Recommended listening: "Just Like You Imagined" by Nine Inch Nails from 300

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Emergence

It started to rain soon after the Gears left. Muse took up her shift on gate watch, and sat motionless in the downpour, silently brooding. Dominic Santiago was on her mind and it was over he whom which she brooded; had he but arrived at the camp a few years earlier, he would have been welcomed with open arms… but now he just brought back unwanted memories, and roused emotions that Muse thought she'd gotten under control… anger… bitterness… betrayal…

Over the years they'd been here, it had become obvious that Muse was a natural soldier and guardian, but not much of a leader in general. True, she'd been the one that had gotten the surviving refugees into that basement that had saved them from the Locust, and she had been the one to lead them here; keeping them together and keeping them going when otherwise they'd have given up and lain down in the dust.

But she had a military mind that could only really lead in times of war. Once the children reached this place and had completed the building of the camp, Muse's way of organising them had became somewhat redundant. The survivors were no longer in an all-out warzone, and they didn't need to be marshalled so much as they needed to be guided. They no longer needed to be pushed and have someone take command and make decisions for them, they needed someone to keep the peace, to uphold what social niceties and justice system they had.

And so after a couple of years, once the camp had been completed and fortified to Muse's satisfaction, and their group was as safe from the Locust as they could possibly be; Muse had stepped down from the position of leadership, and in a vague sense of democracy, the rest of the survivors - mostly teenagers now - had voted in a new leader that would be more suited to leading in a time of relative peace.

The vote had gone to a lad named Jonathan who was of a similar age to Muse, though a little older as he'd turned thirteen not long after the attack on the convoy.

He was smart in ways that Muse was not. He could keep the Stranded teens together and unified, he could solve disputes and be diplomatic, and he could organise the Stranded children in a way that didn't require the harshness of Muse's military precision.

With Jonathan in charge, Muse had taken over the matter of defence for the camp. She had overseen the fortifications, trained the Stray Dogs as best she could from what she remembered of her father's explanations, and led them on scavenger trips to find guns, ammunition, and the means of communication that would allow them to coordinate both attacks and defences should the need arise.

She had protected this camp and it's Stranded with everything she had, they had even managed to beat back some of the small incursions of Locust that had strayed into their sector. And up until now Muse had managed to convince herself that she was doing a good job, that she was aiding in keeping the Stranded of this camp alive with her talents, that she was fulfilling the responsibly of guardian that she taken upon herself ever since that day the convoy was attacked.

But seeing Dom again… it had reminded her of all the times she had failed; of the people who had died because of her, as a consequence of her decisions, or because she was not fast enough or strong enough.

Those four children that had died because of her convincing the group of survivors to come back to the city. That Locust attack she was unprepared for that had resulted in the deaths of several of the Stranded under her care. The group that had travelled so far to join them that she hadn't gotten to in time before the Locust slaughtered them…

And for all these deaths, it was she who was responsible…

"Sara said you were at it again." The mild voice was part amused, part exasperated, and brought Muse out of her black mood. She looked up to see a pretty young blonde in her early twenties standing there.

"Hrm? What?" Amy sighed and sat down next to her.

"You're brooding again aren't you." It wasn't a question. When Muse said nothing, Amy rolled her eyes and shook her head. "What are you like, Museli, we've all told you to cut it out with the depression already…" That prompted a smile to tug at the corner of the other young woman's mouth.

"Must you use that nickname? It's a breakfast cereal for crying out loud."

Amy grinned briefly, then became serious again. "But you were doing the melancholy guilt-trip brooding thing again, weren't you…"

"What if I was?" Muse sighed tiredly.

"Is it something to do with those Gears that were here earlier?"

"Hrn."

Again Amy sighed. When Muse made that particular non-committal sound, it was a sign she wasn't going to divulge any more information on the present topic no matter how much she was pestered.

"Well Sara asked me to tell you to stoppit and to give you this." She gave Muse a thermos of hot soup. Muse took it gratefully and held it between her palms to warm her hands.

"Thanks Amy… and tell Sara thanks as well… you better get inside before you catch a cold." In response, Amy groaned dramatically,

"You're too overprotective, you know that? Besides, what about you catching your death sitting out here in this? I swear Muse, you take on too much, you don't need to be so obsessed with defending us you know…" her voice softened, "And it's silly to keep blaming yourself for everything, just cut it out." Having said what she'd come to say, Amy rose to leave.

It was just as she got up that they both heard the rumble. Amy looked up at the sky with a mildly concerned frown.

"Was that thunder?"

Muse didn't answer, and when the blonde looked at her friend, she saw that Muse had wrenched down her hood and was crouching with the fingers of one hand lightly touching the metal of the catwalk above the gate while the other hand rested on her knee. Tense and motionless, she was ignoring the cold rain water soaking her hair and sliding down her neck and cheeks.

