Episode 6: The Beginning of the End

Sarah, Jack, and Nick all walked with their guns slowly, they stopped by the trees and kneeled over and huddled up. Sarah looked at them and said, "Okay so we gotta play the part as escapees from Gate City, as far as their concerned we are holding hostages, which we are so don't blow our cover, according to Will the other night, they don't take names often because they don't give a shit, as long as you look the part they let you in." Nick looked at the gate and said, "That's so dumb" Jack looked at the guard and responded with, "Well nobody is dumb enough to mess with them like we are." Sarah stood up and said, "On the count to three we run over there and remember our story, don't fai..." They were knocked out quickly and it all went dark.

Held Captive:

Jax slapped Jack to wake him up, he looked around and saw Sarah and Nick tied to chairs already gagged so they don't speak. Jax looked at Jack and said, "Where's Ryker?" Jack started to laugh, Jax looked at him and said in an aggressive way, "The fuck so funny prick?" Jack looked at him with a big smiled and said, "We killed the little asshole... You're next." Jack continued to laugh, Jax stood up and said, "Ya fucked up, you see, his death puts me in charge and that just means that I decide what happens to you." Jack looked at him and said, "Do your worst." Sarah knew that the fact that they were taking too long would make James start the assault the hard way. Jax got a radio call from Carlos, his new second in command and Jax handed the reigns of torture over to the guard in there to continue torturing information out of the trio.

Jack also knew that James would be on his way fast with Nick, the man continued to punch Jack, he looked at the man and said, "You swing like a bitch" he was getting filled with rage, as he went for another punch Jack used that to his advantage. Jack moved his chair until it fell and it tripped him, as he fell he landed by Jack, he moved his head over to bite a finger off, as the man screamed out of pain, the trio used this as a good opportunity to try to escape. When Jack fell, the old blade he had came out of his pant leg. Sarah used her foot to kick it to Jack's hands, as the man went to kill Jack, he was already untying himself. Jack got his hands free and as he went to shoot Jack, he threw the knife into his throat. As he fell on his face, the knife went further in and went through to the other end, "One problem down, two more to go, we need to get out now." Jack was rubbing his foot ropes around the knife and eventually he got free.

Jack ran over to the others and used the knife in the guys pocket to cut them free, as Sarah removed her gag she said, "We need to go and get this done, James should be here any minute now." Nick grabbed the gun from off the floor and said, "We should leave him to turn, we could use that as a distraction." Jack slowly cracked open the door and said, "Alright, it's clear, let's go now." Sarah looked around the building and said, "Where the hell is everyone?" Nick looked out the window and said, "There's a bunch outside, so there probably isn't many in here luckily." Nick looked at the end of the hall and said, "New plan, lets get the hell out, everybody will shoot on sight if they see us, we just need to find Carlos and Clara forget about contacting James, since he will be here we need to act fast."

The trio began to walk down the hall quietly, they made some turns, they saw an open door, Jack peaked in and saw some lady working on some medical equipment. "We could get some info off her, Sarah take the right, Nick the left, I'll go for her." Nick and Sarah went in their directions fast. They held whatever weapons they found at her as Jack walked up to her with a knife. Jack aimed it at her as she put her hands up, "Where's Carlos and Clara..." Clara looked at him and said in a scared tone, "I... I'm Clara..." Jack looked at her and noticed the fear in her eyes and lowered his gun and asked, "You're too scared to either be her or be a third in command." Clara looked at them and made sure nobody else was around and said, "It was all an act, I chose to survive so I bent the knee, worked my way up to here, I've been preparing to leave since Ryker wasn't around, but Jax is still a problem, Carlos was last seen in the courtyard." Sarah walked up to her and said, "Unlike Ryker and Jax we will give you a choice to live, it wasn't you that we really wanted, it was the people behind all those lives who were murdered, but we need your help to convince the others to lower their guns and choose life. You guys won't be really free at first but over time I promise James will help you all, build this place up to be a better place for others. Prove you don't want to be apart of the killing." Clara lowered her hands slowly and nodded.

Nick looked out the door and he signaled for them to start walking, they all walked down the old hallway and Clara looked to the right and said, "I know this seems dumb but our best bet is through the west wing of the building, it's infested, we haven't cleared it out entirely yet but nobody is there so we should be able to get to the blocked off portion of the courtyard easily, if we're smart about this." Sarah already went to the door to open it, "Well lets not waste any time, James is on the way and we need to get to these people fast before all hell breaks loose, do you think Carlos will fall in line?" Clara looked at her and said, "Carlos and Jax go way back, he will fight against you guys." Sarah left it at that as they began to enter the west wing slowly.

