Chapter 7 – Darkness around

In the tunnels between Belorusskaya and the station of Novoslobodskaya, Artyom and company had been following the Nosalis that took Asami. They noticed blood on the ground and they soon understood that they had to hurry or it would be too late. So far the tunnel has been quiet. Only a couple of lurkers have been seen but as soon as they saw the group they dispersed into the many holes that littered the tunnel.

"Come one, pick up the paste." Artyom yelled out to his companions. The teens tried their best to keep up with the ranger who was surprisingly fast.

"Can…we…please…rest…for…a….minute?" Bolin said between breaths. He wasn't the only one who has gotten tired, both Mako and Korra was starting to feel the burn as well.

"Were do you get your stamina from?" Korra said while sprinting after the ranger.

"You got to have good stamina or otherwise you're food for most denizens of the metro." Was Artyoms answer to the question and Korra could understand that. They continued their path through the tunnel until they stopped dead in their tracks. The reason why, the tunnel was splitting up.

"Oh no." Mako said while eying the two tunnels in front of them.

"Which one should we take?" Artyom was eyeing both tunnels trying to figure out which one the Nosalis took. He walked to the right tunnel and checked the ground for signs. He looked closely on the ground. He noticed something in the dirt. A faint but noticeable blood stain, human blood, fresh, Asamis.

"This way." He said while getting up from the ground. He walked into the tunnel to the right while the others looked at him.

"How do you know that?" Mako asked the ranger. Artyom did not answer and just pointed at the small blood stain on the ground. They gasped when they saw it and just nodded and followed him. They continued forward through the tunnel. The tunnel was worn down with rusty pipes hanging on the side on the walls. One or two skeletons of humans were on the ground and the teens let out a sigh of relief every time they understood that the bones did not belong to their friend. They continued forward until they saw in the distance a large mass laying on the ground. Artyom understood immediately what the thing was. It was a Nosalis but it wasn't moving. He walked up to it and stared down on it. It was laying on its belly so he couldn't see its face but he could see why it wasn't moving. A bullet right through the back of its neck. He looked around and didn't see Asami anywhere. She must have escaped, but how he wondered. The others walked up to him and looked down on the body of the dead beast. Mako frequently looked around.

"Were is Asami?" He said in a worried tone.

"She is not here." Artyom Answered.

"The question is how? I saw her drop her gun back at the station and there isn't any bodies around here so she couldn't have picked a new one up. And if she did it she would have walked towards the station and not away from it. She must have had help. And not that help that would let her go afterwards." He finished and noticed something on the ground. He bended down and picked up an empty bullet cartridge.

"She got help but from who?" He said. Korra walked up to the ranger.

"Any idea who?" Artyom looked like he was in deep thought.

"Belorusskaya haven't sent out any teams in this direction and there haven't been any reports of any Nazi squads here and the reds doesn't come this close to the outer rim. That only leaves one group left, bandits."

"So big deal, we can handle a few bad guys." Bolin said a calm tone.

"That is armed to the teeth with guns and has the intention to kill you as painfully as possible." Artyom added. Bolin eyes went wide immediately.

"Okay, maybe they could be a problem." Bolin said and covered from everyone's gazes towards him. Artyom shock his head and looked down at the ground once more. He noticed something else and smiled. He bended down and picked something else up.

"One thing is for sure, she didn't go down without a fight." Artyom said while holding a bloody human tooth in his fingers.

"Ow, ow, ow, ow." One of the bandits said while holding his mouth with his right hand. Said mouth missing one tooth.

"Shut up, at least she didn't kick you right in the nuts." Another bandit said while holding a bag of ice on his crotch.

"Why don't we kill this bitch and be done with it?" Another said while holding his left eye with his hand. The three bandits were sitting around a campfire in a maintenance station located in the tunnel.

"Because the boss wants to ransom the girl for a large sum of bullets. Did you see the clothes she was wearing? That was some fancy stuff. Must have cost a fortune of bullets to buy and fix it. She must come from a rich family down here in the metro." The second bandit said while still holding the bag of ice over his crotch.

