Enemy Reinforcements

Barely two seconds later, a sharp pain spread from his right shoulder. He opened up his eyes, only to see his shoulder had been vaporized.

His arm was left dangling from whatever small portion of skin and muscles remained.

"FUCK!!" Henry yelled.

"Jesus Fucking Christ! God, this hurts!" he added.

Jhonny looked at the results of his shot with wide eyes. When the image in front of him sank into his brain, he bent over and puked.

The Commodore Britanny London was now but just a body without a head being held in place by Henry, or what was left of him, with her neck fuming. Henry had his whole shoulder disintegrated by the force of the laser rifle at full power.

"Jesus Christ, kid! Could you not hit me that much next time?! FUCK, this HURTS!" Henry admonished him.

"I'm sorry!" Jhonny cried out between two sessions of hurling.

"I'm so sorry!" he apologized again.

"Dammit! It's okay. I asked you to shoot, anyway. That'll teach me," Henry said, calming down a little.

Henry then yanked out his kukris from the body's shoulders and walked to the kid, his right arm still dangling about. Once next to him, he started pulling the branches apart with his remaining arm to free Jhonny from the tree.

After a few seconds of pulling, and some weird wriggling from Jhonny, he was finally free. Henry slumped to the ground, exhausted.

He took a few deep breaths and looked back at Jhonny.

"Help me up, kid. This fight isn't over," he said, his eyes getting sharper.

His inner radar had just shown blips coming in from towards the Tamarain camp. They had to flee fast because he could no longer fight. There weren't many fighters left to kill, but he was almost amputated and tired as hell.

Jhonny hurriedly got up and helped pick up Henry from the ground. They started walking in the woods towards the cave they had slept in.

Jhonny hoped they would make it there before anyone caught up, but his hopes would soon be crushed.

Shortly after they started walking, a laser beam hit a nearby tree, signalling the remaining Tamarains had spotted them.

"Duck!" Henry yelled, throwing himself to the ground.

They both crawled to the nearest large rock, sheltering themselves from the incoming fire.

"Shit!" Henry thought.

He knew he couldn't go after them in his condition, and it would take him a while to heal back to normal. Jhonny then lay on the ground with the rifle and poked out of the rock just long enough to pull off a shot and hide back behind their makeshift shelter.

As he did, Henry saw a blip disappear from his inner radar.

"Nice shot, kid. Keep doing that and try to get the most you can. If you can bring them down to two or three soldiers, I can manage to kill them," Henry said.

He then pulled out his kukri and slipped it under his right arm.

"Fuck, this is gonna hurt!" he said, gritting his teeth.

And in one swift motion, he sliced the remaining skin and muscles that held his arm in place. He growled in pain as blood kept oozing more and more from the injury.

"What the fuck! Are you crazy!?" Jhonny yelped.

"Oh, stop it! How do you want me to fight with my arm flailing around? I needed to do that for the upcoming fight. Now, next time you fire, go at full power," Henry said.

"Why?" Jhonny asked.

"Just do it!" Henry barked.

Jhonny shrugged and lay down again, ready to take another shot. Before he did, he powered up the rifle to maximum and then pulled the trigger to the nearest Tamarain.

The rifle's nozzle became fiery red, almost white. He pulled back behind the rock before Henry jerked the gun away from him.

"Hey!" Jhonny exclaimed, only to realize in horror what Henry was about to do.

Henry turned the nozzle towards his bleeding shoulder and leaned into it, searing the flesh and cauterizing the wound. The bleeding stopped instantly as a smell of burnt skin and flesh rose from the wound.

Henry ground his teeth in pain, waiting for a few seconds to be sure it was well seared, then tossed the rifle nozzle aside, heaving and wheezing.

Jhonny took the rifle back and tuned the power back down. He gazed at Henry, then went back to shooting the incoming threats.

"You're crazy. Do you know that?" Jhonny told Henry, looking at him from the corner of his eye.

"Been told that a lot, kiddo," Henry laughed.

"How many are left?" he then asked, knowing he probably didn't see all of them from his radar.

"Around ten," Jhonny answered.

"Nine now," he added after another shot.

But then, shit hit the fan. On his next attempt to kill an incoming, the rifle stuttered, then shut down.

"Shit!" Henry swore.

"The battery is out, dammit!" he said, despairing a little.

"Can my day get any worse?" he added, looking at the sky.

"Battery dead?" Jhonny asked.

"What kind of rifle runs out of battery mid-fight? That's some cheap tech," he said, frowning.

"It's not cheap, kid. We fired two max energy beams with it. It can hold only so much power, and those shots are taxing. How often do you think that sniper can shoot without recharging, huh?" Henry asked, shaking his head disapprovingly.

"Well then, we're screwed!" Jhonny said, collapsing.

Henry then saw more blips on his radar, this time coming from in front of them. There were five, and they were not moving fast.

"Well! Looks like this is it, kid! It was a pleasure fighting by your side. I hope we meet in the next life," Henry said, looking at Jhonny with a warm smile.

To him, this was it. They had enemies in the back and enemies in the front. He stared at his radar, waiting for his inescapable death to come.

'I'm sorry system. I couldn't help you live longer. I hope you aren't mad,' Henry apologized to his brain buddy.