"Hey Mike, wake up."
That was the first thing Michael heard as his eyes began to open, blinking at the dim light inside the train car. He looked down at his hands, seeing the usual charcoal-gray marks on his palms. His gray hair shifted to the side as he turned to look up at Joseph.
"Yeah, I'm up, Joseph."
Joseph, his friend and squad-mate, stood beside him, next to the train door. They had met in initial training, and were put in the same unit. He had mildly tanned white skin, flowing blond hair that went to his shoulders, similar to a mullet, and well worn aviator jacket on, with his actual military uniform lying below it. Below his jacket, was some blue jeans that was a bit more black than any blue, like it was covered with soot, and his weapon of choice being a revolver, hooked to the side of it.
"Man, you look like you've seen death. You're like, 21, and you already have grey hair?" Joseph joked.
Michael pushed himself up from the floor. "I didn't choose my hair color. Why did you wake me up, anyways? We haven't made it to the place yet."
Joseph explained, "Roy had some oh-so important information to tell us, that he should have just told us back at our barracks instead."
After saying this, Joseph lamented, "Ugh, from what the briefing told us, this is gonna be one hell of a job."
Michael asked, while listening to Joseph express his great dissatisfaction with the current situation, "No use in complaining, though."
Joseph said, "Just as you didn't choose your hair color, I didn't originally want to be a cop. I would much rather be cooking a grand dish in my restaurant, which I will also establish by the way, and talking with my beautiful partner."
As Joseph finished speaking, a voice buzzed out from the radio. "Stop daydreaming, we have work to do, Joseph." It was Roy, who had joined their team later through training. He was more of a cooperative person, and was the glue in the team, in and out of combat. He was also the person who most questioned Michael and especially Joseph's plans, if you could even call them that. He was the main strategist. "I'm still packing into the new barracks, which is why I'm doing communications back here."
Roy said, "Anyways, here's the details. Usually, this would be the job of a higher ranked squad, but since they're busy, the police has to handle the work. This place is a old factory, that was abandoned a bit after the war, it used to make guns and such. Now, it has a bunch of gangsters locked up in it, defending something. Our job, is to knock them out, and find out what they're hiding."
Joseph said, "So, per usual, us two have to do the jobs that would be done with large, vast forces, on our own. Good to know that I'm still the MVP."
Michael brushed his hair off his face. "Alright, we get the assignment."
Roy said, "Then, I hope to see you all soon. Send a radio ping when you're ready, I should be there in 10." before leaving the radio channel. Don't do it until you're sure everybody's knocked out, wouldn't want to attract unknown attention.
Michael and Joseph activated their armor, and took out their respective weapons, with Michael having his military uniform on, it being a sharp navy blue hue. He also had a sword attached at his side, specially made to attune with Mana.
Joseph told Michael, "Alright Magic Man, make sure not to overheat in your own flames."
Michael grinned, "Don't shoot yourself either."
The train slowed down to a halt. Michael pressed the palm of his hand on to the wall of the train. In a second, the mark on his hand grew bright red, and the wall was instantly blown out onto the ground, with what seemed to be armed gangsters running out from the shadows of the factory, holding guns and what appeared to be empty tanks, similar to what gasoline would be held in. Michael and Joseph jumped off of the train, onto the ground below. There were several trucks at the stop, with cargo seemingly loaded in there, and a whole loading area around them.
The gangsters readied their guns, and Michael and Joseph nodded at each other, before moving into action. The gangsters began to fire at them, and Michael struck the ground, with a wall of flames erupted, melting the bullets before they could impact. Joseph began loading special bullets, enchanted to be non-lethal and to focus on knocking the enemies out. He began firing the bullets, taking out a couple of the gangsters, while Michael rushed forward, hitting each gangster with one strong tap from the end of his sword, knocking them out. After a bit of mild resistance, the gangsters fell, leaving only Michael and Joseph. Michael and Joseph started breaching the facility, meeting light resistance from small groups of them. They made sure to knock out the gangsters and to place them on the train.
As they made it into the inner part of the building, Michael readied himself, when Joseph yelled, "Stop!"
Michael turned to him, "What's up?"
Joseph pointed down, "Look."
Michael looked, seeing a liquid all over the floors and walls. "Gasoline?"
Joseph replied, "You think that they predicted that we were here?"
Michael began to step forward, "I can't imagine they did." Michael would lower the amount of mana imbued in his sword.
By the time they reached the final room to clear out, they were both covered in soot, dust, and a bit of blood. The last room was a large, cylindrical one, filled with computers and filing cabinets. There was a indented part of the floor in the middle, and they walked around in it, checking for hostiles.
Joseph leaned on the wall, "We've gone through most, if not all of this building, and haven't found anything worth defending. How about I ping Roy?"
"Sure, call him. We've knocked out about 40 people by now, I'd say there can't be that more in here." Michael replied.
As Joseph sets up the radio, Michael said, "So, anything interesting happen lately?"
Joseph replied, "Didn't know that you had small talk in you, but yeah, I guess I did hear about something pretty interesting. I heard from some gossip, that, apparently, there's a large case going on in the city, some people are getting turned into some weird monster-things, and going on a rampage. They can't really find anything about them, due to how violent the presumed victims are, as it's usually missing people who end up found like that."
Michael grimaced, "Hopefully, we aren't stuck with the job to handle those things."
Joseph laughed, "Yeah, knowing our luck, we'd probably find one."
