Log One, Journal Two

Merely injecting the artificial sera still isn't working. We've sorted out most of the manufacturing defects, mostly a matter of replacing the stock we were harvesting from, but results are still difficult to maintain. I refuse to lose funding for something like this. We will make better soldiers.

Log Two, Journal Two

Hypothesis: if we had a means of maintaining a constant supply of artificial sera, the tendency of the cells to be discarded by the body after a short period would be negated. Perhaps, with constant exposure, the body would adapt. The question then becomes, what sort of mechanism would that require? Mechanical interfaces would be vulnerable and highly unsanitary to boot.

Log Five, Journal Two

I've finally cracked it. The artificial sera can self-organize if given an unoccupied base and a high enough concentration. And the resulting structures produce more sera! Initial tests are going well with the volunteers, and I've lined up a surgery for myself after seeing the results. They're so much more vital, so much more alive, than ordinary humans, now. Smarter, stronger, tougher.

I will have that for myself. The pride of the family, and my own pride, demands it.


Dr. Jomurka Basi turned as the sound of gunfire echoed through the hallways, abandoning the cell culture he'd been examining. He did so just in time to see the door of the lab he'd been working in explode inwards, and to duck as screaming and the sound of high-caliber rifle fire consumed his world. He huddled behind the lab counter, flinching as a round burst through the wood just in front of him, blasting a hole the width of a dinner plate through the wood.

Damn it, Vinci had known exactly where they'd been trying to reverse-engineer the pirate's work! That, or Basi had the worst possible luck.

Of course the pirates were betraying them. They were pirates, after all. But-

Basi froze as he realized things had gone very quiet all around him. He crawled forward as carefully as he could, and peeked through the massive hole that had been blasted through his poor abused lab counter. The assailants - huge, armored, and carrying equally huge weapons - were pulling back.

Was that really it? Were they leaving without checking? Stupid bastards, of course they were, they were a pack of idiot pira-

A dark-grey cylinder flew through the busted-open door, and bounced off the lab counter opposite Basi's, rolling to a stop just shy of him. It hissed ominously as he stared at it, and he began to back away-

Basi felt searing heat, and then nothing else.

The squad of Wolves moved on. There were other labs to destroy, and little time in which to do it.


Security Lieutenant Custer MacArthur smiled as his men wheeled the cannon into place. If the traitorous bastards wanted to get into this tower, they would have to face enough riflemen to give Marine captains pause and a whole lot of heavy artillery. The first-floor atrium he'd ordered his men into provided more than enough room for both. It was a good thing, too - nobody could evacuate from this tower without leaving through here and ending up slaughtered by the Nightmares, and this made sure they'd hold out and protect every one of the noncombatants and civilians inside, from doctor to dishwasher. They had the firepower for it.

He didn't care what sort of science freaks the Nightmares had, they didn't have a chance against this many-

Tink. Tink. Tink.

MacArthur slowly turned to where one of the Nightmare's freaks was lounging against the barrel of a cannon, cloak shrouding its features as it tapped a clawed finger on the weapon's barrel. The bodies of the gun crew, slain in complete silence, were piled around it.

MacArthur drew his sabre, but the apparition vanished, leaving behind a slowly ticking sphere, right next to the barrels of gunpowder.

MacArthur had just enough time to curse before the blast ripped him, and the entire tower, apart.

William Wallace stepped through unreality and re-emerged with the ease of long practice, falling into step behind Bertram Lauren and the rest of her guarding force - the Ghosts, they'd called themselves, in a fit of morbidity.

They had an elevator to secure, now that their flanks were dealt with.


Rosie Camasa ran through the corridors, the sound of screams taunting him. It was just him, Punan Sark, and Lobaka Mena left from their squad. The giants had slaughtered the rest, and they'd run as the rest of the security team died.

They weren't equipped to deal with this! Their guns couldn't even scratch the armor on those behemoths, and trying to fight with bayonets was even more suicidal! All they could do was die in place. And so they'd run, fast enough and far enough that maybe, just maybe, the pack of monsters in human skin wouldn't catch the three of them.

