Hurriedly storming into a large conference room where the rest of his cadre sat around with worried looks on their faces, a man waved the guards away and ordered them to guard the main doors before closing and bolting them.
He grabbed a pitcher of watered wine and poured himself a goblet before slumping down on the chair at the head of the table.
"FUCK!!"
Another man by the windows watching the destruction of the city turned back and looked at the man who was in a state of panic and sighed.
"Vice-leader, I warned you that we shall stay low for the time being, but nooo~! You want to expand your powers and control of the area," he spat. "Now look at what you have done! The Imperial Secret Police have found us!"
The vice-leader paused in his fidgeting and glared at the man by the window, "Didn't you enjoy the spoils too? Now it's all my fault?"
"Enough guys!" a third person stood up and smacked the table hard. "ENOUGH!"
The two turned away from glaring at each other and looked at the man who slammed the table.
"Now the important thing is, is there an army outside the city? Or is this just a strategic bombing?"
"I have confirmed earlier that three places are hit," a fourth person said from his seat on the table. He took a large gulp of the goblet of wine before him and continued. "The factory, the Administration, and the Barracks are hit by the bombs." he then took another gulp of the wine, "And I think one of ours is most likely buried under the Administration building..."
"Shit..." The rest looked at each other. Every one of the eight leaders of this rebel militia was here except for the director himself. Now one of them is dead.
"If this was just a strategic strike, they just destroyed half of what we have built up!" a fifth person, who was running the production department, cried out. "All the time and effort... Gone! Just like that!"
"Calm down!" the vice-leader snapped, his nerves returning. "We knew that they would find us sooner or later, and we made some plans for that! They must have sneaked some spies in and they found out which buildings and areas are a high priority."
"I doubt they have the capability to launch a ground attack, we will be able to see them coming miles away," the man by the window said. "But I underestimated that they have bombers around in this region! I assumed they would attack with those converted cargo haulers!"
"We prepared those AA guns as a surprise for those gunships. Now we need to rethink how to rebuild our production base!" the vice-leader said. "We need to be able to better protect ourselves and show those pretentious assholes that there are consequences if they fuck with us!"
"Wait," another man cut in, "What are you going to do? Upgrade the weapons we have?"
"No, we'll sell weapons to the nations of this world and get them to wipe those fuckers off the face of this planet!" the vice-leader cried out with a crazed light in his eyes. "We will show those fuckers!"
"Are you crazy?!" one of the men cursed just as the rest looked among themselves uneasily, "You know what consequences there will b-?!"
BAM! BAM! BAM!
"Overwatch! OPEN UP!!!"
BANNGGG!
The double doors suddenly blew inwards, sending several splinters the length of a man's hands slicing through the vice-leader, who bent over the table and fell gagging onto the floor.
The shockwave knocked the others over their chairs and they stood up on their feet in confusion with blood caused by the cuts from the splinters. One man sat dumbly on the floor with his ears ringing when he saw several dark tubes rolled in. His military experience kicked in, and he recognized the tubes as flashbangs.
"FLASHGRE-"
He quickly threw his large bulk behind the upturned table and plugged his ears with his fingers and opened his mouth just as the flashbangs detonated. He screamed as his ear ringed painfully and he quickly crawled his way to the back entrance of the hall.
"GO! GO! GO!"
Riley and the rest of his squad rushed into the room, finding an upturned table and five bodies rolling about on the ground from the effects of the flashbang.
"Tag and bag them!" Riley ordered coldly as he swept the area.
One of his squadmates dragged the closest person to the side and wrenched the crying man's arm behind before cuffing him by the thumbs. The rest did the same, while another squadmate called out.
"We got a door here!"
"Go check it out!" Riley ordered, and two of his men disappeared through it.
Riley turned and looked down at the five men. One of them laid squirming by the floor in a pool of his own blood, choking on a splinter in his throat while his men crouched next to him.
He looked up at Riley, who shook his head slightly. His squadmate nodded and stood up, denying the vice-leader any medical assistance as the choking man with a splinter in his throat gasped and reached out to try to grab the soldier's leg, who stepped out of reach.
Another soldier used his tablet to verify each person's facial features and names, followed by fingerprinting each of the arrested men.
Another soldier walked among the captured men with a video camera, carefully video and recorded each person's facial features properly before zooming out to capture all four kneeling men.
"Fuck! It's the pigs!"
Riley stood before them and pulled out a small notepad, flipping pages until he found the correct page.
"By the authority granted to me by the highest level of command, Emperor Juan Delroy Maximo, you five have committed the most serious crimes against the Empire. Under Article 84, these crimes are punishable by death or other such punishment as a court-martial deems fit."
He paused, looking at the kneeling men who were recovering from the flashbang's effects.
"Do you understand your crimes?"
The four looked at each other in fear and nodded hurriedly.
"Y-Yes..."
"Good, then it will be simple," Riley said as he gave a cold smile. "And together with the crime of murder of countless citizens of the Empire and the crime of stealing Imperial property and selling weapons to the enemies of the Empire, the Emperor has judged and declared your punishment by death!"
"W-Wait?" The four eyes turned wide as they looked up in horror. "W-We demand a trial! W-We have rights you damn savages!"
