The elevator doors opened and a ragged, sweaty dwarf limped a few cautious steps out before collapsing to the ground.

"Sheila!" Ryan said, rushing over to her.

The dwarf woman managed a relieved smile, though her matted hair and bloody clothing made her look like she'd been dragged uphill through five miles of bad road.

"There you are, ya crafty bastard. Saw you comin' in on the cameras. Figured you might need help chasin' the last of 'em off." Pushing herself off the ground with one hand, she held up a belt of grenades jerry-rigged to a single pull tab that she had looped around her other arm. Smiling, she added. “So I brought some fireworks up to do the job.”

"Is anyone else…?" Ryan let the question hang in the air as he pulled up prompts to check her injuries with his power. Reading quickly through them he saw she had at least twelve broken bones. Despite the lesser severity of her other injuries, it was a wonder she’d managed to stand at all.

And yet, she still came to help. To fight. The editor thought with savage pride as he took the offered belt of explosives. When this is all done, I’m going to have to figure out what she wants for a reward. Enough material to build a fortress, maybe?

Shelving future plans for now, Ryan accepted the cost to heal her injuries and stepped back to give her some breathing room.

"Most of them are down below, in the va-- ohhh… oh blessed stone, lad." Sheila said, wiping sweat from her brow. "That's… much better, thank you.”

Placing both hands behind her back, Sheila stretched her spine with a series of loud pops before continuing. “The others are still in the vault." Her tone and expression took on a hint of defeated resignation as she added. "Ones I could convince to go in, anyway."

"And the rest?" Ryan asked. Though in his heart, he already knew the answer.

Sheila looked him dead in the eyes, her expression hard. "They bought us the time to get there."

Returning her gaze without blinking, his own expression tight, the editor nodded. Neither needed further elaboration to understand what she meant. Ryan internally resolved to add those deaths to Marcus's tab.

A tab he fully intended to make the mayor pay double for.

"What about the rest of the attackers? Are there any more below?" Ryan asked. According to Bridgette there was at least one mercenary leader he still hadn't seen yet. He’d be lying if he didn’t admit that worried him.

To his relief however, Sheila shook her head. “No. Most of ‘em left when they couldn’t get the vault open. Cameras showed ‘em try and loot us, but it’s not like we had much to begin with. Once they saw the kitchen was mostly empty, most just left. All except that creepy bastard over there.” She indicated Jackal’s still form with her hand.

“He kept trying all of our… All of their powers. Trying to see if one could get through the door. When nothing worked, he set fire to a few rooms before just… giving up. Saw he was on his way to you, so I figured why not return the favor...” Sheila said, looking meaningfully at the explosives in his hand.

Ryan gave a dark chuckle that was interrupted by a large tremor that shook the entire tunnel. It was hard to tell, but it appeared to be coming from some distance away and above ground. The tremor wasn’t enough to shake them, but both shot a wary glance at the grenade belt’s pull tab. Thankfully, it hadn’t moved. Ryan adjusted the belt to ensure his hand was a bit further away from the tab, just in case.

Another mini-quake rumbled its way down the hall soon after. Then another. And another. There was a pattern to them, Ryan realized. A cadence, almost.

“Do those sound like… footsteps to you?” Sheila asked.

Ryan sprinted for the base entrance, not bothering to reply or even absorb Jackal’s body. Whatever or whoever was coming, he might need every second he had to meet it. The entire tunnel rumbled to what sounded like trees falling above, the vibrations shaking the ramp even as he ran up it.

Mundus. It has to be him. Who else could it be?

As he emerged back out onto the still-burning field, Ryan’s guess was confirmed before he even pulled up his power.

A lumbering green giant of a man - easily as tall as the trees behind him - had stopped at the edge of the field, now staring down at Lucas with a malicious smile. The big werewolf was in human form. He held the giant’s gaze while slowly working his way backwards, ushering the two wounded he’d been escorting back towards the base with quick, terse gestures behind his back.

Name: Jacob Wainwright

Superpowers:

Giant Form: Grants the capability to grow to giant-like proportions, massively increasing strength, endurance, and resistance to physical harm.

Regeneration: Grants the capability to recover from wounds at an accelerated pace, regenerating even lost limbs within minutes.

That… was an impressive power set, even if nothing in the prompt explained why Mundus’s skin was green. Ryan’s vision sharpened, adjusting to the change in light from the tunnel, and he realized the giant wasn’t actually green at all. Mundus was covered from head to toe in the broken vines and leaves of what had to be hundreds of plants. Maybe thousands. Far more than one would expect a rampaging giant to get tangled up in, even if he was in a forest.

Then he saw what - or rather, who - Mundus was holding. Oh my god. Ryan thought as he felt a heavy weight settle into his stomach.

