Starting Fires

I thought that coming here once would be enough to put me into retirement, but I had to come once again, just to settle the score. For all of the finality of the deaths of my brothers-in-arms, there was always something inside of me that told me this place was more than it seemed. In a way, I knew that Etrius and Lloyd were somehow still around in some way, but I would never have seen this coming. Today, though, it all ends. Etrius and Lloyd are dead, I can see that now. This has all been a game and the Castle cheated. Beecher and I are all that's left of the Elite Team and we will fight to make sure that our memory remains untarnished. I can now see what this place truly is; it is a house of death, a place of suffering. It must be destroyed and its inhabitants along with it.

Isn't that what I do best?

Boomer turned about, firing shotgun shells into the crowd of Evils shambling toward us, making a large, gory mess. That shot cued the rest of us to begin our attack, cutting into the ranks of the monsters descending upon us. Forgoing my firearms, I slashed into the nearest beast, feeling the power of the sword surge through my body.

The Puppet Master was already swiping out with its invisible arms, darting up into the air, then plunging down to pick out its victim. I cut through the crowd, moving towards the source of the threat.

"Bollocks, Mage, do you always have to be the bloody center of attention?" I heard Titan say.

"Go big or go home," I transmitted back, jumping up to neatly decapitate an evolved Evil that had just begun to pounce.

Continuing in this fashion, I began to notice that my robe was glistening in places. Along that same line, there were splotches of red nearly covering my leather armor. As a matter of fact, everyone was almost completely soaked in the blood of the army of the freaks. Deciding not to let this slow me down, I worked ever closer to my target, hacking, slashing, stabbing, and throwing out bolts of magic. Quarters began to grow a little tight, so I sheathed my sword and pulled the Bowie Knife from the sheath on my back to my right hand and my Ka-Bar from my hip to my left, holding both of them in an icepick grip. In this style, I became a pinwheel of death, circling around, slashing whatever came too close to me. The black flesh of the zombies gave way to flowing red gashes as I tore a bloody swath in their ranks, ending up standing before the Puppet Master itself.

It swung at me with an invisible arm, but I ducked down on the floor, jumping up to avoid its next swing. I leaped up with my knives ready to plunge into its chest, achieving that same thing a moment later, causing the beast to lose balance and its body to fall to the ground, officially dead.

Sheathing my knives in place of my sword again, I charged back into the fray easily cutting down the zombies in the way of joining the team in their stand again.

While all of this was happening, Boomer had primed every single explosive he had on his person, hooking them up to his clacker remote. When Lloyd reappeared, the demolitions expert pounced on the visage of his friend, pinning him to the ground.

"Fool!" the Mind Worm yelled. "I am more powerful than you can comprehend. You cannot defeat me."

"Maybe not," Boomer growled, throwing packs of C4 at the edges of the chamber where they all sat against the walls, ready to be detonated, "but I think I can stop you for now."

"How?" it asked.

"For my friends," Boomer replied cryptically before looking up. "Guys, we have to run. Get out of here, I'll hold this Lloyd thing!"

"We can't leave you behind!" Titan yelled.

"The Evils will follow you, they don't care about me. I'll catch up with you in a minute, just get out of here!" Boomer called, desperately.

"Do what he says, sir!" Beecher told Titan. "We have to go, now!"

We worked our way over to the stairs, the Evils following us on our way up, completely ignoring Boomer and Lloyd. At least he was right on this one. When we made it to the tunnels, I saw blinking red lights here and there.

"Explosives!" Eon exclaimed. "Boomer's gonna blow this place to hell!"

***

"They must be safely out by now," Boomer whispered to the struggling Lloyd, placing a pack of C4 on the zombie's chest. "Can't say the same for you."

"I will return," the Mind Worm growled. "And I will destroy your friends and all they stand for."

"Good luck with that," Boomer said, pushing down on the clacker.

***

We stood in the space below the courtyard, watching the tunnels fill with fire from the explosive force. A part of hill beneath the Castle had been obliterated, causing the structure to crash down a ways, then topple over, away from us.

"BOOMER!" Beecher called, hopelessly, furiously.

"He did what he had to do," Mullins assured the last remaining member of the Elite Team.

From out of the ruins, a small army, a tiny fraction of the Evil's once great legion dragged their wounded bodies from the rubble and limply charged where they felt the signal of the Wise One's power to be.

