Chapter 10!
German Translations -
das ist wo Hans gestorben,= that's where Hans died,
"Die Flammenwerfer should dissuade die untoten..." = "The flamethrower should dissuade the undead..."
Das war verrückt! = that was crazy!
Im nicht tun dies für Sie = I'm not doing this for you!
X. Secure the Keys
Who knows the effects of Divinium. Only they ever did.
The four men exited the catacombs and descended the wooden works straight into one of the footprints left behind by the metal leviathans. Edward realized that meant some of the mechanized, large, robots had stomped through the site at some point since this chaos with the undead rising had started.
They walked along the muddied print, and Richtofen glanced sporadically at this new allies to study them. Dempsey was looking around the place, keeping an eye out for zombies. Takeo was doing the same. He held his gun firmly, and his face was alert. Nikolai was scowling, his eyes dark with resentment of this mess and those who'd caused it. He, too, glanced warily here and there.
Richtofen turned his eyes to the ground. Then caught sight of the lined chest there in the giant footprint. It was similar to the one in Bunker One. Had it just appeared there recently? He wondered.
He decided not to worry about it just yet. Instead he led the others onwards, towards Generator Four.
"You ready?" He questioned as they stopped by the mechanical generator.
The others nodded, raising their weapons. Richtofen pressed the button on the generator.
The ancient zombies climbed out of the ground from the glowing portals, growling gutturally. Instantly, weapons were trained on the beasts, and bullets were unloaded fiercely. Most of the rotten corpses fell back through their portals.
That's when Richtofen caught sight of more of the zombies stumbling in from further away. He aimed the DSR at them, carefully shooting.
He cursed under his breath as many of his shots initially missed the actual zombie's head and just buried itself in an arm or torso. Luckily, he managed to drop the corpses before they got too close.
He heard an appreciative holler beside him and glanced over to see Dempsey's STG 44 fill the ancient zombie with more bullets. The creature gurgled and collapse.
"Conversion process complete." The intercom finally announced.
That's when they noticed the glowing-red beverage machine. They stared uncertainly, frowning.
"Let's try it out, I'm thirsty." Richtofen decided.
Richtofen led them up to the beverage machine - it read JUGGERNOG - and pressed a button on the side. It felt strangely natural, like he'd done it before. He grabbed the drink deposited into his hands, raised it bottoms-up, and swallowed it down.
The others watched uncertainly, but finally followed suit. They sipped hesitantly, then chugged their own juggernogs down once they realized how good it was and how well it quenched their thirst.
Later, they found more of the strange machines and drinks. They seemed to help them with their fatigue and discomfort of the site.
The steel ram must be destroyed.
They had just finished their drinks when the Panzer Soldat attacked. Using its jetpack, it crashed down in front of them as they tried to leave Generator Four. It then rushed towards them, armor clanking, glowing malicious eyes gazing at them.
They opened fire on it once again. The power core exploded, and it staggered. Richtofen took careful aim with the DSR and fired. Its head was filled with sniper bullets.
It stumbled, tripped, and fell. Skidding against the muddy Earth. The entire suit blew up. Richtofen found the first staff part hovering, glowing fire-red in the air above the defeated Panzer Soldat.
"One of zhe staff parts!" He muttered in surprise, collecting it.
The others nodded, remember that the German had told them that they would need them.
A skyward spirit must fall to Earth.
Edward had seen the glowing red plane as he'd looked up earlier, and he'd just seen the same glow before around the staff part. He realized what that meant. He aimed Dempsey's discarded DSR and fired it at the plane, watching it explode.
He knew he'd done the right thing when the staff part fell from the sky and landed in the trenches. He quickly collected it, not even thinking twice about why the plane was carrying the piece.
All he knew was that he had to get the staffs rebuilt.
Divinium is here.
Richtofen showed the others his map as they walked away from another one of the machines labeled, Speed Cola. They'd spent the better part of the last several minutes fighting off the hungry dead that had risen to stop them from activating the generator, and had decided to drink the new beverage. Now, though, they were finished with the drink and curious of what the map held for them.
"Ve need to start up zhe rest of zhe conversion generators now. Zhere are six altogether. Generators One, Two, Three, and Four are active. Takeo, you and the Russian should take Generator Five, Dempsey and I vill go get Generator Six."
"I won't disagree with this plan, it makes sense." Muttered Takeo, finally speaking up for the first time in what felt like hours.
"Who said you gave orders, German?" Growled Nikolai disagreeably.
Richtofen raised an eyebrow. "You've got a better idea? I vant to here it."
"Fine." Nikolai spun on his heel and trudged off.
Takeo shook his head, and slowly followed.
"Come on, Doctor." Dempsey urged, walking in the direction of Generator Six.
