Author's Note: I don't know about you but Hollow men creep me out...not as much as the Crawler, but still. Anyways here is the third installment, I was quite fond of using the mortar, blasting hollow men into little bits...and I always feel bad for Jammy, he seemed like a sweetie, and living through all those attacks too... Oh and I would like to thank my reviewers, your comments are appreciated; hope you enjoy!
"Jammy!"
"Jammy?"
"Captain Finn!" a young soldier called out waving the Captain down.
Yvette was surprised to see a man in such condition still on duty; with a bandaged arm in a sling, gauze wrapped around his head and over one eye, he looked as though he had decided to take a stroll through the land of the dead and back.
"Princess, this is Jammy, we call him that because he's the luckiest bastard in the ranks." Ben said as he introduced he to the other soldier.
She quickly shook the mans' hand that was not bound yup and gave him a polite smile.
"Jammy is it?" she asked, giving his injuries a quick glance.
"Yup, wounded seven-hundred-twenty-four times!" he said proudly, his eye sparkling happily, seemingly oblivious or perhaps undeterred to the injuries he sustained.
"Then I guess you are pretty lucky." she commented with a grin, which he returned.
"Alright, we're not at a tea party, we can all chat later." Ben said jokingly though his voice held a tone of impatience.
"Aye, captain!" Jammy said and gave a quick salute and Yvette quickly turned her attention back to the blonde soldier and then to the heavy weaponry.
She stared down at the machine in front of her, feeling rather unprepared at the thought of using it.
"Don't worry so much, it's easy!" Ben reassured her as he crouched down in front of the mortar. "You get down here too." he added when he noticed she hadn't budged.
Quickly she did as she was told and crouched down next to him; listening intently as he explained the intimidating looking weapon in front of her. When he finished he urged her to use it.
"Go ahead give it a go, and maybe if you get good enough you can eventually try and beat my score." Ben said with a smirk as he stood up and waited.
"What should I shoot at?" she asked, somewhat eager to try out now, she did love a challenge.
"We've set up some scarecrows for target practice, try hitting one of those!" Jammy said excitedly.
"Alright, let's give this a try." she said almost to herself as she began to rotate the barrel of the weapon towards the first scarecrow she spotted. Carefully she did her best to align her shot up with what she thought would be a hit; bitting her lower lip she grasped the rope in her hand tightly, she held her breath as she yanked the twine roughly. The mortar fired with a deafening BOOM! the iron ball soared through the air and slammed into the ground, managing to hit the scarecrow dead center, catapulting wood splitters and tattered cloth into the air.
Yvette placed her hand over her ear, which was ringing from the loud crack of the mortar going off, with any luck she would be deaf by the end of the day.
"Brilliant!" said Jammy grinning ear to ear.
"How'd that feel?" Ben asked grinning as well.
"What?" she asked, still cupping her ear, the soldiers voice sounding soft and muffled.
Ben laughed.
"Don't worry you'll get used to it!" he replied, raising his voice so that she could hear him.
"I fear I will be deaf by tonight!" she said, not realizing how loud she was talking.
He laughed again before placing a new round in the barrel of the mortar.
"Now hit the other one!" Ben shouted, making sure she could hear him.
She nodded and once again set the scarecrow in her sights and fired, this time putting a finger in the ear that was closest to the mortar, it helped, if only a little.
Once again the iron ball blasted the wooden man to bits.
"...Nailed the bastard..." she meant to say to herself, though being as how her ears were, she said it much louder than she had intended.
"Princess! Quite the mouth you have there!" Ben said feigning shock and disappointment.
Yvette felt her face heat up, embarrassed that she had said it so loudly; she had always been taught that only pirates and scoundrels swore, never princess', though that never stopped her before...besides it felt so very rebel-like dammit!
"You've got one more left..." Ben told her, but before she could turn the mortar, Jammy said something that made her stop in her tracks and look up slowly and uneasily.
"Hey...I don't remember setting that last one up..." he said, scratching his chin.
"What do you mean? We can see it right there." Ben replied frowning, wondering if Jammy had finally been hit in the head too many times.
"I've got a rather awful feeling about this..." Yvette said looking up to the blonde soldier.
A soft rumbling suddenly captured the trios attention and they slowly, almost reluctantly faced the expanse outside the barricade.
The being that lay strung up like a scarecrow for target practice, began to writhe and shake until it was free of it bonds...a Hollow man.
"Oh bloody hell." Ben hissed as the undead begin to walk towards the fort, more blue orbs landing around it, and more Hollow men sprouting up from the ground like uncontrolled weeds.
Jammy ran over to the side of the stone pathway and shouted down to the soldiers inside the fort walls.
"We've got Hollow men approaching!"
"We know! Do your best to hold them off with the mortar." Swift shouted back as he drew his sword, Walter at his side doing the same. "Alright men, we'll get through this! Lets show those bastards what we're made of!" Swift then shouted to his men who cheered, swords in the air.
Yvette expected Ben to take over the mortar but instead he reached for his rifle, quickly loading it and cocking it.
"Fire on those bastards! Give 'em hell!" he commanded her, his voice clipped and serious, play time was over.
