The Kreigers.
A big mercenary company. Most mercs worked as one outfit, moving together, growing or shrinking as casualties and new recruits balanced out. The Kreigers were different- they handed out battalions like candy, splitting them up as they pleased to serve dozens of clients at once. They were disciplined, almost fanatical even, well-equipped, and very well-trained, especially if they were fighting in urban conditions like this.
Kill zones, overlapping fields of fire, grapeshot-loaded cannon, lines of rifle men, earthwork walls, a thousand-strong force that had turned a public park into a fortress that could break any army on the planet.
And, Eka reflected idly as his cleaver-like dao turned a cluster of infantrymen into a screaming mess, it still wasn't enough to stop them. Not even close.
The Kreigers were brave, sure, and they fought to the last...but the combined force of the Gears and Nightmares had hit them hard and fast, the members of the night watch dead before they could do much more than scream, and before the soldiers could even fall into formation the slaughter had started. Order and discipline were of no help when your opponent could move faster than you could aim your rifle, or could simply ignore the bullets, or was just that much stronger in close quarters.
And so they died. Bravely, stubbornly, screaming their defiance, but they still died.
Eka ran forwards, a quick Shave taking him inside the reach of another Kreiger infantryman, and swung-
His blade was halted by another, a sabre. Eka leapt back, taking in his new opponent while the kid he'd almost decapitated decided discretion was the better part of valor and booked it. Tall, wearing the same dark blue uniform and peaked cap the Kreigers favored, carrying a sabre in his hands.
Nine other men, nearly identical, were striding onto the battlefield beside him.
Ah. The Kreiger's company commanders, then. He'd heard about them. Tough guys.
Eka grinned behind his mask, and hit the toggle.
Aches and pains vanished, his body shivering as energy filled him to his fingertips. He raised his dao to the night sky and howled.
His pack answered.
The Oni went to war.
The Bell-Bell Fruit, she'd called it as they ran to fulfill his Captain's orders.
A hasty explanation on its powers, how it worked- basically, it allowed him to use his powers like the clapper in a bell, causing vibrations to ripple through whatever he touched. He'd been a little surprised she was giving that much up freely, rather than being pissed at him- he knew he'd be, in her place.
Then he'd seen her turn into a mass of threshing clockwork and turn a platoon of Kreigers into mulch the moment the slaughter had started, and he'd realized that she was just turning her anger somewhere else.
Probably afraid of the Captain if she took it out on him, heh.
He swayed around a Kreiger's desperate bayonet charge with Paper Art, his tonfa coming around and crushing the back of the guy's skull in the process. The soldier flopped to the ground, joining the sixty or so others scattered at Gin's feet. Gin straightened up, and took stock for a moment. Several more Kreigers were waiting, a loose ring of opponents, but none of them were willing to get into close quarters and they'd quickly learned that attempting to shoot him was a waste of ammo thanks to Paper Art. He flipped his tonfas under his arms, and lit a cigarette, drowning out the smell of blood and bodies. The Kreigers tensed. Gin smiled.
"Well?" he asked, letting the smoke wreath his face. "You going to do something or just stand there like a pack of idiots?"
"Stand aside, men."
The man who approached now was twice the height of everyone present, Gin included. He wore a slightly better version of the blue coat and trousers of his soldiers, with epaulettes of rank, and was bald as an egg. Metal gauntlets covered his fists.
Gin cocked his head. "Know your face," he said shortly, flipping the hafts of his tonfas back into his hands with the ease of long practice. "Armstrong 'Bloodied Fist' Charles. Second-in-command of the battalion, ain't that right?"
"You would be correct, pirate. It is fitting you know who will kill you, isn't it?"
Gin shrugged. "Suppose so. I'm Gin, then."
The big guy paused. "Ohohohohoho," he said with a smile. "You've got a wit on you, pirate. Men, go help in the defense. This one is mine." The Kreigers ran. Gin let them.
"Before the fighting starts, one question," he said.
"Ask."
"You're mercenaries. Why not turn to the other side? You outnumber everyone except the actual rebels, and that rabble wouldn't hold up for long against your men. So why not pack it in now, take some money from the winning side?"
"Would you do the same, in my place?" Charles asked.
Gin shrugged. "Guess not. Let's do this."
"Right." The man dropped into a boxing stance. "Prepare yourself, pirate. My techniques have been passed down my family line for gene-"
"Destructive Frequency: Bone." Gin Shaved forwards, a single tonfa swinging upwards. "Exorcism," he said, as the tonfa hit the man in the fork of the legs.
His technique wasn't great- enough backlash vibrated back down the steel handle to make his own arm ache- but it didn't have to be. Gin dodged to the side as the big guy collapsed, clutching at his abused nether regions. Pelvis probably fractured, as well. Hmph. He'd expected more.
