The room erupted into an outcry of panic and horror at the unearthly cries of the Oppressed outside. Judging from the significant crash they’d just heard, the Oppressed had broken through the front doors and were swarming into the church.
“How did they find us!?”
“This isn’t fair… there’s nowhere to go!”
“This is the end!”
“Amaryllis, we’re surrounded!” Avil’s voice broke through the cacophony to alert her. The engineer stood near the rear window, pointing out towards the forest. “They’ve got us completely hemmed in; the forest is filled with them! What do we do?”
Amaryllis didn’t answer at first. She stared at the pile of scattered frozen flesh where Jakob had once been, an unreadable expression on her face.
She never liked Jakob. In fact, she was quite certain she had hated him. His death should be a relief to her; this meant she wouldn’t have to deal with his unending complaints anymore. Yet, she felt nothing of the sort. As she gazed down at his remains, she began feeling a hint of rage. She wasn’t angry at the Oppressed, but at herself.
If there was anything Amaryllis considered herself to be, it was honest. She considered people to be only as good as their word; one of the many reasons she had difficulties relating to others. Because of this, her own word was extremely precious to her. If she said she would do something, she would move heaven and earth to make sure she did it.
Amaryllis gave her word to these people; she had promised that she would get them all out of here alive. Yet… Jakob’s shattered remains lay at her feet, a cruel reminder of her failure. She gritted her teeth and closed her eyes tightly, wishing that all of this was just a nightmare.
One fact stayed at the forefront of her mind, resisting any attempts to dislodge it. She said she would save these people. Even Jakob, as annoying as he had been, was among that number. Yet, she couldn’t save him… and now it looked like she wouldn’t even be able to save any of them.
Amaryllis’ knees felt weak all of a sudden, causing her to lean against the wall, her breath quickening. They were surrounded by a superior force with no escape… and now there was nothing she could do except die here with the rest of them. She pounded her fist into the wall in frustration, a feeling of helplessness and defeat sinking into her mind.
“Don’t give up.” A small voice stood out from the rest of the cacophony taking place in the room. Amaryllis’ eyes opened in surprise and she turned to see Emma standing beside her, looking up at her with determination. The little girl was clearly terrified, judging from the way she flinched every time she heard the Oppressed roar, and the way her knees knocked together from trembling. Despite all of this, she stood there before her. “I believe in you, Amy.”
Amaryllis gazed at Emma, speechless in the face of such unwavering faith. There was so much that could go wrong here; any rational mind could see that there was no escape from this church, yet despite this… Emma still believed in her. Not even Seth had ever had such unquestioning faith in her. She had no idea how to respond to her.
“Snap out of it, Amaryllis,” Samuel was now there beside her, his hands gripping his weapon tightly. “You’re supposed to be our leader. We need you, now more than ever.”
Avil was also there, and before Amaryllis realized what was going on, the engineer was helping her stand again. “Whatever happens, we don’t blame you. Hell, I should be thanking you for getting us this far,” Avil expressed sincerely. “But I won’t forgive you if you don’t keep at it until the end.”
Amaryllis gazed at the three of them, words still failing her.
“Amaryllis may laugh, but I’ve made lots of good friends who’ve stood beside me even in the bleakest of situations.”
Seth’s words from several months ago returned to her… only now they weren’t as amusing as they were then. Amaryllis couldn’t help but think… is this what Seth was talking about?
“It’s not soft to realize that it’s okay to trust others…”
Amaryllis could hear the others crying out for her leadership. At this point, it was likely that she was the only thing keeping them from despair. The realization then came to her; if she gave up here, they would most certainly die.
“Everyone, arm yourselves and group up near the staircase. Get ready to move on my order!” Amaryllis finally spoke, the tone of her voice commanding obedience. The looks of relief that crossed the faces of the other survivors were visible even to her. Samuel and Avil both nodded to her and moved to do as she commanded.
Amaryllis assessed the situation as best as she could. They were on the top floor of a three story church, and there was only one staircase allowing access. There were windows on the outer walls of each room that overlooked the parking lot. Jakob fell to a ranged magical assault; she wasn’t sure if the caster could shoot through windows, but she thought it would be better to err on the side of caution.