They were nearing the church when Richtofen claimed an MP40 out of a chalk outline. It just so happens that the zombies attacked then. He fired it into some zombies stumbling up the path toward them.
"Oh! I zhink I got a little lucky vizh zhat one!" He exclaimed as a head was separated from a rotten body.
"Maybe you should offer to sow it up for him," Dempsey said sarcastically as he effortlessly mowed down the rest of the zombies with his STG 44. Richtofen watched the skilled Marine a little enviously as he easily took their heads off.
"Just vhat I'd expect from a Marine." Edward said approvingly.
They made their way through the trenches toward the church.
Das ist wo Hans gestorben, Richtofen thought sourly.
They entered the bottom of the church, and caught sight of a tank that had been hidden from view on the outside. Apparently it'd been left behind by some military party.
"Hey look, it's a tank. Kinda looks like a Mark IV issue." Said Dempsey appreciatively, nodding toward the machine parked within.
"Vell, I guess it's zhere if ve need it." Richtofen said drily. They climbed the wooden stairs upward into the main room. Most of the ceiling had been lost in the last barrage, it now lay in heaps on pews everywhere. Some of these pews were even on fire.
The giants hold many secrets.
Nikolai found the Japanese man surprisingly tolerable as they walked through the trenches mostly because of his unending silence. Nikolai didn't feel much like conversing either.
They were rounding a bend in the trench when Nikolai heard an undead moan. He saw Takeo spin around, SMG firing. The quick bullets sliced through decayed flesh, a body flopped into the trench.
Nikolai noticed more coming. He hefted his shotgun and fired, enjoying the feel of its kick. Unfortunately, there were too many zombies and the two men were soon retreating down the trench. They were being quickly surrounded and backed against a wall now, shooting down the undead, when they finally saw the mechanical behemoth.
It was approaching quickly, purposefully.
"RUN!" Screamed Nikolai, it was nearly on top of them, but their exit was blocked off by the hungry corpses.
"We must fight the giant!" Snarled Takeo, aiming his gun upward as the giant foot descended. The bottom exploded as it crashed down. They saw darkness and then a bright yellow light.
The two soldiers blinked their eyes and stared around. Above them, the wall read ODIN. Around them lay the dead crew of the robot. Behind them were the emergency ejectors. Their eyes were drawn to the glowing yellow staff pieces on a table across the room. Takeo quickly claimed them, placing them in his bag. Nikolai didn't really care, instead he looked around the room for anything important.
"Just as I thought...inside head, there is no brain." He commented.
"Who would design machines that run without human intervention?" Takeo muttered, taking in the deceased crew lying around.
"Purge sequence initiated." Said an intercom system in the robot.
"In 10...9...8..."
The two men glanced around worriedly as red warning lights flashed.
"7...6...5...4..."
They climbed into the blue ejectors, figuring that it would be the best thing to do.
"3...2...1...Purging now."
They were launched out of the ejectors and into the sky.
After Richtofen and Dempsey had activated Generator Six, an ancient box nearby, similar to the one in Bunker One, had opened and within a glowing blue light inside, hovered the final fire staff part. Richtofen had passed the fire staff parts to Tank to haul around in his pack, and explained them to him.
Now they were entering the church again. Suddenly, Richtofen noticed a basin. It sat off to one side, looking like it'd narrowly avoided being crushed by the ceiling...but there was something different about it. It felt like deja vu, but he couldn't think of any reason it should stand out in his mind. They walked downstairs.
Suddenly, a horde of zombies ambushed them.
"Dammit!" Growled Tank as the undead swatted at him. Richtofen cried out in alarm as he too was surround. Shooting their way out, they made it to the tank alive. They leapt aboard and started it up.
Scratch the surface, reveal the shards of the ice staff.
Takeo and Nikolai hit the mud, shaking their dazed heads. They saw the giant robot stomping away, causing the Earth to rumble in its wake.
"I'm alive?" Nikolai asked in quiet surprise.
Takeo stood up. "Those machines must be destroyed," he muttered.
Takeo saw a shovel nearby along with a darker lump of mud on the ground next to it. He walked up to it, picked up the shovel, and dug until he had unearthed a glowing blue objects. It was an ice staff part. Takeo passed it to Nikolai without a word.
Nikolai sighed and reluctantly accepted it.
Around the battlefield, lightning lays just beyond reach.
The tank rumbled out of the church, belching smoke and roaring as it crushed the undead. The molder bodies were compressed into the ground; crunching, overgrown beetles. Those that managed to escape the treads were quickly killed with bullets, flopping back to the Earth like fish.
"HAH! Watch this Richtofen!" yelled Dempsey as he pressed a button on the tank's control panel. Hot flames shot out of the machine's side, charring the undead trying to climb up onto it. The smell of burnt bodies filled the air unpleasantly.
