Florida Everglades. 0330 Hours.
“Come in! Dammit, someone respond!”
Falcon slammed his radio against the nearest tree in disgust as Mercenary roamed over his way in a low, stealthy crouch.
“What’s goin’ on, LT?” Mercenary inquired as he drew close enough to talk in a whisper.
“Wish I knew. We’ve got flamethrowers, sniper fire, and I just heard at least half a mag of 5.56, but nobody is responding.”
“Well…if no one else is gonna take the fight to ‘em, might as well be us.” Mercenary gestured his head towards the direction he had come from.
“Explain.”
“Saw Zandar over that way. He took cover after all hell broke loose. I was ’bout to jump him, but figured I should get your say so first”
Falcon nodded and crouch-walked past the Renegades Mercenary, lifting his tactical shotgun out in front of him. He couldn’t help but glance at the Cobra-issue Viper rifle that Mercenary still toted around from his past time in the Cobra Viper corps. Falcon would be lying if he said he was totally comfortable with it. But the Renegades were totally off the grid. He could direct them, but had no say-so about their gear load out.
Falcon and Mercenary pushed through the brush as silent as possible, but stopped suddenly when they saw what appeared to be a young girl looking very worried at the surrounding chaos. Flickers of flame shot ribbons of light throughout the thick woods, but they could still see the silhouette of the girl, but not much in the way of details. Mercer used hand gestures to ask permission to proceed and Falcon nodded. His face turned into a sneer as he set down the rifle, pulled out a pistol, then screwed on a silencer.
Slowly he pressed forward, reaching out to the young girl with a consoling hand. Before he could bring her in to protect her from erupting gunfire, she whirled around and drilled him in the temple with an elbow, breaking out in laughter. Mercenary stumbled backwards, squeezing off a trio of silenced shots, but they went wide even as the green-haired girl in the Zartan t-shirt pulled out her own large caliber Magnum. Two thundering blasts rang from the thick barrel, glancing off of Mercenary’s appropriated Alley-Viper body armor as he stumbled to the ground. Even though the shots were not direct impacts, breath exploded from his lungs and he was gasping as he dropped into the grass.
Zanya sneered and moved in, her pistol training on the fallen soldier, but Falcon was right in her path, lifting his shotgun.
“Don’t do it little girl –”
But before he could finish, an arrow drove deep into his right side, sending blood spraying from his lips and staining his green uniform. Zandar leveled his crossbow and loaded another arrow.
“Did you forget about me, G.I. Joe? That’s okay… everyone does.”
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