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Disclaimer: This is a fan based crossover. The Resident Evil franchise and Highschool of the Dead belong to its respective owners. I own nothing except the writing posted here. Please support the official release.
At 9:45 p.m, the Wolfpack were swaying in the wind as they flew through the inky darkness of the night sky above Raccoon City as the rotors of the UH-60 Black Hawk rapidly beating the air smashed through the silence. Besides the seven operatives, there were several large boxes filled to the brim with various weapons. There were the standard issue handguns, assault rifles, ammunition, different types of grenades, and other heavy weapons in preparation to face down B.O.W.s that have mutated.
"T-minus thirty seconds before approaching drop point." All seven men and women began to take action upon hearing from the pilot. They rappelled down from the Black Hawk with the bins, and the helicopter left, and the city plunged into silence once more as the sound of the rotors began to fade out.
The boxes contained several variants of the Heckler & Koch G36 assault rifle, customized Colt M1911A1s, each member's favored backup weapon for emergencies, suppressors, flashlights, red dot sights and other such accessories.
"Load them up." On Lupo's signal, everyone started stuffing the pockets, pouches and holsters with their equipment.
"What's that thing under your rifle?" Viper inquired as he pointed at the object attached underneath the barrel of Lupo's rifle. There was another barrel with a trigger and a magazine sticking out of it.
"M26 Modular Accessory Shotgun System. Hopefully I won't have to use it." She finished as she fed a large drum magazine and engaged the first round into the chamber.
"Beltway, what is this?" Specter pointed at the last weapon that was left in the box. It was another weapon, the FN Minimi calibered in 5.56mm with three ammunition belts holding two hundred rounds.
"An FN Minimi? Jesus fucking Christ, man….You brought out a Squad Automatic Weapon on this mission? This takes up way too much damn space." Viper sighed. While this weapon's firing rate of seven hundred rounds per minute was ideal for mowing down waves of B.O.W.s, but they would lose a significant amount of bullets that they definitely will need in the future. Besides the fact that being belt-fed making it impossible to reload as quickly as a rifle, it is heavy, weighing at least twenty pounds with ammunition. This mission will undoubtedly be time consuming, and therefore speed and efficiency was of the essence. There was no doubt that this heavy hunk of metal would slow them down to some extent. As Beltway was the man who always carries excess equipment, there was no doubt about that.
"These are special bullets, esse. Explosive tips that detonate on impact after being fired." Brushing off his teammates' gazes and sighs of exasperation, with an ominous laugh, he continued, "Don't worry, I'll keep up even with this bad boy. We run into a big ass B.O.W. and I will cut his ass down with this baby. Besides, I can ditch the damn thing once I'm out. I put in the order for one, but it ain't my money I'm spending."
"Give me the spare belts. I may use them when I run out." The volunteer was Four Eyes, which surprised everyone. She rarely volunteered for any work besides anything related to her field of expertise. In fact, she detests any physical activity that involved heavy lifting.
"This is a surprise. What changed?" Spectre teased. His goggles zoomed in and out, focusing on her.
"To begin with, I'm a scientist, not fighters like you six. But Beltway gave me some…pointers for combat. A favor for a favor. I also have the most space in my pack. I'll use him as a meat shield if worse comes to worse." With that, she snatched the extra ammunition and dumped them in her hardshell backpack.
"Tu gracias, Four Eyes. I love you, girl."
"Enough chatter, our destination is the city hall".
As if a switch was engaged, the air around the seven of them immediately tensed up, and seven sets of boots hit the cold concrete floor, signaling the beginning of their advance. Moving itself did not take long, but despite the anticipation for rapid screams of terror, shouts of anger, cries of pain and gunfire, a hushed silence had fallen upon the city. The ominous feeling put Viper on alert, higher than usual.
"Command, we have reached position one."
"Acknowledged. Position is confirmed. Proceed into the cold zone."
As they covered each other's blind spots, slowing their pace and keeping noise to a bare minimum. The lights illuminated the murk of the underground passageway that lead to the basement floor of the city hall.
The place was already drenched in blood; it looked like someone had flung buckets of dark red paint over the floors and walls. There was a woman's body missing half of her head and two of her limbs chewed off, her innards exposed after hunks of flesh had been torn off, a child missing his lower jaw, and a chewed off wrinkly arm of an old man, with a cane still in hand. There were probably more hidden under the cover of the dark.
Through the single thin door, there were groans, grunts snarls, and the stomach lurching sound of masticating raw meat, bones and all.
They were there, more than one or two of them. Everyone's grips on their weapons tightened. Vector signaled that he would take point through hand signals as he switched from his G36 to his knife and handgun. He screwed the short barrel suppressor on as Bertha tightened her hands around the doorknob. Once Vector counted off three fingers, she silently opened the door as he slipped in and at the same time loosened the indescribably horrendous stench of decaying flesh.
Vector felled the first of the infected with a good portion of its neck and shoulder missing with a knife through the forehead. Pushing it out of the way, he sprayed another's brains across the wall with a suppressed shot at near point-blank range. The Wolfpack followed him in, each picking their targets.
"Shit….They were eating each other." Vector grunted in disgust as he averted his gaze from a body that was missing most of its head as well as its internal organs. While it was nothing new being in this line of work, it was not something that anyone in their right mind would particularly enjoy looking at.
"If you think this is bad, you should see Siberian gulag. Much, much worse."
"All units pick your targets and intercept, do not let them get close!" Under Lupo's directions, the annihilation took less than a minute as seven weapons opened fire tracing the heads of the infected lumbering towards them.
Once Viper crushed the last one's head obstinately crawling towards them, they moved on to further rooms.
