Do Or Die

Chapter 3

The black walls that surrounded the company of six slowly dispersed, puffing up vertically like plumes of smoke. The trajectory of the blast became visible. The inside of the transport helicopter exploded, and so too did the occupants as the force of their entry became evident. Their pocket dimension had been set up to emerge inside the man with whom Xin had placed the phone. Viktor had blown the dimension walls apart, along with the helicopter the man had boarded. They had landed from the inside out, causing a large explosion. Everyone in the man's vicinity had been killed.

The helicopter was a transport chopper; not fit for landing, it had a ladder and pulley at the entrance, presumably for hoisting an infirm patient for transport. The party of six fell to the ground on impact.

The explosion had the effect Viktor had surmised of eliminating a number of combatants on contact. It also had the dubious effect of attracting everyone's attention and did not make for an ideally stealthy approach. The eyes of everyone still on the rooftop fell on them. A screeching alarm blasted the silence, alerting all others to the intrusion at the base, and the six fighters were immediately under massive direct fire.

Viktor turned; he was at the back of the line. Kelly was in front, using his numchucks to deflect bullets. Viktor cursed. He raised his club to fire – but a long, thin silver projectile appeared from the side, penetrating the stomach of an attacker. The force of the object did not end with the first impact, but continued, pulling the attacker off his feet and causing him to slam into a fellow combatant. The projectile, sinking into the flesh of the second combatant's side before hitting a third, dragged all attackers backwards into the side corner of a wall. The wall broke off and all the enemies were heard screaming as they followed it over the side of the building.

All stood and looked back at the direction from which the projectile had originated. Brighton Darksmith lay heaving with exhaustion, holding a long thin weapon that looked like a recoilless rifle. The stares leveled at him turned witless.

Viktor walked over to him and offered him a hand up. Brighton took it and stood, righting himself. Viktor looked upon him, thoughtful, making Darksmith feel uncomfortable under the direct scrutiny before a bullet whizzed by, grazing the side of Viktor's cheekbone. Specks of blood and broken skin splattered into the air.

Two assault rifles. It was then Kelly brought out his second numchucks from inside his jacket, spinning both pairs in the form of  X's  with either hand so fast they resembled straight, golden batons.  He deftly deflected all the bullets streaming toward them. The bullets flashed and sparked as they flew into each golden shaft.

The two combatants stood side by side, effectively blocking the only entrance to the roof. Their accuracy was skewed, though, a tell-tale sign of their lack of experience in using the Kalashnikov. They decided to advance, believing a smaller gap would give them a better shot at him, in between the spin of the nunchucks. Kelly's movement did not allow for breaks in speed. Their strategy amounted to futility, and closing the gap only allowed Kelly a better shot at them when deflecting the bullets. He parried both rifles with the ease and fluidity of a trained professional. He had sheathed the blades, and this had allowed his free-form tactics to become sharper.

The rifles were on semi-automatic. The short bursts of gunfire veered off in either direction, due to the combatants' stance in shouldering their rifles. Kelly used the brief reprieve from being in the direct line of fire to accomplish a change-up. He skillfully turned around, grinned at his counterparts as he flung both numchucks under his arm, caught them at the baton stick's middle on one end, and turned once more to face the shooters. Lunging forward, holding both sticks in either hand, he swung both diagonally across in front of him.

He effectively deflected a bullet, sending it flying to hit the AK-47 shooter on his left in the hand holding the gun's grip. The shooter yelped.  Another bullet came at Kelly from the shooter on the right. Kelly swung both numchucks above to his chest in a criss-cross style, deflecting the other bullet into the other shooter's head. The bullet shattered the skull, entering the brain, and the man slumped to his death.

With his compatriot dead beside him, the man began to panic. The alarms still rung loudly, the clouds crackled, the rain started to drizzle steadily.  The man began to fumble for the vertical selector lever on the left side of the AK-47. If he hadn't noticed when one of the initial bullets Kelly had deflected earlier had ricocheted off the lever rendering it ineffective, he noticed its stub missing now. 

Before he could reach for the other safety so he could place the rifle in full-automatic mode, he felt a sharp, unbearable pain at his abdomen. He looked down to witness the unthinkable; a black hand had pierced his middle straight through. He then looked into the face of owner of such an arm, and it held the prettiest brown eyes he had ever seen. That was his last thought as his neck was caught between two inhuman jaws.