District 42-Chapter 118: Another encounter
The wall exploded on Casper’s left side, wreckage flew against the opposite wall of the corridor. The prisoners got all in alert, raising their guns and pointing towards the hole opened in the wall.
Casper had jumped to the floor, trying to protect himself to be hit by anything. He raised from the ground and took several steps backward. He could see nothing on another side, not even Anton, because of the cloud of dust that formed in front of him.
His hair stood to end for some reason, and he knew that something big was going to happen. His heart beat faster and faster, he felt that the adrenaline was arising again. He controlled his breath and forced himself to take logical decisions. Casper needed to think now, reorganize, prepare for whatever that was going on.
He turned to his comrades, shouting at them:
"Everyone, run to the end of the corridor, we need to hide somehow, it will be more harmful if we fight in an open place like this!" He barely had ended to speak and they were already picking up their guns and running like crazy to the end of the corridor.
The cloud of dust was incredibly dense, which made the soldier think that the explosion was even bigger than he thought.
Casper waited until all the inmates were prepared and started to follow them, just in time to avoid a bolt of electricity aimed towards him. The attack landed on the floor, right beside his feet. Because of the adrenaline in his blood and the calmness he had struggled to build, he didn’t falter and just gave a serious look towards the dust cloud.
"They will start!" His mind warned him, and all his muscles got tense immediately.
The soldier reacted at the same time when someone shouted inside that cloud:
"Fire!"
Casper recognized that voice, a shiver went down his spine, his breath got unsteady. His will to jump inside that place was nearly as high as his will to survive. However, he couldn’t afford to do the wrong choices now. Not when he was so close to achieving his goal. Not after so much effort inside that prison.
His legs awakened and moved forward, he ran crazily through that corridor. He forgot the exhaustion, the indisposition, the feeling of betrayal... Everything vanished as he began to exercise as much strength as he could in his muscles and follow the others in that frantic race for their lives.
The shots start to land on the floor around them, some passed by inches of their bodies. There were those few lucky shots that could scratch them. Casper never was so grateful to be wearing a bulletproof vest, and that the other prisoners had the good decision to stole the ones from the Ridires they knocked down as well.
That corridor was long. There were several meters until its end, but it seemed like a kilometer. No matter how much faster they tried to rush until there, the distance seemed to never decrease reasonably.
Once again, the determination of that enormous group was being put to test. The ones that could endure the shots and keep going forward could last to the end. No matter what, fall on the ground was like a death sentence. Once they stopped to move, the shots surely would reach them.
If one of them slacked and decreased the pace, he would be run over by his own comrades. That was a situation where no one could be weak.
"We are almost there!" Casper shouted again.
He looked back, those Ridires were starting to get out of the dust cloud from before, which was getting each time thinner. They were walking outside it with cautious steps, never stopping to attack, being coordinated by the person leading them.
"That’s it! They are leaving! Keep up with the pace just a bit more, everyone! The time is coming. Use everything you got."
The rush continued for several minutes. Each prisoner was running so fast that it was hard to believe that they were just criminals and not athletes. Again, their will to see the outside world was getting the better of them. Casper knew it, and he was aware that he could trust their capabilities because of it. They weren’t soldiers, however their desires could make up for it, mostly.
The White warrior glanced back once again and saw that most of the Ridires were showing themselves.
"Everyone, open space to the shooters who already got into the final of the corridor! It’s time to begin the counterattack! If you have grenades of all sorts, it’s time to spend it!"
Some prisoners got to the other extreme of the corridor. They already had prepared their weapons and were aiming towards that crowd of people.
The prisoners still running understood what Casper meant, and began to spread more through the corridor, giving the gaps needed to the others to retaliate.
In a second, bullets were flying through the air directly at the advanced warriors. As Casper predicted, they began to activate their shields to protect themselves from the upcoming shots. However, they didn’t count with the grenades rolling at their feet.
It was a nearly perfectly synchronized attack. The explosions came one after another, getting the Ridires by surprise. They didn’t expect that the prisoners could have such a destructive power on their hands.
It was a lack of detail that Anton had missed about them, which was something strange for the standards of the smarter Guinea pig of Halden. This fact was even strange...
Freygar was in the rearguard of the Ridires formation. With calm eyes, he watched his vanguard being completely exploded by the effective counterattack of the prisoners.
He glanced at the middle-aged man, suspecting him, but staying quiet about that. It was meaningless to inquire him about something at the start of a battle.
"The vanguard got all destroyed. I want the designated support group to save the ones that can still survive and make them came back to the battle somehow, and as fast as possible.
"Half of the warriors of the middle guard can take the lead and be the new vanguard. We will need to keep going if we don’t want them to escape from us. As unorganized as they are now, they will not have too many options to attack us again.
"Rearguard! You all will spread through the corridors behind us and round this place. They will probably split into groups again like before, so I want you to corner them and prevent them to keep running freely through the complex."
They gave a warcry before start to take their actions as soon as possible, following the orders as they were told. It was clear that they were on a different level. Whoever that looked at those warriors, and at the prisoners, would easily guess who would win that battle.
Freygar stared at the last prisoners turning to the left in the other extreme of the corridor. He spotted the person he was so absorbed to chase. It was a pity that he was already tiring himself so much even before they could fight, but the Aesir couldn’t just stop everyone and go to fight alone with him. 𝕗𝚛𝚎𝚎𝐰𝗲𝗯𝗻𝚘𝚟𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝕞
If Casper really was so smart and strong as he showed to be in their prior battle, no one could stop him. Freygar hated to admit it, but even he wouldn’t be able to stand a fight against the man he fought that day. Not without using all the resources available for him.
"Anyway, we will see if you were just being lucky that day, or if you are actually as strong as an Aesir, White warrior." He narrowed his eyes. After some seconds, the Casper turned to the left, following the other prisoners. The guards couldn’t target him before he did that.
Hastily, the new vanguard advanced the corridor, giving chase on them.
The Aesir looked kind of proud of his personal warriors. He had prepared all of them to be the greatest. They were specialized in chase, locate and capture (or execute, as in the current case). And even more in closed locations like Halden’s complex, or the lab’s. They were trained to take action inside those places, basically the perfect soldiers for any operation regarding its protection.
It was kind of frustrating to see so much of them dying or being hurt so easily right on the start because of that small mistake, but he was sure that they were now having eternal fights in Valhalla.
"Thank you for have the work to plot all this betraying for us, Anton. I was planning to wipe them outright in this corridor by surprise, but we failed... However, nothing is helping it."
The middle-aged man lowered his head, not answering. Freygar always thought that that man was kind of strange, but he was pretty useful as well.
"Why are you so quiet? Planning something?"
He shook his head slowly, not responding with words again. The Aesir shrugged, brushing it off, and began to walk again.
"Let’s go, middle guard, I will tag along with you all the time. We will catch up with the Vanguard with 3 minutes of delay as reinforcements if something happens!" He peacefully oriented them, who responded as truly nordic warriors would, and marched through the corridor.