Pulling the trigger he landed a well placed shot between the eyes of one of the bone men, knocking it's skull clean off; fluidly, almost as if it took no effort whatsoever he fired off another shot, knocking off another head.
Yvette now feeling the pressure, did her best to load the mortar quickly and aim it towards an approaching group; she pulled the rope. It managed to hit some of them, but a few managed to stagger away from the blast.
"Dammit..." she cursed under her breath and hurried to load another round.
"More them, coming from the left!" Ben shouted to her as she once again situated herself behind the weapon.
As fast as she could she swiveled the gun to the far left, quickly spotting her target; this time she managed to get them all.
Slowly she tried to whittle away at the attacking horde, but it seemed as though there was no end to their onslaught; every time she took out another group Ben would shout out more were coming from the opposite direction. Soon it was no use and she could here Major Swift commanding his men to try and barricade the gates as Hollow men began to pile up behind it in an attempt to push it down.
"We have to get down there!" Ben shouted, glancing over to her and she nodded standing up quickly, abandoning the mortar.
Hurriedly she ran after the blonde soldier, Jammy right behind her, attempting to load his rifle while he ran.
On the last step of the stone staircase she heard the men shouting and then the sound of splintering wood as the Hollow men broke down the gate and stumbled inside.
"Oh, bloody hell..." she hissed under her breath, and she quickly grabbed her pistol.
"You can say that again princess!" Ben shouted back to her, firing off a few shots at the Hollow men that had begun to swarm in through the broken gates.
Yvette quickly tried to put as much space between herself and the undead as she began firing upon them, trying to aim for the ones that had begun to gang up on soldiers. She managed to shoot one in the back of the skull that was about to cleave one of the soldier's in half while he bashed away at another Hollow man with his lute.
Soon though her pistol was no use as more and more of the bone men began to close in around her; she quickly holstered her pistol and drew out her long sword, before charging forward into battle.
As she continued to hack away at the numerous Hollow men she suddenly heard Ben Finn cry out in dismay; she whipped around just in time to see Jammy fall to the ground, dead.
"No, Jammy!" Ben cried out shooting the creature that had slain his friend at point blank.
Yvette felt her chest tighten, and she gritted her teeth, feeling new found energy flow through her.
"It wasn't fair!" she thought to herself, felling two Hollow men. "he had survived seven-hundred-twenty-four wounds; he bloody well deserved to survive the seven-hundred-twenty-fifth!"
After what seemed to be an eternity, the horde slowly died down with Swift cutting down the last of them.
"Maybe, the bastards will think twice about leaving their graves!" Swift said with a sigh as he lanced his sword into the earth and leaned on it tiredly.
"I doubt it." Ben replied strapping his rifle to his back once again before wiping the sweat from his forehead on the back of his sleeve.
A blue orb suddenly floated over head and Yvette felt her heart sink into her stomach, it seemed as though they had spoken too soon.
"Balls..." Walter said under his breath as they all watched as the wispy ball landed over the grave of Lieutenant Simmons, one of the men who had died in one of the earlier attacks.
"Lieutenant Simmons, I ordered you to stay buried!" Swift commanded the dead man as the earth around the recently undisturbed grave began to crumble and shake.
"Doesn't anyone listen to orders anymore?" Ben asked as he pulled his rifle out, loading it.
"I guess not..." the princess said with a sigh as she reached for her pistol.
The earth around the grave suddenly exploded with a wave energy, that rippled across the fort, knocking nearly everyone off their feet. Yvette was slammed up against the granite wall, the air knocked from her lungs, leaving her gasping painfully. She and Ben had been far enough away to not feel the full brunt of the waves force, but as she looked to her right, she found Ben slumped against the wall, out cold.
"...oh balls..." she said as she looked back up to the dead lieutenant that had spotted her and was running full force at her.
She only just managed to jump out of the way as one of the Hollow man's massive cleavers. She quickly fired off a few shots, though it didn't seem to phase the massive Hollow man, as he pulled the cleaver from the earth turning to face her once more.
As she turned to gain more ground, between herself and the dead lieutenant Simmons she saw nearly a dozen more wisps fall to the earth.
"Bloody Hell!" she shouted, in anger as more Hollow men, sprouted up from the ground.
She began to feel extremely dizzy and off balance and she spun and summersaulted away from the advancing bone men. Gaining a good amount of distance from the Hollow men she picked another two off and fired another few rounds into the lieutenant for what felt like the millionth time, before spinning away as he swung at her.
She could feel her muscles screaming in protest as another Hollow man fell, a bullet in his skull; now only the good lieutenant was left, though she wasn't sure she had the energy to take him down.
Backing up a bit farther she began to fire on him without mercy, holding her ground, even as he charged towards her; though she wasn't even sure if her legs would comply with her if she asked them to move.
"Why won't you die!" she hissed as continued to fire.
He was almost upon her when he fell to the earth, bones riddled with bullets and slash marks from blades..
"Thank Avo..." she said, barely managing to holster her pistol as she swayed tiredly on her feet.
She was spent, the adrenaline that had coursed through her veins ebbed away, and she fell to her knees, breathing deeply.
"Stay dead this time..." she managed to say as she slumped to the earth, passing out from exhaustion.