The very same behemoth that had itself dormant inside the octagonal tube earlier arrived with some sort of an elevating plate right below its feet, making me realize that right at the center of the staircase was actually a not-walled elevator and apparently only operable by a very few specific of the aliens.
Still standing straight and tall on the elevator, the behemoth seemed to carry some sort of a long staff on its right hand, while its other hand seemed to hold something like a shield. Just then, it began to slowly move forward right to our direction, making me took a few steps back in reflex while at the same time I also felt like my heart pounded twice as fast as before. At the very least, the illuminating white light on the opened triangular walls, as well as the still burning control panels gave me, and apparently all of the six of us a decent lighting that we could see the whole mothership peak clearly.
"Ryan." Jonathan said to him right on my right side, "Once it have stepped pretty far away from the stairs, take Della and Kyle back to the first floor, quick." in a very low voice.
"Huh?!" Ryan responded, as he was on my left side and shocked.
"The three of us are the only ones possible to take this damn thing down! So, you are the one who should guarantee their safe-" Captain Quentin said, before his sentences were cut-off by the behemoth.
'GWARGHH!' screamed the behemoth as it leapt towards both Captain Quentin and Jonathan, and swung its staff towards them as it was revealed to be a long beam spear.
Fortunately, all of us either rolled over or jumped away in time to dodge its attack, which hit one of the control panels there and splitting it into two clean parts with ease. It only took it a very short time to stand up and had its attention locked towards us again.
"Ryan, now! Go!" I shouted to him, as I began to opened fire to the behemoth three rounds from my submachine gun.
'THUMP THUMP THUMP'
I knew from the very start, that the behemoth would most likely guard itself by using the shield held onto its left hand. However, my aim was to buy Ryan, Kyle, and Della a little time for them to descend back to the first floor. The good thing was the three of them immediately rushed to the staircase as soon as I opened fire towards it, and as it had lowered its shield again, they apparently had been on their way down. With one potential risk had been removed, I felt a bit relieved realizing that I could now focus more on fighting the behemoth with everything that we had left.
I began by glancing at the equipment the behemoth carried. The long beam spear on its right hand appeared to be around two and a half or three feet taller than its own height, which would put the spear to be roughly thirteen feet. The spearhead, or rather the beam coming out of the spear pole itself had the length of at least three feet, thus making the spear pole having about the same length as the behemoth's height.
The shield on its left hand on the other hand, seemed to be just a simple thin plate shaped like an octagon. That was, until it approached us closer and I could finally see it in more details. I realized how mistaken I was to assume quickly that it was holding a simple octagon plate, while it was actually seemed to be most likely a ballistic force-absorbing thick plate, judging by the hard-rubbery edges of the plate. I also came to realize that I did not hear any metallic noise after I had fired few rounds earlier, indicating that the bullets most likely did not give any damage to the shield at all, let alone penetrate it.
"Great… how are we supposed to hurt it at all?" I said, with thoughts of losing and dying began to fill my mind as I took few steps back.
"Spread away and rush towards it but do not get too close…" Jonathan responded to me, after he fell silent for a moment.
"What?!" I replied him, doubting that he even heard what he had just said.
"Trust, me!" Jonathan shouted, "Gabe, you too!"
"Not every day a high ranking officer will take a command from his inferior officers." Captain Quentin muttered, as he rushed towards the behemoth.
As Captain Quentin was rushing, I followed him right after but with a different direction. Captain Quentin was heading straight for the ballistic absorbing shield, while I was rushing towards the beam spear. When Captain Quentin was close enough, he shot the shield three times before he slid down past the behemoth's shield just as it was about to be hit against him. When I saw his actions, I opened fire towards the long beam spear hoping it would explode somehow, but to no avail. Panicked at my failed attempts, I quickly rolled over to the front passing its beam spear from below just before it pierced me.