Richtofen called back over the noise in agreement, "Die Flammenwerfer should dissuade die untoten from getting too close!" They continued onward, large treads rolling through the mud easily.
After a while on the tank, Richtofen's eyes caught site of a purple glow off to the side on an old watchtower. It seemed out of place.
Timing his jump, he leapt off the tank onto the base of the tower, sighing with relief that he made it.
Just as I thought...one of the lightning staff pieces! He picked it up.
Dempsey watched this and realized what this meant. He rode the tank until he noticed a pale purple light illuminating the area. He stopped the mighty war machine below him and leapt onto the spot. Claiming another staff part.
He rode the Tank again until he found the last part near the church, glowing like a beacon. He claimed it with a grin.
To him. He wasn't sure if these pieces were as important as the doctor had said, but he was definitely going to enjoy the weapon it made. This, he was certain of.
Securing the keys.
The four men now stood in The Crazy Place. After their ejection from the giant robot, Nikolai and Takeo had proceeded to activate Generator Five. As for Dempsey, he'd left the tank in the church and met up with Richtofen again in the trenches. The two had made their way to the catacombs and found Nikolai and Takeo.
The four then built their staffs with the pieces and the plinths in the catacombs.
Takeo had built the wind staff, Dempsey the fire staff, Richtofen the lightning staff, and Nikolai the ice staff. The men had been pleased with their weapons.
Another round of the dead had attacked them.
The horde had rushed down the steps, mouths open and appetites for destruction whetted. The men had unleashed the elements onto the undead. Ice had torn through soft flesh and brittle bone. Lightning had danced in moldered veins and luminous eyes. Fire had charred rotten skin and muscle. Finally, wind had lashed bodies against each other and swept the enemy off their feet.
All that had been left were mounds of blackened, torn bodies.
And the four were happy with it.
But then Samantha had said, "There's more to do, Father said the staffs weren't strong enough."
It was hard to believe, but now they'd come here to The Crazy Place under Samantha's guidance, eager at the prospect of gaining even stronger staffs!
They each set out to solve the riddles while simultaneously fending off the ancients zombies in the old room. Richtofen had helped - Samantha tried, but wasn't much use in it - and they managed to figure out the puzzles.
They left the room, killing dozens of undead.
That was when a break in the numerous hordes came.
Dempsey stomped down the steps, glaring at the torches. Why weren't the damned things staying lit.
"Five...eleven...three...blood. That's what the doc's chart says."
Edward had given him a chart that showed what the glowing symbols in the church meant. Richtofen had said that the torches corresponded with them.
Dempsey decided that maybe the chart was off.
He tried another order. It failed.
Letting out a string of choice cuss words, he unloaded the fire every which way. Nothing worked. He climbed the steps again, and realized what he'd missed.
Relieved, but still aggravated, he went back down stairs.
Richtofen turned the last nob and nodded, pleased. He was done with the steps for the lightning staff. He considered checking up on the others, then decided he'd go ahead and make it to the catacombs.
His thoughts trailed off to his current predicament.
Am I mindlessly following this girl? He wondered. Or am I just making futile efforts to escape?
He decided that it would be best to do this. It was their only hope of escaping after all.
The last of the frozen stones exploded under the Nikola's shotgun. He sighed and shook his head, still in disbelief that this was his work now. He'd never expected to get caught up in this mess, but he had, and he wasn't pleased.
Then his thoughts were distracted by the distinctive sounds of the wind staff at work.
He trotted down the trench until he came upon Takeo, silent and walking.
"You done?" He asked the samurai.
"Yes," came the short reply.
Together they walked in silence back to the catacombs where they met up with Dempsey and Richtofen.
The men gathered at their respective switches on Richtofen's orders. Edward held his staff below and called up to the others on which switches to pull and in what order.
He did this until the rings colored circles matched up.
He fired the lightning staff onto the exposed, purple jewel and it flew upward into the light and left the catacombs.
The process was done again with the others. Next, came the ice-blue jewel floating upward taking the path of the purple one. The next was the yellow jewel. And finally, the red one was released.
The jewels disappeared.
"Yes! Yes!" Samantha rejoiced. "It's working, the jewels have been released. Keep at it, my brave heroes. You must go back to the hallowed grounds!"
Richtofen sighed inwardly, knowing he wasn't trying to help her at all. He wasn't sure about the others though.
On hallowed ground it begins with a single step.
