When Reece rejoined his companions, what he saw before them completely evaporated his worries about his gift...and his curse. Undead were everywhere. They must not have known where to look, because they seemed to be canvassing the area, searching for them. Even as Reece took this all in, he realized they had already spotted the trio and were collapsing upon them all at once. There were easily a couple hundred of the Z’s between them and their jet.
“We need to get to the Phoenix!” screamed Pasha. “It’s our only hope of getting out of here alive!”
Reece chose to try and use his gift to help them escape by inspiring them and bolstering their spirits.
“Aika...Pasha, we need to clear a path to it then. Alright, stay tight, and let’s plow the road!”
Saying it was one thing, doing it was something else. Reece needed this to work for all their sakes. So, he did the only thing he could and charged headlong into the mass of hungry rotting corpses, hacking and slashing his saber at any Z that came close. A part of him even wanted them to take him down and finish him off.
Yet, he could feel it working, his gift, and it strengthened him and invigorated him as he continued downing one zombie after another as he continuously moved forward. He felt invincible, but he knew he wasn’t. There were too many of them and they had begun to encircle him.
It wasn’t long before three rushed him at once. He managed to slay two of them, but the third tackled him to the ground and more started grabbing at him as he struggled and rolled to keep the rotting people from biting him and ending all his worries forever.
Somewhere beyond the press of rotting bodies, Reece heard a battle cry. He had dropped his saber and was keeping the grabbing Z’s at bay with kicks, elbows, and punches but didn’t have long before one got through his defenses. Then, the throng of wriggling corpses began to give way to daylight as Aika and Pasha flanked him. The steady hum of gunfire from Pasha laid waste to Z’s almost as fast as Aika’s dual katanas and her inhuman speed.
It took only a few seconds for them to clear a circle around Reece, giving him a moment to collect his saber from the blood and rotting meat that now stained the field. They traversed the rest of it to see the jet only a couple dozen meters away.
“Thanks,” Reece muttered before rejoining the melee.
Reece took a moment to glance across the landscape and saw hundreds of Z’s scrambling and scuttling towards them, closing the distance quickly.
“We need to hurry,” yelled Reece to his companions.
Aika took a deep breath, let loose with a battle cry, and charged forward. Her speed and strength combined with her skill stopped Reece and Pasha in their tracks momentarily. They quickly recovered and sprinted through the swath of destruction she had made in the enemies’ ranks. Pasha activated the ramp with his remote once they got close.
Aika brought her katanas down on two Z’s in her way, twisted her blades in their necks, and swept both swords outwards, decapitating the last two Z’s between them and the jet. The path was clear, for about a second. Reece was able to make it halfway up the ramp by the time the ‘wave’ of zombies blindsided them from around the other side of an ancient berm. Reece hacked down two Z’s that managed to make it past Aika, but Pasha was swarmed and disappeared under a pile of ravenous ghouls.
Aika’s katanas hummed as she stuck zombie after zombie in rapid succession. Reece sprinted into the jet and grabbed two more guns from the weapons rack, both already loaded with 300-round magazines of incendiary rounds. Aika was keeping the Z‘s at bay, but the sheer number of them was forcing her back up the ramp in a slow retreat. As soon as Reece reached the ramp he kneeled and took aim with one of the rifles.
“Down!” he yelled. Aika turned inhumanly fast, saw Reece with the gun, and swiftly hit the deck.
Reece didn’t worry about aiming, the incendiary nature and the sheer number of the rounds would make aiming pointless. He merely squeezed the trigger and held it down as he unloaded the entire large clip into every zombie within view. Seconds later, the entire area around the front of the ramp was covered in burning zombies, some lying still while others still thrashed within the fire. Once he ran out, he dropped the gun and picked up the second. This time he aimed, taking out zombies more strategically.
“He needs more time,” yelled Reece to Aika.
She nodded, clearly understanding what Reece had done. He learned quickly that a phoenix’s body must be burned before it could resurrect itself. The incendiary rounds hadn’t just eliminated most of the zombies around them but had burned everything in the area, including Pasha’s body.
Aika leaped back down the ramp and stood between Pasha’s burning corpse and the host of zombies trying to get around the flames. Reece continued to add more flames to the fire as he pumped more and more rounds into the oncoming zombies, with Aika cleaning up the few that made it through his hail of bullets. Reece’s second gun eventually ran dry, so he dropped the expended weapon and charged back down the ramp with his sabre drawn to defend Pasha’s body.
