Team 2

::This chapter is from the perspective of Amalthea::

Estelle and I flew the two women needed to shut down the reactor and avoid a cataclysmic explosion that would cost them and hundreds of thousands of lives in the area. 

Tessa flew with me; she must have been afraid of heights as she grabbed onto me in a bear hug from the front, arms and legs wrapping around my torso, her backpack of tech making me look pregnant with the techno file latched the way she was. 

Murphy, being more athletic, chose to just be carried hanging by both hands from Estelle's arms. She was heavily armored and armed with a determined look on her face. I could understand her worry that something that came from her company could hurt other people. 

Protecting the women from weapon fire and avoiding areas with large groups of troops, we flew towards the building that the generator was housed in and landed a dozen or so meters away. Tessa and Murphy got into a defensive position, and we had previously talked about breaching this building. Allowing Estelle and myself to take on the entry was the safest option. We would signal the other two when things were clear. 

Sprinting to the front double doors, we both kicked our respective doors off of their hinges, hitting a few of the two dozen armed soldiers behind them. Using our wings as shields, Estelle and I engaged the soldiers, our dance of **** intertwining between them as they fought and fell to our hundreds of years of experience in hand-to-hand combat and superior strength and endurance. 

Soon all had fallen; we both had a few bullet holes where we were not able to protect our legs or arms, but the wounds were already close to closing. What happened next was not unexpected but was less pleasant: a squad of five elite guards came out of a side hall, the leader pointing at us with their scythe-like swords and grunting the call to attack. I took the leader and an elite guard, and Estelle took the other three guards. 

I timed the charge perfectly, my claymore-esc blade cleaving the lower beastman from hip to shoulder. I used my bracers to stop the incoming attack from the leader of the pack while I reset myself into an aggressive stance. Unfortunately, he had a bit of an advantage over me as he was quicker with the two scythe-like swords than I was with my longsword. 

I used a combination of my sword, bracers, and wings to block, deflect, and look for an opening in the Beastman's attacks. Estelle had her hands full; I had decided that I was going to have to take a hit in order to get the killing blow. I braced myself for the impact of a side blow from the creature when suddenly he howled, grabbing his right eye, then his shoulder jerked back as if struck by a blow. I used this opening to swing my sword overhead with all my might; it didn't matter that the beast tried to catch my blade with his one sword; the mass and momentum of my attack drove my sword, his arm, and his sword down to his hip, effectively severing his body into two halves. He flailed for a few seconds before falling dead to the ground. Turning, I looked behind me; Murphy had made the two shots using her .308 from across the courtyard. Giving her the thumbs up, I turned to help Estelle. 

Estelle had been dancing between the three beastmen. She looked flawless while the beastmen struggled to keep up with her, they all had arm, leg, and torso wounds compared to her. Estelle made brief eye contact with me, while blocking a low strike to her leg, she used the momentum from that move to turn, slicing the head off the beastman behind her before he was able to bring his sword to block. This put a bit more pep in the step of the other two beastmen. Using her wings, Estelle shot a few celestial feathers, easily as sharp and as strong as any knife, into the vital areas of the remaining beastmen. Cartwheeling, she brought her boot down hard on one's shoulder, causing a loud crack and a howl from him. Not stopping for a second, she turned and, using both blades, drove them upward into the beastman's ribs, sticking out of opposite sides of the collarbone. The beastman made a gurgling sound before Estelle used her foot to pull both swords from the now dead carcass. Lastly, without turning, she drove her sword behind her right into the beastman's chest as he was attempting to attack her from behind. Her strike was true, and the beastman was dead before he hit the floor.

The two celestials were relatively devoid of wounds. They quickly motioned for Tessa and Murphy to come to the building now that the welcome wagon was dead. 

The two ran to our position. I took a second to thank Murphy again with a kiss. The vigor with which she kissed me back was impressive, leaving us both a bit breathless after. 

"Alright, lovebirds," Estelle chuckled. "Time to go stop a WMD if you don't mind?" She finished. 

"Of course, Estelle," I said. Turning to Tessa, I asked, "Do you know where we need to go?" 

"Ah...yes, I think I do. According to the data I have, we should go down this hall and make a right. There should be an entrance to the basement. The generator should be about sixty feet below that." She finished. 

We all consolidated into a formation with Estelle at the front, followed by Murphy, then Tessa, and me taking up the rear. We moved with efficiency to the entrance of the basement. 

Opening the door, we moved down the stairs, still not being harassed by hellscape creatures or soldiers. Interestingly enough, we did see signs of engagement as we moved down. 

Finally, we came to the lowest level, and Tessa looked at her equipment and seemed confused. 

"The energy signature is still thirty feet below us." She said. 

We looked around, and going through another set of double doors, we all almost fell through the 120 ft diameter hole in the floor. What looks like it used to be a cafeteria was now mostly a hole in the ground. A deep red glowed from below, and a low humming sound accompanied it. 

