Red light strobed through the laboratory, painting the walls in pulses of crimson. The self-destruct timer ticked down on every screen, each second louder than the last.
Ryan braced against the wall, spun, and brought the assault shotgun level with the Tyrant's chest. The trigger pull sent the creature staggering backward into a bank of equipment. Metal frames buckled. Glassware shattered across the floor in a glittering spray. The thing stumbled, caught, held in place for one precious moment.
"Go! Now!"
He barked the words and backpedaled, keeping the barrel trained forward, pouring fire into the Tyrant's mass to pin it down. Every shot bought another second. Every second bought another step.
Jill had Rebecca's arm over her shoulder. Barry covered the rear. Richard's leg screamed with every stride, but he clenched his teeth and kept pace, locked step for step with the group. No hesitation. Not here. In a place like this, half a second of indecision could kill them all.
The Tyrant hauled itself upright from the wreckage. Bullet wounds sealed over like water closing behind a stone. Cold eyes locked onto the retreating team, and it unleashed a roar that shook dust from the ceiling and set the corridor walls humming. Pure, relentless killing intent.
Ryan planted his feet and steadied the assault shotgun. Recoil barely registered. The weapon might as well have been bolted to a vise. He aimed low, hammering round after round into the Tyrant's knees, grinding its charge to a halt by brute force. He knew the thing's durability. Ordinary firepower wouldn't kill it. All he could do was hold the line.
"Get in the elevator!"
Barry slammed the call button. Doors ground open. Jill guided Rebecca into the car first, then helped Richard inside. The space was cramped with all of them packed together, tension thick enough to taste.
"Ryan! Get in here!" Jill's voice cracked with urgency, her brow furrowed tight.
The Tyrant had shrugged off the suppressing fire. It surged forward like an armored vehicle at full speed, footfalls shaking the floor. Inhumanly fast. Closing the gap in seconds.
"Go up without me! I'm right behind you!" he shouted without looking back. No waver in his voice.
Barry read the situation in a heartbeat and hit the door-close button. "Trust him! We meet on the roof!"
"No...!" Jill lunged for the gap, but the doors were already sliding shut. The car jolted and began its climb.
The moment the elevator reached the top floor, Jill punched the door-open button before the car had fully stopped. Her eyes were hard, already decided.
"I'm going back for him. Hold the roof."
"That's suicide!" Barry grabbed her arm.
"He can't hold off the Tyrant alone!" She shook free and stepped back into the elevator. "I'll be quick."
The doors closed. The car dropped, plunging back toward the underground laboratory without a second's pause.
Below, Ryan stopped retreating the instant he knew the others were clear.
The Tyrant barreled in close, its massive shadow swallowing him whole. The stench of it rolled over him like a wave, raw and rotten and wrong.
Weeks ago, something like this would have frozen him solid. But he'd stared down enough nightmares since then. The panic was still there, somewhere deep, but it didn't reach his hands. Didn't touch his aim. He'd learned to breathe inside the fear.
He looked up at the Tyrant and let the corner of his mouth lift.
"All right. Can't shake you, so let's dance.
Watch close. This one's gonna look good."
He stopped holding back.
Gunfire erupted in a continuous roar. Recoil was negligible, barely worth noticing. His finger worked the trigger so fast it blurred, muzzle flash spitting in an unbroken tongue of fire. Rounds hammered the Tyrant like a flood, stitching across chest, head, joints, every vulnerable inch smothered under precision fire.
The Tyrant bellowed and charged. For every step forward, a heavier volley slammed it back. Muscle tore apart in sprays of gore. It swung a massive claw in a horizontal sweep, talons shearing the air, and caught nothing. Not even the edge of Ryan's shirt.
He moved like water, shifting left, cutting right, always holding the perfect distance. He sidestepped a wild swing and dropped his aim, pouring fire into both legs. The Tyrant's knees buckled. Its enormous frame swayed.
Strike while it's down.
Ryan closed the gap in a single stride and jammed the barrel against the Tyrant's chest. Full auto. Point blank. The blast shoved the creature backward like a battering ram, slamming it into the corridor wall hard enough to crack concrete. The entire passage shuddered. Chunks of stone rained down. The Tyrant was pinned, thrashing and clawing, but couldn't break free of the relentless barrage.
Rounds kept coming. The Tyrant's body twisted and warped under the punishment, its regeneration working overtime, healing almost keeping pace with the damage. Almost. Ryan's gaze was ice. No mercy, no letup. He knew this was temporary. The only play was to unload everything he had, collapse the thing completely, and buy enough time to run.
Dozens of seconds of sustained, savage fire.
The Tyrant buckled. Its massive form crashed to the ground and the floor shook with the impact. Limbs twitched. Its chest heaved in ragged, uneven spasms. Down. Temporarily.
Ryan sucked in a breath. His arms tingled from the sustained recoil, a dull ache spreading through muscles that hadn't stopped working since the fight began. He didn't care. Didn't linger. He turned and sprinted down the corridor.
He made it maybe thirty meters before a roar split the air behind him, louder and more savage than anything before.
His stomach dropped. He spun.
The Tyrant was standing. Wounds knitting shut at visible speed, torn flesh sealing over as if the last minute hadn't happened. Its presence felt heavier now, its aura more violent. Stronger than before.
Of course.
The facility's ultimate weapon. Recovery speed off the charts. All that firepower, and it only bought him seconds.
The Tyrant charged again, faster this time. Claws punched through the air in a killing thrust. Ryan reacted on instinct, throwing himself into a forward roll. Talons raked across his back, drawing a line of sharp, bright pain.
He was up and running before the sting fully registered. The Tyrant gave chase, demolishing everything in its path. Metal shrieked and tore. The roaring, the footsteps, the crash of obstacles being smashed aside, all of it blurred into a single wall of noise that shook the corridor around him. He ran, twisting back every few strides to snap off a shot. Every round found the Tyrant's face, buying a fraction of a second, a half-step of distance.
The corridor was narrow. Nowhere to hide. Ryan survived on footwork alone, reading each attack a split second before it came, dodging each lunge by inches. A massive fist cratered the floor where he'd been standing, blasting rubble in every direction. His pulse hammered, but his mind stayed clear. Instinct and adrenaline working in lockstep, threading him through every strike.
Just as the gap closed to nothing...
The elevator doors ahead exploded open.
Jill charged out with the shotgun up, firing into the Tyrant before her feet were fully set.
"Ryan! Over here!"
His eyes went wide. Shock and alarm hit at the same time. "Why did you come back?!"
"I'm not leaving you down here alone!"
She opened up with everything she had. The two of them flanked the Tyrant from both sides, crossfire ripping into it in a synchronized storm.
Two shooters. Perfect coordination. The Tyrant's advance ground to a halt under the combined barrage.
"Move!" Ryan grabbed Jill's wrist and pulled her with him as he turned for the elevator. They sprinted together, shoulder to shoulder, and threw themselves through the open doors.
Both of them hit the back wall of the car as they tumbled inside.
The doors began to close. In the last sliver of open space, the Tyrant's claw hammered into the metal panel with a sound like a cannon shot. Deep gouges tore across the surface, steel peeling back like foil. The force of it sent vibrations up through the floor and into their bones.
Then the doors sealed shut.
The elevator hummed and began its steady climb toward the rooftop helipad.
They leaned against opposite walls, chests heaving. Jill caught his eyes through the dim emergency lighting. Her voice was quiet but firm.
"From now on, we go together."
Alarms still echoed through the facility above and below them, the self-destruct countdown grinding forward without mercy.
The elevator carried them upward, floor by floor, toward the roof.
Toward the only way out.