Camasa slowed as the other two did, all of them panting and out of breath. Mena and Sark exchanged glances, and Mena opened his mouth. "I think we're s-"

The wall behind Mena exploded, and Camasa ran, catching a glimpse of metallic, insectoid limbs impaling the security officer as he did so.

".-. . .-. .. ... ... -··- - . .- - -... .- -. ... -·-·-" the abomination screeched as the two security officers bolted, the sound of metal screeching against the wood and concrete of the hallways pursuing them. Camasa spared a glance over his shoulder, and instantly regretted it as the sight of some unholy combination of clockwork toy, centipede, and grain thresher screeched at him, waving what seemed like an endless supply of welding torches, buzzsaws, and thorned tentacles. Sark and Camasa rounded a corner, sprinting flat out, and the abomination crashed through the wall, burying half its length into the concrete. It still wasn't dead, judging from the muffled screeching, but it wasn't going anywhere and that was enough.

Sark didn't seem to think so, though, since he was still running flat out, heading for the thing they'd been making for from the moment their squad had been slaughtered - the entrance out. Sark finally started to slow down as the double doors came into view, letting Camasa catch up to him. The other security officer smiled wearily. "See, Rose? Told you we'd-"

Sark's head disintegrated into red mist as a great force slammed into Carmasa's gut, throwing him to the ground. His legs, he couldn't feel his legs...he was...cold…

Carmasa closed his eyes, the last thing he ever saw the spreading puddle of red beneath him.

On top of the central tower of the Center, Carlos Hathcock of the Basilisks racked the bolt of his Mors-pattern rifle, loading another immense round, and resumed scanning for targets. The most heavily armed of the Cogs were flushing out the survivors, and there were plenty to choose from.


Viktor did not react in the slightest as the Wolves burst in, guns levelled and ready to fire. He didn't need to.

There was a rush of air, the sound of crumpling metal and choked-off screams, and the Wolves were corpses on the floor.

Viktor gave Grundy Elisha a nod of appreciation.

The big Demon Tribesman had come back from death largely unchanged, albeit a little more taciturn than usual. What had changed him most had been what Viktor had wrought on him afterwards. The work was not something like his cousin's - Viktor saw no benefit in pussyfooting around with something as...gentle...as the Augments.

Elisha was a far more useful tool, now.

"So your cousin finally decided to make his move," the resurrected man rumbled, scavenging weapons and ammunition from the dead. "What now?"

Viktor cocked his head. He wished he'd had more time than a couple weeks to work on these, but…

He strode to a locked cabinet, fiddling with the combination and opening the doors. Three metal briefcases waited. Viktor tossed two to Elisha, who caught them in one hand, and picked up the last for himself.

"I believe," he said evenly, "that it is time for a field test for Project Megingjörð. We should find Commander Horus, and quickly."

It would be the height of irony to set the security chief against the Butcher Bird, if the former was wearing this. And it would likely result in the latter dying, which made it even better.


Lumi Lavistin, once of the Eyetooth Pirates, now a Nightmare in blood and body and soul, suppressed a sigh as he walked into one of the passenger carriages of the train. His squad had had two Cogs with them - one a veteran from the old Gears, the other a new recruit...but they'd been caught by surprise by several of the Marines on board drawing first, and unfortunately it seemed the senior of the two mechanical geniuses hadn't been one of those who could survive their meat-brain being sprayed across a four-square-meter area. The junior, one of the new recruits, seemed to be in shock.

Lavistin did not have time for that. "Kid," he growled, augmented vocal cords lending a rumble to it that no human could match. "Listen."

The kid didn't respond, face pale under the cowl of his red robe. Lavistin laid a hand on his shoulder, and the kid flinched, eyes fixing themselves on the visor of Lavistin's helmet.

"You alright, kid?" Lavistin asked.

The Cog nodded jerkily.

"Right," the Wolf growled. "Leave him," he said, nodding to the corpse. "Need you at the engine." He shoved the Cog in front of him, and despite stumbling the new recruit got moving.

