Humanity's Finest
Chapter 10
Dempsey suddenly rose his M-14 in alarm when the zombified dragon leapt out of it's cover with a terrifiying roar, Dempsey ducked as the dragon flew over him and rolled away before getting on one knee with his rifle aimed at the enemy. Quake only stared in surprise when the zombified dragon slowly turned to face the two; it's blood red eyes hungrily staring at the two, just for a moment before it's eyes finally settled on Dempsey. There was a strange chill running down his spine and the only time he felt that is when he's afraid. But this wasn't fear he was feeling; he could feel someone trying to talk to him, from within his own head. Something that he didn't like. He pushed the thought aside and got himself refocused on the...Thing in front of him. The zombified dragon raised it's head opening it's mouth to howl out magnificently, Dempsey tightened his grip on the M-14 in response and rapidly pulled the trigger but stopped when the bullets harmlessly bounced off the scales. Dempsey watched with shocked eyes as the bullets fell to the floor, the tip of the bullets were crushed completely when they collided into the dragon. Looking at his own weapon in disbelief Dempsey growled as he slung the rifle over his shoudler before taking out his Bowie knife.
"Quake, get the others here. Now!" Dempsey said determined making the earth dragon look at the human as if he was insane.
"Are you serious? We have no idea what that - thing - is for Ancestors sake!" Quake protested but Dempsey would hear none of it.
"I know what that thing is. It's a zombie, and it looks like my rifle is useless against it." He paused to take a deep breath before exhaling calmly. Half turning Dempsey gave Quake a cold stare, as he mouthed the words "Get the others here. Understand?".
Quake opened his mouth to argue but was quickly interuppted when the zombie moaned loudly, Quake barely had time to look as the zombie jumped on him knocking the earth dragon to the ground. Quake looked up at the zombified dragon maw in horror. It's mouth was wide open and he could see a small red light in the back of it's throat. It was going to roast him! A quick and painful death, something that he didn't want to happen. The earth dragon attempted to struggle out of the zombified dragons grasp, but's it's paws were placed firmly on the ground on each side of him. Leaving him at it's mercy. Taking the inishative into his own hands Quake opened his mouth and a ferocious blast of green energy hit the zombie right in the force behind the blast itself was enough to throw the zombie five yards away giving Dempsey and Quake enough time to gather their wits; but the fight was just beginning.
"Ok, a zombified dragon. That's new..." Dempsey said surprised. "Listen, I'm one of the three people in this world who has experience fighting these things, leave it to me. Find and get the others here, ASAP!"
"ASAP?"
"As Soon As Possible." Dempsey explained.
Quake nodded with uncertainty. Dempsey however smirked with confidence and gave Quake a thumbs up. Spreading his wings, Quake flapped and floated in midair. Twisting his body around' Quake took off as Dempsey watched the green dragon's figure vanish into the trees with a frown. The zombified dragon howled as it launched itself into the sky; wings spread and it's mouth open. Dempsey scowled when the dragon unleashed out a fireball at him. Leaping out of the fireballs direction with a grunt, the fireball crashed into the ground, and the fire spread out like an explosion, disintergrating everything in it's path with unholy fire. Dempsey who was caught off guard by this was sent flying towards a tree spine first; he yelled agonisingly on impact and lost his grip on his knife as a result.
Gravity did it's own work as the marine fell to the ground on his side. Groaning Dempsey slowly pushed himself until he was on his hands and knees. It was only a few seconds and already he was getting his ass kicked! He shook his head, attempting to resist the urge to pass out, he could not give up not now! Not so early. The zombified dragon landed on the burnt ground a small distance away, steam was flowing from it's nostrils as it glared at the human. It didn't know where the other one went, nor did it care, the target was him and it will complete it's task.
Dempsey looked up and blinked a couple of times to see clearly. He noticed that the dragon had red scales nearly covering it's entire body, half of it's left foreleg was missing it's flesh, muscle, veins and blood; there was nothing there but revealled bone. The top of it's snout was missing everything as well, just a plain red coloured bone; this thing really was a zombie. But how? There wasn't any 115 nearby was there? He didn't see any red and black rocks on the way here.
"How in god's name is this possible?" Dempsey asked himself. He unslung his M-14 and checked it quickly for any damage, amazingly there wasn't any he could see' but the inside is a different matter.
"So," Dempsey started balancing himself by a nearby tree at he got on his feet his eyes never leaving the dragon. "A new zombie to join the undead party, eh? Who are you working for? Is it Maxis?£ He asked continuously. During the 1940s, 50s and on one occassion the 1960s Dempsey was fighting the undead with unrelenting brutality. When he first fought them in Japan he thought them as a brainless bunch of corpses, but that changed when he finally got to Der Riese in Germany, and Kino Der Toten in West Berlin where they showed some signs of intelligence.
