You can't outrun your past and sins.
Cornelius Sacratus; Heretic and Traitor of the Council; his last words before execution.
He kicked back the deployment line, detaching the magnetized strip from his tac belt, before the Battlemaster drew his hellfire rifle and advanced toward the scene of the carnage. At his back, the rest of the Vanguard moved up in diamond formation, with Leandros and Korventhor at his flanks, and Caius directly behind Aurelius. Along the far right side of the command group's advance, the rest of the Omen's contingent stealthed their way through the woods, searching for any glimpse of a human foe, perhaps in still searching for some form of vengeance against their old foes.
'Eyes up; contacts far right.' came a crack of static.
'Friendlies?'
Unknown, Battlemaster. Uniformed troopers; certainly not from Jackson.'
'Make contact, I'm on the...'
'Shit! They're opening up on us! Castor's hit; returning fire now!' Fire rattled on the other side of the comms.
'Castor? Octavius? Respond.'
'Alright sir,' came Castor's voice. 'Winded, but I'll be fine. Just a graze. But Battlemaster; there's a number of casualties here. And they aren't wearing that bloody winged insignia.'
'Then mow the bastards down.' Aurelius gave the curt order without hesitation. Despite the fact they'd nearly killed him on his approach, they'd fought together soon afterwards, and little bonded Guardsmen to their allies better than the heat of combat, with the exception of the steadfast Iron Guard.
But now these people had massacred them, and opened fire on the 23rd.
He'd make them pay.
'Understood, Battlemaster, engaging now.' Octavius winked off the comms, and soon, the bark of hellfire weaponry resumed, echoing off the valley's walls to Aurelius' right, and the curses and screams of their victims.
'Battlemaster,' came Lucius' voice, 'got something here - friendlies pinned down. Looks like a lot of hostiles.'
'Engage,' ordered Aurelius, 'We're on route.'
A few minutes later, Aurelius crouched in the shadows of the woods, surveying the scene. A number of bodies, each bearing the same stylish marking on their forearms that he'd seen earlier at the crash site of the Behemoth, littered the ground
'Small world,' he hissed to himself. If the Guard weren't fully dedicated to this battle yet; saving human allies, they would be now, if only to take it out further on the killers of five Guardsmen. However, human gunfire, from the way rounds seemingly detonated from barrels, rather than how hellfire rounds cracked on launch, still echoed on the other side of the farmhouse, indicating someone was still holding, at least for now.
'Castor, Lucius,' Aurelius addressed the two hunters that had discovered the position via the comms, as to reduce the chances of being overheard, even though every other life form within visual range was lying face down in the mud. Caution was always approved on the battlefield.
'Work your way around to the right. We'll approach from the left, and we'll hit them simultaneously. Let none survive.'
'Aye sir,' came the reply. As they moved, Aurelius thought he may have caught a glimpse of the two shadows moving off deeper into the undergrowth to circle about. He shot an accusing glare at Caius, who only shrugged.
'Can't say they're my best,' was his only reply.
Aurelius moved on, though he still bristled at the fact he'd been able to detect them. If a hunter could be detected by anyone below the Battlemaster in terms of detection, they were already dead.
Thankfully, the human standards for detection were significantly lower than that of the Guard, and besides, the humans that might have posed a threat to the two inept hunters were too occupied with rooting out those still trapped within the farmhouse, at least until the hellfires started raining down on them. After a short, unevenly matched battle, they too joined their comrades in death, and Aurelius moved toward the house. He'd tasked the squad with continuing onwards toward the town, eliminating any opposition they found, whilst he investigated the situation. Apart from a knife wielding maniac wearing a Firefly insignia at the door, who met his end at the hands of his own weapon, Aurelius met little to no resistance, as he made his way upstairs.
The floor joints creaked softly as he advanced up the stairs, serving to warn anyone above of his approach, to prevent panic from making hasty judgements.
The first two rooms he entered were both clear, apart from a pair of fresh corpses; evident victims of the firefly attack. Their weapons lay at their sides, and Aurelius was surprised to find each held no more than three rounds in the rifles they carried. The primitive weaponry was of no use to him though, so his only real delay was pausing to close the eyes of the fallen. Even though he still thought of them as potential foes, they'd still died good deaths, protecting their homes.
Just like thousands of the 23rd in it's early days, and it's near destruction at the hands of humanity.
Suddenly, their sacrifice was lost on Aurelius, and he moved on, down the corridor to the last room.
The door inched open, though Aurelius could make out no one yet. Part of him wanted to burst inside, throwing caution to the winds, and discovering if the Guard's efforts had actually been for nothing, or if there were still survivors. The only problem was that he could still easily be mistaken for a firefly, and...
Movement.
Perhaps it was instinct built from millennia of combat, or his sensitivity in the Storm that warned him of the oncoming attack, but regardless, the Battlemaster threw himself backwards, just as the sharpened edge of a fire axe swung into the door, where his head had just been a couple of seconds ago.
'Great Father,' he breathed, as he rolled back up, drawing his hellfire rifle back onto the doorway, which had been driven shut again by the force of the blow it had sustained.
'Battlemaster Aurelius, 23rd Shadow Guard,' he shouted at the door, 'Identify yourself.'
No reply came immediately, but slowly, the door slid back open, revealing the man he recalled to be Joel. He did not carry a firearm, only the sledgehammer from earlier that had nearly ended the Battlemaster then and there, though Aurelius noted with some concern that the man still held it up, ready to swing it at his skull again.
'Easy there,' Aurelius muttered, before he holstered his own weapon, reactivating the magnetic restraints before he locked it to his back once more. Subconsciously, he spread his hands open at the same time, in a gesture of peace, until Joel did the same.
'Wasn't expecting to see you again so soon.' he shot out, still wary of the Guardsman's appearance.
'Well, someone called,' Aurelius responded, miming in the air the transmission beacon he'd left with Tommy. Realization dawned on Joel, and he sprinted back into the room, prompting Aurelius to follow.
There were only two others inside; the girl who'd tried to gut Leandros back at the dam, and a man he didn't recognize, though, Aurelius noted, judging from the wound in his stomach, he'd already passed a while back. Joel went past his surviving companion though, grabbing his backpack, muttering his brother's name again and again.
In his current state of distress, Aurelius wouldn't have blamed him if he hadn't realized he'd been shot.
Blood trickled from a wound on the man's left thigh, but he kept moving, only prompting more blood to flow.
