Back at camp, the victory didn't last long. Yes, they had drawn first blood. Yes, the traps had worked, at least at first. And for a few fragile minutes, confidence had surged through the camp like a second heartbeat. People stood a little straighter. Fingers tightened with purpose around triggers and blades.
But Lincoln had warned them that Tristan was not a man who accepted defeat.
Minutes later, and they understood when another attack came not from the from the front as they'd expected. Tristan had decided to split his forces, sending one group wide, far wider than the camp's outer traps were designed for and moving in a slow, they made a patient arc through the trees.
And launched a pincer attack.
The first sign of it was screaming. From the rear perimeter.
"CONTACT—BACKSIDE!"
The call ripped through the camp just as the first grounders burst through the foliage. The traps they had set back there as well did trigger as the spikes snapped upward, a concealed drop crushed two bodies instantly but momentum carried the rest forward.
Gunfire cracked at the invaders shortly after and taking out a few of them. The shooters positioned at the rear snapped into action, rifles barking as grounders dropped one by one. For a moment, it looked manageable even with the fact they were taken by surprise. The numbers thinned and the lines held a little longer.
But then the attention shifted again because the front surged at the same time and without the shooters covering the main approach, grounders began slipping past the traps slowly and carefully now. They moved forward carefully and taking notes of where their previous comrades had fallen and stepping where death hadn't yet claimed the ground.
Inside the camp, it immediately became chaos with panic flowing around.
"SEAL THE BACK ENTRANCE!" Bellamy roared out the command as he shoved someone toward cover. "GUNS MOVE BACK, NOW! DON'T LET THEM THROUGH!"
The campers scrambled around with some of them freezing, others reacting on instinct alone as their makeshift blades met the trained steel of the grounders that managed to breach into the camp. The air filled with shouting, gunfire, and the sound of bodies hitting dirt.
Even with guns, they were struggling against the more experienced fighters.
Grounders moved like wolves, they were coordinated, ruthless and more aggressive. They didn't hesitate. They didn't waste motion at all and they made strikes that was meant to kill the moment they got the chance.
Two campers screamed as they stumbled backward into a pitfall trap meant for the enemy. Another tripped a wire and was impaled before anyone could reach him.
Tristan advanced steadily, eyes scanning the camp with calculated interest. The traps that remained were bypassed now. They had tested most of their steps with stones thrown ahead and the dead bodies pushed forward to trigger whatever traps was in front of them safely.
One of his men leaned close and muttered to him while pointing forward.
"Commander," he said. "The traitor."
Tristan's gaze shifted and locked onto a particular fighter in the crowd.
"Oh," he said calmly. "I see him." Lincoln fought near the center of the camp, back-to-back with Octavia. His movements were precise and defensive. He was blocking strikes meant for her, countering only when necessary.
He was fighting to protect. That alone told Tristan everything.
A camper fell at Tristan's feet, throat opened in a single, clean motion. Tristan stepped over the body without slowing.
"LINCOLN!" he shouted, voice cutting clean through the noise of battle.
Lincoln turned around and saw Tristan coming at him. Their eyes met across blood-soaked ground.
"Is this how you repay your people?" Tristan called, killing another camper as he spoke. "With betrayal?"
Lincoln deflected a strike and shoved Octavia behind him, and answered without shouting.
"I chose my path, Tristan. This isn't betrayal. You chose to sentence them all to death for mistakes."
Tristan laughed a harsh, humorless sound.
"Mistakes?" he snapped. "Mistakes that burned villages. Mistakes that killed our people."
"You're quick to forget," Tristan continued, advancing slowly now, "how much blood that cost. And you throw it all away for this?"
His gaze shifted.
Octavia.
She was locked in combat with a grounder twice her size, blade shaking in her grip as she fought with everything she had. A gunshot rang out with a crack and the grounder dropped mid-swing.
Octavia didn't look back. She just kept moving.
Tristan's grip tightened around his weapon.
"…Her," he said quietly.
Tristan saw the change instantly.