"So that's why they helped fix her leg." The third bandit said. The second bandit nodded and looked back into the fire. They sat quiet for a few moments until they heard noises from the room next to them. Two bandits came out holding a struggling Asami in their grip.

"Let me go!" She said in a threatening tone while trying to get out of the bandits iron grip.

"So you want to play tuff, huh?" One of the bandits holding Asami said while walking through another door into a large room with pillars on the sides. In the middle of the room on the floor there seemed to be some bars that covered a hole. They stopped right in front of it and one bandit let go of Asami while the other held her tight with both his hands. The first bandit raised the bars and under them was a hole that went down for about three meters down into a small room.

"If you insist on being so uncooperative towards us. Maybe a few days in the hole might teach you a lesson." The bandit that was holding Asami said and pushed her into the hole. She screamed on her way down and landed hard on her back. She grimaced because of the pain and looked up and saw the two bandits looking down on her and laughing.

"Don't you worry; we will bring you some food…if we remember to." One bandit said and both starting laughing hard before closing the iron bars and started to walk away. Asami took in her new surroundings and gasped. Dozens of skeletons were littered across the small room. She looked at the walls and saw no way out by climbing. She sat down on the ground in a corner of the small room and grabbed her legs and pressed them close to her. What was she going to do? She had been captured by bandits and she saw no way out. It all happened so fast back in the tunnel. She found herself under the dead Nosalis while these guys looked down on her. They pulled it off her and tried to grab her. Even with her limited ability to move thanks to her wounded leg she managed to put up a fight and knocked down three of them before the pain became too big and it distracted her long enough for them to capture her. They bandaged the leg with some bandages because they said that she would be more valuable to them alive then dead. These guys didn't seem to be much different from bandits from her world; they were just armed with different technology for example guns. They were armed to the teeth with all kinds of weapons. Some she recognized like the Lolife and the Bastard gun but some were a couple of guns she hadn't seen yet. One of the bandits held a gun that was very long and very thing in the end and it seemed to have the magazine on the side of itself. Another one held a gun that looked like the Kalash but shorter and had a different stock then the original.

When she was dragged here by the bandits she counted the numbers to see if she could make a run for it. So far the numbers weren't in her favor. She counted around twenty bandits in the station and according to some dialogues amongst them a couple of them seemed to be out on patrol. There appeared to be two in the large room above her and they seemed to focus on something they called a "card game" whatever that meant. She could just hope that her friends were on their way to help her. She was about to think on something else when she heard a small squeak sound next to her. She looked down and saw something that looked like a spiderrat but more…raty. It sniffed around before looking up at her and squeaked in fright and ran behind some skeletons that were lying in the corner of the room. She looked at were rat had ran off to and it seemed to just have disappeared. She looked behind the skeleton and saw a small hole in the wall. She didn't notice that at first because of the tattered clothes on the skeleton covered it up. She moved the skeleton carefully and silently to not wake any attention from the bandits. When it was out of the way she discovered a small hole in the wall. She bended down and looked through the hole. There appeared to be a tunnel on the other side of the wall. She grabbed a hold of the old concrete and pulled with all her strength, trying to make the hole bigger. It didn't take much effort to rip it apart. The wall was thin and that it had been standing here for twenty years without maintenance didn't help. When she ripped another piece of a large chunk fell on the floor with a loud thump.

"Hey, what was that?" She could suddenly hear above her on the other side of the bars. One of the bandits herd her. She cursed quietly to herself and hoped for the best.

"Heh, probably nothing, the tunnels make noises all the time. Let's continue our game shall we." Another voice was heard.

"Sure, so? Do you have any threes?" She heard the first voice say.