'You know that you need to get that patched up, Joel,' Aurelius began, but the second he started speaking, he instantly dove to the ground, as the girl, Ellie, he remembered, reacted instantly to the sound, and Aurelius kicked himself mentally for neglecting to make some kind of noise to mark his presence to a girl who'd been facing away from the doorway during his entrance, and who was currently armed with a rifle.
'Joel! Behind you!' she shouted, before a round erupted from the barrel of the rifle, and shattered a picture frame on the wall a few feet above Aurelius. Again, he held his hands out in peace.
'It's me, dammit, girl.' He growled the last few words, more to himself than anyone, but the noise still reached her.
'Well, I'm sorry,' she retorted, recovering fairly quickly for someone having just seen a fully armored guardsmen seemingly materialize behind her, 'Those assholes already tried coming in several times. Could you like, make a noise or something. You nearly scared the shit out of me.'
Aurelius gave her a withering glare, though it was lost on Ellie, as the helmet hid most of his features. Only another Guardsman could have been able to tell the subtle movements that conveyed feelings past the cold armor.
'It's Aurelius right?' She asked, taking in the tell tale tinge of red on the inner side of the cloak worn by the Guardsman that marked him as the Battlemaster. Aurelius just nodded in reply, still contemplating how quick people were ready to kill in these times, before Ellie noticed her companions' wound. Evidently, she'd been concentrated on keeping the Fireflies at bay with the rifle whilst Joel had tried to hold the interior of the house, and thus had not witnessed the injury.
'Shit, Joel,' she whispered, abandoning the rifle and Guardsman to move to the man's side, 'You're bleeding.'
'I'll be fine, Ellie,' came the gruff reply, 'but Tommy's probably in trouble too. We need to get back to the town.' The wound was finally catching up with Joel though, and he grabbed at a nearby counter for support.
'We'll see to it,' Aurelius put in. 'We'll get your brother out of there. You though, need to get that patched before you drive yourself into the ground.'
Without waiting for a reply, he opened up a comm link. Claudius and Remus' acknowledgement lights winked green inside the helmet.
'Claudius, Remus, get your sorry arses over here now. I need you to hold down the building at my current position. Get a fall back position set up here on the double.'
'Aye sir, breaking contact now.' came Claudius' voice.
'By the way, we got two humans here; one's wounded. You're on babysitting.'
Before the Guardsmen on the other side of the feed could argue, Aurelius cut the feed, grinning to himself. In front of him though, the two humans looked offended.
'Babysitting?' Asked Joel, an eyebrow raised at the Battlemaster. Aurelius just shrugged.
'Well I'm sure she could do it,' replied Aurelius, gesturing toward Ellie, 'but I'm sure you don't want here telling everyone that you got your arse saved by a girl. Two Shadow Guardsmen; would make it look like you were in a bit more shit than you really were. Besides, they've needed some damsel to save.'
He turned about and left the duo, and Ellie's laughter, behind him.
Toying with the blade in his hand, Caius twirled it about twice more before he sank it into the man's neck, his other hand still clamped firmly around the man's mouth. Blood ran from the wound, and his victim died soundlessly, before Caius lowered him into the undergrowth of the forest. To his far right, judging from the sudden outburst of gunfire, Leandros and the others had made contact as well with the second Firefly group they'd encountered since landing, and soon, the chatter of the crude human projectiles gave way to the crack of hellfire fire.
'Where were you, I wonder?' asked Caius to the dark shape at his back, and not for the first time, Aurelius realized his efforts of ambushing the Master of Shadows was an impossible task. Still though, it would have been a nice change in pace. It might have stopped the chain of comments at least for a day.
Or at least a minute.
'Claudius and Remus are setting up shop about a half kilometer at our backs, at the farmhouse we found earlier.'
'Great,' Caius replied without turning, as he wiped the serrated blade against the blades of grass that carpeted the ground under their feet, 'Any survivors from the attack?'
'Just the girl who tried to stick Leandros when we came in, and the older man that's always with her.'
'I'm sure Leandros will be pleased to hear she's still functioning,' grinned Caius, before he slipped the blade back into it's sheath. He gestured off toward the nearby massacre, where the Guardsmen had emerged from their concealed positions, and were now moving amongst the corpses for anything of use.
'Where's Korventhor by the way?' asked Aurelius, remembering that, upon his approach, his ears had not picked up the unique sound of the Executioner cannon spooling up to fire, nor it's piercing screech after it actually began firing.
'Sent him off on a side road,' the reply came. 'We heard some vehicles, and Korventhor's the best at denying their use, so I sent him to get rid of them.'
Even as he said the words, the comms opened up, and Korventhor's voice broke in.
'Korventhor here, Caius. Managed to hit the trucks, but one made it through the net. In pursuit now.'
'Alright, Korventhor,' Caius replied, rising from his seated position as he did so. 'What's it's destination? We might be able to intercept it before it gets away.'
'That thing ain't getting away,' the broken response came, as the words were jolted from Korventhor as he sprinted after the surviving vehicle, 'It's headed straight into the lion's den.'
'Jackson?'
'I'll get them when they slow down. Good hunting boys. Korventhor out.'
The link cut, and Caius had been about to turn about to face his Battlemaster, if Leandros hadn't sprinted into the clearing at the same moment, holding a human radio.
'Aurelius! We found this on one of the guys back there; they're saying a mad man ambushed the convoy for Jackson...'
'Yes, that would be Korventhor's work,' Caius interrupted in a chatty tone, but Leandros shook his head.
'One survived, and it's carrying more than enough men to finish the job; we got at least fifty contacts all about Jackson, tearing the place apart, and another dozen on route. And that is not including whoever's at the dam.'
'Well then,' Aurelius replied, 'What are we still doing here?'
The vanguard detachment split at the narrow road leading into the colony. A segment of the squad, consisting of Castor, Titus and Octavius, along with Decius' Omen, broke off toward Jackson, with orders to assist the Master of Ordnance in stopping the laden truck. The rest of the team headed onward to the dam, where the emergency transmission beacon had soared into the sky. Hopefully, someone was still alive.
The Battlemaster signaled the squad forward, up the road, as Caius and Lucius covered the next segment of the road. Once they'd moved forward to another concealable site, they signaled the next pair forward, leapfrogging their way up to the dam.
