Chapter 16: Despair

Tyler stared numbly at the wreckage of, what had once been, his childhood home. Much of the building itself was nothing more than rubble with small fires still dotting the debris. Amongst the wreckage, he could see a few bits of furniture, picture frames with their glass shattered and the photos within crumpled and wet from a ruptured water line on the property. Funnily enough, the most intact part of the house was the roof, which lay across the wreckage at an angle like a tombstone to mark the death of his former home. The perimeter was quarantined by the local ADVENT forces, even now, their red lights flashed from the roofs of their APC's while armed troopers manned the checkpoints, keeping unauthorized onlookers away. They had even managed to clear an area for Tyler's dropship to land and had kept civilians away from the still powered aircraft idling in the street.

Tyler noted that much of the house's interior was now outside the boundary of the house, with some walls having collapsed outward, indicating the blast originated from the interior of the structure. Almost numbly, Tyler walked toward the highest-ranking officer amongst the troopers who, upon seeing him, saluted, before indicating a nearby APC. Tyler and the trooper made their way over to the vehicle in silence, the trooper in respect, and Tyler on stunned autopilot. Upon arrival, the trooper opened the back to reveal two body bags on the bench seats of the vehicle.

"I'm sorry sir, but we need you to help identify the bodies, as per protocol." The trooper stated in a monotone. Tyler gave a quick nod before entering the vehicle and kneeling by the first body bag. Hesitantly, he reached out and slowly unzipped the bag before parting the folds of material, revealing the face inside.

Despite the condition, his upper torso was in, the face of his father was uninjured, barring a few light scratches on his cheek and brow. His blue eyes that Tyler last saw beaming in pride as he graduated from the academy were now lifeless and dull, stuck in a blank stare into the roof of the transport. His father's blond hair, which he shared, was now caked in blood with some patches burnt from the burning rubble. Tyler ideally noted that his father had been turned away from the explosion, as he could see the signs of burnt flesh on his back and neck. Tyler quickly choked down a sob, even as his eyes watered, before lifting a shaking hand and closing his father's eyes.

Turning to the second body bag, Tyler lowered the zipper and reeled back in shock and dismay at the sight of his mother with half her head blown off. Her brown long hair and loving brown eyes were almost unrecognizable from the burns and shrapnel damage from the explosion that likely occurred in front of her. Tyler quickly zipped up the bag and quickly made his way outside the APC and gave a nod to the trooper, confirming their ID, before robotically making his way back toward the dropship, wanting to be back in his office, away from the sight of his old home burning.

From a nearby rooftop, the Elder's Hunter watched in smug satisfaction as Tyler boarded the dropship, which quickly took off and sped away as its SCRAM jets began to propel the craft to its ridiculous cruising speed. The Assassin waited a couple of minutes after the dropship left before pulling the detonator from his hip and hitting the button, sending a signal to the explosive he placed on the dropship's left engine when nobody was looking.

Connecting his comm device he sent a message. "The Dragon's wings are clipped, you're up. Happy hunting." He said, before being consumed by a pale, purple light as he teleported away.

Meanwhile, midway over the Atlantic, Tyler was leaning back against the bulkhead of the dropship, having just sent a quick message to Abrams before trying to take the rest of his time on the short trip to compose himself. Suddenly, a loud bang was heard, and Tyler felt the world begin to violently spin before the G-forces rendered him unconscious.

: Belladonna residence, former Austria, near the border of former Slovenia:

Kali Belladonna stood by the only table in her home, mixing a bowl full of greens that she had collected from her small backyard garden into a salad. As she hummed and finished up the last of the preparations she picked up the bowl and took three steps to a small end table that functioned as her kitchen table, she went for the only chair in the house, which sat alone next to the table by the wall. As Kali sat down in the chair, with a wooden bowl and the only metal fork she owned, she served herself a helping before resting the bowl in her lap and taking a bite of the salad, internally glad she had not lost any of her cooking skills.