"Njet, go fish." The second voice said. She let out a sight that she had held in and continued with tearing down the wall as quietly as she could. Within a minute there was now a hole big enough for her to crawl through. She went on all four and started to crawl through the narrow tunnel. It was filled with webs and filth and she had to fight the urge not to throw up her dinner. She crawled through the tunnel until she came upon the exit. She exited the tunnel and found herself suddenly in a completely different environment. It appeared to be another room in the station but it was small and filled with radio equipment and rows of lockers. She walked past a few lockers to the door and opened it slowly. She gazed through the small crack in the door frame and took in the layout of the next room. It was a three way room and she noticed a single guard sitting on a chair with his back turned towards her, facing the third way out. He appeared to be sleeping which gave her a chance to sneak past him to the other side of the room. She opened the door carefully and started to walk on her toes past him. She was behind him when she made the biggest newbie mistake one could ever make. She didn't look where she was putting her feet's and ended up stepping on a piece of glass. A loud crack was heard and the bandits stirred. He groggily opened his eyes, yawned and stretched his arms. Asami looked franticly around trying to find a place to hide. The bandit looked behind him and saw nothing. He could have sworn he felt like someone was watching him. He looked around before finally settling that was no one there. He closed his eyes and went back to sleep. Asami came out of her hiding place behind an old locker, perfectly out of sight of the bandit. She continued out of the room in silence and closed the door behind her. She found herself now in a thin tunnel but still she had no idea where she was going. She rounded a corner and found herself in a large train tunnel. Finally she was getting somewhere. She was about to start running into the tunnel when suddenly.

"Hey you, stop." She heard behind her and saw the same bandit she thought was sleeping back in the room aiming his gun at her. She raised her hands and let out a defeated sight.

"Thought you could escape huh? Pretending to be asleep always work." The bandit said with a grin while he moved closer to her, still aiming his gun at her. Asami then thought of a plan, she could take him easily if she removed that gun from him. Asami waited for the perfect moment and when the bandit was close enough she jumped him. He let out a spray of bullets at her but he missed. Asami managed to kick the gun out of his hands. She tried to deliver another kick to his head but he surprisingly dodged it. The bandit tried to deliver a punch at Asami but she blocked it. She then went to punch him instead but he jumped out of the way. She was surprised at the agility of this bandit.

"You thought that I was just some random bandit that you could take out easily. Before the war I was a special ops soldier in the army. You won't take me down that easy." He said and positioned himself in a fighting stance. They looked into each's eyes before the bandit went on the attack. He delivered a punch towards her stomach but she jumped out of the way and hit him in the back. He staggered a few feet's before turning towards her and delivered a kick on her damaged leg which made her scream in pain and grasp the damaged leg. The bandit then attempted to deliver a roundhouse kick towards her head but she managed to narrowly dodge it. Asami got back on her feet and delivered a strong kick in his stomach. He grimaced and looked at her with hateful eyes.

"Enough of these games." He said and pulled out a large knife from its sheet. He started to swing at her and she narrowly avoided being cut in two. The bandit then jumped her and pinned her down on the ground. He tried to deliver the final blow with the knife but Asami managed to catch his arms and tried to hold against his strength. The knife was coming closer to her face and the bandits smiled wickedly at her. Asami though it was over until she noticed a rock lying close to her. She let go with one of her hands and quickly grabbed the rock. Before the bandit could overpower her she smacked him right in the head with the rock as hard as she could. Blood sprayed from the bandits head and he fell limp on the ground. Asami quickly got up before taking in what she just did. She looked down at the now dead bandit with blood pouring out of his head covering the ground and then at the hand that held the rock, now covered in blood as well.

"I killed him." She said quietly to herself. She had never killed anyone before. She had been in fights for sure but she never had to kill anyone. She stood there in shock until she heard on the other side of the door that she and the bandit had come through.

"The gunshots were heard over here, quickly." She quickly gathered herself and locked into the tunnel. She picked up the bandits gun that happened to be a Kalash and as many clips she could carry in her pockets from the dead bandit before starting to run into the tunnel. The rest of the bandit gang burst through the door and looked at the scene. They saw their dead comrade and Asami running away in the tunnel.

