"Damn right we retreat!  Come on and run!" Quint yelled, slashing his old withered sword at a Gear, lodging it into its left bicep, and then kicking the Gear with his right foot to dislodge it from his blade, and slashing another one behind him with the twisting momentum, leaving a gash oozing out putrid blood straight across its misaligned ribcage.  He stepped back to run, throwing his blade's tip down and to his left, slicing through the ankle of another Gear, the smooth and spongy skeleton of the disfigured and morphed creature.  Then, Quint sprinted backwards, back towards the Seikishidan head quarters.  The line of defense had been broken, so quite a few Gears had gotten through, and his sword was not of no use on his sprint back.  The fog made it no easier to see where he was going, but these flat plains had been his turf for the past four years, so he felt inclined to know where he was going, more so than a dirty Gear.  The distance they had traveled out from the base to where they stood on the field had to be about half a mile, and the sprint was a bit much for Quint, as if the battle wasn't enough, but he had adrenaline working on his side to keep him going.  On the way, is intention wasn't to kill anymore Gears, but get them out of his way.  He got the order to retreat, and when he got back to HQ, there'd be a new plan.

            This definitely is one of those goddamn times where shit is happening, and if I do survive, maybe I'll get that promotion.  If I live this day, and nothing comes of it, fuck the Seikishidan, I'm going to go be a politician. Quint gave himself some comedic relief to calm his nerves, and his breath during the sprint, his sword swaying side to side in his hand as he did, the drops of gelatin blood flicking off into the fog at his knees.  The fog before him was like a mask to his ultimate goal, the door after door metal squares in the hillside of the Seikishidan headquarters.  After going down the slope of the headquarters out of the mid-floor opening warehouse north edge, it leveled out, the hill more like a plateau to a higher flatlands, the battle now on the lower flatlands.  Around Quint, he could see the specks of white coats flaring behind the fleeing soldiers such as him, the lower coat trails of his trench covered in red residue, his gauntlets dripping with the oily blood of the unholy creation.

            Keep running.  His throat burned in the thin French air, and the moisture from the fog didn't serve to help precipitate his dry mouth, the athletic weariness setting into him.  He figured he was close, and once he got to the foot of the hill, he had about seventy five feet to climb to one of the doors, and then he had to slide in.  Around him, he could hear the pattering of fleeing footsteps, and the Gears galloping behind.  As soon as the defense retreated, despite the breaking of it, the Gears surged on full force, without hindrance, and they were gaining fast.  The animalistic ones, crawling on four legs, leapt into the air thirty feet on each bound, only to do t again on a single touch of ground.  A soldier running next to Quint was falling slightly behind, and was crushed underneath the three hundred pound Gear who landed on top of him, crushing his shoulders to pulp and mashing his face into the ground with his leap.  Like a frog off of a spring, it continued on its next bound, landing about 15 feet in front of Quint, and now running at him, after turning its head to face him.

            Low on the ground, it ran like a cougar, long nails on all four of its limbs digging into the dirt, wishing it were the flesh of man.  Quint brought his sword up to his face, both hands grasping the hilt of it, the hand guard resting on his cheek, blade held out in a stabbing position to the oncoming enemy.  He knew it was going to leap, it was an animal Gear, made after a mammal, obviously.  They pounced, it was basic knowledge.  So, when it was within five feet, he could see the muscles tense for the large jump, the hind legs curling in, and he smirked a little, being routine practice to him.  As it leapt, front legs extended out, claws trailing dirt from the ground it used as a podium, it kept itself barely above the fog in its pounce, about three and a half feet off the ground, traveling at about sixty-five miles per hour.  In a second, Darton rolled down under the enemy, sword still held forward in the stabbing motion, and as he did, the blade turned upward to the sky, wheeling down into the ground as his entire body did, the neck of the Gear bursting into a crimson display, the slash of the rolling blade under the Gear extending down to its pelvis, where it fell to the ground, under the mist in a radiant display of splattering blood.