She gripped her guardrail and joined the gathering survivors. “I don’t know how often that caster can shoot off spells like that, but unless you’d like to see for yourself, stay away from the windows at all costs!” Amaryllis cautioned the group.
“Where are we going to go?” William beseeches her. The man was pale and shaking, but at least he wasn’t catatonic like he was in the last few fights. “Avil said we’re surrounded!”
“This room is too small; even though there’s only one entrance, they’ll slaughter us by sheer numbers,” Amaryllis reasoned. “We’ve got to try and make it to the parish hall. At the very least, we can stay on the run and keep from being swarmed. Now come on, we don’t have time to stand around!”
Amaryllis immediately leapt down the stairs, landing with an audible thump. Once she made sure the others were following, she turned to the left, heading for the direction of the enclosed cloister. At her direction, the group stayed close to one another; the Oppressed would be upon them like the tide, and if even one of them broke through their lines, they were all dead.
The roars of the Oppressed grew steadily closer. Just as the group reached the second floor, a veritable flood of undead swarmed out of the stairwell, their claws raking and gouging into the wooden floor below. They spotted the survivors and roared, surging down the hall towards them.
Samuel, who was at the rear of the group, drew his pistol and emptied the magazine into the oncoming wall of dead flesh, aiming for their legs and head. Each shot rang out in the cramped hallway, causing Amaryllis to wince from the sound. When he ran out of shots, he released the magazine and swiftly reloaded, continuing to fire. Unfortunately, only a couple of the Oppressed were felled, the bullets having little to no effect on them.
This plan was better than nothing, but Amaryllis knew she was just delaying the inevitable. She needed time to think… time to come up with a plan to escape this mess. She refused to believe that this was her end; not when so many people were relying on her.
Amaryllis sprinted towards the cloister corridor, doing her best to regulate her breathing. She kicked the door open and entered the hallway, trusting the others to follow her. However, she didn’t get very far.
At about halfway through the corridor, the wall to her right suddenly flash froze and shattered with a tremendous crash. Splinters and chunks of frozen wood and stone spiralled through the air like debris in a storm, battering and scraping her body. The roof, having lost one of its supporting structures, creaked downwards and started to fall apart as well. She grunted and covered her head as fragments of slate and other debris rained down around her.
The gaping hole in the building opened out to reveal the parking lot, where the main horde was coming from. Amaryllis narrowed her eyes when she spotted three ponies standing at the rear of the horde. She recognized them all… especially the pale blue unicorn whose staff was glowing a bright blue.
Amaryllis let out a cry and retrieved her own pistol. As she ran, she squeezed the trigger again and again, firing a hail of bullets towards the smug trio of ponies. The pegasus yelped as a bullet pinged the asphalt near his hooves, and then he took to the skies to avoid further shots. Much to Amaryllis’ fury, the remainder of the bullets either missed… or were completely halted in midair by the unicorns’ magic.
“Damn you!” was all Amaryllis could say before she had to keep running. The roof collapsed around her, sending chunks of slate raining to the floor. Behind her, she heard Sawnee yelp in pain, followed by a gasp from Rachel. She didn’t have time to look, so she instead reached the other end of the corridor and broke through the door, entering the parish hall.
The halls were regular and rectangular, looking similar to a schoolhouse in construction. This conclusion was further cemented by the bulletin boards containing crude images drawn with crayons and labeled with brightly colored letters made from construction paper. Amaryllis picked a direction and ran. However, it was clear she was running out of time.
“Amaryllis! They’re catching up, we’ll have to fight!” Samuel called up to her just as she reached the corner of the hall. She cursed and turned to see the stream of Oppressed charging towards their miniscule group.
“Alright, you heard the man! Give them hell!” Amaryllis ordered, hefting her guardrail in preparation. “Keep falling back while you fight! We don’t have the ability to halt their momentum!”
Samuel lifted his club and met the first Oppressed to draw close to him. With a single massive swing, the Oppressed was lifted off the ground and smacked into the wall several feet back into the hallway. There, it was quickly trampled by the rest of the horde.
Aven joined the fray as well, supporting Samuel by whacking hard any Oppressed that attempted to flank him with his wrench. Avil moved to join her brother as well, carrying two sharpened metal pipes that she had appropriated. Grant stood behind them, stabbing between them with his long window pole to great effect.