The speed of sound in room temperature is roughly three hundred and forty meters per second, but a 5.56 caliber round's initial speed is three times as fast. Suppressors can dampen the shot to an extent but nevertheless, everyone's ears were ringing slightly. As they moved on to the next room, a man in his thirties clad in camouflage appeared in their view, weapon in hand ready to fire any time.
"Stop! Hold your fire!" Lupo halted everyone just as their fingers were about to jerk on the trigger.
"Nicholai Genovaef, UBCS D-Platoon B-Squad." The man who introduced himself had short platinum blond hair like Spectre, with a slight smirk on his face as if he were enjoying a party. His voice was husky and had an accent as well, similar to Spectre's. He stared hard at the Wolfpack clad in black from head to toe. "You're Umbrella Security Service? Upper management must be in a panic if they're sending you people in."
"Save it, we are not here to exchange pleasantries," Lupo snapped. Her serious demeanor was compounded with the creases in her brows deepening. In fact, there was a hint of anger and impatience in her voice "What is your business here?"
"My team was sent here to rescue citizens, but apparently there's no time left for that. City Hall is a mess. I ran into you while I was looking for a safe zone."
Upon hearing those words, Viper burst into a small fit of laughter. If Nicholai was serious about finding a safe zone in Raccoon City, he is nothing more than a thick headed idiot clinging to false hope. There is no safe zone in a city at night infested with monsters without intellect that know no fatigue, thirst nor hunger, roaming the streets.
Lupe shot a rebuking look at Viper, who took a dee breath and composed himself after his fit of laughter. "There is no safe zone. What is happening over there?" She pointed towards the door behind Nicholai with her chin.
"The building is full of infected crawling about the place and some unidentified military personnel. They seemed to be looking for something, but why do you ask? What is your purpose—-"
"Hey, shitbird," Viper cut him off, "we ask the questions, 'kay? I don't like the way he's looking at me. Can I kill him? Now? Please?" He asked as he leveled his rifle at Nicholai, finger lightly resting on the trigger.
"Leave him. Save your bullets." Bertha reproved as she made him lower his weapon. "He's UBCS, let him die on his own somewhere. Keep that shot for when you really need it."
"Can I kill him with a knife then?" Viper persisted.
"Viper? No." He grumbled inaudible words making a pouty face underneath his gas mask, but knew better than to talk back to Lupo during a mission and did not press any further. "We still have a mission to finish. Let's go."
"All the best with your mission. And I suggest you keep the boy alive while you can. Live bait has its uses to circumvent those things." Ignoring Nicholai's snide remarks, they left.
"Vector."
"What?"
"You don't like him either, do you?"
Vector didn't answer, but acknowledging his silence as a yes, Viper continued, "You may have used Nicholai's body as cover to hide your hands, but did you really think that I wouldn't notice that you had your hand on your knife?"
Just as Viper had pointed out, Vector's hand instinctively found its way to the hilt of his trusty blade as he stood behind Nicholai, sensing hostility of some form or other. If he wanted, he could have torn every major artery in his neck, severed the abdominal aorta, or pierced the brain stem effortlessly. "Yes….I won't deny I harbor a strong sense of antipathy towards him."
"I honestly shoulda killed him there. One more dead UBCS member isn't going to make a difference at this point. It would feel better to put affairs in order, so to speak. Killing UBCS is nothing new."
Several minutes after their run-in with Nicholai, USS Command's voice came up. "City Hall is under complete lockdown. Go to the security room and override it."
"Copy that, Command. Viper, come. You're taking point. I'll cover you."
"On it." He slowly made his way up a flight of stairs, walking past more grisly bodies mangled and spoiled beyond recognition. As he quietly opened one of the doors, Viper saw the room was swarming with over two dozen infected. While Nicholai was far from pleasant as a human being, his words couldn't be further from the truth. "Mess, my ass Nicholai. This is nothing short of a mild shit storm."
The only large cluster was in front of him, and the stairs leading to the first floor on the right hand side had a more or less clear path. Viper made eye contact with Vector and pointed at a grenade nested in a pouch of the chest rig. Vector cast his eyes down for a few seconds in thought, but Lupo gave him a tap on the shoulder and a thumbs up.
After removing the pin, Vector lobbed the grenade into the room, as it flew in an arc and landed with a solid clunking noise before exploding. The strangely high-powered grenade tore most of the infected closest to the hypocenter to shreds. Others were still moving but were incapacitated to the point where they would not even be a hinderance.
"Ah, man. There's nothing more refreshing than the smell of burning gunpowder. Get's all my juices flowing.
"Shut up, Beltway." Four Eyes groaned in annoyance at the giddy man-child.
"Oh come on, don't be that way Four Eyes. That was our first office pop during the mission! Of course I'm gonna be happy!" He poked the side of her head with a gloved finger jokingly as she batted his hand out of the way like a mosquito.
"Speaking of which, Beltway, what were you doing with Four Eyes? You were the last two to come for PT."
Lupo took immediate and rather excessive action upon hearing Viper's question, swatting him on his head. "OW! What was that for?!"
"That's not for you to know yet. Beltway, if you answer I will take your other leg."
"It's a science project, Mr. Viper. Biology, to be exact." Beltway's face was obscured by the full face helmet with the mask attached to it, but everyone could tell he had a big mischievous grin on his face underneath it.
Four Eyes' cheeks turned a bright pinkish red, but it went unnoticed thanks to the darkness of the room and her gas mask that covered her lower half of the face.
"Honestly, you people…" Lupo sighed and rolled her eyes, thinking of some word to describe them accurately, but thought better of it.
"I'm reading activity behind this door from a third party. Movement and heat signatures indicate non-infected. They definitely heard the gunfire and the explosion."
Non-infected. There was only one answer that would fit the description. Soldiers deployed by the United States government to save any and all people left.
Third Party. SPEC-OPS.
In other words, enemies.