Familiar feeling returned to mind as he slipped the bulletproof vest over the Nobu branded battlesuit. The scent of sharp chemicals that formed the armour sent him through flashes of memories. Thick forests blanketed in snow, shells blasted the ground, Reignpainters created mist, that pink haired witch who walked atop the snow. The hiss of a Laech, the sound of their tooth rotation. He burned them away when he lit a cigarette.
"Are you okay?" Brillian asked from the corner of the room.
"I'm marvellous." he said drily, "Are you prepared for this?"
"Yes." she said with too much excitement for a teenage girl after a killing.
Uldarin had already changed and left, so had most of the squad... the man Locke waited for finally entered with a GalaTeA branded rifle in hand and passed it to Locke. "Galla Calibur, newer model from half year ago, use it. Lightweight, very *bloody* good." he half mocked Locke's accent. But he was too much of a foreigner to it himself.
"I'll give it a butchers."
"Harder than a Yaksa with less kick. Netics make up for that. Even though you use none, you British army, they have good muscle and training for you fancy batter eaters."
"You have a good fish and chips and let me know if you change your mind." Locke sat the gun down on the table.
Kyoya reached a hand to Brillian, his palm went flat against her Resonance Field about ten inches away from her. He smiled to himself as if he confirmed something and left the room, steps completely silent.
"Stay close kid, you'll get a good fight." Locke said to her.
Brillian still stared after Kyoya, "Is he a broken man?"
"Why?"
"A woman's intuition."
"You're not old enough for that, kid." he picked up the gun and walked out, "Chop chop." he clipped on his mask.
Brillian followed him out into the bright night. The Marthon blocks were illuminated by fluorescents forced back online to highlight the structure. The sky above wrapped in blankets of thunderclouds were brightened by the green and blue aurorae projected by the false emerald moon in the sky. He glanced up again to see the Gibmen smog nearly at vehicle height and decided against taking a breath of oxygen without his mask. where each group waited for the go call. A group of mercenaries were raiding block F to his right, one of them looked completely out of place, shaky and too new to the life. Their leader looked every bit the yank soldier. The squad Locke ran with had two notable fellas who were obvious Shikari in disguise, digi facemasks to be plain-faced beat cops but had too much of a relaxed predator feel to them.
Dubchek growled something to Brillian, she nodded in agreement.
Brillian turned to Locke, "There's multiple daemons inside," she pointed at the third and fourth floor, "They don't know we know, but they're watching."
"Ulda?" Locke avoided staring at the third floor.
"Already passed up the chain, kyo." he replied.
The tent the Tengu inhabited had been dismantled and cleared away, rappels up the blocks were cast, in thin lines with shadowy figures on the climb. The Tengu were already on the move. Brillian started to twitch from boredom as the units moved into position.
Locke slid on the goggles, their optics powered on with a green tick in the bottom right corner. The squads started to move to rush, Ulda gave a thumbs up.
"THIS IS THE TPSB WE ARE COMING INSIDE HAVE YOUR HANDS UP OR YOU WILL BE SHOT!"
Gunshot.
First through the door into the concourse that stretched left, then right. Detectives and Shao raced in with military efficiency, pointed, cleared, split off to clear rooms. Returned after clears in the ranks behind. Brillian and Locke were ushered to the forward of the pack once they made the turn.
They reached the gathering hall on the main floor shots were fired simultaneously by Rebirthers and Shao. Brillian raised a hand in a blink, erected a barrier under their guns to block some shots while other bullets whizzed by. He looked behind to see a barrier around everyone's head. Intricate, ridiculous and too well done for her. He noted Dubchek's eyes, darker than before. It must've been his work. He even made translucent barriers in front of faces. The Rebirthers were dead, the hostages around the room on the floor, in chairs were half dead and some bleeding. Medics were on them the second the fighting ended.
"Hostiles down, Rebirthers. Hostages are wounded, medics are in operation." the captain said.
When they moved on Locke saw the body of a man tattooed all over in that same language he didn't understand. For a second he wondered how far up this food chain of Rebirther oddities went before they reached the stairs.
The captain raised a fist, "Two anomalous entities confirmed inside. We are to move up and clear each floor."
