As John walks up to the team, his assault rifle hanging from a strap around his left shoulder, he pulls his hands out of his pockets and says "End of the road, Gerald".
"We'll see about that" Gerald replies as he holds a button on his mini-gun, causing the barrels to spin really fast in preparation to fire.
"Even if you kill me now" John says, "you're not making it out of here alive".
"And what makes you think that?" Ziya asks.
John smiles, then says "Just a hunch" as the large doors begins to close. The team began to move, but as soon as they took a single step, the guards loaded their guns and aimed at them. Suddenly freezing, the team stood still, waiting and plotting their course of action.
"What's Plan A?" Chris asks.
"Kill them all" Ziya growls.
"Okay... and Plan B?" Chris asks.
"Take out the guards first" Gerald says, "and fight John later"."
"I don't like that plan..." Ziya says.
"It'll have to do" Drake says. "Plan B it is".
"Tch" Ziya scoffs as Gerald begins to fire into the crowd of guards. Rapidly, all of the guards get torn apart and fall. John gets hit by some of the bullets and is immediately killed. However, as nearly half of the guards fall, Gerald's mini-gun runs out of ammo.
"Shit" Gerald says as he drops the gun. The mini-gun hits the ground with a loud, metallic thud and Gerald pulls out his assault rifle he took from on of the guards. "Open fire!".
The team began firing into the squad of guards, as the guards fired back. As the team began to fall, one by one, Judy and Drake took cover. Suddenly, as the guards dropped one by one, and the team kept reviving over and over, John's body gets back up. John leans up from the ground as his bullet wounds all healed. He takes out a large handgun and hits Ziya in the stomach with it. As she was paralyzed by the pain, John stood up and ran to her. As he got close, he tried to tackle her with a combat knife in his hands. Ziya barely managed to block him with a combat knife of her own, holding John still with her hand pressed firmly into his shoulder, and her feet planted firmly in the ground. "You're time is up, Ziya" John says with a smile.
"Heads up!" Gerald shouts as he kicks John in the side of his head. Gerald hits the wall, nearly falling over from the force of the kick. Gerald runs up to John and holds him against the wall by his throat. "Go, now!" Gerald shouts at the team. "I'll hold off John! You need to move! There has to be some way to open that damn door!".
"What about-" Ziya begins to ask.
"John is my vendetta!" Gerald says as he stares John in his eyes, the light in his eyes slowly fading. "I'll take care of this end, you need to move up and make sure no more guards keep coming!".
The team charges forward, shooting as they run at more guards coming their way. The guards quickly ran out from every direction in the hallway, trying to trap the team. However, they had more than enough ammo to spare from all of the guards they've killed so far. "Find a control room or something" Chris says. "Anything, as long as it looks like it'll help us open that door!".
"Right!" Drake replies. The team searches every room they pass, one after another. Eventually, after passing through many different hallways and offices, the team comes across a small metal door. It was like the usual office doors, but it was a thin, hollow, metal door that read "SECURITY" on the top. Chris tries to open the door, but it was locked. After trying to open it the usual way, Chris decides to kick down the door. It took him several attempts, but eventually the door flung open. As soon as it opened, there were two guards inside, sitting in front of a large computer with a ton of monitors to several different security cameras throughout Station Zero. The guards quickly shot down Chris, but Gregory and Tyler quickly shot them down. After eliminating the guards, the team gains access to the security room. They run up to the computer and observe the security cameras. "Look up there!" Drake says as he points at a few monitors. "Looks like the elevators lead down several floors below the station".
"If my assumption is correct" Chris says, "the elevator is controlled from this room here, much... like... this!". Chris presses a few buttons, and the elevators they saw when they first entered the station began to move down towards Pyramid.
"If they're controlled from here" Ziya asks, "they why are there buttons for the elevators?".
"It likely sends a direct request to the security room" Chris says. "It's like a doorbell, of some kind... I think".
"Check that out" Judy says as she points at a few other monitors. "There's concrete hallways under the station, just outside of Pyramid... but... the end of hallways just leads to a wall with a bunch of... rappel rope?". Judy thinks for a moment, then pushes Chris out of the way. "Move over a sec" she says. Judy taps away in the computer for a while, and on one of the monitors, the concrete walls began to open, showing the ceiling of one of the floors in Pyramid. The rappel rope falls off of the edge of the hallway, and down to the floor of Pyramid. "So these elevators are used for the maintenance shafts in the game..." Judy says.
