by T5 and Danny
Due to her mobility, Ameristar excused herself from her land-bound teammates in the vamp hunt and flew off to help other people on the island. She was sweating inside her armor, despite the air-conditioning systems. The situation seemed at last controllable, but in a few places there were still some of the vampires feeding of the helpless islanders. She checked her two Glock31's in mid-flight and resumed her flyby attacks.
A family was stranded in a broken truck, and the vehicle was covered in vampires struggling to get at the screaming passengers. The father had apparently been torn out of the truck through the front windshield, and his body laid on the road, shriveled and dry. All the life force within him had been drained. And now the mother was heroically fighting two vampires with the son's baseball bat, defending the broken window from within.
One of the vampires managed to get a grip across the mother's neck and hauled her through the broken glass, cutting her face and chest terribly while doing so. Screaming, she still struggled to keep a firm grip on her weapon, and she managed to give the vampire a satisfying bash across its face. It lost its grip and fell to the ground with a thud.
But the other vampire gave it no heed and tried to get into the back, where the wailing children were. Sliding inside the truck with an almost apelike grace, it faced the children and gave them a hideous grin.
With a howl, the mother struck the vampire on its back and continued to do so while two others crawled behind her. The messy result of the continuous bashing left the vampire with a mashed head and a twisted back. But as she triumphed over her victory, the two vampires attacked her from behind, and the children could only witness in horror as they devoured their loving mother's lifeblood.
Suddenly, their heads cracked open in small, erupting explosions. It was Ameristar, who had fired her two guns with explosive bullets. With her arms stretched forward, she aimed her two guns at the vile creatures and fired while she swooped down from the sky, her armor glistening in the moonlight and rain.
She walked up to the truck and picked up the now-shrunken body of the mother. The children saw her and ran to her side, screaming about what had happened, and then they broke down in tears and shakes. Ameristar used her enhanced armor's strength to carry the mother across her shoulders while cradling the children in her arms. She took them to the local police station.
Danny Hearn, Dirk Bell, Blackwulf the Everchanging, and Kristofer "Chance" Schanz marched purposefully down the main road of Puerta Mibela, keeping a sharp eye out for vampires. Danny and Dirk led the way in front, one with a weapon cocked and ready, and one with eagle eyes, a wolf's nose, and bat's ears scanning the city around them. Chance stayed one step behind them, with Wulf bringing up the rear. He cast a glance behind him every few seconds. Ameristar and Edulcore Cicciotto had both left separately to continue the vamp hunt and assist in rescue operations, Ameristar airborne in her amazing armor, and Ed in his UFO.
A hole suddenly opened up in front of them, causing the group to come to a sudden halt. Blackwulf, looking backward at the time, bumped into Chance as he stopped abruptly in front of him.
"The hell?" Dirk said.
An elevator quickly rose out of the hole. With a ding, it stopped in front of them. The doors slid open, and M'xy stepped out.
"Hi, M'xy," Danny said.
"Hi!"
"Can we help you?" Chance asked.
"I have a message from Grissom!"
M'xy stopped, grinning proudly at them.
"Well...?"
"Well what?"
"Can we hear it?"
"Okay! The message goes..." M'xy's voice suddenly changed into an exact copy of Grissom Montag's, and he continued, "Listen mate, tell the other guys that this building here ain't going to be standin' much longer. The storm's going to bring it right down, and it'll crush any bastard unlucky enough to be inside under a thousand bloody tonnes of rubble. We think most of the people are holed up in the basement; we're heading down now to check it out. And that's the message!" M'xy said, his voice returning to its usual disconcertingly operatic sound.
"Okay. Thanks, M'xy. Head back there, help evacuate those people. Try to meet back with us before the second-half of the storm hits. I'd like to be back under cover by then," Danny said.
"Right! To the ding machine!"
Before the others could wonder exactly what the hell M'xy meant by ding machine, he stepped back into his elevator, closed the doors behind him, and descended into the ground. The hole closed up behind him.
"That guy's weird," Dirk said.
