Hang in there.
Blinking open his eyes, his vision clarified from blur. With his head drooped, he saw before him the ground, the bloody saliva strands dripping from his agape mouth, and his feet dragging on the dirt by the tiptoes. A different voice muffled for him.
Stay with us, Captain. Stay with us.
He veered his half-conscious gaze to the left, struggling his head up. It was his subordinate from Bravo. The captain then veered to the other side to find the Bravo lieutenant accompanying his right. Hurrying forward, they dragged his arms on their shoulders. His hearing clearing in a swoosh, Chris could hear the footsteps of the rest of Bravo massing from behind. He could hear clearly the subtle panting coming from those carrying him, the dragging from his feet, and the crackling from the blaze incinerating a nearby building.
The lieutenant waved a signal once they reached the middle of the town. The men formed a chokehold, taking cover behind buildings and vehicles.
Chris was gently brought down on his rump with his back leaning on the backside of a van. The lieutenant crouched and conducted on him a close medical inspection.
The latter's right eye was bruised, swollen, and bloodshot in matte-red. Scratches and lacerations were nicked all over his visage and upper torso. The more severe injuries he sustained on his shoulder and back were treated with a First Aid Spray whilst he was in coma. Bandages were wrapped on his head, on the respective shoulder, and around his chest and back.
The lieutenant had never seen Chris beaten to a pulp like this. The longer he gazed at his superior, the more he was concerned for his wellbeing, and the more curious he was of whatever it was that inflicted the wounds. To see if Chris was "there," the lieutenant shone his miniature flashlight at the former's eyes, finding nothing irregular in the irises. He then hovered four fingers at Chris.
"How many?"
"Four. I'm fine," right away responded Chris. When two fingers were lifted afterwards, he swiped the hand away.
"I said I'm fine," he insisted.
"What the fuck happened?"
In a concerned frown, the junior officer had another good look at the Redfield, particularly at the incisions riddled across his face and chest – then at his bandaged shoulder.
"What did this to you..?"
All Chris could return was a blank stare that he casted at the space between his legs, and an aimless response that left the lieutenant more bewildered.
"I don't know."
He flicked his gaze up and reiterated in a whisper.
"I don't know."
His glare was brimmed in guilt, and uncertainty. Uncertainty of what he had faced in the library. Uncertainty of whether they were going to make it back alive or not. I don't know was a phrase that the lieutenant had never heard of from the captain, more so from anyone in his entire special operations career. Never had he seen Chris this lost before. Seeing him in such state only brewed in the former SEAL more questions regarding the nature of the perpetrator, with what Chris had seen. Intending on clarifying the situation, he again inquired Chris.
"What'd you see back there..?"
In brief hesitation, Chris silenced his panting and returned a response.
"Something we haven't encountered before."
The radio on the lieutenant crackled.
"Bravo Lead, status on Alpha Lead."
Wishing to speak with headquarters directly, Chris extended his hand forward. The lieutenant latched the radio off his vest and passed it to him, who hovered the device over his mouth and thumbed it.
"Alpha Lead. I'm green."
"Do you have the situation under control?"
The captain glanced to the back. He peered at the far structure he dived out of. It was now in conflagration with flames roaring out the windows.
"Negative. Primary target's still roaming in the AO. I've in mind of luring the hostile in the open, six-hundred meters north of our position."
Chris then glanced up at the skies, spotting faint green illuminations specking in the clouds.
"Status on the air support? We need every firepower we can muster, over."
"Operational. Avenger and Lockheed are on standby awaiting coordinates. Do what you can to eliminate the opposition. Command, out."
"Sniper Team, get the Javelin on standby. Wait for my call and keep an eye on that structure for movement," further instructed Chris.
"Copy."
"I need the T4s and 03s concentrating on the target. Have the SAWs loaded in explosives. We're giving them all we got. If we can't make our stand here, if we get overrun, the CP will be our fallback."
The SAW personnel dislodged the ammo belts from the machine guns. From their packs, they grabbed out cartridge boxes, removed the seals, and pulled up the tops, revealing inside a quarter thousand rounds of specialized 5.56s. The tips of the gold bullets were tinted in crimson and orange, respectively indicating they had high-explosive incendiary and armor-piercing capabilities. They had a kick in firepower from the ordinary five-fives.