I was then completely drenched in my sweat, as I thought our attempts to disarm its weapons had failed. It then approached us with quick steps, and both Captain Quentin and I backed away in a hurry until Captain Quentin held my back tightly using his shotgun just before I realized that we were just very few steps away from touching the burning control panel.
'ZTOOM ZTOOM ZTOOM ZTOOM'
'GWGARGHHH'
The behemoth instantly dropped its beam spear, turning it off in the process, as it held very tightly of what was remained of its right fin-ear and apparently screaming in absolute pain. It was then when I realized that Jonathan was aiming for its ears all along, as they were one of the very few body parts of the behemoth that lacked any serious protection.
The shot from his rifle also seemed to be capable of destroying most of its fin-ear, as only less than a quarter part of the ear was left hanging at its head. Another thing that I noticed immediately was that the behemoth seemed to also share the same kind of black viscous blood like the rest of the other alien variants.
In almost an instant, the behemoth rushed very quickly towards Jonathan's direction and attempted to punch him hard against the ground. Even though Jonathan also had a rather quick movement, he really barely avoided that fist as he jumped and rolled away from the behemoth. Jonathan stood up again, and was about to get further away from it just as it managed to kick him quite hard and far to one of the opened triangular walls.
Both Captain Quentin and me immediately opened fire towards its head, which was the only part where we knew full well was not as protected as its other body parts. However, it seemed to have already learnt its very recent mistake by covering its head from behind by lifting its left hand and covering its head with the shield. He immediately rushed towards the behemoth, probably did not know what else to do and I went along with him.
Jonathan then opened fire a couple of shot from his rifle again, seemingly towards its face, as he dragged himself backwards on the surface of the opened triangular wall. Apparently, those shots hit some part of its head again, as it suddenly covered its face with the shield. In reflex, both Captain Quentin and I opened fire again to the back of its head until his shotgun was empty and for several rounds from my submachine gun respectively, just before everything went absolutely wrong.
The behemoth suddenly turned to our direction and immediately swung its shield very heard towards Captain Quentin, hitting him so hard that he was bounced off pretty far. The hit seemed to have taken him down right after he coughed out blood twice and collapsed face-down. I was very sure that I could hear few bone cracking sounds when he had been hit with the shield.
In an instant, my head buzzed all of a sudden with the sight of the incapacitation of Captain Quentin, and thus I opened fire again towards its head, without thinking which part would the bullets hit as I was also screaming in the process. The only think that was repeated countlessly on my mind, was thinking that I did not want to end up losing my life like him. Even if I had to, I would take the behemoth down with me as well.
'CLICK'
My submachine gun suddenly let out a clicking sound, indicating that I had fired it until its magazine was completely empty. When I came to and glanced at the behemoth's face, I felt my heart dropped and my mind blacked out to realize that its head was only scratched by the bullets.
Panicked, I rolled over to the direction behind me right after I turned since I though in a split second that it was going to hit me with its shield in a similar manner it used to hit Captain Quentin. Much to my mistake and assumption, I was very wrong.
"Urghh!!" I suddenly screamed just before I stood up again after I rolled as I felt an extreme oppressing pain on both of my legs accompanied by a loud blunt hitting sound.
A sudden extreme amount of pain suddenly hit both of my legs, just right above my knees just before I stood up again after rolling. I realized that the behemoth had been waiting for me to roll over all along, before it hit me right at my body parts that I constantly used to evade it by using its shield.
I could not even feel my legs anymore, so I dragged my body as fast I could by using my hands but to no avail, since it could quickly rolled me over to face it by using its feet. As I looked up right towards its eyes with only despair thoughts in my mind when it lifted its shield again, apparently about to bash my head off with it and killing me as a result.
'So, this is my demise, huh… How pathetic…' I thought to myself as I squinted my eyes towards the fast approaching shield directly towards face.