Locke couldn't tell if Dubchek just laughed or growled.
Shamsaka entered the building with an armed guard, arguing with a Tengu who could've folded him in half and carried him to a clinic to have a spine replacement.
The Captain noted his presence but flicked his hand forward to continue, he opened the door handleside, two men entered. Shots were fired upward, one Rebirther body toppled, landed in a heap from the floors above.
He gave twitchy Brillian a nudge, when she looked at him he nodded and shifted his eyes to the captain. "Go, tell him."
Brillian placed a hand on the Captain's shoulder, "I can keep these men alive."
He looked up at her with a suspicious look in his eye, then he relented. Fist unclenched as he let his pride go. "Put Dubchek and Brillian up in front, keep them alive." he ordered.
"Sir-"
"My men will *work* with you, not be protected by you." he said firmly, "Move your ass."
Locke and Ulda went inside after the two Reignpainters and fell in with the Shao squad, they moved clean along the stairs, guns up. Reached the first floor. He noted fresh human blood on the railings along with dried blood. Captain opened the door again and Brillian stepped in, Locke heard drones whirr outside and a shot from something heavy crunched metal and a drone crashed with a thud. The officers formed a battery and opened fire with workhorse skeleton keys Locke peeked his head around to see watch them rip holes into another poorly made door. It collapsed. Revealed a group of tattooed people, similar markings again to James Timberwolfe. They had put together a civilian stick and powder canon cheaply 3D printed parts. It had already fallen apart the moment it fired that shot. He felt like he was part of the game again, the way this was set up, the idiots they left it to who decided to shoot down a drone-
"GET DOWN!" Brillian bellowed.
Dubchek laughed and erected a blue barrier in front of them that absorbed a deafening impact of large shrapnel from behind another makeshift wall torn open, another of the printed canons.
"Amazing." Brillian whispered.
Intricate weavings of spears, and javelins formed from the barrier and launched at subsonic speed by Dubchek pierced each of his targets, missing vitals, severing limbs at times. Though Locke was sure that was selected by some first impression biases, such as Dubchek not liking someone's face.
They advanced on the bodies and the Captain had some of his men carry the live ones into a room to be interrogated. He left some of the men behind to watch while they advanced on the rest of the floor with the two Reignpainters at the tip of the spear. After checks through fifteen rooms the Reignpainters halted and looked at each other for a couple seconds before Brillian followed behind Dubchek by a couple meters. He made a battering ram and raised two fingers.
"EMP for this floor, two floors above." He pushed the rams out of the windows and Locke assumed he made targets. "Order snipers to shoot through the holes in the rams."
*Why bloody battering rams?*
"You are truly mad." The captain said and spoke Chinese into the microphone.
Shots rang, a buzzing he hadn't noticed before came to a stop.
"Confirmed, EMPs are down, snow has stopped falling." The Captain repeated monotonously. "Excellent work you mad bastard."
Back to task, up the corridors, spread in both directions at a junction in two groups with Brillian on the right and Dubchek on the left, rejoined and met at the staircase to the second floor.
A scream came from behind, they whirled and saw the unit from behind also looked back. Shots rang seconds later, they radio'd in a kill of a Rebirther who fell through the ceiling.
"Watch the door, we're going up." Captain said.
Another set of stairs up to the second floor, they swept away another group on their way up. Reached the second floor. Brillian and Dubchek forced the door open to an empty corridor, no traps, no bull. Forward into the corridor and room clears two at a time. Cap signalled for the Reignpainters to stay back, the units went ahead and cleared on their own while the Reignpainters rested. Locke was almost surprised at her compliance. At the junction the entire enforcer unit halted. Scrambler smokes were thrown ahead, when the purple smoke filled the air Locke saw a few lasers from other sources.
"You've gotten sloppy, Locke." one of the officers said.
"Yeah... suppose I have." he muttered.
Captain spoke in Chinese again, then in Japanese. Windows smashed, followed by silence. When they passed the Junction they saw the bodies of Rebirthers had been chopped up.
"Expendable converts." Cap growled.
"Or brainwashed." another officer said.
"Not enough evidence for concrete yet." Cap retorted, "Focus up, move out, doors to clear."