The faint crease between Lincoln's brows. The way his grip shifted, Tristan smiled at that.
"When this is over," he said softly, his voice carrying even through the clash of steel and screams, "I'll keep you both alive."
Lincoln's breath hitched.
"So you can watch," Tristan continued with his tone now darkening, "while I take my time with her."
Something inside Lincoln snapped as he heard that. He roared and surged forward, steel crashing against steel as their blades met in a violent cross. The impact rang out, sparks flying as Lincoln drove Tristan back a step with raw force and fury. Around them, the battle blurred into shouts, gunfire, bodies falling one after another but for that moment, it was just the two of them.
Back in camp, Clarke hit the ground hard, air knocked from her lungs. A blade whistled past where her head had been a second earlier.
She scrambled up, her heart hammering in her chest.
"RAVEN, NOW!"
Perched atop a sentry platform with Jasper crouched beside her, Raven already had the angle. She adjusted once then fired.
The shot cracked through the chaos.
It struck the stacked jars of moonshine hidden beneath brush and scrap metal.
Then boom
Fire bloomed outward in a violent arc, a rolling wall of flame that consumed the grounders closest to it and forced the rest to scatter. The explosion thundered through the camp, heat washing over everyone as screams rose from the inferno.
The fire cut clean across the battlefield, severing the grounders' advance from the side farthest from the dropship. Smoke billowed skyward with smell of burning bodies.
———1111———-
Murphy stayed where Murphy always stayed, near the back, close to cover, his eyes darting for exits. He wasn't brave, and he wasn't stupid. Survival came first to him and he was surely going to survive.
Then a shadow broke from the smoke as a grounder saw him.
Murphy froze.
"Shit." He bolted immediately as the grounder moved towards him.
The grounder chased him hard as Murphy sprinted toward the dropship. He skidded around a corner, ducked through twisted metal and vanished.
The grounder followed in and looked around for the coward, Murphy waited from his hiding spot until the last second, then slammed himself flat against the hull. As the grounder rushed past, Murphy grabbed him from behind and shoved hard.
The man stumbled forward and his skull cracked with a sickening sound as it met a protruding metal rod. He twitched once, then went still.
Murphy sagged against the ship, breathing hard.
"…Yeah," he muttered shakily. "Didn't think so."
On the front line, Bellamy fired again and again and again until.
Click.
Again.
Click.
His stomach dropped as he realized he was out of ammo, the grounder lunged forward with his crude sword crashing against Bellamy's rifle. The force drove him backward. His feet slipped and he fell hard.
The blade lifted again as the grounder chuckled at the easy kill until a gunshot rang out.
The grounder stiffened, then collapsed forward.
Bellamy looked up to see Finn lowering the smoking gun.
Finn grabbed his arm and hauled him up. "You're welcome."
Bellamy exhaled. "Thanks."
Finn didn't smile. "Hate to break it to you but we're losing this fight Bellamy."
Bellamy nodded grimly. "I know. Fire's keeping them back, but not for long. We need something else, or this goes from bad to—"
A shout cut him off before he could finish his sentence and he along with Finn turned.
"Ah," he muttered. "What now?"
Just then, a blur tore through the outer perimeter of the camp.
—————————1111—————-
Jason had seen the camp from afar and the chaos that was currently occurring. He moved without stopping and decided to just head in with knocking, he moved like a ghost dipped in blood. His sword flashed as he cut through grounders mid-stride, bodies dropping before they even realized he was there.
Raven saw him through the scope of her gun.
"It's Jason—" she started with a smile but then she looked past him.
"Oh shit."
Behind Jason, more figures poured from the treeline in red-stained armor.
A scream ripped through the grounders' ranks.
"REAPERS!"
Jason glanced back mid-run, blood-smeared face splitting into a sharp, satisfied smile.
Behind him, the grounders and the Reapers collided against one another. Steel met feral rage of the berserkers and with that, the battlefield fractured into chaos within chaos.
Jason ran straight toward the camp, leaving monsters to tear monsters apart behind him.
Patreon.com/Fredozy