The building was alive with the commotion that the explosion set in motion.
There were teams of cultists running as fast as they could down into the garage with keys in hand. The steel door left open as they attempted to rescue and trucks or motorbikes that they could. The smoke made it unbearable for the average man, but they were more tolerant in getting through the smoke and flames. Some would catch fire and not even bother patting it out too.
One Cultist in particular watched as his men took care in saving what they could. He covered his face with a brown cowl which flapped in the wind that suddenly decided to start blowing. This man glared at the garage with his arms crossed, thinking. 'How could something like this just happen? This doesn't just happen… Unless…'
He called out to man dressed from head to toe in the protective coating of cold steel armor. The cultist was a semi-mag unit. His most notable feature was his bacinet helmet that had a expensive gold trim around the seams of the metal. The rest was a complete case of plate armor with the symbol of the rising sun in the center of the chest.
"Cover the trucks out! I have business to attend too!"
The fire worked as a great distraction for this Hill Top agent, since most of the bases people were off in the garage, or adjacent to the garage area. This gave him time to sneak through security to the training room.
Taking back doors and hallways, Icebox arrived in front of a room's door that had the rising sun painted above. This was a universal sign for a training room in the Red Sky cult and he thought that he might as well take a door through here, since there was no other way to get to the armory, control room and artifact museum.
This room acted as a bridge to the other room of the building. He didn't like the thought of having to massacre through loads of cultists just to reach his target. Not that he had a problem with killing, but hated making unnecessary noise. The door slid up as Icebox neared it and sure enough, the welcoming committee was all there.
A total of six cultists were sparring with each other. Slashing and swinging with swords and daggers, practicing their abilities. At the head of the group observing them was a mage. The mage, unlike the plainly dressed underlings, was covered from the neck down in black robes. His hands were covered by grown gloves and his brown boots stayed wrapped around his feet.
Besides the hair, the mage had nothing covering his head. Icebox coughed loudly, immediately gaining the attention of everyone in the room who looked to see the operative holding a MX3 hand grenade. The pin was pulled before he threw it at the group and exploded killing all six cultists on detonation.
Chunks of raw flesh and blood splashed on the ground and other bodies. Feet were severed by the force sent flying a few meters. The cult mage took a step back, then another reaching into his cloak to pull out a dagger.
He pointed the blade at his opponent while saying:
"We have expected you for some time. You should know that you are no match for us."
Icebox cocked his head at the claim.
"I don't have time for this." He raised his gun and fired several shots which the mage amazingly managed to roll and dodge out of the way. When the Hill Top operative stopped shooting, the mage through his dagger into the air on a course for Icebox's head.
He tilted his neck as far as he could, managing to avoid the projectile barley. The dagger clanged it's way into the hallway giving only seconds for him to react. .He took one hand off his gun, reached behind him and pulled out a combat knife with a blade almost a foot long. He raised it in front of him and let his weapon dangle by his side.
The mage rushed at him pulling another blade out of a leg sheath. The cultist swiped at his enemy, but was unable to hit him. The Marauder belt backwards and watched the iron glide by before counting. He took his blade up and impaled the knife through the jaw and into the frontal lobe of the robed attacker.
The Hill Top agent tugged hard and the knife slid right out, spilling a fountain of blood onto the floor. The now limp body loosened it's grip, dropping it's tool, then collapsed onto the floor. Blood draining out of the noose was a sight that made the operatives eyes water.
The Marauder looked across the room at the doors to the next section of the building then looked around at the rather empty room. The only things here besides the bodies were several flags of the cult hanging on the walls of the building and a marble floor that was now stained with slippery body fluids.
The man sighed and stepped over and around the messy blood and flesh spread all over. He steps echoed across the building as he neared the doors.
The steel barriers slid open and he walked through into a hallway. They shut behind him with a soft swipe. He looked to the left and turned, beginning his path to the armory, then the control room, then finally the artifact room.
As he began thinking over his plan of how to destroy all the weapons in the armory, he head a buzz in one of his coat pockets. Icebox raised his gun and ejected the current magizine, switching it out for another before taking out a communicator from his pants.
He pressed a large rectangular button below the small screen, then raised it up to his head.
"Yes?" He said lowering his rifle again.
"Icebox! So glad you could answer." It was his leader, Hill Top Commander.
"Yes, Sir. Hmm?"
The SO took the device away from his ear to squint down at the other end of the hall where a group of cultists gathered. They spotted him and began jogging to him. There were about eight of them all armed with iron swords.
"I'm kinda in the middle of something." He said turning sideways, raising his gun with one hand and resting it on his forearm. He squeezed trigger unloading his entire mag at the group. The bullets shredded the group of attackers to ribbons.
