Guardians: Chapter Twelve
#13 of Guardians: The First Cycle
Guardians:
Chapter Twelve: Last Serenade
Alyx groaned and struggled to his feet slowly, he fell back on his face as a boot crashed into his back. He cursed and spat out some purple dragons-blood.
"Well, well, well, look what we've caught boys. A dragon." A rough voice issued from above Alyx as he tried to regain his breath and wits.
A hand reached down and roughly hauled Alyx to his feet, he coughed and opened his eyes squinting as someone flashed a light in them.
"Oh! It's their commander too!" The voice laughed, "Filthy pests." It continued slandering Alyx and his team for a few seconds; as Alyx listened to him he turned his head slightly. Suddenly Alyx roared and opened his mouth pouring forth flames upon the man and the three others around him. Two fell to the floor instantly one ran and the voice cursed.
"Damned dragon!"
A shot rang out and Alyx staggered before jumping on the last man who had a revolver. His claws met flesh as he effectively gutted the last man, rending him in two in a bloody mess. Alyx groaned and looked down at the pool of blood, the stench of death hung around the bloody scraps he still held. He dropped them to the floor and inhaled slowly.
He roared. Pain shot up from inside of him, the bullet having found its way into his lung. His vision went red and out of focus as he pulled his belt and armor off as fast as he could. He tore his shirt to shreds packing it into the wound. Entry, but no exit... Damnit, Imma die from lead poisoning. He wrapped his belt around his torso and pulled it tight. What kind of bullets tore through both armor and dragonscale in the same shot?
It was so hard to keep standing; he staggered and grabbed a rifle from one of the smoldering corpses. He inhaled gingerly his chest burning with each breath. He looked around and then up. He was in a corridor full of debris and chunks of concrete; above him was a hole with the main assembly room above him. He checked for his COM, it was gone. He looked around for it but couldn't find it. He sighed softly and leaned against the wall for a minute.
There was shouting from above and a few shots fired, then everything went silent again. Alyx looked up and listened for a few minutes before turning and walking, no, limping down the corridor. He looked down and was a little shocked at the gash cut through his thigh. How the hell did I get that?
A staggered forward a few more paces and found what was left of the man who'd ran. The burnt smell of flesh stuck in Alyx's nose as he lurched past it. He got to a corner in the hall and stopped, he heard a pair of the guards conversing so he listened.
"It's annoying really. They're all here and we have the damned Adamos or whatever the hell it is. Why don't we just kill them all now?"
A second voice spoke this one had a thick Russian accent,
"If we wait we can just finish the last of them off, there's less than five of them now. How many tried to storm us? Besides, we blew their commander to hell."
The first voice grumbled something and Alyx crept from around the corner.
"Well, I guess I'm back from hell boys." He rasped as he grabbed the first man's head and twisted shooting the second man with his free arm. A satisfying crack resounded from the first man's neck and Alyx released him to the ground. He heard some shouting from down the corridor the gunshot having alerted some more of the guards. Alyx crouched and leveled his rifle waiting for them to round the corner.
A little voice in his subconscious kept telling him something was wrong but he ignored it as the first man rounded the corner. He pulled the trigger. It clicked. He started and glanced down at the rifle, it had seemed light... He stood up and threw it as hard as he could at the five men in front of him. It rotated twice and literally took the head off or one man and stuck barrel first into a second's chest.
He sprinted forward jumping onto the wall for a split second as the last three men started firing. He was on the first and a blur of red scale and blood, and the second fell just as easy. The last man however managed to shoot him twice before Alyx decapitated him in another spray of red. He stood for a second breathing hard, and then the new bullet wounds flared and he hit the floor.
Alyx writhed in pain for a moment before he tore more strips from his shirt and packed the wounds tight; one in his left arm, the other in his shoulder. He noticed a radio on one of the guard's bodies and grabbed it flipping through the channels. He pressed the button on it and prayed a silent prayer.
"Is anyone there? Hello? It's Alyx."