The next two carriages in the train were littered with bodies and gore, the inevitable result of a platoon's worth of Marines trying to go up in close quarters against Wolves and Basilisks. They'd died bravely, but they'd still died, even if by sheer luck they'd managed to wound a couple of Lavistin's squad in the process. The Cog didn't look at any of the scenes of slaughter, eyes fixed straight ahead as he marched to the front of the train.

The engine room was the mechanical equivalent of the slaughterhouse the rest of the train had been, because the bastard engineer had managed to smash half the controls after starting the damn thing, and his swift and somewhat excessive execution had wrecked the other half.

"Can you get the brakes working?" Lavistin asked bluntly.

The Cog froze for a moment, then visibly twitched. "Can I- Can I- What?!" The red-robed recruit pointed at a tangle of scrap that was even more thoroughly destroyed than the rest of the controls. "Those were the brakes, and, and - oh god, we're on a train and we don't have any brakes, what are we-"

"Kid."

The Cog froze again. "Right," Lavistin continued. "Second question. This thing's on a runaway course for Emory. If we can't use the brakes, we need another method of stopping it for good, and making sure the Marines can't make any use of it."

Something stuttered and clattered under the Cog's robe, before the new recruit nodded. "Maybe- Maybe if you pack some explosives on the boiler, it should breach it. If...we can get out of the way enough. I'll- I'll rig a detonator, or a timer. I think I can do that with what I have on hand."

"You have ten minutes," Lavistin warned, before picking up his transponder snail. "Right, you lot," he ordered. "Any breaching charges or spare hi-ex you've got, start packing it onto the boiler. We're going to make life difficult for some fuckers shortly."

Honestly, he hoped the worst-case version of Charlie Foxtrot was accurate, and whatever Marines were in Emory at the moment were pissed-off enough to hoof it through the snow back to the Center. Setting this thing off in the middle of a crowd would be...impressive.


Onneton Kusipaa directed his squad with short, sharp hand gestures. Those that had survived, at least.

It had gone to shit very, very quickly, the Wolf reflected. They'd been intending to seize the Port Roybal-to-CDRP train line. If they took the train, pursuit would've been impossible for the Marines - even the strongest of them couldn't make good time over multi-meter snow drifts like those in the mountains.

If.

His men had been in the worst possible place at the worst possible time against the worst possible opponent. Half of them had died in the opening moments, disoriented by the rain of blades and then cut down like so much chaff. The rest had followed Kusipaa into the station itself, and barricaded themselves in.

Taking the train was an impossibility. The only thing that remained was for them to buy time...and maybe, just maybe, wound the Marine bastard who'd come after them.

Kusipaa levelled his heavy rifle at the doorway as another impact resounded, shifting the cargo crates and furniture they'd piled across the entrance. His men did the same.

Another impact. Then another, this one so strong that dust drifted from the ceiling. And then, for long moments, silence. Fingers tightened on triggers as the Wolves tensed, waiting for the enemy to appear.

Kusipaa ducked instinctively - some whisper of air, some sixth sense, warned him, instincts screaming as something cut through the air like an immense guillotine, ripping through door and barricade and room and men with the same lack of difficulty.

Six transhuman bodies hit the dirt, followed shortly by six transhuman heads, and Kusipaa abandoned his cover in favor of charging forwards, firing his rifle on full automatic in one hand while the other reached for his belt.

He only made out a blur before he felt cold steel rip through his plate and out his back, puncturing a heart and a lung. The blur resolved itself into the sharp-featured figure of Rear Admiral Gripper as he twisted the katana inside Kusipaa. The Marine's long grey hair, Kusipaa noted incongruously, was tied up in a ponytail. The man's eyes were flint.

Kusipaa grinned a bloody grin inside his helmet, even as the katana slid to the side and neatly severed his second heart from its main artery. He held the grenade he'd plucked from his belt between him and the Marine, and as his vision faded appreciated the slight expression of shock he saw there.

There was a sudden spray of blood, and Kusipaa realized he couldn't feel that hand anymore.