Red mist filled the air and red became the color of the walls.
"Icebox, I want you to come to dinner with me tonight."
As the shell casings hit the floor, the Hill Top operative ejected his other mag and loaded up another.
"What are you serving?" Icebox said into the communicator.
"All forms of shellfish and soda!" Came the response from his Commander.
"What time?"
"What time can you be here?"
He scratched the side of his head with the barrel of his rifle.
"I'm in the middle of something."
"Okay. How about 9:00PM?"
"Uhh, sure. I'll see you then." Icebox pressed the button and looked at the screen. It said 'transmission ended'. He nodded and slipped it back in his left chest pocket. The Operative looked up and down the hall at the crowd of corpses lying piled up on top of each other.
He raised his gun up and took it in both hands then continued walking forward. It only was a few meters to the armory and he didn't see it coming when one of the doors to his right blew off it's hinges caused by a fierce blow of an abnormally large fist.
The Marauder took a few steps back and got down on one knee. He sighted up the target as it exited into the hall. It was a sub-mag unit suited up in armor that looked similar to a knights'. A sallet helmet and layered chest plate were the most distinguishing features. In the creatures right hand it carried a large iron sword.
It looked down the hall at the body pile then shifted its gaze over to the cause of it. It growled a deep vicious growl that sounded more like a creature than a man. It raised it's blade in a waring gesture and spoke the thundering words:
"Come on, Peon!"
The Marauder Reached up and undid a pocket on the side with his right hand. Before it was fully open, a number of grenades fell to the ground clanging a roll on the stone. The Hill Top operative froze in embarrassment at the fumble, giving the enemy to realize what was about to do.
The Knight lowered its weapon and pointed it straight armed.
"Charge!" It screamed and stampeded forward, shaking the hallway with each stomp.
Icebox's arm shot out, grabbed a grenade and rolled on his shoulder. The sub-mag rocketed past the man and down the hall and stopped a little ways past the Operative. The operative took no second thought in pulling the pin and chucking the grenade as the enemy.
The explosive blew up only a second latter, acting as a jet engine of shrapnel into the Sub-mag. It roared and turned, dropping it's blade and clutching it's back as the flesh burned underneath the shredded metal. Steam seemed to pour off it's body as if boiling water was dumped on it.
He watched the creature claw in agony at the metal that was supposed to protected it but now made it impossible to pry out the burning shards of steel in it's body. Icebox aimed his weapon at the neck of the monster and flicked the switch on his AN, setting it to burst.
'Tat tat tat. tat tat tat. tat tat tat'
The bullets penetrated through the neck armor with no resistance. The sub-mag ignored the burns on it's neck, now reaching for it's neck before it fell forward on the ground. A pool of blood started to spread across the floor.
The Hill Top soldier smirked under his mask and quickly gathered up the grenades on the floor and moved them into his thigh pockets, so he wouldn't have to pull them out of his bag later. He turned back down the hallway and began walking down it to a door just a few meters from the pile of dead.
He stood in front of a door that had a large bomb painted on it. This screamed foreshadowing to him, which he liked very much. The Marauder pushed it open with a soft creak. The contents of the room were far from surprising.
The standard Red Sky Cultist used melee weapons, such as; swords, axes and daggers.
It didn't surprise Icebox to see racks upon racks of swords and knives. The cultist used swords whenever they could and it was the prefered weapon, which surprised most people. most members of the cult walked very slowly, only running every once and awhile.
There were shotguns too. Including one very large one, mag sized, that was standing up against one of the racks. It was a double barrel and it's shells could probably shatter bones and skulls with a single blast of it.
Icebox took off his bag once more, that seemed to slip off this time with no problem. He swung it in front of himself and undid the straps, opening it. He grabbed one of the explosives out of the bag and walked around the room for a short time, trying to decide where to place it.
He settled for placing it in the middle of the room, surely the blast would fill the entire room, since it wasn't that big to begin with. He set the bomb down and typed the code into the keyboard pad, arming the explosive. He stood up and dashed across the room grabbing his bag and running out into the hallway once more.
He slammed the door behind him and looked to his side to see two more cultists shuffling towards him. He side stepped away from the wooden door and switched to full auto. The bullets spun through the air, each bang acted as an emphasis of the deadliness of the projectiles. They hurdled their way into the chest and lungs of the first cultist, holding a large axe, who dropped to his knees then fell over on the ground.
The second dodged the first three round but took the next five head on. He flew back from the sheer force of the gun and splatted backwards. His head falling to the side looking at the wall. He turned around and ran to the door on the other end of the hall, dropping his current mag and pulling out another, loading it in as he moved.
The sound of the boom seemed so much louder this time.