He leaned against the wall heavily and waited a few moments. He cursed and stood up. After briefly looking around him he decided to go through a branching corridor, he didn't know what made him think it was the right way, but he walked down it anyway. He walked another couple hundred feet and stopped. He glanced down and picked up a random crowbar on the ground. He looked back forward, there were four guards clustered around a blue and black heap on the floor.
Alyx crept forward slowly and silently his eyes on the four men and the heap of, of, were those scales? Suddenly he recognized the body. He roared and leapt farther than he should have been able to his crowbar breaking through one man's skull, a second meeting his end with a face full of dragon's flame, and a third getting a chunk bitten out of him. The fourth yelled and tried to run but Alyx tripped him with his tail and put a foot down on the man's throat, hard.
He scrambled over to Sain and sat down next to her quickly checking for a pulse, his throat tightening at the large bullet hole straight through her chest. Her eyes opened and looked up at him for a moment, she smiled.
"Hi, sexy." She coughed, and blood trickled out of the side of her mouth.
Alyx looked down at her and brushed some of her silver mane out of her hair, He leaned down and kissed her softly tear dripping down his cheek.
"What'd they do to you?"
Sain laughed, or at least tried to, it sounded more like a choking sob,
"Nothing that won't heal in a day or two." She grew serious, "Listen to me for a moment." She put her hand up to his face, "It may look like it, but I'm not dying. They're playing a trick on you." She coughed weakly, "I don't quite understand it myself, I'm dying, but I won't be dead." She looked up at him, "The bullet wound isn't real, although I am losing that much blood." She kissed him again softly, "I love you." He eyes clouded for a moment, "Don't get yourself killed like this alright? I still..." She groaned as a dart suddenly hit her in the neck and she went limp.
Alyx roared and jumped on a guard who'd snuck up him and Sain. The man's flesh parted as easily as the rest of them had. Six more swarmed in and Alyx grabbed a grenade of the first man's body, and threw it hoping it was an impact grenade. The explosion threw him back against the wall and he blacked out.
. . .
Alyx woke up with a red light flashing somewhere in the room. There was blood everywhere. He shivered and tried to stand getting one foot under him before sliding back to the floor. His patching over his bullet wounds wasn't working well. The radio he'd picked up earlier came on.
"Alyx... YO! Alyx!" It was Swanson's voice.
Alyx pressed the button on the side of it.
"I'm here... Barely... Don't know where..." His vision blurred as more tears ran down his cheeks as he saw what was left of Sain lying in a corner of the room now.
"Do you need assistance? Are you hurt man?" Swanson sounded worried.
"Assistance? No. Hurt? Yes."
Alyx looked down at himself. What a mess. He wondered if he'd have been better of just slitting Black's throat first chance he got. He groaned and tried to stagger to his feet again, he yelled and fell back over. His ribs were broken. He looked around the room again wondering if this was going to be the end for him. He could have sworn he heard Sain say something, he took a small breath and passed out from the shock of the pain.
. . .
Alyx opened his eyes and saw smoked collecting along the ceiling. The building was on fire now? He drew another small experimental breath. It hurt; but it was bearable. Gun shots echoes from down then halls. He reached to his radio which was blaring in his ear.
"Still here."
Swanson's voice crackled on the radio,
"Alyx!? Goddamnit say something man!"
"Something." Alyx laughed despite the pain.
"There you are! I'm trying to get in there to get you out." There was a pause on Swanson's side then a deep sigh, "But unless you can get closer to us I'm not sure how the hell we can get to you, the building is coming down as we speak. Someone set it on fire. What's your status?
"Doomed."
"Don't say that! Don't say that! Just get your ass out of there. You're the one who forced us to train for every god-damned situation, so don't give me any shit about how you can't."
Alyx leaned his head back on the wall and panted,
"Watch the potty mouth dude." Alyx chuckled weakly, "You wouldn't believe the amount of blood coming from me. These bastards had armor piercing rounds. Possibly kinetic... Whatever the case I'm shredded."
"Well I've got a medivac ready when you get out. We've got Gleets out, he's in bad shape someone rocketed the communications van. The only ones left in there are you, Vance, and Sain. Well, and whoever else is dead... Not many of us left man."
