Sister's Destiny

Setting Up a Comm Network

We reached the spot that we last saw Devrim. He had a cut on his hand that he'd wrapped up with a tourniquet.

"Ah! Welcome back. I made some tea, but I seem to have drunk it all. If you three were a wee bit quicker, you might have gotten to have some." Devrim chuckled.

"Yeah, ha ha. What's next? I'm so bored!" Zivaya said annoyed. I punched her in the arm and she grunted.

"Right, the beacon. While you were tussling with the Fallen, we encountered a bit of a setback." Devrim said.

"What kind of setback?" I asked.

"Hawthorne placed the last relay on the mountain above the salt mines, but the signal doesn't have the range we expected. It's a bit curious..." Devrim said as he reached into his bag and handed me a blue rectangular object with a circular scanner on it. It was very light.

"What's this for?" I asked.

"It's a signal booster. It should solve our problem if we can give it to Hawthorne. Ha. Dead Zone indeed." Devrim replied. 

"Okay. Let's go, you two." I said as I motioned them to follow. Houka kissed Devrim and whispered something in his ear. He nodded and then she walked over. The two waved to each other and we jumped to the floor of the church.

"Where to next, boss?" Zivaya asked as she conjured a blue electric orb and started playing with it.

"We need to rendezvous with Hawthorne at the cliffs." I said. We walked to entrance of the church and I noticed some Fallen ahead. I chuckled and threw an electric grenade at them. I heard the satisfying hiss of them as they died. We walked passed an old rusted truck. The tires were missing and the windows were shattered. Ahead we saw a small entrance. There was another broken car against it. It was a tight squeeze, but we all fit through. Through the entrance were the remnants of a building. It was rubble. Slabs of concrete with rhubarbs sticking out of them were everywhere. I motioned for them to follow me as I went through what seemed to be a tunnel. It went through another part that seemed to be entirely covered in overgrown plants. Rusted and beaten scaffolding littered the ceiling and floor. The air was old and dusty. It led to a room with rubbled brick walls. There was a staircase, but it had apparently fallen from a high place, because the other part of the staircase it was connected to was high above us. There was a smashed hole in the brick wall and we went through it.

"Hey Karza!" Hawthorne said with mocking happiness into the radio. "I'm still sitting up here above the mines with this busted-hunk-a-junk comm relay. Where's that signal booster?" I clenched my teeth. We went through a grassy area. We entered through another broken brick wall.

"We're en route right now, Hawthy. I'm getting real tired of dealing with your smartassery." I said.

"I can't say I fancy you, ya know." Hawthorne said.

"Ya know, you guys need to chill down. Normally I'm the asshole. You're totally ruining the way of things." Zivaya said.

We entered an open area. It looked like it was once a road through a nice little part of a town, but it was now reclaimed by nature. There was a large water trucked on its side just up ahead of us. I noticed a figure moving in the distance and signaled to my sisters to get their guns out. I motioned for them to quietly follow me. We walked up a steep hill and went in the direction I saw the figure. It had entered into a large building. The entrance was big, probably so trucks could go in and out. We entered it and a huge Fallen jumped down and stabbed me in the stomach. I fell to the ground and everything was black.  I then heard Gigani say something and felt a power surging through me. I woke up and reflexively shot the Fallen's head off. I got up, shook it off, and continued further. We ended up in a large, poorly lit room. There were large platforms everywhere and rusted crates on the ground. Massive broken pipes hung from the high ceilings. Some of the smaller rusted crates were enclosed in tight fences. The dim light lit the area. Mist seemed to float throughout the massive room.

Two Fallen came running up behind Zivaya and she launched two electric orbs at them without looking. I was going to tell her they missed, but they exploded and sucked the Fallen toward them and disintegrated them instantly. I high fived her and we pressed on. That was when I noticed some stairs leading to a small building. Three Fallen soldiers jumped from the empty window. I pulled out my sniper rifle, but Houka pushed it down and pulled out her rocket launcher. She aimed and then shot it out. In the next instant, I saw an explosion and random Fallen body parts fly away from the blast. I gave her a thumbs up as we fought more approaching Fallen. We ran past some dead Fallen and I noticed Zivaya stop floating and kick a Fallen corpse. She giggled and floated back towards Houka and I. I noticed a huge group of about seven, six-armed Fallen running towards us. They were apparently clueless of what the small red kegs did. I shot a keg and it caused a chain reaction of two more kegs to explode. The blast made short work of the Fallen group. When we got to where they were, I noticed a huge copper elevator door.

"That elevator should take us to the top of the mines." Gigani said as she scanned it.

"No shit, Sherlock." Zivaya said. Houka smacked her in the back of the head. I went up to the button and pushed it. I could hear metal screeching. It was moving too fast! The elevator then slammed with a loud metallic bang. Zivaya looked at it blankly.

"Well shit." She said flatly.

"We'll...uh...have to find another way up to Hawthorne..." Houka said in a chuckle. I chuckled and then looked for another way. There was a large gate door to the right of the once working elevator. I went over to the control panel and pressed a large yellow button. The gate door screeched and Zivaya covered her ears as the door slowly opened. It apparently opened into a large pipe. There were dusty copper platforms scattered everywhere with a large supply trucks that seemed to be out of order. There were some crates that had spilled over. Skeletons of what looked to be fish spilled from one of the crates.

"Be careful." I warned. "The Fallen are serious scavengers. They're going to put up a fight for whatever they can get their grubby claws on."

"Yeah, yeah we get it. They're like alien vultures." Zivaya said in a tired sigh. I think Houka tried to give Zivaya a glare without me noticing, but I noticed

"You got it." Houka then said.

We noticed a big gate up ahead. It looked much like the one we'd entered through. There was a doorway to the left of this one, though. We carefully entered through the doorway. We walked into yet another hangar with even more Fallen than before. Zivaya launched a massive grey orb into the air and it floated to the top of the hangar. It then shot out massive white lightning and electrocuted all of the Fallen in the area. There was only about five left. I happily ran forward and skewered them with my staff. At the end of the hangar, there was another elevator.

"Hopefully this one works. I wanna see more Karza versus Hawthorne!" Zivaya said rubbing her hands together. I rolled my eyes and pressed the button on the control panel and we heard gentle metal creaking. It was much more smooth than the last one. The doors opened, and we stepped inside. As it went up, Zivaya poked me with an electric finger.

"Ow! Stop it, ya boompa!" I said as thumbed her in the back of her neck. She giggled. The elevator screeched to a stop and the doors opened to an open area. We were now outside and I had to squint. We were in darkness for so long, that the bright sunlight hurt. Once my eyes adjusted, I stepped out and looked around. The sun appeared to be setting. It was fairly windy, and I had to pull my hair back so it would keep bothering me.

"Alright, Hawthorne. We're out of the mine and headed your way." Houka said. Apparently she too had pulled her hair back. She looked cute with her hair back. I was going to comment on it, but decided not to.

"Then hurry up with that booster. Let's go ahead and finish hooking up the comm network." Hawthorne said. Gigani led us to where Hawthorne was.