A Few Good Men

"WHAT?!" Evgen roared at his PDA, a presence of shock swept across his face. They were just informed that the bandits in the Dark Valley were massacred, including Borov. Evgen couldn't believe his own ears, was it because of the two Duty hostages that they kidnapped two days ago? Very unlikely, as they have taken hostages before from that faction on numerous occasions, so why were these two so important? Simple, it wasn't the Duty faction, it was:

"It was just one stalker Evgen, a bastard named Marked One!" exclaimed the escaped survivor. "He was like a fucking one man army!"

Evgen stood still along with the remaining comrades waiting for his next orders, speechless and stunned by the tragic news. There was a minute of silence, only the sound of the crackling leaves played around by the vortex anomaly was present, their "peaceful" moment was either made to commemorate the loss or the worries of disastrous forthcomings of who is going to fight for the now vacant bandit throne. They were originally on their way to the Agroprom, sneaking their way behind the loners' den of the abandoned train station, but now there have been an obvious change of plans.

"Shit!" fouled Poker. "What do we do now?"

Evgen strokes his hair to the back of his head, "Give me a moment, will ya?"

"We should head to the Wild Territory…the Mercs are there." suggested Snigur.

"Are you a fucking retard? I still need to take care of this cunt!" Evgen pointed at Crow.

"Why can't we just kill him now?!" argued Poker, his patience growing rapidly thin.

Crow watched the two men bickered, he was still bleeding from the wound Poker gave to him, luckily it was just two stray fragments of a shotgun shell. Two outlaws, a child rapist and a drug trafficker held him side by side, both of them gripped him callously firm with the former positioning his gun to the side of his stomach. The ex-mercenary took a quick glance at the dilapidated train station full of loners unaware of his dire situation. If only he could have the will and energy to reach that stacks of concrete for cover, which is like a checkpoint halfway to the station and then sprint across to the gate, but alas his leg is no fit to do that Hollywood stunt.

"We should go back and kill that fucker!" Poker commanded.

"Hey I'm in charge asshole and I say we go to Agroprom!" retaliated Evgen, gritting his teeth as he clenched his M1911A1 U.S. Army Colt with his hand. Poker however was either oblivious or unaffected by the threat and continued on his rant.

"What are you some goddamn pussy? Are you actually afraid of one guy?"

Evgen's mind snapped, his rage that surfaced through his face was immediately suppressed as he casually shot Poker at his right knee, startling his subordinates but none of them protest Evgen's ruthless actions, for no one was close to Poker anyways. The cloaked man fell on the ground and cursed his leader, Evgen did nothing after that, he was aware that he suffers from a short-term memory loss due to some accidents in his time in the zone. In a few hours or so, he would forget everything, so the leader has absolutely nothing to worry about. Karma came early, Crow thought, karma was one thing, opportunity was another. The two criminals were distracted, so he quickly pulled off his right arm and elbowed the drug trafficker at the nose and snatched the rapist's Jericho 914F while hooking him with his left, using him as a body shield. Before Evgen and the rest could react, Crow grasped the flash grenade from his current hostage, bit the pin off and chucked it down the ground.

The bandits went at once blind, responded automatically by firing blankly with into Crow's direction only to get close enough in a few inches to his feet.

"Let go you bastard!" whispered the prisoner, Crow retorted by choking him a bit. A soldier's way of saying 'shut the fuck up".

Reaching for that cover was one of his most excruciating ordeals in the zone. Not only does his leg hurts like nails hammered to the flesh, he had to drag his struggling hundred and seventy-two pounds of body protection too. He was almost there, his heart racing furiously, one step at a time, with every ounce of strength, and then…his prisoner suddenly became too heavy to carry, his torso shot thrice. The bandits finally regained their sight and began blazing their assault rifles at Crow, but finally and fortunately he reached his checkpoint.

He dragged the corpse with him as bullets flew from all directions, they were closing in pretty fast, Crow could hear Evgen's infuriated roars to get him back dead or alive. He yanked out the Heckler and Koch MP5 from the holster and emptied the magazine at his enemies with his arm above the cover while the rest of his body is sheltered. The bandits took cover, same as Crow as he tried to remain calm, drenched in sweat and the sound of his hearting thumping through his ribs. The bandits resumed their rain of bullets, the chances of surviving a gang of elites is a zero to none. In the heat of the moment, Crow drew a hand grenade from the remains and threw it high. The bandits heed warning of the grenade and retreated, seconds later an explosion occurred, and then a brief moment of tranquility.

Crow reloaded his submachine gun and went back fighting for his life. One of the bandits, Snigur was the closest as he crouched behind a tree. The loner took aim but he was already shot, not by Crow but a sniper. The shot came from the train station, it was a suppressed shot, possibly from a Vintar BC. Then a couple of loners came out from the station and greeted the bandits with AK-74s.

"I got you covered!" buzzed the sniper through one of the loner's PDA. The chosen stalker sprinted across the path between the derelict trains to the current position of Crow. The nearest bandits were being picked off one by one by the sniper, while some tried to retaliate back only to get fired off from the third loner shielded by the train.

"You okay?" asked the rescuer as he crouched next to Crow.

"I'm alright," Crow replied, who failed to express a tremendous amount of gratitude towards his savior.

"Can you walk?"

Crow nodded. The loner then lifted him up by his shoulder as five more loners began to come out of their hideout to join in the rescue.

In a minute or so, Crow was already in safe hands and the remaining bandits retreated, afraid to lose any more lives as of what happened in the Dark Valley.

"Flash! Flash! We got him! He's safe!" shouted the loner, proud of their accomplishment. The sounds of metals clanging can be heard from the sniper coming down the rusted stairs. Crow tried to maintain his fading conscious from the sheer exhaustion just to have a glance at the other man that saved his life, but the only thing his eyes could grasp on was the scar across his face and his Vintar BC.