Chapter 27
Reaper knelt beside Simms, rain pouring over him, water going into his eyes, his hand on the knife. Simms screamed out as Reaper pushed the knife deeper into his chest. Bringing back his metal arm he punched Simms as hard as he could.
Reaper heard footsteps behind him so he turned to find Lice and Dilligaf running his way.
"Jesus titty fucking Christ." whispered Lice once he came closer. Reaper noticed that he held Reapers Desert Eagle. "You really fucked him up. Not to mention that you look like fucking hell." he put a couple of rounds in Simms hands with his own pistol so he couldn't pull the knife out.
"Yeah, well you don't look too good yourself." laughed Reaper as he slowly, and painfully, stood up. He accepted his Desert Eagle back from Lice and put his last clip into it.
One he was on his feet Reaper looked back at Simms and placed a foot on the handle of the knife sticking from his chest and pushed down. Simms laughed as he screamed out in pain. When Reaper lifted his foot, Simms spasmed and just lay on the ground not moving, not breathing.
"Let's just get the fuck out of here." said Reaper as he turned around. He stumbled forward and Lice and Dilligaf both caught him.
When they got back to where the others were, they found Shadow, his leg bandaged up, with Yeti in his arms, trying to keep him up on his feet.
"It's alright." mumbled Yeti as he saw them walking towards them... Shadow stepped away and Yeti stood up straighter.
"You alright?" asked Lice as the stepped up closer to them.
"Yeah," said Shadow, keeping the weight off his ruined leg. "But we have no ride out of here." he jerked his thumb up to the destroyed building.
Reaper smiled and looked at Dilligaf. "Think you could call it in for us, sweetheart?"
Dilligaf just smiled up at him and kissed him lightly on the lips. "No worries." she whispered. She handed him over to Lice and walked off towards the destroyed building her hand next to her ear, trying to reach Jameson on the Stormbreaker.
Reaper looked over at Shadow. "What the fuck happened to you?"
Yeti chuckled and stepped away, walking a little into the rain.
Shadow smiled. "I...uh...jumped out of the dropship before it crashed." he said. "Almost broke my leg as I went through a wall."
Reaper laughed and after a moment, he looked back toward Dilligaf, who was walking back over to them her head down, a smile across her face. When she looked up again, the smile wiped itself from her face and her jaw dropped. It was then that he noticed that she was looking behind him.
"Don't even think of it." said Simms's voice from behind Reaper as he went for his gun. Lowering his hand Reaper turned around.
Simms held Yeti in a headlock, Yetis 9mm side arm held to his temple, the hammer held back. Yeti tried getting out of the way, but Simms held on tight, almost choking him. Yeti gasped for breath as Simms's muscles closed around his throat. "Stay still you little prick!" grumbled Simms.
"Simms, put the gun down and let Yeti go, let's talk about this man to freak." said Reaper.
Simms thought over it for a moment then replied. "As you wish." he said pulling the trigger of Yetis side arm, putting a bullet into Yetis brain. He let the body go, and Yetis stunned face hit the ground, his eyes completely blank. Reaching up Simms then pulled Reapers knife free of his chest and threw it at Dilligaf, but Lice caught it mid flight, the sharp blade stabbing through his hand.
As this was going on, Reaper reached behind his back and drew his Desert Eagle. Diving to the side he fired off a couple of rounds.
"JESUS CHRIST!" screamed Lice as he dropped the knife and threw himself into Dilligaf, pulling her out of the fight, behind some cover.
Reaper's Desert Eagle clacked dry. Reaper swore and threw it away. "FUCK!" he screamed pulling his last grenade from his belt. "EVERYBODY ALRIGHT?"
"Hand's fucked but I'll be fine," said Lice over the COM. "I've got Gemma, she's fine." he said a moment later.
"FUCK, HOW THE FUCK ARE WE SUPPOSED TO KILL THIS GUY?" screamed Reaper as he pulled the pin on the grenade and threw it over the top of his cover. "FIRE IN THE HOLE!" he ducked down again and a moment later, there was an explosion.
"I'm fine too, by the way," said Shadow. "Thanks for asking."
