I do not own Gears of War or any of the characters.
New Threat
Joseph slowed Chuzz to a stop and stared at the town. It was broken down, deserted, and creepy as could be. To call it a ghost town would be an understatement.
"I vote we skip this place and head back to get you reinstated in the COG," Lizzie said.
"I'm sure that'll happen after we rescue the others," Joseph said.
"True," Lizzie said. "So, what about Chuzz?"
"He's smart," Joseph said. "Head on home, Chuzz."
He patted the horse on the side, and Chuzz snorted, turning and walking away. Joseph and Lizzie walked into the town quietly, Joseph hating the way their footsteps seemed to echo loudly as they walked. Joseph felt himself tensing. No matter how little he saw, he couldn't shake the feeling he was being watched.
"Do you think the others are still in town?" Lizzie asked. "That Windflare really slowed us down."
"It only lasted a little while," Joseph said. "But even if they're not here, we can catch up with them in the mine."
Lizzie nodded just as they rounded the corner into a blocked street. "Shit." She looked around, seeing a door into the building on their right a little back from them. "Come on. Let's try going through this building."
Joseph nodded and followed her to the door. She stepped out of the way and gestured at the door and he rolled his eyes, kicking it open, only for it to get stuck after about three inches, sending pain lancing up his leg from the force getting bounced back at him. He swore holding his leg off the ground for a second before ramming his shoulder into the door. There was a screech as something heavy dragged a few inches across the floor and he rammed the door again and again. Finally, there was a deafening crash, and the door ward finally open enough for them to slip through. When they did, they found an armoire had been placed against the door, now lying broken on the ground. Joseph sighed, walking into the building quietly, Lizzie following.
"Well, I guess if there's anything nearby they definitely know we're here now," Lizzie said.
"True," Joseph said. "But let's try not to make any more noise, if we can avoid it."
Lizzie nodded in agreement and they made their way quietly through the house. It was a mess. Furniture, both broken and intact was strewn everywhere with a thick layer of dust on everything. Bullet holes decorated the walls here and there, and there were a couple of skeletons, fortunately all adults and wearing old COG armor. They reached a room where the wall had been broken inward by the collapsing debris that blocked the road, and went around the hole in the floor carefully, neither feeling like having a trip to the basement. Once on the other side, they found a window and went back out into the street.
"So, any of the girls in the village ever catch your eye?" Lizzie asked as they waked down the road.
"A couple," Joseph admitted. "But they were pale comparisons to you, so I never really bothered trying anything."
"Aw, you're so sweet," Lizzie said dramatically. "You're definitely my platinum standard too."
Joseph rolled his eyes as her helmet turned toward him as she winked. He found it funny that he'd actually been around her enough, and had enough of these types of conversations, that even when she was wearing a helmet, he could tell when she smirked, frowned, smiled, rolled her eyes, or winked. And she could tell the same about him.
"Yeah well, we both know you're just waiting for someone to say my mom cheated on my dad so that I'm fair game," Joseph said.
"Oh definitely," Lizzie grinned, again winking. "I'd have you in my bed so fast your real father's head would spin."
"I don't know Lizzie," Joseph said, grunting as he lifted a beam that had fallen across the road. "I might just pin you to the wall before you can even get me to the bedroom."
Lizzie hummed pleasantly, pretending to enjoy the thought. "If that's how it is, we might be lucky to make it to the house at all."
Joseph sighed, shaking his head. "You know, I sometimes wonder how people think we might actually be together. And then we start a conversation."
Lizzie laughed quietly. "That's true."
They turned a corner and stopped, seeing the road was, once again, blocked. Both sighed, turning and backtracking a little ways before slipping into the building on their left through a window. They walked back through the building for a moment, only to stop as they found the far half of the building had collapsed partially, blocking their progress.
"Well that's just terrific," Joseph sighed. "I didn't see a way into the other building from the road either, did you?"
"No," Lizzie said, glancing to the side and seeing a hole into the basement. "We could try the basement."
"If it's blocked we might not be able to come back up," Joseph said.
"Alright," Lizzie said. "Then why don't I go first, and if it's blocked you can pull me back out."
Joseph hummed thoughtfully for a moment before nodding. Lizzie carefully swung her legs over the edge of the hole and slid off the edge, landing lightly at the bottom, only to stare at something.
"What do you see?" Joseph asked.
"You'd better come down here," Lizzie said. "It's not blocked by debris, but...you need to see this."