Dragging the belts from the boxes, they smacked the covers on the SAWs down with the ammo fed under and cocked. For sharper and stabler accuracy, they extended the bipods on their SAWs and placed them on top of obstacles like cars and barrels. Others went prone.
Those with the M203 launchers pulled the barrels forward and thumbed in high-explosive 40mm rounds in the openings. Retracting the barrels, they enclosed the openings and flicked the safety triggers. The riflemen and the SAW gunners swapped their ammunitions to green and red-tipped tracer rounds.
A pair unstrapped their AT4s from their backs. They twisted open the safety caps that sealed the openings and flipped up the scopes and the shoulder-stabilizers. The men placed the launchers close beside them to fire them away as soon as possible at the first sign of hostile contact.
"Can you stand?" asked the lieutenant at Chris, who returned a nod.
"Yeah."
Forwarding his hand, the lieutenant helped heave the Redfield up. Chris grunted lightly as he straightened his back and jerked his head sideways, cracking the joints in his neck.
"Thanks."
"Don't mention it. Those wounds had been any deeper, you'd be in – "
"Critical. Yeah, I know."
Unholstering the Lightning Hawk, the lieutenant twirled it and gripped its barrel, offering the magnum to his superior. Chris enclosed his fingers on the handgrip and holstered the magnum on his hip.
A trooper beside them approached the captain and unslung his Thor from his back, offering it to Chris, who gripped it with both hands. Slinging the strap on his nape, Chris ejected the magazine, inspected the green slugs at the tip, and lodged it back in the chamber. He cocked the shotgun and thumbed the safety.
Chris approached a SAW gunner that was in prone position behind a vehicle. The trooper's pack appeared weightier and larger than the others.
"Got the explosives?" he asked as he neared the trooper.
"My pack would weigh a hell lot less if I didn't. Feel free to snoop inside, Cap'n."
Zipping open the pack, Chris saw inside a cluster of advanced explosive munitions. Proximity landmines, M18 Claymores, and C4s, there were two of each.
04:21:25
04:21:26
04:21:27
A crackle resounded above. Shimmering away the dark was a twinkling light source that had its slow descent supported by a small parachute. It boasted the radiance of forty-thousand candlelights. It was the third time the White Star Parachute round was fired at the skies. The third time the men attempted to lure Entoma and her friends out in the open – particularly the former. In silence, they held their ground, waiting patiently for action.
The officers took cover behind the same van. While the lieutenant aimed the holographic sight of his ARST forward ahead, Chris crouched behind the other side of the vehicle, peeking his head out with his gaze locked front. The junior officer broke the silence between them.
"Did he come back with his friends?"
Shadows in the vicinity stretched in different angles as the light descended lower. Chris hesitated in his response and continued gazing ahead.
"You know who I'm talking about," continued the lieutenant. The area blacked out when the flare extinguished midair. A trooper beside the officers slotted in an illumination round in the M203 and raised his rifle, preparing to fire at the black skies.
"They weren't exactly thrilled to see me," answered the captain.
"They'll get off your back someday."
Chris returned a helpless snicker.
"Can't imagine when. What I faced back there, was the worst one yet."
The lieutenant glanced at the Redfield.
"You did what you could back ther – "
"Save it for later after the ops."
The White Star was launched, reigniting the surroundings in brilliant luminosity. The radiance rekindled the blaze set in Chris' glare, which scowled at the flaming structure he encountered the Battle Maid in.
"After we deal with her."
A perplexed frown from the lieutenant.
"Who's 'her'?"
"Just one less Wesker the world needs."
He didn't know what Chris had meant. The lieutenant figured she was as threatening as Wesker. It was one way of explaining over half their own being decimated in under an hour duration. Personally having had never encountered a threat as perilous as Wesker, he hoped this would be his first and last of dealing with one. He hoped this would soon be over with despite his sentiment leaning far from likely being true. He could only hope.
The men's radios crackled.
"Movement," relayed Sniper Team. The squad disciplined themselves to complete silence and stillness. The lieutenant tapped the trooper beside him by the shoulder, signalling the latter to fire off another White Star. Discharged, the illumination round curved in its trajectory and again flared the area with its starry presence.
"Standby for target confirmation."
"It's fast."
Legs sprawled with their non-firing hands clasping their opposite shoulders, the sharpshooters were in prone on a rocky cliff. Their helmets were placed beside their Barrets, which steadily shifted inches to the right. The reticles on their scopes were trailing after a speeding figure that they had trouble keeping up with.
