Expect some swearing. Actually, whenever the Iron Kings are involved, usually expect a slight excessiveness of cursing.
With the warning given, you should have also guessed that this isn't the full chapter I had intended but since both I and some of you are anxious for more, I'm gonna go ahead and at least give this to you guys to sate you till I'm finished. Finals are still underway so that's why the delay is still taking place. Wish me luck guys and I'll do the same for you all.
Now here you go.
"Gah! *Panting* Crap. Oh god." I grunt out through ragged breathing as I trudge my way away from enemies. I clutch the wound on my left shoulder from the bullet hole but I continue to make my way away from my enemies as I hold a G36C in my left hand.
"He went this way!"
"Shit!" I curse under my breath as I push myself a little bit harder until I place myself behind a rock and take a second to catch my breath. I quickly pull out the magazine and check to see my ammo count. I have one other magazine on me and it looks like I have 12 rounds in my current one. "Damnit… Phew… their more prepared this time." I mutter.
After I charged them, they were so surprised by my bold action that it took them a few seconds to properly retaliate against me but by then, I had already slain more than a few of them. Unfortunately, while I'm fast, I'm not fast enough to dodge a bullet. One of them was lucky enough to get a hit on me and that gave them enough time to pin me down. As I was hiding behind a rock, one of them made the mistake of coming around the rock too close to me so I was able to maneuver his G3 and take it for myself, while also grabbing the pins on the frag grenades and flashbangs on his vest and pushing him onto his friends. After the explosion, I took off running injured while they were all disoriented or dead. It bought me some time but while I'm injured, not all of my pursuers were so a good chunk of them are chasing me while the rest recuperate from the flashbangs stun effect. I peak from my cover and spot the guys rounding the corner.
*Ping*
"Shit!" I curse and duck back as a round impacts the rock next to my head. I look up and see some of the guys along the edges of the ravine start to make their way along it towards me. 'Crap… if they move along it far enough, I won't have any place to hide down here. They'll literally be able to shoot down onto me. Have to take them out. Gain the high ground.' Looking around, I spot another drill machine above me. With a smile, I open fire on the legs of the machine. The ground chips away and loosens up, sending the machine of metal and glass fall right on me. 'Wait for it… Now!' I wait till the last second before the thing impacts the ground where I'm hiding, rolling far away from the spot as it immediately kicks up dirt and dust all over the place. I use my shirt as a makeshift mask as I hear many sounds of coughing from all around me. I smirk as I see the dust cloud extend all the way to the top of the ravine, obscuring my overwatchers from above. "Perfect."
"Where is he?!"
"I don't know! *Cough*Cough*"
"Well keep searching! The boss wants him alive but he didn't say in what state!"
"Dick." I comment. Grabbing the rifle in my left hand, I start scaling the rock walls to the top using the holes as places to get my grip and footing. Chunks of dust and rock are still settling all around us so they don't hear me scaling the place or my grunts of exertion. It's a little hard to scale the place considering the terrain, the gun-toting men around me, and my weakened left arm side, but I push through the pain and manage to get to the ledge of the very top.
"Where is he?!"
"I don't know! I can't see anything!"
"Well keep looking! He's down there somewhere and we need— Hey!"
"Surprise asshole!" I yell in the guys face as I grab the front of his shirt and pull him off the ledge.
"Aaaaaahhh!" The guys yells as he plummets to the bottom of the chasm.
"Hey ,what happen— You!" The other guy spots me but before he can bring his gun up to bear, I spray my gun one-handed at the guy. My rounds go all over the place around him but a couple nails him the left arm, making him drop his FAL to the ground. "Argh! Damnit." He grunts in pain as he grips his arm in pain. He looks at me with anger before he reaches back with his good arm. I sprint forward just as he's bringing it out and means to shoot me. I however grab his wrist and make him smack himself in the face with the .38 revolver, dazing him enough for me to push him away and roll up with a roundhouse kick to the side of his face, sending him falling off the cliff. Looking down, I quickly drop my G3 and pick up the FAL before sending it to semi-auto and scanning around me. I don't see anyone else on the cliff side where I am on so I start scanning the other side.
"There he is!"
"Crap." I groan as the five guys on the other side spot me and bring their guns up to bear. They immediately open fire on me, forcing me to roll to the ground and go into a prone position before taking aim at them. Because I'm a smaller target, it's harder for them to hit me but that also increases the chance for them to hit me in the face. I don't want that now do I.
I manage to steady myself despite the bullets flying over my head and take aim at my opponents.