Joseph frowned, then slid off the edge of the hole, landing lightly beside her and turning to look where she was, staring at the glowing orange pod-like things of what looked like some kind of mucus-filled flesh sacks, the pods filling the basement. There were dozens of them, and spread around them were root-like tendrils of the same glowing orange flesh. There were dozens of pods, and looking at them was making Joseph's skin crawl.
"What are these things?" Joseph breathed.
Lizzie shook her head, and the two of them started forward, careful not to touch the pods. When Joseph shined his light on one, he could see something inside of it, but something was telling him not to disturb it. After a couple of minutes, they found a stairway leading to a metal cellar door. he unlocked it and pushed it open with a loud metallic screech. He grimaced, then climbed out, looking around carefully. Through a window ahead of him, he could see more pods in the next building. He walked into the road with Lizzie, only for them to stop, staring at a small depression in the road with what looked like a webbing made of flesh and glowing orange light inside of it stretched across it. Both instantly backed up behind the building and Joseph peeked around the corner just as a hand burst up from the webbing, grabbing the road and dragging a creature out of it. Joseph's gut dropped. It was a grub. Missing its armor or clothing, bearing lighter, sand-colored skin, and holding a Hammerburst rifle, but it was a grub.
It saw him instantly and roared, raising its rifle, only for Joseph to drop it. Then, more began to emerge from the hole. Three, then six, soon there were eight, all shooting at the corner where Joseph was. Joseph swore, shooting back when he could, but within seconds, a bullet bounced off his helmet, and he staggered backward, a second grazing his thigh. He swore, holding a hand to his thigh as Lizzie hurled a grenade around the corner. It exploded and bits of flesh webbing, as well as a grub arm, flew past. Then, Lizzie moved to sprint across the road. Joseph swore, instantly beginning to spray at the grubs, who all ducked into cover, Lizzie making it less than a second before bullets slammed into the building. Now that both were able to shoot, they began to work together, dropping the grubs fairly quickly. Finally, the last one was tagged in the leg and Joseph stepped out, picking up a Hammerburst long enough to finish it before dropping the Hammer Burst in the waist-deep hole the flesh webbing had been blown away to reveal when Lizzie threw her grenade.
"So, it really is the Locust," Lizzie said.
"This is bad," Joseph said.
Just then, there was a popping sound behind them, and they turned to the building they'd just left. Just as they did, a piercing shriek rang out of it, followed by a dozen more popping sounds. Then, small, waist-high creatures with long arms and sharp claws scrambled out of the basement. Lizzie and Joseph both swore, opening fire on them and they died quickly and easily, but just as they finished off those, more exploded out of a door behind them. Joseph turned to shoot them, only for three to tackle him. He shouted in surprise and annoyance as he used his arms to block their claws, luckily keeping the slashes restricted to his gauntlets, then grabbed the knives from his forearms and stabbed two, kicking the third away. He stood and ripped the knifes back out in time for his right side knife to split the third up across the face, killing it. He turned and stabbed one behind himself in the brain, then turned to Lizzie, who was shooting at the creatures, who were too busy avoiding her bullets to tackle her. However, after a moment, he gun clicked and the last six swarmed. Joseph stepped forward, slashing the first two's throats, then stabbing two in the face before letting those knives go and ripping the two on his boots from their sheaths and flipping them over, driving them up into the last two creatures' heads below the chin. He retrieved his knives and put them away, sighing and looking to Lizzie.
"You alright?" Joseph asked.
"That was amazing!" Lizzie said. "You're my hero!"
Joseph smirked. "Well, it'd be a shame for them to mark up your beautiful body with scratches." He retrieved his Lancer, both of them reloading now that they weren't too busy. "Come on. We need to head for the mine."
Lizzie nodded, and they began to quickly, but carefully, make their way through the town. After a few minutes, they heard the roar of a machine gun start up ahead as the rain began to fall. They sprinted toward it and after a couple minutes, it stopped, only to start again a couple minutes later.
"I think it's coming from the tram station up ahead!" Lizzie said as they ran.