The sniper to the left lost track of it. The last he saw were the tip-ends of black heels and the hemline of a frilly, brown dress spiriting away from the round visual of his scope.
"You got it?"
The other hadn't lost sight.
"Oh yeah. Where the bodies are at. See that cancer by the tree?"
The left sniper veered his reticle farther right, at where the naked, mutilated corpses of cultists hung on the whittled trees. They noticed a body was teetering, implying the figure had passed by it. Zooming in their scopes, they spotted the pointy-end of the black heel they had earlier sighted protruding from behind a tree. Soon, half the figure's anatomy peered out.
With her sleeve placed on the bark of the tree she was hiding behind, Entoma gazed attentively at the fiery spectacle ahead of her, enchanted by its radiance. She had her head tilted in curiosity. While the snipers were mystified by her get-up, they were more perplexed by her "underaged" appearance. The last they wanted to do was liquidate an innocent, save a minor.
"That a kid..?"
"Whatever it is, hit it. Let him know."
Keeping his eye on the Arachnid, the left sniper tapped into comms and relayed the following.
"Curved antennae, mauve bob cut with buns, white mask – "
" – dress with sleeves and frills, pink-red ribbons, gold straps, stockings plastered in joss papers written in Kanji, bones, black heels, four-to-five-feet tall with a blade strapped on the arm. Alpha Lead, can you confirm?"
"Positive ID. Be advised, you're not to engage. It'll see your rounds coming a mile away. We're taking this thing down together," relayed Chris.
The lieutenant found the descriptions relayed by Sniper Team as bewildering. He became more curious, and uncertain of the unrevealed entity. What it was capable of, what it looked like, his current thoughts brimmed in unsettled bemusement that worsened with the passing of each second. He pictured a toddler in a dress – armed with a blade – but it didn't add up.
It didn't make a lick of sense to him, or to the others save for Chris. Bioterrorism in itself was an unpredictable phenomena with unforeseeable adversaries, but this took unpredictability to a different meaning. Save for Chris, they hadn't a clue of what they were about to face.
"Wilco. Be advised, target has eyes on the illum – break. It's on the move, headed fast towards your position," warned Sniper Team.
Rifles were raised. Machine guns were cocked. Sniper Team kept track of the fast-enclosing distance between Entoma and the men.
"Eight-hundred meters."
"Stay low and keep your distance. It's fast, agile, and mean. Don't lay your eyes off of it for a second. Chances are you're dead if you do," warned Chris.
"Seven-hundred."
The men thumbed the safety off. In the far front ahead, a small figure became visible in their sights. As it drew nearer, they could barely visualize her appearance with their magnified scopes, which had their neon-dimmed reticles hovering multiple heads above the Arachnid to compensate for bullet drop. They squeezed slightly their triggers in gripping anticipation, crowding their infrareds on what they were to inevitably face.
Entoma ceased sprinting and walked for the spectacle. Her crimsons latched on the brilliance since she had first sighted it.
Letting her guard down to the White Star she was entranced by, Entoma unwittingly headed farther in. She walked right into their trap.
"Six-hundred."
Eyeing the Battle Maid, Chris gave the order.
"Execute."
Rapid gunfires drowned the serenity, casting away the dark with their combined incandescence. Muzzle flashes lightened the firers, and tracer rounds of neon-red and green surpassed the radiance of the fading White Star, streaking alongside the hundreds of golds. The congregated roar of the firepower was deafening to the uninitiated. The riflemen fired in bursts, while SAW gunners laid their own suppressive hellfire by holding down the triggers in three-second intervals.
Before the first wave of rounds had swarmed her, Entoma quickly shielded her visage with the Hard Armor Bug, which scintillated in sparks of gold and blazed in bursts of fiery red and orange. The rest of her form from her neck down shimmered in similar radiance with the incessant clanging. The explosive-incendiary, armor-piercing modifications of the SAWs forced her to bend her knees slightly and dig in her heels as she dragged back on her feet.
Facing the troopers with the AT4s, Chris pointed and bellowed at them in the ear-numbing raucous.
"Launch!"
