The Road to London – Firefight
A Hellgate: London fanfiction, by yours truly.


2 AG.
12th of November.
Dorking, England, south of London.
Afternoon.



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It's a blood bath. Small rivers of it slowly creep down the hill, mixing together the oily dark-brown demon blood and the lighter crimson of her comrades. There's pieces of flesh scattered around, limbs and heads; even pieces of bone. Some of it's clinging to her armour. She can't even bring herself to wipe it off. This is infinately worse than she ever thought it could be.

"Joan!"

She doesn't want to die. She didn't want them to die either. They counted on her, all of them. They counted on her leadership and her abilities to keep them alive. They charged a superiour foe, they went hand to hand with blade minions, because she told them to. Shit.

"Joan! Damn it, Joan!"

Her eyes snap open. Did she just ... ? She gets back to her senses. The whirring mechanics of her helmet, the flashing green screen at the corner of her eyes displaying her suit's data, the red streak of blood that stains the protective glass of her helmet; human blood. The carnage. The young boy, the very one she sent down earlier to relay her commands.

"Yeah?"

"We've got Ammon on the radio!"

Ammon? Oh, shit. Ammon. "Alright. Alright, damn it. He needs support. NG-42 gunners! Deploy at the middle of the hill, facing Dorking, keep your point of view above the hedges! Mortars, on top of the hill! Make sure you've got a good view of the entire damn town! The rest of you, take positions in the hedges and keep your eyes open for counter-attacks! Radio, with me!"

Everybody does as they're told the best they can; with the exception of a couple of men running back and forth between the hillside and the ruined nearby buildings, trying to use to the rubble to build better support for the NG-42. A third busies himself with trying to put out the fires. Joan herself goes up to the mortars along with the radio-operator. Slowly, her eyes inspect the neighbourhood Ammon's supposed to clearing out. There's a couple of put out fires, judging from the smoke... then there's one massive wall of fire, stretching out over the entire block.

She picks up the radio's mouth piece, "Ammon? This is Joan."

There's silence for a little while, before a raspy reply, "Joan! Thank God. We need artillery fire, you got to blow the shit out of the -center- house in the fire wall!"

She blinks, but relays the command; telling the artillery ops to aim at the center, but not to open fire yet. "Can you tell me why? That house seems perfectly good at destroying itself."

Ammon replies, frustrated, "Open fire, damn it! Those are fire imps! Kill them, and the wall goes down! Open fire!"

Joan nods at the artillery, who immediately begin shelling the block of houses. The first shots hit the neighbours yard. The second obilerate the children's playset. Finally, the third makes contact, blowing a fat chunk out of the house's side. "That's a hit! Keep firing!" The mortars keep a steady barrage going, and soon the entire building is levelled, leaving a large hole in the imp's wall of fire. But the show's not over yet.

Suddenly, the wall is gone - it simply dissapears, leaving Ammon and his men in an eerie silence. Joan's helmet zoom proves useless, not able to look in detail that far. "Did we.. get them all?" The mortar crew shrugs helplessly. The radio remains quiet.

Still nothing.

Then, suddenly, the entire neighbourhood is lit up again as dozens of fireballs are hurled at Ammon and his men. "Ammon! Incoming!" The fireballs hit their targets, shaking the buildings with powerful explosions; whose noise is almost immediately replaced by that of frantic fighting. The fire imps had charged them.

"Oh no, nonono. NG gunners! Can you see the imps? Do you see any targets!?"

"Aye!" One of them nods, "Some of the bastards stayed behind an' are throwing fire at our lads!"

"Open fire! Mow them down!

They do. The NG-42 opens fire, kicking up small clouds of dust and misty sprays of shining red blood. After just a couple of minutes, it seems it's gotten all the imps that remained behind... but the fighting for Ammon and his squad continues. Fiery explosions reach out for the sky every once in a while, but the fight continues.

... and continues.

Fifteen minutes have passed, and the fighting is frantic as ever. One more building has been destroyed in it's entirety, and by the looks of it, Ammon and his men are retreating. Constant fires are exchanged between buildings and the sounds of close combat never quite die down... and things are only about to get worse.

"Incoming!"

The hedges suddenly light up with spell-delivery systems blasting at the inevitable counter attack. Zombies! At least a couple of hundred of them are slowly, very slowly, dragging their feet down the street.

"Artillery! On the zombies! NG's! Take aim and hold fire! Everybody else, give them Hell!"

They do, but it's not enough. They fall by the dozens; ripped apart, blown up, burned down - but there's too many of them. The only real damage comes from the artillery, with each explosion destroying dozens of the beasts at a time.

"NG-42! Open fire!"

It does; the deafening sound of the roaring machine gun once again fills the air. Each bullet seems unstoppable, ripping through a handful of zombies before getting lodged in a bone or a piece of rotting flesh.. and there's hundreds of them. Hundreds of bullets come flying into the crowd, accompanied with the artillery from above and the troops below. The zombies are finally slowing down; finally being ground to a halt!

And then, it's ammo runs out.



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Post script.

In the words of one of my favourite cartoon characters, and probably the most childish one of them all, "Doom doom doom doom doom doom doom."

THEY'RE ALL GONNA DIE! D: