The men moving around outside continued to walk around, searching the rubble for signs of life or death. The individual in the back of the truck finally stepped out. He quietly walked over to the middle of the rubble, looking down at a wall that lay conveniently flat. “We check here yet?” he said as he looked to one of the men.

“The ground?” the man replied with puzzle and confusion.

The figure stood on top of the flat wall and lifted his foot. Bringing it down with violent force, he punched a hole through it, revealing that there was a hollow space below it. He stumbled as he tried to pull his foot out, though he couldn’t quite get it out in time before a long volley of M60 fire erupted. Michael had scored a lucky few hits, effectively amputating the figures ankle and causing him to fall backwards.

The team of men pointed their weapons at the hole in the fallen wall and began firing wildly into the space below. While none of the weapons were aimed effectively down the stairs, Michael took cover behind the concrete at the end of the stairs so as not to take the chance of a shot bouncing off the stairs and getting lucky. A hand thrown grenade landed near the top of the stairs, being that they hadn’t figured out which way to actually throw it. The following blast was not effective in doing anything to Michael or Lani in the basement, but it removed a significant amount of the fallen wall and revealed more of the stairs, which the men started positioning themselves to start aiming correctly down the descending corridor

Another grenade came down the stairs, this time landing in Michaels hand. He quickly ripped the blasting core from the ball of metal. Before it could explode, he pushed it away from his hand. As he did this, Lani quickly wrapped her arm around his face, shielding his eyes from the exploding piece. With his face shielded, the blast did not cause him the concussive effect that it normally would have.

Letting go of Michaels head, Lani moved across the volley of fire that was being fired down the stairs. Michael did his best to keep suppressive fire going towards the shooters, but Lani’s only real safety was her armor. A couple shots bounced off her ankle, not doing much to impede her movements.

Meanwhile, the figure with the now amputated foot stumbled about while two of the men tried to tend to him. Tying a tourniquet to his injured leg in as high a position as they could, the figure grumbled. The second man tied another tourniquet below his knee, the men doing their best to minimize blood loss. Snarling in rage, he tried standing on the stump that had little more than flesh tissue holding his foot from being left behind. He managed to ignore the pain, but there was still a struggle to control his steps.

Michael set his weapon on its bipod and went for another belt of ammo. He knew he had to attach the next one to the current one to remain effective against the threat that was beginning to stack up to breach the basement. Lani had by this time slung her VAL to her side and grabbed a shotgun. Having found Michaels Saiga and loaded up a drum, she aimed up the stairs. She glanced over to him as she pulled a bag of drums closer and knelt down.

“Nobody taught me what to do about this,” Lani said with falsified calmness in her voice. “Is this our last stand?”

“No Lani,” Michael replied through his teeth as he finished linking the belt, “We will kill them all.” His genuine confidence and wrath showed on his face as his eyes narrowed, his grip tightened on the grip of his weapon and he raised the muzzle back towards the top of the stairs.

Lani smiled softly, feeling an increased sense of safety as she felt the rage fueled confidence radiate from him. “Teach me how?”

Michael gave a short nod before fixing his attention on the entrance. He really didn’t have much of a plan, besides killing everyone outside. He didn’t have a direct course set to achieve this end, and was primarily expecting to let his impulse get him through this. He couldn’t say that to Lani, because she was a young girl in her early twenties with a wrecked past who had fixated her hopes on him. He couldn’t admit that his success was based mainly on rolling dice against life and death.

After a brief pause in the shooting, they could hear the distinct sound of an MG42 firing in a direction that wasn’t down the stairs. Michael and Lani kept their weapons aimed, though they didn’t yet have anything to shoot at. Shortly after hearing the MG42 open up on someone, small bursts of explosions could be heard. A faint crashing sound followed, along with much longer bursts of explosions. A Mk19? AGS-30? Michael knew that someone had to be hammering on his position with grenades, but it didn’t make sense that someone would start shelling the position while twenty of their own men were in the kill zone. This meant one of two things; the enemy was that desperate, or someone had come to the rescue.