We encountered fewer demons on this run back to the NOPCW rather than when we had been fleeing from there, though their numbers did greatly increase as we got closer.
Soul’s voice came over the headset once we got in sight of the info building. “Wait until I signal before you leave to go secure the doors. We’ll use the shotguns to clear the area first.”
We all said our affirmative and Fire started slowing down, braking much better this time around. We had approached on the south side and could see that the demons were literally swarming the area, targeting mostly the lamps that were surrounding the building. A few demons were attempting to climb them, but would fall off before they got too high.
“What the hell is up with that?” Tiger’s lithe voice said.
“They like high places, the further from the Underworld the better,” I replied.
She hummed in response.
As we got closer, we heard multiple gunshots coming from the back left. “LIGHT!” Soul shouted.
The firing stopped. “Yes?” Her voice was chilled, almost like death crawling up your bones.
“You shoot only in defense. Don’t attack until they do, we don’t want to attract unnecessary demons.”
“Whatever.”
Soul twisted in his seat and looked at us people on the inside apologetically. Forest and I shrugged in response while Dark looked away moodily; Fire was focused on pulling the car up to the east side wall.
We waited as Soul had instructed for them to take out the demons that had come to investigate the car. Over the sound of shooting, I could’ve sworn I heard a creepy laugh over the headset. I glanced behind me and saw Lightstar smiling like a little kid on her birthday. Oh angels, she was definitely scary in an insane way.
Once the area was demon free for a few moments, Forest and I rushed out. We would be the ammo pair, and with his ability to mimic powers he could help with barring the doors.
I instructed him on how to clog the lock with energy that was just floating around in the air. When I pulled on it, though, I could feel how heavy and dark it was. You see, energy literally falls off of living things, like dandruff. There’s always some just floating along in the air. But this stuff, this stuff was definitely demonic in origin. I felt like I needed a shower after using it to jam the door frame.
We rushed back to the car as more shots were fired. Time to go to the next side.
We rinsed and repeated that process on the other two sides without running into problems. Soul’s team was pretty damn good at covering our backs as Forest and I worked as swiftly as we could, though by the time we were finished I felt like there was a layer of grime sticking to me because of the demonic energy. From the look on Forest’s face, he wasn’t having a better time about it either.
Back on the south side was another story though. There was definitely the largest group of demons on this side, and I think it was because of the massive hole. You could see both the first and second floor because of it, that’s how large it was. Ice really did know how to blow things up, never doubt that.
After switching to the machine guns, Soul spoke over the headset, “This is about as clear as we’re going to get it. Once you get inside we’ll climb to the top of Cerberus for a better vantage point. Our main priority besides keeping the car safe will be to keep the demons out, but give us a signal before you come out with the ammo. We’ll clear a path, it’ll be too difficult to maintain it the entire time.”
“Alright, Forest you stick with me, Fire will be sentry with Dark, so he’ll give you the signal.” I climbed out of the car first and dashed the fifteen feet to the wall; it had been as close as Fire was willing to get.
Forest took the lead and Fire took the rear as we entered the building. I joined Forest once he and Fire gave the all clear and we hustled down the hall, our identical combat boots echoing in the silence.
As we approached the first corner, we all fell back against the wall at the same time. Forest was quickly learning how to be on a fighting team. There was growling coming from the other side, and we looked at Firestar for directions; he was and always has been the strategist.
He signaled for Forest and I to go around and engage in combat while he and Dark guarded the rear.
Forest crept forward first and peered around the corner before taking a kneeling position. I swung around and pulled out my pistols and got ready to aim.
There were only two demons that we could see, and they were fighting each other. Behind them was the vague form of a person, their clothing torn everywhere.
Forest brought down one and I got the other effortlessly. They hadn’t even known we were there until it was too late.
We all went over to examine the body. Most of its features were unidentifiable because of how badly mangled its body was and I had to really concentrate to keep my food down, but Dark found a swash of clothing with a name tag on it. It was a Mr. Jonathan Baker, Head Director of Banking. Some NOPCW idiot managed to get past the demons and into the ruined building.
We examined the door his body was outside of. It had been locked, but nothing was too hard for me to break into. After a swift inspection, we found that there was nothing besides various Earth currencies and deemed the room useless to us. Money wouldn’t be important up there for a while.
We continued back down the hall in our original formation and made it to the first weapon supply room without any more issues, which kind of concerned me. Shouldn’t there be demons swarming this area from how populated it was outside?
I placed my guns in my hip holsters and grabbed a duffle bag off of one of the shelves. I loaded it up fairly quickly from a rack of machine gun ammo and thrust it into Dark’s arms, who stumbled under the weight at first before looping the strap over his shoulders. “Give this to Soul’s team, not in cargo. It wouldn’t be pleasant if they ran out of ammo before the task was through.”
Dark nodded and Fire took the lead going out. I could see Dark pulling out a gun from his hoodie pocket and checking over his shoulder every few seconds.