*Bang*Bang*Bang*
I place three consecutive shots on one of the guys. I see his body jerk with each shot hitting him before he falls to the ground dead. One of the guys notices his partner dead next to him but his moment of hesitation is my opportunity to place a round into his head. "Yes."
*Voom*
"Argh." I groan as I almost feel the air current generated by a bullet wiz by my head. 'Damn. Gotta finish this soon.' I steady myself again and send more rounds towards my opposition. I take down two more of them before the last one moves behind a rock for cover. I keep my sights trained on the rock so I can pop him if he peeks out. I fire as I see a head peek out.
*Bang*
"Shit! God damnit!" I hear the guy yell as my shot barely misses him. "We need heavier firepower! Use the Javeli—!"
Before he can finish talking, his head moves out by mistake and I end him.
*Click*
"Crap." I'm annoyed at the empty weapon in my hand so I toss it over the edge before rolling over and grabbing the G3 from earlier. "Alright, now to take out the rest of— Ah!" I'm interrupted as the sound of a rocket blast permeates the air. From the bottom of the chasm, something blasts out from it right in front of me and goes high into the air. "What the hell…?" I ask as I stare at the object going up and up before it slows down. "Is it some sort of flare or—" My eyes widen as I see the object change paths down, towards me. "Wait, he was saying— A Javelin missile launcher!" I exclaim in surprise at the ordinance piece they just used. The missile speeds toward me quickly, making me grit my teeth. "Shit!" I curse and start sprinting away from my previous position in hopes of getting away from the point of impact.
I'm not able to.
*BOOM!*
"Aaaaarrrrgh!" I yell in pain and surprise as the explosion goes off a few feet behind me, sending tiny pieces of shrapnel and flames hitting against my back and the force of it sending me flying off the cliff. "Poh! Cah! Arh!" I grunt repeatedly as I roll and slide down the side of the chasms walls, parts of my body hitting flat parts of the rocks in the wall and making my body jerk and jolt with each hit it takes. "Oof!" I groan as I finally hit the bottom with thud and my assault rifle goes flying from my hands. "Ahhh… fuck." I groan at the amount of pain going through my body and my injured shoulder isn't help either.
"Well, well, well." 'Awww crap.' I mentally groan at the voice over me. Slowly I look back and see half a dozen guys standing over me. "Looks like we finally got you." The guy says smugly. I growl at the guy in front of them with gritted teeth, showing my anger toward him but it just makes him smile even wider.
"Yeah, we got you. Now can we get out of here? This place gives me the creeps." Another henchman says from the back as he glances around the place nervously.
"Not yet. He sure did a number on us. I think it's time we return the favor." He says confidently. Some murmurs of agreement emanates from the guys in the back at the idea, obviously more than happy to take payment for the trouble I've caused them in the form of extreme amounts of pain. 'Fuck. How the hell am is supposed to get out of this?' I think mentally as I look around for anything that could help but the only thing I can find is my rifle but it's a few feet away from me, way out of my reach. "C'mon, guys. Let's do this."
"Damn." I curse as I try to crawl away from them but I don't get far because of my beaten body.
"Where are you going buddy?" One of them asks. "We just wanna have some fun." He says with a smug smile and a chuckle as they all begin to advance on me.
'Damnit… what the hell am I supposed to— Hm?' I start to think of what I can do but I soon spot a figure on top of the chasm on the left of me. I squint my eyes to try and get a good look at it but I can't from this distance. The figure aims something across from it and to my surprise, a beam of white shoots from it and impacts the opposite wall of the chasm.
"What the—?" One the guys asks in surprise at the rumbling noise as it shakes the whole place. Before they can ask questions, the impact point starts to chip away with the rocks and before we know it, an avalanche of rocks starts falling towards us. "Holy— We need to get out of here!" The guy advises himself and his friends to do.
"But what about the kid?!" Another one asks loudly.
"Fuck him! We won't be able to bring him back if we're buried alive!" The one who proposed they get the hell out of dodge gives some more sound advice to his compatriots. Small pebbles are already rolling to everyone's feet but the larger boulder chunks are still crumbling off the walls.
"Argh! Fine! Let's go before— Hey! He's getting away!" One of them finally notices me limping away from them while they were all focusing most of their attention on the breaking walls.
'Alright, whoever that was, they were able to give me enough time to get away from those bastards. I just need to rest and get my bearings before I try to—' "Arrrrhhhh!" I yell loudly in pain as one of them fires at me and one of the rounds grazes my right leg. I collapse to the ground as the rumbling of the rocks gets louder and louder.