"Muse?"

"That wasn't thunder…"

No sooner were the words out of her mouth then they heard another rumble, this one much closer and louder then the first so much so that they felt it vibrating the metal beneath their feet, and in a moment of spiralling horror, Amy realised what Muse had feared. The rumbling did not come from above as it would if it were thunder. Instead it came from below, which could mean only one thing…

Locust.

Immediately Muse dived for the siren to sound the alarm even as Amy scrambled down from the catwalk above the gate to spread the warning. The siren was a gramophone-shaped device that emitted a loud wail when the handle on the side of the box was turned and Muse spun it as fast as she could, making the alarm siren howl through the entire camp.

Immediately, all around the camp, everything was dropped as the Stranded inhabitants followed what they'd practiced during the attack drills. The handful that were Stray Dogs took up arms and headed for the gate while the non-combatant members of the camp scurried to take cover in the various safe rooms the survivors had built.

Meanwhile Muse got on the comm and broadcasted a distress call to all the Dogs that were out on patrol or scavenger hunts.

This is Alpha Leader calling all the Stray Dogs! Base is under attack by the Locust! Repeat, this is Alpha Leader calling all the Stray Dogs! The base is under attack by the Locust, we need backup ASAP!

Even as she finished the mayday transmission, the rumbling from beneath the ground had come closer and become even more violent; causing a constant vibration through her feet. As though in a nightmare, Muse slowly turned to look out over the wide street outside the north gate of the camp, and before her eyes several sections of the roadway began to shake, and then collapsed completely as over a dozen Locust emergence holes broke the surface. Immediately the roars of the invading monsters reached the horrified woman's ears and ripped her out of her trance.

Muse quickly swung herself down from the gate and called the gathering Stray Dogs to her. They looked pale and scared but determined, and Muse hesitated; what if she was sending these men and women to their deaths as well?

But that was what they were here for; those that had been part of the original group of children that Muse had led here, and those from the Stranded that had travelled here to join them, who had volunteered. Each of them had known the risks then and they knew them now, but they wanted to defend their friends and families, their homes and the lives they'd built here, if those things weren't worth dying for, then what was?

Swiftly Muse organised the Dogs into pairs and assigned each pair their posts; herself and a slightly younger dark-haired lad named Joe at the barricades on the catwalk above the gate.

Crouching behind the sandbags, Muse loaded her Longshot. After the Snub which she'd had with her since being twelve, this rifle that she'd pilfered from a Locust sniper years ago was what she had developed the most affinity for over the years of being a Stranded. The pistol and Longshot along with the Hammerburst she'd armed herself with when going out to meet the Gears formed the two main gun and sidearm set of weapons that she insisted all the Stray Dogs carry wherever they went.

Now she readied herself; pulling the orange-lens goggles - which had been taken from the same Locust sniper as the gun - from around her neck and slipping them over her eyes. The E-holes had erupted at the far end of the street and the first Locust Drones had just passed the halfway point down the avenue leading to the Stranded camp, when Muse sighted along her scope.

"Hold steady, Dogs…" she murmured into the comm hooked over her ear. The rain was heavy now; severely impairing visibility and making aiming much, much harder. They'd have to hold until the Locust came close enough to be clearer targets…

"Steady…"

The huge pale beasts continued to approach blithely in full view, as though they didn't know that several reticules and crosshairs were being pointed at them, or else putting too much trust in the grey curtain of rain that half obscured them.

They soon realised their folly as Muse roared; "OPEN FIRE!"

Immediately the air was filled with gunfire; the screaming stutter of Lancers and Hammerbursts, the blast of Gnashers, and the bitten off bangs of three Longshots. The first wave of Locust fell under the hail of bullets, but the others dived behind the cover provided by the car wrecks and chunks of masonry that littered the wide street.

Muse felt her heart sink as she saw the sheer number of the enemy that they were facing. This wasn't just a patrol or squad that had strayed too close to the Stranded camp, or some raiding party on a scavenging mission. These Locust had come specifically to attack this camp…

She didn't even have time to wonder why such a large force would be sent to attack Stranded, as the Locust then returned fire. Muse immediately took cover behind the sandbags that protected her from the barrage, and felt them shudder under the assault.

Over the comm she heard three separate death screams as Stray Dogs fell…

As soon as there was a lull in enemy fire and Joe was providing some cover fire from his automatic Lancer, Muse once again leaned out, and fired her Longshot. The target Drone's head exploded in a firework of blood, bone, and brain matter, and the body slowly fell over. Muse ducked back behind cover and reloaded.

