"Light that fucker up!" Riona barked with her blazing eyes focusing on her winged target. The trio of Wayfinders trained their weapons on the Nightwing. Riona was the first to fire, the Hazardite rounds left a glowing blue trail as they flew towards their intended target. The monster cried out as several 5.56 AP Hazardite rounds pierced its thick hide.
In response, it sent two more barbs toward Riona. The first buried itself into her shield, the second glanced off the side of her helmet. Allen sent a larger .303 round into the oversized bat's kneecap. The creature shrieked as it stumbled and attempted to regain its footing on the rafters.
Faren followed by mag dumping her beretta into the creature, the smaller 9mm rounds didn't seem to have as much of an effect on the Nightwing.
"Move Chekhov back! Find some goddamn cover!" She commanded. Faren rushed over to the fallen escort and dragged her past the doorway leading into the room.
Allen started backing up towards the doorway keeping his flashlight trained on the creature, keeping the creature at least semi-subdued. He fired another round, striking the creature in the stomach. He then rounded the doorway to take cover.
Riona was the last to exit the room. Faren frantically searched her own bag for her medical kit.
"I need another set of hands for this!" Faren called out the other two as she opened up her trauma kit.
Allen ran over to help stem Nat's blood loss. Riona crouched down into a firing position and opened up with her HK. The creature leaped from the rafter to rafter at lightning speed as the bullets and splinters whizzed past its form.
Allen rushed back to Riona's side as he leaned around the doorway to lay down fire with his Lee Enfield. He fired two more rounds both made their mark into its chest. This time it didn't keep its footing. The Nightwing tumbled down to the floor crushing a wooden table under its weight. A cloud of dust rose above the wreckage as the creature lay motionless.
"Did we get it?" Allen asked as he aimed down his rifle. Riona narrowed her eyes as she glared at the creature. She flipped off the safety of her M203 grenade launcher.
"Wait." She simply said, within a few seconds the creature stirred, regaining its senses. The Wayfinders remained steadfast as they aimed the barrels of their firearms at the beast.
The Nightwing turned its head to look at the pair. Its empty eyes looked between the two Wayfinders. It stared at Riona intensely with a flicker of familiarity in its eyes. Riona felt paralyzed from making eye contact, her own body did not obey her commands to pull the trigger. The experienced Wayfinder understood at that moment, it remembered her, blood lust filled its eyes as it lunged towards Riona at breakneck speed.
She screamed at her own feet to move, to try and get out of the way. Her hands started to shake, she fought and fought to do something but it was hopeless.
A gloved hand grabbed onto her shoulder, she couldn't turn to see who it was. Riona felt herself be yanked out of harm's way. Her body fell to the ground as she heard the creature crash into a nearby bookshelf.
Riona felt that she was able to move again, she turned her head to see her savior. Faren, her green eyes were filled with fury as she let Riona go and let loose an Hazardite arrow from her bowstring. A cry of agony pierced the air as the arrow lodged itself into the vile thing's side.
Riona jumped to her feet swiftly as she heard the roar of Allen's shotgun. The Bat thrashed about and started retreating towards one of the boarded-up windows, once again it turned and tried to make eye contact with Riona.
She was prepared this time. The Wayfinder looked away from its gaze and pulled the trigger of her grenade launcher, the 40mm buckshot shell slammed into the Bat. The creature barreled out of the boarded window, destroying the large window's barricade entirely. It made its escape into the setting sky, its dark shape only grow further away from them by the second.
The trio glanced at each other as they all had a
moment to breath at last.
"Anyone hit besides Chekhov?" They all did a quick body check no one else had any injuries luckily.
"She gonna be okay?" Faren nodded to Allen's question.
"Yeah, thankfully she was wearing her vest would have gone through her heart otherwise. Still need to get that barb out of her shoulder".
Riona grimaced as the situation was still far from over. She ran a hand over her face and sighed in exasperation.
"This is a clusterfuck, if we come back with an escort that's injured they'll shoot us at the checkpoint. They don't take chances with any possible infections or anything we bring back that may be transmitted from the zone".
"Then what the hell do we do?" Allen looked between the two women as Faren kneeled down next to Nat.
"Hope that it's Acer's guys on guard detail and not the military, otherwise we're screwed."
Riona sighed and kneeled down next to Faren.
"She's still out?" Faren nodded. Riona looked at the barb sticking out of her shoulder.
"Maybe it has to do with that thing sticking out of her." Faren hummed in agreement.
"Probably, we're not near a hospital so we gotta get it out before it makes a deeper wound". They both nodded as Riona used a pair of pliers to slowly remove the barb, luckily it was still intact and it didn't splinter inside her body.
The unconscious Escort's eyes fluttered open.
Faren cleaned and stitched the wound closed as Riona helped her dress the wound after she finished working. The escort glanced around the room as they finished tending to her with her usual disinterested gaze. Nat didn't seem to be in any kind of pain when she was stitched up.
"What happened?"
"You got hit with a spike from that asshole bat. You were out until we got it out" Faren answered as Riona packed away her medical supplies.
"Where's the Nightwing?"
"We drove it off, think we got a good few shots on it, it's probably hurting". Riona answered nonchalantly as she ejected the spent Buckshot from her grenade launcher. She then proceeded loaded in a fresh shell of Buckshot.
Allen looked out to the large hole in the window with a pair of binoculars in his hand.
"Hopefully it won't be back anytime soon".
Riona shrugged and helped Nat to her feet.
"Who knows, probably going to look for another lair. Either way, we should head back and see if we can radio this in. We're in no position to pursue it, let's fucking get out of here."
Nat furrowed her brow at Riona's statement.
"It's only a minor wound."
Riona huffed and turned to look at Nat.
"Yes but, I'm following protocol here, if an Escort is killed or wounded we are to disengage and hand it off to Acer. We're just Wayfinders, not special forces. We have already done more than enough."
Nat hummed and proceeded to dust herself off. The escort rolled her wounded shoulder and nodded to Riona.
"Fair enough, let's go then."
The fireteam descended back down the stairs to their ATVs. Not wanting to stick around the desolate town any longer, they quickly drove back to their safe house.
The air was strangely still as they entered their makeshift safe house. They found the interior more or less the same as they left it. Nat sat down in front of a desk with a worn ham radio. She picked up the receiver from the stand and began to speak into the receiver.
"Break break break, This is Chekhov requesting back up."
A feminine voice responded on the other end.
"Copy that Chekhov we got a response team on their way stay put and await further instructions, over".
"Roger that, there an ETA on them?"
"Should be there in a few hours get comfy, over."