            He regained footing after the forward roll, and continued his sprint.  There it is!  Home sweet home!  Don't give up!  He pounded his legs harder, each step he could feel his toes digging into the soft, humid ground, and each step his legs feeling one pound heavier, until they weighed in the thousands.  He made his way up the hill, the surrounding Seikishidan soldiers also, being flanked down by pouncing Gears, the hordes behind them gaining quick, about 100 feet behind.  One of the steel shutters in front of him already had a few retreating soldiers in it, and they were starting to close it, fear in their eyes at the hordes behind.

            "Don't!  Wait, you bastards!" Quint yelled, trying to run harder to get under.  He was too late, the bolts latching and the shutters being held fast.  His fast banged on the metal twice, cursing the cowards behind, before dashing to the next on his right about fifty feet, all of the shutters on a horizontal line from the large assembly room.  This one was also shutting, the people behind afraid.  "Don't you fucking shut it!" he screamed, diving.  His face rubbed into the dirt, bringing up a fair amount of it in his bangs, but he kept the stealing dive for home base long enough that the soft ground turned to cold cement, his clothes getting caught in the humanesque imperfections of the cement as he rolled further in, hearing the latches bolt behind him, and finding home, sweet home.

            He stood up slowly, brushing the dirt off of him, panting as hard as he could, but still trying to retain his big-bad-boy image.  The soldiers at the door barred it with their bodies, already locked the latches and bolts on the metallic freight way.  They looked at him in disbelief, their mouths uttering "How did he get in here?", but no breath coming to vocalize those words.  He didn't care, and he dropped his old sword, and jumped to the gate, barring it himself.  It rippled under the pressure behind, the Gears pounding, slashing, using their bodies as battering rams, an getting sucked underneath the others, squashed to a pulp, but for the better cause of killing the humans inside, the Gears would have themselves killed, because Justice commanded it.

            "Hold it tight" he said between clenched teeth, large gasps between the clenching, his shoulder straight on the metal, like the three others next to him.

            "Soldiers!  For those of you still alive, retreat further into the facility where fighting conditions are more favorable!" Quint heard the voice echo throughout the large assembly room, where he stood among ten-thousand not but two hours ago, and now less than a thousand stood guarding the sixteen entrance doorways with their bodies and lives.  "On my count…" Kiske yelled to all of the soldiers, all of them hearing him crystal clear, despite the ravenous cries and shots of the Gears outside, some of them breaking through with their claws and rudimentary weapons.  "1…"  You better know what you're doing, Kiske.  "2…" Quint looked to see where he left his sword when he dove in, and had planned when Ky said--"3…"  Shit, no time now, run.

            In one slick movement, Quint threw himself off of the doorway, and ran straight back, scooping up his rough sword in hand, and dashing to the back of the room.  The others at his own door were not so fortunate, as two of the three got away, but the last third, an orange rank, was too slow on his dash away, and a Gear tearing through the metal, reached its hand through, skewering the guard.  Three large crimson spots appeared on the suit, stretching outwards as he gasped for breath in lungs that would not accept it, and he was pulled backward against the door, smashed into it again and again, until his body gave way, and was sucked through the small hole the Gear made for its hand in a bone cracking scrunch.

            Where the hell are we even running to?!  Run!  Go!  Quint pushed himself harder, pumping his arms, his breath hoarse and tired, the back of his throat feeling like the Sahara had relocated itself from the top of Africa to his mouth.  His head was getting light, the adrenaline thinning from the initial rush, and fatigue coming on fast and quick, like trying to stop a 100 car freight train in under 10 feet.  He could hear the clops of the mutated feet smashing into the cement walkways, sending cracks from around the crater of the step, each one pounding behind him, and hundreds more behind that.  He could hear their grunts, their hungry breaths, the husky tone in their gasp.  They were gaining quick, and the two Seikishidan soldiers, both private like him, were starting to slow, their fatigue setting in harder than Quint's.

            They tried to run faster, their legs hurting, and then, the one to Quint's right, fell, his knee collapsing under him.  He tried jumping back up to run, but the makeshift blade of a Gear came down in his skull, the left side of his face falling next to his body, and then being crushed under the storm of the benevolent Gears.  Shit!  Run faster!  Darton pounded the cement with his boots harder, moving his legs in front of him faster, longer strides, the sword in his hand becoming heavier with every passing moment.  He finally got to the right door inside the headquarters from the entrance hanger.  There were large doors at each side of the back wall of the room, leading to the two parallel walkways in the Seikishidan France headquarters.  All of the soldiers who were on the hanger doors, protecting them, fled to one or the other of these large twenty foot wide doorways, and those who were barricading a gate in the middle of the room had to pick one to run to, and generally were flanked down by a Gear.  The lucky few were the ones who made it to a far gate, like Quint, where he had a straight run to the Floor C balcony walkway.