The small size of the corridor proved a great asset, as it allowed the group to take the Oppressed several at a time, rather than the whole horde. Despite this, however, the group continued to fall back, the Oppressed’s momentum and disregard of pain proving to be an insurmountable obstacle.
Sawnee, who had a lump on his head from where a falling chunk of slate had hit him, was steadily staggering backwards, Rachel helping walk as best as she could. Judging from the way he was moving and the way his eyes were rolling back, it was clear he had a concussion.
Just as Amaryllis was going to move to help them, the window nearest to them exploded inwards, showering the mother and son with shards of glass. An Oppressed tumbled in from the window and swung once.
Amaryllis stopped dead. With that one slice, Sawnee had been cut right across the center, his shirt rapidly turning red as it soaked through with blood. In the process, Rachel had been forced to drop him, as her arm had been sliced clean off, blood spurting from the stump.
Grant looked back at the sound of Rachel’s scream, and his face quickly turned pale. “Oh no. No! Rachel!” he ceased his support of the front lines and rushed back to help, but it was already too late.
Multiple Oppressed charged in through the window and set upon the fallen Sawnee and Rachel without mercy. Wounded and unarmed, there was nothing they could do against them. Their screams filled the corridor as the Oppressed tore them apart and dragged them out of the window.
“Damn it. Damn it!” Amaryllis shouted in helpless frustration. A quick look out the window nearest to her showed that the Oppressed were piling on top of one another to create a makeshift hill that the others could scale. It was as if hell itself were rising to swallow the church in a wave of howling flesh. “Pull back, we can’t fight them on two fronts! Stay away from the windows!”
“But my son… my wife…!” Grant was distraught, the man staring at the bloodstained spot where his family had once been. “They… they…”
Amaryllis thrust her guardrail hard into a charging Oppressed seconds before its claw would have sliced into the hesitating Grant. “They’re done for! Unless you want to join them, come on!” Amaryllis yelled at him, grabbing his wrist. Grant resisted, acting as if he were going to go out the window after his family. Amaryllis growled, and then she slapped him. “What the hell are you thinking!? Would your wife want you to get yourself killed for no reason? They’re already gone, just run!”
Grant hesitated a moment longer, and then he let out a despairing cry. He thrust his window pole towards the nearest Oppressed and impaled it through the head, and then he withdrew the weapon and ran along behind Amaryllis.
Left without anywhere to go, Amaryllis led the group up the stairs to the third floor of the parish hall. If she was lucky, she might be able to find a roof access around here somewhere.
As they ran, Aven, Avil, and Samuel continued to hold up the rear, the three of them proving to be a very capable team. At this point, their aim wasn’t to kill the Oppressed, but instead to stay alive. They blocked the undead claws and hit them as hard as they could, wherever they could, simply in an attempt to give themselves some breathing room.
Amaryllis thanked her luck when she spotted a ladder heading to the roof at the end of the hall. She grasped the ladder and scrambled up the rungs to the top. A quick slam of her shoulders was enough to knock open the hatch. “Up here! It’s our only shot!” she called down to them. “Quickly now! I’ll be impressed if one of those monsters can climb a ladder quickly!”
Amaryllis stood by the ladder, grabbing Jennifer’s arm and helping her up onto the roof with her. She knew that this was a poor decision. Given how fast the Oppressed were scaling the walls of the building, it wouldn’t be long before they were surrounded and exterminated. Yet, there was nowhere else to go. She couldn’t help but think… if only Seth were here. With his magical power, these creatures would be nothing to him.
She gave a dry chuckle. It didn’t even have to be Seth. Someone, anyone… why did she choose to come here instead of go towards the military? They would stand a real chance if she could get her intelligence to them.
“Dammit… if only I could get to them…” Amaryllis cursed. As she bent over and helped Grant up the ladder, she felt an object in her back pocket digging into her rear. She reached around and withdrew the object, revealing it to be the flare gun Avil had found last night. She only stared at it for an instant before coming to the obvious conclusion. “Grant, help the others up the ladder. I’m going to try and call for help.”
“Help? Who the hell do you think is going to help us?” Grant demanded, though he did help the next person, Kent, up the ladder. “How would they even find us?”