"RUN!" One of the guys yells and the snaps them out of their stupor and they begin running as more and more rocks fall towards them. A couple of them trip and get crushed by the rocks but the rest are full head-on sprinting to me.
'Shit.' I curse in my head and quickly look around for anything that I might be able to use for cover from them and the avalanche of rocks. 'Perfect.' I think as I spot one of those body holes in the wall at level with me. I quickly scramble along the ground to my right towards the closest holes for me to take refuge in. 'C'mon c'mon c'mon!' I think rapidly in my head as I'm cutting it real close.
"Waitwaaiiitt!" I hear someone yell behind me but I don't bother to look as I throw myself into the hole.
"Ah!" I grunt as I slam into the very back of the hole as the place completely fills up with dirt and everything goes dark. I quickly pull the collar of my shirt up over my mouth and use it as a makeshift mask so I don't choke on the dust and dirt around me. The earth around me shakes as I continue to feel intense rumbling happen outside of my temporary confinement area. "Holy hell… *Panting* Man that was close." I breathe out as I lay against the very back of the hole. I let out a few tense breaths to calm myself of everything that has happened the last few minutes. "Aaahhhh!" I breathe out in slight discomfort as my wounds start to make themselves known to me. Pulling out my phone, I turn on the flashlight app and illuminate my hovel so I can examine myself. The shot in my shoulder isn't bleeding as much and it looks like the bullet was a through and through. That's good, that way I don't have to worry about taking the bullet out or shrapnel splintering off. I can feel bruises lining the entirety of my body from the force of the explosion that nearly killed me at the top of the chasm. Looking down, I see the round that grazed my leg only got the surface skin as it tore easily through my pants. There is only a small amount of blood so I'm in no danger of bleeding out anytime soon but damn does it hurt.
After a few moments of my self-examination, the world around me goes quiet and the dust has settled so I can breathe a little easier. "Finally." I mutter to myself and crawl forward to the thing that's blocking the hole. From the feel of it and its shape, I think it's a giant lumpy piece of the rocks that were falling and one just happened to crash itself right behind me when I was running for cover. Very carefully, I brace myself against the thing and slowly push it out of the way with a grunt. "Ngh!" I clench my teeth as I slowly but carefully push it away from me in case there's anything else on it that could collapse on me. Thankfully, all I see is sunlight around me so its clear for me to push it all the way. With a bit more exertion, I roll it away from me with a grunt, sunlight blinding me for a second as I take a moment to collect myself.
Once my eyes adjust, I look around to see the area in front of me and to my left was once clear and flat but now theirs rocks, boulders and piles of dirt littering it. A strong gust of wind flows through the canyon and carries the dust in the air away, giving me a clearer view of what happened to the others. I see some red streaks here and there so most of them must have gotten buried. There is however one body facedown close to the hole I was hiding in that looks slightly depressed on some parts of the body. 'Must have gotten crushed by rolling debris.' So far the whole place is deathly quiet with only the slight creaking and tumbling of rocks deeper in the canyon. "Well, I guess that's all of them… Better get started in scavenging the place… Get rid of the body's too." I tell myself and start walking to the front of the canyon where hopefully my bike is still there and all the cars these guys used to get here are. "Should also grab anything I can use to find out how—"
*SMACK*
Something swings out from behind a boulder I was walking behind and nails me right in the face, knocking me flat on my ass and dazing the complete hell out of me. I roll on the ground a few times as I instinctively bring my hands to my face. "You son of a—!"
"Pah!" I cough out as someone kicks me in the side of my stomach, resulting in pain and making me curl up a bit.
"You just had to do this the hard way… didn't you?!"
"Ah!" I yelp in pain as the guy kicks me where the bullet grazed my leg.
"Well, you know what? Fuck it." The guy says firmly and I hear shuffling sounds. After rolling onto my back, I open my eyes to see a beaten up guy standing over me, his left arm obviously broken with the way how it looks, plus the bone sticking out as well. He reaches behind him with his un-broken arm and pulls out a nickel-plated Desert Eagle .50 and aims it right at me. "The boss wants you alive… but this?" He waves his gun around, indicating the carnage that he thinks I fully caused. "No… no way. You don't deserve to live. Not after all this." He tells me with a snarl, very angry about the situation at hand. "Any last words?" He asks with a smirk.
"…" I don't give him the satisfaction of saying anything. Right now I don't see a way out of this, I can't reach for my pistols in time before he pulls the trigger and I'm not in a position to overpower him. I'm dead.
"Alright then, suit yourself."
