“It’s only going to get worse from here…” said Streaker. The camera feed of the drones did not show much clarity but the sounds of gunfire and bloodshed were more than enough.
“We know,” said Aaliyah. She only had the thermal imaging provided by the Saber drones to go by, but that was more than enough for her to know who to heal. The plasma carbines also gave off immense heat, which let her know where to place her bubbles. She had brought the Star Cross with her; she was unable to bring out its power in practice, but gripped it tightly nonetheless.
“More people are going to die.” Streaker slowed the swing of a mace trap.
“All the more reason for you to focus.” Aaliyah counteracted the venom inside the bitten knights.
“She couldn’t beat him before.”
“Do you have a better idea?”
Streaker was silenced by that remark. The knights continued to press forward, the operators continued to provide support with the drones, and the mutants continued to protect the personnel from harm, all without the faintest clue how much progress was being made. All they could do was keep moving forward with the hope that they would see an end to it.
The boats plodded alongside the advance. They carried those with more severe injuries for Aaliyah to heal, as well as munitions for the knights to keep stocked with. Cryo-grenades flushed out the enemy and provided cover; the shock pikes were used against the snakes, but they were brought with the expectation of more monsters coming into play. There were no eyes on GalvanGal, but the crack of thunder could be heard beyond the camera feed.
The crack of gunfire rattled the exterior of the mobile center. Streaker was distracted, but Aaliyah remained focused on the injured in the marsh. One camera feed was from a drone stationed at this dock, and it turned to face the source of the attack.
From the forestry around them came common criminals: those empowered by the immortals after swearing fealty. They were almost always fodder to distract from the real objective and their equipment reflected that fact. They were armed with pistols and personal defense weapons, and only a few could afford body armor over their t-shirts and jeans.
They fired haphazardly from their flimsy cover. Usually, they would not have the capacity to challenge any kind of military installation. The soldiers could handle it on their own and promptly engaged in returning fire.
Shadows lifted from the ground and flew across the sky on jet-black wings. Gargoyles. Their blood-red eyes, along with their wings and tails, evoked the visage of the Chupacabra. Monsters. The soldiers had only heard of them in bone-chilling reports. Now a gallery haunted the dock.
They were not as powerful as the Chupacabra. Their claws could not tear apart metal, they bled from bullets as easily as any mortal beast, and they could not turn invisible. The gangsters should have easily been out-maneuvered by the trained, supplied, and coordinated soldiers. But together, they covered for each other's weaknesses in an otherworldly combination that defied modern tactics.
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The gangsters’ spray of bullets made the soldiers take cover. That suppression gave the gargoyles free rein to swoop in from above and sides; a swipe of their claws sliced open gnashes through kevlar and their strength tossed the soldiers around to break bones. The soldiers inside the building were safer, but they could not all retreat to it without endangering the mobile center.
Streaker slowed down the gargoyles as they swooped in to strike. The lag made them miss their opportunities and left them vulnerable to being shot. One private was protected as he manned the turret of a Humvee. The mounted Browning was enough to swat the gargoyles out of the sky and the shield deflected the bullets from the gangsters.
But the gangsters had taken the opportunity to encircle the dock. In a better position now, they brought out a new weapon: rocket launchers. The warhead tips that peaked out of the bushes were barely realized on the distant camera feed of the drone.
They were lined up from all angles and aimed at multiple targets. The humvees, the building, the mobile center, the dock itself. With coordination that could have only come from telepathic support, they all fired their rockets at once.
A bubble went up around the mobile center and the building in time to block most of the rockets. Smoke and fire clawed up the wall of light before they dissipated. The gargoyles fared no better in their attempt to ram or gnaw on the bubble. The dock and all the unoccupied humvees were destroyed.
Aaliyah had turned her attention from the main strike force to protect the support team. She kept up the healing but only with the fraction of power she had left for it. As long as this bubble was up, nothing could enter.
Florida was a miserably hot and humid place at the best of times, so the air conditioning inside the mobile center and the building was strained for comfort. A sudden wave of heat drowned out that comfort as the bubble was filled with a chromatic haze.
Skin started burning up from the inside before sweat could react, and when it did, they gasped in thirst from the dehydration. They tugged their shirts to fan for the wind as the air shriveled up around them. The soldiers threw down their scalding guns and tore off their constricting armor.
The operators and mutants were being steamed inside the mobile center. Streaker knew of only one person who could be boiling them like sitting ducks. The only thing that was not melting was the Little Birdie that landed on everyone’s shoulders.
“Surrender,” the voice echoed in their heads, “come out with your hands up and this can end.”
Todd—no, Srenika was the true successor to Angel. His heat could incapacitate and kill entire armies; it was not exactly precise, but it still had the elegance to not destroy the valuable equipment and facilities those armies were surrounded with.
It had the added benefit of penetrating nearly all defenses, like this holy bubble. If the need does arise, on the occasion that mere heat is not enough, the full destructive potential of fire has more than proven itself throughout history.
The only one who could wade through an inferno unscathed was currently tied up in the marsh, along with the rest of the cryogenics they could muster. Cutting off the support would leave the convoy stranded, vulnerable to being whittled down. Soon all of this will be over.
Even sooner, he would see his brother again. Kenny was here. Soon, he would emerge. Soon, he would see the last step of a world that was walking dead. Soon, together, they would witness the birth of the future.
The bubble fell. The door of the mobile center opened. A blurred streak came out and a boot planted on Srenika’s face. He was sent tumbling away from the gangsters at his sides into the forest. Before he could get up, a small bubble raised around. When he finally used his elbow to push himself up, the only other person in the bubble with him was The Streaker.