FusionFall: Invasion

Chapter Four: Spoils of War

We delved into the streets, ducking under any cover we could find. The fog and clouds above broke into sunshine every now and then, giving us a few moments of hope and bliss every time. If the sun can still shine, then all is not lost. I reasoned. As our gang sneaked around, we saw lumbering shadows in the distance and running figures. Rarely, we heard a gunshot or two from struggling civilians.

"This isn't what I planned to do after school today." Rebecca said. "But hey, sure beats homework." A couple people chuckled. I smiled, knowing that keeping our spirits up would be vital if we wanted to survive. We slowly reached our houses, one by one. Some were damaged, bodies laying in the rubble. Others were still standing whole, but as we combed through, we found signs of hurried evacuation, many stores of food gone from pantries and fridges, bedrooms turned upside down.

A couple of houses were absolutely decimated, replaced by a massive crater. My house and Daniel's. At each one house damaged the group stood by silently as whoever had lived there lamented their losses. Then when they could stand, we went inside and searched the house. We found old backpacks and filled them with food rations and a few changes of clothes. Misty light drifted through holes and windows. I couldn't help stopping and marveling at how quickly our lives had changed.

It's oddly both horrifying and beautiful...I caught myself saying to myself once as I stared at a pool of fusion goop. It was such a full color of green and a soft light...I shook my head. Pull it together Ben. I said to myself not for the first time, and certainly not the last. This stuff will kill you. I went back to raiding the house for food.

We found a couple of weapon substitutes. Pocket knives, long poles we sharpened. We found two hunting rifles in Hailey's house. The cabinet had been smashed open and Hailey commented on how most of the guns and ammo was missing. We shrugged it off. We would just have to be careful in our usage of the guns.

When we finished in Pokey Oaks and Sector V, we began to head back down to Endsville. On the way we ran into a few more monsters. The easiest to dispatch were literally just these spheres of the fusion stuff. They had big gaping mouths, red narrowed eyes, and a rigid zig-zaggy tail. Another monster we encountered looked like a big octopus almost, with a cylindrical body enclosed in a ring of sidewalk concrete. Four giant pipes protruded from the concrete and pointed down. Wires stuck out and wriggled everywhere like feelers. We saw another one of those massive golem things again, too.

We managed to fight each one off, but just barely. Jackson, Luke, and Chris took it upon themselves to come up with names for each one we encountered. "Fusion Spawn!" They stated for the easy spherical one. "Shocktangler." After a few minutes of debate for the octopus-like creature. "Gravel Golem," easily enough for the asphalt monster. We laughed, but quickly adopted the names. It was easy to use for each one instead of trying to describe each one.

As we finished our rounds in the eastern Suburbs area, the fog and clouds began to really clear. We decided to stop and rest and wait for the sun to shine on us again. We began to be able to see the full aftermath of everything.

Many houses still stood, surprisingly enough. Malph's factory still stood. The destruction on the school didn't seem too bad, from that far away, at least. The park's pavilion still stood, sustaining no damage. Looking up, the slider tracks were still intact, miraculously. A hum filled the air as the slider itself traveled by slowly. 

Off in Sector V, we could see KND machines moving as quickly as possible to attach chains to it and pull it down. The alien planet was already trying to suck up bits of the world. It was having an effect on the environment too. It was the middle of summer, but wasn't very hot at all. If it weren't an alien invasion, I probably could have lay down on the grass and slept easily. But regrettably, and alien invasion was precisely what was going on.

Of course, Fusion monsters now roamed everywhere. Weird tree-like things had sprouted up everywhere. Occasionally, we could see a flash of green-red light and a Spawn would wriggle from the thing and plop onto the ground. It would flop around looking for knowledge of it's new environment. I shuddered and looked away.

Our little band was walking down the cracked pavement when a large figure appeared from far away. It was obviously a man, but not quite a man, more a teenage boy. He was aiming a long rifle at us, peering into the scope. "Stop right there!" He called. The voice sounded familiar to me. But from where?

I raised my hands slowly. "Hello! Don't shoot...please. Let's talk first..." I stepped forward.

"Don't take another step! You're another monster, aren't you? Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. I won't let you fool me again you green hell spawns!" He roared. He cocked his rifle without a second thought. I stopped, hands still in the air. Suddenly, I remembered who it might be.

"Niko?" I asked hesitantly. "Niko Skar? That you, man?"

"Of course you think that'd work!" He replied fiercely. "You tricked me already disguised as my family, my friends, my girlfriend..." He drifted off for a moment, then shook his head to clear it and trained the scope on me now. "Well, it won't work this time! I'll shoot ya you bast-" Niko stopped mid-insult. He lowered his gun a little and slowly walked over to me, his boots crunching on loose cement and fallen sticks and leaves. The big guy looked down on me. Although he only stood maybe a few inches taller, he was intimidating in this sort of battle suit he wore. Camouflage print everything, thick tinted goggles, and straps full of bullet pouches. He had another rifle slung on his back and two pistols on his hips.

"Ben? That you?" He asked incredulously.

I chuckled, relieved he had decided not to shoot me. "Yeah. It's me Niko." He slapped my shoulder and chuckled too. "How'd you know I wasn't a Fusion?" I asked.

"Easy." He replied, grinning. "Your skin."

"My...Oh."

"Yeah. The...Fusions, you called them? The Fusions have green skin, but the alter-egos of people have a shade much closer to ours. So it's easy to skip over it if you're not observant enough. I mean, they look, act, feel, think exactly like the real person." I nodded as he said this, thinking back to our encounter with Aiden's mom's Fusion self.

I turned and introduced Niko to the rest of the group. "Everyone, this is an old friend, Niko Skar." He's a bit of a weapons nut and tactician." I turned to him. "Will you join us? I'm sure you'd be an invaluable help to us." He shrugged. "Sure. Why not?" He looked at our gang. "Looks like you're low on weapons anyway. You could use some."

I laughed. "Oh, good. You noticed."

Niko moved past me and began to choose people capable of using the weapons he carried. Jackson took a rifle, David took a pistol, and Blake the other. Niko held onto his sniper rifle. Hailey held one of her rifles and Aiden had the other we had found. Nearly everyone else had crude makeshifts. Feeling a bit safer and confidence running higher, we continued towards the west Suburbs. There we would find strange going-ons.