It took him a month to be precise. Ryan trained long and hard on dead aliens, Fox had been showing him the best spots to hit them for a quick kill. Fox had taken a liking to him and Ryan vice versa. She trained him in the use of the fingers and Ryan learnt fast. He soon was able to hit the bodies dead in the face and into the throat. He made himself a belt to hold all the fingers in individual pouches. He could easily flick one out and fling it into an alien in seconds.
Cheetah taught him how to use the staff. He taught him how to use the staff as a means to send an alien flying, and how to use it to wrestle with one. And he also taught him to fight several aliens at once.
Puma, now with a healthy shoulder taught him to fight with his sword. The thing with sword paly was speed and not strength, though strength must be maintained as these are strong creatures. She taught him to throw the sword, and to parry alien claw strikes.
At the end of that month, Ryan was given his alien armour plates and his animal title.
"You have trained hard," Cheetah said at the presentation "you now may bear the weapons and armour of the survivors. You now replace our late member and have inherited his title, Wolf."
The pack clapped as Ryan took his armour and shook Cheetah's hand. Ryan turned around and looked at the others. Eagle was clapping with a smile on her face, Hawk was cheering loudly, HQ clapped his hands together and punched the air, Puma gave him the thumbs up and Snake clapped politely. Fox walked up to him and gave him a hug, Ryan embraced her back. When they parted Cheetah put his hands on Ryan's shoulders.
"Well are you ready for your first fight as a pack member?"
"Let's do it." Ryan replied.
The gates if the base opened. Inside there were a pack of seven people in alien armour, with their leader in front. They began to walk out as the gate opened wide enough.
Cheetah was in the lead followed by Snake, then Ryan, Fox and Puma. Hawk and Eagle brought up the rear. They entered the suburbs of New York. It was mid afternoon, the orange scorched sky emblazoned the surroundings with a bright orange tinge. Houses were crumbled, cars were crashed; papers were strewn everywhere. They reached a playground which was crumbling; it looked as though the colour had been drained from it and that if you so much as touch it, it would fall to the ground. But what was really sad was the human bodies lying in the street. Men, women and children lay in the streets.
Ryan suddenly asked a question.
"So what are we looking for?"
Cheetah stopped the group and turned around to face everyone.
"Ok I'll tell everyone." He said. "The other day I was on perimeter duty, I saw smoke rising from downtown, I assumed it was a burning building but that was when I heard the gun fire and saw the explosions. I think the marines are conducting a rescue op again. This could be our ticket home and I want to take it. So we are going to investigate downtown to see what's going on."
Snake butted in.
"If the marines are coming in wouldn't we be able to see dropships arriving and APCs charging around?" he said.
"That as it may be, there is something going on over there and we are going to find out." Cheetah replied.
With that the group set off to downtown to investigate the sudden fire fight.
Downtown was a mess. It was like the suburbs only on a much grander scale. The amount of wrecked vehicles was amazing; they were all over the road and the pavement. Lampposts had fallen and the sky scrapers had crumbled. Though some sky scrapers had only lost their paint and remained intact. But what really scared Ryan was that there were no bodies in these streets.
Suddenly Cheetah held up his hand to stop the pack. Everyone stopped dead in their tracks and listened. Gun fire, very close. Cheetah signalled to Hawk and Eagle, they split up and ran into the ruins to find sniping points. Cheetah signalled for the rest to stay low and follow him.
Cheetah pressed his finger to his ear piece.
"HQ where are they?"
"The next street, there seems to be a fair few of them so be advised."
"Any signs of marine backup?" Cheetah asked.
"I got nothing, sorry mate."
"Thanks."
Cheetah lead the group to the next street and saw the battle before them.
There were three men standing in the middle of the street, in amongst the rubble and wrecked cars. One of them held a pulse rifle, another had a pump-action shotgun and the third held a marines flamethrower. In front of them was a hoard of over one hundred aliens charging at them. The pulse rifle man mowed the front line down and went dry, he ejected the clip, pulled out another one quick as a flash and slammed in and opened fire. The shotgun seemed to be more of a close range weapon, he waited until the aliens leapt at them before firing; the shots were so powerful that it sent the aliens flying back the way they came. The flamethrower set sections of the hoard on fire and the aliens made a distinguishable screaming noise and went ballistic. They ran in random directions before the fire burnt them to a crisp.