His gaze followed the katana in the Marine's other hand, held out to the right in the overly dramatic way one only saw after it had finished disemboweling someone. Balanced on it was the grenade's fuse mechanism, neatly cut away from the explosive contents.

"Oh, fuck you," Kusipaa gurgled, and died.


The battleship, Tina knew, bore the name of Destiny's Ascension. It was a proud ship, a carrier of a thousand soldiers that was armed to the teeth and tough enough to resist cannon-fire from most anything on the seas thanks to its steel hull and solid construction. It was something that struck fear into the hearts of pirates everywhere.

And yet it only took six people to turn it into a slaughterhouse.

Tina's longaxe reaped a bloody harvest across the battleship's deck, the haft shattering limbs and skulls and the blade cleaving weapons and men alike, sending screaming and bleeding forms down to the deckboards with every stroke. Around her, her pack was doing the same, five of them with weapons in hand spilling the blood of the foe.

Pity the Boss couldn't be here, but that was the facts. Him and C were needed to draw eyes and fight the biggest guns. The Oni would handle the small fry, and let the Ends slip away. It was a damn good thing the Wraiths had laid charges on the rest of the ships, though. Cracked-keel vessels couldn't pursue, and the Ends, good as it was, needed to not be pursued if they all wanted to make it out of here.

Tina leaned her head to the side to avoid a musket ball, and Shaved up to the half-formed line of gunmen. Her axe turned that line into screaming meat, and she moved on as her brothers did the same.

Then an explosion practically blasted her off her feet, and she snarled and whirled to see the second of the two battleships, which was supposed to be on the other side of the island, moving to intercept Destiny Ascension, guns firing.

Hell, they'd already written this place off, then.

Tina heard Eka's howl, and she grinned, a thing of sharp teeth and retribution. The other ship wanted a fight?

They'd bring it.

Tina hefted her longaxe, hit the toggle on her mask, and laughed as the world went red.


Vinci tried to ignore the screams and gasps of dying men and women that rippled through the hallways as he walked forward.

He shut out the sound of the collapsing tower, of the dying cooks and cleaners and washermen who'd been bottled inside before being snuffed out in one titanic blast.

He walled away the sounds of gun and blade as they went about their grisly work.

It was all immaterial.

His crew came first, always, always, always. Nothing else mattered at the moment.

Not even the knowledge that this had been his fault.

"Repeat that," Vinci said, glaring at the transponder snail as if it would cause the shriveled fools on the other end to spontaneously combust.

At least Kaneki had already left to talk to Jack. Having him here would make this so much worse.

"Your orders are clear, Warlord," the sack of shit on the other end of the snail said. "Bring the Butcher Bird to Mariejois, immediately. And leave him there. We will take custody of the creature."

Vinci grinned, all knives and hate. "So, then, this is what you want. I suppose you won't tell me why?"

"You do not need to know, Warlord. Only obey."

"Yeah, obedience wasn't my strong suit." Vinci's arms slammed down on the table as he leaned in close to the terrified mollusc. "Go. Fuck. Yourselves. My crew is my own, not your playthings, Elder Stars."

"If you defy our orders, there will be consequences."

Vinci cocked his head. It was only a couple hours before the plan was supposed to kick off. They'd already be ready, knowing Jack. His grin broadened. "Get thee gone, ancient thing of evil. I'll have no truck with thee or thine, not any longer," he spoke, pushing power and will into every syllable.

The old man on the other end did not react. "So be it."

He could have pretended to go along, Vinci supposed. But the gall of trying to take his friend from him, the sudden surge of hate he'd felt for the old man on the other end of the snail collection...he'd let his temper run away from him, and because of it others were paying the price.

Franz Josef's eyes bored into the back of Vinci's skull as he walked, the Companions surrounding the two of them as they moved through the hallways. This section of the central tower had already been cleared - the resistance would lie ahead, once the archives were breached.

He didn't blame the doctor, really. The poor bastard was a decent person, overall, and this was not decent work. Not in the slightest.