As they grew closer, they could hear high, inhuman shrieks ringing out along with the gunfire, as well as J.D., Del, and Kait's voices shouting. Finally, Joseph burst through a massive wooden gate just in time for the door to knock Del aside and a massive red creature with a glowing orange stomach but about the same size as him, rather than several times bigger like the ones he'd seen in the village, to crash into him, tackling him to the ground and roaring, its lower jaw splitting open down the middle as several tentacles reached out of its mouth. It lunged, trying to bite him and he shouted in fear, struggling to hold the thing back. Finally, his right hand yanked the knife on the back of his belt free and he drove the blade up into the creature's stomach again and again, dragging the blade a few inches between a couple of stab. The creature shrieked in pain and he ripped the knife out then drove it into its head. Then, the creature began to explode into tiny bits of flesh and many, many gallons of blood and goo, coating Joseph, who went rigid as it did. The other creature in the tram station's courtyard likewise exploded after the J.D. and the other two he had been with sprayed it with bullets for a while. After a second, Lizzie stepped up over Joseph just as he regained the ability to move, pushing himself up and shaking some of the blood and goo off his arms before putting his knife away and picking up his Lancer.
"That was just wrong," Joseph groaned. "So many levels of wrong."
"You okay?" Lizzie asked.
"Yeah," Joseph said. "You three good? Where's Marcus?"
"A Snatcher got him," J.D. said. "One of the big ones. We've been fighting those monsters for the last twenty minutes."
"Yeah, we met a few of them," Joseph said. "They look just like grubs. And there are small ones that look like Wretches. At least, according to Uncle Clayton's descriptions."
"We call the little ones Juvies, and the bigger ones Drones," Kait said.
Joseph nodded. "And the Snatchers?"
"The big things from the village," Kait said.
"They fire spikes out of their tails to wound their victims before grabbing them with tentacles in their stomachs," J.D. said. "One of them got my dad, but we're tracking it. Oh, and these things," he gestured at the puddles of blood and goo, one of which was Joseph, "can fire a barrage of small spikes out of their tails."
"Lovely," Joseph sighed. "Come on. I assume we have to go through here."
They nodded and headed inside, finding the control room for the tram station was blocked off by gray strings of some snot-like substance. Joseph stepped forward, firing up his Lancer chainsaw, and promptly got showered in the stuff, including multiple sprays shooting up under his helmet to hit his face. He finished and staggered backward, gagging and pulling his helmet off, spitting out some that got in his mouth as it wiped it off his face and had to shake it off his fingers.
"So gross!" he gagged.
"Yeah, I'm definitely not kissing you while you're covered in that shit," Lizzie said.
"So, wait, you are together?" Kait asked.
"No," Lizzie said. "Why do you ask?"
Kait stared at her in silence for a long moment before speaking. "Let's...just go."
J.D. walked into the control room, pulling the lever to bring the tram down to them. "Okay, here we go."
Sparks began to fly from under the counter weight as it began to speed up quickly.
"Oh shit," J.D. said, diving out of the control room just before the tram crashed into it in a shower of sparks and glass. Everyone else, having fled from the impending crash in case it was more destructive than that, sighed in relief.
"Uh, the tram's here," J.D. said.
"Great," Joseph sighed. "Can't see this going wrong at all."
"Have faith," Lizzie said.
"Yeah," Kait said. "Maybe your bad luck's finally worn off."
"Uh, actually, that's not bad luck, that's the Carmine Family curse," Joseph corrected her as they all climbed onto the tram. He walked to the controls with everyone but Kait, who walked to the back to be alone, and pushed the lever forward to make the tram rise up the steep slope to the exit. However, as soon as he let go, the lever fell back down and the tram jerked to a stop. "Alright, fine." He pushed the lever up and leaned against the controls, picking his helmet up from the controls and shaking more of the grey snot out of it. "I'm so not putting this back on until I've cleaned it."
"Hey, we got this," Del said to J.D. quietly, nodding to Kait. "Go."
J.D. nodded, turning and walking over to comfort Kait, who was clearly worried about her mother, and Joseph turned to the front, he and the others remaining silent and ignoring their moment.
"Can't this thing go any faster?" Kait called out after a minute.
"Not with that counterweight dragging," Del said.
"Counterweight huh?" J.D. asked, grabbing his Lancer.
"J.D. no!" Joseph shouted as J.D. moved to cut the cable. "You'll make us-"
The cable exploded free, miraculously not hurting J.D., and the tram rocketed up the tracks before exploding into the top of it, hurling everyone toward the front, Joseph flying out the front window and crashing to the ground, rolling along until he hit a metal railing and stopped.
"Crash," Joseph groaned.
"I hate you!" Lizzie groaned.
"That was my first, and last, time on a funicular," Del said as they all stood.
"Funicu...huh?" J.D. shot him a confused look as they climbed out the front window of the tram after Joseph.
"Funicular," Del repeated, getting several funny looks. "What? It's a word."
"Let's just find that Snatcher," J.D. said.
They all turned, following him away from the tram, all keeping their eyes peeled for anything that wanted to kill them.
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