A/N; hey all. I want to apologize for the long wait, and the fact that despite their being important things going on in the last chapter, it was mostly filler.
This should make up for it, and if I do say so myself, sets the stage for a spectacular next phase of this story.
I am going to dedicate this chapter to the bevy of reviewers that have smarmed this work in the last few days. Many of them anonymous, but appreciated just the same. Please R&R!
Chapter 12
Yumi was the second one up from the rubble they were using as cover. She looked around at the open area that surrounded what used to be the tower. The ground was now strewn with bits of metal and the hulks of the monsters they had destroyed.
Something caught her eye not far from where she stood, and she made her way over to it. It was her rifle. What had caught her eye was the polished wooden stock, the only naturally colored thing in the entire area.
Ignoring the ache in her body, she knelt down and lifted it up, wincing and cursing quietly. Her gun was scuffed and beat, essentially left where she had dropped it earlier. For whatever reason she crouched down with it, and hugged the weapon tight to her body, now that she had her rifle it was like she was whole again.
Lovingly she played her hand over the stock, before deftly disengaging a pair of hidden locks and slid the back of the stock out, exposing the guts of the gun to the air. She flipped it over and inspected it closely, making sure that everything was still in working order.
The only thing that was missing now was the heavy gauge bullets that the gun used. The long cylinder that was attached to the end of the stock could hold up to ten of them, and was completely empty. She reached into one of her pouches, looking of another magazine.
There were none to be had; somehow both the pouches she kept the cylinders in had ended up empty. That meant her rifle was completely useless to everyone. That meant she was useless to everyone.
Something hard and cold tapped her on the shoulder, and she looked up to see Odd standing over her, one of her magazines in his hand. She sat speechless as he pressed it into her hand, and winked. "I was thinking you might need this."
After a moment of silence she smiled back at him. "This means a lot Odd."
"Don't worry about it." He was already scampering away before she could even fit the new magazine into her rifle.
"Oh, Yumi! Ulrich found three more of them if you want them."
She nodded to him her thanks and picked herself up from the ground, grateful that she still had at least some ammunition for the trip back to base. It was something she would have to make count as much as possible.
"Yumi, we need you over here, now!"
The urgency in Aelita's voice shocked her into immediate action, and without thinking she was slinging her beloved rifle over her shoulder and jogged over to the rest of the group.
"What's going on? Did Jeremy find anything interesting?"
Jeremy grinned and pushed up his glasses. "I found enough data that should be able to completely change the game, maybe even be able to turn the tide of the war."
To say that such news was shocking would be a gross understatement. Yumi did know how to process the scale of that kind of information.
"What are we supposed to do with it then having it doesn't mean we can actually use it." Of course it was William who had to dash all their hopes of victory. Yumi scowled at him.
"It doesn't matter right now though. Every sensor we set in the last few miles has lit up, monsters are swarming in from every direction as we speak."
Yumi clutched tighter at her rifle, Jeremy was injured, and her arm was badly damaged. She'd been lucky to not have it broken in Odd's explosion. How were they supposed to deal with even more of Xana's monsters?
"So what do we do now?"
"We fight. It's what we always do."
"We can't fight Odd." It was Aeilta who spoke up now. "Yumi can't fire her rifle, you don't have any more large explosives, Ulrich and I are low an ammo."
"Running away is the only smart option right now."
Yumi looked to William. As much as she wanted nothing to do with any of his ideas, he was right, and everyone knew it too.
"Then that's what we do." Ulrich took a deep breath and continued; "We fall back, if we keep quiet and make good time, it's only a few days to the nearest green zone. We can resupplied at a forward base there and continue onwards. We have to get this new information to the command post."
"You make it sound so easy." Yumi smiled at Odd. Of course he could make light of what was going on.
"Then we should get going shouldn't we?"
If only it had been that simple. When they were marching in they had made about thirty miles a day. At the rate they were moving now, with Jeremy and Yumi injured, and with so many monsters swarming around the area, they were lucky to make half of that.
Nine hours of grueling movement, every time one of Jeremy's scanners went off or they thought they had heard something, or if Aelita felt the presence of the machines they had to stop, and press themselves into the nearest building or crevice. Something Yumi was finding ever harder to manage with her arm. It was the most exhausting thing she had ever done, and she knew it was wearing just as heavily on everyone else at the same time. Which meant that complaining was out of the picture.
They made twenty miles, and had more close calls than could be counted. They found an abandoned shop that was at least mostly intact. Odd set the last of his grenades as booby traps and all of them stripped out of their armor and gear without speaking. Ulrich pointed at the people that were due to take watches and the rest of them promptly fell asleep. Yumi didn't even blink at William having to take a Watch, even if yesterday she would have protested having to rely on him to keep everyone safe.
Something exploded not far away.
Yumi bolted upright, reaching for her rifle and had to stifle a cry of pain, her arm had come out from its sling, and she had stretched it wrong. It felt like someone had jammed a hot poker into her shoulder, and tears were welling up in her eyes. But at least she was awake now.
Laser bolts flashed past her, bursting against the remnants of the shelves and counter. Yumi scrambled and pulled her pistol out from her holster, William and Odd already up and firing into the darkness. Something heavy and metallic lunged out at them, bearing down on Odd.
Yumi screamed and fired her pistol into it, the heavy slugs sparking and punching into its side. The thing turned to face her, showing a metallic maw that was stained red and heavy metal teeth that glinted. In place of eyes it had a pulsing red Eye of Xana.
Yumi scrambled away from it desperately, her injured shoulder making it harder and more painful.
Aelita appeared beside her, her features distorted by the unfocused light around them, her wings looked more like black flame than their usual pink light. She threw the monster, whatever it was across the room, and it screeched as it smashed though the wall.
Yumi smiled half-heartedly at Aelita, her smile turning into a cry of fear and a shout of warning. She found herself rooted to the spot as Aelita turned around, her arms raised to ward off an unseen attacker.
A metal blade burst from her back, striking Yumi across the face and chest with hot blood. Aelita crumpled to the ground, flames encroaching inwards from the edges of the building. She tried to move towards her friend, but found herself trapped, something had bound her feet to the floor and the machine that had attacked her and Odd stalked over Aelita, closing in on her with an agonizing slowness.
Her pistol was laying on the other side of the room, and she could feel her heart hammering its way out of her chest as the thing stretched out, growing large enough to fill the room above her, the Eye of Xana on its face glinting at her malevolently, reaching out at her with a blood stained leg blade, larger even than the blades used by krabes to stay upright.
A searing pain blossomed across the side of her face when the sickening wet tip of the weapon touched her cheek and she found herself unable to scream.