            The walkways were about twenty feet across as well, the soldiers, about two hundred a side, running to the back of Floor C as fast they could.  Two soldiers who got to the doors first were hurriedly fiddling with the lock mechanism, breathing hard, hands fumbling with the equipment.  The soldiers flew through in a wave, unaware and selfish in their flee of life.  While the two at the doors on each side tried to bash the controls into submission to lock the shutters.  Their honorable attempts were ended in vain, for as soon as the humans were done running through, an endless supply of Gear brood blew through, dicing the humans to indiscernible flashes of blood and tissue.

            The quickest of the soldiers were in the front, the surge of white coats sometimes knocking one of their own over, only to be trampled on by the other fleeing soldiers, and then the Gears.  The Gears were gaining quickly anyway, because of their altered DNA and zoological roots.  Quint could hear the men behind him being stabbed, thrown slashed, and killed.  Soon, he'd be up next.

            "Aggh!" he heard the bloody gurgle of a man, as he was impaled by a Gear full burnt.  The leaping enemy latched all four of its appendages into him, landing on his back, and all of the long razor-like claws on the hands piercing through the body, the white garb turning crimson, dripping blood from the claws, now stained red , as if a trophy.  Then, another fell, to the blade of a Gear stuck halfway into his ribs to his sternum.  They're catching up way too fast!  The Gears were like a wave, jumping forward in one stride, then going back a little while another leapt forward, being shoved to the back by another in the lead now, a constant wave of progression.

            Quint ran harder, but saw the pack of Holy Order soldiers fleeing further surpassing him, and found himself trying to catch up to their coat trails, billowing as they ran, like children just ahead of him laughing at him, that he couldn't catch up or fight back.  The breath of gears was on his neck, and he pushed harder, not gaining any more speed, the men in front of him passing him, and all the Seikishidan behind and on the sides of him were already struck down.  I'm not gonna die!  Run faster!  Before his thought could be obeyed by his limbs, he felt the cold steel digging into his right arm.

            He screamed in pain as the blade found its way through his shoulder down to his bone, the rusted jagged edges ripping excess flesh and blood, the Gear's sword clanking onto his bone, more pain flying through his body.  He turned and contorted, losing his running, and hit the side rail.  The Gear pulled the sword from Quint as it ran by, flinging him off the edge, his arm trailing blood down to his wrist, the stream staining the white of the garbs a dull red.  He dropped his sword as he tumbled off the edge, his right hand in a ball of pain.  The Gears rushed on towards the Seikishidan ahead, making nothing of the soldier fallen off the edge, the battle program Justice was using statistically calculating after the wound and being tossed off of the edge, he was dead.

            What the Gears lacked to see was the small hand holding onto the edge.  Quint's left hand held onto the edge of the Floor C base.  Every floor had a set of three-tiered metal handrails, one vertical bar every ten feet, and three parallel horizontal bars running the length of the headquarters for each side, looping around on both sides to form a very elongated O.  The fingerless glove that fit under the gauntlet went up to Quint's elbow, made of a thick leather, like the dueling bracelets men used in the 1600's, but the coat arm went over it, and then the two-pieced colored gauntlets corresponding to rank, tied with leather belt straps.  He held firm onto the rough cement edge, the perfect right angle of the edge giving him good grip, but there was a problem, he was right handed.

            Slowly, the grip on the edge started to falter, and slip, and his right hand was throbbing with pain and getting numb, all of the blood flow in his arm being redirected to his sleeve, and then dripping off into the abyss of two stories below him.  This is really gonna suck…  He counted to himself, lipping the words.  When he whispered three, he threw his right hand up to the ledge, instantly pain shooting through his body, and more blood seeping through the wound like twisting a water mane valve from a quarter to full open.  He held on with his right hand long enough to get a better grip with his left, and it fell to his side again, Quint gasping in pain at the movement and rotation on a shoulder that had been cleaved in two.