Letting their rifles hang, the men shouldered the launchers and squinted through the scopes. As soon as they set the reticles on their lone target, they squeezed the triggers twice. Succeeding deafening booms, the back ends of the launchers blazed in fiery discharges and fumed grey-white smoke. The ground surrounding the firers trembled with a cloud of dust fogging the vicinity before misting away.
The rockets swooshed out the launchers and trailed smoke, fast-headed for Entoma. Three of the projectiles shrilled over her shoulders and cratered the ground behind her, while the other pummelled directly on the Hard Armor Bug, drowning the Arachnid in an enlarging circle of flames and thickened dust and smoke. The ground trembled in a rattle, following the roar of explosion.
Despite not having the line of sight on Entoma, the men relentlessly hurled rounds into the smokescreen. They widened their arcs of fire by broadening the swaying of their firearms. Hills of expended casings and links formed beside the men unleashing their SAWs, and emptied magazines sprawled around the boots of those firing their ARSTs.
The lieutenant inclined his aim and pulled the trigger on the M203, flinching slightly due to recoil. The explosive 40mm curved into the smoke and went off, bathing the smoke in the radiance of the racketing discharge. Others followed suit by firing their own launchers and quivered the battleground with another chain of thunderous eruptions. Firing their anti-tank sniper rifles in timed successions, the sharpshooters themselves didn't miss out on what seemed to be a one-sided confrontation.
In the ensuing chaos, Chris covered his left ear while he hovered his other with the radio. Because of the men rapid-firing beside him, he shimmered in constant chains of flashes.
"Alpha Lead to airspace. How copy on the coordinates?"
"Zeus Six-Two awaiting coordinates."
"Ares Three-Niner standing by for six digits."
"Fire mission: Zulu-Delta, five-one-eight-zero-niner-niner. Six hundred meters out, over."
"Grid: Zulu-Delta, five one-eight-zero-niner-niner. Six-Two copies all."
"Three-Niner copies. Splash inbound in five seconds. Danger close."
"Cease fire!" bellowed Chris to his team. The lieutenant flicked his smoking rifle down and reminded the rest of the incoming hellstorm via comms.
"Bravo, cease fire, cease fire. Danger close. Get to cover."
Complying, the men ceased firing altogether and hurried to shelter themselves behind viable covers. Those in prone positions quickly went up their feet and hid behind whatever nearby covers they could find from vehicles to houses. They laid in wait for the advent of the mother of all firepower.
Descending from the skies was a twinkling spectacle. Trailing a line of smoke, it raced farther down until the men could barely visualize its cone-shaped form. All their shimmering eyes were fixed on the AGM-114 Hellfire missile fired from the General Atomics Avenger Predator drone above. With a single unit cost totalling $70,000, and programmed with advanced guidance modules, the death-from-above projectile was usually entrusted to eliminate high-value targets. While not as large or as destructive as a warhead, its blast radius could devastate a company, if not a battalion worth of unaware, clustered men.
Reaching optimal descent, the missile doubled its fuel consumption to boost its rear thrusters, igniting in thrice the intensity. Tripling in turn was the speed of the projectile, which swooshed for the congested smokescreen in a blur. The men disbanded their sightseeing and ducked their heads low. Some hovered their hands over their ears, while others corked their earplugs in. They did whatever they could to prevent their drums from getting ruptured.
Violent gusts of savage wind blasted harshly past the men in a tempest of dust and debris from obliterated structures and vehicles. The surge of ruinous awakening was invasively disruptive from the sharp crackle of detonation to the tumultuous uproar that rivalled a medium-magnitude quake. Steadying fast amidst the calamitous mayhem, the men dared not move an inch as debris of many forms and sizes showered on their covers.
"Six-Two. Firing away."
The bombardment was far from over. The blackened clouds above whitened in successions, resounding in gentle thunders. Shells fired from 40mm Bofors cannons and a 105mm Howitzer hailed from the skies in streaks of gold and screamed on their speedy descent. The intervention of the Lockheed AC-130 Spectre gunship reduced a third of the battleground into a ravaged wasteland.
Like a furious superstorm had rocked the area, the discharged flashes were blinding. The once idle trees nearby swayed wildly. At this rate of the onslaught, most of the men were hued in dirt from head to toe. When the bombarding ended with a piercing bang of a Howitzer shell, Chris, ensuring Entoma stayed dead, relayed to Sniper Team.
"Sniper Team, launch."
"Launching."
