CC sat in disbelief, and Barboora cried hard on Creena's shoulder. The breached metal spilled on the floor in white shards. The room they were in was empty, with only one easily breakable barricaded door blocking their way. Cronus held his chest, which caused heavy amounts of pain from colliding with the concrete floor. CC only stood, silent.
She had to snap back to reality along with everyone else when a hurrying group of footsteps started to rush down the stairs in their vicinity. Cronus grabbed his pistol, pointed at the barricade, and fired recklessly.
CC tried to butt in to stop him, but four moaning sounds signified that they were all most likely dead. To confirm, she threw her drone at the barricaded window. Piercing it and flipping it, she saw horribly that the bodies were actually all dead. His indiscriminate firing luckily did point-blank headshots.
"That wasn't luck,” Cronus said, noticing her surprise. “My eyes have a permanent infrared vision, so I knew exactly when to fire and at what time.”
Barboora, with her teary eyes, stood up and picked up her rifle. Smashing through the barricades before steering right and left for any enemies. The room looked like a break room, with a fridge, couches, and an open door leading to some bunk beds. The room was strangled with furniture and mattresses flipped on their sides. Blankets ended up on the windows with smoked bullet holes, leaving a gashed appearance.
"You think they are all upstairs,” Creena asked.
Cronus and CC looked up. Their eyes were trying to give an accurate view of who was above and who was close by.
Cronus pointed his shotgun and fired.
Without warning, a man fell so suddenly that his legs, which had bullet wounds, caused his blood to spill out. Bursting on the floor, he panicked, using his arms to crawl away.
Barboora gripped his wrist. Holding it so tight that his bones started to crack under the pressure. CC’s instinct kicked in when she was learning how to be a leader. The first rule her father taught her was to always be the first to take charge.
So she did. Her boots were slamming on his foot, with her rifle pointing at his face. Barboora and Bronus covered each other’s vulnerable flank positions, with a barrel always pointing to the open hatch to catch another one off guard.
"Tell me right now.” She said in standard English, with her aggressive tone, “Where are everyone’s locations?""
The man stuttered, pointing his finger in a direction above the hatch, silently. Betraying his comrades, he had just signaled indirectly where they were by pointing with his eyes also.
They fired a rifle at his dome, sure enough to catch the attention of the ones firing above. CC looked down at his dead body, with the smoking barrel coming from Creena’s weapon. CC did not react or even try to fight back against her decision. It was hers and hers only to work her weapon in that way. Another rule of leadership was to never interfere in situations that could work in the long run. Building trust with your comrades while also showing your productive decision-making.
The two started to nod to each other. Hearing the footsteps creak over the stairs yet not coming down. So the group was going to split. Cronus was going to walk up the stairs alone, with CC going to the hatch and Barboora flanking from the bunker side to try and catch anyone off guard. The team smiled at each other, except Cronus, who kept a straight face.
She saw the hurt in their eyes and the meaning behind their silence. Their leader had died and was now one of their trusted allies, but they were all soldiers. Even though it seemed so unrealistic, they were accepting this grief very well. Maybe way too well.
CC looked at the hatch powering her boots. She jumped but realized she had made a grave mistake. Her eyes saw the crouched soldiers, whose own eyes widened in gleam, seeing the reptile jump right in front of them. Then she smiled, tightened her body, and the bullets deflected off of her. Defense Mechanism: Hatch.
Her crocodile-like appearance was not bulletproof. Noticing his weapon, she knew that his weapon was a type of fire, so if she could minimize the damage, she could rush at him and maul him down.
Her hands stretched, and her claws dug deep into his face as he screamed. Cronus took that as a signal to turn from his peek and fire into two enemy soldiers. Barboora broke through the other stairs and threw explosives recklessly into a barricaded door.
CC had no time to think about her actions after seeing the man's burst face, leaving blood on the floor. Her ears rang at the explosion, and she turned her rifle to the now-destroyed door. She fired bullets into him, then jumped into a prone state. Seeing two confused and dazed soldiers, she fired into them also, and they both fell to the floor in disbelief and death.