They seemed to be holding the aliens back quite well but Ryan knew that if one of them ran out of ammo then they were doomed.
"I say we get in there!" he said.
"Right on!" Puma agreed.
"Alright." Cheetah said, he press his ear piece.
"Hawk, Eagle open fire!"
"Let's do it! Let's waste 'em!"
More pulse rifle fire rained down on the hoard. The three men in the middle looked up in surprise at the new shots. The rest of the pack leapt into action.
Ryan somersaulted over the shotgun man and swung his staff clean through its head, knocking its body aside. The shotgun man eyes widened in surprise, only to come back to reality in time to shoot an oncoming alien. Ryan flipped into a group of aliens, swinging his staff at lightning speed. His staff struck alien after alien as he spun and twirled through the group.
He grabbed one of the aliens onto his staff and flung it through the air; he leapt after it out of the group. He flung three fingers direct into the aliens head, killing it in mid air. He then planted his feet onto another alien and pushed it to the ground and crushed its head under his feet.
He looked behind him and saw a group of twenty aliens coming his way. He spun around and drew his sword in his left hand to meet his attackers.
Fox kicked an alien into an oncoming group, knocking them all back. She spun to kick another one across the face, its face crunched from the force of the hit. She turned to see an alien coming up behind her; she swung her fist into its face. As it reeled from the punch she flung her knife up into its head and knocked it flying.
An alien hoard of forty or so strong ran at her. She made the quick decision to bail out and she back flipped onto a pile of rubble and waited for them to arrive. Now the aliens could only come up at her in duos or trios and were much easier for her to repel. She kicked two of them off the rubble into the line of fire from Hawk. She then kneed one in the face and then grabbed it by the hands and hammer threw it into the group coming up the rubble. This knocked half of them into Hawks line of fire, in which they were annihilated.
Fox then flipped backwards off the rubble to land back to back with Puma.
Snake watched from the shadows, about a third of the aliens had been destroyed and the battle was going well. He was waiting for a group to come his way so he would have the element of surprise. He was ready to attack a group that was fair out of his way if another didn't come soon for if he was out of the battle too long they would be in trouble.
Suddenly a group came running past, Snake leapt out at them. His sword sliced one in half, another split into three, before he then began to parry their strikes. An alien leapt onto his back and he rolled through the group. He jumped and landed on his back, crushing the alien under his weight. He jumped up in time to fling an attacking alien aside and to slice another's head off.
He then slid down to trip another one over and sliced its face off, the acid blood spilt all over his chest. But thanks to his armour he was unaffected. He then swung his legs in a full three sixty degrees to knock another two aliens over. He then broke one's neck with his foot and slammed his sword through the other's head.
Hawk was firing none stop into the bunches of aliens left on the battlefield. They alien forces had now been reduced to half, but the battle wasn't won yet. He fired over and over at alien upon alien; he used clips every two minutes.
He was running low on ammunition, he decided on a quicker method. He pressed his finger on his ear mike.
"Fire in the hole!" he yelled.
He saw people dive away from the battle; he pumped the grenade launcher on his pulse rifle and fired. He hit the group dead centre and blasted every alien within a ten metre radius. Their bodies flew into other aliens which resulted in them being knocked over. Down on the ground, the pack sprung back into action; slicing aliens that were down and parrying the quick ones that had already gotten up.
"Let's rock!" Eagle yelled.
The two of them opened fire on the downed aliens.
Cheetah flipped onto an alien and slammed his staff through its head, then swung its body aside in time upper cut an alien in the face with the stick part of the staff. He then rammed one end into its jaw and out the other side of its head. He then looked around the battlefield.
The others were mopping up the last few aliens; they were hiding in amongst the dead ones that covered the area. He smiled, it was a good victory and they saved some people. The three survivors were standing in the centre of the battlefield.
Cheetah walked over to them, as he walked he pressed his ear mike.
"Everyone regroup, and good job." He said.
"Rodger that Cheet, thanks." Hawk replied.
"Aye, Aye." Fox said.
Cheetah looked up at the survivors.