'GUHARGHKK'
The behemoth suddenly screamed again in absolute pain as something fast suddenly approached its left hand in a rush, and swung something twice in rapid succession which caused the hand to be dismembered. It lost its balance very immediately as it stepped back several times and continued to scream in pain when I glanced at the figure who had just did it, and it was none other than Jonathan who had picked up my fire ax from my backpack which was left scattered along with the others' not too far from one of the burning control panels.
However, either to its rapid healing or for unknown reasons, the behemoth recovered very quickly and had its bleeding stopped right before it lunged towards Jonathan very swiftly using its massive body, causing him to get thrown hard back and losing both of his grip to his rifle and my fire ax. When I looked at it with more attention, it turned out that it had then picked up its spear, and turned it on again as it then approached Jonathan with what seemed to be anger and rage on its eyes.
"No, no!" I shouted, as I dragged my body desperately towards the behemoth.
Jonathan took some few while before he could partially stood up again and spit out blood from his mouth before he tried to reach for his rifle by dragging himself quickly towards it. I approached my fire ax first, before continued heading for the behemoth which was still fast approaching Jonathan. He finally reached his rifle, and was about to aim for the behemoth before it tackled the rifle with its left hand stump, and impaled Jonathan right at his heart with its beam spear.
"ARGHHHHKKKK!!!" Jonathan screamed very loudly, a scream that I never had heard before in my entire life, before he slowly closed his eyes in a very painful expression.
"NOOOO!!!" I screamed in reflex as I saw yet another survivor comrade got incapacitated right in front of my own eyes.
I dragged my body as fast as I could, perhaps even faster than earlier and swung my fire ax hard against the behemoth's foot as hard as I could and as many as possible. Apparently, it did hurt the behemoth somehow as it had its attention turned to me again, but not to the point that it received a serious injury on its foot as there were no black blood whatsoever gushing out from there.
It then kicked me hard with its same foot, again on both of my legs but just below my knees instead and sent me flying back a few distance from Jonathan's location as it also screamed at me in the process. My fire ax was also broken due to my hard landing to the ground. At that point, I felt like there was no more hope for us to win against the behemoth as I looked upon my severed fire ax, even though it was already severely injured. However, just then something very much unexpected happened.
"Urgh…" Jonathan suddenly opened his eyes, and grabbed the behemoth's right hand by his left hand very hard, most likely shocking the behemoth in the process as well as it seemed to be extremely jumped upon realizing that Jonathan was still alive.
"I HAVE DEXTROCARDIA, YOU PIECE OF SHIT!!!" Jonathan shouted as he had blood running out of his mouth, and aimed his rifle one handed with his right hand directly towards its barely protected face in point blank range.
'ZTOO-ZTOO-ZTOO-ZTOO-ZTOO-ZTOO-ZTOO-ZTOO-ZTOO-ZTOOM CLICK'
By the time the magazine of his rifle was already empty, I could see that at least one third part of the behemoth's head was completely gone, especially its right part. Black viscous blood violently gushed out from it, and it did not stop at all which indicated that it was indeed already dead. Some even splashed to Jonathan's left eye, but it seemed that it did not really matter to him as he had gone unconscious again due to his mortal injuries.
The dead behemoth dropped hard to Jonathan's body, but it slowly slid away down his body until it was directly next to Jonathan's feet. The beam spear also suddenly went off just as it had gone dead, and thus the spear pole immediately fell down right beside Jonathan's body.
Then all alone left still half conscious, I was confused on what to do next. The first thing that came to my mind was my deep concern on Ryan, Kyle, and Della. I wondered if they were safe all along down there, or rather had to fight with few other remaining aliens which they had not encountered earlier and if they made it or not if it indeed happened.
As I had finished thinking about anything at all, I felt like all of the injuries I had sustained began to dominate my body as I could barely move anything anymore, except for turning my head towards the lake horizon. Either I was really seeing it, or I was just hallucinating, I could clearly see the sun beginning to rise with my own eyes, seemingly without any fog anymore, before everything around me began to go dark quickly…