Up ahead, gunfire rattled about the dam, but Aurelius couldn't throw caution to the winds. Though he didn't like it, it was a fact that his men's lives mattered more than a few civilians, with only a few hundred of them still alive.
No more could die in vain.
There were three of them; uniformed militia, holding military grade weaponry, around the corner on the walkways above the dam, with corpses at their feet.
That was enough to seal their fate, as the Guard barged out of the first empty building, mowing down the assailants in a short fury of silent hellfire fire. Two men flew back against the wall as the brutal rounds, and the sub munitions within them, shredded them where they stood, whilst the last slumped to the side, the right half of his head gone.
Gunfire rattled the hallways up ahead, as the defenders of Jackson tried desperately to turn the tide against their uniformed enemies. But equipment was beginning to sway the battle ahead into the Fireflies' favour.
A brutal, silent charge by the 23rd quickly inverted that unbalance, as the Fireflies suddenly found themselves between two forces, and in close quarters with veterans of a dozen Purges.
Aurelius collapsed in one man's skull with a solid fist, before sending another over the railing, into the water below, with most of his limbs broken. At his right side, Leandros was a blur of motion, striking down any that approached him as he advanced, whist at his left, Caius littered the battlefield with headless corpses with accurately placed hellfires.
The entire encounter lasted less than a minute, but it was more than enough time for a systematic slaughter on the Guard's part.
'You don't think they're throwing an awful lot of effort into gutting an isolated town?' the Blademaster inquired, as he retrieved a thrown blade from a Firefly's neck.
'Agreed,' Caius put in, 'Plus the men Leandros counted on the net, there's at least a detachment here in terms of numbers. And we number just eleven.'
Aurelius had to agree. With nearly a hundred bodies, either dead or in current combat with the Guard, and even more on the way, it seemed just too much to be dedicated to wiping a peaceful settlement off the face of the Earth. The only instance the Guard were ever given authorization for such zealous actions was on a Purge, and nothing more. There had to be some high stakes driving the determination behind the attack, and until then, the Guard were fighting blind; being forced to react rather than seizing the initiative. As a familiar face leapt over the makeshift barricades to greet tehm though, Aurelius saw his chance to get an answer.
'God,' Tommy breathed, as he offered a hand, 'I thought you'd really screwed us over with the flare. Guess not, huh?'
It took a few moments for Aurelius to realize the message behind the comment there, before he remembered the coloured markers humanity had used throughout the old wars. Of course; they could be seen by both sides, hence the Guard's use of high frequency electromagnetic signatures that could be detected easily by their constant helmets. He ignored the outstretched greeting though; in all likelihood, the man wouldn't be thanking him for a crushed hand anytime soon.
'What did you do to piss this lot off?' he asked. The open hand dropped.
'Like hell if I know,' came the reply, 'they just burst out and started firing. Town and dam were both hit simultaneously, and we've been cut off ever since.'
'I don't want a status report,' the Battlemaster groaned, 'I want a reason. Seems a bit much to send over a hundred men into burning down a town and wall, doesn't it?' Piss off the locals?'
Again, Tommy nodded his head. But it was in acknowledgment to the first statement, and by the second one, he'd promptly ended the action.
'We haven't had any trouble with the bandits in the area for a long while,' he told the Guardsmen, 'not since Joel led a party out and torched their camp several months ago. And besides; not sure if you noticed, but these guys are Fireflies. Haven't seen them around here in a long time.'
He gestured toward a fallen corpse for effect. and the green armband across it's shoulder.
'Oh,' that was all Aurelius could manage, as he recalled the Behemoth crash site again. Evidently, someone had put two and two together, and come up with five, thinking the town of Jackson was responsible for the brutal massacre of the fifteen man team that had taken down the Guard transport, and thus prompting them to attempt to put the place to the grindstone.
Still though, he reasoned, there were far too many here to just be dedicated to a revenge strike. If a team went missing, standard protocol would call for another team; double the original team's size? Certainly not this many. There had to be something else, and turning about, too late to stop Leandros drive a blade through a wounded survivor's lower jaw, before he tore it off, he realized they'd need a more reliable source of information than the defenders. And there was no better choice for who to obtain that data.
'Give me a few moments to process your enquiry, Aurelius,' the Master of Ordnance replied in a chatty tone as he dragged the screaming human from the ruined truck, 'and I'll get you a reply ASAP.'
He snapped off the line with a thought, before he hurled the man into the nearby intact house that he'd selected as a suitable site for interrogation, though intact was a relative term, after the Guardsman's actions.
The man's startled shriek was abruptly cut off as he barreled through the window a foot or two away from the already ruined door, which now lay ajar, with a broken body jamming it's natural closure.
Dragging up one more hapless survivor, Korventhor barreled through the flimsy obstruction with his prisoner in tow, before he released his grip on the man's shirt as he swung his arm forward, resulting the Firefly leaving a polished table in splinters.
After he'd caught up with the would-be demolition team and initiated a one Guardsman slaughter of the unsuspecting militiamen, Korventhor had intercepted Aurelius' need for information and with nothing but the sheer mental restraint of a Master of Ordnance, he'd avoided caving in the skulls of three Fireflies, all of whom now sat before him, with the exception of the man who was trapped in the empty window frame. Dragging the howling idiot to the ground, the Guardsman ran his eyes over the sources he had available to answer Aurelius' questions. As his previous posting as Master of the Purge, where one's duty was to milk information from subjects, be it on the field or in the bowels of the Armageddon, he'd spent long enough assessing who would yield their secrets in a hurry, particularly with the right approach. Time was always the problem, he contemplated momentarily. The man that lay in the ruins of the table was no stranger to the world; scarred and grizzled, he was certainly a veteran to war, and probably in charge of this rag tag team. Meanwhile, the woman that he'd clobbered on the way in still lay dazed across the floor, though when she'd still been standing, she'd displayed some experienced strength behind her blows, though they'd done minimal damage to the Guardsman. Both would guard their secrets to the grave, or at least to a point of pain Korventhor had no time to administer. But the last one though; little more than a newborn. Terror in his eyes at the sight of the armored figure.
Perfect.
'Lets get this straight,' he opened up, in a remarkably calm, near chatty tone, to his victims, 'I'll ask questions, and I get answers. Anything less...' he ran his index finger across his throat to finish iterating the statement. The three humans shared nervous glances, and Korventhor could see the implied messages there. He knew they all had what he wanted; it was just a matter of whether they'd yield it before the fun began.
