The Apostates Read Free Page B

sights on his opponent, took a deep breath and
fired off a round, which struck the target in the forehead. The man promptly
dropped like his strings had been cut. More rounds were fired down range and
hit close to Hades-Perdition, churning soil around him. Hades-Perdition
attempted to acquire a new target, looking for heat signatures on the horizon.
    Aqua-Deluge broke open a morphine ration
from her pack and shoved it into Lore-Fiction’s shoulder. He immediately went slack. She
then trained the sights of her thermal vision scope on a hunched down heat
signature of a man, moving from cover to cover roughly one hundred and fifty
yards ahead of her position. She zeroed in on the figure. As soon as the heat signature’s head peered out she took the shot. Aqua-Deluge watched through the
scope as white-hot pieces of head separate and fell out of view. The
man stirred no longer.
    The sound of gunfire paused as both camps attempted to probe for the position of the opposition. Aqua-Deluge and Hades-Perdition began to move forward crouched while searching through their scopes as they advanced. Aqua-Deluge took a few more steps just as she found another sign of opposition. The figure stood upright with his gun trained directly on her, but before he could pull the trigger Hades-Perdition shot him in his side below the right arm. Aqua-Deluge fired a short burst of three rounds which caught him; two in the chest and one in the head. The man dropped, lifeless.
    Aqua-Deluge let loose another round at one of the remaining targets striking his weapon as it is dropped to the ground. The startled man turned tail and ran. The last target began to fire wildly as he panicked. Hades-Perdition scoped-in center mass and with a quick volley, which struck the target one after the other in a clean grouping, hollowing out his core.
    Hades-Perdition dropped his primary weapon
and set off at full sprint in pursuit of the remaining opponent that had fled
the scene. His Olympian tier fitness became apparent as he traversed the
obstacle course of uneven land and piles of rubble. Jumping over big rocks and
scrub, he caught up to the fleeing figure.
    “Halt!” Hades-Perdition yelled.
    The figure stopped, turned around, and
pulled a bayonet knife from its scabbard. “Come get it, you infidel piece of
shit!” the man sneered. He approached Hades-Perdition in a methodical manner.
    “Thank you, this is what I was waiting for,” Hades-Perdition stated, with a crooked smile plastered on his face. He reached behind him and grasped the hilt of the Claymore on his back. In one fluid motion, the Claymore was pulled from its scabbard and flipped around tip forward. The man with the bayonet knife charged Hades-Perdition with it in a dagger grip. Hades-Perdition drew his sword overhead, sidestepped the attack, then, brought his blade down on the base of the neck of his opponent. The blade found a gap in the armor, passed through the clavicle and embedded deep in the chest of the man, which left a gaping wound and a wellspring of blood spilling into the dirt. The man dropped to the ground mortally wounded. Hades-Perdition withdrew his sword.
    The man was choking on his own blood but was still conscious. He was rapidly repeating what sounded to be a prayer with short breaths, “Lord in Heaven, and Reverend Wilhelm, deliver my soul to the Glorious Light…Lord in Heaven and Reverend Wilhelm deliver my soul to the Glorious Light.”
    Hades-Perdition drew his sidearm and put an end to the man’s suffering. He noticed the man was wearing a familiar uniform with a patch on the shoulder. The patch depicted the seal of L.O.V.E. The seal consisted of a red heart shape overlaid with the negative space forming a cross. The acronym of L.O.V.E. was displayed over the top. Underneath that was a line that read “Law of Virtue Enforcement Rangers”. In some circles, the personnel was known as ‘Lovers’. Lovers were the elite scout units of L.O.V.E. Hades-Perdition took the