Chapter 142: Manhattan Crisis - Part 9
The inside of the Empire State Building was shaking. Smoke and fire bled in from the collapsed front entrance, where Clef had just rammed an APC straight into the marble lobby. Behind the makeshift breach, the Anti-Divine Strike Force regrouped.
Dr. Clef, blood on his coat and a shotgun hanging from his shoulder, looked over his squad.
"So?" he asked, voice hoarse, almost casual.
The leader of Strike Team 6350 "Hound", face blackened with soot and ash, stepped forward. "We're roughly a hundred. Status of Strike Team 9100 is unknown. But the Anti-Divine Strike Force is intact."
Another man approached, battle-worn, helmet dented, and his rifle still hot from use.
"I'm Captain Rourke, Nu-7," he said, coughing. "We were the team tasked with opening the path for you. That cupcake bombardment hit us hard. Two platoons made it to shelter. The rest… I don't know."
From behind them, Dr. Bright strolled over, casually twirling a chainsaw between his hands. "Well then," he muttered, "Looks like it's just you and me again."
Clef lit a crushed cigarillo, the flame from his lighter reflecting in his glasses. He took a long drag, then gave Bright and Rourke a flat, deadpan look.
"Wonderful," he exhaled, the smoke curling around his bloodstained face. "So we've got half a regiment, a talking gun collection, five witches, an immortal bastard, and me. Trapped in a skyscraper surrounded by fire, demon shit, and explosive baked goods."
He cocked his head, the faintest smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth.
"In other words… it's another average Tuesday for the foundation."
A short silence followed.
Then, as if the universe had heard him, the tower trembled, something roared from above, loud enough to shake the walls. The fight was far from over.
The moment Clef finished his sentence, the ceiling cracked.
A split-second warning, just the faintest groan of metal, then a deafening crash as the marble overhead caved in. A rain of dust and debris poured down, followed by shapes, too fast to count, dropping with intent.
Shouts erupted.
"They're coming in-!"
Six figures landed hard amidst the debris cloud, human, but wrong. Their skin pale, eyes vacant, each strapped with belts of explosives and serrated knives taped to their arms like improvised claws. Fanatics.
The first one screamed something in a guttural tongue and charged blindly.
Two Nu-7 operators, already braced from earlier engagements, reacted instantly.
"Contact top-side!" Rourke shouted.
One of the closest operatives raised his rifle and fired in bursts, three slugs center mass, another in the neck. The attacker didn't stop. The vest triggered, and in a flash of light, he detonated.
He was thrown off his feet by the blast, crashing against a pillar. Blood sprayed from his mouth.
"Shit. Langdon's down!" shouted another Nu-7 operative, diving behind an overturned desk.
Another assailant lunged from the dust, both arms raised high. The operative who shouted popped up from cover just in time, double-tapping with a compact SMG. Bullets tore through the zealot's legs but it was too late. The belt was already blinking red.
Clef reacted faster.
With a single shot from his sawed-off, he hit the attacker midair. The buckshot shredded the trigger-hand, and Lina finished the motion, leaping in, grabbing the zealot's vest, and snapping his neck with a twist of her sharpened forearm-bone.
The body hit the ground. No detonation.
The other zealots didn't care. They howled and charged indiscriminately, one tackled a Beta-777 operative into a wall; another detonated mid-sprint, taking out part of a column.
The lobby turned into a slaughterhouse.
Dr. Bright swore, grabbing a dropped rifle, and emptied a mag point-blank into a twitching corpse.
An operative, half-deafened, pulled Langdon's limp body to cover. Blood leaked from the younger man's ears.
"We need to push, now!" someone yelled.
"Fall back to the staircase!" Clef barked. "They're softening us up before the real wave!"
Smoke, blood, and fire filled the room.
And somewhere, above them, something massive was stirring.
The flames were still licking the edge of the ceiling when the next wave hit.
No one had time to breathe. The chaos from the suicide fanatics had barely settled when the gunfire began again, this time, concentrated, deliberate. It came from above, from behind, and from the fractured stairwell leading deeper into the tower.
