Bandana sighed as he watched a flash from the hillside above. Slacks had confirmed the sabotage team had entered the building, and it was up to him to be the main show. He pressed his back to a building as he leaned around a corner. Two Worms walked past in silence. Whether they spoke to each other in any way was unknown, but Bandana often wondered if they had some silent communication. Could they be bantering about the bad guard shift hour? Could they be talking about sports? If their foes were truly inhuman, would such activities be just as foreign to them as their appearance suggested?

Bandana cocked his rifle and pressed the stock to his shoulder.

“I waste time in thoughts; come, let us contend with these bad lots,” the man shouted as he jumped around from the corner. The Worms were stunned momentarily by his rhyme, and he didn’t waste the opportunity to put three bullets in the closest one before retreating behind the building.

If the invaders used alarms, none in the group had ever heard them, but no matter what, once a firefight started, they were sure to crawl out of the woodwork. Bandana had barely escaped the back of the first building when three more Worms emerged and gave chase. “You’ll have to try harder than that; I’m as fast as a cat!” Bandana shouted back, stunning the three long enough to escape around a corner and into a new crowd of Worms. He tried to back up, gun at the ready, when three more invaders cut off his escape.

“I must admit, I walked into some shit.” He fired into one.

The Worms shuddered from Bandana’s words, and a lucky shot from Slacks brought the injured Worm down to the ground. Bandana jumped over the dead Worm with a nod and ran down the town’s street. “Give chase if you must, but I’ll leave you all in the dust!” he shouted to the Worms that gave chase, causing a couple in the front to trip and fall.

Bandana laughed loudly but frowned as he felt near his chest. He had freshly loaded magazines tucked in his shirt pockets, but the number of Worms was worrying. Rhyming didn’t pair well with gunfire, and he would be at risk as soon as he needed to unload.

“For now, I stall, then we brawl,” he confirmed to himself just before a flash of fiery energy sailed past his head—burning the tip of the fluttering bandana—and left a hole in the ground just before his feet. “Hmm,” Bandana muttered as he looked back. The Worms had given up chasing and were armed with guns. From two of the buildings on the side, a pair of Reapers emerged and locked in on him. “This could be bad; I don’t have the same energy I did as a lad.”