The big guy slammed a fist into the ground. It left a crater. Then he got to his feet, eyes filled with murder.
Why the hell did he have to go and taunt fate like that? He should've learned from the fact Krieg had yelled 'nothing can stop us now' when they'd gone over Reverse Mountain! The bitch was always listening!
"Iron Storm!"
Gin wove around the blows, trying desperately to keep the relaxed, centered mindset Paper Art demanded as the enraged behemoth pressed onwards. Every dodge was accomplished with millimeters to spare, each killing blow barely evaded, as Gin waited for his opening.
He found it, as the man overextended, just a little, enough that it left an opening. Gin jumped and let his power extend out, pushing it into both ends of his tonfas as they struck at Charles' head.
"Death Knell," he said flatly, as they slammed into the man's head from both sides. The shockwave rattled down Gin's bones, and he bit back the urge to scream, but the big man fell to his knees, blood leaking from ears, nose, and mouth. Gin got out of the way as the man fell to earth again.
This time, he didn't get up.
Feh. He almost missed Sanji. Fights these days were over too fast.
Private First Class Toterman Zufuss was regretting being born.
It was simple- he couldn't regret joining the Kreigers, because nobody didn't join the Kreigers on the isle of Brandenburg. To make war was his people's way of life! Everyone joined the Kreigers, once they turned fifteen. Everyone went to war. It was what made Brandenburg strong, what paid the fees to keep them in the World Government. How could he regret joining, when everyone did?
He couldn't regret coming here- the decision had not been his. Mars Mal, their commander (and beauty and leader and hard-edged ice queen) had made it. It was to be a good testing ground for her new battalion and new command. Everyone had agreed, eager for the battles to come.
He couldn't even regret being in this fight- because hell, he had no control over if the enemy wanted to make a suicidal run into their territory. It had to be suicidal. No matter what, they would've heard the gunshots if they'd actually fought all the rebel formations around their base, and the moment those thousands of men and women mobilized this small force would be caught between hammer and anvil. It had to be a suicide run, they couldn't have fought all those people silently, right?
But regardless, there was nothing in his life to regret, as he stood shoulder to shoulder and poured lead at the slender, approaching figure, working the bolt of his rifle frantically as she dodged every shot aimed at her...as his friends and comrades fell around him to the hails of bullets coming from that approaching figure, he could regret nothing, for he'd never made a decision to be here and now…
And so he regretted his birth on Brandenburg, the start of the path he was on now, and kept firing, even as he heard the distant roar of the battalion's ammo stores going off and the screams as the Kreigers fought and bled and died.
Dammit, if they could just hit the bitch-!
A small, dark object flew from the woman's hands, thudding at Zufuss's feet, and the Kreiger line broke as they scrambled away from the grenade. Zufuss froze, then threw himself on the grenade, knowing that there was no way he could get away, but maybe he could stop it from-
A cloud of smoke surrounded him instead, and after a few moments, Zufuss stood back up, legs trembling slightly as the fact that he was still alive registered. He panted, peering through the purplish fog the grenade had emitted. He couldn't see anything. Where...where had everyone gone?
Something moved in the fog. Zufuss tried to raise his rifle, only to find that his arms and legs wouldn't obey him, locked into place as the shape drew closer, gaining more definition by the second.
Zufuss had always hated centipedes. There'd never been a reason for it, they'd just looked horrifying.
The woman who approached was covered in them. No, she was one. No, she was made of them-
Zufuss realized he was making a small keening sound as the thing drew closer and closer.
It reached out a hand- a claw- a writhing limb of insects- towards his face, and Zufuss froze, heart pounding.
It touched him, and then there was pain-
And then nothing.
Lauren kept her gorge from rising as she yanked the hatchet free. The Kreiger flopped to the ground.
Her breath hissed past the gas mask.
Inhale. Count to four. Exhale. She was in control here.
The hallucinogens were doing their work. The Kreigers that weren't frozen in terror were either running, or trying to kill each other, and the cloud was spreading through the camp. Everyone on their side knew to avoid it, and she had some counteragents for anyone who was stupid enough not to listen, but the Kreigers weren't so lucky.
She just wished the work wasn't so messy, but she didn't have a choice. She didn't have enough bullets to make things clean. C might've been able to handle a bunch of kills at once, but last she'd seen of him, he was impaling Kreigers on their own bayonets, and the fighting had separated them.
She moved on, checking the loads of her carbines. Six shots in the left, eight in the right. She had enough bullets for two more twelve-round reloads in each, but those would take time. Pain in the ass…
None of the Kreigers that she could see were in any shape to fight. She'd have to-
The only warning she had was a whisper of movement in the purple smoke. She jumped to the side- it saved her life as bullets lanced through the cloud and where she'd been standing. How the hell had they-
She lunged forward as more distortions formed, grateful that she'd spent so much time training her reflexes since the Gala. If she'd been slower, she wouldn't have even been able to tell the bullets were headed her way.