It took them another ten minutes to go through each room with breakoff and return units until they reached the next stairwell.
Up the next set of stairs Locke noticed the echoes were too long, seconds apart instead of milliseconds, once they took the stairs Dubchek and Brillian raised fists.
"Poltergeist." she whispered and pointed at the door to the second floor.
Tendrils of smoke started to leak through the cracks in the door. Dubchek smashed the door with a Reignpainted battering ram. A lone Rebirther emerged, he walked like he'd been hooked on synthetic drugs, lumbered over to them and pulled out a gun. Dubchek raised a hand and erected a barrier the moment his finger hit the trigger. Dubchek painted a hammer behind him and tapped the zombie-man on the head.
Something behind the man, in the smoke hissed and muttered and the sound of wind chimes rang through the air.
"This confirms it to me." Captain said, "Medics, we've got a body top of the stairs to have a look at. Moving on."
Dubchek and Brillian led them through the smoke, drones scanned the floor ahead, generated a more detailed map for them to follow and gave details of what was inside each room. They focused on rooms with bodies as they swept through. Weapons fired, bodies dropped. The second floor was a clean sweep of cultists and converts.
Shamsaka's voice came from outside:
"WE HAVE CONFIRMATION OF REBIRTHER BRAINWASHING. SHOOT TO KILL."
The entire squad took a split second of silent vindication and carried on. Brillian had a smile in her eyes as she killed, Dubchek yawned and stretched. Minutes of precision killing by bullet and projection magic later they came to the third floor.
"This is Kyoya, hold your position." the Tengu said over comms, "Summons on the next floor, two geists on the roof, multiple daemons confirmed on fourth floor movement."
Dubchek bared his teeth in a smile.
"Bring the Reignpainters up, select your best guard. We'll pincer them."
Captain did hand talk to some of his men, they stepped forward.
"We'll take you up, ready?"
Dubchek grunted, "We don't need you."
"Shut up, dickhat." Ulda said, "We're ready to go."
"Roger." Captain opened the door.
Kyoya stepped out with three other Tengu behind him, "Stairs are clear, as is the opening of the floor, they are clearing as we speak."
"You Tengu always showing off." Captain scoffed.
Kyoya raised his head and swung round to go up the stairs. His footsteps didn't make a sound. Everyone else's echoed except Dubchek and Brillian. It took two seconds for the reverberations to bounce off the walls. Locke felt a cold spike pierce his gut.
"Something's up here." he said.
The officer next to him ruefully nodded.
The Tengu at the door pointed their guns up like machines ready to go to war. Two more Tengu opened the door with four heads of men on chains.
They spoke Japanese amongst themselves then stopped, changed to hand and arm talk he hadn't seen before. A gunshot from inside shattered the silence and had the Tengu on the move, Kyoya crooked a finger for them to follow and slipped the helmet on.
The second Locke stepped through the doorway he felt the atmosphere shift into a gloomy, cold atmosphere, dank and hostile to life. The presences seemed to be an invisible mist. A corrosion from a baleful tree synthesizing malice into the oxygen, the walls darkened, the lights were oppressed by an invisible force. Locke felt his heart thunder and he felt a savagery building in his saliva. He looked for the source, saw that Brillian trembled with excitement. He shoved down the sinking feelings of having his brains contorted by a girl who probably didn't even realise what she was doing.
The door to the right flew open, wakizashis were drawn and handguns fired. A creature that was made of sewn together body parts hobbled out. The Tengu wrapped it in birdwire, the serrated edges caught in its flesh as it tried to flail but stopped when a gun was pressed against its head. Kyoya slashed its spine in half, set it into a panic but it had lost control. It tried to thrash its head around as if it knew it would be taken in to be studied.
"Unfortunate waste of life, people died to make an insensate low level anomalous piece of shit." One of the Tengu said.
The group moved slow up the hall, rooms were checked slowly. The Tengu's handtalk grew more frequent. Ahead, sludge moved toward them on the ground, nine inch claws ahead of it. The Tengu opened fire, bullets trailed white and exploded in clusters of bright blue and metal on impact. Modified explosive Phos™ rounds. The sludge retreated backward up the hall, they took up pursuit, Reignpainters led over Tengu and attacked with generic projectiles while they both formed a detailed spear behind and hurled them once assembled. Brillian and Dubchek went straight for the head, knocked each other off course and struck the creature's hands.