Though the young man quivered, Korventhor was silently satisfied that he eventually elected to maintain his silence. It wasn't often he had time to return the suffering humanity had delivered to his brothers and sisters.
'Fine then,' he hissed, before he shot his arm out, seizing the senior of the group by the throat, 'you first.'
Before the others could even register what had happened, Korventhor had dragged the officer over to the kitchen area without much concern, resulting in the man's right arm to become tangled in the ruined furniture. The Guardsman didn't stop, and the man hollered in pain as bone broke in the careless act, until he was thrown, face first, into an open oven. Holding his victim by the neck, the Guardsman wrenched the Firefly into place, until he was kneeling down, like a petty criminal bowing before his executioner; the open oven door serving as the block on which his neck was placed.
'Why are you out here?' Korventhor demanded, and he was annoyed to find the human laugh at him through his pain.
'You planning on gassing me?' he cracked softly, through the flare of pain in his tortured hand, 'You'd be living in a real paradise to still have the luxury of gas.'
'Not exactly,' the Guardsman hissed, before he released his hold on the man. 'I told you not to give me anything but answers.'
With that, he slammed his foot upwards, into the bottom of the oven door, sending the metal plate back into its closed state, until it was jammed by bone and flesh. The door crashed back down, along with the stubborn Firefly, and his broken neck.
Turning about from the idiot's corpse, Korventhor's eyes blazed with fury at the crouching female, who'd finally recovered from her dazed state, at least enough to recover her side arm.
Moving in a blur of motion, the Guardsman smashed the revolver from her grip with the toe of his boot, shattering her wrist, and throwing the firearm up into the air.
Snatching out at the slow moving weapon, Korventhor studied it for a moment, before his face split into a savage grin once more. There were always ways to spill secrets.
Pushing the drum from the revolver, Korventhor emptied its contents out onto the floor, before he stooped down to recover two of the four short projectiles. Without looking, he slotted them back into whichever two slots he felt first, before he replaced the crude magazine once more. Then, for good measure, he flicked the gun past his outstretched hand, sending the drum spinning.
Kneeling down beside the mewling woman, Korventhor placed the barrel of the weapon to her temple, and pulled back the trigger-like system at the back of the weapon, hearing the firearm click once more, readying itself to fire.
Then he pulled the firing trigger.
The hollow clack of metal on metal told him he'd selected an empty chamber, just as it told the battered Firefly, who's tear stained eyes slowed opened, only to realize the ordeal had only begun.
'That was for trying to put a bullet between my eyes.' He kept his tone low, letting the distorted voice of the helmet take over the interrogation. 'Anything else I don't like and you're losing that head of your's. Deal?'
He could see the message sink in, as she blinked the tears away from her eyes, trying to compose herself to open communications. For Korventhor though, she was only another means to fully break the weakest chain of the group. Another demonstration was in order.
'I really don't like long pauses,' he hissed, pulling the trigger once more.
By chance, the next chamber was loaded.
Rising from the corpse of his second victim, Korventhor finally faced the one he'd selected to give him the truth. Frozen in fear, he hadn't moved more than a pace away from where he'd fallen.
'You're next,' the Guardsman whispered. In that second, the still figure was alive with protests, screaming his compliance to the monster. The last demonstration must have done that, Korventhor mused. Kneeling down in front of his prisoner; far too close for the man's comfort, the Guardsman pulled back the revolver's hammer once more, though this time, he held it loosely; close to his own chest, rather than his victim's temple. After all, he had little intention of killing this one, at least for now.
'Well, you heard my question earlier,' Korventhor grinned, 'answer it.'
Stumbling over his words, the man let loose a barrage of information at such a high rate that even the Guardsman couldn't catch, and he was motioned to begin again, before the Master of Ordnance lost his temper.
'Two...two days ago,' he stuttered, 'we sent a team out here, and they never came back. We came out looking for them...'
'This many of you?' Korventhor inquired disbelievingly, though he couldn't sense any actual deceit. His doubt was merely another prompt for the man to elaborate, having been reminded of the cost of anything less than the full truth.
'No, no, no! Just a few of us, looking for Beckett's team, before we found this place.' The Firefly instantly leapt to clarify the open point, before that trigger was pulled.
'We didn't kill anyone!' he screamed, 'just did some reconnaissance from the trees before we saw the girl.'
Korventhor tilted his head in curiosity at that. His memory fed him back the images of that survivor Aurelius had questioned by the Behemoth's crash site, and how he too had mentioned a girl. With this many men out, there was no way this was just some simple feud. The Guard had missed some gravely important detail when they'd elected to kill the Firefly at the crash site in cold blood, and Korventhor would not yield their second chance to uncover the truth here.
'What girl?' he asked, though curiosity and impatience raised his voice to a roar, causing the frightened man to jump in fear, though he didn't get far in his seated position. Quickly though, he composed himself and dragged the vital information to the surface of his mind, before he joined his compatriots in death.
'The girl!' His voice was shrill with fear, but he carried on nonetheless, desperate to see another dawn. 'The immune one!'
'What?'
'She's the one in a billion-billion chance,' he spluttered, his mouth incapable of catching up with the information his mind was recalling to ensure his survival, 'the key behind the vaccine. We found her before; gave her to a pair of smugglers to get her out of Boston; away from the military. Only one made it, and then the bastard did the runner, and took her with him. Our only chance at a cure; gone! Why do you think so many of us came out here once we spotted her and called it in?'
He rambled more, but Korventhor wasn't listening. If the key to their whole search lay somewhere in the town they were fighting to save, the chance couldn't be lost.
'Which girl?' he asked the spluttering wreck, 'what's her name?'
'Ellie...'
'Thank you.'
With that, Korventhor rose to his feet, tossing the loaded pistol off to the side. As he did so, the young man's red eyes instinctively followed the movement; so much so that he didn't register Korventhor's Talons embedded in his chest until they reached his heart, and tore it out.
'Go in peace.'
Making his way over to the open door, Korventhor opened a comm link with the Battlemaster. The rules had just changed.
So engulfed was the Master of Ordnance in the recent turn of events, he didn't even notice the creak of the door behind him, nor the Firefly holding a bottle of spirits wrapped in cloth, step through the opening and light a match.
'Now he's just pissing me off,' Leandros snarled over the rain of fire. The team of four Guardsmen, and a rag tag team of combat ready humans of roughly a dozen in number, were currently positioned at both sides of the empty doorway into the dam's observation center. Though they were only facing perhaps half a dozen foes, the residents of Jackson had unthinkingly placed a heavily fortified checkpoint inside the center, with a scavenged machine gun as its centerpiece.
