No Second Chances: The Beginning Of The End - Chapter 31

Nat, Gree, and Phil began to work together on the cannons to get them ready and test them the same night as a group of workers including Marco and Pascal were installing the gate in the last of the spots. Nat worked and fast as she could while Phil and Gree were double-checking the wiring and structural integrity so it won’t fall apart when mounted on the walls of the village.

Several hours later, Marco and Pascal joined them to talk about the progress of the cannons. “Yes, yes, thankfully we will be done in an hour or so to mount them, I just need to set a generic calibrator to then recalibrate in the testing phase.” –Nat pointed out with tired eyes as she closed the lid of the analogical section of the calibrator. “You guys might as well take those two already and mount them since they are ready to mount” –She continued while pointing at a couple of large cannons able to launch large heavy ammunition. Pascal and Marco walked out after nodding and saying nothing else to bring the transportation team to get the cannons to the wall.

“I’m still worried about how they had the ammunition sitting here already.” –Phil said while running a couple of tests on the wiring of the cannons and the welded joints.

“Ivan can see the future Phil, I wouldn’t be surprised if they also knew more than they have told us, but leaving that aside I’m sleepy as hell and I need my beauty sleep, so we really need to deal with this matter already.” –Gree scoffed while checking the programming for the built-in targeting and controls, making sure the alloy is evenly covering the wiring.

There is also the fact that Ivan mentioned someone coming, who is able to face whatever is down there. –Phil thought while remembering the moment he felt so powerless while Elvira stood behind him, sending a sudden shiver down his spine.

While they were checking the last of the cannons, a tremor shook the village and the tunnels. An amalgamation of several hundred bodies with immense mouths across its own torso and eyes everywhere, having 4 legs and 3 gigantic arms along with 3 mouths with bones as teeth, crawled out of the entrance of the mines hissing putrid fumes and standing on its legs before heading to the closest source of nourishment along with several abominations and infected.

An alarm in the village was turned on and everyone was advised to stay at home until everything was over. Pascal and Marco rushed with the transportation team towards the workshop and quickly alerted Gree, Nat, and Phil about the horde that was approaching the Village. In a matter of minutes, the whole transportation team along with Phil and Nat tried to get the last 2 cannons on the walls. Meanwhile, Gree had to find the Major and Lorenz to ask them more about the predictions, however, they already were driving on a special vehicle towards the entrance located closer to the horde. Gree instantly recognized the car and poked her thumb out as if asking for a lift and Lorenz stopped to pick her up. “Ivan, what the hell is going to happen? We are not nearly ready to shoot the cannons and much less repel a whole horde.” –Gree complained in the backseats, sassily crossing her arms and looking directly to the back of Ivan’s head.

Ivan sighed and looked back towards Gree. “I am afraid I can’t tell you about what will happen, because it could affect the future in different ways, so I will just let you know that you won’t sleep tonight.” –Ivan replied concerned since he didn’t know much about what was going to happen either, but he was betting on the future were they survive somehow.

On the other side of the town, Phil and Nat were mounting the cannons with the transportation team and fixing them in place so they could properly withstand the recoil of every shot. The cannon consisted of a large barrel with a magnetic rail able to launch heavy and explosive rounds at high speeds, basically becoming anti-tanks weaponry. Nat felt proud and concerned as to what would happen after placing the cannons on the walls since she didn’t have previous time to test them and they might have offsetting problems. Phil was more worried about the horde including the amalgamation of bodies several times bigger than the abominations around it.

Lorenz and Ivan were looking at the wall in the distance as there were several people trying to peek out of their houses to understand what is happening, some of them consisted of younger people gathering out of their houses, expecting something to happen, and very badly equipped. Gree took a look at them and sighed since it would be most likely for them to die if they tried to fight any infected from the horde. Lorenz kept driving towards the workshop and managed to dismiss some people in the middle of the road by blowing the horn, as they seemed dumbfounded looking at the transportation teamwork on placing the cannons.

Pascal and Marco were coordinating another team to quickly make a rough estimation of the ammunition they had and the amount of infected approaching. Which ended being short of ammo on their side, representing a problem and risk of individuals having to go out of the walls to clear up the non-mutated infected.

After Lorenz arrived at his office, he began to send a distress message to the capital in order to get help, with the unbelievably massive infected that was slowly making his way to the walls of the village. The message described the situation and the urgency of the request for help; right after he sent the message, Marco entered his office while out of breath. “Lorenz, they are 500 meters away from the walls, the cannons are mounted but-“ –Marco stated before being interrupted by a loud explosion created by the large rounds being launched from the cannons.

Nat and Phil tried their best to control a cannon each and prepared the necessary offsets to shoot, not totally accurate but enough to impact in a large group of the infected and a couple of abominations that began to charge against the wall. As they kept shooting, Nat got increasingly anxious due to the amalgamation in the back of the horde slowly making its way in clumsy steps, as if it just learned to move.

Phil commanded Pascal to control another of the cannons and shoot, but missed his initial target; shooting way further than intended. Quickly, Pascal took a notepad from his pocket to write the approximate distance the round flew to. However, the infected already reached the walls and began to slam their limbs against the fortified spots, doing a minimum of damage towards the concrete and steel reinforcements. But then the abominations arrived too and started to bend the steel with their flailing.