Kyoya cursed loudly in Japanese and slapped both of their Resonance Fields.
Another one of the Tengu took out a high powered SBS and fired on the shadow. The creature turned over, belly up, it had the head of a man crossed with a shark's jaw. Smiled at them with those pitch eyes stared at them emptily. Kyoya plucked them out and put them in a small plastic bag and dropped them in the creature's mouth. They walked around the Haunt, Brillian pointed to a door, Kyoya kicked it open. Inside were bodies of Rebirther cultists with the same tattoos, arms blown off, bodies bloated, the stench of putrid fish filled the air. Locke had come to the conclusion that the mask was nearly pointless.
Locke noted the odd circles with shapes, candles and stones that were used in summoning, and the poor newborn baby that had his stomach torn open to complete it.
"Hauntbreach, medium, requesting the two heavies." Kyoya said, "Upper floors must be cast in anomalous dead space."
A few seconds past and Kyoya signalled for them to continue on. Locke knew the deal already and raised his eyebrows at Kyoya who nodded in response. They returned to the hallway where the group watched a cluster of ghouls approach, people that were human. Minds washed away with incomplete rituals that didn't force them to fight. They hobbled on as living tissue on broken instinct that propelled them to keep walking.
"Capture them, use blunters." Kyoya ordered.
The Tengu stuck spherical attachments with an under barrel mag onto their pistols, fired and broke the ghouls legs with the spread dulled impacts.
"Ishida will lead the commons up here, we go up to engage." Kyoya stalked forward and froze.
Above them loud footsteps left shadowy impressions on the ceiling like oil stains that vanished seconds after impact. Whispers filled the air and a low growl shook the building.
"GUNS UP!" Kyoya bellowed.
The lights flickered around them, footsteps in all directions. Brillian and Dubchek raised their arms, Locke felt her excitement. No, everyone around seemed excited.
"Stop that, Brillian, you're fucking up our focus."
"She can't." Dubchek said flatly.
He felt the emotions build, a righteous fury sweet as oak and honey whisky that burned in his stomach and brought glory to the mind as he took off his mask and nostrils filled with weapon smoke. The trigger was a divine thing, the gunfire and splatters of ick against the broken white masks of the creatures they were locked in combat with was finer than the ecstasy of gold in a coalmine. Body, drop, body, drop, floor painted in ectoplasm, Monroe and guts. He reloaded, ducked under a bone extended from one of their arms into a polearm. Brillian made axes chop bodies, decimated the larger six legged Hauntdaemons. She laughed behind her mask, eyes bright as sunlight. When the violence began to settle with ammunition expended, magazines and casings on the floor they heard a skitter pitched all the way down. A giant insect, and it crawled toward them, a face twice the size of its head, a man's face stretched big as a door on a millipede's body, pale, contorted backwards exoskeleton.
Kyoya ushered them into a large apartment room and shut the door. The Tengu breached the wall with a skeleton key and left two smoke grenades to deploy the dark purple scramble smoke behind them as they breached through more doors toward the stairwell. They heard the creature break down the door to the initial room behind them. They deployed more scrambler smoke.
"What the fuck is that thing?" one of the officers asked.
Kyoya took off his mask, and scowled. "Well Warden, you're the medium between us and regular people." the Japanese in his accent was nearly gone, "It's already fucked me up."
"We're here to kill Rebirthers." Locke said.
"Yes." both the Reignpainters and a few Tengu answered simultaneously.
"We are?" a few of them asked.
One of the officers scratched his head, "No, no, no, we're here to stop a child sex ring."
"There." Locke said, "Confirms it, it's an infant Myrnesh. We've got two powerful Reignpainters and no artefact or prominent witch unless someone has Chelaise on call."
"Better. Lilac Slipperstep." Kyoya said, "But she needs time."
Locke nearly laughed at Kyoya sounding American.
"They eat people." Dubchek said, "But not dying Reignpainters." he looked at Brillian, "Who could resist a taste of the sun?"