The baby transponder snail in his pocket buzzed, and Vinci pulled it out. "What?"

"We have a problem," Jack said flatly. "The team sent to take out the Port Roybal train ran into Gripper before they could get to work."

Vinci resisted the urge to curse. "They got slaughtered."

"Yeah. Got a plan? Otherwise we're going to have a very pissed-off opponent after us, and I'm not sure even Kaneki can take him."

Vinci nodded. "I'll take care of it. Keep managing everything else, bosun."

"Already on it." Jack closed the connection, and Vinci closed his eyes, running through options as he kept walking.

They needed to engineer something that would divert Gripper's attention. The man would almost certainly be entirely focused on taking out the Nightmares. There was only one thing that would be higher priority than that.

All it required was that Vinci break another rule.

The crew was everything. That was all that mattered.

Vinci sighed, and opened another connection.

"Yeah?" the Wraith on the other end asked.

"Worst-case scenario," Vinci ordered. "Have the Cogs reverse the white noise generators."

"Aye, captain. We'll bugger out when it's done, link up with the Emory train crew."

Vinci closed the connection as Franz Josef made a strangled sound behind him.

"What did you do?" the doctor snarled.

Vinci looked up, counting ceiling tiles. "Saved my crew, doctor," he said calmly.

"You had men interfering with the quarantine wall...you...you're going to…"

"Interfere with the white noise generators, causing them to destroy the symbiote organisms rather than keeping them intact. Yes. By the estimations of the Cogs, approximately ten thousand people will be close enough to be affected." Vinci rooted in his coat's pockets, found a cigarette, lit it and took a drag. "It will draw the eye of every Marine on the island."

"You will kill thousands. You've already doomed everyone who's going to be affected, but the toll if they get out…we were supposed to cure these people!"

"No, doctor, that was what you wanted," Vinci said quietly. "My job is to keep my crew alive. A task made rather more difficult if that Rear Admiral makes his way up here."

"You...you are a monster," Franz Josef said shakily.

Vinci turned to face the man, looming over him as he leaned on the haft of his scythe. "I am what I am, doctor," he said softly. "And I have no further need for you. I suggest you leave now."

The doctor, face pale, took a step back, then another. Then he turned and ran down the hallway, and Vinci sighed, before turning back to face their destination.

The guards were gone - dead or called elsewhere (and probably dead in that case too), he did not care - leaving the vault door unprotected. It had two brothers elsewhere on this floor, each of them an entrance to a shaft holding one of three immense cargo elevators.

At a nod from Vinci, the Companions set to work. Charges were placed, there was a flash of light and a strong smell of sulfur, and the vault door was hauled open by straining transhuman muscle...to reveal T-Bone, and two platoon's worth of Marines.

"Uncle," Vinci said flatly.

"Nephew," T-Bone said softly. "Why are you doing this?"

Vinci leaned on his scythe, and smiled. "Why is it that you're at all surprised I am?"

T-Bone's eyes narrowed. "Your parents would have wept to see you now."

"The same for you," Vinci snarled. "To see their killer still breathing, to see you working under him…"

"Sakazuki did as he did because he had to, nephew," T-Bone said, and Vinci bristled at the patient tone the Marine dared use on him.

"So I'll do the same," he declared, pointing the blade of his scythe at T-Bone. "Get out of my way, uncle. There's a great deal I need to learn. I'll only ask once."

T-Bone drew his sword. "You will not pass while I breathe, nephew." The Marines levelled their weapons. Vinci cocked his head, then sighed. "Second Gear."

T-Bone lashed out in a picture-perfect cut as both sides opened fire, a keen blade of air that ripped a perfectly vertical stroke through where Vinci had been standing, but by then Vinci simply wasn't there anymore. He stepped back into reality an eyeblink later, scythe already in motion and crawling with electrical energy. "Empirical Razor!"

Bamboo and Vinci's scythe clashed. Two weeks ago, that was all they would have done, the blades evenly matched. But Vinci had not spent the two weeks of Kaneki's convalescence idle. None of the Nightmares had, but Vinci least of all.