The limp, red-haired form of the base botanist hung from one of the giant’s oversized hands. Her arms were bent at an odd angle around one of the brute’s fingers as if she’d tried to fight him off… to no avail. Blood streaked down her face despite Mundus’s relatively loose grip.

It wasn’t too hard to piece together what must have happened. Ryan’s mind did it for him in an instant. Mundus must have walked right into the plants Lily had been working to grow. Lily had probably thrown every single crop in her gardens at him. He couldn’t imagine how much strain that had been on her.

Somehow the tiny biologist had held back a small mountain of muscle for long enough to give everyone else a fighting chance. How many would have died if Mundus had joined the first wave? How would our own attack have gone if he’d intervened? Could he have stopped Wolfenstein?

Seeing white that could only be bone poking out from one of Lily’s elbows, Ryan’s train of thought changed sharply as his hands curled into fists of their own accord. I’m going to see if you can regenerate from cinders for that, you son of a bitch. The editor mentally promised his new enemy. Then he checked on Lily’s status.

Seeing the lengthy list of injuries, Ryan’s heart rate calmed a few beats. Lily was definitely worse off than Sheila’s had been. Despite not having even a single rib that wasn’t cracked though, she was still alive. If only barely.

“Ryan!” Lucas shouted, breaking Ryan’s review of his prompt. The big wolf’s tone was steady, though he could detect the faintest hint of despair in it. Lucas’s eyes were on Mundus, but he must have heard Ryan approach. Lucas’s hands gestured meaningfully around the forest.

Following his friend’s cue, Ryan gritted his teeth as he understood why the giant hadn’t attacked yet. Mundus had been buying time for his men to get into position around them.

The mercenaries who’d fled earlier had come back.And it looked like they’d brought friends as well.

Damnit, Ryan. Of course they’d come back! The editor thought, berating himself for his earlier mercy. Logically, he still knew he’d made the right decision - having to face Jackal and Mundus at once might’ve been too much.

And yet… Ryan thought, looking around at the force assembled against them. Maybe just two would’ve been preferable.

At least twenty mercenaries with guns, flame-covered hands, or some other variety of superpower fanned out in a semi-circle alongside the giant. Gone were the fearful expressions from those who had run earlier. To a man they were now smirking, glaring, or making threatening gestures at the pair that promised a slow, painful death.

Confidence was definitely on their side once more, and it wasn’t hard to tell why. Without Wolfenstein to protect them, this fight would’ve been a lost cause even if it had only been the pair of them. And that was without trying to protect the two behind Lucas or to reach Lily in time.

Here and now however, the mercs had the upper hand. With at least one hostage, and two more in the line of fire, Lucas and Ryan could do nothing without effectively condemning one or more of their own people.

And their enemies knew it.

Ryan’s mind felt like it went into overdrive. There’s too many for us. Even without the big one, the second we move, they’ll open up on us. And I can’t stop him from killing Lily all the way over here. Think, Ryan -- Think! The editor’s eyes shot over to Mundus, who held an enormous, stupid smile on his stupid, smug face.

Mundus saw something in Ryan’s eyes that seemed to register with the giant. Then he reacted the way only a cruel child who grew up into a crueler man might, squeezing the broken woman in his hand by just a fraction. Several somethings crunched, and Lily began to scream as the pain woke her up through whatever haze had kept her unconscious. The giant man beamed at Ryan over the response.

Blood and fury roared up within the editor, demanding vengeance in whatever fashion he could cook up. Demanding he turn that overgrown, petulant hillbilly into an entire hill’s worth of petulant ashes.

But... there was nothing he could do to save her from here. They were too few against too many. Saving lives here wasn’t an option on the table for them. He wasn’t even sure that Lucas would be walking away from this fight.

I’m not even sure I will.

The pair of them had played their cards well, and beaten the odds a few times just getting here. But they’d finally been outmaneuvered. The second either of them moved, someone they cared about was going to die.

And there were relatively decent odds it would be one of them.

Gripping the grenade belt, Ryan mentally prepared himself to take another explosion. A wild, reckless plan to blast whatever piece of him survived towards Mundus and hope he remained conscious long enough to save Lily began to form in his mind.

Then Ryan saw something he would later swear up and down he had never, ever seen coming.

A troop of heavily muscled silverback gorillas strolled out of the forest a few hundred yards behind Mundus and the mercenaries. Behind them emerged a half dozen shadow-covered crocodiles, several tusked warthogs easily the size of sports cars, and an honest-to-god metal hippo. The lead gorilla, wearing what appeared to be reading glasses, made a lazy gesture with one hand.

Without so much as a grunt the small army of animals immediately split off, each changing course towards a separate target as if the entire outlandish group were a trained combat unit.

The gorilla that had just gestured watched them go with what looked like approval on its simian face before adjusting its glasses in a way Ryan found all too familiar.