Chris steered his gaze at the silhouetted mountains in the far south, spotting a projectile soaring high for the skies. It streamed blue flames from the thruster. Fired from the FGM-148 Javelin, the anti-armor missile glided in ascension in the cover of darkness.
Reaching optimal elevation, the projectile slowed and reversed its ascent, spearing at the gargantuan smokescreen headfirst. Under the influence of gravity, and blazing its thruster in great intensity, the missile bolted in its dive. The more it neared land, the more clearly its swooshing was heard by the men below. It streaked in the smokescreen and shook the earth, billowing a miniature mushroom cloud spiralling for the skies.
Chris and the men beside ducked their heads low when a stray tire thumped on a van. It bumped on the engine of the vehicle, which blared out a siren with its headlights flaring in and out, and rolled farther back before wobbling and flattening to a stop. Dry-coughing as he hovered his fist over his mouth, Chris gripped the edge of the van and peeked out to the front, squinting. He couldn't see anything past the dispersed dust clouds, save for his barely-visible men standing and crouching by him. To ensure everyone's wellbeing, he relayed through comms.
"Sound off. Everyone okay?"
"East is good."
"All good at the west."
"Six-Two. Picking up no movement in AO."
"Alpha Lead. Roger. Hold your fire. Out."
The lieutenant crept for the front of the blaring vehicle and palmed its engine to silence it. The captain relayed back to his men.
"Stay frosty. We're holding our position here 'til the smoke clears. Once it does, send out a drone."
A White Star hissed above to illume the dust-inundated area. Their infrareds stalked within the dust as the firearms swayed steadily to the extremities. When the dust settled, and began clearing from the vicinity, a trooper sent a drone far north. Due to the visibility getting murkier the farther it went in, it beamed white lights to scan the surroundings.
Even with the aid of the lights, there wasn't much to take in, but buildings robbed of walls, vehicles with shattered windows, and around a dozen crackling, fuming craters as wide and as deep as swimming pools. Bits of flames danced on the ground, and a larger variant swallowed whole a trailer. The expected corpse of Entoma was nowhere in sight.
Deeper in amidst the craters, the drone sighted the trails that were imprinted by the Arachnid when she was being dragged to the back. It tracked the trails, only to find them abruptly ended. At the very end of the trails, was a gaping hole considerably smaller than the craters surrounding it.
Alerted, the trooper manning the drone briefly scouted the vicinity to see if the hole was coincidental, but it was the only kind in the area. He ventured the drone inside the hole, and scowled as his heart sank. The surrounding wall of soil was blemished with incisions and heel marks. Farther down, the hole curved sharply in a horizontal pathway.
"The target.."
In anticipation of being informed of Entoma's fate, the men around the unsettled trooper awaited the promising news.
"It's gone undergr – "
The ground beneath them trembled, and a portion of it erupted before them, drizzling rocks and soil everywhere. Raising high their firearms, they saw within the rain of dirt a silhouette of a small figure, and beside it the slithering shadow of a long, serpentine creature. When it all cleared, the men widened their frowns at the monstrosities that blotted the moon. In midair, they brooded their shadows over the stunned spectators.
To their horror, Entoma scathed out alive of the ordeal with not a scratch sullied on her attire save for patches of grey and light dirt. Hollering the cry of a Native American warrior, she swung the Thousand Lash Bug, which replaced the Blade Bug by fusing to her right sleeve, at the nearest trooper in front of her.
He had his head battered off by the Arachnid's twenty-meter-long flail, and a fountain of blood spurted out the stump. The decapitated head twirled for a nearby structure and thumped on a building, painting its wall in a streak of dripping red.
Entoma thrashed again at the headless body in a backhand swing, segregating the upper torso from the bottom by the pelvis. The intestine-writhing torso flung to a building and shattered through its upper window. The bodiless legs went on its knees before thudding flat and pooling blood.
The men opened fire as soon as Entoma landed her heels on the ground, steadily backing off from the threat as they unloaded whatever rounds fed in their chambers. The centipede shielded the Battle Maid by wrapping her whole in a turban. SAWs ceaselessly discharged, rifles rapid-fired, Thors and magnums roared senselessly, but nothing was getting past the steel-bred fortress. The tracer rounds ricocheted off the carapace and streaked for the skies.