Automatic weapons roared. Muzzle flashes danced across the dark. The Chaos Insurgency had arrived in force.
Clef dove behind the ruined reception desk, narrowly avoiding a hail of bullets that shredded the remains of a marble column. Rourke barked orders from across the lobby, his voice hoarse but clear.
"First Company, suppressive fire! Push toward the stairwell! Move! now!"
Nu-7 surged forward under the cover of their APC's smoking wreckage. Dozens of armored boots stomped through blood, brass, and ash. The staccato beat of rifle fire echoed in the vast interior, drowning out the distant screams from the upper levels.
From the shadows at the far end of the floor, Insurgency troops opened up with well-practiced bursts, methodical and cruel. These weren't zealots. These were trained killers, ex-military, ex-Foundation, ex-human.
And among them, four figures stood apart.
They were clothed in black robes beneath their armored vests, symbols etched across their skin and faintly glowing. Thaumaturgists. As they raised their hands, the temperature dropped. The air warped.
One stepped forward, eyes lit with golden flame. With a wordless motion, he hurled a searing sphere of energy toward the advancing Nu-7 line.
It exploded mid-air, blinding white and thunderclap loud. Two operators screamed as their armor melted at the edges. One collapsed, his chestplate fused to his ribcage.
That was all the signal the Beta-777 team needed.
Four operatives Beta-777 stepped from the rear. Their movements were calm, fluid and deliberate. Each bore ritual scars on the backs of their hands, their palms painted with fresh ink.
The air around them shimmered.
Without a word, the lead thaumaturge from Beta-777 raised both hands and clapped. A shockwave of violet light erupted forward, slamming into the enemy caster and flinging him backwards through a wall of broken glass.
The second Beta-777 operative extended their fingers in a fan, drawing glowing glyphs mid-air. The runes snapped into a beam of spiraling energy, focused and narrow. It cut through the debris and scorched the shoulder of an enemy who was preparing another blast. The man screamed as his arm combusted from the inside out.
In response, the enemy thaumaturges began chanting, low, guttural tones that thickened the air like syrup. Smoke bled from their mouths, their hands shaping sigils traced in crimson.
A third figure from Beta-777 countered instantly. With a flick of their wrist, the air around one caster imploded, space folding inward for half a second. The Insurgency sorcerer's face twisted in pain as he dropped to one knee, vomiting blood.
Then, all hell broke loose.
The remaining soldiers of the Insurgency moved to cover their spellcasters. Bullets whipped through the battlefield, pinging off pillars, ricocheting off armor. One Nu-7 sergeant collapsed with a cry as three rounds punched through his leg. Another operator went down screaming, his visor shattered by a precision shot.
Bright grabbed a shotgun and started firing indiscriminately toward the advancing hostiles. "Fucking THAUMS again?" he yelled. "Where's my ritual claymore?!?"
Clef vaulted over the desk, shotgun in one hand and a pistol in the other. "Beta-777! Keep those mages pinned!" he shouted, voice booming.
The fourth Beta-777 thaumaturge obeyed. He stepped forward and slammed his palm onto the ground. Sigils erupted in a circle around him, and from the cracked tile floor, dozens of spears of light burst upward. They skewered three Insurgents mid-charge. Blood splattered the walls.
One of the enemy thaumaturges tried to retaliate with a cone of flame. The fire swept across a Nu-7 fireteam but instead of screaming, the soldiers advanced through it. Their armor was glowing red, but intact. Their eyes burned with adrenaline.
"ADVANCE!" Rourke roared.
With renewed ferocity, the Foundation pushed forward. The stairwell became a bottleneck. Gunfire and thaumaturgy alike turned the wide floor into a storm of devastation.
A Beta-777 operative ducked behind a ruined column, then spun into a wide gesture, drawing a circle in the air. From the sigil emerged a translucent beast, an astral canine, fangs made of raw mana. It leapt into the fray, tackling an enemy mage and mauling him in midair.