Just as he reached Aika’s side, a female arm punched itself out of the ashy remains of Pasha’s male form. Reece quickly changed tactics. Sheathing his saber, he grabbed the female arm and pulled the completely nude female version of Pasha from the ashes and into a standing position before throwing the stunned woman into a fireman’s carry and hauling her up the ramp and into the jet.
Somehow, she had managed to grab the jet’s singed remote and clicked the button on it to close the ramp. Aika continued to defend the open ramp until the last moment, then she jumped into the jet through the rapidly closing opening and guarded it until it had closed completely. It wasn’t long before they could hear zombies banging on the jet from the outside, trying to get in.
“We need to take off now... before the Z’s permanently ground the phoenix.,” explained Reece with sudden urgency.
Pasha nodded her head and leaped up, her bare breasts on display. At any other time, it may have been amusing, but they were in real trouble and needed to move fast. Pasha ran to the cockpit and belted in. Reece did the same while Aika secured the stray guns and gear before buckling herself in as well. Pasha’s fingers flew across the console in a familiar pattern as she prepped the jet for a vertical take-off.
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Reece noted that regardless of which form Pasha took, he/or she was the same person. That was bitter-sweet knowledge. Pasha may not have changed, but their relationship most definitely had.
With Pasha flying it, the jet lurched slowly off the ground, held down by several Z’s that had managed to climb onto the vehicle. With a normal take-off failing, he spun the jet around in fast circles. Reece suddenly had motion sickness but noticed Z’s falling off the jet from the centrifugal force created by the jet’s fast spin.
Reece smiled grimly as he noted burn marks from the spin as the energy expelled from the thrusters scorched the zombies and earth underneath them as its spin continued. Between five and ten seconds later, Pasha fully engaged the thrusters. The jet shot forward, expelling the last of the undead from its surface and leaving the ground far behind.
“Alright, where to now?” asked the now female Pasha, “And could you find me some clothes, pretty please?”
“Head for Cape Canaveral,” answered Reece, “I’ll try and find you something to wear.”
Pasha set a course for the Cape and put the jet on autopilot while Reece unbuckled himself and started going through the storage areas on the jet. He was able to find several flight suits in a metal armoire bolted to the left wall of the YF-77 and found one that looked like a good fit. He approached the front of the cockpit and closing his eyes, he handed the suit to Pasha.
“Thanks,” she told him as she took the suit and began slipping into it, “Uh, is there a larger suit?”
“No, sorry,” replied Reece. “There’s a couple of men’s suits and another one for women, but it’s even smaller than this one.”
“Ahh, okay,” moaned Pasha, “In that case, could you find me a safety pin?”
“Yeah, I think so,” Reece said as he went to a sewing kit he had come across while looking for the clothing.
Rummaging through the sewing kit, Reece retrieved a large safety pin and handed it to Pasha who used it on the front of her suit. Turning around, she presented herself to her two comrades.
“Be honest,” she asked earnestly, “How do I look?”
The black suit was snug, but far too tight to cover her firm bosom. Instead, Pasha had safety-pinned the zipper as high up as she could. Unfortunately, this left the middle of her chest exposed, bordering on the limits of decency. Aika giggled to herself, while Reece tried looking everywhere but her chest. The moment helped release some of the tension that had recently built up between them.
“Is it really that bad?” asked Pasha, noticing the reactions of her companions.
“No, it’s a bit much, but it’s fine,” answered Aika as she tried to stop giggling. “It’s just that I happen to know what you are going through. I had a similar experience aboard the Zhengzhou. Perhaps you remember?”
“Ah, yeah...vaguely,” replied Pasha, her smile indicating that she remembered quite well.
“It’s uh... actually kinda sexy, which is why I’m having trouble looking at you,” cut in Reece with his explanation. “I’ve known you as a guy for so long, that this is kinda weird for me. That’s all.”
“Ahh, alright,” stated Pasha, not sounding at all convinced. “Whatever you say. It’ll have to do, for now.”
Suddenly, a loud thump rocked the jet... then another. Reece and Pasha sprinted to the cockpit and Pasha examined the console while Reece checked the windshield.
“We don’t appear to have sustained any damage, yet,” informed Pasha as Reece scanned the field of view out the jet’s windshield.
A huge winged form sailed through the air in front of the jet and turned to ram them.