            The Gear rush above his head seemed never to thin, despite the constant flood going on for roughly thirty seconds since Quint grasped the edge.  The rush seemed not to thin, and it was constant, probably about three thousand Gears strong against two hundred remaining Seikishidan.  He knew he couldn't hoist himself up, his arm hurt too much, and the Gears would kill him.  Luckily, a solution blazed next to him and shattered his stability.

            A large, crescent shaped of condensed lightening smashed into the Floor C walkway about 12 feet from Quint.  The wedge looked like it was cut out of a full sheet of electricity, and thrown forward, the condensed bursting lightening kept in from of the crescent, but jumping around inside like a hot potato.  When it smashed into the walkway, it sunk in, like water drops into a big glass of water, a few remaining jolts jumping back and forth before sweeping inside, then, it exploded in a massive display of rocks, dust, and metal flying in every direction.  The Gears directly above it were incinerated, and the other Gears thrown back, a wave of them being knocked on the ground.

            Grunting and snorting, they got up.  The humanoid ones backtracked to go around the structure to the other side, or were simply killed by their brood, and the ones that were more animal based simply jumped over the new ten foot chasm.  The shock of the internally exploding bridge sent Quint falling, shaken off of his ledge, and straight onto the rail bar of Floor B.  He fell on it with the straight of his back, gasping out in pain as he lost his breath, and rolled to his left, falling on the floor of Floor B.  Gasping and coughing, he looked forward, seeing the debris of Floor C's catwalk on Floor B's.  A few mangled carcasses and pieces laid smoking and dismembered, a sign of the power of Ky's weapon.  Looking to the opposite side of the headquarters, Quint saw Ky sprinting off on Floor C, his attempt to stop the Gear flow on this side, unaware of Quint's presence, to which he almost ended.

            The staircase and elevator shaft to the north of Quint's position, which was where the assembly room was, had been crushed.  The elevator shaft was probably mangled, but showed no problem from the outside, and the Gears had already bashed the hell out of the stairway, and now only boulders and mangled metal stood where the case once was.  This was at least half a mile behind Quint, the total length of the Seikishidan headquarters vertically being a mile and a half.  To the Gears, if they destroyed the means of access to other floors, they could trap and annihilate the humans.  But, the opposite side of the Seikishidan headquarters also was outfitted with the same transportation, but the Gears could deal with those running there, and if not all, they could round up the survivors by clearing out every floor.

              Quint raised his body up to standing level, coughing still from the pain in his back he got from falling a story onto a metal railing.  It didn't make matters better he had a gash in his right shoulder that would require medical attention before it got infected, not to say the blade was entirely clean that cleaved him.  Thinking of swords…where's mine?  Shit…  Quint was weaponless among Gears, that if they knew of his existence, would make sure it ceased indefinitely.  The Gears jumped across the gap above, others being tossed off the edge, as the flew by Quint, watching the bodies topple down to make a crunchy splat on the stories below, yet none came down to Floor B.  It was probably not statistically calculated to be perfect to reach the humans, so they were not instructed to do so.

            "Great…just goddamn great…" Quint muttered, holding his wound with his left hand, his entire right arm soaked the length in blood.  He started walking forward, towards the end of Floor B, southward toward where the Seikishidan were.  Not much of a rush, no Gear is going to come down here.  But, the Seikishidan might be all killed if I walk my way down there, not to mention I'm already late by a few minutes.  Well…shit, I hate my conscious.  He turned his walk into a jog, swinging both of his arms, despite the pain, wincing, then running harder and harder.  The pounds of feet above him were no consolation to his goal, the massive pounds by each step, the hoarse breathing of the mutated creatures, being remote controlled.