"Keep pushing!" someone yelled.
Dr. Bright ripped the magazine out of a fallen soldier's rifle, slammed it into his own, and sprinted toward cover. Clef followed, covering him with buckshot.
Rourke's fireteam suppressed the remaining infantry, pushing them back inch by inch. A frag grenade bounced into an enemy position, exploded and cleared the right flank.
Beta-777 finished it.
One operative raised a glowing hand and clenched it into a fist. Instantly, the blood on the floor around the final Insurgency thaumaturge coalesced, wrapped around his ankles and yanked. He screamed once as he was pulled apart at the waist.
Silence fell for three seconds.
Smoke lingered.
Bodies twitched.
And then someone called out. "Clear!"
The floor had been taken. At great cost.
But the fight wasn't over. Not yet. Above them, the tower howled again. Something bigger was waiting.
Clef looked up the staircase. "Alright," he muttered, voice dry. "Next floor."
The stairwell stank of cordite, blood, and charred concrete.
Step by step, floor by floor, they rose through the tower like a spear being thrust through the belly of the beast.
At the 9th floor, they met resistance, half a platoon of Chaos Insurgency militants with suppressive fire already laced into the walls and doorframes. Flashbangs went in first, then smoke. Strike Team 6350 breached hard, guns barking, clearing rooms in rhythm. Tau-5 covered the left corridor with erratic but surgical bursts. Clef laughed once then dropped two men with a double tap before kicking over a desk and using it as a mobile cover.
They didn't slow down.
At the 16th, a thaumaturgic trap triggered as the door opened, a rune ignited on the floor, sending a spiraling burst of violet flame up the shaft. One Beta-777 operator raised his hand, whispered something inaudible, and the fire folded inward like a dying star. Nothing remained.
At the 24th, the stairwell collapsed. Detonation charges. Rourke snarled and ordered breachers forward. Two operators from Nu-7 rigged a bypass, cutting through the wall into the elevator shaft, rappelling up while under fire from above. An insurgent leaned over to shoot and was promptly nailed in the temple by a silenced round. Clef didn't even look where he fired.
At the 30th, they encountered their first serious thaumaturgic opposition. Four casters behind a barricade, hurling sigils that twisted the air. A Beta-777 dragged blood down his forearm, shaping a glyph mid-run then launched it into the barricade. A second later, the enemy spellcasters were thrown backward like rag dolls, their protections peeled open by raw Foundation counter-magic.
Munru took point on the next push. His massive frame absorbed bullets like they were pebbles. When one insurgent tried to flank him, he reached out, snapped the man's leg, and hurled him down the stairwell without a word.
At the 39th, an improvised ambush. The lights failed. The air filled with shrieks. Smoke. Something crawling. Lina didn't wait. She moved through the darkness like water, blades slashing, sinew stretching, killing silently. When the lights returned, twelve Chaos Insurgents were dead. None had seen her coming.
By the 42nd floor, the tower was shaking. Distant detonations. Gunfire below. Someone or something was fighting on the higher levels.
No one spoke.
Irantu led the final two ascents with mechanical calm. "Forty-three. Breach in ten."
The last enemy defense at 43rd was desperate. Grenades. Wild fire. Insurgents screaming into radios that offered no reply. The Anti-Divine Strike Force rolled over them like thunder. Tau-5 executed every target with clinical precision. The survivors were offered no surrender, no mercy.
Then… silence.
They stood before the steel door of the 44th floor.
Clef exhaled, checked his sidearm.
Bright cracked his neck and grinned.
Lina cleaned blood from her fingers with the sleeve of a dead man.
Rourke's voice came low through comms. "Locked and loaded."
And then, without a word, they breached.
The metal doors burst open with a sharp, echoing bang. And then, hell.
Twin streams of gunfire filled the corridor in less than a second.
Humanoid machines, at least two dozen stood in perfect rows across the hallway ahead. They were tall, their frames forged of polished alloy and reinforced plating, each arm ending not in a hand, but a mounted belt-fed machine gun. As one, they opened fire.
