John crept forward, doing his best to be as silent as humanely possible. No, better than that, better than human. He was held to higher standards.
He was feeling jittery, partly due to the fact that he felt out of place. Sam and Six were both in the other group. He liked Tyler, Patrick, and Teresa, of course. He didn't have anything against them, and he certainly had no doubts about their abilities to carry out the mission. But he'd never fought Mogs with them before. It just felt strange, unnatural, disconcerting, uncomfortable.
It didn't help any that Teresa was barely recognizable anymore. She looked like a body builder had stepped straight out of the pages of a magazine, hair cropped short, shoulders broad, the kind of body that you weren't surprised they could break boards in half.
At least he had Bernie with him, something familiar, reminding him of the last time he had fought the Mogs – and won. They had won. For the most part. If you were alive, you had won.
"This way." Patrick beckoned, hardly moving his mouth.
John slowly crept forward. He was being kept firmly in the middle, considering he was the key to keeping everyone alive.
"Shouldn't we wait?" Tyler asked, as he crept up to join the group. "We don't want to get too far in before they're ready."
Honestly, John had been expecting Leo to show up by now, letting them now that the other group had started, that it was time for them to move into action. He hoped this didn't mean that something had gone catastrophically wrong.
But he didn't have time for that. He had to focus on what he had to do, that was all he could handle right now, all he had to handle right now.
"We also need to be as prepared as possible when they are ready." Patrick replied. "Every second they give us is one we need to better our advantage."
"Advantage. Right." Teresa muttered. "Four against hundreds is an advantage."
"Five." John automatically corrected, nodding at the dog panting silently at their feet.
The others all looked at him. Teresa looked up at the ceiling, "Four and a half," she revised. John shrugged.
"He will undoubtedly be of use in battle, untrained as he is." Patrick said, ending the argument. "Now we should talk no more, if not absolutely nece -"
"GO!"
John practically jumped out of his skin as he flipped around, finding Leo and Netoya standing there, panting out of breath.
Patrick didn't waste a second, immediately charging forward, and John quickly snapped back into position, following suit.
He charged down the hallway, with absolutely no idea if they were headed in the right direction or not – everything looked the same; dark, cramped, blue-ish, industrial.
It took less than a minute for the Mogs to start appearing.
Bernie roared into some kind of monster John hadn't seen since high school, eyes honed on the Mogs, making John incredibly grateful they had something so big on their side.
Patrick killed the first one instantaneously, blasting him apart, guts spewing all over the walls, and they kept moving, charging with hardly a second thought.
Netoya and Leo had disappeared by now, and Teresa was ashen white, John was guessing this was first time she'd even seen one before. Well, now she knew them – inside and out.
It became mechanical. John had no idea where they were going, his brain had quickly discarded that as irrelevant information. He followed the others. He kept them alive. He kept himself alive. He killed the Mogadorians.
His lumen flickered in and out – he was trying hard to maintain it, it was dark in these corridors, but when he had to choose between focusing on that and shooting the Mog charging straight for him, instinct tended to take over.
He'd been worried about the mission, what they were really doing here, why Six hadn't been so typically vocal, if there was something else going on here, but now there was only one mission – stay alive.
Teresa was terrified.
She'd been in a couple of fights in her life, but in all her experience it had mostly been a couple punches, maybe she'd bitten a kid or two, and then it was running away and changing shape. Then she'd run into these freaks and started sparring, but still that was always safely contained, far more a lesson than a fight.
She wasn't afraid to admit it, or she wouldn't have been, if she had anyone to tell it to. Terror. That was all there was for her.
She seemed to be surrounded by violence, blood spurting, bones cracking, screams and yells piercing the air muddled and filled to bursting with crashes and bangs and the deadly sick swishes of knives and other metal instruments whose sole purpose was death.
She kept making herself bigger, stronger, forcing her legs longer so she could move farther and faster, creating herself better.
These things. She'd never seen one before, but she had no trouble accepting them as evil, the enemy. They were trying to kill her. They didn't even look human, they were too big, they seemed all male, they didn't have the right noses, they had bumpy heads and strange, mottled skin. The Lorien merged seamlessly with humans – these were the real aliens.
Every second was a battle for her life, for everyone's lives – Tyler, Patrick, John's. It was bewildering and confusing, she had no idea how she was surviving, if she even was surviving, how would she know if she died?
Probably the pain. The way it hurt just to breathe, air too harsh on her lungs, but she couldn't get enough of it. Muscles sore and bruised, yet continually in motion. Feet stinging and running and kicking. Everything was motion. Everything was horror.
Tyler and Patrick moved easily, like a machine, well practiced and oiled. This move followed that. Take out this threat, then move onto the next. Watch your back. Watch your team. Just like all their practices.