I turned back to Forest. “Guard the door?” he asked with a faint smile. I smiled back and nodded before grabbing another duffle bag. This time I would be more delicate with the weight measurement and arrangement of how I packed it.
I rifled around the shelves until I found the ammo that went with the shotguns Soul’s team were carrying; it was the most common type for the Star Rebellion since it had almost no backfire. I packed the ammo in as tightly as I could until it was a tad on the heavy side, then filled the remaining space with the unloaded guns that went with the ammo, which were surprisingly light.
I dropped the bag by Forest’s feet and he jerked around quickly. I smirked up at him and he rolled his eyes before going back to watching the halls.
DARKSTAR
Of course Waterstar gave me a heavy bag to start off with. I struggled to pull a gun from my hoodie before periodically scanning behind Fire and I to make sure no demons decided to jump us.
We made it back to the hole pretty effortlessly, pass the dead banker guy who looked like even more had been bitten out of him, but no demons in sight. “Where are they?” I whispered to Fire before we were to turn the corner to the hole.
“I don’t know, but it can’t be good.” Fire flicked at his earpiece. “Soul, what’s the position out there?”
I flicked mine on too to hear the response. It had to be livelier out there than in here.
There was static at first before Soul’s voice came through. “Not good, man. The demons, especially the furry ones, they’re attracted to this car like nothing else. They aren’t even attempting to go inside, hell we’ve been seeing demons come out of there just to get at Cerberus. We’ll be running out of ammo soon. Dude, you’re gunna have to make your own path in here.”
Fire nodded his head even though Soul couldn’t see him. “Alright, we’re coming out. Dark has extra ammo with him. He’ll go back by himself to restock and take Forest back as sentry; since everything se
ems pretty clear in here, Water will be fine by herself.”
“You sure, man? If you can get us grenades we could probably hold them off with the four of us. Maybe some blades too, the twins are excellent with a knife.”
“Yea, I’ll stay with you until Dark gets the requested stuff, and if you’re fine by that point then we’ll return to the original plan.”
“Alright, they’ve tided down a bit, come out!”
I bolted out into the night with Fire running in front of me. He had unsheathed the knives at his wrists and was aiming for the sweet spot at the base of the demon’s necks that Ares had told us about at the last minute.
The demons fell quickly, but were replaced by more even quicker. Where the hell were they all coming from?!
I fired shots off where I could, trying to thin them out at the front of Cerberus where it would be easiest to get the duffle bag up to Soul and his team.
Tiger saw what I was trying to do and aimed her machine gun at the small herd of demons there. They fell quickly and I darted forward, hardly straining under the bag with my adrenaline rush. With Tiger and her brother’s help, we got the duffle bag onto the roof without any interference from demons, but that meant that the attack had gotten thick elsewhere on the car. I threw in an American Army salute before running back inside as the demons swarmed the front of Cerberus again.
“Water, Forest!” I barked into my headset as I dashed down the hall, casting aside the ammo pack in my pistol before putting a fresh one it. I believe it might’ve hit the almost meatless corpse of the banker guy.
“Si signor?” Forest said, speaking in some foreign language.
“Stick with English for angel’s sake,” I muttered before explaining what had happened outside and the new plan.
“Alright,” Water said first. I heard Forest muttered something to her, then her reassuring him that she’d be fine alone.
“I’ll start heading your way with the bag if she finishes packing the grenades before you get here,” Forest eventually said.
“Alright, I’m almost there anyways.”
WATERSTAR
This had become a race for survival. Demons versus the eight of us. The speed at which we could deliver the weapons would be the factor of if we lived or died.
When Dark got here, Forest already had one of the surplus ammo bags over his shoulder, and I shoved the duffle bag with the requested weapons into his arms. “It’ll be faster if you both carry them, and since you won’t need to defend yourself until you're outside, it’ll be fine.” He had agreed without argument.
I got to work on the next set of bags. After much conversing with Foreststar, we had decided on the order of which things would be packed. Machine and shotguns got priority over pistols, and after Dark’s message about needing grenades, I started squeezing in five to ten in each bag also, just for the hell of it. Who didn’t like a throwable explosive?
I was able to fill four more bags in the time it took for Darkstar and Foreststar to get back. Apparently the situation outside hadn’t improved much, and they estimated maybe another six bags could fit in the car, more if we were willing to put them on our laps.
This armory room that we were in was small though, there probably were only eight bags tops left in it of stuff, and that was all pistols and daggers.
When I was piling some daggers haphazardly into another bag, I heard the thudding of feet against the ground again. I was kind of surprised that they were already back this soon, it seemed like they had just left for another run to the car.
“Bags are by the door,” I said without turning around when the feet had stopped outside. The hairs on the back of my neck were starting to stick up, and when no one said anything, I peered through one of the empty shelves.
Oh holy hell. There were two of the hairless demons slowly walking into the room, their noses to the air. One of them turned toward me, its single red eye glowing in the dim lighting.
“You’re all alone, my pretty.”
