-A Sniper Enters The Game-
"Multitude of targets, selecting the young adult female,"
Richard Snizz sat behind the stock of his 7mm murder cannon atop the tallest building in Sleepy Peak. He'd been hired by Daniel just in case things went south, which they tended to do very often.
The tank was just a lumbering target to him as it clattered down the street, he could hit things at over a mile away. He lased the distance to the target, coming up with 234 yards, an easy shot with nearly no wind to speak of.
"Sending it."
Gwen heard a small popping sound that wasn't the now familar rumble of the war machine she was hitching a ride on. She looked around to see what could have possibly-!
Another popping sound.
Terrible pain.
She tumbled off the vehicle, landing on her hip in the street.
Blood stained the front of her camp shirt, she could barely draw breath.
The Quartermaster knew exactly what had just happened, jumping from the tanks hatch to land beside the downed woman.
"Hold on little missy."
He grumbled, scooping her up with his good arm, as another bullet smacked into the pavement just beside his head. The kids now knew what was going on, and scattered like field mice from a wheat thresher.
"Damn sights off..."
Richard ejected the spent cartidge, reaching for another, the rifle only held 3 rounds, he should have brought something with a bigger magazine. By the time he got his eye back on the scope, the street was deserted.
"Damn it!"
He fought the urge to move, nobody down there had a gun, and as far as he knew the tank didn't have any weapons to speak of. He knew he'd hit the woman with his second shot, the first had just grazed her hair.
"Where are you...?"
The Quartermaster flipped his hat up over the top of the tank he'd pulled Gwen behind, watching as it was torn from his hand by a high energy bullet. He frowned slightly, not that anyone would notice since his face usually looked like that.
"Call...police..."
Gwen wheezed from the ground, clawing a shiny rectangle from her pocket, the Quartermaster casually swatted it from her grip.
"Not today."
His grenade launcher should fix this little pest, with one smooth movement his trusty hook was replaced by an olive drab tube. He waited for a moment, before popping out of cover, he knew relatively where the shooter was at.
Richard had been told to expect no trouble from any of the group, so it surprised him greatly when the old man stood up from cover.
"Fwoomp!"
The entire top of the building vanished in a ball of violence and fire.
Q.M nodded to himself, ejecting the spent casing from his launcher, and popping in a fresh one, another shot would make certain he'd gotten the sniper.
Richard was fairly certain he was on fire, and blood was in his eyes, his gun was somewhere else in the wreckage. Falling 5 stories would normally kill someone, but Richard had gotten lucky and landed on a matress someone had left out for the garbage man.
He patted himself down to make sure the blaze on his clothes was out, then started the process of mopping the blood off his face. He was done, the contract was null and void at this point, he drew the line at old men firing grenades at him.
"Stay down."
He looked up to see the old man standing over him with the muzzle of his grenade launcher pointed at Richard's face. He could have sworn he saw the stubs of what looked like giant wings sticking out from the geezer's shoulders.
"If you think you intimidate me..."
Richard spit, rolling to one knee despite his injuries, his hand dragging out a jagged knife from the sheath in his boot. It would be a cold day in hell before he just gave up like a punk, he lunged for the man.
"Not smart."
There was an agonized scream and Richard collapsed like his spine had been broken.
Quartermaster looked down at the body for a moment, then turned and walked back to where he'd left Gwen.
"Problem solved."
A veil of darkness had descended over each of the scattered children, something to protect them from being shot at. Once the threat had been eliminated, the strange darkness vanished into thin air.
"What the FUCk was that you old asshole?"
Nurf questioned, trying to look Quartermaster in the good eye, he found he just couldn't do it.
"Magic."
Was the simpliest answer Q.M could grunt out.
Telling the kids too much was something David frowned upon, and Q.M respected his wish.
"I'm dying arn't I?"
Gwen coughed, but Q.M just placed his hand on her face.
"Don't worry about that right now, we have to get back to camp."
Quartermaster picked Gwen up like she weighed next to nothing, hopping back onto the armored fighting vehicle.
"Come on kids, our business here is done."
In a great grunt of diesel exhaust, the tank rumbled back towards the river.