However it soon became obvious that there were just too many of the Locust and with a horrible sinking feeling of inevitability, Muse realised that it was only a matter of time before the camp was overrun… The thought made anger blaze up inside her and she switched from the Longshot to the Hammerburst; forget finesse, she wanted to fill something with lead.

It was just as she'd emptied one of the Hammerburst's clips and was reloading, that she heard an entirely different kind of roar to that of the Locust's, swiftly followed by the shriek of a chainsaw… Thinking for a horrible moment that the Stray Dogs that had been out on patrol had arrived and proceeded to just dive in to engage the enemy, Muse quickly looked out from behind her barricade.

There were indeed more Stray Dogs on the battlefield, hiding behind debris behind the actual Locust holes, but it wasn't them that Muse had heard, and she was just in time looking out to see none other then one of the Gears from earlier hacking into a huge Locust with his Lancer's chainsaw… A quick glance over the rest of the warzone revealed the three other Gears, all neck-deep in combat with the Locust enemy.

Thought we'd just ignore your call for help, kid? Came Marcus' gravelly tones over the Stray Dogs' comms. Muse almost sobbed with relief, but instead managed to reply.

"Marcus Fenix, am I glad to hear you."

Yeah, that's what I thought… Cole! Close those grub holes!

YEAH BABY! Screamed another voice in response, TAKE THAT SUCKERS! WHOO!

And barely moments later grenades were exploding and the ground shook again as the emergence tunnels collapsed; burying the Locust that were still coming up to join the fight. Cheers came from the Stray Dogs and they fought with renewed vigour with hope once more in sight.

However it soon became clear they weren't out of the woods yet.

"Hey, what's that?" Muse turned to Joe just in time to see something small and cylinder-shaped embed itself into his shoulder and explode a couple of seconds later; throwing Muse back and covering her with blood and strips of flesh. For a second she could only gape at the bloody smear where Joe had once been, and then scrambled to look out from behind the barricade.

It could have been a Drone, except that it seemed smarter, nastier, and much better equipped with red armour and some kind of mechanised crossbow. And it was aiming another one of its small, cylindrical bolts…

"What the hell is that!?" Moments later, Muse heard Marcus viciously swear.

…Dammit… Dom! Theron Guard!

Aw man, not those guys again, think we can convince them we're sellin' cookies this time, Marcus?

Muse heard Marcus snort and growl 'not likely', before ordering Delta Squad to make disposing the Theron their first priority. It turned out to be easier said then done as the single Theron evaded their attempts to put it down and then commanded the other Drones to swamp the Gears, all the while wreaking devastation with its weapon. However, it then made the mistake of turning its back to the Stranded camp, obviously deeming them less of a threat then the Gears of Delta Squad.

Muse would make it pay for such an assumption.

"Snipers! Aim for the red one's head, we fire together!" Once she heard the affirmatives from the two other soldiers that wielded Longshots, Muse sighted her scope on the back of the Theron's head. "Ready, in three…two…one… fire!"

Simultaneously the three sniper rounds were fired, and simultaneously they struck the back of the Theron's head. One round alone would have left the Theron with maybe a severe headache and a ringing in its ears, but three all at the same time was just too much for it, and its head exploded in a plume of fine red and grey. It fell.

After that the rest of the Locust Drones proved to be little of a problem to dispatch, and soon there were only corpses scattering the wide street and the wounds in the roadway of the sealed emergence holes.

The Stray Dogs were ecstatic; cheering, screaming, hugging, they had survived the impossible, and won the right to see another day. The gates were rolled open as those of the Stranded versed in medical skills went to see to the human injured, each accompanied by a couple of the Stray Dogs just to be on the safe side. Those that had hidden in the safe rooms while the battled had raged, came out to join the celebration, and Muse left the camp and approached the Gears.

They were covered in gore but looked no worse for wear, and Muse went over to them, slightly wary. But the nod of appreciation and gratitude she shot in Marcus' direction received one in return, and some of the tension was eased. Still, Muse stood a little distance from them, the Hammerburst on her back, Snub pistol securely in its holster, and the Longshot resting on her shoulder.

There was a moment's silence, and then;

"Come and get cleaned up, we owe you something to eat and a bed for the night."

Again Marcus nodded, and with a silent gesture to Delta, followed Muse back to the Stranded camp and the celebrations.

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Author's Note

This link is to a rather interesting website which details the psychological effects that genocide and other such traumatic events have on the survivors. I found it rather explains some of Muse's behaviour.

http: SLASH SLASH www DOT enotes DOT com SLASH genocide-encyclopedia SLASH psychology-survivors

Also, Nine Inch Nails' theme for 300, "Just Like You Imagined" is pretty much responsible for the fight scene. X3