Chapter CIX: The Pale Horse

 Gunshots echoed throughout lab X-3, the muzzle flashes being the only light in the darkness that had engulfed the whole facility on the day its few lightsources died out. A stalwart man in a black and white exoskeleton lumbered down the corridors, blasting away at spectres haunting him, his Winchester shotgun booming like a hammer striking iron. Diodor's eyes were bloodshot, his hands shaking, every bit of movement in the dark his enemy. And as he went, he cursed the phantoms.

The Stormfront facility did not have many mutants compared to the other Group bases now scattered around the Zone, abandoned for years. It also lacked the Monolith guard echelon of Radar or War Lab. Yet it was no less defenseless, its psi-field seeping into the minds of Strelok's companions, disassembling their defences, prodding their weaknesses, forcing its claws into their biggest insecurities. For Zakarov it had been the traumatic experiences in the Darkscape sawmill. For Fiend it had been his past as OMON operator, fighting in Chechnya. For father Diodor however, it struck his fear of the Devil, creating images of sheer unnatural demons into his vision. As a devour priest, the visions struck him to panic, but not a freezing, incapacitating, but one that made him lash out.

Master, Diodor's loyal friend, was meanwhile struck with dehabilitating headache, making him hunker down on the floor while shaking and retching. It was not so much a headache created by some source within the body, but one created by Master's greatest fear, a pain of losing his craftmanship, his greatest skill and the one thing that had kept him going after starting a new life in the Zone. Much like Zakarov, he was too badly bombarded by psychic energy to continue. Strelok's guards had failed him, and he would have to keep going without them. The man himself had realized this as soon as his companions went berserk, after an attack from a lost group of zombies.

He, Rogue and Stitch immediately downed pills that countered or dulled the effects of psychic attacks, but the situation still seemed grim. The tunnels seemed to stretch on forever, and there was no end in sight. Sometimes they would arrive upon a room lined up with mold-covered cabinets, often inhabited by a zombie or two. Quick machine gun fire dispatched the wretched creatures as soon as they came into the cone of the flashlights. Other times the tunnels had collapsed, and sometimes daylight forced its way in through the cracks in the piles. Thankfully most of the routes were blocked this way, otherwise it may have taken hours to circle around the compound. Hours the squad did not have.

• How do we know that the way to the emission machine is not blocked too?, Rogue asked, breaking the almost complete silence of the facility, disturbed prior only by the humming of the enormous generators.

• How do you think those machines are kept running? Things that size probably need at least some maintenance, somebody has to come here sometimes to fix things up, Stitch said in a mocking tone.

• Alright, alright, no need to be an ass, Rogue conceded.

• Besides, I have a feeling were getting closer. This hallway looks like it has lot of machinery related to some psi-emitter apparatus, Strelok said, inspecting the decrepit and defunct machinery rusting by the walls.

• Man, you've been with Kruglov too much, you're beginning to sound like him, Rogue commented.

• You should've seen him back in 2012, man was a walking thesaurus. He's gotten a lot more... sociable over the years, by Ecologist standards at least, Strelok mused, a small smile on his lips as he reminisced of his amnesiac times before continuing.

• But now is not the time for campfire tales, and I'm not the man for that job either, so let's keep going. I think I see some emergency lights ahead.

• Any light is welcome after this damn blackness, this place is darker than my babushka's kvass, Stitch groaned.

Just as he finished his sentence, a gunshot rang out and struck the wall next to them, the flame from the barrel lighting up the entire corridor in a flash. Rogue immediately replied with his PKM, and the tight space made it feel like the entire labyrinth was shaking under its weight. Strelok's SIG sniper joined the battle as well, and the ambusher soon found himself outgunned, falling back as ricochets and concrete dust swirled by. While the attacker escaped, Strelok caught a glimpse of his attire, one that clearly belonged to a Sinner. Not that surprising, he thought, loading up a fresh magazine into the gun.

• Sinners, should've guessed. Push on, there can't be many if they're playing dirty, Strelok commanded, and his men rushed forward.

