Humanity's Finest

Chapter 7

By the end of the day the search for the scouts that had arrived in Warfang has been successful, but it left Dempsey both tired and fed up with all the walking and searching he had to go through with Volteer. He liked the electric guardian's company but sometimes his constant talking would annoy even the calmest person in the entire world. Sadly Dempsey was never calm.

"It's about frickin' time!" Dempsey said through his teeth. He sat in front of some steps to let his legs rest. "My feet are killing me!" Lifting one leg over the other Dempsey tried to rub his foot through his boot. And when he was done he did the same with the other.

Volteer, Cyril and Terrador and the scouts (being made out of cheetah's and dragons) blankly stared at Dempsey. He could feel them looking at him but he ignored their stares, he winced when he felt a sharp pain in the heel of his foot.

"Ah!" He gasped. "Shit, I got to take these off." Looking up Dempsey saw Cyril giving Dempsey a curious look, while Terrador gave him a suspicious glance. Volteer was merely staring at him. Dempsey felt a bit nervous with them staring at him and Volteer seemed to notice it as he distracted the others.

"So what have you scouts discovered about the attacks on our allies?" The yellow dragon quickly asked the scouts.

"Not much. As before they attacked during the night but were barely fought off; whoever is doing this are using weapons similar to the human." A white stripped cheetah answered; his gaze focusing on Dempsey.

"Hey! If you're saying that humans are attacking these villages, then I don't blame 'em." Dempsey growled harshly at the cheetah.

Cyril frowned at Dempsey's words. And he figured Dempsey had something else to say and he was right.

"If these attackers are actual humans; don't you people even stop to think about why their doing this?" Dempsey continued as he stared at everyone around him including the guardians down. "How many people in this city of yours did you actually announce the 'death' of my team and I?" The marine asked looking at Terrador while putting on his boots.

"Only those who were with us. Including Spyro and Cynder." The earth guardian admitted. "And several others were informed weeks later." He further added.

"Then don't you think someone could have spread rumours? Rumours that eventually found their way to a race that was supposed to be 'long forgotten'." Dempsey paused to let them ponder at the question. "Maybe they got pissed at you and decided to get some payback. Yea' know: An Eye for an Eye."

"So these people are attacking us for revenge at you're supposed 'death'?" A yellow dragoness from the scouts asked with raised brows.

"Possibly. Or they could be something else entirely; like an old enemy for example. Unfortunately, like you said: They never left anything behind. So there's no way to be sure." Dempsey rubbed his beard as he looked at the ground thinking of possible clues to the attackers identity, maybe the village these scouts travelled saw them before the attack?

"Hey, did you happen to ask anyone what these attackers looked like? Did you search around for anything strange or out of place there?" Dempsey questioned the scouts. When they shook their heads Dempsey cursed, so that was out of the question.

"How far is this village you went too?" Volteer butted in before anyone could and he easily answered Dempsey's question.

"For someone your size it would be two weeks, but for us dragons it would merely take twenty-four hours. For cheetahs if it depends on them travelling on a mount of course, it would be thirty-six hours."

"Two weeks?" Dempsey asked crossing his arms. Volteer nodded.

"So why does it take twenty four hours for your people?" Dempsey tilted his head with a curious look on his face. "

Cyril grinned widely at the question before he and Volteer spread their wings. Terrador shook his head with a small smile.

"We can fly of course!" Cyril answered with a smug expression.

Dempsey of course stood there staring at the two guardians as an evil slowly formed on his lips. Terrador raised his brows in suspicion Dempsey had something planned in his mind, and Terrador guessed he wasn't going to like it.

Terrador, Cyril, Volteer and the assembled scouts have flown onto the north side of the city walls; as the dragons landed both Dempsey and Cheetah's got off their 'rides' and stretched their limbs. Terrador was fuming when Dempsey told them his plan, and Terrador of course didn't like it' and had a grumpy expression on his face because of it.

"So how far is this village you went too anyway?" Dempsey turned to face the group behind him.

"About, 400 leagues west of here. We left a week ago and stayed in the village for seven days and six nights trying to uncover information about the attack." A cheetah replied with a frown. "We didn't find anything. It was clean, too clean' we couldn't find anything that could help us."