Kurt?!

“Didn’t your mother ever teach you idiots to only pick fights you can win?” Asked a small crowd of synced, sarcastic voices from the other side of the clearing.

Ryan, Lucas, Mundus, and the rest of the mercenaries shifted their gaze from each other towards the belligerent newcomers -- away from the approaching animal hit squad. Guns clicked into the ready position as the battlefield tensed even further.

A dozen or more Michaels with long bows were approaching out of the woods from the other side. Their arrows held steady despite the brisk pace, pointed directly at the biggest brute on the field. “Because our mother taught us that, and unlike you we’ll still be here in a few minutes.”

The collective relieved chuckles from the mercenaries made it obvious they both weren’t impressed by the bowmen and still hadn’t seen tail or hide of the hair-raising ambush ‘sneaking’ up behind them.

Ryan had no idea how, none of the animals looked like they were trying to be quiet. Despite that, none of them appeared to be making any noise, either. Even the hippo - which appeared to be made of solid steel - hadn’t so much as creaked it lumbered its way through a tree on its way to its target. The shattered wood didn’t make a sound as shards rained down. If Ryan hadn’t been looking that way when it had happened, he might never have noticed it.

Kurt-gorilla got within twenty feet of the giant and Lily, rolled his neck, and grew two-and-a-half stories tall as he did. Again, the entire affair didn’t make a single sound. Enormous sausage-like hairy fingers tapped Mundus meaningfully on the shoulder. Bewildered, the giant spun around--

-- only to get hammered across the jaw by a right cross that landed with such force Ryan felt it from across the field.

An echoing boom sounded through the forest, causing several birds to take flight in the distance. Chasing after them came oversized teeth spinning through the air as Mundus’s entire lower jaw snapped like a twig, giving the big brute the same stupefied expression most zombies had in movies after they’d had time to rot.

As if on cue, the sound caused the scene to explode into multiple flurries of action all at once.

A pair of smaller gorillas leapt for the arm holding Lily just as Kurt struck, preventing the hand from closing any further around her. Lucas shifted form and leapt forward at the nearest mercenary, moving so fast dirt flew as he slammed the man into a tree with a full-body shoulder tackle. Bloody paste painting the impact site in a wide spray as bone and wood crunched.

Ryan sprinted forward, sliding next to the pair Lucas had just left behind and slamming his hands into the ground. A second later a wide wall of earth rose in front of the trio. He was just in time. Bullets slammed into the other side right as screams began rising up from the mercenaries.

The crocodiles wreathed in shadow erupted like nightmares from solid earth, swallowing men whole before sinking back into the ground. Warthogs mowed down grown men with devastating charges, disemboweling them with quick, brutal tusk work that left nothing behind to resist. Several of the men who’d been nearby but not directly targeted fought back as best they could, even managing to take down some of their attackers.

It did not change their fates.

Half the Michaels loosed at once, peppering Mundus with arrows that sunk deep into the folds of his neck with only a few being stopped by vines. The second volley sought marks in any mercenaries still left standing.

One of Michael’s clones went down in the return fire, his face melting as fire engulfed it rapidly. Another was soon crushed by a boulder half again his own size that took his upper torso clean off and kept going. The clone’s lower half and severed spine dropping to the grass like dropped bags.

Mundus, finally recovered from his wrecked jaw, finally released Lily and began swatting at the smaller gorillas with that hand. Michael’s arrows were already slowly pushing their way out of his neck as if of their own accord. The giant raised his other hand as if to ward off another sledgehammer blow.

The combination of distractions served their purpose. Another gorilla bounded in, bounding right back out cradling the heavily injured and still screaming woman away from the fight as if she weighed no more than a babe.

Ryan rushed around the wall he’d created towards Mundus, eager to join the fight, just in time to see another sight he would not soon forget.

A rampaging, solid-steel hippo opened its enormous mouth wide and then jumped - clamping its powerful metal jaws down on Mundus’s right leg just as Kurt’s massive gorilla-fist wove unde the giant’s paltry defense and smashed a powerful left cross into his temple. Sinew tore like tissue paper and giant bones shattered as the combined attack severed Mundus’s leg while flattening his entire skull inward at the same time.

Neither Kurt nor the hippo ceased their assault. Savagery followed. Brutal, bloody, and animalistic. The kind of ‘true nature’ documentary that even the discovery channel might hesitate to air on late night tv.

By the time Ryan got within range to help, the battle was over.

A towering, heaving gorilla stood over what could only be described as a pulverized pile of barely-quivering flesh. Rearing back, Kurt-gorilla roared and pounded his chest in triumph, the sound echoing a staccato victory across the forest.

Answering cheers, roars, and bellows rose up from the Michaels, Lucas, and the rest of the animals.