A series of loud booms woke up the pair on the couch as the building around them shook and settled.

Then again, the loud bangs sounded out and the building shook as Foxy twisted, sending both of them off the couch and onto the floor. Dust and dirt pelted the nape of his neck and back of his head.

Suddenly, it all stopped, once again.

"...Are you alright?"

He pulled himself back a bit as he looked at the vixen under him. Mangle was still trying to understand what was going on, but eventually responded with a simple nod.

He got to his knees and stood up, lending his hand to her so he could pull her up as well. Both of them walked toward the door, listening for any indicator of someone outside. When they couldn't hear anything, they risked a peek. It was dark, aside from the occasional flash from inside the compound. The guards from earlier were completely missing, their positions vacant, leaving the area unsupervised.

Foxy motioned toward the building, and they both made their way across the street where they were met with an open window that was partially barricaded with wood. Foxy managed to pry a couple of the boards out, but there was only enough room for Mangle to climb inside. As she climbed through, the vulpine kept a lookout, soon hearing her get to her feet from inside the window and looking over at her.

"Listen, be careful in there, alright? I can't get inside or help you until you get me in." She felt him grab her shoulder, causing her to stare back at him while listening.

"Yeah, I will. Just be ready, okay," She replied, grabbing his hand off her shoulder and giving it a squeeze before walking deeper into the compound, leaving Foxy to his own outside.

She moved quickly and silently down the hallway, looking out to see that both ends were void of life. A few doors were open with lights on, however, she couldn't tell if someone was in them or not. She cautiously peered into each of the rooms as she walked down the hall towards the door, seeing that it did indeed lead to the door that would give Foxy access-

She was hit in the back by the stock of a rifle as a soldier snuck up on her from inside the hallway, slamming into the filthy tile flooring as she felt her chest vibrate from the hit, before she was rolled over onto her back.

Near instinctively, she jabbed him in the throat, grabbing for the knife around his belt and yanking it out of its sheath as she sent it into his shoulder, stabbing wildly as the synthetic blood poured onto her. Guttural sounds escaped from his throat as he went limp atop her, but before she could even attempt to calm herself the sounds of shouting from the end of the room he pushed her in caught her attention. Directly opposing the exit - or entrance in her and Foxy's case - was two more men.

"We got a man down in the eastern entrance, one confirmed intruder." She could hear one mutter in his radio as the other reached for his rifle and aimed towards her.

She rolled the body to cover her, hearing a burst of gunshots as she could feel the limp body behind her jerk around. Reaching to her hip, she pulled a handgun from the holster and pointed it from over the body, blindly firing at the soldiers as she then pushed the body away and ran to her feet, getting to the door and pulling the bar off the handles. Foxy threw the door open, shoving her out of the way as he aimed at the duo down the hall.

"Quite the entrance, huh," He jokingly asked her as she gave him a stern glare.

"Like you can say much."

"I guess you're right," Foxy replied as they began walking towards the exit at the end of the room where the soldiers were, the sounds of footsteps coming from the hallways on either side. "Let's hurry this the hell up!"

As they reached the door, more began coming out of the hallway into the line of fire. Foxy quickly downed a pair before backing through the door after the vixen and locking it. Instead of walking out into more hallways, they walked into crates and the night sky. Smoke filled the area, preventing anyone from being able to see them, and the shouting masked any noise as they were on alert just a second ago.

"I think I see one of the guns," He whispered to Mangle, who nodded and followed him.

The two walked swiftly towards the gun, the vulpine grabbing a soldier and stabbing him before grabbing his grenade belt and reaching the gun. He fidgeted with the handles before he finally managed to open up the back, grabbing a spent shell, and throwing a primed grenade into it before shoving it in and locking it back. Both of them high-tailed it away from the gun towards another one on the far side of the little clearing in the buildings, before hearing the gun explode.

Their ears flattened against their heads at the deafening boom.

The soldiers around them were thrown into a further frenzy as they had no clue where the pair was, but they also had a gun explode seemingly spontaneously causing an even further uproar around them. She followed closely, watching around them as he found a crate full of shells for thee guns, placing a primed grenade inside that as well before grabbing her shoulder and running away from the stash before he saw another door inside the building, slamming into it quickly as he heard the explosives go off and eviscerating most of the men that were still in the open.

Through the short exchange, they'd circled the area, blown up their ammunition supply, and one of the guns, also causing major damage to the building they were now currently in as they felt dust pelt them on their backs. Mangle listened to the vulpine as he choked up some gunk and crawled back to his feet, soon pulling her up as well, both of the continuing onward.