Dempsey sighed if they didn't find anything what was the chance of him getting anything? That was until a thought came to him. "You said that these attackers used weapons, similar weapons to mine right?" He asked his eyes darting from animal to animal.

Terrador gave Dempsey a strained expression, "What are you getting at Dempsey?" The earth guardian asked with suspicion.

Dempsey unslung his M14 removed the magazine from the bottom of the rifle and ejected a bullet shell from the magazine and placed it in the palm of his hand before planting the putting the magazine into his rifle. Everyone curiously stared at the bullet that lay unmoving in the palm of his hand when he opened it.

"This is a bullet every weapon I use has them; one well placed shot can instantly kill a man." He looked up at the dragon with a dark smile. "Or a dragon. When the weapon is fired a shell will eject, like so."

Turning Dempsey lifted his rifle with both hands and took aim at a wall a small distance away. Closing one eye and making sure no one was in his line of fire Dempsey pulled the trigger in rapid succession. A small flash and smoke emerged from the barrel of the rifle while three shells were automatically ejected. Everyone stepped away in surprise as Dempsey knelt down and carefully grabbed an empty shell from the ground and held it up with two fingers.

"This is a shell casing." He announced as he shown them the shell. "If they have weapons like this rifle in my hand, or any other kind of weapon that is similar then it's likely they'll still be on the ground after the attack. That is if these guys are dumb enough to leave 'em there." Dempsey said smiling at them.

He then handed the shell to one of the cheetah's who began examining it with a critical eye who then passed it to someone else. Eventually the cheetah who held the shell ended up showing it to the dragons, to Dempsey's disappointment none of them recognised it which told him they were very careful. That was until Volteer had gotten a closer look at it.

"By the ancestors! I never thought I'd see one of these strange and fascinating contraptions again!" Volteer said with excitement before sniffing the bullet shell. "And it seems recently used too."

Everyone gave Volteer a dumbfounded stare for a while. "What?" Volteer asked innocently.

"Dude, I just fired my rifle like five minutes ago. Of course it would be recently used." Dempsey responded still giving the yellow dragon the stare.

"Oh my bad." Volteer replied nervously. Dempsey palmed his forehead before he started laughing in amusement.

"So does everyone remember the plan?" Dempsey asked his tone going from kind to serious almost immediately.

"How could we not." Terrador growled in protest. "You want us to fly you over there!"

"Well Volteer did say 'you can fly' so I thought 'why not?'." Dempsey replied with a cocky smirk. "Besides, the sooner I do this the better."

Turning Dempsey walked towards the ledge of the wall and leaned against it' the sun was going down and if these people attack during the night then it's only a matter of time before it happens again. Time was against him. He knew this. He didn't know why but Dempsey had a gut feeling that he should head north; and he mostly went with his gut as it had gotten him and his team out of desperate situations. Volteer noticed there was something wrong and stared into the distance.

"I have a feeling something bad is happening to the north." Dempsey growled as he slowly turned his head. "Are there any villages up there?"

"Indeed there is! A very small village a few miles away from here. Why if we fly there now we would get there within fifty minutes." Cyril answered.

Dempsey thoughtfully rubbed his chin before looking back again. Maybe it's time for him to take action now rather than later...

"Can you fly me there now?" He kindly asked Cyril.

"Of course."

"Good.'Cos that's where I'm going." Dempsey said effectively putting an end to the conversation.

ooOOoo

Takeo hacked and slashed his way through the apes with his katana the moment his cover was blown. The gunfire coming from the AK47 and MP40 was heard throughout the village followed by a series of explosions soon after. It wasn't long ago that Zoidius suggested or rather persuaded Takeo to allow him to scout around for the missing villagers; and minutes after Zoidius separated from him this happened! Takeo leapt into cover behind a building when a group of apes came into view, thankfully they never saw him.

Knowing that stealth was long gone Takeo sheathed his sword and unslung his AK74u and pressed his back against the wall. He lean forward and observed the apes, they were highly disorganised and were spread out greatly. Takeo lowered his head, the beak of his cap covering his eyes as he tightened his grip on the assault rifle until his knuckles whitened. He noticed there was at least one medium sized ape in the group while the rest of them were small. Takeo guessed the medium sized ape was the group leader. He'd bet his life on it. Takeo lifted his weapon and took aim at the leader, using the darkness and his position to his advantage they never seen the attack coming.

