He gasped for breath. Thick smog obscured what loomed out the hatch. An electrical discharge startled his gaze at the shrilling cracked screens. White noise drowned the communications in his helmet.
Rookie grabbed the M7S Submachine Gun off the rack, finding not a scratch on it. With the hatch unbudging, he knuckled the neon-green bolts and fumes hissed as he thumbed the safety on his weapon.
The hatch burst open and he lunged out to the gloomed smog with boots planted and stock shouldered. His Visual Intelligence System Reconnaissance remained unresponsive with the laser sight on the smart-linked scope after stammering to a halt. The Orbital Drop Shock Trooper walked a stray path from his Single Occupant Exoatmospheric Insertion Vehicle. It cratered a concrete road.
Silence dominated. Save his lurking steps, calmed breathing, and the drifting ash pelting his helmet, he heard nothing while treading with gun low-readied until crackles ahead popped in the flickering fog bank. A blazing sedan sheltered charred occupants. And Rookie pressing on flared his visor from hellfire roaring out a school bus. Farther onwards he tilted gun at an unflinching silhouette.
Ash covered whole teeth to feet a screaming man reaching out his arm. The bewildered Rookie waved his free hand only to elicit no response and gasped from the man sinking into an ash pile before his recoiling feet. He beheld ahead crowds more striking various poses.
An imposing figure came screeching in unfaltering speed. Roaring over him, its hulking shadow swallowed Rookie and the road he stood on and gusted aside the smog and with it the ash people under its rumbling presence. He glared the blazing airliner until it collided headfirst in a muffled crash.
Gunfires roared at a nearby hospital. Sprinting, Rookie hugged a brick column, peeked out, and encroached the entrance. He twisted the knob and gun high crept in. Inside, ceiling lights flickered and not a soul roamed the deserted lounge. Paperworks and toppled furnitures scattered about the disorderly place.
A door across screeched open upon a gangly foot entering it. There Rookie found bloody footprints trailing for a dark ladies bathroom and thumbed on the stammering flashlight modified to his gun. The light jittered some more before dying and he slapped the device to find it unresponsive. He stalked in under the buzzing neon-green emergency exit sign, clearest the nearest corner, and lurked the trail.
In his peripheral spirited a white figure. He snapped aim to his ash-covered self on a wide mirror and eased. Until the door he entered from slammed shut. Heading back, he jerked the unbudging knob and yanked harder to the point his arm strained. He gave it a harder tug and collapsed back with the knob detached in his hand. Bafflement seized him from finding the entrance itself gone.
The knob rattled on the floor as disbelief leapt him up feet. Franticness sent him palming the ceramic wall appearing indistinguishable from the rest tiling the restroom. He snapped head at the swinging compartments thudding open and slamming shut.
They settled down. And the farthest stall creaked wide open. Setting aside finding a way out, he trailed the footprints curving for the respective compartment. A pale nurse sat slumped on the toilet as blood oozed her mouth and pooled her feet. Holes bored the shadowed corpse and the gored walls flanking it. Shuffling his feet closer to the scene startled him from kicking aside fresh bullet casings sprawled beneath. Sinks hissed, grabbing his attention. They overflowed and spilled blood on the floor.
A rattling explosion erupted the stall. Hurled at Rookie, the corpse flattened him on his back as her half-lidded cataracts glared his quivering counterparts. He forced her aside in a grunt and found to his horror blood discharging out toilets. Blood drenched the ceiling, walls, floor, and Rookie himself with not a speck spared from the hellish downpour. It pooled his heels, knees, and waist, forcing him up his feet.
He beamed his flashlight at bubbles surfacing the center at slow and uneven cadence. Step by step, Rookie waded forward until the bubbles halted. From his flank erupted a splash.
A powerful tug constricted his right leg. Clenching his thigh, the long ghastly fingers on the pale emaciated arm remained unbudging no matter how hard the horrified Rookie pried it off him. To his left erupted a second arm gripping his other leg. He relied on his gun when strength failed and squeezed trigger. His heart sunk.