            "Get offa me!" Ky's voice rang clear, over the Gear screams mingled with human scowls, reaching even the ears of Quint, half a mile back.  One more slash of electric fury, and the Gear toppled down to the ground, legless.  After the enemy was killed, Kiske ran further, avoiding the next one surging to take the place of the fallen comrade.  "Go!" he yelled to the Seikishidan in front of him, who glanced back in fear of the approaching Gears.  Kiske was in back, fending them off his best while the rest ran, and he tried to keep up while protecting the end.  Not only was it his duty as a leader but it was his job by having the weapon that could hold them at bay.  The surge pressed on, him killing the ones in front, which seemed to be worthless, as one just took its place as soon as it fell back.  He sprinted further, turning and slashing at an oncoming Gear, searing a large gash across its chest, red with blood, then charring black with the follow electric surge.

            Running forward again, he came up to two Seikishidan soldiers, an orange and green, who were running as fast as they could, sweat pouring off of their faces, and losing the battle against their own mortality.  A cat like Gear, mangled in its form, skin falling off of the bones, metal pieces to hold together the flesh bolted through the rotting flesh, ran forward, the face a mess.  Where the eye should have been was a flap of deformed skin, and the only eye left was down on the jaw, the entire thing a mess of DNA destruction, due to the magic infusion.  Smashing the concrete with each lethal step, it ran upside Ky, growling, saliva dropping from its yellow and blood stained incisors.  In a quite swipe, Kiske slashed backwards at it, the Thunderseal coming horizontally into the face of the obstruction of life, the electricity jumping off of the sword and into the wound where the sword was.  Convulsing, the Gear dropped to the ground, smashed by the foot of another Gear, and Ky sprinting farther forward.

            "Run faster!" he commanded the soldiers next to him, who were oblivious to him a second earlier.  The recognition of the great Ky Kiske shocked them for a second, but they obeyed, pushing their body harder than what they thought they could, for the goal of pleasing the head of the Seikishidan, and saving their ass, which one took more priority was asinine, as they followed the order.  Ky's hard gasps came few and farther between, more violent in each of his draws of air, until all of them had passed him, despite his sprint being constant.  Good.  With his speed constant, he jumped forward onto both of his hands, rolling, and turning his body in mid air, so when he regained his footing from the roll, he was facing the Gears.

            He had about twenty feet between him and the surge, but they would cover that distance in less than a second, so as he rolled, he crossed his arms across his chest, the Fuuraiken aimed toward the sky, starting to glow a dull blue.  In one swift motion, he brought his arms punching forward, in an X motion, blue trails of electricity following his right hand, as the lightening surged off the blade, down his hands and up his arm, though it did not hurt or burn him at all.  A large crescent was left in the wake of the slashing sword, a condensed form of lightening that shot forward, reaching out to a target it could not find, the electricity trying to find a conductor, sprawling out to all available walls and objects.  Finally, the projectile smashed into its target, the ground.  Fading into the ground like a ghost passing through a wall, it did nothing, the Gears temporarily stopped by the object, assessing the threat and what to do.  Suddenly, their eyes flicked to life, twitching, receiving their new command.  They rushed forward, as Ky sprinted towards the rest of the Seikishidan.

            As they passed over the piece of Floor C where the electric missile had hit, it shook, and then collapsed under its own weight, pieces of rock and dust shooting up through the Gears on top, splats of blood staining the walls, and the rest of the walkway just falling to rubble for about ten feet, the Gears being crushed under the weight and rock, and falling down to Floor B dead.  The ones behind jumped over, or just were killed to make way for those who could cross the chasm, as Ky had done on the opposite side.

            Good, I cut off the main routes on both sides, so the numbers will be decreased. Ky thought with a smirk as he ran, a smirk he could not make, for his mouth was open too wide sucking in air, his sweat stinging his eyes to look back and see his handiwork.  The smashes of the leaping Gears on the opposite side of the gap rumbled through the ground, Ky feeling them approaching as his feet stamped on the ground, feeling the vibration of theirs.  So, he ran harder, and harder.  He couldn't keep blowing out holes in the walkway, because the same few Gears would jump across, and he couldn't do it again if he wanted to, he was too tired and was bordering on exhaustion.  His run turned into a jog, which turned into a limping sad jog, as he lost more and more of his energy, the Gears closing closer and closer.  He could start to see the end of the headquarters in front of him, The Seikishidan packed together like a ball of white coats awaiting the Gears to close on both sides and squish them.  Just get there!  Don't stop!  He ran harder, returning his long strides from his jog, pushing harder, closing his eyes in pain and just running.