Amaryllis gave a shrug as she slammed a round into the flare gun. “Hell if I know. But it’s better than nothing!” She lifted the gun and fired it straight up into the air. The projectile ignited into a bright orange flame and streaked high into the sky, leaving behind a white exhaust trail. The flare, when it reached its peak, shone so brightly that the roof was bathed in a dim reddish glow. No doubt half the city could see that; even the other Oppressed. Not that it mattered. They couldn’t get any more surrounded than they already were.
“Amaryllis! Aven is hurt!” Avil’s voice brought her attention forward to see the two engineers staggering away from the ladder. Aven was clutching his wrench tightly with one hand, while the other was applying pressure to a bleeding gash on his upper chest. It didn’t seem to be too bad, though it was on his dominant side…which was never a good thing.
"Put him with the other noncombatants! As for the rest of you, surround the ones who can’t fight; don’t let a single Oppressed through even if it means your life!” Amaryllis ordered. Once she heard them acknowledge her, she strode over to the hatch and thrust her guardrail down into the skull of a climbing Oppressed, forcing it down onto the flood of undead below. With a snarl, she slammed the hatch closed and turned the wheel until it was fastened shut. At the very least, they wouldn’t be able to follow them up the ladder… for a brief time.
When Amaryllis turned around, the group had formed themselves into an outward facing circle around William, Mary, Emma, and Aven. Much to Amaryllis’ surprise, Kent and Jennifer had taken Aven’s place. The latter held Aven’s wrench, while the former held a chunk of thick slate. In any other situation, Amaryllis would have told them to stay out of the fight… except at this point there was no reason to. Their backs were against a wall.
“Amaryllis! They’re all around us! They’re…they’re piling up the walls!” Avil alerted her.
Before Amaryllis could get a chance to respond, the first Oppressed clambered up over the top of the wall closest to the parking lot, releasing a howl of bloodlust. Before it could get any further, a chunk of slate knocked it right off of the wall and out of sight. She turned to see Kent standing beside a pile of rubble that he’d gathered, the older man bouncing another chunk of slate in his right hand.
“Damn, old man, nice throw!” Jennifer complimented, gazing at him with awe.
“I’m still useful for something,” Kent grunted. More howls filled the air as other Oppressed scrambled over the walls, quickly growing in number. He took a split second to aim, and then he hurled another piece of rubble towards one of them. “No time for pleasantries… here they come!”
Amaryllis couldn't help but notice the sheer number of Oppressed coming over the walls. This was it. There was nowhere for them to go. However, instead of the hopelessness she’d previously felt, she was filled with determination and rage. She reloaded the flare gun and fired up into the skies once more, and then she hefted her guardrail.
“Dammit, I am not dying today!” Amaryllis roared just as the Oppressed reached her. She met the first one head on with the flat of the guardrail, halting its advance and denting its skull. The metal bent inwards as well, its previous usage in battle starting to take its toll.
With a swift kick, Amaryllis knocked the Oppressed back, and then she immediately sidestepped a swipe from the claws of another. She retaliated with a swift thrust to the creature’s skull, penetrating the bone to deal a fatal blow. She had no time to revel in her kill; Amaryllis whirled and swung down to the right, smacking down another charging Oppressed. She stepped around it to avoid another Oppressed, and then she impaled one and smacked down another with a punch.
She was getting used to how the Oppressed move. Her own self-taught fighting instinct and ability started to kick in. She became like smoke before the Oppressed, weaving in and around their attacks and continuously staying on the move to avoid being attacked from all sides.
Despite this, it wasn’t long before Amaryllis was completely surrounded. She winced as a claw raked across her hips, tearing her pants and leaving behind stinging scratches in her flesh. Another Oppressed slashed and cut her shoulder, causing her to cry out.
“I… won’t… die!” Amaryllis tore into the Oppressed with her guardrail, the makeshift weapon bending and deteriorating further with every strike. Eventually, the guardrail broke in half from the use, leaving her weaponless. Yet she refused to give up, resorting to hand to hand combat to keep the Oppressed away from her.
She ducked beneath leaping Oppressed and knocked the forelegs of four others surrounding her out from under them with a single sweeping kick. As she heard the cracking of the bones in their arms, she realized something. One could make a human as close to a pony as they wanted, but it would still never make them as sturdy as a pony. She found it easy to knock the Oppressed off balance, buying her precious seconds to defend herself from other attacks.
