You have to extract ASAP. There are two exfil options: I can extract you all in my chopper at the roof of the building. Alternatively, there is a parking lot north-north-west with a good number of operational extraction vehicles."
"Hey, Bard! How far is the parking lot?"
Bard thought for a second. "Uh, shouldn't be too far, maybe like ten minutes away. I know a shortcut-"
"Jericho, we'll take the second option. Much as I would love to see you get swarmed and eaten by zombies, we can't risk letting these AAHW scientists on our chopper. They might plant a tracking device or something."
"Good catch, Tertia Prime. The vehicles are outside in parking. Bravo out."
Cethic continued to jog forth, clearing the path. The flamethrower, however, had started to become unreliable. It only fired in short bursts, and the chemical tanks on his back felt strangely light.
He reached for Bitch with his free hand. Something told him that he would need the sword soon.
Archibald panted lightly as he staggered along behind them. Though he was aged, Cethic was impressed at how he managed to keep pace with them while carrying Pashie.
Bard noticed how his fellow scientist was starting to tire.
"Hey, Archi, I can carry her if you want. You should take a break."
Archibald exhaled and leaned against a barricaded window.
"That would be excellent-"
Crash!
A green hand exploded from the wood, seizing Archibald's arm. He gasped in pain as the zombie's nails dug in. Beads of blood stained his labcoat.
"Archibald!" Bard shouted, running back to his comrade.
More hands burst out of the cracks in the barricade, grabbing hold and many different points. Bard flinched from the sudden crashes, falling backwards.
With a loud crunch, a zombiefied head broke through, chomping down on Archibald's shoulder. The zombie hands continued to rip and tear; a dozen claws ripped at his flesh.
"GAH!" Archibald exclaimed in pain.
Pashie's eyelids fluttered.
"Whu-?"
Cethic turned and saw Pashie sluggishly raise her axe. She let her arm fall, wedging the axeblade into the zombie's head. The zombie uttered a garbled scream before withdrawing back through the barricade, axe still stuck in its head.
"Naughty boy..." Pashie mumbled, lying back on the ground and closing her eyes. "Mommy's trying to sleee~"
Cethic lunged in, Bitch aloft. A dozen disembodied hands fell to the floor, weakly twitching, yet the zombies remained relentless; A dozen more hands appeared in their places.
Cethic withdrew and focused on the horde behind them. With some effort, Archibald freed an arm and reached for something in his chest pocket.
"Bard!" Archibald cried, extending a small leather handbook with a shaky arm.
"Bard! The notebook!"
Gaining the courage to move again, Bard crawled towards the handbook underneath Cethic's slashes, seizing the binding and wiping off the blood with his sleeve.
"I have it!"
"Rrgh...Efficacious!" Archibald grunted, struggling against the zombies. "Now run!"
Bard stared, eyes wide with horror. Archibald was, slowly and surely, getting pulled through the barricades. The wooden boards flexed; some cracked.
"But I...we-!" He stuttered.
"It's too late!" Archibald sputtered. "I already hear the singing! Escape! Do whatever it takes! Spread the cure! These are my final orders, go!"
Bard bit his lip. He managed a small nod and a salute.
"...Yessir."
"Are you guys done singing kumbaya yet?!" Cethic shouted, slicing the top of one zombie's head clean off. "My restaurant reservation was at Seven PM! It's already Seven-thirty!"
Bard wordlessly stood, draping Pashie's unconscious arm over his shoulder as he followed Cethic down the hall. Archibald's screams echoed in their ears.
Bard never looked back.
"Yo, Asshole, do you read me? We're crossing open ground now. Uhh, scratch one of the scientists, though, he got pegged on the way out. Some fire support would be nice, considering half a million green guys are chasing us."
"Roger." Jericho replied. "Moving in to support."
Jericho Bravo grinned with anticipation. It had been a good decade and a half since he last flew a combat mission. Hopefully things still worked the same way they did back in the day...
The helicopter he piloted was certainly not a flawless machine of war. It was an old, decommissioned military chopper, pilfered from a scrapyard, refurbished and restored by Tertia techs. The missile racks, and the missiles themselves, were scavenged, improvised, or purchased from the black market. There was a good chance that they were duds or that they would misfire. Who knew what could happen with such low-grade munitions?
Still, Tertia couldn't afford any heavier expenses, so the makeshift missiles were here to stay. If this building was so dangerous, then it would be worth the risk of using these unreliable missiles.
Jericho flicked some switches on the overhead display. The chopper's nose sluggishly edged downwards into an attack dive.
