A Tale from the Dark Dimension

Chapter 7: Justin

Justin's search was going less than well. During his time trying to find her, he crossed a few Devils and he didn't have enough ammo for all of them, so he resorted to running. He ran into an empty and pulled out his side arm. He turned to face them, his back to a wall. They came crashing in through the doorway as he let the 8 bullets from his M1911 hit them in their heads, killing the few of them. He reloaded his pistol and moved to the bodies, ensuring they were dead.

He couldn't hear it before over all the gunfire, but the tracker was beeping. He checked his CPU and saw that the tracker said she was in the room with him. No, that couldn't be right. The only things in this room were weapon racks and a...closet. He hadn't noticed the closet until just now, but he was praying to whatever was out there that she was in this closet so they could finally return home. He pulled his flashlight out and held his gun up. He yanked the door open and readied his pistol. At first he didn't see anything, until he looked slightly down and saw the body of a woman lying right in front of him.

The woman looked up at him and he could see that that was her. He had found Xavier, but she didn't look the same as how she left. For starters, he saw that her eyes had gained a heterochromatic like state, with one iris being grey and the other being a golden, honey-like color. Her hair had turned from a brown to a dark green, and he noticed a scar that started under her right eye that led from her cheek all the way down the side of her neck to her collarbone. The bottom part of her shirt was torn, with lazily wrapped bandages covering bleeding cuts lining her stomach. She had bad bruises lining her sides and arms, with her legs being cut up.

"Justin?" she asked with what seemed to be a sparkle of hope in her eyes.

"Yeah. Yeah it's me. I'm here. I'm getting you out of here," Justin replied, extending his hand to help her. She took it and he helped her to her feet, but as soon as she put her right foot down he could tell her ankle was broken with the way she limped.

"Hold on. Here. Just, hop on my back," Justin said. He moved his gear to the front of his body and crouched down low enough for her to get on. She seemed shorter than how she left, but that didn't matter. More or less, she was okay. Physically, at least. He didn't have any idea how she was doing mentally, but that was for later. Right now he had his mission, to bring her back alive.

The pair said nothing as he moved to the stairs, careful to go down them slowly as to not fall and hurt themselves even more. As soon as he got down to the floor, it looked like all hell had broken loose. Gunfire was coming from the lab and portal room, along with loud growls and roars of those Devils attacking their friends. Justin moved through the door and saw Frost, Cole, and Cade fighting for their lives against the mob of them. Justin drew his sidearm and shot the few that he could straight through the head.

"Gale, Lizzy, get down here now!" Justin yelled into his mic before moving as fast as he could over to them. As he was moving he got punched on by one of them, sending him and Xavier onto the ground. He held his arm up as a reflex and the Devil's sharp teeth sank right into his left forearm. Wasting no time despite the pain, he pulled out his knife and stabbed it through the side of its head, killing it. He threw the beast off of him before trying to stand, but found an intense pain shooting up his leg. He looked and there was blood gushing out of his calf that was cut open by the creature's claws. He turned and saw another was about to jump at him,and it surely would've killed him, but it got shot down by his sister standing in the door frame. She rushed to his side, her and Gale helping them both up.

They were walking up the ramp, Cade being the closest to the bottom giving them covering fire while they got the wounded out. Just as they were about to go through the portal, a bright orange wave of energy along with a near deafening sound shook the entire building, flowing through all of them before they left. Everyone had gone ahead ensuring that Justin and Xavier got out, and as Cade was stepping through the portal, his right arm had gotten caught by the jaws of one of the Devils, trying to pull him back through. Cole and Frost grabbed onto Cade, refusing to let go.

"Close it!" Cade screamed as his arm was being crushed in the vice like grip. He pulled out his golden Desert Eagle and began to fire shots into the creatures face, but it wouldn't let go. Artemis raced down and shut off the power, cutting off their connection to the portal as well as Cade's right arm. He fell onto the ramp, seeing his friend's concerned faces before slipping into unconsciousness.