Artyom reloaded his Bastard gun as he slammed the top down on his cartridge. "Damn it, watchmen!" In the lobby of the former building, he stood behind Winter as a dozen beasts had started to run towards them.
When he was about to pull the trigger, but Winter sprinted towards the mutants with her bloodied sword of hers. He hesitated to shoot since she was in the way, but watched as a bystander when the young woman made her first three kills with fluent sword slashes. The watchmen pack was taken aback by her skill with a sword that they kept themselves back and confronted her. They snarled at her presence, but she remained unmoving and unafraid of their number.
The young man could not believe what he was seeing. Creatures of the surface were afraid of a human ever since the fire was set alight. If Artyom told this to Alex, he wouldn't believe him even though he was his adopted son. No one would believe him for what he was seeing. This woman had a fighting chance against demons and could single-handily fight off a pack of watchmen all by herself.
Then he heard their voice as she faced the creatures. "Artyom, be careful. They might get past me." She was correct in pointing that out as three of the mutants departed from their pack. It was possible that they were looking for another route to flank the two. Such was the way of the mutants.
One of the watchmen had the courage to leap at Winter, but she ran her sword into the mutant's throat before she tossed it aside. The next three did the same as she took a step back and swung her sword above the exposed neck of her first attacker. The second mutant was about to take the opportunity, but Winter summoned her glyph to speedily back away from being touched.
Artyom mustered the courage to fire his makeshift machine gun as his cartridge slowly shifted the magazine for the next dirty bullets to follow. His weapon's inaccuracy was enough to fly his sights off his targets and in some cases, kill the watchmen that remained in the back. However, he killed Winter's third attacker.
He then felt a terrible moment in his body as his mind heard a stranger's voice echo into his soul. "Danger… above…" Artyom felt his eyes irritated, causing him to blink his eyes, but he felt like he was seeing a different kind of vision. The mutants were slowly colored in red as Winter was identified in green. How he got ahold of this power was beyond him, but then he noticed two red silhouettes of watchmen a floor above him and were looking straight at him.
His Bastard gun was brought to the ceiling as he opened fire upon them. The strange vision slowly faded away from his eyes as he saw a small opening large enough for the mutants to come through. However, he managed to kill one of them in the process. Yet, he was not done when the second one leaped for him, but as he pulled hard on the trigger he heard his weapon click.
The watchman slammed into his body as the mutant began snapping its jaws. Then its paw had tossed his weapon aside before it was about to make a swipe.
Then he was surprised when Winter came to his rescue. "Artyom!" Her sword had removed the watchman's raised paw as blood spilled onto the floor. She was quick to stab it into the abdomen and kick the bleeding creature off his body.
As Artyom swiped the blood off his gas mask, he looked beyond the woman and saw the rest of the watchmen run towards their only opportunity. His hand reached for his double-barreled shotgun and brought it to bear. Then two blasts were enough to kill two of the mutants, leaving another two contend with.
"You will not touch him!" She shouted as she readied her sword to face them. Then another one of her glyphs appeared, but this was entirely different. A white wolf flew out and laid its teeth onto a watchman's neck. With a single snap, the mutant was dead and slumped to the ground.
The last mutant, displayed signs of fear as it slowly backed away from the white wolf. It began to back away before turning the other direction and escaping through a collapsed wall. After the successful engagement, the summoned wolf and the glyphs disappeared, leaving the two humans alone.
Winter glanced over to him and reached her hand out to him. "Artyom, are you okay?"
The young man simply nodded as he slowly breathed hard behind his gas mask. "Yes, I'm fine." After Winter pulled him off the ground, they both took a good look into each other before Artyom noticed her concern. "What's wrong?"
"Your gas mask, it looks like it got damaged. You need to fix it?" Winter asked.
He shook his head at her suggestion. "No we don't have time to find anyone to help fix my gas mask. I heard that Stalkers take the masks off the dead since it's quicker."
"Quicker, isn't looting off a person's body a bad thing around these parts."
Artyom turned away from his rescuer and set his gaze upon the collapsed wall. "I've heard tales from Stalkers who went to the surface, but they always gave my friends and I some advice to steal off the dead. It's the only way to live here."
"Hopefully we can find you a new gas mask." She replied. "I would hate to lose someone who watched my back."
"You need me to watch your back?" He asked. "I don't know about you, but you seem good with that sword and could handle yourself against a pack of watchmen."
"But you did take out those creatures on the second floor." Then her watch beeped as the strange young woman took a quick glance at the time. "Artyom, I know this is a bad time to ask, but how do I change my gas mask without breathing to death?"
"How do you not know that?"
"Remember, I'm not from around here."
The Russian relaxed his shoulders as he grabbed a spare air filter and made a quick change between filters. As he slowly tightened the only source of air, he could hear her breathing slowly and fade once her lungs were refilled with her own air.
"Thank you, Artyom, I thought something might have happened in the moment."
After reloading his shotgun and reclaiming his Bastard gun, Artyom and Winter began to walk through the small hallway where the last mutant retreated. As they came closer to the other side of the building, there was a small park filled with frozen ground and relics of a long-forgotten era.
Then he noticed Winter stop in her tracks. "This looks like it used to be a playground." She commented as she continued to walk towards the remains of the playsets. Artyom followed as he gripped onto his militia weapon. When she came closer, he noticed her body taken aback by the skeletons of children whose frames lay unburied with the remains of their clothes frozen with their bones. "Who would do something so horrible to children?" She asked, but Artyom heard a strain in her voice. When her knees fell to the snow-covered grown, he heard Winter from the constraints of her gas mask. It seemed to be that there was more to her than meets the eye. However, he could understand her reaction to something so horrific and painful to seeing the skeletons of children.