It was time to see what kind of punch these warheads held.
"Missiles racks A-1 through D-6... armed." Jericho murmured.
'Just like the good old days... back when Jericho Alpha and Jericho Prime were still alive.'
Bravo still remembered their screams. He remembered helplessly watching as the helicopter carrying his comrades went down in flames. He made a tight-lipped frown.
"This is vengeance for my squadmates, you AAHW bastards. My friends, who all lie dead."
His thumb jammed down on the firing stud. Exhaust spewed from the first makeshift missile as it streaked from the tube. It spiralled; the fins were clearly misaligned. Still, it managed to impact the building, albeit off-target. The explosives blossomed orange as it detonated. Satisfactory.
Jericho grit his teeth and turned his steering stick. He aimed at the small mob of zombies pursuing Cethic.
"This is justice for the thousands of Nevadans I've seen murdered."
The next missile soared towards its target, spewing a stream of propellant: it flew straight and true. It slammed into the concrete and detonated a second later, blasting chunks far and wide, leaving a large, smoldering crater.
Jericho paused.
"This... is for a brighter future."
He jammed the red button.
Nothing happened.
Bravo knew exactly what went wrong: he was going to die.
"Missile misfire..." he muttered. "...just like Jericho Gamma, ten years ag-"
The warhead detonated in its tube, ripping the a couple rotor blades and the left turbine off of the helicopter fuselage. The remaining turbine screamed as it tried to maintain control; Black smoke gushed from the wounds. Jericho was thrown from his seat, and his helmet slammed into the bulletproof glass windshield in front of him.
Jericho grimaced and ignored the dull, throbbing pain in his head. He ignored the blinking, red lights and the chaotic alarms. He ignored the panic which fluttered in his chest.
The chopper was now spinning out of control. Jericho felt the vertigo intensify as he plummeted downwards.
"Damnit, girl." Jericho pleaded, wrestling with the controls. "Keep it together..."
With considerable difficulty, he managed to get his warbird to point towards the building. The stress overloaded the hydraulics, and the fuel tanks detonated.
The chopper exploded. An eruption of fire burst from the midline of the chopper; the tail wrenched free from the fuselage with a screech of metallic distress.
But his task was done; the front half already had enough forward momentum. He was going to crash into the building. He ruefully passed his eyes over the missiles in the left wing; they would forever remain unexploded in their tubes.
A waste.
His gloved hand reached for the transmitter, just as he was trained to do.
"HQ, do you read? This is Jericho Bravo... I'm going down."
"...Sorry," He added.
Jericho closed his eyes.
Cethic's ears rang from the explosion, but the zombies chasing them were now pulp and gibs. Bard was on his knees, shaking off his disorientation.
"Yo!" Cethic yelled, shaking the young scientist's shoulder. "We have to move!"
Bard clumsily stood. Cethic lifted Pashie in his arms and jogged towards a relatively undamaged Jeep.
Bard unlocked the jeep with his keycard when-
BOOM!
Cethic spun as an explosion ripped through the middle of Jericho's chopper. The aircraft split in two, and the cockpit hurtled towards the base of the building, a falling, flaming meteor.
"C'mon!" Cethic yelled, climbing into the back seat, pulling Pashie with him. "Drive!"
It was a miracle that he was even alive. What was left of his helicopter had impacted the lowest floor of the building, making a large hole where it had crashed through the wall. A single rotor blade still sluggishly spun.
Bravo tasted blood.
He felt heat on his face. But he heard nothing.
His eyes slowly opened. Shards of glass and jagged tines of shrapnel stuck into his torso. A steel pole had impaled his left shoulder. Flames licked at his boots.
But he felt no pain.
A hand gently ran along the long gash on his forehead. The blood rolled down his face like bloody tears.
But there was still strength in that battered body.
"...icho Bravo! Are you alive? Talk to me, you bastard!"
With a grunt of exertion, Jericho ripped the pole out of his arm and clambered out of his shattered cockpit. He crawled towards his helmet, which had been thrown free in the blast.
Reaching it, he ripped out the headset, placed it on his head, and tapped the transmit button with a charred hand.
"I read you... loud and clear."
Jericho knew that he would not make it. He had sustained too many injuries. He already felt dizzy from blood loss... but there was still an order to carry out. He cradled his gut with one hand and crawled towards the wreckage. The orders from HQ replayed in his mind.
"...Extract the operatives and blow up that building, by any means necessary. Leave nothing but ashes. Domino's orders."