The zombified dragon merely smiled, if that look the zombie showed could be concidered as one. Dempsey straightened himself and stared down the undead dragon in front of him, if it was doing that then Maxis was behind its creation. The question is how? But he didn't have time to dwell on unanswered questions; he had to survive against an unbelievably tough opponent.
"Well, no point standing here doin' nothin'." A smile creeped onto Dempsey's lips. A split second later Dempsey aimed his M-14 at the dragon with a look of pity. "Time to put you down boy!"
The dragon growled and began to charge.
Quake stopped in mid-air when he heard Dempsey's rifle going off and a small explosion moments after, he quickly turned his head and saw smoke raising into the sky. He narrowed his eyes when he saw another explosion; the flames within spread out reducing everything in it's path to nothing but crispy remains of their former self. A series of rifle shots came immeditally, before everything went silent. The flames were spreading at an alarming rate, burning everything within its reach. Quake relunctantly continued his way to the guardians, if he couldn't help him then may be they can.
"Is this the best you got!" Dempsey taunted. "I fought tougher zombies than you shit-for-brains!"
The zombified dragon snarled darkly as it swooped down with it's jaws open. Taking careful aim with his rifle Dempsey held his breath until the dragon was in his line of fire. He smirked a little, this thing was tough but it wasn't very smart it seemed. He pulled the trigger in succession, unleashing a small volley of 7.62 mm bullets towards the dragon, that made no attempts to avoid them. Each and every bullet Dempsey sent out had bounced off the tough scales of the zombie dragon with little effort, and worse still the dragon was getting close to him with each passing second! There had to be a way to harm the thing, maybe even kill it. Then he remembered the revealed limb and snout the dragon had, and thinking he had nothing to lose he shifted his rifle towards the revealed limb and fired rapidly at it. Dempsey eyes lit up with success when the dragon roared in pain and pulled up moments before it could get it's claws on the marine who took a few steps back to distance himself. He took the valuble time he had gotten himself and quickly reloaded his rifle, taking out the magazine from the bottom of the rifle and slipped in a fresh one. He pulled a small lever to seal the mag in place; and aimed at the sky while his eyes carefully looked for any sign of the dragon.
He sidestepped and bolted towards a burnt tree, and pressed his back against the burnt bark. The tree may be dead but at least it was strong enough to even stand against the pressure Dempsey was putting on it. He looked back in the direction he was previously, it didn't take long to see two gigantic balls of fire crashing into the ground recatching everything it managed to touch with deadly effect. Dempsey shielded his eyes in vain against the heat, and slowly lowered his arm until he could see. A thick wall of black flames blocked his way and it was spreading alarmingly fast. He couldn't stay here any longer he needed to get out of here.
As he was about to make a run for it, his jaw dropped, the dragon was walking through the flames that it created' seemingly unharmed as the fire flickered off it's scales. Dempsey upon seeing this reluctantly pointed his rifle at the creature, and found that his hands were shaking.
"Christ. Am I scared?" Dempsey asked himself as he looked at his hands. The dragon noted this and roared demonically into the sky as if it was trying to taunt him. The fire that surrounded the zombie reflected off it's red scales that made the zombified dragon look like a demon from hell.
"Well? What are you waiting for? I'm right here! Fight me ass-maggot!" Dempsey yelled with a scowl.
The dragon didn't need to wait. Within two seconds it was already upon Dempsey; and he only had a quarter of a second to either straighten his rifle out to defend himself, or duck and roll out of the dragons grasp. Sadly he didn't have enough time to do either of them. The dragon used both paws to push and pin Dempsey to the ground, and added pressure to Dempsey's legs by standing on them. Dempsey widened his eyes as his entire body began to shake.
"Oh no. The side effects, I need the Syrette, now!" Dempsey screamed as his entire body began to burn from the inside while his eyes began to roll into the back of his head much to the surprise of the undead dragon. Dempsey headbutted the dragon with surprising force, causing the dragon to wheel back in surprise. Dempsey grabbed the dragon by the throat and delivered a right hook to the bony snout; the force behind the blow was enough to crack the bone itself. He expected to feel a few bones breaking when he delivered the punch but he couldn't help but look at his own hand in awe and wonder when he didn't feel a thing. The dragon staggered away from Dempsey giving the marine time to get on his feet, strangely he felt a lot stronger than he is meant to be.