            He met with the scared soldiers, holding their swords shakily, eyes twitching from Gear to Gear as they closed in on both sides of the curved back.  The back side of the Seikishidan headquarters looped around to both sides, like an oval.  The Gears on both sides were leaping, like frogs, pouncing on the cement and walls, jumping off to d it again, gaining closer and closer.  Ky dove though the few soldiers in front, who made way for him.  He hit the cement hard with his shoulder, gasping out in fatigue, his saliva thick and burning to his dry mouth.  The soldiers murmured in disbelief, the commander of the Seikishidan was going to fight with them here and now.  Slowly, Ky stabbed his sword into the cement, like a cane and raised himself standing off of it, trying to exert an aura of authority, that came off half-assed because of his fatigue.  He tried to sputter out some words to the two red level Seikishidan in the pack, the dispersed ten purple, and the rest low rank orange and green, about one hundred and fifty strong, compacted into the small stretch that bent around from both of the parallel walkways on Floor C.

            "Get…both of…the walkways…secured…" Ky gasped for breath "and hold them." He choked out.  The soldiers were sucking wind as much as he was from the mile and a half sprint, not to mention the battle in the fields before the long haul.  The red level secondary commanders yelled out for the troops to disperse to both sides of the rounded division, heading off each side of the walkways.  The soldiers stood in battle stances, gasping for breath, the oncoming flood of Gears about to wash them over.  Ky sat down on the cement, tired from the blasts he had to do, then sprinting further.  Get up!  Get up!  Kliff would NOT do this!  You're being selfish!  This is not the way humanity should go, with their savior sitting on the ground, recuperating while others fight for him!  Kiske stood up slowly, and walked to his right , joining the mass of soldiers standing as a barricade to the flood of Gears quickly coming closer and closer with each passing moment.

           "God will help those who fight for him!" he said, his own personal belief in God perfect for the Seikishidan.  I think that there's some unknown confusion about Ky's personal evangelism, so let's take a small break from the suspense to delve into that, shall we?  Ky Kiske was appointed the leader of the Seikishidan in late 2174, now entering his fourth month of being the commander in 2175.  He was the youngest commander ever, being the spiritual successor to Kliff Undersn, who personally appointed Ky the job before he retired.  Ky and Kliff were close, as Kliff saw Ky as a lost son, and Ky saw Kliff as a father.  But, even as the leader of the Seikishidan, Ky sees Kliff as the epitome of a man, near God in caliber.  Ironic that through his pure and unrelenting belief in God, he subsidizes his own belief to Kliff, and nothing else.  But, we'll get more into that later, and let's not ruin the suspense of the upcoming battle, eh?

            The flood drew closer with every moment, the Gears like a virus flying forward with their leaping strides.  Landing on the walls and then jumping off again like frogs, they came closer, covering twenty to thirty feet a leap.  Ky gripped the Fuuraiken tighter, the long ten-inch grip squeezing into submission with the taped handles.  Below the grip as a triangular bottom hilt that made sure one's grip did not slip off.  Above the grip was a large oval shaped hilt, white on the edges, and a large blue shaped egg in the middle.  The blade seemed to melt from the egg shaped rank-indicator, flowing into the blade from the large hilt, the total length of the sword totaling a massive forty-eight inches.

            The Fuuraiken started to glow a dull blue, Ky shortening his gasps, gaining more composure, which would be shattered in moments anyway.  The soldiers around him were scared, their swords shaking in their hands and eyes twitching, counting Gear after Gear, and every increasing number they saw, it was discounted from their morality to the fight.  Their breaths were slow and sputtering, shuddering inside.  Ky gripped it tighter, his hands ringing the shaft of the sword, brighter blue coming from the edges of the sword, the texture of the sword itself starting to eerily shine in azure.

            And so the battle began.

Zeronova's Notes:

Well, we begin the running battle to the back of the Sekishidan H.Q., followed by that one event that set the pace for DG.  New readers, you'll not know, old readers, it happened in previous Chapter 2 in the end, except this time, I slightly changed it, but mostly, it is the same.  Next Monday, same as always, another chapter.