The West Wing:

Sarah looked around slowly and didn't see much in there, it was pitch black in there and windows were blocked off so no light got in. Sarah looked in some rooms and saw nothing, "It smells like rotting corpses in here but I don't see any." Clara replied with, "They must be around here somewhere, but watch out, some walkers were splashed with chemicals from the labs in this wing, so we got radioactive, and other highly toxic walkers here, some acids have stuck to the walkers in these little pouches on their skin and pop easily so let's keep our distance." Nick looked around some and said, "Why am I not surprised." Jack saw an exit sign to some stairs and said, "I hope to god that exit sign gets us the hell out." They began to walk closer and heard a growl coming from a lab by them, Clara knew that it was those toxic walkers she mentioned. She looked at them and saw the glow from the radioactive mess on it and said, "It sees us, fucking run!!!" They all ran as fast as they could as this bloated walker followed them. Nick tried hard to close the door but struggled so they continued to run down the stairs. Nick was grabbed by a walker through the broken door, he watched as the bloated one approached him slowly, "shit shit shit shit" He saw as his skin was burning, the stairs above eventually caved in due to the big walker, as it fell all of it's pouches exploded. Sarah, Clara and Jack were in the clear but Nick was sprayed, Sarah screamed for him but they knew there wasn't anything they could do.

Jack grabbed Sarah and said quickly, "We can't do anything now, he's gone, there's nothing we can do, let's go, we can't stay here." Sarah struggled but eventually slowly followed, they ran down the stairs as they heard his screams as he was both being bit and burnt by the acid. Clara used her key to bust open the door on the ground floor, Sarah saw an opening in the vent since the door was blocked. Sarah ran up to it, Jack got boosted up as he did Sarah looked at the vent through the window and quickly went to grab Jack but it was too late, he had fallen into the floor below. "Shit, how do we get to him Clara." Clara said to her, "We gotta get that blockage out, we should be safe in there but I wouldn't say the same for him so lets hurry."

Jack got up slowly and grabbed his knife, he looked up to see another acidic walker walking to him, there was this glow from the pouches, it's growl sounded like it was underwater. Jack quickly got up and started to run to the exit, as soon as he got to it some old security guards with armor walked out, Jack looked at this and said, "Fucking shit" Jack looked around to see if there was anything to use, he saw an old gun lying around. He ran to it and grabbed it but it was jammed, he saw the acid pouch on the walkers face and thought of an idea.

Jack quickly threw the gun at it's head, as the pouch exploded the walkers head was exposed, the acid was all over the floor. Jack ran around and saw an old fire extinguisher and grabbed it, he knew he couldn't get too close. But the other two walkers were closing in so he jumped up on the computer desks and waited for the bloated oe to get closer. He kicked the desk over and when the walker got close he threw it at it's head. The walker was killed right away, as it fell acid got everywhere from the pouches that were crushed, the desk protected him well, the other two walkers were hit by a lot of it.

Jack got up fast and took a big wrench from the floor and smacked one walker on the head, and followed that with a swing to the other one. He took turns on each one eventually killing them, he was covered in blood after that, he then said after dropping the wrench, "God I hope this blood is clean... ish" he slowly walked to the door, he was out of breath but kept going, eventually Clara opened the door and Sarah looked around with a gun. "The hell happened here?" Jack looked at the corpses and said, "I hate this shit so much, let's get the hell out of here." Clara looked down the hall and said, "It's just down here." They walked quickly to the end of the hall, already done with that place.

Sarah opened the door to the courtyard and shut the door fast, she looked over to the blockade that quarantines that area off. Clara walked over and signaled for them to walk up, they looked through the cracks and saw Jax and Carlos rounding people up to begin prepping for a fight. Sarah looked at this and said, "We climb over this when James arrives, when he does he should go in by blowing a hole in the wall." Jack sat down and leaned against the wall and said, "LEt's get comfortable then."

The Final Stretch:

Dex looked ahead in the truck and said, "Mel you see that down there?" Mel looked closer and saw James and the convoy parked out, getting ready to strike. Dex told her to stop by them, she eventually did and they got out. James walked up to Mel and looked at Dex and said, "Mel... How are you?" Mel looked at him as they hugged and said, "I'm here to help put an end to these people and to get my friends back." James looked at Dex and went to shake his hand and said, "Hello son, I'm Captain James H. Monroe, and who might you be?" Dex shook his hand and said, "Aid... Dex, I'm an old friend of Sarah's" James knew who he was right away and said, "I've heard about you... Sarah and Jack and another person went in to try and peacefully end this with limited casualties but they haven't reported back in a while so we need to go now before something happens, they should have signaled us an hour ago." Dex looked at Mel and then at James and said, "Let's go get them." Dex looked at Izzy, Jim, Will, Mitch, Dom who were walking up to him, he greeted each one, they all got ready to go and get their friends back and finally end the conflict.