But, undermanned as it was when the attack began, now it was being used on it's former masters. And unburdened by ammunition constraints, since it wasn't technically their own munitions, the Fireflies inside seemed hell bent on using up every last dreg of ammunition hoarded by the people of Jackson for the past eight months.
While the Blademaster did not share Tommy's anguished connection to the wasted stockpile, he certainly minded being on the receiving end of it. As did the Battlemaster.
'Caius,' Aurelius muttered though the link, 'I think it's time get rid of these clowns. Flank them, bait them, kill them. You know the drill.'
'How do we flank them?' Tommy demanded over the blaze, 'there's only one way inside, and that path would be fuckin' suicide!'
'When you have explosives,' Aurelius grinned, 'there's never 'one' path.'
Catching the message too late, Tommy turned about to relay the message, only to be nearly deafened by the resounding explosion. In perfect timing, just centimeters behind the falling rubble around him, Caius bolted through the new opening a few feet to the left of the main door, letting loose a barrage of hellfires on the grouped Fireflies. The two pistols in his hands cracked twice each, before he rolled to the ground, in near perfect unison as the two unlucky victims of his sudden assault.
Instantly, the rain of fire switched onto the Master of Shadows, as human instincts, uncurbed and undisciplined, jolted aims to the lone, but closer threat.
The mistake proved to be the Fireflies undoing; the momentary reprieve from the constant fire giving Aurelius and Lucius a chance to drive into the room, whilst unleashing another barrage of fire, cutting down two more men, including the machine gunner.
It was all it took for the stalemate to be broken, as the humans and Leandros barged into the room in a headlong charge, whilst Caius and Aurelius drove up the flanks.
Outnumbered and facing superior forces, the two surviving Fireflies were annihilated without quarter, as their bodies were torn apart in a brutal salvo of hellfire, blade and bullet.
Even as they finished the massacre though, a new development sprung in over the comms.
'All units, this is Korventhor,' the voice intoned over the comms, 'we need to get to the fall back position now. Claudius and Remus have the highest bloody priority asset we could have imagined...'
Then, everything went wrong.
Korventhor's link suddenly roared as if it were at the heart of an inferno, before it shut off; replaced by static. And even as Aurelius tried to reconnect with the Master of Ordnance, a new column of black smoke blossomed up over Jackson in the distance.
'Aww, shit.' Aurelius waved Caius over, before he gestured violently toward the towering inferno in the distance.
'Get a hold of Octavius, Castor and Tius; I want their sorry arses on site now, and Korventhor found.'
'Already on it,' Caius replied, as he glided lightly over to the window, only for Aurelius to break it down, causing several humans to jump at the sudden breakage of glass.
'I'm headed back to recover Claudius and Remus.' he explained hastily, clipping a drop line to his tactical belt, and placing the other end on the concrete floor to drill and secure itself into place. 'Korventhor would have had his reasons,' he said.
'Then I'm coming with you,' the Blademaster announced. Aurelius didn't bother wasting his breath trying to persuade him otherwise, with Leandros having already thrown his own drop line anchor to the ground.
Together, they sailed toward the ground; two dark shapes against a grey wall.
Unfortunately for the Guard, vigilant eyes had seen the movement of their rapid descent, and their origin high above, that still crawled with life.
Not for the first time, Caius cursed the spores that were making communications unreliable to say the least. After several failed attempts to raise the three Guardsmen on route to the town, he'd finally cleared up a link, only to find they were locked in a firefight with another group of Fireflies, and that a good part of Jackson had gone up in flames, with fire fighting efforts being postponed in the midst of the battle. Korventhor's chances of survival were thinning with every moment. What's more, now Claudius and Remus had fallen off comms, making it impossible to warn the two remotely.
'Curse this world,' he breathed grimly, before he turned to assist Lucius with triage once more. In the mad fighting for the dam, Jackson's residents had also seen their fair share of wounds, though apart from some scratched plating, the Guard had emerged unscathed.
It was the act of turn that saved his life, as a sudden stab of pain gripped his right arm; not too far from where his heart would have been.
In a moment, the makeshift triage center was alive with screams, as bullets began to rain down, cutting down any who were positioned close enough to the window. Three men died in a mere ten seconds, whilst another three fell to the ground screaming from open wounds.
Throwing himself to the ground, narrowly behind a ruined desk, Caius snatched desperately at the Judgement that had fallen from his back in his awkward dive, only to see Tommy try to drag a man who's biosign had already flattened, into cover.
Grumbling at the blindness of humans, Caius tried to rise, to be stopped by a sight that chilled his blood. Lucius stood in the human's place, red liquid dripping from three sources across his back, before he dropped to the ground, his bio sign dropping to a critical state. Despite his urge to dive out; drag the wounded Guardsman into cover, he reigned the feeling back, forcing himself to focus on remaining unseen; a shadow in the dark.
In a single fluid action, the Guardsman sent an empty magazine from the ground flying into the air in a shallow arc, to the far side of the observation center, in clear sight of the hill the shots had originated from.
In the few short moments the snipers' eyes would have been instinctively drawn to the flying object, Caius rose, placing the Judgement upon the broken desk, and drawing the black cloak's cowl up over his helmet. Then, with the speed precision only a Master of the 23rd could manage, he let the rifle kick back four times, silencing a hidden marksman with every hellfire that left the Judgement.
The last position he'd seen a rifle flash had yet to resume fire again, and he turned blood shot eyes on the small knoll, only to spot the darkened figure tumble away to the other side of the hill in fear. He review the last image his helmet had snapped of the man; checkered shirt, brown hair, and khaki trousers. And of course; green armband across his rifle arm.
Searing the image into his mind, Caius lowered the rifle, knowing full well he was too late to catch the guilty marksman.
'We'll have a reckoning soon enough,' he promised himself, before he threw himself over the table, to reach Lucius' prone form.
Black blood in a widening circle about him, Lucius grabbed weakly at his own throat, and Caius promptly tore off the Guardsman's helm to see to the wound. Thankfully, most of the other humans were still taking cover, sparing them from the sight of the unmasked Guardsman.
Whilst the other two would have probably been non-lethal, the third round had passed solidly through Lucius' throat, severing the major vein their that even now leaked blood out onto the ground, as Caius tried desperately to close the wound with the med kit in his hands. But part of him knew full well his brother was already beyond his aid.