"Hello," he said "my name is Cheetah. Pleasure to meet you."
They stared back at him. The pulse rifle man stepped forward.
"Thank you. My name is Harrison and this is Hank and George."
He indicated to the other two.
"Good to meet you, we thought we were the only remaining survivors of the outbreak." Cheetah told them.
"So did we," Harrison said "we thought our little group were the only ones left. There were more of us then, around ten I'd say, but most of them were killed or taken to the hive."
"So the hive still exists?" Cheetah asked.
"Yes, I've seen it."
"Where?"
"I don't know, I was rescued from there and it happened so quickly."
"Right."
"Listen, thanks for your help, you guys were amazing!"
"Don't mention it-"
"Cheetah!"
Cheetah turned to see Puma walking towards him. Hawk and Eagle weren't too far behind.
"What is it?" Cheetah asked.
"We think that's the last of them. There weren't many left after the grenade attack."
Suddenly an alien leapt up right next to Puma. It hissed and opened its mouth, ready to strike.
"Puma!" Hawk yelled.
Puma turned her head and saw the alien. Ryan saw it all happen as though in slow motion. Hawk raised his pulse rifle to aim at the alien's head. He opened fire, the alien's head exploded in a shower of acid blood. Acid blood which showered all over Puma's face.
She screamed as the acid burnt her skin off her face, bone became exposed, flesh turned black.
"Puma!" Eagle screamed.
Her and Hawk ran over to Puma's fallen body. Eagle grabbed her hugged her, crying.
"No," she said "no no no!"
Eagle and Puma had been very close; they had known each other before the outbreak. Tears dripped down her face, she sobbed uncontrollably. Fox laid a hand on her shoulder, Eagle looked up. Fox hugged her, Eagle cried into her shoulder. Fox patted her back and let go, she looked Eagle in the eyes.
"I'm so sorry Eagle, but we have to go." She said.
Eagle looked tearfully back at Puma's body, then back at Fox and nodded. Hawk was just staring at Puma's body. Ryan was watching him. I can't imagine the feeling he has; it was his shooting that killed her. He must feel terrible he thought.
Cheetah looked sadly at everyone; he felt the pain as well. The only person who didn't seem very different was Snake. He was off to the side looking off into space in deep thought. Then Cheetah finally got his senses back.
"Ok everyone, we should go before more of them come."
Back at base, they were met by HQ. He was glad to see new arrivals, but was then saddened by the loss of Puma. He was probably the worst affected by it, second to Eagle. They all had a silent moment to honour her service to the fight for survival in this apocalyptic wasteland.
At dinner, discussions about the new arrivals was the main topic.
"So what did you do before the incident Harrison?" Fox asked.
"I didn't do much actually; I worked in an electrical appliance store."
"You handle a weapon really well." Cheetah pointed out.
"Yeah I wanted to be in the military, so I under went he training but failed the physical." He said.
"How about you guys?" Ryan asked Hank and George.
"I was a cop." George replied.
"And I was in the military, but I was honourably discharged." Hank told him.
"Why?"
"I made decisions that got many men killed."
The meal went relatively smoothly after that. When everyone had finished Cheetah stood up.
"Ok everyone should get some sleep, I'm gonna fill in for Eagle on the dinner to midnight perimeter duty, she has had enough to deal with today. Wolf," he said.
"Yeah?" Ryan asked.
"I'd like you to do the midnight 'till morning perimeter duty. That ok?"
"Sure, yeah."
"Good." Cheetah said "Now everyone else, get some sleep, tomorrow could be a big day for all we know so we need to be refreshed for it. Harrison, I'll show you guys were you'll sleep."
Everyone got up from the table and went there ways for the night.
Later that night, in the main science lab of the base, a man was using the terminal into the classified experiments chamber. He punched in a code which opened a small inbuilt chamber. Inside was a facehugger inside an acid proof glass box. The man picked it up and left the room, walked through the base to the sleep quarters.
He found the ventilation shafts for the sleeping quarters, opened one and placed the box in the vent. He closed the vent and removed a remote; this remote opened the box if it carries a dangerous thing for employee safety. The man pressed the button and released the facehugger. It leapt out of the box and scuttled down the vent and into the closest room.