The operatives had extracted, but the building remained standing. He had to destroy this structure, by any means necessary.
And Jericho knew exactly how.
It was common black-market practice to super-harden the casings on their missiles, so when the missiles exploded, it would contain the explosion, building up pressure and generating a bigger boom.
The mangled fuselage still held a cluster of charred and dented, yet operational, missiles. Better yet, Pashie's weapon locker had burst open, scattering her armaments across the ground.
The issue was piercing those hardened casings and making the missiles detonate.
He picked up a G36 from the pile of weapons on the floor; pressed its familiar, reassuring weight against his chest. He kept searching, though. He was looking for something else.
"Where the hell are you?" Cethic buzzed in. "We're coming in an AAHW jeep-"
"Tertia Prime, please leave. This building is about to collapse. You want to be far away when it does."
A few seconds of stunned silence held over the intercom. Jericho kept rummaging through the weapons. It was somewhere in there. If only Pashie had been more organized...
"... Jericho, don't waste your life like this." Cethic finally answered back, "You might be a cocksucker, but you're a useful cocksucker, catch my drift? Who's gonna extract and insert me into missions if you're gone?"
Jericho didn't know if it was his dying brain making hallucinations, but he saw a shadow cross the opposite wall. Perhaps they were the hostiles that Cethic and Pashie had been fighting this whole time.
"I'm already dead. Give me my last briefing. What exactly is in this building?"
"You...you-"
Jericho fired at the shadows. They withdrew, but two more appeared in its place. His voice became stern.
"Brief me, boy. Now, while I still have life in me."
He could hear Cethic swallow over the radio.
"Jericho, you are fighting an enemy who resists conventional weaponry. It won't stop attacking until you lie dead. Your enemy is strong and unyielding. It has no fear."
Jericho laughed, which caused him to lapse into a violent coughing fit. He regained his voice.
"I've faced similar foes."
"Like what?"
"Death."
"You...you poetic asshole."
Jericho grinned as he finally found what he was looking for.
A detonator.
There were at least ten bricks of C4 cached inside the Helicopter; Bravo had put it there long ago, in the event of some unforeseen ambush. They were more than powerful enough to trip the pressure detonators on those missiles.
'I saw Jericho Prime... Kate. Jericho Alpha... Leon. Charlie and Gamma... they were all there, standing beside me. They watched, and smiled, because they knew I would be with them soon.'
The shadows on the wall loomed closer. Jericho heard distant dripping.
"Cethic, you have better things to do than talk to a dying, old man. Go on. Forget about me. Enjoy your youth before the future takes it all away."
"Don't give me that crock of shit. Out of all the shitty AAHW cesspools you could've died in, you chose to die here? A veteran like you shouldn't die like some senile, old man, just spewing words!"
A zombie poked its head around the corner, red drool seeping from its jaws. Jericho smiled, grasping the detonator tightly in his right hand.
"Cethic... Look behind you."
Click.
"Not the best sanitation, I have to say."
Bard strode the concrete floor of Tertia's medbay. The concrete room was filled with makeshift IVs, sickbeds, and groans of pain.
Cethic shrugged. "Well, we're short on funds. Anyways, making the hospital seem like a shithole encourages our operatives to avoid getting injured."
Bard wrinkled his nose. "That's kinda screwed up."
"And whose fault is that, may I ask?"
"Hey, I didn't make the decisions at the AAHW. Just because we were a part of the Agency doesn't mean we're all evil assholes who experiment on civilians."
"That's not my job to care. I'm a bullet. I don't give a fuck who you are or where you come from. So long as you're at the opposite end of the trigger, you're not making it out with your brains intact-"
"Hungry! Brainsss!" A voice behind him suddenly roared. "Raaagh!"
Cethic's heart skipped a beat.
"Fuck!"
He jumped, his hand darting towards Bastard.
Pashie's arms wrapped around his chest as she leaned her chin on Cethic's shoulder. She smiled coyly.
"Hee hee! Tricked you! It's so funny when you scream!"
Cethic eased his muscles, turning a light shade of pink. "Ha ha ha... good one, Pash. C'mon, I wasn't actually scared. I knew that you'd be strong enough to pull through the virus, even without-"
Cethic paused in mid-sentence, his face turning slightly pale in realization.
"... the cure!"
"Had already been administered." Bard finished for Cethic, dusting off his sleeves. "Pash will be fine. Though still, her rate of recovery is exceptional."
"Huh? I thought that Archibald-dude said you only gave her the antivenom, or something."