After taking a few bites she glanced up and swept the apartment with her gaze before sighing in resignation at the state of her home. The entire building was only a single room that was divided by a curtain, which separated her bedroom from the rest of the house. Though, she admitted that 'house' was a strong word for the small abandoned hut she had taken over and lived in for the last two years. The shack featured a small sink made of hammered out tin in the shape of a square bowl with a hole in it that led to some PVC pipe that went through the wall outside before emptying out to a ditch. Next to the sink were three nailed planks that were nailed into the wall, which functioned as her kitchen counter, just big enough for her to fit her serving bowl to prep food on, but high enough that she couldn't sit down and eat comfortably. Thankfully, she had a small end table that was just large enough for her to rest the bowl on, and a single chair to sit next to it. Across from her was the curtain that led to her bedroom, which was essentially a single wooden chest, only knee-high, that held all her clothes, and the bed, which was just a cot with some blankets thrown on it and a single pillow. Thankfully, the bathroom was located outside in an outhouse, so there was a little room to walk around the interior of the once hunter cabin.

In all honesty, she regretted having decided to live here all those years ago, just another mistake on the self-destructive path she had been on until recently. It had all started when her daughter, Blake, had run away to join a resistance group calling themselves the White Fang. Kali knew her daughter and firmly believed that, while her daughter disliked many ADVENT policies, the real reason she left was because of that boy Adam Taurus, who Blake had an affection for. However, while Kali and her husband Ghira had correctly determined the boy was unstable, they were in the minority, as Adam managed to rally a considerable number of followers before launching operations against ADVENT convoys. This, of course, led to ADVENT cracking down on the area and launching raids to sniff out resistance members. It was during one of these raids that Ghira had been killed in the crossfire between resistance and ADVENT forces.

Kali had been born into an aristocratic family in former Italy before the Contact War had displaced them. She eventually found herself in nearby Slovenia, where she met her future husband Ghira, and the two had quickly fallen in love and married when Kali was only eighteen. They had ended up having Blake shortly after Kali had turned nineteen. Those years were good to them, they were a young couple that, while not wealthy, were living in a small city and had the support of the community where her husband held the position of mayor. While raising Blake, the family was happy, though the new laws imposed by the ADVENT organization started to pile up, especially around the time Blake turned thirteen. Blake began to hang out with the wrong crowd and especially around Adam Taurus, but Kali and Ghira didn't take extreme measures, confidant, that this was just Blake's teenage phase, and not wanting to alienate their daughter. However, it appeared Adam's grip on their daughter was too strong, and, at age sixteen, Blake ran away to join the White Fang resistance cell.

Kali did understand her daughter's dislike for ADVENT, their policies chaffed the underclass and made life harder and harder for the common people not in the city centers. Even she and her husband supplied materials clandestinely to the resistance. However, it appeared Adam and her daughter wanted to resort to extreme measures, and soon, the White Fang began to attack ADVENT forces and supply routes. ADVENT, in turn, cracked down harder on the people, which resulted in various firefights breaking out. It was during one of these such firefights when Kali was thirty-six that her husband, Ghira Belladonna, was killed during the crossfire. Kali was left destitute, her husband dead, her daughter lost to the winds, what money she had mostly gone after her husband's funeral, and her hometown now a warzone. Kali had spiraled into depression, and so, left her hometown in a form of self-exile that eventually led her to an abandoned town called Stainz in the former country of Austria. However, instead of living in one of the abandoned buildings, she decided on a small hunting cabin outside the town, a small quiet area where nobody would find her, and where she could spend the rest of her years alone in solitude, before eventually dying. Kali knew that death was her end goal, but she wanted to go out semi naturally, and not by her hand.

Kali winced when she thought back at those dark days, she had not attempted to contact any of her old friends or leave any means of keeping in touch with the outside world. She had honestly thought nobody would attempt to come looking for her, that is until a knock on her door only a couple months ago had shattered her self-isolation. She had been terrified to see an ADVENT officer at her door that day, though her fear had slightly lessened when the very human-looking man introduced himself as Tyler Harrington of the 77th Human Volunteer group and asked if he could come inside to discuss her daughter, Blake Belladonna. Kali had feared then that her daughter had finally been arrested, or worse, killed, and allowed the man inside to hear what he had to say. It was only after the man had entered that Kali had become aware of the state of her home, now that another was witness to it. Tyler had seemed to take the state of the area in stride and sat down in the only chair of the room, while Kali drew back the curtain and sat on the edge of her bed. She had almost offered tea to the man out of reflex but remembered that she didn't have the ingredients or the means to make it.