Before they could even reach the end of the small corridor, someone walked out and spotted them. He was covered in dust and soot, carrying a rifle as he raised it and quickly sprayed towards them in a daze. Before the vulpine could react, she'd pulled up her handgun again and shot him in the chest, pushing into him from the side to quicken the pace as he focused on the doorway they were now heading towards.

It wasn't graceful, he had to grab onto the edge of the door as they came around the corner, but he managed as he spotted another soldier coming down, still struggling to put on his gear as Foxy shot him, a groan escaping him as he collapsed to the floor gasping and reaching for his chest.

More piled in from the end, and as he turned over his shoulder he could see more coming, instead getting pulled by the vixen into a gap in the wall which led up the stairs, the sounds of gunfire crossing as he crawled up the stairs backwards in haste.

'To the roof again, I guess.'

Mangle fared better as she rushed up the stairs listening for any more problems as the vulpine caught up with her, tossing a grenade back down the stairwell as he pulled her through the hall and to the floor. The footsteps following them were drowned out by the sharp explosion, enhanced from being indoors.

A round flew by his head as he crawled up and shot back, narrowly missing the gunner who flinched and ducked into a room off to the side of the hallway. He crawled forward, dragging Mangle up who struggled to crawl herself across the tile floor, instead opting for shooting over the vulpine to keep the man from peeking again. She let loose 4 shots before seeing the slide lock in place, then reached for the frame of the door they crawled towards and slipped inside.

"Holy shit…" Foxy stumbled over himself as he crawled up against the wall beside the door frame, struggling to catch his breath.

A shot landed in the wall behind him as he recoiled from it, reaching for his gun as he checked how much ammo he had left. Foxy blindly fired a few shots down the hall in return.

"We need to get out of here," She told him as she peeked out and saw someone looking into the room from the stairwell, a few shots coming into the room from them.

"I know," He replied as he shot into the stairwell and grabbed the last grenade, cooking it for a couple seconds before tossing it down into the stairs again, this time not letting them have a chance to run as it near immediately exploded once he got back into cover.

Their ears were ringing again, coupled between the few explosions and multiple gunshots, but the Foxy didn't let them rest as he stood and shot rapidly down the hallway towards the other guy from earlier, this time continuing forward as he focused on them. One fell to the ground as a stray round penetrated through the wall from so much focused fire.

As they ran, they noticed something…

There were more gunshots…

As soon as the thought was processed, an explosion went off from underneath them, the floor collapsing as the vulpine grabbed Mangle and held her above him, taking the brunt of the fall as gunshots whizzed by them, though, soon stopping as more people rushed by.

As Foxy looked around, he noticed it was like the command outpost from earlier, except this time only a few of them were armed, and they didn't pay them any mind as they laid there rushing forward. Well, aside from one of them who saw they weren't wearing anything like the soldiers and reached out to the fox who took his hand and got to his feet, soon helping the vixen up as well.

"Are you two alright? What are you doing here," The android asked, he was a reptilian of some kind, but Foxy couldn't figure it out for the life of him as he attempted to regather his surroundings.

"We're fine, just… We came to take out the guns," Foxy coughed up, spitting out some blackish liquid to the floor as he felt a sharp pain in his gut. Looking down, he could see the black wisps leaking from his stomach, he must've got shot in the exchange.

"Are you alright?"

He looked up to see the vixen looking at him to which he nodded, holding off the dissipating pain as he thought about what would happen now.

"If you wouldn't mind, help us out with taking the compound and we can help you later," The android told them as they nodded.

"Yeah, we'll help," He told the man as he looked over his gun and reloaded it, before picking Mangle's up off the floor and tossing it to her.

Even though Foxy hadn't mentioned he'd been hit, she couldn't help but notice when she looked down and saw the hole in his coat, not to mention the obvious black mist leaking from it. It understandably worried her that it happened, but she couldn't pin down why she more calm about it than she'd expected..

There was no time to dwell on it as Foxy racked his ASR and turned around walking down the hallway with the man before stopping and turning back around towards her, a look balancing between "are you coming?" and "are you okay?" plastered on his face.

She responded simply, unloading the magazine from the handgun and placing it in one of her pockets before grabbing another, slamming it into the magazine-well and racking it before following.

The distant gunshots grew more bombastic as they drew near the northern side of the building, the ash and dust still thick in the air as smoke joined the mix, obviously wearing them down, but thankfully not enough to damage their respiration systems. Soon enough, they came out onto a rooftop, watching as several bodies littered the - for lack of better term - hellscape that had been created.

