Into Dante's Inferno

[Doomguy]

Nowhere To Go But Up

A surge of bodies rushed out of the bar as everyone with even the littlest sense of self preservation made a beeline to the floor above. It was like metaphorical bilge rats trying to jump off a literal sinking ship. While some took the tunnels in order to scout ahead, that still left a large group to pile into the halls. By the time we slogged our way through the rising water it was up to my waist and the ranks had swelled into a mob. The hole meant to toss prisoners laid above is as a taunt, normally unreachable due to the restraining collars. Now, whether by flight, magical might, or just plain ingenuity, many mad their way up and carried those less fortunate up with them. All of us were united in a hunger for revenge and a determination to be free. Well, at least, we all wanted to see this place burn down.

When I was shoved up to the fourth floor (literally, there was line on the rope ladder someone put down), I poked my head out over the edge and found the damage I had leveled upon it had gotten worse since I left it. Partly cooled molten metal spread out across the floor from the holes in the basin above, melted machines and limp mechanical arms submerged halfway through the hot sludge. The entire floor was just as hot, even with the generators in ruin. The prisoners had taken up the mantle in my absence, the towers of cells toppled over and dropped into the basin and work area, where the surviving scum and what was left of the red armored stormtroopers duked out between each other on the remains of the sky walk.

They didn't last very long as the reinforcements, aka us, poured out from below and laid waste under a storm of very projectile thought possible. The survivors swelled our ranks and the horde worked its way up the toppled cells to the next hole.

The first wave of enemies was pathetic, but I didn't expect to be this easy from here on out. With the unbearable considerations and a presumption that they're restricted by their need for the heat resistant equipment, then as we reached closer to the surface the Empire could bring their full might to bare. Not to mention they could still flank us, or whatever nasty surprise they had.

We'd just have to punch right through them. We couldn't afford to sit around for a better solution, and another set of quakes under us reminded us that we still had go.

The next level was a desert. That's not a metaphor, it was literally a desert. Dryer than stale cake, sand everywhere. I don't know where it came from or why it was here, but it was, and it littered along the masonry and steel bars that made for the prison's cells. Along with the wizened husks of the dead, mummified by the lack of moister in the air. Along with the almost mummified living, shriveled men and women who had been left unfed, barely able to lift themselves up to fight even with the removal of the inhibiting collars. But the sound of firepower off in the distance meant someone was still fighting the good fight.

The street further down from the hole was packed with laser fire and bullets as both sides took cover in cells at opposite sides of each other. It wasn't exactly a fair fight: the armored, blaster wielding and actually squad trained stormtroopers were faced of against malnourished, unequipped rabble. Rabble can do quite a bit, but you need a lot of them.

Thankfully, I brought a lot of rabble.

Shots rang out as along the walls as an encore from the previous performance, which sent the stormtroopers to scamper with their plastic toy guns under their leg. They actually managed to weather the storm hidden under cover, but they where then set upon by the more melee oriented fighters to flush them from their hidey hole. Blood and body parts littered the streets afterwards, pent up aggression let out in a horrifying display of martial prowess and years of minutely planned vengeance thrown out for just killing a motherfucker. The malnourished fighter joined the mob, what little of them still fighting.

"Think that's all of them?" I heard an errant voice out among the mob, and I just shook my head.

"Not a fucking chance. Keep your eyes out, and for fuck's sake spread out a little" Not that I expected them to follow any orders. This particular herd of cats had a chip on their shoulder against authority a mile wide. And their aversion to an semblance of military tactics only degraded when the head of one prisoner not three feet to my left and the scream of "sniper!" rang out.

"Get to cover" I tried to yelled out, but it was for my own personal benefit that for any of the prisoners, who reacted with a mix of some actually going to cover, some panicked on the spot, and others charging forward at the source. I glance back behind me and saw Jen'lak still alive and in the middle of an internal debate if she should charge as well. Something I immediately cut short when I grabbed a bundle of her prison jump and I dragged the both of us into a nook big enough to get her out of sight of any more sharpshooters.

