A lone survivor

[Lysander]

Helicopter blades slashed through the night as Durdan looked down at the zone rushing beneath him, then at his squad, sitting inside the transport helicopter, lit red by the emergency lighting. He did a final check on his weapons, telling the others to do the same.
"ETA ten minutes." The pilot shouted over the noise of the rotor blades. "I'm amazed that we haven't hit any anomaly fields."
Their pilot was a likeable man who had done jobs like this before, some would say a 'veteran' but Durdan thought that he was lucky to be alive. Durdan himself had never been to the zone before, neither had his squad, but the client seemed eager enough to employ them, and the merc had been amazed at the amount of money they paid up front, that and the new weapons that they had been supplied with. This contract had virtually no downside if you didn't count the immense danger of trying to get into the zone, and when they got onto the ground, the vicious mutants.
They were now coming into an area which was dominated by a military complex in the north, the headquarters of the freedom faction that Durdan had heard much about.
This meant that they were nearing their destination; the red forest, Durdan had read somewhere that in the wake of the first chernobyl disaster, an entire forest had died, but was preserved, the leaves of the trees turning a bright fiery red-orange colour. After the second disaster it had become infested with mutants of all shapes and sizes. He was definetely not looking forward to his foray into the darkness.
He looked out of the window again; the helicopter was passing over a small village which looked like it had been abandoned for years, most of the buildings having holes in their roofs or no roof at all, the whole village was in the shadow of a huge tower, at a level with the helicopter. The merc looked back at his gun, heavily upgraded and expensive, he was happy that he hadn't had to buy it himself.
He was snapped out of his reverie when the Hind shook violently, nearly throwing him off of his seat.
"What the hell was that?" He asked the pilot.
"I don't know, the anomaly scanner isn't picking up anything." He tapped the device and clicked a button on it. "No, nothi....."
The man was silenced mid-sentence as the helicopter tore in half, the horrible screech of metal rending the night's silence apart. The men opposite to Durdan were thrown out of the helicopter as the tail and the wall that they were leaning against came away. A man next to him screamed as a piece of shrapnel tore into his torso, he lost his balance and followed his comrades to the ground far below.
Durdan turned around, his eyes widening as the roof of the tower rose up to meet him. The impact smacked his head against the metal of the helicopter. He blacked out.
A bloodcurdling roar rose up from the village below the tower, the beasts had awoken, they were ready to hunt....

[milch]

Globe was in the Zone for a week now and got some new friends and enemies already... He was sitting in an old abandoned room of an abandoned house of an abandoned village of the abandoned Army Warehouses... His rifle was resting against the wall and Globe was sitting on an old bed warming his hands by the fireplace which he got started not long ago to cook a flesh's leg. The Loner was not worried about the Freedomers next to his house because he knew a couple of them and realised that they were actually quite cool guys... you just need to understand them a bit better than Duty does.
Globe heard some noise outside and picked up his rifle. Cocking it he came over to the window and had a look. Two bandits were approaching 'his village' talking loudly about their plans to stick-up any loners who were unlucky enough to come through here... They were heading towards the house opposite the one Globe was in, when they were already in the doorway with their backs to him he aimed at one's head and fired, the bullet hit the bandit in the temple and came out the other side. The other bandit dropped to the floor and rolled into the next room, out of Globe's sight. The loner (correct me if I'm wrong I don't know how you call it with bolt actions and once again correct me if the gun isn't bolt action... I think it's the SVT-40 or something) re-cocked his gun and aimed at the window of the room in which the last bandit was. The bandit put his gun through the window and blind fired. The bullets hit the wall next to the window Globe was in. The bandit kept shooting around the same spot, Globe took aim at the bandit's arm and fired. The rattling of the assault rifle has stopped and the bandit fell to the floor screaming in pain. Globe swung his rifle behind his back and took out his Tokarev, he ran over to the house in which the wounded bandit lay and began to creep through the rooms. He was met by bullets from bandit's pistol. Globe took cover behind the wall and peeked around the corner as far as he could without being in danger. The bandit was grabbing his arm which was bleeding violently, he took off his bandana to try and bandage up his arm, in that moment when the bandit was unarmed Globe came around the corner of the room pointing his pistol at the wounded man. The loner came over to the bandit and took all the weapons from him still aiming at the 'villain'. The loner took the bandit's backpack and PDA. "I don't think you will need these anymore..." he threw the bandit a roll of bandage and shot him through both kneecaps, the bandit was now screaming in absolute agony, "But you'll need those..." said Globe referring to the bandages he gave to him. Globe went out of the room with the bandit cursing loudly and trying to bandage himself up. Globe was about to leave the house when he caught a glimpse of something green on a bench next door. He came through the door and realised that it was a suit quite like the ones next door Freedomers wore (please can I be allowed to have it as it is there in the game...). He tried it on and it fit perfectly, Globe was coming out and remembered about the second bandit's corpse only when he stepped over it, he took everything of value from the second corpse as well and then chucked it into the room in which the wounded bandit was, now there was a double chance a monster would be attracted to that house to feast on the dead and the live... Suddenly Globe heard helicopter blades above him. "Shit! Another raid!" the loner swore to himself quietly. But mid-air the helicopter jerked to a stop and was torn in two by some sort of an air anomaly. One half collapsing on the village and the second half came crashing into the tower right next to it. Men which were not actually military were scrambling out of the helicopter as it was falling to it's doom. The tower collapsed loudly over the front half of the helicopter... "Let's see if theres any survivors... Or good loot, today's my lucky day! Huh..." said Globe and sprinted towards the burning remains...