"Reaper, we need to get out of here." said Lice ignoring Shadow's last remark. "What do we do?"
Simms fired off another couple of rounds, laughing loudly. A seemingly never-ending wave of bullets sprayed all over the other side of Reaper's cover.
"FUCKED IF I KNOW JIM!" screamed Reaper, ducking further to the ground. "WHY DON'T YOU THINK OF SOMETHING FOR A FUCKING CHANGE?"
"FUCK THIS," screamed Shadow. "IF EITHER OF YOU DON'T DECIDE TO DO SOMETHING, I GUESS I'LL HAVE TOO!"
Reaper saw Shadow stand up, sharply, aim over at Simms, who was now hiding behind a concrete pole, and fire on full automatic with his P90.
Simms ducked back behind his pole and swung around the other side of it, aiming his pistol at Shadows chest and fired. Shadow was too slow to re-aim. Bullets smashed into Shadows chest causing him to convulse with each shot. His finger clamped down on the trigger of his P90 and his arm swung out in a wide arc, spraying bullets everywhere. Reaper dived further to the side and bullets pounded into the concrete where his head had been just a moment before.
"MMMMMMIIIIIICHAAAEEELLLLL!" screamed Dilligaf as she saw Shadow hit the ground in a bloody mess. She tried to move over to him but Lice kept a firm hand around her arm, so she couldn't leave. "NNNNNNOOOOOOOOO!"
Reaper sat back up, shaking loose dust from his hair. "FUCK." he yelled as he tried to move, but he felt an incredible pain shoot through his leg. He looked down and saw that a stray bullet had gone into his leg. "Lice, you alright?"
"Yeah. We're fine. But Shadow's down." replied Lice.
"Yo, Reaper?" yelled Simms from behind his pole. When Reaper didn't respond he continued. "It's been nice knowing ya and all, but I'm getting kinda tired. Can we, like, wrap this up now? I have an entire universe to destroy, so I don't want to make this go on too long or anything. What ya say?"
"Go fuck yourself." said Reaper.
Dilligaf looked over at Shadow, tears forming in her eyes and she wiped them away. Looking over to Reaper, she saw him hiding behind and slightly under a massive, low-slung chunk of concrete about twenty metres away from her.
A slight motion caught her eye and she saw Shadow, one arm stretched out toward her, with what looked like a small piece of paper clutched in his bloody hand. A small amount of blood dribbled out of his mouth and their eyes met.
"Holy shite," she mumbled. "He's still alive."
Lice heard her. "What?"
"He's still alive." she said softly, pointing over to Shadow, who still had his hand stretched out toward her.
Lice saw it too. "Reaper," he whispered. "Reaper, Shadow is still alive. Repeat, he is still alive."
"Roger that." whispered Reaper over the COM, "Let me think."
A minute of silence passed. Rain hammered into the ground outside the cover of shelter. Thunder rumbled and lightning flashed constantly.
"Ok," said Reaper at long last. "Lice, toss me over a frag grenade and give Dilligaf your field medkit. Dilligaf, listen. Once I tell you, run as fast as you can toward Shadow and see if you can patch him up. Also, while, you're there. Reload his weapon and throw it over to me. Throw his side arm back over to Lice. We'll take care of Simms if we can"
"If we can?" asked Lice.
"Just do it." sighed Reaper.
"Hey, Simms, hold you fire, I coming out to talk." yelled out Reaper a few minutes later.
A moment passed. "Alright." came a reply.
Reaper balanced on his one good leg and stumbled over to where Simms was hiding behind his pole. "Step out to where I can see you." mumbled Reaper as he stumbled closer.
Simms stepped out from cover, his weapon raised and Reaper got a good look at him. Half of his face was like a pearly white mask with crude brown and black markings all over it. It reminded Reaper of an old cartoon he used to watch when he was a child, where the bad people had white masks over their demented, evil faces. The other half of his face though was the worst. It almost looked as though it was taken to with a blowtorch. Lips drooping down in a horrible grotesque way, his eye so swollen and puffy it was amazing that he could even see through it at all. Burn marks were all across his scalp. His skin was a mess of mottled brown and green with tinges of cream all through it, giving him the look of an incredibly sick man. Overall, he didn't look good.