Artyom walked beside her and placed her hand on her shoulder. "Winter, you can't do that here. We have to move."
The young woman shook her head. "Why, why would someone do something that terrible?"
"I don't know, Winter, but we have to move."
Before they could move, Artyom noticed three red dots shinning on him and his companion as he looked around. As he looked for the origin of the light, he saw about dozens of men clad in black. However, the young man was horrified when he recognized their infamous markings.
"The Fourth Reich." He gasped as silhouettes appeared on the other side of the playground and were coming out of a collapsed brick wall.
One of the Reich soldiers was quick to shout at him. "Hands up, sub-humans!" A man shouted as he raised his Kalash at him.
The two individuals were surrounded as the Fourth Reich soldiers kept their sights on them. However, a man in a peaked cap stepped forward with his hands behind his back. "What do we have here?" He began. "Two mutants skulking around on the surface where they shouldn't have."
Artyom spoke up. "Let us go. We have no quarrel against the Fourth Reich."
"We're going to bring both of you in at the Black Station for questioning and seeing if you are true Russians and untainted humans."
Winter rose from her knees. "Untainted humans, what is this about?"
The Nazi officer glanced through his gas mask as he looked to the female. "A woman? What brings you to the surface?"
"None of your business."
"We'll see about that. Once we check you out for not being sub-human, maybe you can accompany one of us to our beds." His men quickly laughed after he finished.
Then her hand reached for her sword handle. "I won't let that happen."
"A sword, quite a fine weapon for an officer such as myself."
"Over my dead body."
The officer shrugged his shoulder. "Such a pity, I wonder what you would have been like in bed." Then his tone changed. "Ready men! Aim! F-"
A single gunshot echoed at the playground, but the officer's body slumped to the ground in front of Winter and Artyom. "Artyom, what's going on?"
Then a cry screamed out from around the Fourth Reich soldiers as they looked up to see the decaying departments. "Kill these sub-humans and find that sniper." After he said those words, another body dropped to a gunshot.
It was to Artyom's surprise that someone had the opportunity to ambush these men, these infamous soldiers who held little mercy. "Glory to the Red Line, long live Comrade Moskvin!" Soon after that statement, dozens of men cried out a battle cry which had turned the dozens of Nazis away from their outnumbered travelers.
He looked up and found windows filled with light brown uniforms appearing at the windows and the broken doorways. Their Kalashs and rifles rained down on the vulnerable Nazis before he too took the opportunity to save himself from the firefight. "Winter, let's have at them." He said, causing the woman to pull out her sabre and sprint towards the nearest man who was looking at nearby apartment windows.
When she had slashed his body aside, the man dropped to the ground and groaned in pain. "Fuck, I'm going to kill that bitch!" A bullet flew into his head as blood was whipped out and landed across the snow.
Bringing his Bastard gun to bear, he fired his machine gun in three short bursts aiming at the men across the playground. Two men dropped to the bursts while a third man had shrugged the rounds thanks to his plated armor. Unlike the others, who were equipped with Kalashs, he carried a heavy weapon that was infamous in the Metro and was known to be given to the most notorious squads of the Fourth Reich, Heavy Squads.
The heavy spun up his barrels as hundreds of bullets were flying in Artyom's direction, forcing him to slide behind a mailbox for cover. The bullets peppered the blue mailbox as the metal rang loudly at the impact. The young man cried out in terror as he tightened his grip on his Bastard gun. "Die, you mutant fuck!"
Artyom glanced up to see a figure of a Red Line soldier carrying a rifle in his hands before he saw a bullet casing eject out of the barrel. His eyes gazed into his soul before he gave him a thumb up. This made Artyom curious as he glanced over to his right and saw the heavily-plated Nazi lying on the floor. Whoever that stranger was, he should thank him for saving his life. He glanced back to the window and saw it empty.
He joined the firefight by laying on the snow beside the mailbox as he reloaded his Bastard for a fresh magazine, but in this fight he saw Winter flying past the Nazis while she made steps onto the glyphs of hers. It was a strange power the woman had; however, he was curious if a young man like him could achieve such power.
When the shooting ceased, Artyom rose from the ground and looked around at the windows of the nearby apartments. Dozens of Red Line soldiers were leaving the scene, all except one. Looking at the window across from him at the third floor. "If you ever want to know who we are, inform your friends and ladies that we are the communist revolutionaries who work for the Red Line." He began. "I cannot stay long, but I am happy to keep both of you alive." Artyom recognized the man, only to see his uniform covered in various scarves and a leather jacket. It was the sniper who saved him. The mysterious stranger immediately bowed before joining his brothers to their destination on the surface.
Winter sat beside the bodies as she began to stumble to the ground and cry once more. "I killed them, why don't I feel ashamed of that." He sword was stuck in the ground as she used its handle to keep herself from falling into the blood-covered snow.
"Winter?" He asked, curious about his companion as he walked over to him. "Are you okay?"
"No, I am not okay." She replied. "I just killed another person… with my own sword."
"We couldn't avoid it."
"For some odd reason, I feel like you're right. Their deaths couldn't have been avoided."
The young Russian sat beside her as he held onto her hand on the sword's handle. "Winter, we have to go. We don't have much time." He watched silently as she lowered her head and abhorred at the idea of killing another person. Artyom couldn't blame here, she was not ready to take a life after her experience of being from another place. Then she pulled herself off the snow and stopped sniffling at her previous actions.
"Artyom, where do you think we could go?"
"I don't know, but maybe those Reds could help us with directions. Let's go."