This startling realization made her quickly notice her state of appearance, and her distress only grew. At the time, she was wearing filthy brown and grey clothing that hadn't been washed in at least a couple of days and smelled something awful. She also was unhealthily thin, having been mostly unwilling to eat, only every couple of days eating a salad, or, on a rare occasion, going into the abandoned town to pick up some dried foodstuff. Her hair was a matted and grimy mess, having not seen a comb or shampoo in years, and falling messily down to her lower back, in a sea of split ends and tangled hairs.

Tyler must have noticed her distress, but misread the cause, because he had assured her that he was not here because she or her daughter were in trouble. Kali had managed to reign in her emotions as Tyler began telling her that her daughter had joined up with the 77th Human Volunteer Group as a trooper and that Tyler had identified her fake background and wanted to confront Kali about her daughter and her reasons for being former resistance. Kali had been shocked that her daughter had joined up with ADVENT, but in a way happy, as she now knew that she had managed to get out from under Adam. Kali had talked to Tyler for hours about her and her daughter's past, to the point that Kali had lost track of time and began reminiscing about her whole life and her current state. Tyler, for his part, had calmly listened, asking a question here or there about random parts of her life. Eventually, Kali noticed that it was dark outside and that they had been talking for five hours or so, which sent her into apology after apology, to which Tyler brushed away, saying it was no issue, and that he enjoyed learning more about her.

Tyler then left-back for his base in Australia, but before he left, he urged Kali to consider moving to the nearby town outside the 77th HVG's base of operations. Kali had refused, terrified at what her daughter would say if she saw the state her mother was in and worried the girl would blame herself for Kali's own mistakes. Tyler had hesitantly relented, but he did give her an ADVENT credit chit to pay for some necessities.

Credits she used to buy shampoo and other personal hygiene products and some better clothes. Ever since Tyler had arrived, she had noticed that she put more effort into her appearance and the appearance of her home. Even though her home was still very spartan in terms of contents and size, nobody could say it wasn't clean. Even Kali herself had undergone a much better change in appearance, her hair was now cut short, just above her shoulders, and regularly saw both shampoo and a comb. She tried to stay active and improve her diet, allowing her body to gain more muscle and regain a bit of a healthier look. She also now wore a white halter dress, over which she had a black faux leather lace-up jacket that ended just above her navel and left open at the front. She had fastened a piece of black cloth around her waist that covered the front and back of the dress to protect the white material from getting dirty while leaving the sides exposed to show off the dress and give her more freedom of movement. Her feet were kept warm by a pair of black thigh-high leggings with the emblem of her family on the sides, embroidered in gold. Her shoes she left off for now, but she had the choice of her brown work boots or a pair of black heeled boots that she had bought in case Tyler came over again.

She didn't know why she purchased them, or even question why he would care, but her hunch had paid off when Tyler visited every couple of weeks to see how she was doing and asking her if she needed anything. She always refused and said she was doing fine, and the pair ended up talking for hours about various things, to the point that Tyler started bringing dinner ingredients after Kali insisted she wanted to cook for the two of them. Before she knew it, Kali was looking forward to the next visit almost immediately after he had left.

Kali's thoughts were broken by a large roar that was steadily getting louder with each second. Standing up, she quickly made her way over to the window in time to see some type of craft, trailing flame, soar down from the clouds before crashing somewhere in the woods, a couple of miles from her house. Believing that whoever was inside that craft was likely dead on impact, but knowing that if they somehow survived that she was the only person in miles that could help, Kali quickly put on her pair of boots before walking out the door.

: 20 minutes later, Location Unknown:

Consciousness slowly filtered back to Tyler in stages. First, he regained his sense of hearing as the crackle of a fire and sparking wiring met his ears. Next, his sense of smell returned only to be met with the choking acrid smoke and ozone from leaking plasma. His sight came next, as his bleary eyesight was witness to the interior of the dropship. The lights were out, with the only form of illumination being the sparking wiring and flames, which revealed the dropship's hull had been torn to pieces, with Tyler's section of seating, and a bit of the far side surviving, while the rear of the transport was torn off.

