Empty Clip

Strike back

After that whole drama with Claire and her brother she didn't speak very often, even when I said her name to her she'd just keep walking. Eventually one day I was in the common hub with Nick when he suddenly jumped up from where he was sitting and came over to me.

"Mike listen I've been thinking, if thoses REDS can sneak into our base. Whos to say we can't sneak into theirs."

Hearing the idea I was given a sudden bit of fear to mind as seeing the REDs during battle was quite frightening. Though I couldn't back out of this, otherwise Nick would see me as some coward. So I stood up and agreed holding the fear inside of my voice.

He soonly lead me outside where he had himself a nice BLU pick up truck, I hopped into the passenger seat and he took the driver. He drove just like my brother, though the screeching of the tires was a small bit louder when he had made the second donut before flying off to the RED base. Once approaching the RED base I had seen that RED cyborg WING again. Though of course it wasn't for very long sense Nick had decided to ram into the robot with no trouble at all. When we got out I realized how similar the base was to ours, it was just everything was wood or scrapped metal. RED appeared to be nothing but scavengers in this state, and the smell was terrible. We entered the base and Nick looked at me.

"Heres the plan Mike, you'll make a direct push for the intel and I'll go distract them."

"I'm not sure if I like leaving you behind.. what if something goes wrong?"

"Hey come on.. its me Nick.. when have I ever been wrong?"

I followed his orders and began to run down to the intel room, it was like ours but still mostly wood with little metal around. I was running down the stairs when I suddenly bumped into a RED member. Appeared to be a sniper like me, I panicked and took out my smg and began to fire which forced him to take cover as I quickly rolled into the hall leading to the intel. I suddenly bumped into a person in a BLU uniform, at first I was calm and then realized it was simply a disguise to fool me as I was shoved to the ground and almost lost my head to a shotgun blast. I took advantage of being on the ground and dived inbetween his legs and continued running. Seeing a RED breifcase on the table I grabbed hold of it but someone tugged back. The RED mercenary who I would later know to be called Grant. His comrade in BLU: James eventually caught up and aimed his shotgun at me.

"Hands off sniper boy"

I had no choice but to listen as I let go. Grant walked in my front view and looked at me as he began to speak in a cold voice

"You were quite a pest on badwater... pushing that payload all by yourself. You may think your something but your just a coward. Unlike you I've always got allies with me and prepared for every situation."

I clenched my fists when I suddenly heard a scream down the hall from the sniper that attacked me. A flare was fired directly at James when Nick ran in and punched Grant in the face. Grabbing the briefcase and my hand as he started bolting down the hallway

"DON'T LET THEM ESCAPE!"

I heard the mercenary yell from down the corridor. We were about to make out escape when suddenly more REDs from down the hall began to shoot at us, Nick knocked down a book shield and took cover behind it. From behind the bookshelf I could now see the green mercenary Kyle shooting as us along with WING. Suddenly some blasts came from ourside of the bookshelf. It was JET, it seemed that had followed us as he aimed his two hands up to expose wrist blasters, rapid firing at the mercenaries. Nick and I began running when he was suddenly shot

"Go on without me"

"I won't leave you!"

"Finish the mission Michael! Finish the-"

His breathing suddenly stopped as his body stopped moving

"Nick? NICK!"

JET began backing up as he grabbed the RED briefcase. JET looked at me

"Master Mike we must make our retreat now."

JET said but he was suddenly shot as well as he handed the briefcase to me.

"You must run away"

JET said as he put his arms into a cross and charged directly into the fire of the mercenaries. I wiped my eyes as I began to bolt it out of there not looking back no matter what I heard. I even ran past the car Nick had drove us in as I didn't even know how to drive.

The next hours were simply walking through the long desert like area around me, the desolate battle grounds that were filled with nothing but sand, rust, ash and horrible horrible memories. However I had finally made it to the BLU base, I couldn't feel my body as I stepped in and felt a shock of cold air from the AC. Making my way down the intel room I placed the RED briefcase then started to feel dizzy as I suddenly lost balance and fell onto the floor. I heard shouting down the hall as the world suddenly went to dark as it had the day of badwater.