Chapter 4
Sudden Realization
I was the first to react, while the others stared in awe at this large, grotesquely deformed figure in front of them. It tilted its head to the side as my suit injected me with the first round of Reserve Adrenaline. Two large cylinders just behind my shoulder blades spin suddenly, causing the needles to peirce my skin and then inject the Adrenaline in a vital point in my bloodstream. My heart begins to race at three times its normal speed and I Bark orders at my team before bolting towards the beast.
"Focus your fire on the face!" I don't have time to wait for their acknowledgement, this either worked, or it didn't. I continue to run towards the beast, as bullets streak past me and strike their mark. As the creature is now blinded I can make my move. It cries out in frustration as it tries to keep the projectiles from getting into its eyes by sheilding it's face. While running I feel for the switch on my G.45 that activated the Shotgun attachment on the lower part, under the barrel. Now it was time for the real action, the distance between the Creature and I closed as I took one last, lengthy stride and came to a momentary halt in front of it.
It must have seen my feet, because as soon as I came to a stop in front of it, it lashed out, fortunately for me I was prepared for agressive action. I leaned my upper body to the right and twisted to my left as a bone blade stabs the air where I had been standing a milisecond ago, it scrapes against my chest plate but otherwise no harm done. I on the other hand was about to do serious damage to the beast. I lifted the gun up so that the barrel pointed directly at it's face and I loosed a shell full of hell at it. It reeled backwards as the BBs tore at its facial plate and peirced it's eyes and went on through to its brain.
The force of the shot causes it to lift up off the ground, but not for very long, it begins to fall before I jump forward and slam my boot into it's chest, pinning it down against the ground. I then aim my weapon foward, down the hallway, to ensure myself that there are no other creatures ahead of me. I stare down the hall and the air around me is absent of noise other than the fires raging outside of the building. My eyes narrow and I lift my foot from the creature. I move to my right and crouch next to the wall, my weapon still aimed directly down the hall. My team follows my lead and shrink towards any cover that they could and press themselves against the wall.
"It looks clear..." I announce to my team over the comm. "Chimera four, move up to that flight of stairs at the end of the hall. Chimera three Accompany him. Chimera two, on me, we're going to check this room. Maintain comm silence." I shut my comm link off and lift my hand up, then point to the end of the hall with my middle and forefinger. On command Chimera two and three move up past me, totally silent in the heavy nanosuits. when they are in position the acknowledgement lights on my Heads Up Display blink on and off once. I then glance over my shoulder at Chimera two, then jerk my head towards me, he nods and then moves up against the wall across from me.
My eyes go from him to the end of the hall, then to the large steel double doors on my side of the hall. I force my adrenaline down with a breath and then move forward, my head down and my right hand on the wall, my left gripping my G.45. Chimera two follows my lead and rolls over to the other side of the door silently. My right hand falls from the wall and comes up to clutch at the foregrip of my weapon, then I look to him, nod and then both of us pull away from the wall and kick the doors open in a synchronized manner. The doors fly open and we shed light on a sight that I certainly could have gone without seeing.
I reel backwards and throw my hand over my face, my stomach churning at the sight of the rooms contents. Chimera two follows suit. "GOD DAMN thats Disgusting!" He shouts over the comm. I couldn't really blame him for breaking comm silence, it really was utterly disgusting. Inside the room, on the floor, the walls, the ceiling... The beasts were mating... or... what I supected to be their mating process. Strange bits of light blue slime fly about and the noises that accompanied the actions of the creatures were the appitamy of disgust. I grind my teeth, glad that I and my team had on suits with a filtration system.
then I realize something, my eyes widening in suprise. We weren't being attacked right now, the mating in the other room between the creatures made them overall, oblivious to the world around them. "Chimera two." I call to him, barely able to stomach the sight as I look back into the room. "Activate the beacon." He shakes his head at the sight, realizing himself that the creatures were too distracted by their task at hand to notice them just outside the door. I raise my weapon and point it into the room, and at the same time I radio into the field headquarters just outside the city.
"This is Chimera team leader to HQ." There is several seconds of complete silence and then a familiar female voice crackles over the speakers. "This is HQ Chimera, good to hear from you again." I reply sullenly. "No time for chat HQ, we've got a big problem here, I have clearance for the M40 artillary, classication Mammoth." Her voice replies to my statement instantly. "Verification Code." I toss my words back at her. "Verification Code: Two Two Zero Alpha" Theres a few moments of silence and then she speaks. "ready the beacon Chimera team, fireworks will start an estimated.." Everything slows down as Chimera two stumbles backwards. A beast covered in blue slime had looke dup and was eyeing him, a hungry look in its eye. The beacon was in his hands, with a quick glance over at me he lowers his head, just as the beast screeches.
It's cry breaks through my helmet easily and cuts off the last of her words. "" Thats when Chimera two pulls the cord on top of the beacon and it lights up, then he lowers his shoulders and charges into the room. I reach out towards him for a second, then pull my hand away. The other chimera team members cry out over the comm to him, but I cut them off. "Chimera team, on me lets move!" I turn about and dash down the hall. My precautions had been well set because I could already hear the artillery shells screaming through the air.