As soon as the radio pinged, a computer started up, like it took signal from the radio. Joseph walked up to the computer, confused. It read, "Confirmation acquired, temporarily releasing Subject Bay lock." Joseph tried to stop the computer, but the indented part of the floor opened, elevating what appeared to be a old mech. As Michael looked at the mech, it started creaking. It was covered in scratch marks, and feathers. There was a clipboard on the ground, that read, "Test Subject 33: Subject Information: Former occupation was a Pilot. When exposed to the fluid, status quickly deteriorated, though overall strength met the required threshold. Result: Failure, did not meet requirements. Presented uncontrollable form and consciousness, did not have enough strength to maintain proper form and consciousness was akin to a wild animal, unfitting of a creature with the moniker "Angel". Recommended Actions: Dispose of subject and site. The Doctor did not approve."
Joseph walked over, and asked, "What the hell is all this?"
Michael said, "Either some creative writing, or some kind of sick experiment."
Joseph said, "Just what I needed, to be a guinea pig for some kinda mutant-thing."
Michael replied, "That makes the gasoline make a lot more sense... They weren't trying to keep us out..."
As Michael said that, the mech creaked louder, and cracks started to form in it. Shining light blazed out of the chest cockpit and cracks. Michael and Joseph jumped back, to see the entire thing collapse. When the dust dispersed, they saw in front of them, something they've never seen or heard of in their lives. They saw, what appeared to be a large, human-sized bird, with some human attributes. It's wings were white, with feathers that seemed to be made out of steel. It's claws were made of a similar material, with it's entire body being covered in little patches of the thing, and it had runes of a unknown origin on it's body. It was flying in the air, when it saw Michael and Joseph. It let out a ear-piercing screech, before pulling it's wings infront of it, shooting the feathers out on command. Michael focused, and began to cut the feathers, only barely breaking the material, while Joseph ran behind a filing cabinet, reloading his gun with higher damage, and more lethal rounds. The barrage of feathers ended, with them being lodged in nearly every crevice of the room.
Joseph yelled, "What is that thing?!"
Michael yelled back, "I'll distract it, try to flank it and shoot it from behind."
Joseph ran around the side, while Michael prepared fireballs to throw. The thing somehow reloaded it's wings, feathers sprouting out from inside the wings themselves. It began firing once more, but the feathers melted in face of the fireballs. The combatants hurled their respective projectiles at each-other, none able to crack through the storm. But, like thunder, a crack was heard throughout the room, as Joseph unloaded his gun into the back of the bird-thing, causing it to crash down to the ground. Joseph ran up to the thing, trying to continue the attack, when it jumped up, scratching Joseph's chest, ripping into his shirt and scratching his torso. It turned back to focus at Michael, but what it saw was Michael launching himself at it, trying to hit a downwards slash with his sword. It tried to dodge, but Michael was too fast, the sword slamming into the torso of it, deep down his shoulder. When Michael tried to do a followup slash, a flash of light enveloped the room, launching Michael and Joseph away. As they looked up, they saw it flying again, with circles of light surrounding it's wrists, with runes inscribed on the light. It pointed it's hands at them, launching beams of light from it's palm. Michael and Joseph began frantically running, trying to dodge the light with all the stamina they could.
As they ducked behind a collapsed clump of lab equipment, Joseph said to Michael, "I'm gonna try and head out of the exit. You amp up the heat, don't worry about the gasoline."
Michael's face had a brief flash of concern for Joseph, before calming down, fully imbuing his sword again before saying, "I got this, just rest out there and patch up."
Joseph said, "Don't lose!" before walking backwards, as Michael channeled his Mana through his palms They lit up as soon as the Mana began to flow, and Michael quickly used them to launch him into the air, creating explosions with his hands. As he shot up at It, It began desperately shooting whatever feathers it had at Michael, but Michael tanked them as they lodged themselves in his body. Michael slammed into It, grabbing it by the neck. As they flew around haphazardly, Michael pulled his sword out, and lodged it into the Bird-thing's chest, before putting the his palms, slamming them both to the ground. Michael had done this on purpose, as he had made a specific spell for this kind of situation. It was a verbal one, and had specific conditions, but was pretty powerful. If he had his sword lodged into something, then quickly forced that something into the ground, piercing it and having the sword pierced into the floor, he could yell out "Eruption!" and the Mana flowing through him, the something, and the general Mana in the air would tighten, creating a pillar of flames, akin to a eruption.
Michael slammed It down to the ground, grinding his sword deep through It and into the floor below, causing blood to spew out, before yelling, "Eruption!". Almost like a pillar from heaven, flames would engulf both Michael and the thing, lighting the entire building up with the gasoline. The thing would shriek loudly, before the sound slowly died down as the flames burned for longer. By the time the flames dispersed, all that was left was Michael, with his uniform covered in ash, even charred in some places, as the fire protection spell put on it couldn't handle this level of fire yet. The thing, faced a different outcome. It was burnt and charred, almost unrecognizable.
Michael fell to his knees, smoking. Joseph ran back into the room, coughing, and trying to wave the smoke away, and Michael said, slurred, "Are you ok, Joseph?"
Joseph replied, "Me? Are you ok? I mean..."
Michael laughed half-heartedly, leading to Joseph to sigh. Joseph said, "Just sit there, You should be good enough to make it to the hospital."
As Joseph walked away, groaning, Michael sat there, cleaning all the wounds he could, as he smirked to himself, satisfied with the battle somewhat. He stopped himself from enjoying it too much, lest he become that man, the man who's life he most wished to end.