Two of Riley's men took up positions behind the condemned rebel leaders, who screamed, pleaded, and begged for their lives.
"Make ready!" Riley's expression remained impassive as the men of his team drew out their service revolvers as one and pointed them at the back of the condemned men's skulls.
"Take aim!"
"NOOO YOU BASTA-!!"
"Ramu Garcia, Siddarth Kumar, both found guilty of terrorism and accomplices to the murder of multiple innocent lives. You are hereby sentenced to death by firing squad without trial!" Riley declared and nodded to his two squadmates who stood behind the two. "FIRE!"
"FUC-"
BANG! BANG!
"Tony Petrynec, found guilty of terrorism and accomplices to the murder of multiple innocent lives. And Ivan Pavlo, found guilty of terrorism and for the cold-blooded murder of multiple innocent lives. You are hereby sentenced to death by firing squad without trial!" Riley snapped his booklet shut and nodded to his squadmates, who had stepped over the lifeless bodies to stand behind the next two.
"I GOT RIGHTS! I AM A DAMN HUMAN BEING! WHAT HAPPENED TO HUMAN RIGHTS!? GENEVA CONVENTION?! THE ABOLITION OF CAPITAL PUNISHMENT!? YOU ARE JUST FUCKING LYING RACIST PIGS! YOU FUCKIN-"
"FIRE!"
BANG! BANG!
Four bodies laid face down with the back of their skulls blown away, blood and brain matter scattered across the rich carpets. Riley turned and drew his revolver and stood over the last dying man in his own blood and said formally.
"Nicolas De Vos, found guilty of terrorism and accomplices to the murder of multiple innocent lives. You are hereby sentenced to death by firing squad without trial!"
And he fired, hitting the forehead of the vice-leader, whose eyes remained open.
"Pack it up! We only got five confirmed kills here! We still have one more to find, which is the Director himself!" Riley ordered. The soldier with the video camera retrieved it from the table where he recorded the whole proceedings, and carefully packed it away.
"3-2, this is 3-1, location?" Riley asked.
"3-2, searching for one of the targets, but the tunnels here are like a maze! We need assistance," the squadmate's voice replied.
"Roger, we are on the way," Riley replied as the men reloaded their weapons. "Wait..."
Stopping his steps, he felt a strange tingling sensation and turned. "Fuck this shit..."
The bodies of the executed appeared to be smoking. The holes on the backs of the dead had tendrils of black mist rising, and before their very eyes, the wound closed up and the dead coughed and cursed.
"Motherfuckers! I'll fucking kill you fucking pigs!" One of the supposed dead pushed himself up to a kneeling position. "You hear?! I'll fucking kill you!"
Without a word, the four soldiers flipped their carbines up and fired. The suppressed weapons tearing chunks of flesh off the half kneeling men with their arms still bound behind their backs.
They jerked and danced as bullets slapped into their bodies, threw flecks of blood and gore all over the room before the ammunition ran out and the bodies slammed face down again in their own pool of blood.
Riley and the rest of his squadmates quickly reloaded their weapons.
"What was that!?" one of his men exclaimed as he kept his eye on the bodies while slapping a new mag into his carbine.
"Fuckers must have signed some pact with demons!" another soldier spat over the side as he stepped to the side to cover the bodies. "Fucking demon magic!"
"Ahahahhah! ack! ahhaha!" One of the bodies laughed and coughed wetly. "You can't kill us! We are immortal! Most of us have sold our souls to kill you all!! AHAHAHAHA!!!!"
The speaking body pushed himself to a sitting position before grunting and ripping his thumbs off the restraints, sending more blood splattering across the room. He looked at the exposed bones of his thumbs and winced.
"It hurts like fuck you know?"
Riley fired again, aiming for the head. His shots blew half the head away of the laughing man, and the others following his lead, firing again and emptied their magazines into the reviving bodies of the demonic rebels.
Black mist tendrils coiled around the wounds of the rebel leaders and the wounds slowly closed up again. One of the crazed men laughed and coughed again as he sat there watching the troops stepping back while reloading to put some distance between themselves and the grotesque spectacle.
"You.. ack! Can't kill us!" The man grinned and wiped the blood from his face, which dissipated into black mist. Even the blood on the floor was slowly vaporizing into the same black mist. "Lord Andromalius shall unleash chaos into this world once more!" His eyes glowed with madness as he screamed. "WE CAN'T DIE! HAHAHAHAHA!!"
"Shut the fuck up!" Riley roared as he suddenly accelerated forward while drawing his combat knife and slashing down. The man's laughing head flew off from his body and Riley continuously fired his rifle into the rest, trying to force them to stop reviving.
"Cut off their heads! Get bottles of salt or holy water and burn them!" Riley quickly ordered. Three of his squadmates charged forward and hacked at the reviving men with their blades, turning the whole room into a slaughterhouse.
Riley pulled out bottles of holy water he had from his hometown's local church and quickly poured it over the bodies. The tendrils of black mist appeared to avoid them while seeming to coiled around angrily before dissipating away.
"Looks like it's working!" Riley grinned as he saw their wounds appeared to be struggling to recover. He nodded to his men, each of whom held a thermite grenade in hand.
"Seems like we're dealing with a demon cult here," Riley said as he pulled the pin of the thermite grenade. "Let's finish this."