The apes turned in surprise when a loud 'tat, tat, tat' came out of nowhere. The ape leader fell to the ground with a large chunk of its back head blown off. Brain matter and blood was spread across the ground before the dead monkey fell. As they rushed to their leader the apes heard the strange 'tat, tat, tat' sound again, only this time there were many. The apes fell to the ground one by one as they felt something tear their bodies apart, limbs being ripped from their sockets, their torso's ripped open with everything inside exposed guts, bones and intestines flying in all directions as a mist of red covered them.

Takeo wasted no time in reloading his weapon. Taking out the magazine from his assault rifle and tossed it aside Takeo opened one of his pouches and went through it for a replacement. He smiled as he pulled out a new magazine and attached it to his AK74u pulling a lever to seal it in place. Without hesitation Takeo stepped into the open keeping his weapon trained on the apes that were piled up on the floor; he lowered his weapon slightly as he lightly kicked one of the apes in the side. It didn't move.

He gave the corpses a look of disgust before walking over them. He stopped and got down on one knee when he heard someone coming he quickly raised his weapon but lowered it again when Richtofen and Nikolai came into view, both were panting heavily and were leaning against each other for support.

The two looked at Takeo with smiles on their faces and looked at the pile of corpses behind him.

"Vell, looks like Takeo took care of zhem for us." Richtofen laughed. Takeo merely frowned as he strolled towards them.

"Well we didn't kill them in time. Richtofen, you owe me more vodka!" Nikolai said before coughing uncontrollably.

Richtofen looked down at the soviet with concern. He maybe an incurable sociopath and loves killing things when he could but that doesn't mean he wasn't completely insane. Nikolai was considered to be Richtofen's friend mainly because the two are more friendly with each other than with Takeo and Dempsey' and they usually fight side by side when they were separated with the other two. You could say the two were almost like...Brothers.

Richtofen looked around and noticed they were one short. Zoidius wasn't with the Jap.

"Vhere is ze scaled creature zat vas vith you Takeo?"

"He 'convinced' me to arrow him to scout for the prisoners." Takeo shrugged uncaringly. "Then this happened." He added gesturing to their surroundings.

"Vell, let us find ze creature again vhile killing those who stand against us!" Both Richtofen and Nikolai quickly reloaded their weapons. Richtofen smirked and glanced at Nikolai who looked at his German friend and nodded.

"We have demon monkeys to kill!" Nikolai declared as he punched the air.

Zoidius meanwhile tilted his head when he saw three humans pointing their pistols at him, they didn't seem to wear the clothing the other humans had, but these ones wore light green. Plus they had two metal tags hanging from their necks; Zoidius guessed these humans were from a different faction. After all he did learn a few things about humans during his travels and one of them were the different factions. But he couldn't remember the names...

Roebuck, Miller and Polonsky looked at each other before turning their gaze back onto the black dragon in front of them. He seemed to be friendly enough but they knew looks can be deceiving.

"Who are you?" Roebuck asked with suspicion. Zoidius gave Roebuck a friendly smile before taking a bold step towards them.

"I'm a friend. And I'm here to help." The black dragon answered with a toothy grin.

"Well," Roebuck started as he lowered his weapon, Miller and Polonsky had done the same. "We do need the help. These people are chained but our weapons can't break 'em. They say it's enchanted and only the leader who captured us has the key."

"Thing is, we're heavily outnumbered." Polonsky grimly added as Zoidius walked into the dark room' before using his tail blade to shut the door. "And if one of us goes out there without the proper equipment will be cut down within seconds." Polonsky sighed as he looked at his .Colt. "This pistol is the only weapon we have right now. And we three have only got one clip."

Zoidius frowned at that. The lack of weapons was a concern yes, but the chains were a different matter. Zoidius walked to Nia and examined the chain that was locked around her neck. The only explanation to the unbreakable chains would be an enchantment of some kind; and of course the leader would have the key. His eyes widened suddenly when he remembered the third ape was still here, he closed his eyes as if it would help him remember better. The apes name was "Kong", of course! That ape must have the key!