'I need a fucking doctor! Anyone?'
The call sounded desperately at his back somewhere; a human. That was enough for Caius to keep his head down, working on his brother, until a hand on his arm stopped him.
'Save...them...' the Guardsman gasped weakly.
Caius couldn't quite believe what the hell he'd just heard. The thought of saving a human over a fellow brother was beyond him; alien. But it was the bitter 'right' option. He could still save someone; just not his brother. Still though, there was one last thing he could do.
'Be at peace, brother,' he whispered softly. There wasn't much sadness in his voice; he'd committed the basic last rights of the Guard too many times already. Then, he locked the helm back over Lucius' head, as he breathed his final shallow breaths.
'Say again, we are under heavy attack!'
Ducking back down below the relative safety of the boarded window, Joel shielded his eyes from the flying splinters with a single hand, his other scrambling blindly for the fresh magazine that had dropped from his hands when the first rain of fire had hit them. There was a momentary reprieve, as the black clad figure that had just bellowed the SOS dived into the window, letting loose a barrage of the oversized munitions on their attackers as he did so, enabling Joel to make a grab for the slippery clip.
As he hear the satisfying click of ammunition entering his sidearm, the cold knot in his stomach tightened once more.
He'd seen his attackers when he'd gone downstairs with the fire axe, and the pendants they carried. And, despite no logical theory to their appearance, without knowledge of the Guard's massacre further down the valley two days past, his instincts screeched his worst fears into his mind.
That they'd never forgotten. That they were still hunting for her.
Unsteadily, he replaced the pistol in the holster at his side, before he drew up Ellie's hunting rifle. The first unexpected bombardment on the house had included several grenades; military standard, far from the improvised explosives Bill had taught him to craft nearly two years ago in Lincoln. And while they hadn't succeeded in actually entering the house, one had detonated outside the fortified window Ellie had been manning, cutting her with several shards of shrapnel, and putting her out of the fight.
A strong grip pulled him up by the underarm, filling Joel's vision with the black helmet and dulled red lenses of a Guardsman, and dragging him out of his clouded thoughts.
'We need to go right now,' the disembodied voice told him, and Joel simply nodded. He didn't quite know if it was Remus or Claudius he was talking to; the distorted voice of the helmet defeating him. Of course, there was always the unique sigil on each Guardsman's chest plate that he could have referred to, but he hadn't really gotten a proper look to compare the two before the shooting began. He'd spent that time bandaging his wounds, before contemplating on the sudden reappearance of the Fireflies. He shook off the thoughts though; he couldn't change the fact that they were here by moping about. But with the loaded rifle in his hands, perhaps he could.
Those were his last thoughts before a molotov hit the house.
The flaming bottle sailed cleanly through the breach in the house's upstairs walls, and cracked open on the floor beside the two of them; sending the room up in flames.
Joel had enough time to register the fire, before he too sailed through the air; crashing through the partially open door behind him as a result of the Guardsman's throw. He continued even after that; barreling through the banister of the shallow staircase, until he finally managed a solid grip on the edge of the stairwell, halting his uncontrolled fall.
It was only when he started to grumble a curse at the black figure, he smelt burnt flesh, and roars amongst insufferable pain. Shortly afterwards, several sickening impacts of bullets punching through flesh, before a body hit the ground.
The curse died unspoken in his throat.
Letting go of the edge, and letting himself fall to the ground below, already knowing what he'd find upstairs, Joel crawled carefully across the ground, redrawing the pistol he'd just holstered moments ago, keeping it aimed somewhat on the open door to his left as he moved prone. The rifle had fallen from his hands in the fall, and there was little chance that it had survived the inferno that had also claimed the Guardsman that had just saved his life.
Up Ahead, another body was thrown to the ground; this one with most of it's head gone, as he thundered into the wall just ahead, staining it red with his own blood before he collapsed to a heap.
With infinite care, Joel advanced about the corner as slowly as he could manage; keeping one eye riveted on the door, and the other ahead of himself as best he could. The recent victim of the battle was, while without a head, was still certainly a human male, and Joel certainly didn't want to be a mistakened target of the Guardsman responsible. If it were Ellie, she'd more than likely recognise him, but there was no way she was responsible for delivering blunt force injuries of that kind.
Just turning his head about once more to check for more Fireflies, Joel rounded the corner, before he was grabbed by the jacket and hoisted into the air, a solid fist slamming hard into his face, drawing blood. A second later, another arrested itself about his neck, nearly crushing his windpipe in the action, and he gasped for breath, before a straggled cry suddenly relieved him of the mounting pressure on his lifeline.
'Joel!'
Half a moment later, and he was dropped to the ground like a sack of potatoes. Dragging himself up and sucking in as much air as his tortured throat could manage, Joel would have probably fallen back down to the ground again, if a familiar figure hadn't stepped in to support him. His would-be killer, on the other hand, simply grunted, before it turned about, seeking for another victim to sate his bloodlust.
It wasn't much of an apology, but in his current state, Joel couldn't afford the breath to ask a proper one of the surviving Guardsman.
'Jesus,' Ellie whispered, as she tried unsuccessfully to help the wheezing man to his feet, 'are you okay?'
He failed in attempting to answer, but his spluttering cough was enough of a reply for Ellie, as she slipped an arm under his, not dissimilar to the way she'd half pulled, half dragged his near corpse out of the Colorado university, just over a year ago. He couldn't do it again, she promised herself, he couldn't die. Footsteps interrupted them as she managed to get Joel to the wall though, and she drew the battered pistol at her side, taking aim with her one good hand, her bandaged one still supporting her old man.
Her sights fell upon another man; this one armed with a rifle, that rose to her head. In a moment, they could both be dead.
That was until a blackened arm darted out, claw like appendages already outstretched for her foe's neck. There was a sickening crack, before the man toppled backwards, most of his neck gone.
'We need to go now,' the Guardsman told her, retracting the metal claw as he moved toward the pair.
'We're not leaving without him,' Ellie protested, placing herself between the cloaked figure and the man that had seen her through the hellish journey across the new USA. However, a hand on her arm stopped her.
'I can walk,' Joel managed, as he rubbed his throat, 'I'll be fine.'
'Suits me,' replied the stalwart figure, 'We just need to go is we're going to see another night fall.'