Chris, pumping his arms, hurriedly led the rest of his men to the scene of action and began unloading their firearms at the insectoid. Together, the ten-man squad surrounded them in a semicircle, committing any means necessary to keep the monstrosities at bay.
Any means necessary in this case implicated futility and desperation. They barely scratched the outer layer of the armor. Even the SAWs with the specialized rounds could hardly dent its platings, as all they did was reinforce the brilliance of the glitters sparking off the crimsons. All they did was pile the thousands of flattened rounds surrounding the centipede. Taking shelter underneath the creature was as safe as taking shelter in a doomsday bunker.
In their present distance, they couldn't afford to rely on advanced explosives lest they commit friendly fire. Pulling the safety pin of a frag grenade, the lieutenant hollered at his colleagues.
"Frag out!"
Lunging a step forward, he raised his throwing arm overhead and launched the explosive, and launched another after. They clinked on the armor and detonated upon reaching ground. When the cascades of dirt ceased hailing, the centipede remained unbudging like a rock. Rounds continued hurling at it.
The creature raised slightly the middle layer of its spiralled fortification, just enough to form a subtle crevice. Through the gap bulleted out a dozen slips of talismans imbued in neon-pink glows. Dangerously-familiar to Chris, and unbeknownst to his surviving men, the captain intensified his scowl and breathed sharply in his nose as he quickly fixed his aim at the blurring talismans.
He snapped the trigger thrice, but his effort was futile. The slugs ghosted past the talismans like the latter were enchanted in incorporeal material. While most barely evaded by diving away, rolling aside, or bobbing and weaving, a pair failed to react in time. As soon as the talismans stuck to their vests, they dissevered into thin pieces and hardened in metal alloy. A series of rapid slicing noises that took after blades being unsheathed emitted, when the pieces cut right through the troopers in a flash of curves that were impossible for the human senses to follow.
Widening their eyes, and uttering out transient death cries that got instantly cut off, the men were diced swiftly into dozens of chunks, spurting and streaking blood everywhere even on their astonished, harrowed comrades nearby. The fleshy chunks hilled below and pooled red, while the metallic pieces responsible for their blink-of-an-eye passings withered to scattered ashes. His mouth agape, Chris briefly gazed at a chunk that had an eye glaring back at him.
He snapped from its gaze, and faced the centipede when a sequence of flashes and gunfires rapidly flared and roared from the same crevice. He then veered his head to the side upon hearing a thud and a brief rattling of gears. A teem of Bullet Bugs decimated his subordinate that stood beside him. A bullet pierced through his right eye, two holed his chest, and another triplet his stomach and the femoral artery on the thigh. The fresh corpse had the captain's distraught attention.
Reinvigorated with rage, Chris wildly discharged his Thor at the bulwarked insectoid, scowling and shouting as he paced forward. The emptied shotgun clicked thrice as he senselessly snapped the trigger. He then unholstered his Lightning Hawk that he fired just as relentlessly. His grimace, his inflamed eyes blazed each time he pulled the trigger until the slide on the magnum retracted.
With the Bullet Bugs bolting out incessantly from the bastion in automatic fire, the rest of the squad were forced to take cover behind obstacles or go prone. Caught in the hellacious crossfire, windows on buildings shattered, tires on vehicles flattened, and barrels leaked rivulets of water and fuel through fresh bullet holes. Inside the impregnable stronghold, Entoma was rapid-firing from both her sleeves like a battle-frenzied Japanese infantryman holding a garrison at the crimson beach of Iwo Jima.
Another dozen glowing talismans bearing distinct written incantations flurried out the crevice, sped for the men, and ignited in explosive, fiery detonations that rocked the deck in piercing bangs. Spiralling in haywire movements, most of the magic-imbued slips proved inaccurate and only succeeded in raining dirt, but a talisman managed to detonate between the boots of an unaware trooper that crouched low behind cover.
Engulfed in violent flames, he twirled in midair before thudding on his back. Smoke lines fuming, charred in grey-black, with both his feet blown to smithereens up his stumped knees, the trooper wheezed and coughed violently, groaning in agony as he was barely conscious.
Chris had seen enough of the carnage, and ordered the remnants of his forces a tactical retreat.
"Fall back! Fall back to CP – I'll hold them off!" he shouted. The Redfield speedily reloaded his magnum, cocked, and returned fire at the insectoids. Him and Sniper Team offered as much suppressive fire as possible to buy time for the others to successfully execute the retreat. The lieutenant took the initiative in leading the retreat.
