Tomo was asleep as peaceful as she could be.
She stirred just to the point of awakening when she thought the front door opened.
She dismissed the thought and snuggled back into her pillow.
Before she slipped back, another sound came.
"Hello?" She called. No response.
"Tora-chan is that you?" Still nothing.
She went back to sleep.
Suddenly a deafening crash jerked her to full-alert.
The door was blown off its hinges and 3 mafia "associates" stood in the doorway.
And she awoke in the ecologist bunker, her friends sprawled across the floor asleep.
"Damn... that dream again." She whispered to herself.
Soon she just passed back out.
--
That morning she woke up just a minute later than the others as usual.
They all sat around inspecting their weapons one more time before they left for what ever plans Nikolai had layed out.
"Ah good morning Tomo-chan." She turned around it was Chiyo sitting as cheerful as a young girl in the middle of a radioactive wasteland could be.
"Hi." Tomo said flatly.
She looked around quickly. "Where'd Nikolai go?"
Yomi not looking up from her weapon. "He went for a walk last night and found a truck that might work and he's gonna try to get it to run."
Soon they all got up and left for the door greeted with a less than courteous blast form the horn of a now working truck.
"Wow you really got that piece working?" Kagura asked.
"Sure did!" Nikolai called. "Now then, Im afraid there are only two seats so most of ya are gonna have ride in the back. So Sakaki, Chiyo pile in." He said waving his hand as if to draw them in."
"Why them?" Tomo asked.
"Cuz Sakaki is hurt and Chiyo is small."
They all moved to their respective spots in the truck and moved out in a plume of black exhaust and engine noise.
Without a problem they moved through the train yard they had cleared last night save for a couple mutant dogs that Nikolai dispatched in a "juicy" display.
Soon most of them fell asleep both in the back and in the passenger seats of the truck.
But the sleep didn't last long as the truck came to a violent halt.
"Chiyo, Sakaki wake up."
Chiyo rubbed her eyes. "Whats going on?"
"Follow me I'll explain in a sec."
The 3 walked up a water tower he was parked by.
"Alright now-" He was interrupted by a loud roar from what sounded like a lion.
Nikolai surveyed his mind for a second before coming to a startling conclusion, evidenced by his eyes suddenly dilating.
He leaned out the window "Guys!" He called down to the truck as the passengers looked up in curiosity. "In the box next to the cabin of the truck there are some shotguns, GET THEM NOW!"
He sounded serious so without another thought they ran for the crate and each grabbed a Winchester shotgun.
"Get to the door to the tower, go go go!"
Suddenly, although nothing stood by the door yet it moved violently.
Nikolai pulled away from the window. Several gunshots followed.
"It's clear. Everyone come see this."
They walked to the mid point of the stairs leading up the tower.
"This is a bloodsucker." He said kneeling over a dead humanoid creature with serrated tentacles growing from its mouth.
"What the hell?" Tomo said.
"Yeah these bastards have killed way too many people for my taste and are much more of a threat in this area since they're a lot more common."
"Why are they so dangerous... I mean they have those tentacles and those claws but why cant you just shoot 'em?" Osaka said.
"That's the problem you can't see them until they're right in your face because they're like chameleons. They almost turn invisible. Just look for the bright glowing eyes."
They nodded in response.
"Now, Sakaki Chiyo Come on lets go." He said walking up the stairs.
They stood by he window.
"Alright You got your gun?"
Sakaki readied her rifle and nodded.
"Alright see those towers in the distance?"
He pointed to an almost completely darkened valley.
But Sakaki was a natural for her position as a sniper and easily picked out the towers.
"Okay, in those towers are enemy snipers and we need to take the suits we need form them."
Chiyo stood slightly puzzled. "Why don't we just ask for the supplies we need?"
"Because they're not exactly friendly with me or pretty much anybody that isn't a member of their dumbass little club. But anyway here's the plan, you get rid of the snipers and the rest of us can storm the base and take the supplies we need. Got it?"
Sakaki nodded with a determined look on her face.
Nikolai went downstairs to the truck with the others waiting in the back.
They drove towards the base and stopped just out of sight of the front the gate.
He grabbed the radio. "Ready?"
"Sakaki seems ready." Came Chiyos voice.
"Alright start to take out the snipers."
Immediately, a stream of fairly quick gunshots came. Obviously Sakaki was pretty fast at finding, sighting in upon, and killing her targets.
Then the truck roared to life and charged towards the front gate of the walled warehouses that made the base of the "Freedom" stalkers.
"Get your rifles ready! And as soon as you can see 'em give 'em hell!" Nikolai called to the back of the truck.
In seconds bullets tore from the truck bed and toward the guards of the base.
Almost as soon as it started the guards fell to the ground.
The Freedom stalkers where completely off guard and had almost ignored the sounds of a work horse truck engine and gunfire.
But then as another Freedom fell to the ground they realized what had happened and grabbed their weapons to defend the base.
The truck stopped in the middle of an intersection in the damaged roads if only to get a better shot at the near by Freedomers who had only just managed to draw their weapons.
"On the right!" Nikolai called from the truck cab, a swarm of maybe 5 Freedom stalkers charging with some of the most powerful NATO weapons in existence.
Quickly they fired back at them.
Maybe it's because they where moving and the girls had a more accurate posture, but the Freedomers hit nothing but the hillside beyond the truck.
They sat still, weapons ready for a few seconds before realizing nobody else was coming.
Nikolai grabbed his radio. "Sakaki you see anything from up there?"
"No I only see you guys."
"Okay we'll be back at the tower in a few." He hung up and walked over to the truck bed.
"Alright we need to get inside that building." He said flatly as though tired from sleep deprivation. "So... Getcha Shit Ready!" Suddenly his voice exploded in volume.
They hopped down from the truck and moved toward the building.
In an instant a last determined soldier armed only with his "wits" and his gigantic M60 machine gun, leaped form the structure.
Without a word, and only a terrified gaze the 5 leaped behind a sandbag wall.
"You bastards'll never take me alive!"
Nikolai reached into his jacket pocket. "Is that so?"
He pulled out a grenade and tried to throw it over only to be held back by a seemingly endless stream of gunfire.
Osaka popped a golden, egg shaped object into the lower barrel of her Fn2000 before falling on her side and taking aim.
The man with the M60 hadn't taken notice.
She pulled the trigger and a grenade flew like a bullet at the gunman.
The explosion threw him and his precious gun in different directions.
They moved towards him.
Kagura spoke up. "Where's the armory?"
The wounded man looked up. "My name is Vadya." He said angrily. "And like hell I'm tellin' you!" He went on as he pulled a grenade out of nowhere.
As he tried to pull the pin Nikolai stomped on his arm with a sickening crack. "Fuck you." He said calmly before shooting him in the side of his head.
"OHH!" Came in unison from the 4 others.
"What? You guys've shot at least 20 baddies and that didn't phase you."
"Well yeah but we also weren't right there to see the goriest of it." Tomo said trying to cover the image with her hand.
Nikolai looked at the pool of blood on the tar. "Valid point."
They walked inside without another word.
"Okay let's just take a look around and take anything that could be useful. They sure as hell won't need it."
Author's Note EXTREME EDITION
Well if you are really a fan of this then I'm sorry it's been forever and a half since the last issue came out I know but I need my sleep these days more than I did in the summer and I do ALL of my writing in the dead of night where nobody reads over my shoulder without announcing their presence and scaring the shit out of me when they correct my spelling. But I will try to be a bit more frequent or at least consistent with the release of the new issues.