"Ok, maybe NOT taking the Syrette was a good idea..." Dempsey told himself as a broad smile began to appear. He bent his arms as he looked at himself with new found confidence. "Maybe I'll be able to do more damage to that thing now. Shame I don't have a weapon..."
Dempsey frowned when he saw a jet of black flame coming directly at him, but he made no attempt to avoid it. Dempsey raised his arms to shield his face from the flames as it enveloped him within seconds, burning the vegitation, trees, bushes and grass that the flames has manage to touch. The flames began spreading in every angle creating what the humans would call 'A forest fire.' Dempsey who was no longer shielding his face upon discovering that the flames were cold as ice itself was surprised to see his skin and clothing very much intact. Normally this wouldn't be possible, anything would be burnt to a crisp if fire enveloped their entire body. But this time it wasn't the case. Was he protected? And since he was, there was one question in his head - Why?
Pushing the thoughts aside Dempsey focused on the main problem, the zombie dragon that was being a pain in the ass to him. He ra forward feeling the fire brush against his skin, sending a tickling sentation down his entire body. Ten seconds later and Dempsey was out of the fire and found himself standing in front of the dragon itself who seemed to have a look mixed expression of confusion of surprise planted on it's face.
"Surprise dirt-bag!" Dempsey exclamed.
With all his might Dempsey grabbed the zombified dragon by the horns, slightly twisting it's head and forced it to the ground beside him. He won't be able to strangle it as it didn't need any air to breath, nor could he kill it by breaking it's neck because it was already dead. He could burn it, but then again there wasn't any fire and using his own weapons were out of the question because the bullets were completely useless against the tough scales it had. The dragon began to struggle against Dempseys grip growling menicingly at the human as it glared' Dempsey gave the dragon both a glare and growl of his own in responce. Dempsey tightened his grip on the zombie, if he could hold it down like this until the others get here then he'll be safe, if not, then he is a dead man.
"Hey, you see that?" Zoidius called out in surprise.
Both Spyro and Zoidius stopped in mid air and looked to the south, Spyro's jaw dropped at what he saw. Black thick smoke, large enough to block out the sun itself was seening rising up to the sky itself' even if they weren't close enough they knew what was happening - a forest fire.
"We gotta get over there!" Zoidius declared, without thinking he began to fly towards the smoke. Spyro however quickly flew to intercept and blocked his path, much to Zoidius's dismay. Zoidius attempted to fly in a different direction; but Spyro once again blocked him from going any further than they are.
"What are you doing!"
"Stopping you from splitting away from the rest of us." Spyro said sternly.
"If we don't stop that fire, this village will be burnt to the ground! With everyone in it!" Zoidius protested making Spyro shake his head disaprovement.
"If we go over there now, the fire will be too close for us to handle it." Spyro calmly explained. He could understand what the black dragon was feeling, he felt it himself a few times in the past. But he was older now and much more experienced' and it was time to act wise and thoughtful instead trying to do the unwise thing. "A wise Dragon Guardian once said 'Allowing yourself to become afraid will cloud your judgement. But by allowing yourself to remain calm however, will lead you to have smart and more safer decisions.' Staying here and finding that key to free the others won't put us in danger until the fire arrives, but if you went towards the fire... chance you would be killed."
Zoidius understood what Spyro was saying to him. He acted rashly because he was afraid and didn't think it through, staying here and helping the humans would be the best decision right now.
"You... you are right. I'm sorry."
"Don't be, you were just doing what anyone else would have done." Spyro replied in a forgiving tone.
Zoidius chuckled, "Anyone whose stupid enough to do that you mean?" He said with a grin. Spyro nodded with a grin of his own but the grin faded when he spared at glance at the humans below, slowly searching for the apes on two fronts.
"You do realise that they should know about this right?" Spyro turned his head and nodded grimly.
"Yes. I do."
"So do you think we can trust those three?" Polonsky asked suspiciously as he jerked his thumb over his shoulder. "For all we know they might shoot us in the back once their done."
"We don't have much of a choice Polonsky. While we do need the firepower they provided us-"
"Which these pistols are awesome by the way!" Miller interuppted as he aimed his CZ-75 in various positions with exciement. Roebuck cleared his throat making the young marine smile sheepishly and Polonsky Roebuck to continue.
"Anyway - if no one is going to interrupted me," He stared at Miller, giving him a hardened look for full effect. "We do need the firepower. Becides between us and the purple and black dragons above we'll be fine. And the Jap, Kraut and Soviet are an added bonus. If their going to help us, then so be it."
"Becides," Miller added with a cocky grin. "Who says we have to like it?" He was right of course. They didn't have to like working with the Imperial and German, but the Soviet they could put up with. If he wasn't drunk nearly twenty-four seven.
