NOVEL NEXT Total mess
It's no use. There's no way to avoid a fight. It wasn't me, it was Sarasti who provoked the attackers to open fire.
It was like watching in slow motion the machine gun in the hands of a female soldier twitching. I can't see the bullets, of course, but at times like this it seems as if time slows down. Gives me the opportunity to fully enjoy the moment of despair, when the situation gets out of control, and life gives way to death... The assault rifle, a weapon of war, which has no place in a school full of children, spits out three clumps of death into a defenseless teacher.
Defenseless?
Sarasti wasn't such an easy target to attack, she started moving even before her intended assassin. No, she did not manage to outrun the bullet, but she managed to shift, and instead of the first shot penetrating the victim's heart, the projectile struck the left shoulder of Yucca, blossoming into a bloody flower.
The woman twitched but made no sound; even that involuntary movement was caused by the jolt of the bullet, not by pain. Sarasti gave no sign at all that the wound bothered her in any way. Even more surprisingly, the first shot didn't interrupt her jerk-she managed to get out of her sights and the next two bullets merely ripped impotently through the sleeve of her blouse.
No one had realized the change yet, and the agent closest to Sarastee was already wheezing with a torn throat. I didn't even see a weapon in her hand! She... did it with her fingers. Not that I hadn't seen this kind of thing in the past, but I didn't expect a high school physics teacher to turn out... and who would she turn out to be? Apparently, I had yet to find out. The teacher herself hurried to cover the still-living victim from the soldiers about to burst into flames - a body in armor quite capable of stopping the low-pulse rounds of the attackers' assault rifles. It all happened so fast, the two agents sent to me with the suppressor didn't even have time to snap the collar around my neck. And I don't intend to let them do that anymore, not now that they've started shooting up a school full of kids!
I recoil away from the pernicious suppressor, and the collar snaps idly with a loud, seemingly frustrated ringing. This sound notifies the attacker's commander of a new problem, and she casts a stern look at me. It's a good time to remember Wanda's lessons.
Wasting no time, I attack the nearest female soldier. The collar in her hands is now useless, she doesn't even have time to defend herself from the powerful thrust to her chest, and flies away a couple of meters, falling under the feet of another soldier. Shit! The serum hadn't fully kicked in yet. I had hoped to disable two people at once with this blow: the target herself and the gunwoman behind her, but I clearly overestimated the amount of force my muscles were capable of right now, though it was enough to knock the spirit out of the woman's lungs. Well, I still have my web shooters, and I shoot a webbing at the distant opponent, but she manages to cover her face with her assault rifle, and then doesn't hesitate to toss the useless weapon aside and reach for her gun. I need a little more time, at least a couple or three minutes!
While I was busy with her fellow soldiers, a second woman decides to attack me from behind. I did not see her, of course, but felt the butt of her rifle meet the back of my head. Had it not been for the Lizard's serum, I would have been lying dead after such a blow, counting the geese that had flown south for the winter. But even so, it was not pleasant: a deafening rumble in my ears and a sharp pain in the back of my head put me out of commission for a couple of seconds.
I rolled forward. I don't know if I did it myself, or if it was aided by the machine-gunner, the force of which I had experienced firsthand.
Luckily, the Lizard's regeneration comes before the other abilities. My hearing returns quickly, and the first sound that displaces the horrible humming in my head is the roar of machine gun fire - the soldiers trying to hold back Sarasti, who, covering herself with her first victim, bursts toward the window. And she's still alive, trying to hold back the blood gushing from her torn throat and turning her eyes frantically, as if she can't believe she's dead.
In another situation, such a picture might arouse sympathy - an irrevocably taken life, even an enemy's, is always a regret. As long as that feeling is alive in me, I know I can still consider myself human. But when you're dealing with creatures like these, for whom it doesn't cost a bloodbath in a school full of children, you have to suppress all pity.
Through the cacophony of shots I hear the shouts of the commander, and at the edge of my consciousness I catch the order: "finish them off, don't let them get away.
The machine-gunner, at whose feet I had thrown the first woman soldier, raised her gun, aiming at me, but was in no hurry to shoot, instead kicking the air-grabbing accomplice at her feet so that she could do her part.
Just as I thought, they want to take me alive. But they are ruthlessly eliminating witnesses. It would have been better if Sarasti had fallen asleep with the others! Then there would have been no unnecessary deaths. Perhaps I might even have escaped, leading my pursuit to a more deserted place to show them what justifiable cruelty is.
Meanwhile, Sarasti was about to break through to the window. There was only one enemy left in her path, but what is one unfortunate human being to one who can rip the necks off enemies with her bare hands? For someone who can run under barrage fire faster than a sprinter, covered by a convulsing half-dead body. What could one ordinary soldier do to such a monster, especially with an empty magazine in the clip? A lot, it turned out.
With a twinkle of determination in her eyes, the woman throws the machine gun away, and walks toward imminent death herself in the form of Sarasti. No, she doesn't try to fight Yucca to defeat her. Instead, the desperate warrior rushes toward the fugitive, arms spread wide. I can clearly see Sarasti breaking her enemy's arm with a slight, careless motion, but it doesn't help her. The soldier still manages to grab the teacher with his other hand and hold back her tug.
"Hurry up! I'll get her..." the wounded woman screams, but her cry is soon choked as Sarasti hits her in the face with her forehead. With a wet crunch the nasal cartilage enters the unfortunate's brain.
"Fire!" The commander echoes her, but it was unnecessary - the soldiers already knew what to do.
Now that Sarasti had slowed down, it was much easier to hit her; it seemed the end for the teacher and, unless she was Wanda Wilson's twin sister, she would not survive. But Yucca herself had a different opinion on the matter.
"Grenade!" shouts suddenly one of the soldiers.
And I do indeed see an elongated cylindrical object flying toward us. Sarasti had obviously ripped it off one of her adversaries. These things brought grenades to school!
Ignoring the gun resting in my face, I jump back to my seat in the classroom. I manage to cover Mary Jane with my body at the last moment before the flash, and the next second the world drowns in blinding light and my consciousness fades into white noise for the second time in a minute.