"She killed Dmitry. Forget about the bullets. Kill the bitch." One of the bandits yelled and the others nodded. Before Asami could think another though bullets started to fly around her. She was lucky that they were carrying Bastards guns; they missed every shot at her.

"Cease fire." One bandit suddenly said. The others complied but one argued.

"But boss, she's getting away." The leader just looked at him with a tired glance and said.

"She will die anyway in that tunnel." Before turning towards the doorframe and walked through it. The other bandits looked at each other before realizing what tunnel Asami ran into. They started to grin before following their leader through the doorframe with the last one through saying to hemself.

"Soups on fellas." Before closing the door behind him.

Asami continued to sprint through the tunnel before she was sure that she was on a safe distance away from the station. She slowed down and locked backwards. She was surprised that the bandits decided not to follow her. She could think about that later when she was back with her friends. The tunnel she was walking through was unusually darker than the other tunnels. While some had still lights glowing this tunnel was completely dark. She had a tough time seeing were she was putting her feet's for the most part. She continued forwards through the tunnel when she suddenly heard a strange noise behind her. She quickly turned around and aimed her gun towards the direction of the sound, nothing there. She suddenly heard the same noise again behind her and quickly turned around and looked. Once again, nothing there. She lowered her rifle and continued through the tunnel. She soon came across a train car that stood right in the middle of the tunnel. She walked past it but noticed some boxes inside. She thought it wouldn't hurt to take a look. She found one door open and climbed inside. Once inside she noticed an oil lamp in one of the seats and she flicked it on. She gasped at what she saw inside. The floor was littered with skeletons. All the skeletons missed their clothes so they must have been lying there for a long time. She swallowed the bile that had been build up in her throat and looked around the train car for anything useful. She walked to one of the boxes and flipped it open, empty. The walked to the next and found the same thing, empty.

She sighed and found that there was nothing of use here. She then noticed in the end of the train car a skeleton with tattered clothes and something in his hands. She walked up to the skeleton and saw that he was holding a duplet shotgun. She hung her rifle on her back and bended down and took it from the skeleton hands. She opened it up and noticed that it was fully loaded and she smiled. This would probably come in handy in the future she thought to herself. She took some shotgun shells from the dead skeleton and picked up the oil lamp and then exited the train car and continued through the tunnel once again. With the oil lamp she could now see better were she was going. She continued walking until she heard that strange noise again but this time better. It sounded like something crawling. She picked up the paste and started to jog instead. She heard more of the sound behind her and quickly turned around and showed the light from the oil lamp in the direction of the sound. She didn't see anything but she could have sworn she noticed something crawled away from the light before it touched it. She stood there looking into the darkness but now it was completely silent. She gulped hard and turned around and started to walk again. As soon as she had turned around the sound behind her started again, she continued onwards as usual but she listened closely behind her. The sound got closer and then as fast as lighting she suddenly turned around.

She gasped at what she saw. A large yellow insectoid creature stood there hissing at her before running backwards out of her sight, its hide having turned a little red. She stood there frozen in fear and could suddenly hear more of the hissing and crawling sound coming from the walls. There must be dozens of them because of all the sound. She started to run through the tunnel while she could hear the weird creatures starting to run after her. She continued onwards when she saw a light. She hoped for the best and picked up the paste as fast as she could. Her hopes were left unanswered when she saw that it was just a hole in the roof and light of the day coming down. She slowed down when she had entered the light and tried to catch her breath. She could hear the creature coming up and though this was it. She raised the shotgun and aimed into the darkness, determent not to go down without a fight. To her surprise however the creatures stopped right before the light. She saw at least a dozen of them standing just outside of the light hissing at her before running of and once again out of sight.