I can also hear my team members bounding down the wall behind me, their strides huge, thanks to our suits. I shout over the comm at them. "Window! End of the hall!" Their acknowledgement lights don't flick on, but I knew they heard me. I dive forward when i'm less than fifteen feet from the window and I break through, not even feeling the glass break against my armor. I can hear the shells, ripping through the exterior of the building, penetrating easily to reach farther into the building, soon the detonator tips on the shells would ignite and tear the building apart.
I hit the ground as soon as they go off, the force of each shell exploding seems to multiply and throw me forward, causing me to roll uncontrollably towards the building across the street. I hit with a resounding crash and the armor absorbs most of the force from the impact. Chimera three and four were a bit closer to the explosion so they are propelled faster, into the wall above me. I lie there, feeling run down already, but I couldn't just lie there forever. I push myself up and glance over my shoulder at the holes in the wall and I see the pair of Chimera members standing as well.
Bits of debris and ash fall from the smoke clouds hanging over the city and come to rest on my shoulders and blanket my visor as I lift my eyes to the sky. Another member of Gone, and this mission wasn't even over yet. It's dark in the streets due to the smoke, blotting the sun out. The fires around me rage with a great intensity, spreading throughout the city, consuming it. I lift my hand, and look at my metallic palm silently. Everything seems to have slown down... A singed peice of paper floats down into the center of my palm, but it does not catch my attention.
I feel a hand clamp down on my shoulder and I slowly look back at whoever it was. The slimmer, shorter figure behind me told me instantly that it was Chimera 3. "... Sir." She said with a reassuring squeeze on my shoulder. "We've received new objectives..." The realization strikes me out of my daze and my gaze falls to the ground before I give my head a shake to clear my senses. "Right..." I mutter as I kneel down and grasp the handle of my G.45, my mind now racing over the subject of these new objectives.
According to the objectives now displayed on my helmets heads up display, they wanted us to head to the city's main hall, there we would dust off to head to the frontlines. Apparently there has been a major sighting of the beasts, approaching the massive military force assembled outside of the city. I kept my back to my sqaudmates as I went over the possibilties of a direct confrontation between our forces and those beasts. Perhaps with the heavy military equipment we had we could eliminate the threats from a distance.
The smoke around us begins to stir wildly as a prowler speeds over top of us, filled with troops. I can see several more as well, past the broken buildings and crumbled towers. Sounds of rapid gunfire ring out all over the city. So they decided to move us into the city to weaken the opposition so they could send in the regulars? Even now the regulars wouldn't win, they might put up a fight, but I knew that they would not win this battle. I grind my teeth at the ingorance of the generals, but I knew what I had to do. I looked back over my shoulder.
"... Both of you... Give me your knives." I ask after a moment of observation. They eye me from behind their visors before nodding and following orders. They hand me their knives and I turn to face the opposite direction, sliding the knives into my ammo belt. Then I strap my G.45 to my back tightly, drawing the knives again. "We have to get to the center... Follow behind me closely... And fire at will." They step up behind me and I tilt my head to the right, then the left, my neck cracking and popping beneath my armor.
My eyes close for a moment and I take a deep breath, then I speak over the comms. "Adrenaline Reserves now." My command is followed by a pair of acknowledgement lights flicking on and a sudden spike in my remaining team's vitals. I grin as a sudden fit of insanity overtakes me, wondering how I could come up with such a reckless plan, the odds were undoubtedly stacked against us. Though for some reason, I didn't care, as long as I took as many of them with me as possible, I couldn't care less.
I snap forward with great speed, flicking the knives in my hand, causing them to spin just beneath my palms, then I snatch them from the air before they can fall. My eyes set on the street ahead. The city hall was a good nine blocks distance from his current position. I can hear my squadmates directly behind me, working to keep up. A lone trooper runs into the intersection in front of us from the lane to the right. He's abandoned his weapon and is running for his life, lucky for us, thats just the direction we have to go.
I grip the knives tighter when I see a beast dash out from behind the cover of a building after the man. It's metallic looking skin is pockmarked, no doubt by bullets. It pays no mind to us as we dash down the street, focusing only on it's prey. That smirk widens on my face as I relaize how easily I could end this thing. I take action, throwing forth my right arm, tossing from it the knife that I was holding. It sails through the air precisely, and the blade sinks into the soft organic material just below the armored plating surrounding it's chest.
It screeches in pain and turns to face me as quickly as it can, but i'm already there. I'm jump up and slam my boot down on the armor surrounding it's neck, finding a temporary foot hold just before I pull my right foot back and kick at it's jaw. I kick so hard that it's head basically bursts on imapct, and bits fly off in the direction I kick. The body falls backwards and I step down, planting my feet so that i'm facing the direction I need to be going.
The man behind me, the trooper, falls to the ground, his eyes wide. He's whimpering, pathetically as well, in a way it sort of disgusted me. I sort of shrug and then activate a pick up signal within my suit. Soon there would be a transport here to pick him up. With that I eye the path ahead and then run at full speed down the street. If it was going to be as easy as that just now, we would have no problem reaching the evac point. Little did we know, that Evac point had also become an emergency evac area for all troops in the area.