All Is Lost - cloudkitty


Have you ever run for your life? Not just run as fast as you can, or be competing to win, but been in so much danger that your body has seemingly infinite stamina? That was me. The entire West District of The Chaos Legion was under attack by Astral Beasts, half already engulfed in flames. My men were fighting to their last breath, but it wasn’t enough. One full grown beast was enough to take 100 men. And there were well over 100 beasts attacking.

An Infantryman stepped in front of me as I ran by.

“Sir, where are you goin-”

I grabbed him by the shoulder and spoke quickly with urgency.

“Get me an engineer and get to the Reactor Room. NOW!”

He nodded and ran down another hall as I continued towards my office in the center of the district. I reached, what used to be, a hallway, now reduced to a precarious bridge without its walls or ceiling. As I ran across it I could see the Astral Beasts and my men, fighting like there was no tomorrow. Which there may not be for them. At the end I nearly smashed my office door off its hinges, unable to stop my momentum, and crashed into my desk on the other side. I stood back up and rushed to the laptop on the other side. It had all happened so quickly that I hadn’t been able to warn The Anarchist of the attack. I wasn’t sure how long it had been since the attack started, but it couldn’t have been more than an hour.

“Cloud, what’s going on?” He asked immediately as I called him. “Your district isn’t showing that it has powe-”

I cut him off as well, barely able to because of my lack of breath.

“Astral Beasts… The entire… district is in flames… need reinforcements.”

He wasn’t one to waste time. “We’ll use the Nether portals; I’ll have men there in 15 minutes.”

“Make it ten.”

He nodded and I slammed the laptop shut and threw it and several documents into my backpack, grabbed my rifle, and was about to rush out when I looked out my office window. I saw nothing… nothing. No men, no beasts, just a burning fortress being quickly reduced to ashes. And as I stared through the smoke, something caught my eye, or rather, I caught it’ eye. Two white, soulless eyes stared through the fog on top of a burning tower. A black outline to go with them. We stared for what seemed like an eternity but was only a few seconds. Then slowly, it turned and disappeared from sight.

Unable to shake the weird dizzy feeling I had, I stumbled towards the door, looking drunk. I managed to reach the emergency first aid kit on the wall and pulled out an adrenaline shot. I injected it into my arm and shook off the dizziness. Then ran for the reactor room. I'd deal with that later.

The infantryman had followed my orders. Our Engineer ExtremeGames was with him standing in front of the sealed door to the reactor.

“I found the engineer sir, but the Reactor is on lockdown; we can’t get inside.”

“I can override it, but if I do, we’ll have to work quick; the beasts cannot get inside.”

I explained the plan to both of them. The second the door opened, Extreme would begin extracting the Reactor Core while the two of us held off whatever beasts attempted to get inside. We couldn’t leave the Core no matter what; if the beasts got to it, its destruction would incinerate everything within a 20-mile radius and cover another 10 miles in radiation. As soon as we got it, we would run for the Fort’s Nether Portal, if it was even still there.

I typed in the override code on the panel next to the door, and it slid open with a crack; meaning the internal mechanism was smashed. We couldn’t close the door.

Inside was the enormous machine powering the entire Fort, but no amount of power could stop the flames that would destroy everything in a matter of hours. The red glow from the core lit up the entire room.

Extreme was already climbing the ladder to the Core and began extracting it immediately. That’s when I heard the unmistakable scratch of an Astral Beast, a bruiser in fact. I could tell from the lower pitch. It was already halfway to us by the time I’d pulled out my rifle. The Infantryman and I knew not to unload all our ammo now. It would charge headfirst using its battering-ram-of-a head as a shield, our bullets wouldn’t pierce it. We waited until it got close enough to stand up on two legs, then we hit the neck.

It ran through the Reactor door and stood, raising its claws to attack, then we fired straight for its weak point. It stumbled backwards with a screech as it bled out. I was expecting more of a fight, but it may have already been wounded. As it hit the ground, it reared back its head and let out and ear piercing screech that nearly made me drop my rifle. It only lasted several seconds, then it collapsed, lifeless.

The room was Silent for a moment, and Extreme called out behind me.

“I got it!”

But before could even breathe a sigh of relief, I heard more screeches down the hall outside the Reactor Room. A lot more. The bruiser must have been calling them, letting them know where we were. Soon the whole swarm would be on us. We couldn’t get the Core out except through them.

The Minors, as we called them, were the smallest and weakest beasts, but they also stayed in groups, like the one heading right for us. These couldn’t block our fire. Several shots from my gun, one down, several more, another. But they kept coming. I killed more, more, more- they wouldn’t stop. Then suddenly, the seemingly endless flow was cut off. They just stopped coming. We killed the last few and, as I looked down out the door to see what stopped them, I saw the green and black armor and golden crown of Greief running towards us, two pistols in hand. But I didn’t lower my rifle, I kept it aimed right at him.

“There’s a chopper on the roof, we can’t waste time. Come on!”

Extreme started towards the door, but the Infantryman stopped him.

“What?” Grief asked. “What it is?”

“I’m double checking.”

He sighed and pulled out his Legion Rank Badge.

“See? Not a shapeshifter.”

I slung the rifle over my shoulder.

“Then let’s go.”

Several infantrymen wearing black and green armor, instead of our black and blue, guided us to the roof. Greief was the Supreme Commanding Legionmaster of the North Sector, or green sector as some called it.

We were one floor from the roof when two more bruisers smashed through the windows and charged us.

“Go for the necks! Don’t let them call the others!” I shouted.

One took a bullet straight through the neck and topped over. The other rammed into one of the soldiers and knocked him out the window and into the flames below. It spun around and slashed my Infantryman with its claws. Greief brought his sword down on its head and killed it. I rushed over to my soldier, who was already getting back on his feet.

“I’m okay, keep going.”

We got to the roof and into the chopper just as the rest of the swarm began overtaking the roof. We fired several shots and were quickly out of range. But once again, my sigh of relief was cut short.

The entirety of the West District was engulfed in flames and beasts, as well as whatever poor men remained inside. I turned to Greief.

“How many made it out?”

“Three other choppers and us. I don’t know how many men they have, but I don’t think it’s much.”

Everyone was Silent; there was nothing to say.

After several minutes I turned to the Infantryman who had helped us so much.

“What’s your name soldier?”

“Fox, sir.”

“Well, you just got promoted, Commander Fox.”

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I hope that's good, I'll release the next chapter next Wednesday. I'm more into long stories, not short ones like this. But I that's just the best I could do right now lol.

The song is there as a soundtrack, you don't have to listen to it while you read, but it makes it better in my opinion.

Enjoy!