Olivia arrived at the hideout and parked in front of their cave, a mountain overhead. Paris ran back and forth inside, yelling at the men.
"Find those damn things!"
"Paris—"
"Not now, Olivia. Someone misplaced the incendiary bombs."
She dismounted and entered the cave.
"I know where they are."
Paris stopped.
"What?"
"Tsk. Do you even have all your men accounted for? Isn't anyone missing?"
He snapped his fingers towards the soldier nearby.
"Run a roll call."
The soldier began shouting the names one by one, until some of them didn't answer back.
"Those rats," Paris said. "Who ordered them to do anything like that? They're getting court martialed!"
Olivia shook her head.
Highly motivated squad indeed.
"That doesn't matter now. We need those bombs back, which means we need to rescue them."
Paris sighed.
"Alright, fuck it. Let's do this."
He was about to call the rest of the men when Olivia held his arm, stopping him.
"But before that, there's something I need to know."
His eyebrow arched.
"What?"
"What exactly happen to you?"
"I told you already. They killed everyone and I escaped."
"Right. Because they spare no one."
"Yeah, exactly."
Olivia stared at him.
"Who are we rescuing then, Paris?"
"It doesn't matter. They got lucky. What about the so many others that didn't have half that luck at the mutants' hands?"
"Did you get lucky as well?"
He shrugged her hand off.
"You're questioning me after everything we've been through? What's up with you suddenly trying to cut the mutants some slack?"
Olivia raised her hands.
"I'm not, sorry. I just thought I saw a different mutant today..."
"Different how?"
"He went against his own warriors to spare the prisoners." She shifted, uncomfortable. "I don't know, he seemed..."
Olivia searched for a word to match what she saw earlier. She found the word but couldn't say it. Not to Paris.
Her lips parted.
He cut her short with a scoff.
"Yeah." Paris patted her shoulder. "I'm sure he's a darling, Liv."
He walked towards the soldiers that entered the cave, shaking his head.
Olivia watched him bark orders as a strange feeling settled in her stomach. He hadn't answered her question, had he? Just made her feel guilty for asking it.
She saw those black eyes again, and they didn't match what Paris described or common belief.
But Paris had been through hell. Of course he'd be bitter about them. Of course he wouldn't want to hear about how she saw humanity in that mutant.
Still, the feeling lingered.
He snapped his fingers, calling her.
Olivia joined the meeting.
"Alright, we got to rescue those idiots and delete that bridge in one swoop." Paris looked at her. "Olivia, you've seen the place. Tell us everything."
She told them about the camp's layout, their numbers, the refugees and their dangerous-looking boss.
Paris frowned at that last one but didn't interrupt her.
They came up with a plan.
Paris smashed his fist against his palm with a grin.
"Let's roll."
⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘
Another big group of nervous refugees arrived at camp. Kai guided them personally towards the bridge, despite the complaints of his warriors. Mira and her children were among them.
"Thank you, Kai!" one of them blurted as they arrived at the riverbank, catching Kai by surprise.
He patted his head.
Ahead, Workers repaired the bridge, which had broken again, the current raging underneath them.
"You're going to need to wait awhile," he told the refugees, then looked down at the kid. "We don't want to take a bath now, do we?"
The boy chuckled.
"No! I hate baths."
The rest of the group laughed. It was better this way. These people had suffered enough.
Kai's smile dropped when a commotion broke out in the distance. Gunshots.
A breathless figure came rushing towards him.
"We're under attack!" the warrior said.
The refugees panicked.
"Who's attacking? Is this the second army?" Kai asked.
The warrior shook his head.
"I don't know. They are motorized and heavily armed. It could be their vanguard."
"I see."
"What are your orders, Kai?"
He looked around him.
Smoke arose in distance where the fight was happening. Worried faces stared at him very close.
Kai snapped back to himself.
"Tell the men to fall back around the bridge."
"They are going to take over the camp, Kai."
"We'll take it back after we cross all these people safely to the other side."
"What about the prisoners? They are going to take up arms against us if we don't finish them now."
Kai looked back to the camp. He knew what had to be done, but the words were stuck in his throat.
"Leave them."
"Kai—"
"I can't."
The warrior looked at him in silence.
"Understood," he said at last, then ran back to the fight.
Mira approached and took his hand.
"Kai. Thank you."
He nodded with a smile.
"Don't worry about it. Everything will be fine."
⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘
It worked. The mutants pulled back to the bridge, leaving the prisoners behind, alongside the bombs, which Olivia assumed they never found to begin with. There was still the matter of how they were able to rescue the men alive, as anyone would've slit their throats before retreating.
Paris' story was starting to seem less believable by the second.
Olivia opened her spyglass.
