Chapter 35 - The Kolokol Raid
The Lone Courier was on a roof overlooking his target. Currently, he was doing little more than watching and waiting. The target in question was a nondescript warehouse in Vale's shipping district. It was here he knew the hostages were being held. He had personally reconnoitered the place earlier, his stealth suit making it child's play. This was a major hub of terrorist activity. A front owned by White Fang sympathizers owned what was essentially a complex of buildings in this area. From rosters he had found, easily twelve hundred hostiles were stationed here.
It was a matter of fact that the Courier could have accomplished the rescue of the hostages without a shot fired. However, he had no intention of doing so. To quote Joshua Graham before their assault on the White Legs, "Make no mistake. This is an extermination." He would exterminate the White Fang, just as he had the White Legs. As with the White Legs, he would show mercy once they were beaten, but the road to that victory would be littered with bodies.
Markus was no longer wearing his stealth suit. Instead, he was wearing a dragonskin combat outfit. It was a pre-war artifact, specialized for this sort of work, being made of of kevlar, matte black, and holding large amounts of ammunition in bandoliers. It had been used extensively by pre-war special operations and SWAT units. He also wore custom goggles, capable of night-vision, infrared, and seeing the electromagnetic signals that were outputted by both organic and synthetic life. It was the latter of these modes that he was currently using. In addition, wore the respirator he had found in the Divide. While the respirator was stiflingly uncomfortable, it was utterly crucial to his plans.
Fortunately for him, the White Fang had decided to keep the hostages in a room with an exterior facing wall. Had they been concerned about an assault, they would have placed the hostages far from the point of any forced entry. While that would not have stopped the Courier, it would have complicated matters. The relative carelessness with which the terrorists treated the hostages gave the Courier a strong indication that they felt safe at this location. This was supported by the fact that there were very few ways in which the exterior of the building was being watched. There were no guards, though that was unsurprising considering the low profile this base of operations was seeking to maintain, but also few security cameras. The White Fang were clearly not expecting an attack. That expectation was something the Courier would exploit.
At this hour of the night, the majority of the residents of the complex should be sleeping. Despite the ability of Faunus to see in the dark, He had seen the layout of the room that the prisoners were held in during his reconnaissance and committed it to memory. The prisoners were on the ground in the center of the room while guards sat at the two entrances. Despite the number of prisoners the White Fang evidently did not consider them to warrant more than a couple of guards. Clearly no attempt at escape was expected.
Memorizing the position of the guards' electromagnetic signatures, the Courier raised his goggles to rest atop his head and squinted down the scope of his Anti-Materiel Rifle. He exhaled before firing two suppressed rounds from the Hécate II. The high caliber rounds tore holes in the wall at both points of impact allowing the Courier to see the devastation the projectiles had wrought. The guards dropped almost simultaneously with a muffled thud, blood streaming from the gaping holes in their torsos. The Courier vaulted over the ledge that bordered the roof he was on, dematerializing his rifle while falling. He landed with a forward roll to reduce the sound of his impact and materialized his MP5KS while he ran silently towards the wall.
Upon reaching the structure, he materialized thermite cord and attached it to the wall. Already he could hear the shocked screams of some of the prisoners who did not have the presence of mind to stay quiet at the death of their guards. The thermite had been easy to make. An R&D company meant that no one asked questions when acquiring potentially deadly components. The compound burned through the wall in a matter of seconds. Now that his presence was no longer secret, every second mattered. First, he needed to get the hostages out of harm's way. In order to do that, he needed to convince them to cooperate. He spoke loud enough that they could all hear him but in a hushed tone.
"This a rescue. Remain calm and follow all instructions."
The respirator he wore distorted his voice enough that even someone who was familiar with him would be unable to identify him. His voice was naturally deep enough not to betray his youth.
The captives, civilians made meek by the constant threat of death complied easily enough. He gestured towards the newly created hole in the wall and they eagerly seized the opportunity to escape. Markus would have to risk that they were capable of staying alive for the time being. He had made sure that there were no vantage points from which the White Fang could gun down the fleeing hostages.