Just as Joel was about to contemplate alerting the Guardsman of his brother's demise, the figure suddenly thrust himself forward, toward the open door.
'Get back!' he cried, tearing apart the doorway in a thunder of fire as he moved, along with another unfortunate Firefly. 'Aurelius, if you read, this is Remus. Under heavy assult; assets in danger, I need some bloody support...'
His words were cut off by another blast of fire, though it was not his own. Sheltering Ellie with his own body, Joel only managed a quick glance at the falling Guardsman, before his limp body hit the floor, bleeding black blood across the wood. Then, shadows moved through the shattered passage.
Motioning for Ellie to stay silent, Joel moved as silently as he could, clinging to the shadows, only to nearly jump at a sudden outburst of fire. Far from dead, the Guardsman he'd only just identified as Remus had rolled over, unleashing a torrent of those deadly munitions on his killers in a final act of defiance. The pistol cracked perhaps three times, before a shotgun blast overcame the suppressed cracks, ending the sudden salvo.
'C'mon, Ellie,' he whispered, 'we need to go.'
That in itself was a lie. There wasn't anywhere they could go; they were surrounded by god-knows how many Fireflies hell bent on taking the house they were sheltering in, with another half dozen, by the sound of things, coming in to search the house. That, combined by the fact the pair only had their sidearms left, placed the odds solely in their enemy's favour. Their only real hope was to dodge the steps of their enemies, until Tommy or the Guardsmen could arrive. His thoughts though, were abruptly ended by a tap on his arm.
'Joel?' Ellie shuddered, an arm outstretched toward one of the many corpses that littered the doorway; namely the armband it wore across it's shoulder, 'They're Fireflies.'
Oh shit.
'Why would they do this?' she asked him, although she quickly saw the stupidity of the question. How the hell would he have any idea why they'd go on a bloodthirsty rampage? The people she remembered as the Fireflies were fighting for freedom from oppression in the Quarantine zones, and trying to restore some sense of order into the world. There was no real reason why they'd gone nearly, hunter. Only the ones in the corridor wore the reminiscent yellow uniforms of the organization; the ones she'd picked off earlier were using near makeshift gear, nearly pried from the dead hands of their victims. The only thing that hadn't changed were the constant armbands across their forearms, though against the thick foliage that surround the house, she'd yet to have picked it out until now.
Everything refused to add up; there was no reason for them to degenerate this far into violence.
Little did she realize how wrong she was.
Joel on the other hand, felt nothing but stark terror; of the truth he knew all too well. He recalled the full details of the lie that had become somewhat well rehearsed by now, but there was a slight hesitation before his answer; the unease of telling his girl the lie once more. All he could do was pray she hadn't seen it.
'I don't know, baby girl,' he replied, although that shrug of the shoulders told him everything; she'd noticed.
He would have moved to cover his error, had another not interfered at that precise moment.
Having cleared the main living room, a lone Firefly had moved to sweep the kitchen, taking him right past the two. Before he had a moment to call for aid though, Joel was on him. Seizing him by the collar, he hammered the Firefly's head into the wall twice, before he let the surprised man fall back to the ground. Even as the man opened his mouth to cry for help, Joel stamped hard on his face, killing or knocking him out; Joel didn't care.
All that did matter was the fact someone had heard something.
Shouts of surprise and anger sounded throughout the house, and Joel cursed at his error, although he was quickly seeing a way out of this; the back door still lay unguarded. With a team already inside, there was a chance the men surrounding the place had already written off the house as taken, and moved on, leaving them with a clear road out.
Motioning for Ellie to follow him, he crept onward.
Another two feet.
Then the door swung open.
'He's her...' the Firefly didn't manage to finish his warning with a blade in his throat, but it was enough to alert everyone in the house to their position.
And to make matters worse, the outside was not abandoned as Joel had thought.
A shot crashed through the window beside them, even as another salvo from an automatic weapon tore apart the kitchen they'd just occupied. Although, with a sinking feeling, Joel felt the shots were too far off; that they were just to box them in.
They were coming for her.
Advancing down the hillside, gathered in his cloak, Aurelius flitted through the undergrowth like a wraith, until he leapt the last two meters, crushing an unsuspecting sentry with his landing. A startled grunt on his comms told him Leandros, who was some twenty meters away, had also encountered a sentry, and dealt with him accordingly.
'Pick up the pace, Leandros,' he whispered, 'they're increasing in frequency. We're getting closer. One hundred meters to target.'
He ghosted across another gap in the cover, before he locked his sights on the small house they'd left Remus and Claudius at sometime back. Apart from the dozen or so Fireflies that still sat in a loose perimeter about the house, in the treeline, there was not a soul in sight.
Which worried Aurelius, since Claudius and Remus never were ones for stealth; they fought until the bitter end.
Vengeance steeling his heart, he emerged from the browning foliage in a second, before he reached the small knot of three humans just five meters from his position. Another dozen seconds later, and each of them had hit the ground without a sound, apart from three suppressed cracks biting through the air.
But up ahead, gunfire flashed through the windows of the structure.
Ellie dove down beside Joel, replacing the spent magazine in her clip as she did so. After a quick conversation with Joel, regarding the apparent need for their capture, they'd tested the theory by gunning down the first man who'd tried to approach them on the terms of surrender. Now, despite the fact they had guns at their front and back, they held the high ground, as they fired on any who tried to approach them. But, even as he leaned his back against the wooden table he'd overturned for cover, Joel knew he was long out of options. They'd eventually run out of ammo; Ellie only had four rounds left, whilst he was down to his last two. That would be six dead Fireflies at the very most, and they had at least two dozen still out there. They could barely beat them back in close quarters.
And to make matters worse, he had a sickening feeling in his gut that Ellie was beginning to put their sudden departure from the hospital, and the Fireflies' need to capture the pair of them, together.
Then, a small sack, with with sparkling fuse attached to its' rim, landed between the two of them. Apparently, the Fireflies had grown tired of waiting for them to kill six of their men.
'Smoke!' he managed to call, before he was choking on the sudden assault on his lungs. Shortly afterwards, that was the least of his problems.
A figure grabbed at him from over the barricade, at least until he managed to free a shiv from his side, and plant the blade in the Firefly's hand. The man screamed, just before Joel hit the ground; hard, as another man tackled him the wooden floor, keeping his face pinned painfully to the ground with both his hands. Desperately, he searched about blindly with his free hands, searching for anything sharp. Somewhere to his right, Ellie screamed as others dragged her over the barrier, and in that moment, Joel snapped. He tore his hands up into his attacker's face, clawing at it, before he locked his arms about the hand's neck in a death grip.