"Even if we did get to use the elevators..." Drake says, "we wouldn't have been able to go to the top floor with it?".
"Seems like it" Judy says. "Come to think of it... we never saw an elevator since coming up from that floor".
"Think you can open the doors from here?" Ziya asks.
"Yeah, just leave that to me" Judy says. "That's my specialty. Make sure you keep me covered, in case we get any unwanted guests".
As the rest of the team tries to crack open the large doors, Gerald continues fighting with John. As Gerald was choking John, John finally managed to get some leg room and kick Gerald off of him. John tried to tackle Gerald, but Gerald planted his feet firmly into John's chest and kicked him back. The two of them were locked in a stalemate until John got his distance from Gerald. John pulled out his assault rifle and fired into Gerald over and over. Each time Gerald revived, John shot him more. Slowly getting closer as he shoots, John prepares to take out his combat knife. John tries to jump onto Gerald as he were reviving, but Gerald barely managed to revive in time and grab the hand of John that was holding the knife. Gerald lifted John from on top of him and carried him forcefully down the hallway. Picking up speed as he runs, Gerald slammed John's head into the emergency exit door. John used the door, as leverage with his foot, and grabbed onto Gerald. John slammed Gerald's head into the door as well, then stabbed him in the stomach with his knife. Gerald grabbed onto the door from the pain, and swung the door open into John's face. Gerald then grabs onto John's shoulder and pushes him through the door and over the rails of the stairs. The two fall all the way down the long stairwell together, and hit the ground with a bone shattering thud. The two of them slowly revive, dizzy and barely able to stand. They each pull out a knife and charge at each other again.
"Aaaaand that should just... about... do it!" Judy says as she finishes tapping away on the computer. On the monitors, the large metal doors open, and the team rejoices. They ran out of the security room and ran down the hallways. As they come up to the large metal doors, both Gerald and John were no where to be seen.
"Should we go back for them?" Chris asks.
"Eyes front!" Ziya says as she points outside of the door. "We've got other things to worry about!". As the team looks outside, they see another armored vehicle pull up outside of the doors. Five guards run out of the vehicle and raise their left arm up. From their left arm, rectangular metal shields extended to block bullets from hitting their face or chest. They slowly crept up to the team, who tried to shoot them but failed to land any hits. After the guards got close, they all pulled out guns and started shooting the whole team. Drake was able to take cover behind Chris, while Judy his inside of the nearest office.
"I don't have enough Respawns for this shit!" Judy says as she loads more shells into her shotgun.
One of the guards killed Chris, then walked up to Drake. Drake tried to attack him, but the guard was unfazed. The guard smacked Drake in the face with his shield, then tackled Drake into an office window. While Drake was down on the ground, the guard pulled out a knife and drove it into the side of Drake's head. The knife got stuck in Drake's brain, but he didn't die immediately. Instead, he was left in a stupor as suddenly, all of his memories started to flash in his eyes. He began to remember everything. His mother, the time he spent with his closest friend, Ziya, even the accident he had before he lost his memories. As he lays there in his stupor, his life quickly fading, Drake thinks to himself "Turns out, no matter how many chances you're given, your fate never really changes. At least, that's what I thought at first. Then I came to question, what if my fate was never my fate to begin with? What if my death was never determined? I realized something..." Drake's eyes begins to close as he continues to think "This was never for me. It was for her, and her alone. I can't accept giving up on someone else's fate, especially not hers. I'll change her fate, and leave her future in her hands... the way it should be". As Drake's watch shows the number change from "1" to "0", and the guard prepares to finish Drake off, a suddenly shotgun blast from the side behind another window outside of this office caught the guard. The blast swept the guard off of his feet, and some of it penetrated his armor. Drake gets up, pulls out his kukri knife, then plummets the knife into the guard's throat. Dashing out of the office, Drake charges at the next guard and tackles him. Drake tackles the guard attacking Ziya, and gave Ziya enough time to hit the guard in the eyes with her handgun. Almost immediately, the battle shifted in the team's favor. The guards were taken out, and as the team were about to leave, suddenly more show up from the back quietly. The team didn't notice more guards coming from the next hallway, until the guards fired at them with their guns. Everyone in the team got shot, including Drake. Drake took two bullets. One to the spine, and one to the back of his right lung. The team fell over, Tyler and Micheal died and began to revive, Gregory was bleeding profusely, and Judy and Ziya sustained non-life threatening injuries. However, as the team begins to turn to the guards, or what was left of them, the guards shot Ziya, Judy, and Gregory in the head. Drake couldn't move, and the guards walked up to the team and held their guns to the team's heads. As Ziya revives, she sees Drake bleeding profusely.
