V1-017

"Sadly, you wasted you're only opportunity to kill me on my subordinates. Your best course of action would have been to stop me at that moment. Considering there is only one of you and twelve of us, you may have survived. Given our numbers, tell me, honestly, how much of a chance do you think you have?"

The Leader's voice came through the walkie-talkie clearly; however, Renton and I chose to ignore it, as there were more pressing matters to deal with.

While the third-rate villain prattled on, Renton had finished filling the others in on the plan he had come up with and was awaiting my approval. Meanwhile, Chase, Carleigh, and Tristian retrieved a second gun and nervously awaited our command.

To our enemy's knowledge, there was only one of us. However, due to my earlier actions of having everyone stay quiet, the opposition was left unaware there were five of us, and if each of us had two guns, when we fired, it would give the illusion ten people were lying in wait.

Our barricades were meant to keep out people, but not bullets, even a 9mm bullet fired from one of our handguns would be able to tear through it, and that's precisely what the plan was.

"I tell you what, surrender to us; since luck is on your side, and I am willing to overlook killing my subordinates earlier, I might even let you live as our slave. We need a pack mule to haul our gear for us, and that sounds like the perfect job for a rat like you."

In response to the Leader's taunts, I could distinctly hear multiple people's laughter.

Realizing that my initial hunch was correct, a faint smile crept onto my lips. As expected, the idiots had all gathered in front of our building. They were assembled similarly to how the ones we had killed earlier were, turning them into fat pigs ready for slaughter, and I was about to use the plan that had worked earlier a second time.

Getting a handle on my steadily inflating ego, I picked up the radio and spoke into it.

"You know what's funny?" I said casually.

"Heh, what could possibly be funny to you, given your situation, dead man?" With a snort, the Leader quickly answered my taunting question.

Shaking my head at how easily this stupid third-rate villain fell into my trap, I grinned before holding up my fist and signaled for everyone to get ready and move on my mark.

In response, Renton, Chase, Tristian, and even Carleigh, were armed and pointing at the wall.

"What's funny is how history repeats itself. Well, that and you will die the same way as the last people who tried to attack us here."

Right as I heard the enemy Leader respond with, "Us?" I dropped my hand, giving the signal, swiftly picked up the handgun prepared for me on the table with my right hand, then spun the rifle on my sling into my left hand and fired.

All ten of our guns went off simultaneously in a hail of gunfire and sound. Holes of light opened up in the wall and front of the apartment; not every bullet was making it through, but enough were, and you could hear the screams of our enemies on the other side of the wall.

Shouts of get behind cover rang out, and we were met with responding suppressive gunfire that had us ducking behind the couches as low to the floor as possible.

In the heat of the moment, I found myself ditching the handgun in my right hand to grab hold of Carleigh. Dragging her to the ground next to me, she didn't even react, only moving to my will because she was focused entirely on firing the guns and wasn't paying attention to the fact that they were shooting back.

While returning fire with my rifle, I saw Renton racing upstairs out of the corner of my eye. Although confused about his departure from the main battlefield, I knew it was unnecessary to worry about him.

When it came to our group, my brother's coming and going were the least of my worries; instead, my attention was on Tristian.

From what I observed, I could tell he struggled to fire two guns and had dropped his second weapon to focus on firing only one.

The back-and-forth Firefight continued for about two more minutes. As my brother had taught them, Chase, Tristian, and Carleigh were sure to fire in separate intervals to conserve ammo. Still, after two minutes of consistent shooting, the moment came when we all were out of ammunition and needed to reload.

Luckily, we weren't the only ones in this predicament; less than a second after our group fired our last round, the gunfire outside also ceased, indicating the thugs, too, were out of ammo and needed to reload.

During the brief interlude, I strained my ears, attempting to make out the sound of magazines slamming into place; however, due to the solid brick walls acting as a sound barrier, I was unable to and, as such, could not determine how many thugs were still standing on the other side.

Racking a fresh round into the chamber of my rifle, the walkie-talkie, which had at some point fallen on the ground during the fight, lit up as if the Leader needed more time and wanted to stall.

Sure enough, half a second later, the annoying prattling started back up.

"So, you had more than one person hiding in your little rat hole. Not a bad trap if I do say so, it makes sense, though, and I can understand how the others fell to you. Allow me a moment to applaud you on your tactician skills." The prattling stopped as the loud sound of flesh-on-flesh clapping could be heard dimly on the other side of the apartment wall.

"Unfortunately for you, little rat, your trap has failed, and you couldn't finish us all off with your petty antics. Still, it was a good try, I guess."

Getting annoyed by the arrogant tone the thug leader used to talk down on me, I grit my teeth hard enough to cause my gums to bleed before responding.

"Well, that's a shame now. I was hoping you wouldn't survive. Heh, it seems that the Norse gods aren't on my side this day; better luck next time."

My use of the Norse gods came from something that became a habit during training, and that was most of the Marines I knew had prepared themselves, myself and Renton included, to lose our lives at any moment. Thus, we planned on going to Valhalla, where we could fight till our hearts were content.

As the words came out of my mouth, I noticed something across the room, and my eyes were drawn to the window, which was no longer barricaded; the mattress we had against it had fallen to reveal the glass had shattered out, filling the room with dim light.

At that moment, Renton's plan rushed into my head, and although it may seem crazy to anyone else, I realized it was one of his crazy plans that only he would want to do and one only the two of us could pull off.

Putting the pieces together, I now understood his reasoning behind leaving the battlefield and heading upstairs, the chess board was set up, and it was time to go for checkmate.

Taking a slow and steady breath to calm my adrenaline-filled heart, I raised the radio to my face and began speaking into it,

"Well, I've only got one last thing to say to you," with complete faith that my brother was in position and waiting for my signal, I made the first move, pushing all my proverbial chess pieces into place.

"Oh, last words, is it? I suppose I can humor a dying rat on his last leg." The Thug Leader retorted with a chuckle. However, unlike the last time he made a bad joke, there was no added laugh track from the peanut gallery behind him, indicating we had taken out more than a few of his subordinates.

With a twisted grin on my lips, I didn't finish the statement immediately; instead, I gently placed my rifle on the ground, reached over and snatched up the handgun left on the floor by Tristian, and scooped up my original handgun as well.

With trained expertise, I swiftly pulled back the slides on both, checking there was a round in the chamber for each, ejected the magazines to ensure they were full, and replaced them before sprinting toward the now open window.

Then, raising my voice and hearing Renton moving upstairs, practically mirroring my movements, the two of us shouted in sync,

"OO-RAH, MOTHER FUCKER. IT'S DEVIL DOG TIME!" and dove through the open window. Ignoring the danger of jumping through a window filled with shards of broken glass, I gripped the two nine-millimeter handguns tightly so I didn't lose them upon impacting the ground.