Tyler managed to shift his chest a bit, which quickly told him that he was hurt, as jolts of piercing pain shot through his system from his chest. Looking down, Tyler saw a piece of metal sticking out of his right arm and noted he couldn't move the appendage. Grimacing, he tried moving his legs, only for the pain to shoot up his left leg. Glancing over, he noted that the appendage was broken, though, thankfully, his right leg was not. Tyler used his one good arm to undo the seat's harness, that had likely saved his life, which sent him falling from his hanging position onto the opposite seats. Grunting in pain, Tyler used his remaining arm and leg to drag himself toward the open back portion of the fuselage.

Gazing out the opening, Tyler saw that the sky was black, the moon and stars shining against the blackness, which, combined with the purple and green exposed plasma, and the light of the fires, caused the area to be bathed in shadows which danced off the many nearby trees of the forest they had crashed in. The pilots had managed to slow their descent enough to not break apart on impact, and instead dig a near mile-long twenty-foot-deep trench into the forest they landed in. The area was littered with debris and fires, along with spilled plasma fuel on the ground from the leaking craft. Tyler grunted as he pulled himself over the lip of the craft's fuselage and onto the plasma fuel-soaked ground, the agony of his broken ribs making itself known. Despite the searing burns now suffered on his body, Tyler knew he had to get away from the crash before the plasma fuel hit the sparks or fire and caused the wreck to blow up. So, steeling himself through the pain, Tyler dragged himself up over the lip of the trench and near a piece of debris, looking over it, Tyler managed to dislodge a piece and, after propping himself against a boulder, aligned the alloy piece with his broken leg. Using some nearby metal wire, Tyler managed to fasten the piece to his leg and, with a roar of agony, fasten the wire tight enough to align the broken bones correctly and finish the haphazard splint.

A sudden roar of engines alerted Tyler to an approaching dropship and, as he looked up and to his left, he saw an ADVENT dropship disgorge four troopers and two mechs bearing the ADVENT SPECIALS symbol on their armor and chassis. The six made their way over to the dropship's cockpit, not able to hear Tyler's weak attempts to call their attention. Instead, the group approached the cockpit before one of the mechs wrenched open the canopy. Tyler saw the dropship's copilot attempt to weakly crawl out before, to his horror and disbelief, the mech raised its gun and let loose a burst of fire directly into the man's chest, shortly followed by one of the troopers firing into the pilot's seat with his Mag rifle.

Tyler instantly ducked down behind the boulder from view, his mind frantically trying to work out why his men were just gunned down by friendlies, while his eyes looked for a means of escape, before landing on the tree line. Knowing that it was his best chance, Tyler's adrenaline kicked in and he began crawling forward to stay out of sight. Tyler made it to the tree line as more SPECIALS dropships arrived at the crash site and, knowing that it was only a matter of time before the enemy noticed his bodies trail, pulled himself up and began to hobble away into the dark wilderness.

For what seemed to be hours he hobbled, but what was likely only twenty to thirty minutes, before exhaustion finally set in and he fell to the ground with a pained grunt. Lying their bruised, broken, and bleeding, Tyler couldn't stop himself to not weep as the events of the day finally caught up to him. His parents and his childhood home gone, his transport crashed, his body broken and in searing agony, his men killed by their allies, and now his current situation. Alone, badly injured, his sidearm lost in the crash, no armor, no means of communication on him, being hunted in an unknown location with no support. Tyler eventually couldn't handle the pain and despair and allowed himself to fall unconscious. Just before he did, he could have sworn he heard footsteps approaching before darkness claimed him.

Aaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnddddd Chapter!

Well folks sorry to leave it here on a cliff hanger but I felt it was a good spot to leave off on since the next chapters are going to be quite hectic for Tyler and the rest of the 77th HVG.

Before I go shoutout to The Chimeran Hybrid for Beta reading this chapter and until next time remember to stay frosty and don't forget to review!