"That was a bluff." Bard answered. "And, bless the brilliant bastard's soul, it worked."
"Wha...buh-"
Bard lowered his gaze, clenching his fists. "Archibald and I, we knew the bioweapon was too dangerous. We had been developing a cure in secret, while simultaneously creating the zombie gas. When the containment failed, one of the infected Agents came to us, begging for help. His name was Agent Thomas, I think. We injected him with our first version of the cure, but when he realized the effects were wearing off, he left, trying to distract the zombies so we could escape."
Bard paused. "But we didn't escape. We stayed and kept developing the cure. We knew we were so close, that we had to finish it, that we couldn't just give up and leave this shitty mess for someone else to clean..."
He turned to the door of the med-bay, readying his departure to Domino.
"... And you called us the heartless ones."
Before Cethic could come up with a response, Bard had already left the room, leaving a tense silence behind him.
Pashie playfully squeezed Cethic's chest.
"-urk! Pash! Knock it off!"
"Rrrrr!" She purred playfully. "Oh! And where's the oldy-old dude? I'm gonna get him some NevaCola for driving the chopper-bopper..."
Realizing who she was referring to, Cethic tensed up. Noticing this, Pashie's manic smile melted away into a frown of concern.
"Uh... Cethy?"
FILE CODE: CETHIC [312-38442]
ALIAS: [NONE]
BLOOD TYPE: A
STAND: [THIRD FACTION-TERTIA SQUAD: PRIME (SQUAD LEADER)]
FILE CODE: PASHIE [997-27443]
ALIAS: PASH
BLOOD TYPE: [UNSPECIFIED/UNKNOWN]
STAND: [THIRD FACTION-TERTIA SQUAD: ALPHA (SENIOR OPERATIVE)]
FILE CODE: JERICHO [884-53742] (K.I.A.)
ALIAS: BRAVO
BLOOD TYPE: [UNSPECIFIED/UNKNOWN]
STAND: [THIRD FACTION-JERICHO SQUAD: BRAVO (SPECIALIST)]
A/N:
Alias: First off, yes, it's supposed to end like that.
Now, I know Spirit is gonna start excessively praising in just a few lines, but let me tell ya, it was quite a nice break writing such crisp and new characters. Pashie's exuberant insanity and Cethic's nonchalance were boatloads of fun to compose. Jericho was also pretty neat too, I guess, so I tried to make his death unique (but failed in doing so XD). Anyways, this fic is such an awesome idea that I had to take part in it.
But yeah, I'll pass it on to Spirit, who is probably going to write a bunch of superlatives about me. I'm just a grunt. I can work, but he's my boss. Keep that in mind, comrades.
Pee-Ess: You may see some of these characters appear later in-
Spirit: OMG ALIAS YOU WERE SO GUD, HORRY SHIIIIIEEEEEEEET!111!
Okay, seriously. If you want anyone to thank for making this come out two to three weeks earlier than it would have if I was working alone, thank Alias-Maxima. Alias did a good three-fifths of this chapter, the other two-fifths being me writing some stuff here and there and coming up with some ideas.
But again, for the most part, Alias was the one who helped this chapter progress faster. In fact, you can even say that most, if not, all the credit for the making of this chapter can go to him; while I was at school, he actually spent his free time in Spring Break writing this. So really, I'm truly grateful for the love and support he's given not only here, but also on Hank's Legacy as well.
Not much to say other than that. Hopefully, along with Cethic, you guys enjoyed this! It was a great change of pace writing about the zombies in the Madness universe, and I gotta admit, it was harder than I thought! How do you write a zombie story without being cliche; the question still boggles me today.
Now then, Alias and I will be working back on the next chapter of Hank's Legacy and Order and Disorder! Thanks for reading, and we hope you enjoyed what you saw!
Oh, and here's a little snippet Alias came up with. Couldn't find the place to put it, so we just decided to leave it as a little bonus dialogue for those of you who actually read through this entire thing. ;)
~Spirit
Extra:
"Uh, so you are mister...Cethic?"
"Yeah, that's me. Sorry for being late."
"I'm sorry, your reservation for two was at seven PM. Not only did you bring three people, it's almost ten thirty now. We're about to close."
"Well... uh... can I order something to go? We're kinda in a hurry."
"I'm not sure that's how-"
"Okay, okay, just give me a can of NevCola or something."
"Cethic, let's get out of here. I have a cure to synthesize."
"...yeah. I somehow knew this wouldn't work. Well, let's keep moving, then. Back to HQ."
[END OF CHAPTER 6: TERTIA PRIME]