He glared his empty palms, reached for his empty pistol holster strapped to his thigh, and found his sheath blade-deprived while struggling. The arms yanked him to his chest. And a dozen more blood-dripping limbs burst free and clenched his shoulders, neck, and head, surrendering the Rookie to despair. He in his beating mind thought nothing save scream before gurgling under bubbles.
With the ripples, the bubbles stilled. One rose and floated. And floated. And popped.
He drew deep breath, sitting upright sweaty and wheezing to see the blood-free sinks and compartments. Grabbing gun, Rookie removed helmet, vomited hours-old orange juice, potatoes, and mac and cheese once palming the sink, and spat out the dregs. He looked himself in the mirror and slapped cheek. The emergency fixture flickered the moment he wore his helmet.
Whispers hissed. He tilted head right and left. And front at the mirror once a stall behind creaked open. There at the toilet emerged fingers clenching the rim. And out twitched the dishevelled black hair as light stammered. Gripping gun, Rookie snapped about, aim fixed at the empty stall. The stuttering ceased.
Animal cackling made him whip back. And him unleashing automatic hellfire at the lanky apparition crawling on its fours shimmered the walls under rapid drumming echoes.
The entire mirror shattered. He shifted his smoke-winding muzzle at the squealing entrance, spotting a giggling child in a red dress making quick exit. Panting, he made a run for the reappeared door. And squatted behind a large counter upon rapid-fired tracers sparking his helmet and shoulder plating. Flashlights and red dot laser sights swarmed his cover.
Across the other far side glowed sky-blue visors. There awaited ten armed blue and black-fatigued soldiers. The team leader tapped comms.
"Oxide Seven-Niner Actual. Encountered a possible Replica variant. Be advised."
That fucker alone?!
"Yes, sir."
Well take the mutt out then! What the fuck am I paying you for and what the fuck do you think this is, the Geneva Convention?! I want all Replica sons of bitches buried ten feet under because your colonel says so! Now fuck off!
"Understood. Neutralizing target. Oxide, out. Alright. Take him—"
Exit wounds punched him clean. His head slanted, gushing blood out the punctured visor before dropping face-first. Rest blazed hellfire at the Rookie as he ducked under cover.
Shredded papers drizzled and ceramic shards chunked off walls. Computers fumed, flower pots shattered, and a dangling telephone beeped from being knocked over. A twirling Master Chief bobble head bonked the Rookie as he went prone. The men let the last casings clink, loaded the smoke-oozing Andra FD-99 Submachine Guns, and sought to subdue the Rookie at closer quarters.
"Flank the fucker. Move, move, move."
They dispersed in threes. Rookie peeked at the squad to his left through tiny bullet holes and dumped at them the remaining bullets in his magazine the moment they aligned in similar angle. Rounds tore into them, jittering them and dropping them dead beside clattering arms. Rest took immediate cover. Three squatted behind kiosk machines while the other hazmat trio ducked behind a counter and hailed for reinforcements.
"Seven-Niner! Taking heavy casualties at ground level!"
Canting right, Rookie squeezed his M6S pistol at the exposed back-mounted canisters.
"Requesting immediate back—"
White smog burst from the violent chain reaction. Sundered bodies flung, splatted the counter, and slumped beneath. The last three alive dared not budge from cover.
"Jesus!"
An N6A3 Fragmentation Grenade whined, glowing neon-yellow upon activation.
"Fragging him out."
Cooking it, the black ops soldier tossed it over.
"Adios, muchacho."
Rookie spotted its glowing presence a distance away. Studying its trajectory, he caught it with cupped hands, wasting little time pitching it at the ceiling. Alarm bells went off and sprinklers en masse rinsed the ash off him. As one peeked, the other black ops soldier hugging cover whispered.
"See him?! You see him?!"
