With the gorilla-like deadhead in front of us, we didn't even bother to double-tap it because it was already quadruple-tapped and an eight of its skull had littered the floor. But in which case, Tatiana took it upon herself to pull out her axe and dismember its huge arms by its shoulder joint.
It was likely that we'd just burn all of them in one pile later but an upgrade or a minion like this for a random stitcher would be fucking trouble.
But yeah, more and more disfigured deadheads came out of the woodwork and joined the horde we split in two with Artem who was on the other end of the street, but we were all shooting at an angle to avoid unnecessary strays hitting us from the crossfire.
"KALEY! I'M GOING IN!"
"GOTCHA! I'LL CALL OVER ONE OF THE CADETS FOR RELOADING MAGS!"
"ALRIGHT! ALRIGHT! TATIANA, I'LL WAIT FOR YOU WITH IBARRA!"
"JUST ABOUT DONE!"
"ME TOO!"
"CARE FOR THAT UPTURNED VAN BRO, ALRIGHT?!"
"YEAH! YEAH! I'LL THROW A GRENADE AT IT IF WORST COMES TO WORST!"
With that said, I pulled on the straps of my rifle to fasten it on my back—after pulling out fresh mags from our ammo cans and switching it with the depleted ones in my chest rig—before I zoomed past the cluster of dead sprinters and hacked the dregs along the way.
And right on cue, Tatiana swung at an off-angle and wasn't able to reach her target because her axe came in from its left cheek and stopped right on its eyeball—barely missing its critical weakpoint—but she made use of our injector system to get that oomph she was looking for.
I actually thought she'd just kick it off and just try again—like I would in that case—but she still needed to make sure if her new toy would work in critical situations such as these.
It's true that they were only reserved for an encounter with a Hulker but what's the point of having them if she'd just lose everything from a bad swing?
But yeah, using them on something that would break open from a normal impact was fucking messy because the coagulated blood inside their heads just sprayed all over and most of them got onto Tatiana's clothes and protective gear.
Even though she was wearing a face mask and eye protection on top of her helmet, I took it upon myself to give her plenty of space to retreat by pulling out my pistol, hanging back, and then emptying the whole mag while taking down the deadheads in front of me one-handed.
"IT'S JUST BLOOD!"
"IT'S JUST BLOOD ALL OVER YOU! IT'LL TAKE JUST A MINUTE TO WIPE DOWN AND COME BACK! DON'T BE FUCKING STUBBORN—"
And as I was in mid-sentence, a bullet whizzed by my cheek as a smaller deadhead which seemed to be a kid that got its face bitten off collapsed on its fragile knees—as the lead projectile entered its forehead—even before getting to high school.
I was focused on a lot of things to notice a very small target sneaking its baby teeth on me, but Tatiana and I got the hint as I focused on what's in front of me while she sprinted back to not look like that character on that prom night covered in blood.
Then Ibarra suddenly lobbed a grenade overhead:
"FIRE IN THE HOLE!"