The bottoms of most of their feet was stained black from the synthetic blood, with soot and other grime clumping up alongside it, most of them had singed fur or grazes on their arms. How they had managed to become so injured so quickly and still fight? Mangle couldn't answer that. But they were fighting…

She was a bit slow, realizing seconds after Foxy that they were still out in the open, a stray round landing just behind her as he reached back and pulled her forward, seemingly aware of everything around them as he let go and sprinted towards the barrier at the edge of the roof and got into cover.

"Holy shit, I should've dragged Jason along for this shit…" Foxy grunted as he peeked only slightly over to clue in at where they were taking shots from…

Only for the company androids to instantly cover his position in suppressive fire as he ducked back down and covered the top of his head with his hand.

Looking around, he saw the others blind firing, clueing in as to why they were struggling so much. This wasn't a battle of tact, skill, or will, it was pure attrition at its finest, and he was dragged right into the heart of it.

Foxy threw the ASR up over the barrier, squeezing the trigger rapidly as shots flew around them, the vixen also trying to offer some help with the handgun as she unloaded magazine after magazine to the point she was out of ammo, to which she scavenged a rifle from a dead fighter.

What was probably a few minutes felt like hours as they continued to unload their weapons at the opposing line, until Foxy heard something rather distinct.

"Clear backblast!"

Something loud flew across the street into their building, and it rocked them to their core, to the point he felt more teeth chip like before in the bar from the vibrations. Then he heard the roof crack, watching from his side as the platform below him began to fall, the vixen just beside him as he reached out, only for it to give and him fall to the floor below, hitting his head against the concrete with a loud thump.

He couldn't hear anything except ringing, his eyes were extremely teary, his body felt less like himself, more like a shell clasped around him. He felt heavy. Foxy rolled onto his side as he hacked up the pieces of tooth and what he guessed was part of the synthetic stomach.

He wiped his eyes with his hands, clearing them up enough to see the rounds landing in the room he was in through the window and wall, how he managed to stay unscathed was a mystery as he got on his stomach and crawled away to some cover, his limbs shaky and unsteady, even his grip on objects felt weak, to the point he couldn't close his fists fully.

Foxy wanted to call out and ask if everyone, anyone, was okay, but his voice was knotted up in his throat, unable to escape as he looked up and saw Mangle crawling away to cover, towards the direction of the stairwell to the roof.

'Good, we need to get out of here.'

He finally managed to get onto one knee, planting a foot down before standing up with a slight hunch while stumbling into the hallway. It was terrifying how desolate it had become, electricity barely running as it steadily flickered on-and-off. Even here the blood coated the floors, seemingly draining through the floors as he tried to push it out of his mind, focusing solely on finding the Vixen and getting out of here.

'I may have offered to help, but this isn't worth it. I won't risk our lives…'

He was worried, worried either one of them would get killed, or captured, that he'd break his promises. His feet began to catch a rhythm, shifting from a shamble through the halls into a near full-blown sprint through the building as he tried to find the stairwell. The ringing persisted, disorienting him as the occasional gunshot managed to get through to him, his eyes slightly hazed as his body roamed on some form of autopilot.

Eventually, he managed to find her, still regaining her surroundings as she sat limply on the stairs and panted. He could only imagine how the explosion managed to harm her if it managed to crack his teeth…

He reached down, grabbing her hand and gently rubbing her shoulder before pulling her up and bracing her against himself, the two walking much like they did after they woke up at the pizzeria and met Jason.

They managed to reach the second floor before they saw anyone else, namely company androids, but he avoided conflict, sneaking through and walking in the shadows as she struggled to regain herself.

Eventually, he managed to find a service tunnel at the bottom of the building, opened it up and assisted her inside, before he realized someone had snuck up on him–

The cover for the tunnel fell as he collapsed, a jolt sending him to the ground in a daze before he felt something it thrown over his head.

I lived, bitch.

Jokes aside, I have been busy with real life stuff as I was considering buying a ticket to Ukraine to join the foriegn legionary force they've created, I have a background in firearms and have been well-versed in them since I was extremely young, on top of that I've always studied Soviet/Russian tactics vs NATO/American tactics. This is something I knew would've happened for a while and was expecting it, but it's not a bit deal. Anyways, I figured a small chapter in trying times is better than going over there as I tore the ligament in my ankle and would be even more useless than cannonfodder.

Anyways, I hoped you enjoyed the slight update of a chapter and I promise nothing as anytime I do I take a year. Cheers.