Rebirth in the Apocalypse: Third Time's a Charm



The hot bullet cut through my right upper chest, a hands width away from my head. 'Beta, kill,' I growled out through my link before sinking back into the depths of the warm waters. I could feel creatures shooting past me on either side, but I couldn't move.

I was no longer wearing the oxygen hose, and I couldn't move any part of my body well enough to be able to insert it. I briefly thought about jumping into my space, but since there was no one else there right now…

What was I thinking about?

Why is this water so frigging cold? I thought the East Sea was supposed to be warm.

Hummm…. Warm. It would be nice to be warm right now…

Why does it hurt to breathe?

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"Our Queen!" screamed Ares as Wang Chao fought to hold on to the handlebars of the bike. It felt like he had just been shot in the chest, but that was impossible.

His breath started to come out in gasps as he tried to understand what was going on.

"Ares?" he asked as his teeth started to chatter from the cold. He was about 20 minutes away from the place where he agreed to meet Commander Huang Nian Zu and the others. 

"Queen has been shot," ground out Bin An Sha as he, too, clutched his chest. The bike under him swerved a few times before straightening up.

'Good. Let the Bitch die. Maybe the next one with be more worthy of me,' sneered War from inside the dark recess of Wang Chao's mind.

"Faster," said Wang Chao, and Ares put on a burst of speed. "We need to get there faster."

"Then hold on," replied the bike under Wang Chao. For a moment, it felt like he was sitting on a horse instead of a motorcycle, rocking along in time with the cantering of four legs. "Where do you want to go?" demanded Ares as he put on another burst.

Now the scenery around them was nothing more than a dark blur, and Wang Chao could feel leather reigns in his hands instead of the handlebars he was more familiar with. Opening his eyes as wide as he could, he saw that instead of a bike, he was on top of a black horse covered in golden armor. There were spikes down its mane, and Wang Chao could have sworn that he had seen red lights coming out of its eyes.

"Who are you?" demanded the horse. However, the mouth that the horse was using to speak from was filled with sharp, pointed teeth, looking more like a lion's mouth than a normal horse's. "Who are you!" it demanded again.

"I am War," growled Wang Chao, the words coming from a place deep inside of himself, even deeper than where the soul of War was hiding.

'You aren't War,' screamed the second soul as it tried to make its way to the surface. 'I am War. I am the only War that matters. You are not War!' 

"Who are you?!?" the horse screamed as it turned its head around to look at Wang Chao, its red eyes piercing into the very depths of the man himself.

"I AM WAR!!!" shouted Wang Chao, and as soon as the words were out of his mouth, he could feel the second soul inside of him turning into a white mist and leaving his body.  The hooves of the horse started to pound on the ground even faster as it dropped its head and sprinted.

As the wind screamed past him, Wang Chao could feel something descending on him. Glancing briefly at his right arm, he saw that he was covered in golden armor, the same color and pattern as the horse under him.

"Do you understand who you are?" demanded the horse as it continued to eat up the distance between them and their queen as fast as it could.

"I am War," replied Wang Chao, but even as he said it, it didn't feel right. "I am the Queen's War."

As soon as he uttered those words, a chill passed over him, and he could feel the hairs on his arms stand at attention.

"At last, you understand," grunted the horse as it started to slow down. "I will bring you to her. Just make sure that you save her."

"Understood," grunted Wang Chao as a helmet descended down onto his head and face.

He blinked, and suddenly, he was sitting on top of a horse in the middle of a boat on the East Sea. There were screams as military men were being ripped apart by zombies right in front of him. The boat rocked back and forth as the men tried to get away, but there were more zombies waiting for them in the ocean. "Help us!" cried a man that looked like Commander Huang Nian Zu, but Wang Chao simply ignored him.

His gaze quickly scanned inside the boat for his Queen, but when he couldn't see her there, he turned his attention to the horizon, wondering where she was.

'In the water,' came the voice of his horse inside of his head. Without thinking about the fact that he was dressed in solid golden armor or that he didn't have any equipment to even be in the water, he stood up on his horse and dove into the water.

Nothing mattered to him but getting to Li Dai Lu.

Getting to the woman he loved, his Queen.

Like a golden streak, he cut through the water, through the zombies and the sharks that were in his way, and past the large group of people. 'Left,' came the voice again, this time sounding more like the Ares he knew.

He pushed his right arm down, sending him to the left, and there, drifting down to the bottom of the ocean, was Li Dai Lu, her black hair flowing around her like ink.

Looking around, confused, he finally spotted Liu Wei, Liu Yu Zeng, and Chen Zi Han struggling to get to her, but they seemed to be going so much slower than he was.

'You control time, remember?' chuckled Ares, but Wang Chao couldn't see anything funny about the current situation.