"Drake!" Ziya yells as she crawls to Drake. "Drake! Are you okay!?". Drake could only respond by coughing up a large amount of blood before the guards loaded their weapons.
"Don't move!" One of them says.
Tears begins to form in Ziya's eyes, as she begins to shake. Her sadness immediately began to turn into anger as she pulls out her knife again. The guards shot her, but she ignored the pain and kept moving. She began slicing up the guards one by one. Another guard was about to shoot her, but suddenly got blasted in the back from Judy's shotgun. After the last of the guards were taken out, Ziya ran to Drake's side. "Drake!" She shouts. She looks at Drake's watch, which showed that he had no Respawns remaining, and was still bleeding profusely.
Drake coughed out more blood, and began to speak in a weak voice. "I'm sorry, Zizi" Drake says. "I tried... to help... but I couldn't do it".
"You dummy!" Ziya yells as she pounds her fists on the floor. "You've always been there to help! Why can't you let me just try to return the favor!? You've always been there when I needed you, so now it was supposed to be my turn to help you!".
"I know..." Drake says. "I remember".
Ziya's eyes widen as she asks "What?...".
"My memories... they came back" Drake says.
"And you're dying on me now!?" Ziya cries. "We can fix this!". Ziya puts her knife in Drake's hands and forces him to hold onto it. "Kill me" She says. "You'll revive, and we can keep going, together".
Drake shakes his head and says "I can't move, Ziya... and me just holding the knife you stab yourself with won't give me your Respawn... I'm sorry".
"But there has to be some way!" Ziya panics.
"I'm sorry..." Drake says in a weak voice. As Ziya begins to cry, Drake looks her in the eyes, takes one last deep breath and says "I've... always... loved... you...". After that, Drake's head goes limp as the last of his breath slowly escapes his deflating lungs.
"No..." Ziya says as she drops the knife. "No!".
Judy picks up Ziya and carries her over her shoulder. "I'm sorry" Judy says, "but we have to move! We don't have time to mourn the dead, we've gotta go!".
"No!" Ziya yells as Judy carries her. However, Ziya lost all of the strength in her body, and couldn't get Judy to put her down.
"I would say you'll thank me later or something like that" Judy says, "but I doubt you will... I'm doing this for your own good...".
Ziya sobs as she watches Drake's unmoving body move further and further away from them. Unable to move or yell anymore, all she could do was watch and cry as the team begins to venture through this desert outside of Station Zero.
Drake wakes up in the endless white void called Valhalla once more. Chronos stood by his side with his arms crossed. "Are you confident in the choice you've made?" Chronos asks.
"Getting Zizi out of there?" Drake asks. "I am... if anyone should make it out of that place, it should be her".
Chronos sighs and says "Well, I hope by some random grace, that they can do your job for you then...".
"What do you mean?" Drake asks.
"You've failed" Chronos says. "If something doesn't change your world, it is doomed to fall into the hands of immortals. The goal was to bring some change to the world, and while you've managed to shut down Pyramid, it's likely only a temporary solution. You have failed, Drake Goldermann".
Drake thinks for a moment, then says "Nah... I think I've finally found a way to win this game".
"And that is?" Chronos asks.
"Dying on my own terms" Drake says. After a moment of silence, Drake asks "So... what now?".
"What now?" Chronos asks. "Now I wait to see what's to come of this version of Earth... as for you... nothing".
Drake laughs and says "Y'know... for a hallucination... you were kinda fun. What was your name again?".
"Chronos..." Chronos says.
"Heh..." Drake laughs softly as his body begins to fade into the void. "Well, Chronos... it's been fun". Then, Drake's body completely vanishes into the void as he finally dies.
"Yeah, kid..." Chronos says in a sad tone. "See ya".