“What the hell is up with that?” I shouted in exasperation.
The demons paused, flinching slightly at the word hell. “With what?” the first one asked.
“You freaking demons calling me pretty. I mean, seriously. It’s strange.” I inched backward to the shelf behind me, searching behind my back.
“Pretty things taste better,” the second, larger one growled.
“Yay,” I muttered sarcastically, my hand finally wrapping around what I was looking for. I hurled the dagger across the room and it spun through the gaps in the shelves, hitting the wall above one of the demons.
“You missed.” If demons could smile, he would so be smiling. Instead, I got a good glimpse at his deteriorating teeth.
“It was close, and you know what they say.” I shrugged and looked away innocently.
“What do they say?”
“Close only counts in nuclear warfare,” I paused and smile maliciously, “and hand grenades.” I showed the release pin in my hand before springing to the side for cover. I covered my ears as the explosive went off, the demon’s wails sounding like a chorus of destruction before they turned into gurgling crisps.
I looked up and rubbed my ears. Close distance explosives, not the best idea apparently. I walked around and examined the room; the weapons I hadn’t packed yet were scattered around where the explosive had gone off, so sadly they were useless now. A few daggers had even melted together. The walls had surprisingly held together though, so that was a plus, though strange after seeing what happened to the staircase. Guess Icestar was better than Earth machinery. It meant that my duffle bags outside the door were still in decent condition, maybe a little crisped on the fringes, but they’d hold.
Forest and Dark came rushing around the corner. I smiled at them, and I’m pretty sure it might’ve been on a maniacal side.
“We leave you alone for a few minutes and you decide to set off explosives,” Dark joked as they slowed down.
I shrugged, “There were two demons. And they called me a ‘pretty little thing’ again.”
“How exactly did you do that anyways? Like without them running away?” Dark questioned as he reached down for a bag.
I grabbed one of the remaining bags, “I attached one of those sticky grenades to the hilt of a knife and threw it in the wall behind them.” I walked as swiftly as possible with them. It really was a good thing that Ares had managed to heal my leg.
“Lemme guess, you added something about close only counts in hand grenades?”
“Yea, pretty mu-”
I stopped just inside the staircase hole. Now I could see what they meant about the situation being bad outside.
Wanna know something that most people don’t consider when they think about fighting large armies and stuff like that? Especially when it’s in defense of a single area? Just how many bodies mass up over time.
Lightstar was still being trigger happy about the demons that were skirting around the car, but it seemed like everyone had taken out almost all of the demons, which resulted in Cerberus pretty much being walled in on all sides by bodies.
Yea, that wasn’t a pretty sight.
Firestar came over to help us. “I think I’m gunna need some more brandy,” he joked as he took my bag and loaded it into a storage compartment. His clothes seemed stiff with the blood already.
“Should I drive?” I asked cautiously.
“That’d probably be a good idea.” He grimaced as he let his arms back down.
I nodded and climbed into the driver’s seat. “Give me a crash course,” I said as he took the seat behind me.
Fire swiftly pointed out the gas and brake, and explained just how sensitive Cerberus was to the first. He told me to ignore the array of buttons to the side of the steering wheel, saying we probably didn’t want to know half the stuff Ice had tricked the car out with. I nodded and put my hands on the wheel of the car. It obviously wasn’t my first time driving, but still, this was an Icestar produced car, that in itself wa
s pretty nerve-wracking.
Once everyone had gotten settled back into their seats, I pulled the start lever and Cerberus roared to life, as if it was itching to drive again.
It was tricky trying to maneuver the car over the pile of dead bodies, though the spikes that Icestar had attached along the wheels definitely helped big time.
Chapter 15: Glow in the Dark
DARKSTAR
The drive back was very uneventful. Like even more than the drive there. I think there was a total of maybe two demons that were stupid enough to get close, but if the glowing red eyes in the distance meant anything, they definitely weren’t done with us yet.
A messenger was waiting for us in the mess hall. “Arctic wants you back in the conference room from before immediately; leave the unloading to other people.”
And sure enough, there was also a team of pre-teens waiting to unload Cerberus. Waterstar made sure that they knew not to set off a grenade, but she could’ve been nicer about it. She’s just a tad obsessed with the safety of her weapons.
Arctic and Ares were both at the map still when we got there, and Vlad was flipping through pages in a binder rather quickly, only pausing to scratch something down on a notebook to his left.
“We’re back,” Water said in a sing-song voice as we entered the room.
“How’d it go?” Ares asked while Arctic stayed focused on the map. There was a stunning lack of sticky notes on the right side of it now.
“Not too shabby. We learned that the demons are very attracted to Cerberus, and that Water was itching for an excuse to use a hand grenade the entire time we were there.” Fire put in jokingly, messing up Water’s hair at the end. She smacked him. Again.
“I was by myself, and there were two demons. What else was I supposed to do? Scream like a little girl?” Water crossed her arms over her chest defensively and I had to hold back a smile.
Star Rebellion Page 20