Meanwhile, Takeo pintched his nose in disgust as Nikolai burped loudly before pounding his chest. Richtofen laughed in amusment at Nikolai's antics while Takeo groaned frustratingly.
"Arr I wish is some peice and quiet. But it seems the drunk makes it impossibre..." Nikolai laughed as he jokingly smacked the Japanese soldier across the back. Takeo lost his balance and fell, face first to the ground. Richtofen stopped and stared at Takeo with a twisted grin and his eyes wide in a threatening manner.
"Vell, zat vas very amusing." Richtofen began. " Nikolai. DO IT AGAIN!" Takeo winced at the raised voice as he pushed himself onto his feet, and began wiping the dirt off of his uniformas he grumbled to himself.
As Nikolai opened his mouth to reply the three snapped their heads around at the sound of an explosion. Their eyes widened in surprise when they saw a massive fire raise into the sky, the shockewave that followed after threw the three off their feet.
"Guys!" Zoidius shouted in concern for the humans below. Nikolai called out in response saying 'they are fine' to Zoidius. Sighing in relief Zoidius turned to face Spyro with a grim stare, and said "We should see if the other humans below are fine."
"I agree with you there. You check on the ones you came with, I'll check with the others."
Zoidius nodded and as he flapped his wings he sped towards Nikolai, Takeo and Richtofen while Spyro headed towards Roebuck's group who were taken off guard by the shockwave. Roebuck waved casually at Spyro when the purple dragon approached the humans. Miller too busy helping Polonsky on his feet to notice the purple dragon. As Miller helped Polonsky onto his feet, the blonde haired marine was the first to voice what was on all of their minds right now.
"What in god's name was that?"
"It sounded like an explosion. And then a shockwave must have knocked us on our asses shortly after." Miller explained.
"We shouldn't have felt a shockwave of that magnatude! It felt like an earthquake."
"Having thousands of tanks rolling around a battlefield can shake the ground. Collapsing buildings will make an aftershock or something similar. An explosion? That, I don't know much about." Roebuck added.
"Sometimes a powerful dragon can do something like that." The three humans turned to look at the purple dragon who was now staring off into the distance. "Maybe a dragon guardian. But as far as I know, there isn't a dragon more powerful than a purple one. Except for another purple dragon."
"So whoever caused that is powerful. But not as powerful as you?" Polonsky jerked a thumb towards the mushroom cloud. "Great. Just great, and I thought things couldn't get any worse-"
"Well that's life Polonsky." Roebuck butted in effectively cutting off whatever Polonsky was about to say. "And sometimes things ain't fair in life."
"Um, guys? We really need to find that key. The explosion might have caused a forest fire." Spyro interrupted. The words 'Forest fire' had easily captured their attention and were now focusing on Spyro with both surprised anf fearful expressions. "And standing around won't save the others."
Roebuck was quick to agree with Spyro and ordered the marines to move out in an orderly fashion. Spreading his wings and flapping them Spyro took to the skies and looked at the mushroom cloud one more time before helping the humans below.
"Hey look it's the black cre-" Nikolai began before he was rudely interrupted bu Zoidius
"Dragon!" Zoidius scowled. "I'm a frickin' dragon for my Ancestors sake!"
Nikolai raised both hands in a form of surrender at Zoidius's outburst. "Alright, alright. Forgive me for trying to lighten the mood of my comrades."
Takeo smacked Nikolai across the back of his head in irriation, "We are not your 'comrades' Nikorai. And it sharr stay that way!" Rubbing where Takeo smacked him, it was only seconds before Nikolai clentched his fist and punched Takeo in the stomach, hearing a gasp for breath from the Imperial Nikolai then grabbed the Japanese Officer by the neck and delivered a right hook to the face effectively sending the Imperial soldier down on his ass.
"And that was for hitting me suka!" Nikolai yelled shaking his right hand to elevate the pain. Takeo looked up at Soviet with murder in his eyes, seeing a fight coming on Zoidius got in between the two and glared at them.
"Will you two knock it off! There are more pressing things at hand!" He growled at the two.
"Like vhat?" Richtofen asked curiously crossing his arms.
Zoidius turned to Richtofen and spoke in the same tone as he had done with Takeo and Nikolai. "There was an explosion a few minutes ago - which I have no doubt you three heard - and there is a high possibility that the fire from it is coming in this direction. We MUST get a grip on ourselves and finish what we set out to do!"
For the second time ever, the three agreed to another common goal: Find the ape leader, kick his ass and get out.