And so they noticed. Noticed that there were far less Mogs than they'd been expecting. Noticing that the Mogs were all trying to move in one direction. Noticed that Netoya and Leo weren't rejoining them.
But there was no time to worry, no thoughts leftover. It was paramount to keep a clear head. They could notice, but they couldn't act. Not now, when they had one goal. They needed to concentrate on keeping up their end of the plan, trust that the other team could handle theirs. There was no time or energy to help when they hadn't even managed to succeed in their arena.
Limbs were chopped off. Not theirs, thankfully. John and Teresa were fighting valiantly. Bernie was a much appreciated asset. Fighting was technique, battle could be beautiful, but this was not – this was dark and cold and panic stricken, a whirl of slashing, of blood and pus, of grunts, screams, and shrieks.
But this wasn't the worst part of the battle. The worst part was suppressing the terror, not even just for themselves, but for their friends, the ones not here, the ones they couldn't protect. It was lurking right underneath the surface, constantly present, but they kept on pressing it down. If let out, it would be overpowering.
There were just too many of them, Six thought, throwing her fifty seventh fireball. One on one, she could take any of these Mogs. But they just kept coming.
Part of her argued this was a good thing as she forced open a sand pit beneath the feet of a Mog, holding it until he sank midway before releasing it back to bedrock. They were the distraction. The more Mogs that were here, the less that were in there, impairing the other team.
But she honestly hadn't anticipated there being this many. She threw a mini tornado, and it knocked over one Mog, then spiraled into a few others, tumbling them over like bowling pins. She'd never seen this many Mogs all together in her entire life, and she thought she'd seen a fair number of Mogs.
This time she didn't just have herself to worry about either. Ella was floating a good thirty feet above them on one of her force fields – she was a defensive player, keeping a dome around the building to keep reinforcements out. Six had no idea if that was even proving to be worth while, she had zero spare moments to check and see if she needed to be concerned with reinforcements. It seemed like every Mog in existence was right here, charging at her. Ella was throwing down random force fields to block off the Mogs too, but they were getting wise to her, she wouldn't be able to keep pulling those tricks much longer.
Daniel was fighting like a demon, but he had to be getting tired. He'd killed nearly as many Mogs as she had with only his knife, but that too had to have an expiration date.
But Sam had also managed to survive his so far. Six was constantly keeping an eye on him out of the corner of her eye. If she was getting worried, then the human had to be terrified. Then again, Sam was one of the bravest humans she'd met. He was blasting Mogs left and right, and had saved her ass more than twice in the past ten minutes.
Where were Leo and Netoya. They just had to hold out until Leo and Netoya. Just until the others made it to the control room, then they could all teleport there, make a holdout there. They would be stronger together, stronger when they had a base, walls to hide behind, weapons half as good as the ones the Mogs were using against them. They could put up the spaceship's defenses, blast the Mogs, and leave. They just had to survive until they got back.
That was how bad it was. The goal wasn't demolishing Mogs, death to all aliens, woe betide any who got in her way. The goal was survival. The goal was getting herself out of this situation alive. She'd take down as many Mogs as she could with her, but Six wasn't expecting to win anymore. She just needed to escape.
They weren't going to win this battle, that much was obvious. She'd accepted that fact quickly – they would still win the war.
Sam's voice broke through the wreckage, the shouts, the battle cries, the thundering of feet, Six didn't know what he was saying, couldn't distinguish the words, only the sound, the voice. She whirled around, head instantly cleared, fireball ready, searching for his face, ready to blast whatever was hurting him. Instead she saw Mogs, filling her vision for a split second before it cut to black.
They'd wandered through room after room, down endless corridors and passageways, all filled with controls and panels and signs and directions, none in any language John recognized. For all he knew, they may have passed command central already. Even if he'd known where they were going, he was sure he would have quickly lost the way. It was dark and chaotic, he saw Mogs behind every turn. All of his attention was focused on being prepared for the next horror that would jump out at him. He knew it was coming. He flinched at every sound, waiting for the attack, slashing when it came, dimming the lumien down as low as he could while still keeping their sight intact.
"Which way now?" Teresa hissed as they came to yet another divergence in the hall.
"Left." Patrick said after a pause, leading the way, knife pointed out.
"Finally!"
John spun around, ready to lunge.
"It's us."
It took him a second to register the pale face of Leo behind them, but finally it took. His muscles remained tensely locked though, refusing to relax.
"I'm glad we found you." Netyoa said seriously. John simply stared, he thought he'd sensed actual emotion behind that sentiment.
"What's going on?" Patrick asked, striding back.
Leo and Netoya glanced at each other. "There's been a problem."