"I might have the answer to your problem." Zoidius opened his eyes as a sly smirk appeared on his lips. "Not long ago I saw three large apes that appeared to be the leaders of this whole thing. All but one left, but the ape is holding a strange weapon that is said to fire 'explosives' or something. I'm guessing that ape has the key."

Everyone took this information rather well and both Polonsky and Miller seemed eager looking, Roebuck noticed this and smacked the back of their heads to which the two yelled out in protest and glared at him. Spyro was worried that a fight was going to break out but was relieved when Miller and Polonsky laughed and high fived Roebuck. Everyone looked less tense at this and everyone curiously wondered if there were other humans like these guys. Of course Spyro thought Polonsky looked familiar if the room they were in wasn't dark he would be able to determine if Polonsky did indeed look similar the human he knew.

"Ok so all jokes aside we agree that this monkey fellow will get its furry ass blasted into hell right?" Polonsky asked with all seriousness in the tone of his voice.

"Yeah and if possible we need to find and obtain our weapons. Before those fucking apes can actually find a way to use them." Miller added.

Roebuck was about to speak until Zoidius interrupted him with a cough. "That won't be necessary. I didn't come alone." Zoidius said and with a motion of his head he turned and walked towards the door. "The three others I came with should be taking care of those bad guys right about now..."

Suddenly three explosions and the dying screams from the apes were heard moments after Zoidius finished his sentence. Turning to look at the crowd Zoidius kept the smirk on his lips and opened the door. Everyone dropped their jaws in shock when their eyes saw a dozen bodies with heads, arms and legs completely torn off from their sockets were spread out in different directions. Blood, intestines and brain matter covered most of the floor and the walls of the buildings around them. Plus the ground was torn up.

"Jesus, it's like someone sent an air raid out there. Miller said voicing everyone's (except for Zoidius) current thought. Spyro cautiously approached the door and peeked outside, everything around the building they were in were dead. There was nothing alive. Spyro nervously pulled his head back inside the building and stared at Zoidius who still had that smirk on his face.

"Three people did all that?" Roebuck said eyes widened in shock.. "Christ, they'd better be on our side."

Everyone was silent as a accented voice spoke from the outside in a 'happy' tone. And soon three men that were helping Zoidius walked past the building.

"And that is how we use grenades comrades." Nikolai said as he rubbed his hands together.

"Vell, zat vas rather effective." Richtofen said in a surprised tone. "How did you know how to do zis sort of damage? It was beautiful!" He asked as he eyed at the destruction of their surroundings.

"This dispray was most impressive Nikorai. Perhaps you sharr use this again." Takeo said in a neutral manner. Nikolai merely shrugged as if he didn't do anything that was worth taking notice, and while he was happy with the destruction his grenades caused' only one remained. He decided to keep this for when they really needed it.

However as the three walked past and were out of sight, the three marines were resisting the urge to kill the Imperial officer and the Nazi on the spot. The only thing that stopped them from doing so was they seen the two acting friendly towards the Russian who was among them. Spyro had to strain his eyes in order to get a good look at the three outside, but their clothing was unmistakable, those were the three that attacked Dempsey who in turn turned on him and the others. He growled menacingly at them but stopped himself when he realised what he was doing. But he was surprised to see them here and alive of all places. Were these the three that Zoidius spoke of?

Takeo stopped in his tracks and slowly turned his head to the right and aimed his AK74u at one of the buildings. Both Richtofen and Nikolai stopped and stared at Takeo as the Japanese soldier scanned the buildings for anything hostile lurking within them. When they realised what he was doing they aimed their weapons at their surroundings.

The three lowered their weapons when a familiar face took a peek outside. Takeo, Nikolai and Richtofen slung their weapons over their shoulders and approached Zoidius as if nothing happened.

"Vell at least ve know vhere ze creature vent." Richtofen said optimistically.

"My names Zoidius!" The dragon shouted back with a playful grin.

"Right, right." Nikolai shouted back with a laugh. "We remember comrade."

The three stopped in their tracks when Roebuck, Polonsky and Miller walked out of the building with their pistols trained on them. But what caught everyone off guard was one simple word.

"Dempsey!"

Nikolai fainted in shock causing Richtofen and Takeo to look at their comrade with surprise.