“Look out, gargoyles!” cried Reece at noticing the huge creature.
Pasha instantly took the manual stick control and spun the jet, narrowly avoiding the charging creature. As soon as they cleared it, she checked the jet’s persistent radar screen that appeared filled with unidentified objects.
“We’ve got a lot of company,” stated Pasha nervously. “I’m going to max out our speed.”
Pasha fully energized the thrusters and the jet leaped forward, throwing Reece back and into his seat. As the jet sped away, Reece buckled himself back into the seat.
“Uh, we have a problem,” warned Pasha.
“What’s that?” asked Aika and Reece at the same time.
“Well,” Pasha began to explain, “They seem to be keeping up somehow. I’m not going to be able to lose them and there are far too many to try and shoot them all out of the sky.”
“How on the earth are they moving so fast?” asked Reece.
“I don’t know, but if you have any bright ideas, now would be the time,” answered Pasha excitedly. “Otherwise, it’s going to get interesting, and not in a good way. Bad. Very bad.”
Looking around the cockpit as he racked his brain, Reece’s eyes went to the helmets he had told Aika about earlier.
“Aika,” Reece called as he picked up the headgear and slipped it over his head, “Grab your helmet. We’ll use the guns to give us some breathing space.”
Aika nodded and grabbed the helmet under her seat and put it on. Reece indicated the power button on his helmet, and he pressed it. Aika followed suit. The helmets powered up in a couple of seconds and a list of paired devices appeared as a list on the display appearing on the inside of the helmets’ face-covers.
Reece moved his head until the screen reticle lined up with one of the tail guns, picking the one on his side of the jet, the left. Aika chose the one on the right, and Reece saw it disappear from the selection list. It took a second for the screen to load, but then his view was filled with flying bat-like monsters, much larger than the gargoyles he had previously encountered.
Each one looked a bit different and they were fitted with riding saddles. He noticed that all of them carried one or more riders, some of which looks like they may be human. One thing they had in common was that they looked like someone had taken a bat and sliced opened its body, stitching it around the body of another type of animal; such as lizards, snakes, and mutated zombies. The bat head and face of each one seemed to have been melted onto the heads of the creatures they were stitched onto.
These things weren’t natural in any sense of the word. They were cooked up in a lab. There appeared to be hundreds of them, and they were mere meters behind the YF-77 Phoenix.
Reece picked up his firing control and used the movement of his head to aim at the nearest creature before clicking the left button on the control. Reece could hear the muffled sound of gunfire from behind him at the same time several holes burst into the body of the targeted creature. It screamed as it plummeted from the sky, a sound that Reece could just barely make out.
Aika had watched Reece and was figuring her gun out. She was a quick study and within a few seconds, had blown another of the creatures out of the sky. Now that they both had gotten a feel for the operation of the guns, they began laying waste to the closest creatures to their field of view. The flying beasts learned quickly too and backed off, just out of range of the deadly guns.
“Switch to the wing guns,” yelled Reece as he followed his own advice.
As soon as his display came up, Reece saw five or six of the creatures coming in for a flanking attack. He quickly got his bearings with the new gun and shot them all out of the sky. From the gunbursts nearby, Aika had done the same. With the immediate threat neutralized, Reece swapped from gun to gun and used his head to check their surroundings.
“Pasha, what does the radar show?” Reece called out.
“There’s still a motherload of them,” replied Pasha, “But it looks like they’ve all backed off a bit. Nice job.”
Reece switched back to the tail guns and aimed at one. His gun indicated that he was too far out of range to make an effective shot. He pressed the middle button instead. Suddenly, the reticle he had focused on the closest of the flyers began to replicate itself across ten more in the first flyer’s immediate vicinity.
Reece let off the button, and a missile shot out towards the closest flyer. About halfway to the target, the missile broke into numerous smaller missiles, each speeding towards a target of their own. As soon as each small projectile reached its destination, it exploded, bringing down each of the flyers that had been targeted. The other flyers backed off even more.
“I think we have some breathing room now,” announced Reece, “But as soon as we try and land, they’ll be all over us. If we can’t lose them, we’ll need another plan.”
“We don’t have any assets in this area,” said Aika, shaking her head.
Reece looked over at her and saw the worry on her face. Their options were limited. It seemed like this Order had agents everywhere. Reece racked his brain for an idea.
“Pasha. How far are we from the Cape?” inquired Reece, looking at Pasha.