Black-Ops: Part Three

by Abyss

The explosion tore the glass right off the wall and shattered it into a million shards, flying into the room below. A wave of heat blasted through the room, causing many to lift hands and turn away, saving some from the glass shrapnel that followed instants later. Spetznaz were rushing the entrances, some were firing up at the window. None saw Creed rise from the floor from behind the empty crates stacked just below the window. They didn't see him open fire either.

Janice stayed where she was as soldiers twisted and thrashed, bullets tearing into them. She could hear a the distinct sound of Creed's gun, so much louder than the Russian AK-47's. It was getting closer. He was advancing into the fire zone.

Gunfire competing with screams for volume, Janice was surprised when she heard the voice in here ear, gruff and low, but urgent.

"Let's go lady."

Surprised to hear it, but more surprised at whose voice it was. North. His combat visor was down, so she couldn't see his eyes, but she knew she wouldn't see concern there. That would've been in another's eyes. Logan.

* * *

noisenow, whynoise, no noisedoesn't hurt...the pain is goingdeath is lettingme leave but stayinginsidegodi can feel the hungeragain onlyworseworseworselikeburningif I dieit won'tgoaway I won't go to the warmthi'll burn with hungerpain can'tdie againcan'tcan'twon't...

* * *

Bullets ricocheted off the console. Janice flinched. North didn't. He looked away from her, gun tracking in line with his eyes. One shot, a Spetznaz dropped to the ground. North grabbed Janice by the arm. She almost lost her balance as he ran into the gap in the commandos, pulling her with him. Bullets whipped by. He shot back. One bullet. One target. Another kill. Never an extended burst to draw fire. That was Creed's job. He pulled Janice along like a rag doll. She stumbled, he dragged her. She recovered, he pulled her faster, towards the door. Technicians scattered out of their way. Scientists either cowered by their stations or ran, from Creed.

The tall figure in black advanced into the Spetznaz like they were amateurs. He weaved, ducked and fired burst after burst into the commandos. And he advanced. Two men rushed him, another jumped out from behind a crate and covered. Creed kept coming, one gun firing through the crate to take out the commando, the other tracking the attackers, leaving them dancing like marionettes before they dropped. Creed barely looked at them. All his attention was on the huge figure in the glass tank.

North and Janice were moments from the door when he leapt sideways, pulling her with him. A commando stepped through the door, firing. Automatic fire chewed up the floor towards them. North shot the man twice. He fell, but two others were running towards them. North swung, bracing himself for the impact of bullets. He didn't even pull the trigger when both men dropped, the echo of the gun that killed them thunderous in the hall outside. Logan stepped through the door. He glanced at Logan and Janice, then pointed the rifle over them, killing another wounded commando who was dragging a gun from a dead comrade. Logan looked up at North, but the other was already advancing out of the room, tracking and killing any commandos still advancing on Creed. North pulled Janice towards the door. As they passed LoganNorth, he turned his head.

"What took you?"

"Reinforcements."

Before he was already out the door, North knew what he would find. The scent of death was always distinct. Eight bodies littered the hallway. Only one was killed with a gun. Head shot, close range.

North pushed Janice against the wall, crouched near the door and waited. Inside, there were fewer and fewer reports from AK-47s.

Between Logan advancing to the rear, and Creed's unstoppable approach, the last Spetznaz were dead in moments. A sudden hush overtook the room. The wounded and the flames that dotted the equipment made the only sounds, and there were very, very few wounded. The two men converged on the glass tank. A few bullets had nicked the glass, but it remained surprisingly intact.

* * *

Deathdeathisnear dethis inside me ohgodthe hungerneedto killneed to die needtospread deathtolive not againwon'tletithavemeagainmust...DEATH!!!1

* * *

"Suppose this is the supersoldier?"

The words echoed strangely to his ears, like he was under water, or behind a wall.

"Must be. What are ya gonna do about it?"

They sounded so close, he was sure they must be nearby. He tried to open his eyes, but his body didn't seem to be obeying commands.

"Stupid question. You got the gizmo?"

"The synthesizer, yeah."

"Happy birthday, red."

The world exploded. Shattering, vibrating noise all around him. He opened his mouth to scream and fluid rushed in. He tried to move and nothing obeyed. All at once the noise stopped, but the echo stayed in his head.