Williams paused, looking at the shapes moving in the dark. "A few of them are still left!" he yelled as the helicopters landed in the dark depths.

Mullins walked to where Williams was and began firing at whatever came his way. Ray joined in, not letting a single one get to their only way home. There were only two helicopters left, one of which was Plisskin's. Titan, Harrison, Brody, Malena, Lexi, Meera, Eon, Eddie, Beecher, Romanov, and I got into the other helicopter while what was left of the rest of the team loaded up in Plisskin's chopper.

"Mullins, Williams, get on board!" Beecher called out to the two of them as they made their stand.

"Too many!" Mullins called back. "They'd overrun you in a second. We'll hold them off, just go!"

"Pilots, wait for them!" Beecher insisted.

"If we stay here, we're dead!" Plisskin pointed out, taking off. "I'm sorry."

Both helicopters were in the air, leaving Mullins and Williams behind while Beecher stood at the edge of the cargo bay door, howling in saddened anger at two more losses, watching the black mass of zombies growing ever closer to the two humans before they got too far to see what was going on.

"What happened to the other birds?" Titan asked the pilots.

"They got knocked out of the sky by the flying demons," our pilot replied. "We took care of the bastards."

There was a sudden crashing noise. Everybody looked at the helicopter next to us. Crawling up the tail of Plisskin's bird was Lloyd, his body blackened by the explosives and his eyes glowing bright white with fury. He reached up, putting his hand in the path of the rotors, but instead of getting torn to shreds, he grabbed one of the metal blades and stopped the rotation, causing the motor to fight against this sudden inconvenience, eventually giving out as the helicopter descended. Lloyd then jumped up as Plisskin's helicopter crashed against the ground, grabbing on to the bottom of the cargo bay, working his way up to the door. We took shots at him, trying to get him down, but he took the bullets without effort.

Beecher knew what he had to do.

The sniper grabbed Lloyd by the torso, leaned back and launched himself out of the helicopter, holding his enemy's throat tight between his hands. As he fell, Beecher gave one last demand to the Evils.

"Give me my friends back!" he yelled just before they hit the ground.

I sat back, astonished at that messy exit. We had made it out, but at the cost of everything important to us. Romanov had retrieved the power resource from the General's remains and was currently rotating it in his palms, his eyes clouded with grief and confusion.

"What do we do with it now?" I asked.

"We put it to good use," Romanov replied, not looking up from its glossy obsidian surface. "Clean energy for Atlantis. We will try to lessen our impact on our dying environment. Keep it out of the hands of greedy businessmen. Perhaps, in time, we can set everything straight in our world. One day..."

Titan looked back at the toppled remains of a once proud and formidable Castle, remembering all of the lives that were lost in that place, and quickly crossed himself, despite the fact that he abhorred Catholics.

"Ben, this is Titan," the Commander transmitted, giving another of his regular radio updates. This one was far from uneventful, though. "We have completed the mission."

"Completed?" Ben asked. "Please clarify, was the mission a success or not?"

"We completed the salient objectives," Titan replied, running a hand through his hair. "We located Lloyd and Etrius and we retrieved the power resource."

"Titan, I need more detail," Ben pressed on. "What happened in there?"

Titan filled Ben in on what had happened, from when we met Corporal Smith, to the confusing exchange in the abyss below the castle, to the escape, ending with a list of casualties.

"By God," Ben gasped. "This was just another shit show, I knew it. I'm sorry, Titan, I really am."

"I'll report again when we get back to the field base," Titan ended the transmission.

***

The helicopter landed on the pad with the concrete buildings just a stone's throw away. I stepped out into the rain, looking up to feel the water drip down on my face, washing the blood from my skin. Everyone else seemed to enjoy the sensation, pausing for a moment to savor the cleansing power of water before shuffling away to the shelter of the structures. I heard the slapping of feet on wet pavement coming from behind me; thinking it was just the pilot but curious to see what he was doing, I opened my eyes and turned around to see the figure of Lloyd shambling towards me, broken, burned, and beaten.

"You," I muttered, drawing my sword.

"I need to eat," it hissed. "No more minds in this world. I must move on. Your world is so close, and I need the sustenance. Take me to your world."

"After everything that you did here?" I scoffed. "I may not be the brightest, but I can recognize a destructive force when I see one. I was brought along because I could help save Atlantis, and that's what I'm going to do... by getting rid of the likes of you."

He drew his machete and we both moved to guard stances.