Locke regarded him carefully, "Brillian, can you do this?"
"Pretend I'm under its spell and kill it." she smiled, "Easy. I'll win." She stood up and walked out through the smoke.
"The drones all just died." Shamsaka radio'd, "Extreme caution, there's a newborn dreadlord on the roof."
Locke crashed into a wall as Kyoya shoved him back against it, Dubchek severed a spike that had quietly pierced through the ceiling. Brillian looked back at him, concern filled her eyes. A large jaw opened around her with hundreds of spiny teeth.
She raised an arm and split the jaw open, then started to tear into the Myrnesh with Reignpainted weapons. The dreadlord above them carved a hole into their floor and dropped a black speck. The Tengu tore the wall into the corridor open, dropped more smokes behind them and fired on the entity that leaked into reality. It had a spherical origin, large and only what seemed to be a quarter of which leaked through which encompassed the room. A black leathery texture that was bottomless like he stared into the depths of space.
"Stop staring." Kyoya said, "This is a creature, it can be killed."
Brillian joined them from the right, "It's not dead." she said, "Dubchek."
Ulda shouted, "Dubchek, fuckin' do something!"
"Marland Payne contract?" Dubchek said crudely.
"Ended with the emergence of anomalous extremities." A spike blurred past Locke's eyes and pierced Uldarin's shoulder. Then several more, the Tengu were caught off guard and drew blades late. Dubchek had a smirk on his face as he and Brillian deflected the other attacks.
"Motherfucker."
One of the Tengu jabbed him with a syringe and cauterised the wound on impact with a blunt device that looked like a brander. Locke loaded his last mag and held point with the remaining officers, some of which were already knocked out by what he assumed was Tengu initiative to limit the Myrnesh's influence.
The air rippled and flung rubble against the Reignpainter's barriers.
"Listen to me, inheritor!" Dubchek sat down, "To perfect the blight of Reignpaint it must shimmer, as humans we are stardust, as Reignpainters we are impure stardust and to burn ourselves is to return to stardust." objects spawned around him and began to merge into a lance that belonged to Arthurian myth. "When you see the green flash, you have achieved, when you see more than three..."
For a flicker Locke could see Dubchek's Resonance Field, a black molding mass of gravity that flashed green four times. A blinding light made him shut his eyes and the sound of a scream barely above his hearing frequency had him cover his ears to shut out the sound. He peeked to see a gaping hole in the wall, the creature bled purple onto the ground excessively. Tumbled onto the ground and turned into a pile of salt that dissolved in the purple tar blood.
The Myrnesh was next, Brillian attacked with a similar move, but there was no flash. Nonetheless. The creature flailed on its back at the missing chunk of its body.
Locke, the Tengu and the officers rained fire on the dying creature until it stopped movement. Another tiny sphere spawned from its remains, Dubchek snarled.
A pale woman only a few years older than Brillian stepped out of a wall and snatched it then crushed it in her dainty fist.
Locke's skin crawled when her dull eyes gave him a homely feeling, apple pie and custard, chicken pastry and whisky while he and dad watched over the English countryside in a country town pub's veranda. He kicked and shoved the memories away with the anger Brillian spawned in his back brain. That was definitely her, Lilac Slipperstep.
"I am here, friend." she said in a dry voice, "And a curse to curses, a blight to blights."
"We didn't ask for Addison Whitewall." Kyoya's accent was still American, he snapped around to glare the other Tengu out of laughter.
"Addison grants her regards. Though I dislike the woman." Lilac's face was a stone, "The Dreadlords is still on the roof, and I brought assistance in Jade."
Ishida marched up and saluted Kyoya. "All those that are not Tengu must now wait downstairs. The two Reignpainters will also come up with us."
Brillian left his side, walked past Ishida and returned with a bubble in her hands large enough for a human to be inside. "I will be fine, Locke." she said with a smile too sweet to be normal on her face. "Trust me."
Locke didn't have a choice anyway and took off his mask to light a cigarette.
"Operation now initiating blackout, holos will be up around the building and operation will commence once all unauthorised personnel are outside of the zone." Kyoya said monotonously in American, "Anyone left inside will be executed on sight."