31
"What'd you see?!"
Suddenly, the indistinct form of an alien creature appears through the smoke, moving fast down the side street. Johnty is ready, firing. The others react, firing as well. The alien form is blasted, dropping into the mist.
"Hold your fire! Hold your fire!" Jax roars. Everyone stops firing.
Suddenly, the shadowy form of the four legged monster rises again, darting off, disappearing into the mist. The squad stares back, stunned.
"Holy shit." one of the grunts mutters as he turned to jax's partner "How many rounds it take?"
"Enough." Johnty spits.
"You okay?" Jax asks softly.
"They're real, bro. I kept prayin' they wouldn't be..."the grunt behind them whines.
"Quiet." Jax barks unnerved himself, stares into the smoke...
"What is it, Captain?" the grunt's partner asked, sliding closer to him as she glances back at her fellow grunt.
"That thing running down the street... That was to draw us in..." Jax says slowly, the others finally hear what Jax hears now... A rumbling sound behind them. Building. Jax spins to it. "They're coming. We took the bait, now they're cutting us off."
"I can't see a goddamn thing!"Grunt Mathers complains as he squints onto the fog. "How the fuck are they making this mist shit?"
But the sound of something coming thick and fast tells us there's many.
"Light it up!" Jax yells and the squad lets loose with a barrage of fire as...
"Contact front! Contact front!" Johnty yells, crouching to fire low as Jax frustrated, peers through the smoke.
"What are we shooting at?!"
A projectile hits a wall above Sraxerg. It explodes, some kind of liquid splashing onto him. Sraxerg grimaces and his feline features become grotesque "Ahh, shit! It's burning!"
His helmet is being eaten away by the liquid. Imlay is immediately at Sraxerg's side, pulling the helmet off. Sraxerg's skin is blistering, oozing. The stench of scorched fur fills the air as the Kat's hide sears away "My face, man...! How's my face?"
"Ugly as ever, bro." Imlay huffs as the team hunkers down, trying to find any cover-available…behind hovers, trees.
Jax drops behind a hover, pulls out his map, checking it for escape routes. "Everyone... just calm down. That garage over there, move it!"
"Calm down?! We keep shooting them... Why don't they die?!" Drak splutters at hr superior and Johnty swings to look at the Chula with surprise as they slip into the shadows of the building.
"Stow that shit, Private." Johnty spits at Hr then turns, to the others "Watch the yard. Secure the back. We're not dyin' here today."
The Agents take up firing positions at windows and doors.
"You okay?" Johnty asks Jax softly and Jax stares back, deer in the headlights. He nods. Johnty takes a moment to let his hand rest on Jax's knee. No need to speak, the affection raw.
Sraxerg moves to the window searching the garage floor, desperate not to step on anything that would make noise. He edges forward to peer through the dirty glass. Then...
THUD THUD THUD.
More noises... On the garage roof now. Sraxerg looks up, panicked as... CRASH! The window suddenly explodes inward. Sraxerg spins, firing wildly, lighting up the garage as...He stumbles to the door, fumbling for the handle, falling... Sraxerg staggers back, eyes darting along the garage roof, gun aimed.
Nothing there.
As Sraxerg continues backing away, peering through the drifting mist at the garage, he's unaware that behind him... a shadowy figure is rising from the mist about their lower limbs.
Sraxerg doesn't see it, but he senses it. He turns, fires... the shadowy alien figure is blasted back into the mist, disappearing under the veil. Quickly, nervously, he loads another mag. Sraxerg is transfixed a moment. Then he raises his rifle to punch more rounds into the thing as... WHOOOM! The creature launches out if the mist and it swirls around it's body like smoke!
BLISTERING GUNFIRE! As Jax, Mathers and Johnty burst into the yard. They fire, as does Sraxerg.
The fusillade of bullets tears the creature up. The Agents stop firing as the alien falls to the ground.
They stare amazed at the 7 ft. tall Alien corpse... Rigid skeleton bursting out of its skin, some strange layer of machinery intertwined with its flesh.
"Oh my God... What the hell are these things?" Johnty sighs with wonder as he pokes at it with his boot.
"They're butt ugly, that's what they are." Jax snorts and the two take a moemtn to grin at one anther then Johty screams an the thing grabbed at his boot.
They light it up.
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Jack was sitting up, gasping for breath as his heart pounded and Ianto's hands were gently cajoling hi to lay back down before it even registered that it had been a dream. Jack's dream. A memory.
"Cyborg" Ianto said softly into the darkened room, "Sucks."
"Yeah Jack replied shakily , burying his face in the neck of his handsome comforter, "It did. We lost the entire pack. Just Johnty and me to collect the pay check at the end of it."
"And you wonder why I give him a chance" Ianto's voice had amusement dripping from those lusty vowels, "I feel your affection for him as more than an ex-lover. He is your brother in arms, you share a common bond. For that, he stays."
"No" Jack settled in more and comfort become lulling, "He stays for you too. He likes you."
"Yes" Ianto snorted, "silly little boy."
Jack grinned as he let himself drift away with the thought that they might be lost boys in Never Never Land but they nevers forgot about that tick, tick, tick.
Jack didn't fear that noise anymore.
It was just Ianto moving in the darkness of his mind.
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Joshua listened for a few more minutes as his father sang softly through the bond. A song of love and comfort he remembered well and he settled again as his leg itched with that annoying pain of healing. Joshua nuzzled his fahter's jacket wondering where his blanket went. He liked that.