*Click*
He pulls the hammer back on the pistol and steady's his hand. "I'm sure the boss'll be pissed… but you know what?" I close my eyes and wait for the noise. 'So this is it then? I guess it had to come at some point.' I hear the guy lightly chuckle. "It'll be worth it."
I clench my eyes and wait for the end. 'Goodbye my friends… At least they'll leave you alone…'
*BANG!*
…
…
…
…
…
"Ugh…" I expected the groan to come from me, especially since I feel a wet sensation on my face, but it doesn't. Opening my eyes, I look to my left and see the spot where the bullet went through. "Uhhh…" I look up as I hear him groan again and to my surprise, he's just as surprised as me as he stares down at the tip of a spear jutting from his chest. Half the blade is seen poking out as he gurgles a bit. 'Who the…?'
"Huuuu… Nah!" With a grunt of exertion, the person behind the spear picks the guy up and tosses him away easily. The now dead guy slides easily off the spear as it rolls away from us.
"Are you okay?"
"… PEARL?!" I ask in surprise at my friends appearance. She extends her hand to me with a smile. Despite my shock, I take the offered limb and she pulls me to my feet. "Wha- what the- what are you doing here?!" I ask confused.
"Well, you were taking an awfully long time in getting back home, so I decided to come here and see what the holdup was. And what do I find when I warp back?" She tells me as she lays her spear against her shoulder.
"Uhhhh—" I say embarrassingly.
"Several dead bodies, some craters from explosions and the sound of gunfire deeper into the Kindergarten." She answers before I can.
"Yeah, sorry." I apologize and look at the place around us. "I guess I wasn't as subtle as I thought when I was riding my bike after Amethyst and Steven. The Iron Kings tracked me here and it was only after you guys left that I called them out to deal with them here and now." I sigh and shake my head, "I had no idea that they would have brought so much to deal with me."
"Yes, and although it looks like you managed to handle yourself, somewhat, against them, you still should have asked us to help." She tells me with a frown.
"Yeah, I guess you're right." I tell her with a defeated sigh. I'm not gonna try to act tough about the whole thing. There is no doubt in my mind that I would have been dead twice over she hadn't intervened. "Still, thanks for your help back there. Twice." I thank her with a tired smile.
"You're very welcome." She replies with a smile and examines the surroundings as well. "Still, it looks like that was all of them."
"Yeah, I guess it wa—"
"There he is!" A new voice interrupts me and to our surprise, a whole new squad of guys comes up and begin to aim their guns at us from across the way.
"Shit! Get out of here Pearl" I quickly tell her as I pull out one of my swords.
"What?!" She asks in surprise.
"They want me! Not you! I appreciate the help but they want me and I won't let you get hurt because of me!" I almost yell to her as the guys set up.
"And I won't abandon my allies to face their enemy's alone!" She yells back and swishes her spear around a few times before holding it firm as she aims it at our opponents.
"God dammit Pearl!" I yell and grab her shoulders, forcing her to look right at me. "I don't need you arguing with me right now! Now just do what I said and go!" I order her. 'I can fight better alone and I don't want her fighting when she doesn't even have a firearm to fight back against. I don't want her getting hurt.'
"And I said—!" She pushes me back and starts to say with a angry look on her face.
"FIRE!"
I look to where the guys and to my relief, they aren't shooting like a firing squad at us but to my horror, they are firing a trio of RPG-7's at us. "PEARL!" I scream her name in fear as the missiles head right for our feet. I jump forward and tackle her in an effort to shield her.
Everything goes black just as the rockets make contact.
Welp, I think I'll go ahead and leave this here for now. Hopefully its enough to satisfy you till I get the rest finished. Sorry for the cliffhanger but with finals coming up, I can't work as much as I would have liked on this. Sorry.
Still, I'm liking my chances on the finals so after that, I'll be able to devote most of my time to this so hopefully be ready for a large influx of new chapters to come up when this semester is over.
Now enough about my personal life, let's talk about the new episode. It was nice and I couldn't help but snicker at some moments that happened and how the gems acted, even Greg. I won't spoil anything but it just shows how… dense… the gems kind of are when it comes to human children. Seriously, guys I hope you watched it or watch it soon. Can't wait for more. I used to keep new episodes in my DVR box to watch later whenever feel like it, but since I'm writing this, I gotta keep up on the ball you know?
To add to new stuff I saw, I watched the VGA's as well. Not too hung up on the winners for their category's and such but I was mostly interested in the trailers and footage for new games. Pumped and hyped for Halo Wars 2 and Mass Effect: Andromeda.
Hope this was good for you guys.
And as always, have fun reading.