He felt something snap, and the hands holding him down go limp.
'Let her go!' he roared, pushing the corpse off his face, and sitting up into the smoke. Everything about him was just a white mist, but he could still hear her; close, and to the point of desperation.
Joel clambered over the brutalized barrier, before he threw himself at the nearest man. But even as he hammered in the Firefly's face, he couldn't keep track of the other four or so survivors that had launched themselves at the barricade, thus he never saw the wooden board swing at his head through the smoke until it was too late.
'Just fucking shoot him!'
'Joel?' Ellie whispered, more to herself than anyone else. The smoke had finally cleared, to reveal three still bodies; two of them still donning the symbolic icons across their forearms, one still wearing a battered, dead watch.
'Joel!' She tried to move to his side, but with two men holding her down and her hands bound with strong wire, there wasn't much she could actually achieve.
'Shoot him!' The Firefly, who'd slammed the 2x4 across Joel's head, screamed. 'He fucking killed them all; Daniels, Roger,'
'You heard what Marcus wanted,' replied the man who was clearly in charge of the assault force, 'he wants this bastard alive. Gotta make him pay personally.'
There was a glint in his eye that told Ellie Joel would be in for hell soon if she didn't find a way out of this. Her hands bound behind her back, against the barricade, she slowly slipped her hands downward, reaching for the trusty switchblade that had saved her more than once. She was too late though, as the furious Firefly drew his own pistol.
'Fine, then I'll...'
He got no further, before a gunshot toppled him backwards.
'I told you I wanted this piece of shit alive,' the newcomer announced to the corpse. He was heavily donned in military fatigues, body armor covering the majority of his body, though Ellie noted it was far from the riot gear the garrison forces in the cities were equipped with. Nah, it looked more like the combat gear issued to special forces, that roamed the 'infected' sectors beyond the Quarantine zones. His actual appearance though, remained to be seen; hidden behind the blood stained gas mask that covered his face.
She stopped her efforts in observation. The switchblade was nearly free.
'Cart these two out of here,' the man ordered, before he turned his gaze on Ellie, 'watch the knife on this one.'
The switchblade was out, but it remained locked in cold hands. How did he know?
That was the last thought she managed before the man known only as Marcus moved behind the overturned table, and locked his arm about her neck, until darkness clouded her vision.
'Get them to the trucks,' Marcus ordered the assembled survivors, 'Separate ones, I think. I want twelve of you on security detail; the rest of you will link up with the others at the rally point and head out by foot; it'll be a long walk gentlemen. Good luck.'
With that, the man left as soon as he arrived, leaving his security detail and the three survivors of the headlong charge with the two bodies needed for transport.
Just as they began work though, the door caved in.
Aurelius tackled the closest man he could find to the ground, planting a Talon in his throat as he did so, only to then realize he was far from alone, as he registered the dozen or so men in the same room, and the fact they were all armed with automatic weapons.
The house lit up with fire, and he rolled to his feet, seeking the relative cover of the nearby wall, though one round passed cleanly through his side, spilling black blood across his armor.
He managed to get to his feet, and check the wound in the brief lull he'd found himself. It was a non-critical injury, and the enhanced coagulants in his blood were already working to knit the wound back together.
Drawing his rifle and putting the wound to the back of his mind, Aurelius darted around the corner, unleashing a salvo of fire that cut apart three men in a matter of seconds.
It was then that he realized they were the only ones still in the room.
Dropping to a crouch, he moved forward, willing himself to disappear into the shadows. Leandros was working about the house's perimeter now, silencing every one of the sentries that surrounded it. He was on his own, and the only advantage he could hold was stealth.
That, and maybe a few thousand years of combat experience over his foes.
But they were nowhere to be seen, as he reached the ruined kitchen, nor were the two humans he'd left Remus and Claudius with.
He'd known they were already dead when he'd approached the house, given the fact the Fireflies had already made it inside, but if there were any doubts, what he found in the living room cemented them.
Only stopping to pull the identification chip from Remus' helmet, and to whisper the last rights to his passed brother, Aurelius continued onward throughout the house, although movement to his right; outside, stopped him.
There; twelve of them in a loose gaggle, all of them situated around the two humans he'd pulled out of the shit some time back, although currently, one was slung over a Firefly's shoulder, and the other was being unceremoniously dragged across the ground like a corpse by two others.
Though instincts told him to open fire without a care, memory of Korventhor's final moments stopped him. The Master of Ordnance had told him an asset was in that house, and in all honesty, the only thing of any real value in the shithole were the two humans; Joel and Ellie.
That, and maybe two deceased brothers.
It might have also explained the resources gone to capturing the two in the first place, Aurelius thought, as he ghosted out of the house, into the long wheat and grass that surrounded the abandoned home.
He got twenty paces before the comms, and the woods before him, exploded into gunfire.
'Aurelius,' Leandros piped in, 'you better watch out; they got a fucking machine gun here on a truck. Trying to get around it.'
Vehicles too? There were some high stakes here, Aurelius knew, just before he rose from the grass, rifle raised, intent on stopping the convoy of people before they made good on their escape.
The hellfire rifle cracked nine times, dropping the escorts before they could even react. Discarding the spent rifle to the side, the Battlemaster drew his pistol and walked on the survivors, who, with their arms occupied, were in no real position to stop him.
'Drop the two of them,' he called calmly, 'and step back. Now.'
He didn't bother asking them to drop their weapons; they were already tucked into holsters. The last time he'd made that error, it had only given the enemy a chance to actually draw the weapons on his head.
There was a moment's hesitation, before they dropped their loads, then instantly dived off the sides, trying to draw their firearms.
Aurelius put them down without mercy; dropping the two on the right, before the searched for the last one in the high grass. Movement drew his eye, and he was just about to let a round off, when the roar of an engine jerked his sights.
There, in the open road, a truck had just rolled up. A truck with a battered, but still fully functional, machine gun mounted on it's roof.
'Well, prick a nut...' he threw the sights over the gunner, desperate to get off the first shot against the damnable Firefly at the turret's back. But, too late by a half second, the last thing he saw was the brilliant flash of a dozen rounds fired in rapid succession, before pain erupted in his chest, and he toppled to the side in the grass.