"Let's get down there so we can see better." I said. I grabbed Tessa, and Estelle grabbed Murphy; we both jumped, gliding down to the lower level. There was some fog boiling up from below, indicating it was warmer down there. As we descended into the hot, moist air, I felt movement, airflow around my wings. Suddenly, a creature the size of a large pit bull ran into my side; its maw opened, biting my leg. I struck it with my bracer, cracking its skull; it released its jaws, falling to the bottom of the pit. 

"Shrieks!" I yelled! "Estelle, get to the ground quickly!" I commanded. I wasn't worried about us as much as I was about Murphy and Tessa, as we couldn't protect them with our hands full. 

Murphy was able to shoot a couple of shrieks using a pistol on the way down, helping protect herself and Tessa. Hitting the ground, we moved into a defensive position with Tessa in the middle. Murphy switched to her. 308, and Estelle and I drew our weapons. The thick fog obscured the shrieks until they were almost on us. Luckily, they were weak individually. Their numbers allowed them to take advantage of openings. After 10 min, we had decent piles of bodies, and no more attacks came, so we changed to a mobile formation again with Tessa giving us verbal directions towards the generator. 

After 40-50 ft of walking, Estelle and I both sensed something ahead. Estelle whispered to me, "Do you know what it is?" I started to respond when we heard a grunting vocalization; Estelle still looked confused, but I knew exactly what it was. "It's a hellbear!" I whispered back. Her eyes widened. 

The last encounter with a hellbear was over 800 years ago. We had started to think them extinct. The size of a rhinoceros, with just as thick of a hide as one. The hellbear was similar in appearance to your grizzly bears but larger, stronger, meaner, and their claws and teeth caused hellscape wounds. The only thing we had going for us was the element of surprise, as it had not seemed to pick up on us yet. 

We quickly and quietly formulated a plan of attack. Tessa was given a gun and was told to stay away from the fighting. Murphy quickly and quietly.swapped out her. 308 magazine with armor-piercing rounds. 

I was first up. I used every ounce of stealth. I had to ambush the hellbear, barely making a sound until my Claymore made contact with the bear's side, slicing down the ribs. With a roar, the bear turned its mouth open wide to devour me. I turned my sword sideways to block the maw coming for me only to have the bear pin me to the ground, trying desperately to maul me, but biting down only in celestial steel. My arms were pinned to my shoulders with my sword between me and the bear. 

Estelle attacked, trying to take out vital movement structures on the bear. His hide proved to be quiet and an issue. She was able to cut it, but Estelle didn't have the strength or massive weapon to do it, so shallow cuts to the bear's ligaments and tendons only. 

Finally, Murphy, true to form, took her shots well, aiming for the heart, head, and the eyes. She managed to hit an eye, got a few to the torso, but none critical. When the bear was shot in the eye, it released me for long enough to get out from under its paws. I fell back and regrouped with Estelle. 

"We need to change positions." I shouted to her, "I'm the only one with the strength to hurt it; your swords are too small! Estelle nodded and threw herself at the bear, doing her best to block the swipes from the bear while distracting it with cuts to its face and arms. Meanwhile, I managed to get up and over the beast, landing on its back and immediately plunging my sword as hard and as deep as it would go, sinking several feet into the hide. My sword now became stuck in the hide and flesh of the creature. It roared in pain, trying to buck me off its back. 

Estelle took this moment to use her swords to pierce the arteries in its neck, sending an awful spray of blood across all of us. With some additional **** throes, the hellbear was dead. 

We regrouped moving forward. Unfortunately we were too sure of ourselves that the hellbear was dead; with one last effort before its blight left this world, it took a bite out of Tessa's left leg. Which left her ankle barely attached; worse, it was a hellscape wound that could not be closed without Matt. 

"I'm going to die, right?" She winced. "It doesn't hurt that bad; that means I'm in shock, right? I'm going to bleed out." Tessa asked.

"Not if we can help it," Murphy said. She opened her pack and grabbed clotting powder and clotting bandages as well as a splint. She also grabbed a handful of premeasured doses of morphine. She used two before Tessa was ****. 

"You two need to hold the parts of her leg together while I secure everything together." Murphy said.

Estelle and I did our best to align things while Murphy dumped the clotting powder in the wound, then using the splint and the clotting gauze, she packed the missing tissue with gauze and then, using a self-adhesive bandage, secured the upper leg to the bottom portion securely. This would hold everything together, but only so that Tessa wouldn't bleed out. The wound wouldn't heal without Matt. 

I carried Tessa in my arms; she was still ****, while Murphy took up rear guard. We continued moving as quickly as we could to get to the generator so we could get Tessa to safety. 

Shockingly we didn't encounter any more enemies; we got to the open chamber with the generator. It looked like a huge metal doughnut with tree trunk-sized cables coming out of it. 

Before we could move into the room, we heard a voice address us from a loudspeaker.

"Ah, you are finally here! I wondered when you would show up!" A demented voice said. "We will see what Matt Cole does when you are all dead! Hahahaha!" The voice cackled.

"He took away my chance of being a lord in hell; now I, Igor, will take away his perfect future from him!" Shouting triumphantly.

We all tensed waiting for something to happen; when we felt tremors of something huge approaching, we struggled to come up with a strategy. I prayed that our Master would hurry and join us and then readied myself for the worst.