The entire formation hit the deck.
Bullets raked the walls like chainsaws through drywall. Sparks erupted from metal surfaces, dust clouds rising as chunks of concrete exploded under the barrage. One Nu-7 operator took a round to the helmet and crumpled. Another's arm was torn clean by high-caliber fire, screaming as medics dragged him behind a toppled filing cabinet.
"Contact! Contact! Automated units, double-barreled!" Rourke's voice cut through the chaos.
Tau-5 moved first. Munru and Irantu stepped forward in perfect coordination. Irantu's weapon, a heavy assault rifle modified for armor penetration thudded with precise, rhythmic bursts. Munru, quieter and faster, rolled between cover points, planting shaped charges underfoot as he went.
The first robot collapsed when Irantu's round pierced its optic cluster. The second exploded violently as Munru's charge went off, ripping through its spine in a brilliant flash of heat.
Strike Team 6350 advanced along the right flank. Shields up, movement tight. Their leader barked short, clipped orders. Their formation ate distance like wolves, cover to cover, suppressing fire, grenades in tandem.
Suddenly, six of the robots pivoted in unison. The corridor lit up again with suppressive fire. Lina snarled, bolting from cover.
Her blade-like hands flashed.
She dashed forward in a blur, leaping from overturned chairs and broken desks. Her arms sank deep into one automaton's knee joint, she ripped it sideways, then vaulted up its back and slammed the blade into the junction of its neck and shoulder. The robot twitched and fell.
Three others turned to her.
She dove between them, rolled, and vanished behind a cubicle wall just as a hail of bullets shredded the space she'd occupied. Onru moved into the gap, launching a spike grenade that detonated mid-air, metal tore through the chestplates of two bots, dropping them with metallic groans.
Clef remained in the rear, calmly loading another magazine.
"Keep moving!" he shouted. "Push through before they regroup!"
Another Beta-777 operator stepped forward. Chanting. Blood and air twisted into spiraling patterns before him. He carved the glyph mid-run and drove his hand into it.
A wave of concussive force exploded outward, six machines were thrown against the far wall, where Nu-7 gunners waiting behind reinforced pillars made short work of them with concentrated fire.
In the back, Bright stood near a collapsed desk, eyes scanning the battle but not participating. He said nothing, just watching, calculating.
An explosion shook the floor as Munru finished off a stubborn mech with a shaped charge directly into its leg joint.
"Hostiles thinning!" someone shouted.
Another burst of automatic fire tore through the smoke. A last unit, bigger, heavier, charged forward like a battering ram. Rourke didn't hesitate, he directed his squad around its flanks. Lina leapt onto its back mid-charge, slamming her blade through the top of its skull.
It dropped.
Steam filled the air. The smell of gunpowder and burned rubber clung to everything. Blood smeared the walls where men had fallen. The lights flickered once then returned to full power.
Silence.
Only the click of ejected magazines and the groans of the wounded.
The silence after the battle was broken only by the hiss of cooling metal and the low grunts of medics tending to the wounded. The ground was slick with oil and blood, human and machine both.
Clef stepped forward, sweeping aside a sparking torso with his boot. He looked to the hallway ahead, the staircase ascending to the next level. His voice was calm. Controlled.
"Situation report?"
The commander of Strike Team 6350 stepped forward. His face was grim, dust smearing the side of his helmet, a line of dried blood beneath one eye.
"Apart from the personnel," he said in a low voice, "the ammunition consumption is too high. At this rate, we'll run out of explosives just by climbing a few more floors, let alone reaching the last one."
One of his men kicked a downed mech and growled.
"Bringing holy water was useless. We've barely seen any demons in this goddamn tower."
Clef said nothing. He stood still, eyes unfocused, mind clearly running calculations at breakneck speed. And then-
"Clef, over here."
The voice came from his right. He turned. Bright was standing beside a shattered security station, where an old backlit building schematic flickered on the cracked wall. Clef approached, eyes narrowing as he scanned the floor plan.