"Tough glass. Pass me a clip of the heavy stuff."

No.....

* * *

North leaned in the door.

" Move it, we got company coming!"

Creed locked in the new clip and hefted his gun. Armour piercing rounds exploded outwards into the tank. Glass shattered and fluid came pouring out. Creed and Logan had to move back. The huge pale figure came falling out as well. He lay on the ground. Creed shifted aim.

A door on the far side of the room burst open. Spetznaz came pouring in. Logan had his gun up in an instant. The first five through died, but there were more behind them. Creed brought the heavy gun around and the two slowly backed up, firing into the doorway as the commandos tried to break past the bodies of their own dead. North was shouting something from the door, but neither of them could hear over the roaring of the guns. Logan changed clips, Creed shot wide to compensate, then they continued their retreat. More and more men forced there way into the room. They were spreading out now, running from cover to cover, firing all the way.

The commandos continued to advance. They were at the door now. From the other side came gunfire. North's company had arrived.

Then the prone, pale figure on the floor woke up.

* * *

Arkady opened is eyes. There were men all around him, men in uniforms. The government had got him. They had got their precious mutant agent after all. Arkady felt the death-virus swelling within him, begging to be let out, stronger than ever before. And different, but he didn't think about that. He rose to his knees. Spetznaz, all around him. He opened his mouth and his mind at the same time. Breathing in, releasing the virus out.

To Creed and Logan, it looked like a wave had swept through the commandos, and pushed them all to the ground. They dropped. No gunshot wounds, no explosions. They just dropped, and Creed smelled something he had never scented as strongly before. Death.

Logan was through the door, instinctively checking Janice. North ducked back into the room when Creed didn't immediately follow.

More Spetznaz rushed through the door. Arkady, his back to Creed and North, focused his death spores, still roiling within him. He held out his arms, a symbolic gesture he used when killing for an audience, and something totally unexpected happened. With the release of the spores, two tentacles of pure white metal exploded from his arms, driving right through the closest man, even before the spores killed him.

Arkady screamed in pain and elation at same moment. He felt a tearing in his arms, and at the same time, the fury of the death-spores, so much a part of him until now, abated, almost to none. He was stunned. He kneeled there, on the ground, two extensions of metal lying limp along the floor, like the cables stewed across the room, only ending in a man's chest. From behind him he heard a voice curse.

"Holy $#!%."

He whirled. Almost unnoticed, the tentacles withdrew halfway into his arms. He could feel the death spores building up inside again, begging to be released. Two men stood, staring at him, guns held slack in their hands.

The curse triggered a memory, one of these had been the voice he heard in the tank, one of these had tried to kill him... and the spores were demanding release...

North had never seen Creed like this, he stood there, head back, nostrils flaring, almost shivering. He wasn't quite sure what was going on, but he saw the huge man from the tank bring his arms up, tentacles hissing against the metal floor as they came around. This was no time to hang around.

North grabbed Creed by the shoulder and shoved him at the door. His eyes remained on the approaching tentacles. He brought his gun up and fired at their source. Arkady flinched and they were through the door, even as the tentacles exploded through the wall in front of Logan who was outside, holding off Spetznaz reinforcements. Logan stumbled back even as Creed and North stumbled out. The tenntacles withdrew from the hole. North saw men advancing through the hall way. He glanced behind him...dead end... the only way out was through them.

"Creed, Logan, it's through them or through that thing back there..."

Logan changed clips. Creed snapped out of his stupor, teeth drawing back in a grin.

"This way to the exit, kids."

Creed charged down the hall, firing. Logan grabbed Janice, who had been crouching on the floor, and pulled her after, firing. North threw a last glance at the door behind them and charged after.

* * *

In the auditorium, Arkady still knelt on the ground, staring at the metal abominations stemming from his wrists. A voice cut in behind him.

"Its called carbonadium."

Arkady whirled, tentacles thrashing along the ground. They were unwieldy, but he could feel the power in them as surely as the muscles of his own arms. The spores rose like bile within him, demanding release. Arkady looked at their next target.

"You don't want to do that. Killing me would be a mistake."

Arkady's voice rumbled deep in his throat.

"Speak."

To Arkady, the man seemed very relaxed for someone so close to death. Like someone who had nothing to fear from it.