They all looked around and saw no soldiers around them. Happy enough, CC cocked her weapon back into her bag before hearing a similar panting noise. She looked behind her to see Creena and Cronus standing over the heavy breaths made by Barboora. Her ribs were bleeding, and her eyes turned bloodshot. She had gotten too close to her explosion.
"Yo, Creena, you think I’ll be alright?"
Creena just crouched down with a straight face and nodded her head from side to side.
Barboora smiled, letting her hand go in front of her, touching Creena’s shoulder.
"If there was anybody I would fight within this world, it would be you.” She smiled happily.
Cronus did not react; he just stared as her eyes started to fade to black. Creena looked at her and pressed her hands on her chest silently. Finally, she was not speaking, becoming intensely serious about saving her friend.
"LET ME GRAB THE PILLS!” screamed CC, releasing her hand to go look in her bag's side pocket. Creena’s tears flowed down her cheek as she tried to desperately start to reboot her life and bring her back. Still, her eyes kept dozing off.
Creena picked up Barboora by her shoulder and dragged her across the floor with her feet dangling, floating slightly above the wooden pallets.
"She wouldn't have been in this situation if it weren't for you; if you were never here, she could have a better chance to live.” Creena blamed herself, her eyes filled with anger, looking right at CC.
"Well, you guys wanted to be soldiers’ CC ran to her face, expressing her authority. Even through her pitch-black mask, Creena could understand not to mess with her: “Imagine being a laughing stock of the war; imagine your efforts going to vain because you did not want to fight. There…are…sacrifices.” CC said, grabbing her right shoulder.
Barboora shook at the tap and muttered to herself. She tried to speak, but her lips would not let her as she blabbered on some type of topic.
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"Still, you would kill others for the greater sake, huh?" Creena interrogated.
CC paused, not knowing what to say, so she just walked away, leaving only her hand in the middle. She could not act strong. What the hell was she doing?
Creena looked at her back, confused, and Cronus walked up to her. He opened Barboora’s mouth as she tried to retaliate, but her body was too weak to swat the pills away. She swallowed them disgustingly, and her eyes drifted as her eyelids fell over her pupils, sending her to sleep.
Gunfire still rained on the roof above them; that was the only reason they could not have been caught yet. On their left and right were open doors with lots of guns, ammunition, and a shitton of explosives.
"She's right, Creena,” Cronus told her to watch CC peep out the window.
"It does not matter; Dan just died; Barboora is very close too, yet we came too far to turn around now. So what do we leave her for dead and get out of here?” She questioned.
"I understand sacrifices are needed, but come one. She’s the leader and the expert. We have to accept that she is not Leo.”
Creena's eyes stared deep into Cronu's, and he stared back as deep as hers. Both their eyes pierced each other, ever-watching.
"Don't use his name in such a way. He may have lagged like the rest of us, and maybe his head was not in the right place, but he was empathetic and happy. She is just a woman trying to take the lead for a group that was already cut by so much.”
Cronus ignored her and walked up to CC. Whose eyes beamed to see the soldiers firing? She looked at her belt and grabbed a virtual flare. Looking at the soldiers, she fired it up and looking back at Cronus, she slammed the symbol into the window before closing the curtains.
A few soldiers saw the signal and felt relieved; they were safe for the most part. Still, they knew this ragtag group would not get far. Cronus’s brother fell asleep in a comatose state. His head felt deep into the slanted rocks that blunted into the back of his neck. Still, he felt nothing, and he was not in a dangerous state. His vision became black, and the last thing he remembered was Dan sacrificing himself for the group.
The boy cried with his eyes closed as the other soldiers just sat next to him.
"Hey, little man.” A soldier said he was tapping his shoulder.
Crane woke up; his head pecked over the cover, and the other soldier ducked his head down. Right at the last second, a bullet whizzed over Crane’s head with the smoky ash coming from the burnt rock.