An M9 Fragmentation Grenade cooked to the last second sprinkled water from spiralling midair. It clinked the peeking soldier by his scalp and went off. Machine parts twirled and clattered the vicinity. Rookie went up feet and pistol high stalked for the buzzing kiosk machines. There out the smog staggered a silhouette. And Rookie set tritium sight at a dazed mercenary wheezing with dangling arms and spurting head. Down on knees he went before splashing fast on cheek. Shrapnels lodged the entire backside.
Rookie found the others groaning, twitching, and cupping shredded faces. Kicking aside the weapons, he eased gun and let them bleed. At his far front echoed hurried footfalls worth half a dozen men. Teetering shadows stretched on a wide staircase, conjured off damp light flooding out a window above. The silhouettes blasted aggressive firepower upon sighting Rookie.
The Rookie fired back mid-sprint, chipping the concrete stairs burdening his muzzle-blazing targets. Ten gauge shots burst a water dispenser, five millimetres sent sparking lamps toppling, and a semicircular sofa expelled cotton upon the Rookie diving behind it. Rookie holstered sidearm and grabbed the submachine gun off his back. There he kept head low.
Thicker white platings and bandoliers holding multipurpose munitions sported the black ops heavy soldiers. Four men gripping SHO Series-3 Combat Shotguns pincered in as the others with Patten HK470 Assault Rifles with extended magazines squinted through ACOG optics.
Splatting footfalls fast converged the Rookie. When he peeked so much an inch, sparks grazed his helmet from riflers squeezing suppressive bursts as others chunked his cover with buckshots. Rookie blind-fired back. And not for long once R3 Incendiary Grenades set ablaze his cover.
He slapped the napalm bits flaming his shoulder. Fragmentation grenades clinked beside him. In a split second, Rookie snatched a large grenade from his back, tossed it nearby, and sheltered himself from the blast within the expanding energy shield.
The humming Z-4190 Temporal Protective Enfolder radiated golden aura out its spiralling tip. Muffled thumping rippled its surface from being pounded. Flattened rounds clinked around the shield. And scorching fire from more incendiary grenades squealed across the semicircular hexagonal tessellation. Casings trailed the heavies as they kept on pressure. Shotgun personnel pumped and riflers burst-fired the shield while stalking the cornered Rookie.
The din drowned in a roar. Upon the last flames extinguishing, a mercenary grabbed a blue-tinted grenade before being warned by a comrade.
"Hey, asshole. You'll fry us all. We're taking this guy out. Conventionally."
He stashed it back. Magazines splatted and in clicked fresh ones. Shells slotted in and shotguns pumped. And Rookie loaded his gun, taking in the droplets tapping the stuttering shield while awaiting combat.
Gunfire muffled as a glass wall shattered. A golden tracer chunked head, sending the rifler splashing back-first. The malfunctioning shield collapsed and Rookie snapped up gun and burst-fired counterclockwise at the distracted five. Bodies splattered by clattering guns.
"Hey."
He snapped his hissing muzzle at distant shadows echoing footfalls and a voice.
"Saw you could use a hand."
The silhouette stepped into light. Rookie eased upon seeing an ODST sharpshooter halting halfway.
"But it's not over yet."
The ODST drew his M6S in a blink and blasted with one hand. Startled, Rookie faced back to see a neck-spurting heavy staggering from taking bullets to the chest. His shotgun clattered as he slumped on a counter back-first. The sniper shot at a bulky high-wall television, sending it toppling and slamming his head. Electrical discharges popped the rattling mercenary. Twirling the gun by his fingertip, the ODST holstered it and walked the remaining distance between him and the Rookie.
"Never is." He took in the scenery once beside Rookie. "You did good."
From sprawled bullet casings, lingering fumes, to bloody carnage. The trooper admired every bit.
"Real good." He palmed Rookie on the shoulder and nudged head. "Come on. I'll get us out of here."
The sniper jogged ahead. Gazing the surroundings himself a while, the Rookie jogged after.