She stood there dumbstruck wondering what was with them when suddenly a though struck her. Maybe they hated light. Now when she thought about it, they had so far avoided the light as best they could and when the light flashed on one of them its hide seemed to be burning. They must be very sensitive towards light. She saw this as her way past them and left the comfort of the light from the hole in the roof. She had the oil lamp close up in front of her and made sure to cover all sides. She could hear the creatures following her but they kept their distance, waiting for the right moment to strike. She soon was faced with a dilemma, the tunnel had caved in. She looked for a way around and noticed a metal door on the side.

"How convenient." She said to herself and walked up to the door and slowly opened it. Once the door was fully opened she saw another problem in her way. The room was filled with cobwebs. She looked around and noticed a torch on the wall.

"Once again, how convenient." She said again to herself and took away the glass cover on the oil lamp and lit up the torch. The room was soon filled with light from the torch. She put down the oil lamp on the ground and grabbed the torch of the wall and held it out forward her. All the cobwebs soon started to burn and a clear way was shown to her. She saw a door on the other side of the room and walked up to it and opened it. Another room filled with cobwebs. This was starting to get annoying. She once again but the torch in front of her and let the fire do its job. As soon as all the cobwebs were gone and another clear path had been made she walked through the room to the door on the other side. She carefully opened the door and looked into the next room. The room was cleared from any cobwebs so she entered it without any problems. She was about halfway through the room when a strange sound was heard above her. Then out of nowhere one of those insect creatures jumped down and attacked her. It knocked both the torch and the shotgun out of her hands and leaped at her. Asami was taken completely by surprise and didn't have time too fully defend herself. Before she knew it she was pinned down on the ground under the strange insect. It hissed and tried to gnaw at her while she held its mouth away with both her hands. Drool dropped from the insects mouth down onto Asamis face. She pushed with all her might and managed to push back the creature a little. It still trying to bite her face of and pushing at her with all its might. She then made a quick shove and the creature was flung of her. She quickly got on her feet and went to grab her gun. She grabbed it and quickly aimed at the incoming insect. She fired both shots simultaneously at the insect. A large bang was heard but to Asami great surprise the creature was unarmed. It had flinched a little but the shots had just bunched of. Her eyes widen when the creature let out a hiss of anger before charging at her again. She tried to reload the shotgun but the creature was on her again before she even had opened the gun up. She once again found herself struggling for her life against the creature's strength but this time, she didn't have the energy to push it off her. The creature's mouth came closer and closer to her face. She was ready to face her inevitably end until the door on her left was thrown open and a bright light shined at both of them from their side. The creature hide turned a burning red while it hissed in pain. It tried to escape the light but the pain was too great for it. It flipped belly up and threw its legs all around before coming to a complete still. Asami got to her feet and just stood there in shock before the light shined her right in the eyes.

"Alright missy, what is a pretty lady like you doing all the way out here and don't give me any bullshit or what not?" A dark gravelly voice could be heard. Asami covered her eyes from the light and could barely make out the shape of her savior. The owner of the light shut it off and the only light in the room came from the torch in the corner. Asami could now make out how the owner to the light looked like. It was clearly a man around his forties with a stone cold face expression. He wore a dark brown jacket with a light brown backpack on his back and blue jeans, a black beanie with a flash light adored his head. He held a Kalash that was currently aimed at her. She tensed up at it but the man laughed at her reaction.

"Don't worry, unless you give me a reason I won't use it against you." The man said. Asami still looked unsure but if this man wanted her dead he could have just let her perish by the creature. More sound was suddenly heard with was undoubtedly more of those creatures. The man looked around before looking at her again.

"We need to get out of here before more of them decide to show up. Spiderbugs never hunt alone. You can tell me your story later." He said and walked towards the door he had come through.

"By the way, I never got you name missy." He asked while turning towards her. Asami tensed up again but decided to tell the stranger her name.

"Asami, Asami Sato. So you can stop calling me missy. And what is your name?" She asked the stranger. The stranger looked at her and gave her a smug smile. He extended his right arm to her implying that he would like to shake her hand. Asami hesitated at first but she took and shock his hand.

"The name is Bourbon." The man said.