Alyx glanced at the heap in the corner closed his eyes fresh tears forming again,
"No, only me and Vance."
"Sain get out already?"
"Yeah..." he paused for a second, "Something like that." He stood a little wearily and leaned heavily against the wall, "Do you know where Vance is?"
"Yeah he's on his way to you from the south hall."
Alyx groaned as he took a step,
"Damnit. Tell him to just get out, one of these asses said something about a working Adamos. I think I know where it is and if I can I'm going to disable it"
There was a pause and then an explosion of profanity on the other end of the COM, "Alright, fine. I'll tell Vance and I'll start moving what's left of us away."
"Thanks Swanson."
Alyx staggered slowly towards where he was sure the Adamos was. It took him a few moments to find the room, the lack of guards was uninteresting. The last of them had probably fled.
Alyx slowly clambered over the fallen machinery towards the Adamos device that he'd finally laid eyes on. It wasn't big, no bigger than a small car and he would have overlooked it except for the fact he'd recognized the detonation charges on it. He limped up to the front and an oath flew from his mouth. This wasn't the Adamos! It was a hydrogen bomb. But... that actually made more sense; why destroy the world when all you want dead is a small team of evolutionaries? He groaned and tried to remember what he could about the construction of a dirty hydrogen bomb.
His radio crackled on,
"All right, we're all about five miles out now Alyx." Swanson's voice came on.
Alyx nodded before realizing that Raurian couldn't see him.
"Okay, you might want to get farther out, this isn't an Adamos, but it is an H-Bomb."
Swanson swore,
"Think you can disarm it? And where the hell is Sain!?"
"No but I might be able to remove the detonator." He sighed, "Don't worry about her."
He looked around and found what he wanted quickly grabbing up a small cutting torch and a toolbox that he hoped had some magnets in it. Quickly he began examining the bomb.
"Wait..." Swanson's voice came back on, "She's dead isn't she."
Alyx didn't respond and started cutting the delicate detonators off. Two came off easily, but the third had a dead man's type switch on it.
"I'm sorry dude... She was a good trooper..."
Alyx hit the button on his radio,
"Yes thank you Raury! Now let me concentrate on this bomb, before I start blubbering again."
It took him a few moments but he pulled the last detonator off. He sighed and sat back looking at the ceiling. He closed his eyes for a second.
"Alyx?"
His eyes shot open and he turned around, Sain was standing there, she was bleeding of course but the bullet-hole was gone. Her tattoo was glowing brightly from under her combat pants. Alyx staggered upright and wrapped his arms and wings around her and kissed her cheek trying to make sure she was real and not just a figment of his imagination. Sain purred softly,
"I killed Black. He was in one of the rooms plotting." She looked up at him, "I told you I wasn't going to die. It's something about our tattoos."
Alyx hummed softly only half-hearing Sain's words, the blood loss and euphoria at her being alive was too much to comprehend.
. . .
Vance and Raurian watched the building from far away. Vance opened his mouth to speak but Raurian cut him off.
"I don't know Vance."
Vance closed his mouth before piping back up.
"Aren't we going to go in after him and pull him out? He must still be alive."
Raurian shrugged,
"We can't. Not with the risk of the bomb and his direct orders."
"That's a load of bullsh-"
A loud metallic boom replaced Vance's words as the ground shook and a blue-orange sphere took the entire valley with it. The force hit Vance and Raurian and knocked them off their feet.
"Shit! What the fuck was that!?" Vance yelled as they both stood back up and scrambled for the top of the hill they'd been standing on.
A large crater was all that was left of the place.
Raurian closed his eyes and looked away,
"I suppose somewhere in those ashes our comrades now rest." He turned back and saluted, the sun finally came up over the scene as Vance joined him in the salute, as well as the few others who'd made it out. And so the longest and bloodiest morning for the Guardians Corps ended.
(Well, there you have it the first cycle is finished. But the main question is: is it really a sad ending? :3 You'll find out in the second cycle folks. Peace out!
-AZR)