The bullets kicked up sprays of dirt, and she juked to the side, hands raising her carbines and firing both back in the direction they'd come from. Five and seven. The levers clicked and clacked as she rotated both the carbines, feeding new bullets in, and she changed tack, crossing her own path. Just as she'd thought, the bullets cut in the direction she'd first been running.
Whoever this person was, they must've had very good hearing. She would've snarled, if she wasn't worried they'd hear that as well.
Another quartet of bullets lanced ahead of her, only avoided by a frantic use of Paper Art, and she snapped off two more shots. Four and six left. Then she burst clear of the gas, and saw her opponent.
Her face was obscured by a full-face gas mask, but the cut of her dark blue coat, the double-barreled pistols in her hands, and the twin straight sabers at her hips gave her away. Mars 'Cutlass Lass' Mal. Commander of the Kreigers.
Fucking wonderful.
Mal, despite everything, was liking what was going on.
This? This was a battle, not the pussyfooting around Roberts had insisted on. This was war, red and bloody, and she loved every minute of it.
She grinned at her opponent, discarding her pistols- the damn revolvers were out of ammunition anyway- and putting hands on her beloved blades.
Cutlasses. And anyone who called them sabres would feel them rammed into their guts, oh yes.
The girl was angry, she could tell. It was all in the eyes, and the hands. The former were glaring over the girl's gas mask and the latter were on the grips of her carbines, so she was probably...mildly upset, at least.
Mal laughed. "You're a toughie, ain'tcha? Never seen someone dodge bullets before, but you walked right through 'em!" Her grin widened as she bared her sabres, not much, a lady never revealed all at once, but an inch of steel on each side. The other girl's carbines twitched upwards, not quite lining up with Mal, but moving so that a flick of the wrist would do that.
Interesting. She could feel the tension, like lightning. Her heart was pounding in her chest.
One wrong move, and this girl would have her dead.
She'd never felt so alive.
"Come on," she growled, baring two more inches of steel. "Let's see what you're made o-"
The girl moved, crossing the space between them in an instant, and Mal drew her blades, catching the overhead strike of her opponents hatchet between them inches from her face. A bead of sweat rolled down the side of her face as she felt her knees nearly give way under the force. What the hell? The girl was scrawnier than her, how on earth was she this strong?
"You don't talk much, do ya?" she taunted. "You should be more personable, you know. Makes people like you."
The other girl said nothing. Then again, the gun in her other hand pressing against Mal's belly said volumes. Mal grinned at her.
The girl didn't pull the trigger. The hatchet pressed down, and Mal's arms trembled, but the girl still didn't pull the trigger.
"What's the matter?" Mal asked, syrup-sweet. "Don't have the guts to gut-shoot me?" She laughed. "Come on, girl. This is a war. Do it! Pull the fucking trigger, or I'll kill you and finish off your allies next. Do it! Pull the god-damned-"
Blam.
Mal staggered as a spike of white-hot pain ripped into her gut, falling to one knee. Blood trickled past her grin, dripping to the ground. "Argh...good. You've got balls," she said.
Pain didn't matter. Blood loss was unimportant. Only the fight mattered.
"Got guts," she growled, getting back to her feet, feeling strength shivering down her limbs as her vision turned red. The girl was backing away.
"NOW LET'S TEST IT!" Mal shouted, before lunging forwards. "ENFILLADE!"
The cutlass in her left hand chopped into the girl's hatchet just below the blade, leaving her holding a wooden stick. The one in her right took her opponent's left arm off at the shoulder.
The girl screamed, dropping her hatchet to press a hand to the gushing wound, and the blade in Mal's left hand swooped down to end her-
Only for a massive impact to send her flying back, bouncing twice off the ground before something broke her flight.
Mal groaned, cataloguing her injuries. Broken ribs, what felt like a cracked skull, left arm was tattered with splinters and at least two breaks...ugh.
The red in her vision dulled the pain, though, and so she staggered back to her feet, glaring around.
There was the fucker. Looked like a zombie, sunken eyes and all, but those cannonball-tipped weapons were the only thing she could see that could've hit her that hard. The blunt things rotated slowly as the new man watched her.
Mal spat blood on the ground, and grinned at him, a distant part of her noting that the girl had run away. She didn't matter, though. Only the man in front of her did.
It caused screaming pain, but she managed to lift her left arm to her mouth, letting her teeth take up the job of holding on to that blade. She grinned around her weapon's hilt as the rotation of her opponent's tonfas increased, subtle distortions forming around the cannonballs.
Mal charged.
The man ran to meet her.
"ENFILLADE!"
"DEATH KNELL!"
There was a terrible ghastly noise.
There was a terrible ghastly silence.