There it was.
A slow grin stretched across his face, a dangerous, familiar expression that immediately made nearby personnel shift uncomfortably.
"I have a plan," he said.
Everyone turned toward him. A few exchanged looks. The kind that said: Oh no.
Some of the Anti-Divine Strike Force instinctively touched their weapons. Not because they feared Clef would shoot them but because the idea of a "plan" from Clef was almost always as hazardous as any anomaly.
He tapped the schematic twice.
"According to this, we can skip straight to the 80th floor."
Rourke blinked.
"What the hell are you talking about doctor ?"
"The elevators," Clef said. "They're still powered. If we can reach the control hub here-" he tapped a section marked with faded writing, "-we can activate the main shafts. Go straight to the 80th. No stairs. No ambushes on every floor."
Rourke stared at him like he'd grown a second head.
"You're insane. They'll shred us to pieces before we reach mid-tower, let alone eighty. We'd be sitting ducks on the way up!"
Clef smiled wider. That same crooked grin.
"Not if we create a diversion."
"…What?"
"Simple. Your teams continue the climb. Floor by floor. Make noise. Draw fire. Standard assault."
The room went silent again.
"Meanwhile," Clef continued, voice lower, almost conspiratorial, "a smaller unit breaks off. Quietly. Climbs outside the structure. All the way up to the 80th floor. Secures the elevator hub. Once the shaft is under our control, we bring the Anti-Divine Strike Force up in one quick sweep."
Rourke scowled, shaking his head.
"Hold onx how the hell is that 'small unit' supposed to climb all the way to the 80th floor?"
Clef turned slowly toward Strike Team 6350.
More specifically, the five operatives who wore the standard-issue equipment of the GOC Strike teams, famous for their bone-white armor and unconventional infiltration gear.
The White Suits.
His grin widened into something feral.
"I happen to know that the White Suits are equipped with excellent climbing gear. How about a little vertical assault? Fancy scaling a few hundred meters of sheer tower wall?"
The leader of 6350 tilted his head slightly. No protest. No questions.
Just a pause.
Then:
"We'll need ropes, anchors, and three minutes to recalibrate the exos. We're good to go."
Clef clapped once.
"Perfect. Get ready. We move in ten."
From behind the broken desk, Bright raised a brow.
"You're really going to gamble everything on climbing the damn outside?"
Clef didn't answer. He was already walking toward the next junction, humming under his breath.
The Strike Force stared at one another. Some looked hopeful. Others… not so much.
No one smiled.
Except Clef.
The Empire State groaned again, like a wounded god buckling beneath the weight of sacrilege and war.
Ten minutes later, the Anti-Divine Strike Force split.
Half the team stayed behind, setting up perimeter defenses and beginning the slow, brutal climb past the 44th floor. Gunfire, spells, and blood waited for them every level of the way. They knew it. They moved anyway.
The other half, the infiltrators disappeared into the smoke.
Five white-armored silhouettes vanished through a shattered maintenance exit, slipping into the wind and rain-slick void of open sky. The storm outside had grown worse. Lightning flashed across the horizon. Thunder peeled like war drums.
And clinging to the side of the world's most cursed skyscraper, five of the Global Occult Coalition's finest began to climb.
Inside the tower, time warped.
Every floor stretched long. Each gunfight lasted hours in heartbeats.
The team ascending internally, Nu-7, Tau-5, Beta-777, Lina, Clef, and Bright trailing behind fought without pause. Each level was fortified. Booby-trapped. Warded. Manned by loyalists of the Insurgency who had no intention of surrendering.
But none of it stopped the Force.
Clef moved like a man with nothing left to lose, shotgun barking, smoke curling from his coat like death's own breath. Lina was everywhere, nowhere, a phantom with a thousand blades. Irantu never missed. Onru never hesitated. Munru never tired.
And above them… the tower waited.
The Strike Team 6350 climbed the tower.
Floor 60. 70. 74.
Then-
The 80th floor.