At the Royal Crown Tower, Grissom and Grimm had made their way into the basement with the help of an emergency stairwell. They came across a room that held something like a hundred and fifty people, huddled together in a communal feeling of terror. Some had their arms around each other. Some prayed, in groups and on their own. Some were huddled on their own in corners.
"These people are pretty bloody scared," Grissom said.
"I don't imagine the sight of me is helping that much," Grimm said, noticing the stares and expressions of shock as he stepped into the room.
There was a brief pause, then a woman yelled, "Who are you?"
"Uh... My name's Grissom, this here's Grimm," Montag began.
"We're here to help," Grimm added.
"Help?! Help how?" a man said, standing up and walking toward them.
"We're evacuating this building," Grimm said.
"Bullshit! There's a goddamn storm out there! The safest place to be right now is right here in the basement! If you want to stick around here out of the storm, then fine, we don't care. But you're not dragging us out there!" the man yelled at them.
"Listen, mate. This building isn't going to survive the rest of the storm. Trust me. It'll collapse on itself, and anyone stuck down here will get crushed under the weight of a building's worth of concrete and steel," Grissom explained calmly.
"Bullshit!"
Grissom wiped his hand over his head in frustration.
A loud groan could be heard from overhead, and the people looked up.
"Hear that? That's the sound of steel bending. You think the building's going to take much more of that punishment? You think I'd be down here if there wasn't something bloody serious going on?" Grissom said to them, his voice rising a little.
A woman walked up to the man and touched his arm. "David... I think we should go with them," she said.
"Ah... the voice of reason," Grissom added.
"What about the storm? We can't go outside," David said softly.
"Right now it's the eye. Should be okay for a few more minutes. And if the storm hits... our friend will be able to keep us safe. He should be here any second," Grissom explained.
"Your friend? I don't care who he is, how's he going to keep us safe from that?" David exclaimed.
"Trust us," Grimm said, grinning.
A hole in the roof suddenly opened up, and M'xy's elevator descended from it. The closest people stepped back in shock.
"And here he is now," Grimm added.
The elevator dinged and then opened. M'xy floated out.
"Okay, Grissom, what'd you think would be the quickest way out of here for all these people?" Grimm asked.
Grissom paused to think. After a moment of this, a hole opened up in the wall opposite them. Walking up to it, Grimm noticed a tunnel leading straight from the hole to outside. The walls appeared to be lined with floral wallpaper.
"There's the quickest way out!" said M'xy. Hurricane flowers... storm flora," he added as he floated toward his hole in the wall.
Back on the road outside, a good few blocks from the Royal Crown Tower, there stood Danny, Dirk, Chance, and Blackwulf.
"What is it, Danny?" Chance asked. Danny raised a finger to his mouth in reply, the traditional gesture of shut the hell up. His enhanced senses had apparently picked something up.
"Those alleys..." Danny said softly, pointing to two alleys about a hundred meters ahead of them, branching off the road on other side.
"What about them?" Chance said.
"Vampires. I think."
"Think we can take them?" Dirk asked. Blackwulf stepped forward, ready for battle.
"I think there may be too many," Danny answered.
As if on cue, the hidden enemy stepped out of the alley, revealing themselves.
"Shit..." Dirk said as he realized how many there were. Well over a hundred stepped out, and there looked to be more on the way.
"Them! That's them," one of the vampires yelled. "They're the guys who blew up the others!" He pointed at the heroes with his one remaining arm, while a shard of bone protruded uselessly from the other shoulder. He seemed to be a vamp that had been injured in the earlier battle and had escaped to find his friends.
"Well! Looks like someone's got someone else outnumbered!" one of the vampires yelled.
"Do we try to--?" Chance began.
"There's too many," Danny replied, cutting him off. Chance nodded, agreeing.
"Remember what Grissom said about the Royal Crown Tower?" Chance asked.
"Hey, yeah. Good thinking..." Dirk said.
"Right. He said it would fall... crushing anything inside. I see where you're going. I like it," Danny said.
The vampires began to advance.
"We're going to turn the Royal Crown Tower into one huge mousetrap. And we're the bait. Uh... run," Danny said.
They ran.
Ameristar saw the little group running toward the crumbling building, swooped down in front of them, and said, "Hi there, gang. Need any help?"