Globe Found: Wind of Freedom Suit ((A Guardian of Freedom is a very strong suit, so I've gone with the Wind of Freedom instead))
Micro Uzi x1
Chaser-13 x1
PMm x1
Colt 1911 x1
supplies
stashes (Safe in Yantar, factory 3rd floor...)
info
1300 rubles.

CHECK

[Lysander]

Durdan shook his head, his vision blurring. It took a while for his hearing to recover and for him to register the pain coming from his shoulder. He looked around him; the cabin had fallen sideways into the roof of the tower, then, by the looks of it part of the roof had collapsed, crushing two of his men and covering the hole in the back he pulled the mercenary vest off of one of them, sliding it over his dark grey camo. He looked at the pilot, who was transfixed by a piece of shrapnel, as long as his forearm. "So much for a survivor." Durdan said aloud. He looked for his rifle and found it buried in the rubble. Then his hand immediately went for his pistol holster, which, by the grace of fate still had his pistol in.
A moan came from the man to his left as he too came back into conciousness. He however was not so lucky, pinned as he was to the seat by the shrapnel going through his stomach.
Durdan deemed it more merciful to shoot the man, than try and help him. So he held his pistol to the man's temple and fired, brain matter sprayed over the wall and the man flopped to his side. Durdan harvested what ammo he could find and exited through the side of the helicopter, his arm still throbbing painfully.
He was now in the tower, at the top level. A series of ladders lead down to the ground floor, where there lay a corpse, too mutilated to identify whether it was a mercenary or a stalker. Another corpse lay opposite him, though by the smell was not so recent, probably a few weeks old. Durdan crawled over to him and snatched a pristine AKSU that was lying by his side. He took the man's PDA as well and looked through it, marking any stashes on his own device.
A roar rent the night, followed by another, then another. "That can't be good." Durdan muttered as he chambered a round in his new assault rifle and getting ready to descend the ladder.

Durdan gained:

Merc suitx1
600 rubles

CHECK

[milch]

Globe ran over to the tail half of the destroyed helicopter. It fell directly on top of one of the houses in the village. Globe came over to the ruins and began to search for survivors and gear... Men were buried under the rotting wood and deformed metal, their limbs lying a few meters away form each other. A truly horrible sight, but Globe didn't care, he moved beheaded and disemboweled bodies out of the rubble. He searched their bags for anything valuable and working, but didn't find much. He found a working PDA and transferred all of the data from it onto his own. A message immediately popped up in the 'tasks' menu, it said: "FIND THE PROTOCOLS AND ANY OTHER DOCUMENTS IN THE X-18 LAB". Globe heard many rumours about the X-labs... Stalkers venturing into them and never coming back... "Well this could be valuable..." he thought to himself. He moved on the rest of the bodies and only found paper money and some grenades which somehow haven't exploded yet and some pistols most of them mangled, but one or two still in working condition. He put the loot away into his bag and was to start walking towards the Freedom base and sell his new and old gear to Skinflint when he heard gunshots coming from the semi-destroyed tower. He looked through his binoculars at the tower and saw a Merc at the bottom of it firing at nothing with his AKSU. "Shit... Bloodsuckers!" Globe took his rifle and aimed down the sights. A bloodsucker appeared before the Merc and Globe fired. The bullet hit the monster in the head nearly taking him down, but the Merc finished him off ripping the creature apart with his rattling AKSU... Globe took out the Chaser he got earlier and cocked it "I can't always pick them off from here, I won't always be as accurate..." and he began to sprint towards the fight as fast as he could.

Globe Found: Colt Anaconda, Beretta 92, 1500 rubles, info, some sort of an underground facility map.

CHECK

[Lysander]

Gore splattered his face as the bloodsucker's forhead burst outwards, it fell to its knees, one of it's hands scrabbling uselessly against him, he kicked it and fired a burst into it's chest. Just to make sure. From the rumours, these were as hard to kill as they were deadly. As the bloodsucker fell, he spied a man sprinting towards his position. My rescuer? he thought, but before he could find out a black shape materialized infront of him and bowled him over, his assault rifle was sent spinning out of his grasp.
The bloodsucker opened up it's ring of tentacles and screeched at him, buffeting Durdan with the sickly-sweet smell of decay. He struggled beneath the beast's weight, one of his arms was pinned against his chest but the other was reaching for his knife. His groping fingers met the heavily decorated grip and he stabbed wildly, once in the ribs and once in the neck.
It let out a final foul breath and died, he pushed it off of him and then got up, dusting himself off calmly. When he looked up he found the man looking at him curiously, holding his second in command's colt anaconda.
"Why did you help me." Durdan said, assuming that this man was his saviour.