"Whats up?" growled Simms.
"I... just... why? Why are you trying to destroy the universe?" stumbled Reaper.
"Why do you care why?" grumbled Simms.
Reaper suppressed a laugh. "Well, seeing as I am a part of it I guess I have to care."
"Well, I guess I hold one hell of a big fuckin' grudge." said Simms trying to smile.
While this was going on, Lice stepped out from behind the pole that Simms had been hiding behind and stepped in behind Simms, with Reapers short Samurai sword held in both of his hands. He had the look of pure anger plastered on his face. Once he was directly behind Simms and to his right he nodded to Reaper, who was facing his way, and brought the sword up into the air.
Simms's face turned from suspicion to horror in an instant as the sword sliced through his shoulder, cutting down, through the bone and out through the armpit.
The arm hit the ground, spraying green black and red blood. Simms screamed out in surprise. "WHAT THE...." However, Lice wasn't finished. Bending down one knee he sliced the sword horizontally across the back of Simms's knees. More blood sprayed out and covered Lice from head to toe. Simms screamed again as he fell to the ground.
Reaper was on him in an instant. Reaper punched Simms in the face and waited for Lice to hold his head down before reaching into his pack. He pulled out a roll of duck tape and ripped some off. He threw the roll away and pulled Lice's fragmentation grenade from his belt.
Simms screamed out. "GET THE FUCK OFF ME YOU FUCKING...!" but he was cut off as Reaper shoved the grenade into his mouth and covered it over with the duck tape. Simms's free arm shot up and grabbed Reaper round the throat and quick as a flash Lice brought up the sword and sliced Simms's hand off, letting it fall limply to the muddy ground, as Reaper punched Simms it the throat so that he couldn't breath.
"Time to die asshole!" growled Reaper as he stood up and aimed Shadows fully loaded P90 Sub-machine-gun at Simms's gut and fired. The long burst of weapons fire pounded into Simms's gut and blood sprayed everywhere. When Reaper was finished, Lice bent over and stabbed the Samurai sword into Simms's chest, driving it deep into the ground. He then pulled the pin on the grenade.
"MOVE!!!" screamed Reaper and he turned and ran over to his cover and vaulted over the top of it. Hitting the ground in a heap, he rolled into cover. Lice turned and dived behind the pole that Simms was using as cover only a minute before.
The resulting explosion from the grenade tore through Simms's body as if it was made of jelly. There was a massive white flash, mixed with the red spray of the blood. Large chunks of scorched meat flew out in every direction, splattering up against the walls and ceiling. Blood sprayed out and painted the walls with red.
A second later Lice popped his head around the corner of the pole he had been hiding behind and breathed a sigh of relief. "It's ok" he called out. "He's dead."
"You sure?" asked Reapers voice from under his chunk of concrete.
"Well, seeing as there are shit loads of bloodied bits all over the place," said Lice, "Pretty well darn."
Reaper crawled out from his cover. Standing up he quickly jogged over to where Dilligaf and Shadow were hiding. He kneeled beside Shadows immobile body. "Is he ok?"
Dilligaf wiped a bead of sweat from her brow, leaving a streak of blood in its place. "It's hard to say." she mumbled, looking up at him. "He's taken a fair bit of damage."
"Reaper." whispered Shadow.
Reaper looked down and noticed that Shadows eyes were open and looking straight up at him. Blood dripped out of his mouth creating a pool against his head on the ground. Slowly he held up his hand. A piece of paper was held tightly in it, covered in blood.
"Give this to Sarah." said Shadow, forcing the piece of paper up against Reapers armoured chest.
"Give it to her yourself, you crazy motherfucker." laughed Reaper, pushing Shadows hand back down to his chest.
"There's no doubt that, that motherfucker is dead." mumbled Lice behind Reaper. Reaper looked up and Lice held up a bent piece of metal. "Sorry about your sword man."
Reaper smiled. "No worries dude."