The control hub was colder than the rest of the tower. Lights flickered, and a low hum filled the space—like a buried generator grinding teeth in the dark. Screens blinked with warnings. Old security systems flickered to life, then failed again.
The five operatives breached through a maintenance hatch near the roof and slipped inside, silent as ghosts. They didn't speak. They didn't need to.
They worked fast, bolting relay transmitters into place, rerouting ancient wiring, overriding thaumaturgic locks with brute-force counter-sigils and electromagnetic bursts.
One of them typed furiously. Another stood guard, scanning every corridor with infrared and ultraviolet scopes.
Within two minutes, the elevator control hub came under full Foundation-GOC control.
A signal was sent.
Back on the 45th floor, Clef's comm crackled.
"…Elevator shaft is open. Repeat: shaft is online. Reinforcements can now ascend."
Clef didn't respond right away. He stood over the cooling body of a cybernetic insurgent, flicking a bloodied toothpick between his teeth.
Then, finally:
"Understood," he said. "Prepare to bring the storm."
Somewhere behind them, a chorus of elevators rumbled to life.
-
The silence after the machine battle didn't last.
A low, metallic clank echoed from below, followed by a rhythmic stomp. Then, the hiss of boots above, dozens.
"Movement upstairs and downstairs!" barked one of the Strike Team 6350 commandos.
Seconds later, muzzle flashes ignited at the far ends of both staircases.
Gunfire erupted from two fronts.
Grenades were lobbed into the hallway. Shouted orders bounced off the walls. From the stairwell leading down, a full assault team in black combat fatigues surged into view, Kevlar, night-vision optics, short-barrel assault rifles. From the upper floors, another group charged down, rifles up, firing in tight bursts.
"Double encirclement, classic funnel!" shouted the leader of Strike Team 6350. "Collapse formation! Defensive wedge, let's go!"
The Strike Team didn't panic.
They didn't even hesitate.
Two dropped instantly to a crouched position, aiming toward the lower entrance. Two more turned toward the upper stairwell, taking cover behind an overturned desk and filing cabinet. The remaining last one broke off to cover the flanks and prepare a fallback point.
The first enemy squad from below made contact.
Their movement was rapid, aggressive. Rounds slammed into the wall behind the Strike Team as they advanced in a tight column formation.
But 6350 were better.
Two of them popped up from cover. Pop-pop-pop. Controlled, precise bursts. Head. Chest. Head. Three enemies down before they even crossed the threshold.
"Switch to frags!" shouted another operator.
A grenade bounced once down the steps, then detonated mid-air. Concrete and bodies flew apart. Screams echoed.
But the second wave was already pushing forward, more trained men in black, suppressing the hallway with coordinated fire. A 6350 commando took a hit to the thigh and went down, gritting his teeth and dragging himself behind a toppled server rack.
Meanwhile, the upper stairwell burst open.
Flashbang.
The blinding white light stunned the operators for half a second. Long enough for the top-floor enemies to breach. They poured into the hallway like a flood, ten, fifteen, maybe twenty in total, firing short, accurate bursts down the corridor.
"Upper stairwell compromised!" someone yelled.
But 6350 had seen worse.
"Split and trap. Kill box protocol. Now."
Two operators dropped smoke grenades. Thick white fog billowed into the hallway, obscuring line of sight. The Strike Team vanished inside.
Silence for two seconds.
Then hell broke loose.
Gunfire inside the smoke. Silhouettes slamming into each other. Someone screamed.
The enemies kept pushing forward until the smoke began to clear.
One of them emerged, only to be shot point-blank by a Strike Team member who had flanked through the office beside the hallway. Another was tackled and stabbed in the throat by a commando using a combat knife with brutal efficiency.
A loud burst of fire echoed from the side room, a light machine gun, set up as a trap. Two hostiles went down instantly, caught in the overlapping arc.
The team moved like a machine.
Covering fire. Crossfire. Grenade bounces. Shouts of "clear!" as each new breach was secured.
Downstairs, the remaining enemies began to panic. They tried to regroup, a bad idea.