Unfortunitally the explosion had manage to hit the camp that the guardians were in. Fortunitally, Quake had arrived and quickly told the guardians of the zombified dragon that he and Dempsey encountered. When Terrador asked for a reason why Dempsey wasn't with him, Quake quickly replied "He stayed behind to hold it off so I could get you!" much to everyone's surprise. And when they saw the explosion Cyril was quick to act by using his ice abilities to create a dome of ice around the area they were in and with the other ice dragons and dragonesses had managed to hold it until the flames died down.
All this happened a few minutes ago and the guardians were now questioning Quake with concern.
"Dempsey told you to flee?" Quake nodded forcing Terrador to resist from sigh in irriation. "He should know better than to take on an enemy that is beyond him."
"He told me to come and get you, the dragon he's facing is completely immune to his weapons. I fear he won't last along on his own. And with that explosion and the shockwave that followed I fear Dempsey would be... nothing but ashes."
"Or he could be alive and was smart enough to find water to jump in." Volteer said optimistically.
"Maybe, but I highly doubt it."
Terrador chuckled, but showed no sign of amusment when he spoke. "You underestimate the human. A warrior must use everything at his disposal to his advantage." Terrador paused as he thought back to the temple in Warfang, seeing Dempsey facing down dummies that were technically stronger than him.
"Perhap's if he still lives, he can teach us how to fight like he does." Quake suggested gaining an amused chuckle out of the earth guardian.
"I'm afraid the way we fight is very different to humans in afraid." He turned to look at Volteer and Cyril, "Volteer! Cyril!" The two guardians stopped what they were doing and glanced at Terrador. "The four of us are going to find Dempsey now, the longer we wait the higher chance he'll be killed."
They didn't have to be told twice!
"Ok, this is really getting on my nerves..." Dempsey thought as he slowly opened his eyes, blinking as cold water rushed into his pupils. With his breath held Dempsey pushed himself off of the bottom of a river that surrounded him. He barely got away from the blast intact, in fact most of his body is burning when the flames caught onto his uniform only for the flames to be put out instantly when he leapt into the water.
"That was a close call. Dammed zombie almost roasted me." Kicking his legs Dempsey pushed himself through the water. Breaking through the surface Dempsey filled his lungs with fresh air before wiping the water out of his eyes with the best of his abilities. Once the water was out Dempsey took a quick look at his surroundings. His jaw dropped, literally, as he saw the charred remains of trees the burnt remains of grass and bushes. And the zombified dragon was floating in mid air; roaring in dominance at the destruction it caused.
"For gods-sake, I can't even match that!" Dempsey said through gritted teeth. As he swam to shore Dempsey had many things going through his head. He wondered how he was going to kill the zombie, it could fly and attack him from above. While he was currently weaponless' wet and unfortunitally unable to match the zombies strengths. And as far as he knew it didn't have any weaknesses he could expoilt. As he pushed himself onto his feet, the water poured out of his uniform and onto the ground. Unsurprisingly Dempsey felt a hell-of-a-lot lighter because of it.
Looking up at the dragon who was staring menicingly at him from above, Dempsey clentched both his fists until his knuckles lost their colour.
"I wish I gotten an SMG instead of that rifle..." Dempsey said. He looked down at the burnt ground and closed his eyes for a moment. Letting the sound of the fire flood into his ears. It was strange for him, the silence, it seemed to calm him to a small degree. Even if a being of death was ready to bring him to the afterlife. Then again he would rather shoot himself in the head than let a zombie kill him, he didn't want to come back a walking corpse. He snapped his eyes open and glared at the zombified dragon above in defiance, his teeth grinding against each other agonisingly. He cracked his knuckles as the dragon landed a few yards in front of him, eagerly licking its teeth.
"So, this is where it begins eh?" Dempsey said giving the dragon a cold stare. "The undead are coming back." He looked towards the sky and yelled. "So? Where is your mighty undead army now little girl!" The zombified dragon growled threateningly at the marine, but Dempsey didn't notice. "Is that fucking retard of an animal all you have?"
"Zhis vill not end vell for you American." The ghostly voice of a little girl called out tauntingly. "My army is building while you, Edward, the Russian and the Imperial are the only ones standing in mien vay!"
"Their name is Nikolai and Takeo, girly! And we four managed to fight off thousands of the undead by our own!" Dempsey responded spitefully. "I'm more than enough of a match for this abomanation of a dragon you turned!"
There was silence for a long while as the dragon watched Dempsey patiently. Finally after five minutes of silence the voice replied.
"Ve vill see, American."
Dempsey firmly braced himself as the dragon charged.