"How did you feel when the tentacles carried the virus?"

Arkady got to his feet slowly. The tentacles thrashed at his feet. He didn't answer.

"You felt release didn't you? For the first time, the virus within you was silent? And now it's growing within you, more than ever...isn't it, Arkady?"

Still no response.

"You are a mutant, which is why the government was hunting you. Also, because you are a killer. The carbonadium was meant to make you better at being both."

Arkady spoke now, still a whisper like thunder.

"I escaped you."

"By dying? Oh, you led them a merry chase, getting shot by the Interpol man was an definite impediment to them, but as you know, tovarich, what the Rodina wants, the Rodina gets, particularly when the GRU is acting for it."

"I'm dead."

"Indeed, but there you are. Truly, your mutation marks you as one of the strong, Arkady. Your virus wasn't willing to let you die. And neither was I."

"But you failed. I'm dying again...and so will you..."

Arkady lunged forward, the tentacles thrashing everywhere, then joining around the general. Arkady felt the virus within him bursting forth, but he restrained it, barely.

Suspended a foot off the ground, the general looked down at the killer calmly.

"You don't have to die, but others must."

Arkady looked up at the man.

"Those men you saw... American agents. They stole the device necessary to stabilize the carbonadium in you, those tentacles, and the metal bonded to your skeleton."

"I don't... understand..."

The spores were like a black haze behind his eyes now, demanding release.

"Get back the device Arkady, and you will suffer no more. No one will be able to control you."

Arkady paused, the words sinking in.

"I will."

And then he let the virus flow.

Moments later, he ran from the room, the tentacles extending and withdrawing as he grew accustomed to them. The general's body lay on the ground amidst the other corpses in the room. And then it got up.

"Not THAT strong, fool."

There was a small flash of light, and the man disappeared.

* * *

"Which way to the roof?"

Logan had to shout to make himself heard above the gunfire all around them. Both he and Creed had taken hits, but they were to busy killing commandos to worry about it, and the bleeding had already stopped.

North fired through the wall the Spetznaz were using for cover. Shouts, and the firing diminished as they drew back.

"Didn't you memorize the plans?" Creed growled.

"The plans were bull."

Janice grabbed Logan's sleeve.

"I know the way."

"Then lead on darlin'. Creed, Mav, we are leaving."

Creed left North to take the rear and moved to just behind Logan, his gun tracking over the other man's head. North threw a grenade down the hall behind them and sprinted to catch up. The explosion sent a wash of heat over their backs, and a fresh round of screams to their ears as the advancing Spetznaz were caught in the blast.

They were one level from the roof when the floor collapsed in front of them. Two white tentacles smashed through and thrashed, reaching for something. Wolverine grabbed Janice and hauled her back. Creed stepped in front of them and fired through the floor at where the grasping horrors were coming from. A sound was building in his chest. Logan heard it. He dragged Janice back to where North waited then turned. Creed hadn't followed. He stayed where he was, dodging the tentacles and firing into the floor. His roar of pure rage competed with his gun for sheer volume. He was face to face with something he couldn't understand, but knew with every sense in his body, and he hated it. One of the appendages suddenly withdrew into the hole. Creed kept firing. Logan shouted.

"Creed. Let's go."

No response. He kept firing. Logan head the sound of boot approaching, weapons chambering rounds. They couldn't stay here.

"CREED!"

North heard the shouts.

"Dammit, what's he doing... Logan!"

Logan sprinted back down the hall. He knew what Creed was doing. If Janice wasn't there, he might be doing it too. Death was reaching for Creed, and he felt it in every nerve. Logan had felt it before, when the tentacles ripped through the wall. It was pure death, and it was like a red haze of fury in his head.

The first tentacle exploded through the floor under Creed, it's pointed tip ripping a bloody furrow in his shoulder. He had to jump back to avoid falling into the hole in the floor, and as he did, he lost the rifle. The tentacle swung back, wrapping itself around his leg. Logan had never heard Creed scream so loud before. He reached him just as the tentacle began to pull. A headlong leap across the floor to grasp Creed's arm kept the man from being pulled down into the hole. A scent so strong it blocked out everything else around him hit Logan. Pure death, flooding into every pore of his body. Creed pulled out a pistol, pushing the muzzle against the tentacle below his foot, he fired until the chamber was empty. The tentacle loosened just a little and Creed kicked free. Logan jerked him to his feet and they both stumbled back towards North and Janice. North noted they had the same expression on their faces. A mixture of disgust and fear neither would ever admit to. Boots sounded clearly from the staircase the had come from. Turning, Logan and Janice in the lead, the four headed down the only path remaining to them.