Two members of Strike Team 6350 looped around and descended the side stairs to flank them. One kicked a door open; the other two lobbed fragmentation grenades before charging in with suppressed carbines.
It was over in ten seconds.
Only one enemy from below remained, he dropped his weapon and raised his hands, screaming something in a foreign language before being struck down by a clean shot to the chest.
Back upstairs, the corridor was littered with bodies. Smoke drifted lazily through the air. The final enemy tried to flee, he turned and sprinted back up the stairwell, firing blindly behind him.
Two shots rang out.
One in the leg. One in the spine.
He tumbled down the stairs.
Then silence.
Again.
Only the low buzz of radio static. Only the sound of reloading, of blood dripping from ruined uniforms, of boots pressing against broken glass and shell casings.
"Status?" called one of the 6350 members.
"Clean corridor. Hostile neutralization confirmed."
No one cheered. No one relaxed.
They simply moved forward.
The air was thick with smoke and the acrid scent of burning concrete. The flickering lights above cast long, jittery shadows over the bone-white armor of Strike Team 6350, their silhouettes moving like ghosts amid the chaos.
Their breaths came ragged and shallow, each inhalation a battle against the sting of blood and sweat in their lungs. Fingers trembled on triggers, muscles burned with exhaustion, but the team held.
The corridor was a crucible.
Even more enemies, wave after wave of insurgents came crashing against them, howling, firing, desperate.
The first assault was sharp and focused, ten attackers charging, rifles barking bursts, grenades sailing like deadly comets. The operators met them with brutal precision, rifles punching holes in the advancing line, grenades exploding with thunderous fury.
A pair of insurgents tried to flank left, but were met with rapid suppressive fire. One fell, clutching his chest; the other vanished behind debris, disappearing into smoke.
Explosions shook the corridor, the walls trembling as a suicide vest detonated near the center of the formation. The blast threw operators against the concrete, blood and dust mingling in a choking cloud.
An operator went down hard, silent and still. The others didn't have time to pause, there was no time.
More insurgents poured in, their numbers swelling like a dark flood.
The team shifted like a living wall. The leader barked terse orders that cut through the chaos:
"Form wedges! Crossfire sectors Alpha and Charlie! Frag grenade, now!"
The grenade hissed through the air, detonating in the heart of the swarm, shredding bodies and scattering the enemy back by yards.
But the attackers were relentless.
They surged again, louder, fiercer, driven by desperation.
Bullets tore at armor plates, shrapnel embedded in flesh and bone. Another operator fell, clutching a shattered arm, blood pouring in thick rivers.
Pain was constant. Fear was distant, submerged beneath the will to survive.
The elevator doors rattled violently. Heavy rams slammed into metal, sparks flying like fireflies.
"Doors won't hold much longer!" someone shouted.
The team adjusted, sealing off every breach with suppressive fire. Every inch of the corridor was a battlefield, littered with the bodies of friend and foe alike.
The air vibrated with the roar of gunfire, the screams of the wounded, the thud of falling bodies.
Minutes felt like hours.
The leader's voice snapped over the radio, sharp as a blade:
"Elevators at sixty-eight. Two minutes out. Hold fast! No one moves back!"
A grenade landed at the leader's feet. He kicked it back without hesitation. It exploded down the hall, a thunderclap shaking the floor.
The insurgents pressed on, pouring through the smoke, firing blindly.
A flashbang detonated, blinding all for a moment. The team staggered, but reflex took over.
They fired.
Lunged.
Slashed.
The corridor was chaos incarnate.
One operator screamed as a bullet tore through his leg. Another caught a knife in his shoulder, snarling through gritted teeth.
The leader pressed forward, dragging the wounded to cover, covering them with relentless fire.
Every second was agony. Every breath stolen.
Then-
-Ding-
Through the haze, a low metallic ding echoed.
The elevators.
The sound sliced through the chaos like a beacon.
Clef's voice erupted from the elevator, raw and triumphant:
"Reinforcements are here, bitch!"