The lone gunman was trying to escape up a spiral staircase in a similar gigantic room as that found in the Miracle Machine facility. Strelok raised his rifle optic to his eye and fired once, killing the runner on spot. He fell down the staircase, and dropped down to the exhaust ring down the very bottom, splashing against the grate there with a sound that made Stitch retch. Rogue's machine gun swung around like that of an automated turret, ready to focus on any offensive threat. Nothing came however, it seemed like the Sinner had been here alone.

The three Stalkers ascended up the spiral, observing the location as they went. It was almost a carbon copy of the X-16 facility, but instead of a colossal brain this one had a fascinating structure charging power up the emission machine. Their pace was quickening as the sheer size of the machine revealed itself, and the three men raced up the staircases and platforms. There was a taste of metal in their mouths and a strengthening headache in their skulls, the air felt strange. Energy was gathering into the machine. Strelok still held out hope however, they had not come this far to see Chernobog's plan succeed. While rushing up the spiral structure, Strelok practically shouted into the radio a warning to Kruglov, without knowing if the scientist was even alive.

On the final floor they found a control panel with a switch on it. Strelok closed in on it, checking the readings on the machine. Apparently it could be used to cut power to the machine. He slammed down the switch, but nothing seemed to happen at first.

• Suka bly..., Strelok managed curse, but he was cut out as explosion threw him against the wall behind him, making the legendary stalker hang on to his conciousness by a mere string of willpower.

Rogue and Stitch had not been as lucky, similarly thrown back but also unconcious. The entire control panel was blown off, but the machine kept going, charging up its power. Strelok saw a wave of blue energy advance up the machine, scorching electronic as it went, plunging the entire hall into pitch black darkness. A single mechanical voice commented that emission level five was charged now and would be released. On the last shreds of his cognitive power, Strelok managed to remember that this was the level of power the First Emission had had so many years ago. A clean slate for the Zone, a rebirth of sorts. The Mother of All Emissions had been avoided, but this one would be quite the disaster as well.

For a second the Generators grew silent. All mutants had seeked shelter, Redemption had entered War Labs, Monolith and Sin fighters above ground lay dead or wounded, coughing up their last drops of blood. Crows rained from the skies, too startled to find cover. Boghdan, caring for his feverish companion safe inside the bunker, looked outside in horror, the only witness to this enormous energy release.

The blue wave of energy flowed into the Generator structures, making the buzz and crackle for a few seconds. A rumbling comparable to that of a gigantic volcano erupting ringed in the air, and following it came a storm of radiation and pure, unleashed Zone energy. The essence of Noosphere. It ripped away the blue skies, painting them in the deep shapes of red and orange. White sheets of clouds were replaced by a monolith of a cloud, hued crimson, overtaking the entire horizon. Earth shook, trees fell, ground shattered and some of the least well-constructed buildings collapsed. The tsunami of fire and wrath sweeped across the land, disintegrating any biological life caught in its wake. Screeches and screams of tortured spirits tormented those who were lucky enough to have reached shelter, and the pleads, demands and cries of these ethereal spirits drove the most weak-minded into suicide.

Army helicopters were smacked out of the skies, lone stalkers caught in the open scorched on spot, joining the undead hordes of Zombified or the controlled legions of Monolith. The general alert given out by the Ecologists before this cataclysm had saved many a soul, but this emission caught those hiding in previously "safe" locations unaware. Outside of the Zone, Ukrainian military officials and scientific personnel alike collectively lost their marbles as reports swarmed in from all over the nation reporting of electronic devices failing, earthquakes destroying property and even casualties ranging from unexplainable brain damage to people swerving off the road due to the ground shaking. Even over Kiev, flocks of birds would fall out of the sky, dead as stones. And the horizon unnaturally red even as far as London, prompting high-ranking officials to launch investigations to these strange sets of Aurora Borealis over Europe.

Father Diodor, having escaped the dangerous maze of psychic energies through a forgotten side tunnel leading outside, a way he had no recollection of finding, watched the events unfold. Like in all times of crisis in his life, he could only explain it through his faith. And only a single thing escaped his lips on this moment of sheer fear and awe:

• Behold a pale horse, and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him, Diodor muttered, dropping his now empty weapon to the floor with a resounding clatter. The Templar's crusade was over, and like his ancestors decade ago, he had been defeated.