"Start peeling!"
"Peeling, peeling!" cried a trooper. One-by-one, they fell back a distance and kneeled to cover the ones retreating from the front, discharging their firearms in bursts. Employing a modern guerilla tactic, a trooper palmed the shoulder of his kneeling comrade on his retreat, signalling the one kneeling that he was cleared to retreat. The tactic adopted a cyclical-based movement.
A trooper in the meantime hurried for the wounded with the stumped legs. He heaved the latter up and fireman-carried him away from the heated scene, sprinting his way to the casualty collection point.
The centipede unwrapped itself and nestled close to Entoma's sleeve as it rolled into a ball. Chris discharged two rounds at the Arachnid, who deflected the bullets with the Hard Armor Bug. Entoma bent her knees slightly and sprung up ten meters high, launching herself at Chris. In midair, she deflected three more rounds with her shield-like companion as Chris continued firing at her.
"Meat!" cried the thrilled Battle Maid. Saliva strands drooled from beneath her mask. She thrusted her right sleeve forward and the centipede unrolled itself in full form – heading directly for the captain.
Chris dived away, and the head of the Thousand Lash Bug thundered into the soil he stood on, rippling dirt and rocks. Tugging her right sleeve, Entoma pulled herself to ground floor by using the centipede as an anchor, landing gracefully with a slight bend of her knees. She veered her head at Chris, who recovered on his feet.
As soon as he got up, he crouched low in the nick of time. Entoma effortlessly heaved the centipede from ground and flailed it at her prey in a roundabout swing. Powerful wind gusted at him, dirt and pebbles nicked him, and an imposing shadow brooded by him in an instant. The blood of his men, too, specked on him.
She then swung the centipede in a backhand, forcing Chris to roll sideways with her mace of death speeding under him by the skin of his teeth. On his knee, he straightened his arms and aimed at her mask. She pre-covered her visage with the Hard Armor Bug.
Tilting his aim down at the last second, he fired the last two rounds lodged in the Lightning Hawk. The rounds clanged and sparked on her center mass, causing Entoma to drag back slightly with her heels digging in the soil. The weight of the centipede supported her footing.
When the Arachnid raised and faced her left sleeve at him, Chris widened his hazels and breathed in sharply as he rolled immediately to the side.
Entoma discharged twice. The Bullet Bugs missed him by an inch whilst he rolled in the air. Landing on all fours, Chris looked up – and froze with his jaw partially hanging. His gaze fixed at her smoking sleeve that was aimed directly at him. No nearby cover to rely on, he was at the mercy of the hand of death.
Entoma snapped her firing sleeve over her mask, causing the Bullet Bug she fired to streak off course for the skies. She was being dragged back on her feet once more with her and her armored allies being peppered with five-fives and .50s. The captain gazed back and saw his men providing suppressive fire in unison. His radio crackled in the static voice of a sniper.
"Alpha Lead, we got you covered. Get the hell out of there – now."
"MOVE! MOVE IT!" shouted the lieutenant from afar, beckoning his hand at his superior.
Letting out a grunt, Chris heaved up his feet and vigorously pumped his arms as he rushed his way back for the squad. He tapped the first kneeling man on the shoulder and ran all the way to the back of the firing column, kneeling and loading his magnum to return fire. The men began peeling their way to the casualty point, which wasn't far from them now.
The centipede morphed itself into a round bulwark that Entoma used to completely shield herself. Lifting it off ground and hovering it to her front, she steadily paced ahead in walking steps, deflecting all the rounds blazing at her.
Since they were in safe distance, those wielding high-explosives resorted to more drastic measures to stop the Battle Maid from advancing farther. The lieutenant inclined his rifle and fired off a 40mm that curved for Entoma, scoring a direct hit on the centipede.
When the flames and smoke cleared, Entoma, hardly fazed, was still on the move. The best the 40mm did was dent a plating on the centipede. A trooper in the farther back behind Chris twisted in rockets in his AT4. He shouldered the launcher, aligned the reticle on the encroaching creatures, and steered his head back halfway.
"Rocket! Backblast clear!"
He focused front and squeezed the trigger. The projectile grazed off the very edge of the bulwark, emitting a resounding clang. It bolted farther behind in skewed trajectory until its illumination faded in the dark.