Behind her, the group was still in one piece, despite the fact that they were completely surrounded. Wounds were steadily accumulating, but with the help of Samuel and Avil, they were dealing significant damage.
Grant lost all sense of self preservation, charging into and tearing into the Oppressed with the two halves of his broken window pole, getting several kills in the process. “Give them back…” he snarled, his eyes bloodshot. “Rachel… Sawnee… GIVE THEM BACK!”
Much to Amaryllis’ horror, an Oppressed took advantage of Grant’s lapse in judgment and closed its jaws on his side, tearing out a chunk of flesh from his side. The man growled with pain, blood pouring down his side. However, just as the Oppressed was trying to retreat, Grant grabbed its head and thrust downwards with one pole, digging deep into its skull.
Other Oppressed converged upon the occupied Grant, slashing at his chest and biting into his arms and legs. Grant let out a roar and grabbed as many as he could with a bear hug and charged forward, pushing past the horde. Once he reached the end of the roof, he leapt off the edge of the wall without hesitation, carrying all of those Oppressed with him to his death.
Grant’s absence left a hole in the defense that the Oppressed exploited; the undead charged through the opening and lunged towards Mary and Emma, the two screaming in dismay. Just as the first Oppressed lunged forward, Amaryllis was there.
“Just what the hell do you think you’re doing!?” Amaryllis demanded, slamming her forearm into the creature’s chest to halt its momentum. Then, she withdrew her pistol with her free hand, jammed it beneath the creature’s jaw, and squeezed the trigger. The bullet shot right through the creature’s head, leaving behind a spray of ichor. “Heh, can’t shrug off a gun when I shove into your damn face!”
Amaryllis quickly met the charge of the next group of Oppressed, taking several scrapes as she held her ground. Not a single Oppressed would get past her to harm the girls behind her.
When she had a brief moment, Amaryllis fired the flare gun one last time, and then threw aside the spent device callously, having no further use for it. If nobody was coming, it was useless either way. Despite that despairing thought, she never stopped fighting. She was going to fight to the end.
Nascent Shade peered up at the rooftop, trying to get a glimpse of the humans their undead were fighting. Beside her Rays and Frozen stood, calmly watching the Oppressed pile up the walls of the building ahead.
“They’re putting up a real fight,” Shade couldn’t help but admit to the others. She could feel the lights of the Oppressed going out one by one in her mind, making her wince each time. “None of the others in this area have given us this much trouble.”
“They aren’t even military, so what the hay?” Rays agreed with her. Judging from their attire, he couldn’t see the humans being anything other than civilians, which usually died easily when faced with an undead horde. “Frozen, do you think we should…”
“Silence, both of you. Our forces are nigh infinite, and their number dwindles. Your whining merely emphasizes your incompetence,” Frozen cut him off coldly. His lips curved into a sadistic smirk. “This has proven to be a most interesting game.”
“Game?” Shade couldn’t help but ask. “What are you talking about?”
“It would probably be more accurate to refer to it as an experiment. I wish to see how long they can last against our overwhelming might,” Frozen began, shrugging. “It has been noted that among humans, there are those with significantly higher potential than others of their kind. For example, take the human King Sombra himself recruited in Russia.”
“I still can’t believe that our King would ever spare one of the humans…” Shade said with a shake of her head. She froze, noticing the icy glare given to her by Frozen. She quickly amended her statement. “...N-Not that he doesn’t have a good reason, of course!”
“Be careful what you say, worm. You wouldn’t want me to think you question the King’s decisions,” Frozen stated softly. Despite his seemingly casual tone, Shade broke into a cold sweat from terror. She shook her head vigorously. “Now then, to return to my original point…”
Just then, a bright red projectile shot into the air, leaving behind a trail of white vapor. The glow was so bright, Shade had to cover her eyes to keep from squinting.
“That’s the third time they’ve done that,” Frozen stated with a raised brow. “I don’t know who they think is going to come to their rescue.”
“What about their military?” Rays suggested.
“I highly doubt that. What military would care about the lives of minor peasants?” Frozen scoffed derisively. “Even if they were soft like Equestria, we have their military hemmed in on all sides. They have no fuel or power. Therefore, there is no way any reinforcements could ever make it here.”