"You do NOT get out of that hole until it's safe, you got that?" I shouted than ask, and before there was a single complaint I had bolted back out the the fray. I came back to a scene of carnage as those who charged ahead were already sent back running for cover under a hail of laser fire.

Down the road from our position, under the hole to the next level and our salvation from soggy wet death, the stormtrooper had set up a heavy fortification the encircled a crossroad, barricades made from a material that was obviously sturdier that whatever the prison architecture was made of (or their armor, for that matter), with a raised platform in the middle of it that let down a suppression fire down on anyone who got close with their specialist over the heads of the rank and file blaster. It kept the everyone out, and that didn't include any of the troops that couldn't be seen behind the corners.

Case in point, as we tried to move in closer through the meat grinder, out from behind each corner came the loud crash of large metal footsteps and we found ourselves in front of a pair of the bipedal armored boxes with guns I saw back in Costa del Sol.

We were rocked when the ATSTs opened up with a volley of concussion grenades, the high explosive blasts sent prisoners flying, if not dead by having their organs rendered into a fine pudding then left to the sidelines puking their guts out and unable to stand with the world spinning around them. Any who managed to keep in the fight then got a face full of the chin mounted laser cannon. Most people stuck back, trying their best to ward off the warmachines, but anything thrown at the hard shell of the walkers uselessly. Normally I would say it was comical, but it wasn't funny when several gigavolts of energy buzzed pass me and skimmed the very top of my helmet. I stumbled, my helmet HUD went dark for a second, and when I grabbed onto the helm I felt the bit of residue heat from my near vaporization.

"That tears it" I shouted to myself. I grit my teeth as I stared down the walker closest to me, ripped a grenade from my belt and tossed in front of the walkers. Great plumes of smoke spewed out of the smoke grenade, a solid wall of the stuff now between us and them. The stomps and the electric scream of high powered energy weapon stopped, as they seemed to follow the normal military protocol to not send your expensive vehicles into an obvious trap. It gave everyone else a brief pause to rally while I pulled myself up the side of the wall, the screen let me reach a ledge big enough to support me without the gunners putting holes in me.

By the time they noticed the dayglo green armored marine come at them, I leaped out at them and gripped onto the face of the ATST with a grenade in one hand.

This time the kind made to paint walls.

With a flick the grenade was primes, and I threw my fist into the ports of the walker. The flimsy glass meant to protect the pilots when the armored panel wasn't down shattered, and I dropped the explosive into the lap of the shocked driver. I bounded over onto the second one, and as I heard the muffled bang as pillars of fire and shrapnel erupted out of the "eyes" of the first chicken walker I held out the super shotty with a grin that reached ear to ear. I slammed the barrels into the cockpit and let loose one into the driver's head, then turned my arm to the gunner and the second shot reduced him into gibbets.

From the top of the inert mech I pulled the rocket spewing death dealer (all my weapons are death dealers), the whirl as the loader placed one of the ranged explosives into the chamber with a satisfying click. With me angled above the protective walls of the barricade I rained down pain inside the storm trooper's midst, each red rose of death send parts of stormtroopers everywhere. With a renewed assault in swing, the front line the ground pounders caved. Those on the raised platform then started to float up, grave plates on the bottom hummed louder, and the more important troops retreated into the second floor.

"After them!" I heard the general cry across the mob, but I killed that quickly when I beaned the shouter with an empty shotgun shell

"Fuck that" I yelled back as I climbed down from the walkers now modern art display and landed next to an annoyed Jen'lak "You all nearly got routed by two armored units and a few guys behind chest high walls. You'd get slaughtered by the full force" There was a murmer of anger as I questioned the abilities of the prisoners, but I just shrugged them of "You can rest here for a bit. There's elevator shafts that I can access on this level, I can climb up that and I'll signal you when it's clear to flank them."

Most of them weren't happy about my plan, but if they wanted to slam their head into a brick wall I wouldn't stop them. They milled about for now, so I headed to where the map I stole showed the secret elevator that went down to this level.

And when I heard the loud hiss underneath me and saw clouds of stream rise up from the level below, I got my ass in gear and ran for the way up. Wet soggy death wasn't about to wait on me.