Two turns of the hallway and they hit the dead end.

* * *

The window looked out over the East Berlin street. At another time the view might have been romantic.

"Backtrack!" Logan shouted.

They whirled to rush back up the way they came. A tearing sound erupted from the floor in front of them. The floor caved inwards and two tentacles forced their way through, thrashing, reaching. The four backed up. North, Logan and Creed trained their weapons on the appendages, but before they could fire, Spetznaz troopers rounded the corner in front of them, firing.

"Any ideas?" Logan shouted.

"We're boxed in, only one way to go!" Creed sounded almost excited. "Getting out is easy."

He turned and fired a burst through the window. The glass shattered into the street below.

Logan fired at the commandos, casing them to pull back and crouch near the wall. He glanced over his shoulder at the window.

"What are you, nuts?" North just kept firing up the hallway. Janice crouched behind Logan, who kept one hand on her arm, trying to shield her behind him.

"We're ten stories up. We'll be killed!"

She seemed to be trying to hang onto Logan and the floor at the same time. Creed whirled on her.

"Ya got any idea what they'll do to you now that yer cover's blown? Yer gonna look a lot more creative than a stain on the sidewalk."

Logan pulled Janice to her feet, firing at the guards, waching the tentacles find purchase in the floor. Janice resisted.

"You're insane... no..."

Logan never saw Creed wing his gun around and fire three rounds into her back.

"And yer a liability."

Logan saw every twitch. Something jerked in his heart every time.

Logan and North both stopped stopped firing and stared at him.

In the gap in firing, Arkady pulled himself up through the floor. The spores rose like bile within him when he saw the commandos just standing there. The spetzna at the end of the hall pulled back.

"Creed..."

"You psychotic sonova..."

"GIVE ME THE DEVICE..."

Arkady's voice was low, but it cut short North and Logan's exclamations. They all looked at the pale white figure shuffling towards them, tentacles thrashing, reaching...

North looked towards the window, Logan stayed fixated on Creed, murder in his eyes.

Creed ignored Logan's rage. He pulled two small metal cylinders from a pouch on his harness.

"Been saving these thermites..."

Creed dropped his huge rifle, did something to the cylinders and tossed them at the mostrous Russian. Then he grabbed North by the harness and leaped for the window, pulling Logan with them out into the air five stories up above the Moscow streets.

Janice's body came with them, Logan refusing to let go. Behind them, every window on two floors blew out as Creed's explosives were triggered.

Creed was laughing.

"Go limp, the battle armor..." the rest was lost in the blast.

Logan felt the wash of heat across his back as he watched the ground rush up to meet him. His last words were sheer fury, directed at the man howling in the air with him.

"Creeeeeeed!"

* * *

Creed was the first to regain consciousness, mere moments after the three men and one corpse impacted with the ground. The asphalt was dented slightly, more so where Creed had landed.

North groaned as he rose to his knees, hands cradling his head. His armour was in shambles, pieces of broken metal falling around him as he moved. His voice was forced.

"We're alive?"

Creed was already back on his feet when he replied.

"Proves a theory of mine. Looks like our tentacled friend isn't the only mutant working for a government."

Logan pulled himself to his feet. His voice was death.

"Creed..."

"Later runt, I'm tired of your saying my name, and we got a rendezvous to make."

With that, Creed turned his back on Logan and headed towards the river. North looked at Logan for a moment, then turned to follow Creed. Logan hefted Janice's body and followed. Creed didn't even look back when he spoke.

"Leave the dame, kid."

Logan's voice barely contained his fury.

"You mean leave the evidence. No way."

Creed shrugged and kept walking.

North followed. Logan moved along with Janice's body held close. He looked at the dead woman who had once meant so much to him.

His voice was a choked whisper.

"Sorry darlin, got one last assignment for ya..."

All three were lost in the flickering shadows moments later. The building they had exited continued to burn.

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