The moment after Frozen finished speaking, a house standing to the right of the parish hall, just across the street, erupted with a tumultuous explosion from the inside. Frozen squinted at the bright light moments before he and the other two ponies were knocked right off of their hooves from the resulting shockwave.
Frozen’s horn lit up, and he teleported down to the ground. He quickly erected a wall of transparent ice to protect himself from the debris and smoke raining down on the parking lot, and then he attempted to catch a glimpse of the cause. It wasn’t long before he sighted it… and his eyes widened with surprise.
A large structure made entirely out of dark gray metal burst out of the wreckage of the house, the debris giving way and crunching beneath the inexorably rolling treads. Almost immediately after seeing it, the machine oriented its long barrel on the pile of Oppressed climbing up the walls and spat forth a fiery shell.
Frozen Soul winced as the shell detonated amongst the clumped up undead, sending bloody bits of undead flesh in all directions. He could feel scores of them die in his mind, helpless before such heavy firepower.
“That vehicle… how?!” Frozen growled. He identified the vaguely rectangular vehicle as a “tank,” judging from the singular turret and the two hull mounted machine guns that were now spitting hot metal into the Oppressed that Shade was now directing in its general direction. “What are you doing, you fool!? Undead claws can’t penetrate that armor plating!”
Shade didn’t have a chance to pull them back. Four armored infantry vehicles zoomed through the streets from where the tank had emerged, each one possessing eight wheels and a main armament on the top. Each turret was manned by a human in military clothing; Frozen couldn’t help but notice the quarter arc rainbow insignia stitched onto their shoulders.
Two of the incoming vehicles oriented their machine gun turrets directly on the three of them, causing Frozen to grit his teeth. They immediately opened fire, a spray of heavy bullets saturating the area around them.
The bullets slammed into Frozen’s ice wall, but the structure didn’t hold up well to that degree of punishment and quickly shattered, forcing him to use his magic to halt whatever came close to him.
After catching several of the bullets, his eyes widened at the force that he had to divert in order to halt them. Frozen quickly broke into a sprint, avoiding the bullets by dodging and weaving, using the terrain as well as his own rapidly constructed ice walls to protect him.
The other two weren’t as lucky. Shade knew immediately that she’d need to dodge, so she broke into a run, leaping into cover between two houses. “Rays, with me!” she called. Much to her horror, Rays attempted to take to the sky to avoid the bullets. He failed to anticipate the firing arc of the turret, however, and one of the bullets found its mark in his wing, sending him spiraling to the ground. “No!”
Without hesitation, Shade made to leave the relative safety of the houses to save her lover, but a hoof on her shoulder stopped her. She turned to see Frozen standing behind her. “Don’t be stupid,” the scientist hissed. “We’re not prepared to deal with an armored unit at this time.”
“But Rays is out there… he’s hurt! I need to…!” Shade desperately tried to beg, but Frozen wouldn’t have any of it. He smacked her hard with his staff, cutting her protests off.
“You are not allowed to commit suicide, you insufferable pony! You are a unicorn, and control a good portion of our forces. Now do as you’re told and pull out your undead!” Frozen snarled at her. He suddenly paused, noticing something strange. “Wait…”
Rays wasn’t dead. In fact, the humans weren’t shooting him at all anymore. Instead, the two vehicles were rolling through the parking lot towards him, running over any Oppressed in their way and shooting mercilessly at any targets they could reach. The other two vehicles were revealed to be armed with grenade launchers, with which they were peppering the hills of Oppressed to deadly effect.
“They don’t intend to…” Frozen trailed off. His eyes trailed down to the control amulet resting on the slowly crawling Rays’ neck.
“Quick, Rays, come here! Come to me! You can make it!” Shade urged the stallion, reaching out her hooves. However, there was an impossibly far distance for Rays to traverse.
“Sh-Shade… I…” Rays reached out his hoof as well… and then he was swiftly run through with a lethal shard of ice. His eyes widened and he coughed, blood spattering from his lips as his body began to freeze.
Shade screamed out her lover’s name in despair, tears rolling down her cheeks. There was nothing she could do to prevent Rays from freezing over entirely, dead. She jerked her head around like a whip, glaring intensely at Frozen with utter fury. “Why!? Why would you do that, Frozen!?” she demanded.