One of the tricks he'd learned was to hold the gathered will and power that would normally be spent in projecting the blade in the scythe itself, concentrating it and leaving the weapon far superior to its normal state.

Bamboo, the blade that had been the pride of the 13th Royal Flotilla, snapped in two like a dry twig when faced with Vinci's swing.

Then his free hand grabbed T-Bone by the throat, and Vinci slammed the skeletal man into the floor so hard the concrete around them shattered. "Dendric Spike," Vinci snarled, and a pulse of electricity that could fry a Sea King's brain inside its skull ripped through T-Bone's body, stray bolts of lightning blasting the nearest Marines off their feet.

Vinci straightened back up slowly, leaning on his scythe. A quick glance confirmed that the sixty-odd Marines had already been dealt with by the Companions. He let out a breath, and gestured to the Companions to board the elevator. Generous of T-Bone, to bring the way down up for them…

A rustle of fabric was his only warning. Vinci turned back as T-Bone, face shadowed by his helm, got back to his feet, the shattered stump of Bamboo in his hand. Behind Vinci, the Companions tensed, but Vinci waved them off, watching T-Bone carefully. "I'm surprised you're capable of standing."

"My word...is my bond…" T-Bone growled. "Not...while I breathe…"

Vinci sighed. "You want to die that badly, uncle? Really? Is this how you want to go out? At the hands of a child who once loved you?" he asked.

"Whatever plans you have...cannot be allowed to succeed." T-Bone swayed on his feet, nearly stumbling, and Vinci fought the urge to support the older man. Instead, he laughed.

"You don't even know what my plans are. You want to know why I'm willing to go this far? To kill you?"

"It matters not."

"Oh, but it does, uncle," Vinci snarled. "I told the Commodore I wanted to cure death, and that much is true. But there's more to it than that. I want to see the power of the individual broken. I want to see those tyrants who abuse their gifts cut down by their own people. I want to turn mankind into a race of immortals, peerless in strength and enlightenment, beyond the petty tyranny of those who think they're strong...and the lore that's been locked away by those same tyrants will help me do it. Will help me make a better world. A just world, where nobody need die for refusing to murder a child at the command of their superiors. Anything, anything justifies that. So are you going to continue to try to stand in my way?"

For a moment, there was silence. T-Bone did not move, neither did Vinci.

"Von. Alex. I am sorry," the knight whispered. He lunged forwards, fast as thought.

Vinci was faster, and though Bamboo's shorn length carved a stinging line along one cheek, across the old scar inflicted by Kid, Vinci's palm slammed into T-Bone's chest, cracking the man's armor and the ribs beneath it and sending him hurtling back into the nearest wall. The Marine fell out of the crater, barely catching himself from falling to his knees, and rose again -

And a red, scaled tendril wrapped around his ankle, yanked him into the air, and slammed him down hard.

T-Bone stayed down, and Kaneki walked through the entrance to the shaft. The Oni (no longer a ghoul, in Vinci's book) nodded, and Vinci returned the gesture.

He bent, picking up Bamboo's hilt, and weighed it in his hands. The blade's remains were far heavier than mere size would suggest - or maybe that was illusion borne of reputation. It went into the folds of his coat either way.

"Didn't think you were a swordsman," Kaneki remarked quietly as he joined Vinci and the two walked onto the broad expanse of the cargo elevator.

"I'm not," Vinci replied, as one of the Companions worked the controls and the structure began descending with a grind of gears and pulleys. "But he forfeited any claim to the blade when he worked for Akainu. I'll find a use for it."

"If you say so, Captain," the ghoul said, sitting cross-legged and pulling out his pipe. "Everyone's all over the place. I guess the plan where all the officers go into the archives in a group is shot?"

Vinci nodded. "They'll have to make their way on their own. Should be fairly easy."

"Don't jinx us, Captain."

Vinci chuckled at the Oni's superstition, and leaned on the haft of his scythe.

He was tired. So, so tired.

Just a little farther, though. And then, this would all be worth it.

Together, they descended into the darkness.