The farther Stefan’s feet carried him, the more foreign the concept of time seemed to him. All he could process were the sights of buildings all around him up in flames, the corpses of his own Black Shield comrades and the innocent people of Marius soaking its streets red in blood along with some of the invading Angels, the fleeting figures of survivors running in the opposite direction as him. But for whatever reason, he continued to sprint with no twists or turns, even though he was the only one headed that way.
The sounds of clashing blades and bodies slamming onto the floor told him that the battle was not yet over. Although Angels tended to keep their battles short but unforgettable, he could tell this one wasn’t over.
I need to regroup.
The scenery around him transitioned gradually from a street underneath a gloomy grey sky to an abyss of fog, only the bright orange of the fires on both sides guiding his path. The clashes got louder and louder, and the bullets sounded closer and closer.
Then, the road came to an end. It had stopped. Stefan quickly took a scan of the blurred landscape, and confirmed that he had reached a cul-de-sac, where the street and town ended. But what was perhaps more eerie was that the bullets and clashes came to sudden end. Time abruptly sped up, and he wanted to panic. But there was simply no time to.
Blood squelched underneath his thick black leather boots as he tried to come to an understanding of where he was. The fog had dissipated slightly, and he immediately gazed upon the nearest fully visible sight—the corpse of a slain Black Shield soldier. Or, the upper half, at least. They were supposed to fight together. They were comrades. Then, across the road, a pile of bloody, shattered black masks met his horrified gaze. Scattered around practically wherever his eyes wandered were the mangled and severed limbs of the former owners of their masks, marinating in their own blood.
Stefan immediately took two long leaps backwards, understanding that what he had gotten into was not what he thought it was initially. The battle on this part of Marius had not been a fight. It had been a massacre.
“Stand down, asset. We have already killed all members of your resistance that came across this site, and you’re alone,” said a loudspeaker wielding Titanian bearing the medals of a colonel on his left breast. “It would be wise to drop your weapons and place your hands behind your head.”
How do they know…? Even with this mask…
“Make me.” he nevertheless said in defiance.
Bodies landed before him on their feet from the roofs of the houses, where up to 30 Angels had been standing and watching him.
Do I fight, or do I run? Where do I go? Do I have a chance of making it out? There’s so many of them… even with just those 20 in the forest with Gareth and I—
A gloved hand gently placed itself on Stefan’s shoulder. The boy whipped his head around to see another Black Shield member that had arrived just in time.
“No time for introductions,” the young male soldier said. His voice was deep, and his body was great in stature, although he couldn’t have been more than four years older than the boy. “Let’s take down as much of the bastards who killed our friends as we can!”
“You resist… then so be it!” the Colonel said, which was the signal for his platoon to come rushing towards them. They went after the more visible, larger target initially, while simultaneously trying to look for Stefan who’d disappeared in the ensuing chaos. The Angels came at him in trios, but hopping from foot to foot, using his own primitive rifle to keep them back, he was able to keep most of them away while gunning down the ones that dared to get too close to him. The ones that weren’t hit by his bullets were sliced down by Stefan’s low and agile form, using his small size to move between them and slash as many as he could, while hoping the rest wouldn’t get too close to his comrade.
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This isn’t a bad tactic, but we can’t keep it up for too long.
It didn’t take long for Stefan to become weary, however. He’d sliced through twelve of them, and only a miracle would allow him to even take down two more.
“You two, stand down! I will handle the rest!” a familiar south Yeupisian voice called out.
The sound of bone and flesh being swiftly cut through entered Stefan’s ears, followed by heads clattering against the stone road, and feet landing.
“Jay?” Stefan wondered aloud, before the soldier who’d joined him pulled him away using his bulky arms, having used the distraction of the Black Shield superior to redirect the Angels’ attention away.
“You disobeyed the Anbieter’s ordered, sheesh,” the soldier said in disappointment. “You’re insanely lucky that he ordered me to run after you.”
“W-Who are you? Why are we leaving Jay out on his own?” Stefan asked in desperation, unable to fathom that a man he was fond of had to fight by himself.
“The name’s Meinrad Glynn,” he said with a more upbeat tone as he carried Stefan over his shoulder. “And don’t worry about Jay, he can hold his own for a bit. Besides, the Anbieter should be sending Company C out by now.”
“Are you sure he’ll be alright?”
“He’s our second in command for a reason.” Meinrad smiled underneath his mask, which did not cover his short, straight brown hair.
Despite Meinrad’s reassurances, Stefan worried over his second leader, and the fates of the two middle-aged brothers he’d promised to get help for.
--
Leon stood back along with the dozen or so other medics, awaiting orders from the Anbieter to safely move into the town and provide medical aid. He shifted from foot to foot, anxiously wishing to return to his town, to see its people, and offer a comforting hand.
“The western two-thirds of Marius have been cleared of Angels,” the Anbieter finally announced to his medics. “Go out and help the good people!”
Lugging his bag of first aid supplies, he knew that it wouldn’t be enough to provide substantial help to anyone in need. All he could do was stabilize them until they could get to a proper centre for care. In the case of Marius, it would be his own grandfather’s clinic. As he followed his fellow medics through the streets and between the alleys, he did his best to not let his grandparents’ potential statuses worry him as he wrapped wounds and removed debris from the skin of dozens of patients. He transported them to the front steps of the clinic, where the combat members of the Black Shield would then take the patients inside as they built a makeshift infirmary inside. He had no idea what Dr. Bernard was doing, but frankly it was for the best. For all he knew, he could’ve been injured yet would still have to attend to patients as he was the town’s only doctor. Thankfully, Leon had been trained to block out as many distracting thoughts as he could for the sake of the people in his care.
“We’ve got one over here!” a combatant cried out, poking his head out of the alley for any nearby medics. “It’s looking pretty bad.”
“Any guesses of the age and sex?” Leon asked.
“Female, probably middle-aged or senior.” the soldier surmised despite his lack of medical expertise.
“Alright, let me take a look.” Leon said, tightening the bandana that he wore around his lower face which was standard for Black Shield medics as he moved past his comrade.
It was clear that the woman had been lying on her side in the alley for some time, as the blood began to pool around her slight body. The metallic smell of the substance wafted to Leon’s nose despite it being covered, which was something he was all too used to. The substance which was supposed to support her life was now apparent through the wheezes she made as she breathed laboriously. There was no doubt in Leon’s mind that at least one of the woman’s major arteries had been cut. Her green sweater and long brown skirt were drenched in the red liquid which mostly emerged from her abdomen, although the injury wasn’t immediately visible to Leon as she faced away from him. He knew that she if she hadn’t lost consciousness already, she would very soon. And keeping her conscious was key to keeping her alive.
“You, get me a stretcher and another medic if you can!” Leon demanded of the Black Shield soldier with him, who promptly complied and bolted away to the command centre, made quickly to meet recovery and rescue efforts in the middle of town by the Shield.
He quickly knelt at the woman’s side but didn’t move her in fear of injuring her even more.
“Ma’am, if you can hear my voice, please stay awake!” he pleaded in a soft voice but with urgency.
“Leon… I feel… cold.” she said, just barely audibly.