Frozen stared at her coolly. “It was clear the humans intended to take Rays alive, along with his control amulet. Rescue was impossible, so I acted to eliminate the threat… that is all,” he answered as if it were a matter of common sense. Noting how her expression only grew more furious, he continued with a stern glare. "You should have known this would happen when you chose to grow attached to a mere soldier.”
He turned his back and started to depart, seething at the sudden appearance of the humans. “I won’t tell you again, Shade. Pull your forces out and…” Frozen was suddenly cut off by a blast of magic slamming into his upper body, and he was knocked off of his hooves into the side of a house. “What the…”
“Screw that!” Shade shrieked angrily, power she never even knew she had welling up from within her. “I’ll make you pay in blood for what you’ve done!”
Shade thrust her blazing horn forward and let loose a blast of unrefined magic towards her former superior. Frozen leapt to his hooves and narrowed his eyes. “What a poor decision you’ve made,” he growls. His hoof glowed a bright blue just in time for him to slap the beam of power aside with a grunt of exertion. The wall beside him was blown to bits from the resulting explosion.
Shade zoomed out of the cloud of debris with a wordless yell, the cry of a mare with nothing left to lose. She reared up and swung her hooves at Frozen with all of her might. Frozen steadily retreated beneath her onslaught, yet not a single attack landed. His expression remained unchanged as he avoided or deflected her attacks.
“Foolish worm...you are a hundred years too early to challenge me,” Frozen snarled. He finally retaliated, ducking beneath Shade’s hooves and ramming his own hoof into her underside viciously.
Shade gasped in agony, the wind leaving her lungs from that one unbelievably strong punch. Before she could prepare herself, Frozen swiped his staff through the air, unleashing a wave of frozen energy that caught her right in the middle. She let out a helpless cry as she was knocked right off her hooves and hurled out into the clearing where the humans were shredding the hordes of Oppressed with heavy machine gun fire and explosive shells.
Shade collapsed beside the frozen form of her lover. She grunted and inched towards Rays’ body. Even as one of the smaller vehicles oriented its grenade launcher on her position, she scooped up his fallen form and held him close, crying once more at her own powerlessness.
“Permission to terminate granted! Open fire!”
Shade heard the humans yelling to one another, and then came the unmistakable clunk of the grenade launcher firing. She jerked her head towards the incoming projectile. With a glare and one final yell of anger, her horn started to glow.
The grenade detonated, and the area was swallowed in a maelstrom of fiery destruction.
“What the hell is going on down there!?” Amaryllis demanded. She now held the bloody claw of one of the Oppressed as a weapon, slicing through the undead flesh with deadly effect. Yet now she couldn’t help but hear the machine gun fire and explosions occurring in the parking lot down below.
Everyone who could fight was all wounded in some form or fashion, but nobody else had died. Nevertheless, Amaryllis was tiring, and she knew she was getting sloppy. She couldn’t keep this up. However, the amount of Oppressed coming over the walls slowed, making their numbers more manageable for the smaller group.
Jennifer slammed her wrench down on an Oppressed, wincing as blood from the cut on her dominant shoulder trickled down her arm. She pushed forward until she reached the edge of the roof. She recoiled when she saw the Oppressed piling up once more.
They were gone in an instant. With a sound of thunder, the pile of Oppressed exploded, flesh and ichor flying in all directions. It didn’t take her long to notice the tank rolling towards the parking lot, the barrel pointing in the direction of the aforementioned explosion. Her eyes widened, and her face lit up. “It’s...It’s the military!” Jennifer called back to everyone exultantly. “They have a tank!”
“A tank!?”
“I can’t believe it…”
“We’re saved! Amaryllis, you did it!”
“A tank...hah...hah….” Amaryllis panted, taking a short breather. She didn’t have long before she had to sidestep another group of Oppressed and lay into them with the claw. She honestly couldn’t believe someone came to their rescue...much less an armored unit. She gave an incredulous chuckle. “Good...I can’t...keep this up…”
Despite her body’s fatigue, her morale soared to new heights upon realizing that she’d done it. She’d managed to get them out of this, despite the heavy cost.
The military was here now.