Ivan was standing outside of the workshop, looking at the cannons shooting and reloading after a small time lag. “Do you think miracles exist, Miss Myers?” –Ivan asked before turning to Gree who was right next to him, looking at her tablet and reading some documents, humming and not paying attention to what he said. “You really seem very carefree in a situation like this.” –He muttered while looking back at the walls as they were heavily pounded by the abominations.

As the cannons were being shot at the abominations, the amalgamation was struggling but keeping a steady pace towards the village, stomping several infected in front of it and splattering their remains around. In the near vicinity, at the entrance of the mines, Sinns and Elvira were slicing howlers and normal infected, each of them holding 1 of Chronos daggers, while Chronos himself managed to take down a couple of abominations a few meters in front of them.

“What is going on and why are there so many of these things here?!” –Elvira asked confused while slicing the next infected approaching her.

“If I’m not mistaken there has to be a hive nearby, and it broke loose searching for nutrients.” –Sinns replied as she quickly dispatches some infected as well, sliding the dagger swiftly and cutting off the limbs of the infected.

“And we are supposed to go to Gree with a horde of this magnitude in our way? Wouldn’t it be wiser to avoid this?” –Elvira opined as she took another of the infected down and swung the blade to get rid of the excess of putrid blood.

That would be a good idea, but Casamira is right in the direction these things are heading, so if we want to have a clue of Gree’s whereabouts, we need the people in that town alive, however, there is little we could do against that” –Sinns sighed and pointed to the amalgamation which was clumsily moving.

“I could try to get its attention while you two attempt to reach faster to the town; however I am not sure if it will work.” –Chronos suggested as Elvira and Sinns doubted it but allowed him anyways since it would be their only way to get to Casamira. He then began to run in separated ways from them, piercing through anything in his path, given Infected, howlers, or even abominations.

Similarly, Sinns and Elvira ran towards Casamira as they kept hearing heavy rounds being shot, one of those landing close to Sinns and injuring her right arm slightly, which almost instantly got covered in some sort of scales and healed. Tch, at this rate I will be losing a limb completely, are they really only aiming to kill the infected? –Sinns silently complained while rubbing her arm to brush off the dirt and gunpowder.

Elvira keeps killing left and right, even using her free hand to crush the skulls of the infected, as if she was releasing some stress on them, not minding the trail of motionless corpses she is leaving behind while approaching the fortified village.

“There are some heroes taken down some infected on their way to the village!” –Pascal exclaimed excited after scoping Elvira and Sinns massacring every infected in their path while making their way to the village.

Nat and Phil managed to hear Pascal but didn’t pay much attention to him since they were busier trying to hit the howlers gathering more and more infected around them and the abominations preparing to ram the wall.

At the same time, Lorenz and Marco came out of the workshop to meet Gree and Ivan, who was simply standing nearby the parking lot. “Ivan, how much of this were you able to see?” –Lorenz asked while getting in his car with Marco to carry him to the wall.

“I just saw a horrible monster and someone taking it down, but I don’t know if we will survive before that happens” –Ivan answered, as he also got inside the car, while Gree silently jumped in as well, throwing glances to the street and her tablet.

On the other side of the field, Chronos kept pushing forward towards the amalgamation; every infected, howler, and abomination in his path was almost instantly pierced by large ashen spears that rose from the ground. In his hands he had another spear made out of ashes but refrained from using it since it could slow him down, preventing him from his immediate goal. Minutes later, he made contact with the amalgamation, piercing its massive legs and part of its torso. However, he was only able to slow it down and shift its attention to him.

Sinns and Elvira successfully made their way to the gate of the village after taking down an abomination together, syncing their moves to avoid wasting time, slicing off the abomination’s head and arms. Elvira then began to knock on the gate as a way to mock the gatekeepers behind it. “IS THERE ANYONE AT HOME?!” –She yelled in order to get the gate open, which was quickly opened by a couple of dwarves that looked at them with respect and fear.

Phil kept firing further after realizing there were substantially less infected nearby the wall, then he realized the amalgamation stopped moving in their direction and seemed to be attacking a rather young person he couldn’t really recognize due to the distance. Nat sighed in relief after noticing reinforces arrived to help and relaxed slightly, shooting a howler with more enthusiasm.

The amalgamation attempted to slam its deformed limbs against Chronos who was easily avoiding the swings and stomps, but despite his efforts, Chronos couldn’t completely finish off the massive mountain of bodies that were in from of him. To his surprise, there were a couple of jets flying over the area and carpet bombing the amalgamation a lot with a large number of infected, inflicting a lot of damage to it. At the same time, an animal with the similar looks of an enormous inflated frog, landed nearby Chronos and after hearing an unknown man whistle, the animal spat a high-pressure stream of water with probably the width of Chronos’ arm, acting as a water blade, and aiming towards the amalgamation, being able to cut through it easily and splitting it in two.

Chronos was looking at the scene in awe before the man who whistled patted his shoulder. “Are you alright? We are here to clean the area, please go back to the town so we can do our job.” –Said the man with an overwhelming presence.

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