[milch]

From a distance Globe saw the survivor finishing off the bloodsucker, but then another one appeared right before him and took him to the ground. "He's a dead man..." Globe said to himself, when another roar came from his left. Another monster was running in zigzags towards him going visible and then invisible again at random. Globe took aim at the monster and fired his shotgun. The round hit and the creature began to bleed, but that wasn't enough to stop it. He fire again and again, most bullets hitting their target, but the monster seemed to be unstoppable. Globe dropped his shotgun and quickly took out his new Colt Anaconda and fired all six bullets into the predator who was now only a few steps away. Three bullets hit the monster in the forehead, two in the neck and one most probably missed, the bloodsucker stopped and began to stumble towards it's prey like a drunk man, but Globe was quick to swing his Uzi around from his back and unload the whole clip at the monster's stomach, blood squirting at the loner's face every time the bullets hit. The bloodsucker collapsed before Globe and lay dead. When he turned towards the Merc who he thought dead, Globe was surprised to see that the survivor was getting up from the ground also covered in blood and surprisingly it wasn't his own. The Merc dusted himself of as much dirt and blood as he could and then turned to his 'rescuer'. "Why did you help me?" asked the man Globe was helping. In fact Globe didn't know himself why he decided to help someone he didn't know... For all he knew these guys were here to kill everyone in sight. "Well, I guess it was generally being human, you know... I saw you being attacked and I thought that you would probably do the same thing... But that's not the point." Globe said coldly "Who are you and why are you here?" the loner asked pointing his Colt at the survivor. Only then he remembered that the gun was out of ammo, but his 'hostage' didn't need to know that. He put his hands up and gave Globe an evil, piercing stare.

[Lysander]

"What the hell man?" Durdan looked at his captor. "Why did you save my life, only to point my buddy's pistol at my face?" Durdan couldn't take any chances, he had seen Mikhail loading the powerful pistol just before the crash, it was probably loaded and he did not relish the thought of a large hole in the middle of his forehead. He got up, still holding up his hands. The man looked nervous-obviously he had never had a hostage before.
Durdan looked at the man, He wasn't tall, nor was he short. He didn't look dangerous either but you could never judge a book by its cover.
Durdan spied movement over the mans shoulder, something running closer, fading into thin air and solidifying again everytime it zigzagged.
The stalker heard it as well, but by then it was too late. The beast tackled him to the floor, the man brought the revolver up and tried to fire, bu all that the gun did was make a clicking sound. The man swore and Durdan instinctively reached for his pistol. He whipped his P99 out and shot the mutant twice in the head. The man pushed the corpse off of himself and got up.
"Thanks" He said.
Durdan answered by pointing his pistol at the man and ask. "I was sent into the zone to get any Documents that i could from the X18 lab, we were under orders to try and work with the stalkers if we could, but not let anyone get in our way. That all went to shit when that anomaly tore up my helicopter and my whole squad." He backed up to where his gun was, and picked it up. "You know the fastest way out of this village?"

[milch]

Globe stood up feeling quite embarrassed as his ex-captive now had him under the sight... "Yes, if you are looking for labs you need to go to Yantar and see Prof. Saharov... He knows about all experiments... But you have the maps I guess, and that means so do I. There's two closest bases here: Freedom and Duty... Freedom are anarchist-protectors of the Zone, while Duty is quite the opposite... You'd wanna go to Duty, coz that's where the 100 Rads bar is, you can get your stuff together there, I can take you there..." the Merc agreed to the proposition and they began to walk towards the Freedom checkpoint between the two territories. They went down the hill on top of which the village and the crash site were and got onto a concrete road. Globe had his rifle at the ready because in the Zone you could expect anything, and having an uncle at the Cordon like himself doesn't help in every situation... They got to the checkpoint and after telling the guards who they were they left the official boundaries of the Army Warehouses... They entered Rostok at dawn and headed straight for the bar. When they came into the bar it was quite empty which was a rare occurrence of the place. Durdan went over to one of the many free tables and sat on a box, taking out a bottle of vodka out of his bag. Globe came over to Barkeep and put all of the loot he wanted to sell onto the counter. He sold his TT-33, PMm, IMI Uzi, Beretta 92 and his Rookie Jacket. Overall he gained 7350 rubles. Then he came over to the table Durdan was sitting at and dumped the Chaser and the Colt 1911 in front of him. "Here" Globe muttered "Moral compensation" and sat down next to the Merc pouring some vodka into his mug...

Money Gained: 7350 Rubles
Items Lost: TT-33, PMm, IMI Uzi, Beretta, Rookie Jacket, Chaser 13, Colt 1911