Entoma slightly moved aside her massive shield until her firing sleeve was barely visible. She discharged a Bullet Bug that streaked for the trooper's launcher, which had its trigger squeezed once more. Just as the projectile swooshed out from the opening, the bio-round pierced through its head, triggering a thundering detonation. Chris was launched three meters front and collapsed flat on his chest and on the side of his head.
His right ear trickled a rivulet of red from the orifice. His hearing screeched out of proportion, drowning the chaos around him in chains of muffled rumbles. Grunting as he got up on his fours, he fixed his semi-conscious gaze to the front and was greeted with silhouettes that shimmered his blurred vision in successions of gold flashes. Flames blazing around him further distorted his obscured vision.
Chris aimlessly casted his gaze down, sighting an object laid before him. Due to the state of his vision, he couldn't tell what it was. The Redfield led his trembling hand to it – and had his heart sunk as soon as he wrapped his fingers on it. The stifling feeling of burnt cloth, the feeling of charred flesh.
Gripping it, he reluctantly brought it before his quivering sight until the object cleared from blur. It was a smouldered arm with a blackened, disfigured BSAA patch. His breath trembled, and his grip on the arm tightened. His hazels widened in macabre.
Chris!
He lifelessly raised his gaze from the dismembered limb, sighting a pair of silhouettes fast-approaching him from the scene of action. The lieutenant and a trooper limped his arms across their shoulders and escorted the captain out of the hot zone. The voice of the junior officer continued ringing into his respective ear.
Fall back! Regroup at the CP – fall back!
The rest ceased fire and headed for the casualty point. The static voice of Command muffled for Chris, who still clutched on the severed arm.
Alpha Lead, what's your status?
Paying no heed to headquarters, he glanced behind, and barely sighted a corpse in flames that billowed black smoke. Chris stomped his boots down and tensed his arms, prompting the men escorting him to stop.
"Wait.."
Chris forced their arms off him.
"Let go.."
Turning around, he trudged his way to the body – much to the opposition of his men. The lieutenant rushed after him and gripped his shoulder, halting the latter's movement.
"He's gone!"
Chris' shellshocked gaze refused to part from the corpse ahead.
"Can't just leave him – "
"CHRIS!"
Clutching both of Chris' shoulders, the lieutenant forced the captain to face him. The second-in-command widened his emeralds as he tried snapping the Redfield to reality.
"HE'S – GONE."
Chris could only return him a blank countenance, seemingly unable to convey his subordinate's words. He gazed back at the body.
As Entoma resumed pacing for the men, killer flies spiralled out her sleeves until the Arachnid misted in a myriad of black specks, like she was Moses calling forth waves of ravenous, insatiable locusts.
"Don't think about eating his arms! They're mine, okay? Mine!"
She quivered her antennae until they blurred, commanding the swarm to feast on the remaining human survivors – to which they eagerly complied. The flies buzzed in twice the viciousness and charged at the men in teems of large, brooding clouds. Their congregated buzzing reached the ears of the frontmost trooper.
"Bogeys – incoming!"
The lieutenant and two others were forced to drag Chris away before the flies had overwhelmed them. Even as he was being dragged, his hazels refused to pry from the body. They only did when the door to the casualty point was shut from behind. They barely evaded the swarm that senselessly banged on the entrance, which rattled violently.
A/N: Apologies for the delay. Expect the coming updates to be more frequent. Stoked for Village, 'specially after seeing her.
Tomi Shinoda (Feb 10): Interesting. Thanks for sharing.
Jairo Carillo (Feb 10): I see insecticides definitely being an alternative, but whether if the BSAA will rely on them or not in the coming battle is a question of its own. In response to your hopes of Entoma working with Chris and the BSAA, that won't be happening, considering what Entoma had done to his men and not to mention what Chris had done to her minions. Any chance of them reinforcing a positive relationship is unfortunately sullied at this rate. Furthermore, if I consider your suggestion, the story will drag, and I fear Entoma and Chris will become very OOC – especially Entoma, since she at foremost serves the interests of Ainz, her creator, Genjiro, and Nazarick as a whole. Sorry to get your hopes down, but I can see your suggestion being possible in non-canonical omake, which I'll most likely introduce after I'm finished with this story. If I didn't get anything through your Spanish, please let me know as I used a translator. Thank you kindly for this review.
