At the rate they were going, a sprint through hell would have probably been easier and faster.
The team traversed dilapidated avenues with weapons at the ready as Hayato kept watch, jumping from roof to roof as he spotted trouble.
Amidst the chaos, people were screaming and shoving in the roadways in utter abandon as cars swerved onto the sidewalk to avoid colliding with each other and nearly hitting frightened pedestrians.
With their armor and guns, many of the citizens looked at them with wide, desperate eyes, grabbing at them as they screamed to save their loved ones or for information on what was happening.
A few shots in the air scattered the mob surrounding them, but they were always close at their heels. They stayed just out of arm’s reach, still crying out and begging the team but not actively holding the team back from moving forward.
The humans were the least of their worries.
“Three o’clock! Contact!” Hayato shouted from above as a Hellhound came flying from a smoked-out alley, its claws raised and mouth open wide.
They were able to shoot while it was in the jump, but it still managed to tackle a Weaver to the ground and tried to bite into their exposed neck.
By some miracle, the Weaver managed to stumble to the right as the creature’s iron jaw bit down on their shoulder armor, the plating denting under the force but holding strong. Several shots rang out before the Hellhound went limp, and they could pull the Weaver from its lax jaws.
A Loupgarou, halfway between its humanoid and beastly form, launched itself from the same alley but met a grizzly fate as John stepped forward with his pickaxe and swung it like a baseball player hitting a home run.
Blood sprayed over them as his strike landed on its left clavicle, obliterating most of its still human neck and ripping its arm off.
“Jorōgumo, up top!”
A blood-curdling screech echoed over the road, the sound halfway between the scream of train brakes and a call of a Ring Wraith.
The team turned their guns on it too late as the creature, perched on the side of a building, shot a rope of sticky silk from the spinnerets on its arachnid abdomen.
Someone fired a weapon just as the creature’s web struck De Mar in the stomach. The Judge was lifted into the air, screaming, as several rounds ricocheted against its armored planting like an angry wasp.
The next thing anyone knew, Hayato was jumping from the roof, twin blades in hand, as he hit the weak points between plates near the beast’s neck.
It shrieked in pain, its body bending sharply. De Mar screamed as he plummeted to the ground, his fall broken by an orange tree before he hit a mangled bike hitch.
“Leta! Behind you!” Hayato shouted from above, ducking down to dodge the Jorōgumo claws as it tried to grab whatever had attacked it.
Leta activated Storm Step and launched herself into the air as the webs of another Jorōgumo made a sickening ‘splat’ right where she’d been standing.
The memories of the former masters whispered in her ear as her body became material long enough for her to hold her spear aloft and hurled it with the accuracy of an Olympic javelin throw.
The weapon glowed blue-white with heat as it cut the air with an audible hiss, striking the creature in the center of its chest and pinning it to the building facade.
It hissed and screamed as it clawed at the spear, but the super-heated metal burned its hands and its body until smoke was billowing from its mouth as it cooked from the inside out.
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Leta landed with barely a waver on the sidewalk as the memories of those that came before her murmured their secrets. Listening to their words, she held out her hand as she called the weapon back, the spear dislodging from the building to sail into her open grip as the body of the Jorōgumo crashed to the ground.
“De Mar’s hurt!”
Her head snapped around to see the young Healer at De Mar’s side, one hand glowing green as he held it over the piece of rebar that had stabbed into his abdomen just above his hip bone while the other pulled metal out and tossed it to the side.
“How bad is it?” Atreus’s words came between rounds of fire from his rifle.
“He’ll live, but he’s not walking anytime soon on his own.” The Healer called over his shoulder as the glow of his hands faded, leaving behind a fist-sized scabbed-over wound that looked extremely painful.
“Catrine. Gustaf.” Mic pointed to De Mar’s two assistants. “Help him up. We’ve got fifteen minutes to evac. Let’s move!”
“I can-”
“No.” Atreus cut her off. “It clearly affected you before. We need every combatant at full capacity. If he’s critically wounded, then yes, but until then, stay the course.”
De Mar was sweating while he gritted his teeth through the pain of being hoisted to his feet between his two assistants, but the only words out of his mouth were encouragement for his assistants to run.
They were in a straight sprint down the boulevard, dodging fleeing cars and Mundane citizens, crying in panic as creatures would growl from the side alleys, grabbing at those that were trying to flee and pulling them into the shadows. Occasionally, the Blessed would come forward to attack the team, but with so many screaming humans too panicked and crazed to activate the Golden Rule, they were more interested in the easy meals before them.
Leta slid over the hood of a car as they jumped the last wide roadway with her spear raised, her momentum carrying her blow as she skewered a half-turned Loupgarou before pushing forward to the parking lot of the stadium only a few meters away.
Compared to the fires and screams of the neighborhood streets, the eerie silence of the athletic complex was disconcerting. Only a handful of cars were left in the lot like haunting ghosts; their owners were nowhere to be seen and would possibly never return to collect them.
Ahead, construction lights illuminated part of the stadium to aid in roof repairs that had been abandoned just before the attack.
Atreus led the team to a service ramp for machinery. After a few rounds from their weapons, the door lock was breached, and they entered, guns pointing in various directions as they navigated a dark tunnel to the field.
There was a thick layer of dirt covering the former track and field ring. The heavy wires that had balanced the roof shade structures were gone, replaced with temporary supports left in place from replacing some of the ceiling sections.
“We need to get these vehicles moved for the Chinook to land.” Atreus pointed out.
Mic nodded. “Stefana! John!”
Some of the team ran forward, looking for keys to try to jump-start the machines to clear the area, while the rest of the crew kept their weapons pointed out, their eyes shifting around the building as they looked for possible danger.
One of the Warriors just opened the door of a bulldozer just as a Gremlin jumped from the cab. It’s cackling laughter following it as it dug its sharp claws into the Warriors face.
His scream of pain had them all snapping around just as a second Gremlin scurried from under a truck like a vicious rat.
One of the teams on overwatch got his weapon up fast enough to shoot it when a second Warrior grabbed a bludgeoning weapon and swung it hard, his blow landing on its back with a sickening crack.
It howled in pain before the Warrior it had been trying to carve up got hold of his dagger and sliced its head off.
The younger Healer was soon at his side checking him over.
“You alright, Huron?”
“No, I’m bloody not.” He spat through the blood that coated his face from several deep cuts.
“We’ve come so far, and you nearly got done in by a gremlin right at the finish line.” The Healer chuckled as he put his hands on the man’s temples.
“Just get on with it,” Huron growled with a wince at the Healer’s touch.
Mic put down his phone before turning to Atreus. “We were late but they were slightly delayed. They’re just entering Athens’s airspace. Our military contact delivered, but according to radio chatter, several Costezian ships are in the northern South Euboean Gulf, and the helicopters are short of fuel for Sofia. They’ll need to stop at the Hellenic Air Force base in Larissa.”
Atreus nodded, taking out his smartphone quietly as he started relaying the information to his contact.
She could hear large helicopter blades chopping through the sky, getting closer and closer until it sounded like whatever was coming was right on top of them.
From above, Leta watched as the nose of the Chinook resembled a zeppelin pushing into view, the Apache circling the stadium as it kept watch of any rogue aircraft.