The bridge was heavily guarded now as she predicted. The mutant boss chose the refugees.
She found him among the crowd near the bridge.
Taller than most, strong as an ox, and the most predictable mutant she'd ever seen.
Paris came up beside her and crossed his arms.
"Now it's the waiting game," he said.
"And after that, it's all or nothing." Olivia kept an eye on the spyglass and her voice low. "Chances are that we're all going to die."
"Are you afraid of dying, Liv?"
"I am."
"Good." Paris laughed and walked off. "That's the difference between us humans and them monsters."
Olivia looked at the mutant one last time, then closed the spyglass.
"Is it?"
The men prepared for battle once again as the sun lowered in the sky. That night they would have to face the full weight of the mutant garrison once the crossing was over.
⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘
It was quiet for a long time, only a few skirmishes here and there. The moon was already above them, and the refugees finally gone. Kai sighed in relief.
The warrior came to him again.
"Orders?"
Kai stood up, grabbing his glaive.
"Let's take back our camp."
"Understood."
Gunshots rang out right as they sounded the attack.
Kai went ahead of his men, bullets whistling past his face as he ran. It was not a pleasure to deal the first blow, but it was his duty. He sprinted from building to building, taking the lone shooters that took cover behind them by surprise.
The enemy seemed more scattered than he imagined, and there were only a few as well.
Could this truly be the second army's vanguard?
His warriors had reclaimed most of the city when a familiar figure appeared ahead at the end of the street, mounted behind a car again.
The boy seemed to have spotted Kai as well and fired a volley against him.
Kai rounded the building, leaving the walls to eat the bullets, then went after him. This time he wouldn't be able to afford mercy, not while battle raged on.
To his surprise, the gunner stopped firing, and the vehicle drove away towards the edge of the city as if retreating. They disappeared among the buildings.
"What's going on?" Kai muttered.
There was a ruined tower nearby.
He climbed the old stones to scan the battlefield from above.
His suspicions were confirmed as he reached the summit.
The enemy was loud, likely on purpose, but there weren't many, even fewer still alive at this point. It was a ruse. But for what?
Something was wrong. His instincts told him to turn around. Kai pulled his attention from the battlefield to the unguarded bridge.
There was a figure moving towards it at full speed, a biker in the night. A woman it seemed.
"What's could she possibly hope to achieve?"
He squeezed his eyes.
Leather bags of sorts hung from sides of her bike.
Were those... explosives?
Damn it.
"Stop that human!" Kai waved his glaive to his warriors below, shouting at the top of his lungs. "Defend the bridge!"
Some of his men closest to it rushed back, but it was too late.
The brown bags twirled in the air, hurled towards the bridge.
Flames engulfed the wooden structure, rising high like an orange building into the night sky as the biker drove away in the back.
The glaive fell limp to his side, as his warriors watched in shock months of work burn, alongside their source of reinforcements.
He wouldn't be able to stop their hand now.
The warriors went berserk, sweeping through the few enemies who were still left standing. It was a bloodbath.
There was no reason to watch this anymore. That woman played him, and now he'd go back and take responsibility for his failure. Kai was about to climb down the tower, when something flashed at the corner of his sight.
A whole new human army stormed into the city out of nowhere, firing at his warriors. Just like that, they were the ones cornered and outnumbered.
⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘
Olivia heard the gunshots multiply and she couldn't believe it, but General Owlson's First Army was here, even if only in its disorganized mob-like form.
She found Paris at the edge of the city and beelined towards him. There were some officers around him.
"Is that the scout that blew up the bridge?" an officer asked.
Paris grinned.
"Yeah, that's the one," he said.
Olivia turned off her bike.
"What happened?" she asked.
"Well, we were not so sure how to proceed ourselves after the General's passing."
"You mean, we couldn't reach of a consensus."
"Yes, that. So, we followed the only one who took the initiative here," the officer said, looking at Paris.
His chest was puffed up. Paris might've despised the officers, but he sure enjoyed getting his ego massaged by them.
"What about the mutant army?" she asked.
"That force is isolated in our territory, which means we have time, and they don't. They will disperse eventually."
Olivia frowned.
"We... won?"
The officers laughed.
"Yes, I believe we did. The battle at least—the war will likely last for another hundred years."
They all turned when a commotion broke out nearby. Olivia noticed that city was mostly pacified already.
The crowd the soldiers guarding the officers parted, and a figure in chains was brought forward.
Red skin covered in scars. Strong as a bear. Utterly defeated. Half a dozen soldiers tried to push him to the ground, but he only fell on his knees before the officers.
There was that look in his eyes.
That fiercely human look.
Olivia froze as if she was the one in chains when he glared at her.