The wind cave teleporter deposited the four men into the 'crazy place'. Takeo was first to get his bearings. He rushed down the steps in front of them and place his wind staff on the glowing-yellow pedestal there. The others soon hurried past him to their respective staff plinths. Takeo shrugged his shoulders to work the Skorpion strapped to his back down into his hands. He raised it, looked down the sights and took aim at one of the grey-robed, glowing zombies leaping off of the pillars around the edges of the ancient room. It instantly fell to the floor, body full of holes, dead. A yellow essence poured from its body and soared to the wind staff, imbuing it with the life force of the undead.
Dempsey ran forward to the fire section and thrust his fire staff into the pedestal. He turned his STG44 at the zombies trying to come up behind him. He slammed the stock of the weapon into the first of the beast to reach him. Its skull was effectively cracked and it fell backward into the zombie behind it, which also collapsed. Soon the undead were tangled in each other on the floor as they tripped over their fallen allies.
"Heh, look at you dumbasses!" Dempsey laughed and fired into the writhing pile.
Nikolai, after dodging and killing undead, finally managed to put his ice staff in its pedestal, shot-gunning his way through even more of the creatures.
Richtofen ran up to the purple plinth and placed his electrical staff in the lightning pedestal. Raising his MP40, he fired it at the electric zombies rushing at him. He pushed through them after a moment of flying bullets, their yellow life flowing into the staffs nearby.
The four men met back in the middle of the chamber, back to back as they aimed their weapons at the ancient zombies. The blood flew as desiccated corpses were riddled with bullets and mutilated by the force of it.
"Yeah! Die freakbags!" Dempsey growled angrily, taking down several more zombies, all the while, their life force continued pouring into the staffs.
Suddenly a strange sound filled the room like the sound of air escaping compression.
"At long last, the power of the winds is yours to wield!" Samantha's voice filled the room.
Dempsey killed more zombies and dashed forward, snatching up the wind staff. "Hah, this will blow those shitheads away!"
Takeo frowned slightly that his staff had been stolen from him, but decided that meant he'd get the fire staff, which was fine with him. Dempsey blasted away a cluster of zombies in his path and rejoined the others in the center.
Suddenly the same sound filled the room again. "After so long, the true power of fire is now in your hands!" Samantha said.
More undead fell under the insistent barrage of bullets. There was a momentary lull in the horde as zombies were swept away by the newly upgraded wind staff Dempsey had claimed and Takeo leapt forward to take the fire staff.
"Fire will incinerate their undead bodies!" He snarled, whipping the staff around and firing into a group of undead. Large balls of fire flew through the air and steaming, blackened corpses fell onto the ground.
The rushing of air sound filled the room yet again. "The strengths of ice are now your own!" The imprisoned girl insisted, sounding eager.
Nikolai lunged forward and grabbed the ice staff gratefully. "Let's watch the hell pigs freeze!" He aimed at the zombies coming up on all sides and froze a line of the corpses trotting after him. He swung it around and gave more of the monsters the same treatment.
The sound filled the room one last time. "Yes, true lightning is now yours to wield, with this act, the four staffs are now strong enough...as powerful as the originals!"
Richtofen rushed forward and snatched up his lightning staff, lightning arced out of the tip, dancing from one undead corpse to the next. Bodies that had been fried from the inside out littered the floor around him. He heard a low growl behind him and whipped around, slamming the spikes on the tip of the staff into the undead's cranium. Blood gushed out over the weapon, and the zombie fell down.
"ARHGG! I'm beginning to get a taste for slaughter!" Richtofen growled fiercely, spitting the zombie's blood out of his mouth.
"Ve've got to get out!" He hollered to the others over the moans of the undead and the sounds of the powerful staffs at work.
The four men carved a path through the undead with the staffs and made it to the wind cave teleporter. They leapt through it, and they floated through a peaceful but quick-moving blueness. For Richtofen the blueness was interrupted by the sight of a man, holding a powerful staff high over his head, eyes glittering with determination. The man looked strangely familiar. The giants holding the staffs will unlock the writings.
Edward Richtofen's feet hit the ground at the bottom of the Wind Tunnel, blinking his eyes as the vision and words faded. The others soon appeared around him. All of them were breathing heavily from the exertion of the fight.
Richtofen was gulping at the air. Das war verrückt!
Samantha whispered into the air around them. "You're actually doing this! you're going to free me! Thank you, brave heroes!"
Richtofen took a deep breath and mumbled, "Im nicht tun dies für Sie, Samanzha..." He sounded winded.
The four men took quick breaths and stared at their new staffs. They looked different. Bigger, with a strange new device on the end. In addition, powerful mêlée weapons had been added to the heads. The ice staff had a mace-like head. The lightning staff had thin spikes on the edges of its top. The fire staff had two deadly knives jutting out dangerously. The Wind staff's folded wing design was now open and sharpened to deadly points.
To say the men were very satisfied with their new weapons would have been the understatement of the century.
End of chapter 10!