He walked over to the body of one of the guards and searched his corpse for a scroll. Finding one, he wiped off the blood and other bodily fluids and called emergency services to the scene. The time it would take to arrive would be long enough for him to execute his plan. He materialized and depressed a detonator that was linked to the air conditioning system of the complex. The entire building was quickly being flooded with a fentanyl based incapacitating agent. It was mostly non-lethal. By the time that government forces arrived, they would find large amount of unconscious Faunus and a smaller number of asphyxiated ones. Even the most corrupt of authorities would be forced to arrest obvious members of a known terrorist group.
Despite its effects of inducing unconsciousness, it was not true sleeping gas, as such a thing did not actually exist. The Courier had calculated that this compound would have an excess of a fifteen percent lethality rate. It was for this reason that the hostages had needed to be rescued prior to the distribution of the gas. While the Lone Courier was not morally opposed to a one hundred percent lethality rate that would have occurred in a conventional assault, he felt killing when capturing posed no additional risk was unjustified.
This was all despite his lack of confidence in law enforcement's ability to restrain the White Fang prisoners so that none would escape either in a prison breakout or immediately upon regaining consciousness. Markus also lacked confidence in the legal system. If the courts had been bought out, then it was entirely possible that the terrorists would go free. In any case, he was unwilling to deal death out of fear.
Another reason the Courier had opted against a direct assault was due to the fact that he had determined that there was no way for him to assault the building without being stuck in an firefight. The structure was simply too open. Add this to the fact that Aura made his enemies tediously difficult to kill, and he would have very quickly found himself swarmed. Besides, he wanted to leave no information about the perpetrator of this raid. A prolonged engagement would provide the enemy with ample time to identify him to at least some capacity. As well, it would cede the initiative to the foe by sheer virtue of numbers. This needed to be done quickly, and cleanly.
The Lone Courier retreated after the hostages, planning to return to his vantage point. As he did so however, he felt a strong impact on his back. One of the terrorists that had come in search of the noise had shot him in the back. Even with this specially concentrated form of the gas, incapacitation would take at least sixty seconds. In regards to the bullet, not only did it not penetrate his ballistic armor, it did not hurt as much as it should have. His Aura appeared to be doing something, weak as it was. Markus turned and was forced to empty nearly ten rounds from his weapon into his target before he dropped.
The Lone Courier was beginning to appreciate the potential value of a properly unlocked Aura, even if he had no idea how they worked. A personal forcefield that enhanced his abilities would have considerable tactical value.
Once he had reached his original position on the roof, he returned to using his Anti-Materiel Rifle. He scanned visually for any White Fang that happened to be outside the building and those that were attempting to escape the gas, picking off all he saw with silenced fifty caliber rounds. Even with Aura, the projectile had too much force to withstand. At this range, with this caliber, headshots were a poor idea. Center of mass shots simply tore gaping holes in the torso of the targets, liquefying organs on contact.
Those that did not know the Courier well would be surprised to know that he preferred fighting masked enemies. Despite the fact his inability to read the emotions of his enemies put him at a disadvantage, Markus much preferred seeing a mask rather than a face. He preferred to see a lifeless object rather than the fear or anger held by the face of human. It was much easier to murder people that way.
As he saw the telltale flashing lights in the distance that indicated the authorities were arriving on the scene, he sniped the last of the White Fang outside the building before materializing his detonator once again. He depressed it twice this time, activating the last part of his plan. A massive, multicolored, and multi-(Aristotelian)element, explosion towered into the sky in the shape of a mushroom cloud. As Markus had no means of reacquiring the Dust that was stolen, he had done the next best thing: planted composite four on it. Asset denial. If he could not have a resource then his best move would be to destroy it, to prevent his enemy from using it against him.
So ended the Lone Courier's first battle with the White Fang in his personal war against them. While this satiated his desire for revenge, he had determined the destruction of the organization to be necessary, and would prosecute this aim to the end. As the much clichéd saying went, while the battle was over, the war had just begun. And, as the Lone Courier knew, from the Wastelands of D.C. and the Mojave, to the civilization of Remnant, war...war never changes.