"Yo kid, be careful, your stupid ass was about to get hurt.” The clear-skinned reptile said. He had to duck lower because of how elongated his neck was. The other man chuckled.
"You sure had a quick scoop there, boy. Yo group is probably dead soon anyway, so don't even sleep, man, just think and get it over with.” The other men said it inhumanely.
"No, my brother will live,” Crane said.
"Man, if we could not get through there, No one can, surprising they made it this far, but don't expect something huge like a big miracle man.” The man smiled again, rubbing his hair.
Crane stared into the man's eyes; tears erupted from his rifle while he hugged it.
The two soldiers looked at each other, contemplating what to say.
"Hey, at least they got the signal, meaning they're safe now.” One soldier smiled.
The other smacked his helmet.
"Can you just say some reassuring words?"
"The hell does that mean?"
Then, right on top of that, an explosion broke through the roof, and the soldiers peeked out of their covers for a moment to see the group fighting the soldiers at the top of the building.
Creena dragged Barboora's disoriented body under cover while she fired with only one hand. Her bullets bounced everywhere, but she managed to get one lucky headshot.
CC and Cronus pushed off a few more soldiers, and now there were only a few left. They were big and strong, and their plates were huge. No one knew how to defeat them.
"So who are these dudes?" Cronus asked.
"Caldera's toughest, a special regimen, which has made it hard for them to surrender this armory.
The men threw explosives that barely missed by a few meters. Cronus and CC sat next to each other. Leaving their arms to pop out the top of the container they were using as cover to fire.
These soldiers weren't like the other ones. They were silent and calculating; they were also ready to kill. Gunfire started to rain on them from below, and their weaknesses were shown as gunfire rained on them like the northern lights.
"Still, we won, right?" Cronus laughed.
Still, as karma would strike it, one of the soldiers ran across the roof field. A cover fire rained, and Madam Bourget could not stop the situation. The soldier grabbed Barboora and Creena and held them with a gun to their heads. Creena, taken by surprise, retaliated, kicking and trying to bite the man, but it was no use.
The pistol hit their heads and smacked her to a state where her eyes rapidly moved, trying to figure out her situation.
"Nobody moves or else she will die; trust me, do not even try and fight me on this.” The man screamed.
CC and Cronus sat looking, nodding at each other. The two held their hands in the air with a signal facing the back, telling the soldiers on the ground to stop raining fire on the enemies. The white signal confused the soldiers; they were still perplexed and fired but were stopped by their comrades next to them. The enemies on the roof stopped firing as well and looked at the situation in front of them.
"Okay, you got her; now what do you want?” CC asked, and Creena slithered her hand, elongating down her pocket. The soldier next to her is not noticing.
"We keep her as a hostage; these two seem to be very valuable and strong soldiers. So we can negotiate some sort of deal.” The man grunted.
CC and Cronus looked at each other, knowing the truth, but they still went along with what the man had to say.
"So get your men out of this radius right now; we spare her, and we are offered safekeeping from any of your enemies. Well, enough time for us to set proper defenses, of course.” The man smiled.
Barboora's eyelids flicker up. Seeing Creena captured, she almost ran to her for help. Creena’s foot smacked her as her eyes looked at Barboora while she made a shushing sound. She pulled out of her pocket a remote bomb.
"Fine, we will do that. Let me just."
"Then take Barboora.”
The man nodded his head, motioning to another soldier who grabbed Barboora's body before tossing it into Cronus’s arms.
The three of them moved backward; slowly, they reached the edge of the building.
Without warning, in the mountains, kilometers away from Caldera, a burst of energy broke through the clouds. The land around it suffered as CC could see from the distance; the energy of a golden light broke through the sky as a means to try and shatter it. Everyone paused and let everything go, except Creena, who could not be focused on the light.
She looked at the remote bomb in her hand, pressing the button with soldiers surrounding her. CC could only just stare; her eyes wandered to her finger pressing the bomb, but she only just smiled.
An explosion shattered the roof of the building, decimating some and sending others flying. All the while, the energy from the mountains continued to rain destruction, and havoc across the land around them.