They all loaded up into their vehicles and began the final stretch. They were on the road for a short time, eventually they made it to the new HQ. James got out and noticed the lack of guards and he pulled his revolver out and fired two rounds, and yelled, "Jax where are you, coward!" Over at the courtyard Clara, Sarah, Jack heard the gunshots and began climbing when the soldiers moved out to investigate. Sarah looked at the prisoner holding spot and said, "We gotta free those people there now before they get killed." The trio ran over and Clara began unlocking the gate, David, a man working there walked up to the fence and said, "Who are you?" Sarah looked at them all in there and said, "A friend" David quickly gathered the few that were left in there, Oliver, Mary, Christy, Amir who were the only ones left from Mel's crew. Amir walked over to Clara and said, "What about the others in the other holding cell?" Clara looked at him and said, "We'll get to them, we first have to take out Jax and Carlos."

The large group kept running stealthily through the courtyard, they eventually made it to the main building which leads to the front of the new HQ. Sarah looked at the gate and lifted the heavy bar from the gate and looked at everyone and said, "Don't do anything stupid." Clara opened the door and they all slowly got through, Jack closed it behind them. Clara looked over at Jax off in the distance but didn't see Carlos. "Where's Carlo..." Carlos aimed his shot gun at her head and said, "Behind you traitor." Jack got up and punched him, David grabbed him and guns were fired around. Carlos' small crew there were overpowered fast leading to them being held hostage.

Sarah approached the others with Carlos and said out loud, "Jax! Surrender now or I will kill him, and the others. Don't test me!" Dex from the other side of the wall heard her voice and got happy and said quietly, "Sarah..." Jax looked at Sarah and said, "Fucking do it, I won't give up a damn thing, just know that pulling that motherfucking trigger will lead to your death so don't try it!" Sarah looked at him and calmed down a bit and said, "You don't have to do any of this, just give up and put an end to the bloodshed, you don't have to do this, there is a peaceful option here that ends in all of us getting what we want, just think about how much easier things would be if we worked together instead of against each other, I mean look at how much Gate City has developed, look at your firepower and ability to recover quick from a hard blow like the one at the Compound that day. You can walk away from this, we all can, no more bloodshed... Ryker is all we needed, your people back at Gate City are alive, we are giving them a second chance, same as you... Make the right call. End it now..." Jax looked at her and lowered his gun a bit and said, "There is no working with you pricks after what you did to my best friend, after what James did to us all those years ago, I'll fucking end it alright."

Jax pulled his gun out again and shot Carlos in the face, Sarah dropped him fast, James took this opportunity to shoot Jax. Jax was hit on the side and as he fell off the wall he almost died but didn't quite. James looked at them all and said, "We are giving you all a second chance, don't waste that! Don't you get it!?" the Raiders there saw how Jax was badly hurt and Ryker was dead, they didn't see any other option but didn't want to die, Clara knew she still had power so she walked up to the Raiders and said, "Accept this second chance, become something better... Think about all we will accomplish if you put your guns down and help us build a new civilization... We won't get anywhere if we live out our lives at eachothers throats."

The Raiders all had time to think and lowered their guns, one walked up to Clara and said, "We trust you. You've always been there for us when Ryker and Jax weren't" Clara smiled at the person and said, "Open the gate, lets start a new life... A better life." The gates were slowly opened, Dex was the first one to enter, he looked around and saw Sarah standing there, they made eye contact. Sarah dropped her gun and they approached each other to get a better look, Sarah looked at Dex and said faintly, "I thought I lost you..." Dex looked at Sarah and responded to her saying, "Like I said before, I'll find my way home to you, no matter what." Mel entered after some others and saw what remained of her group, they ran to each other and greeted each other quickly. James looked at the sun setting and said to Clara, "I trust that you will lead these people into a better future..." Clara looked at him and smiled a bit and nodded, "You got it cap." James laughed a bit and said, "I'm no cap anymore, I'm simply just trying to get by just like you." Clara looked at everyone there and said, "I can tell we are just entering our new beginnings."