The glass vial landed on the table with a dull tap, sending a small cloud of dust in its wake as it rolled. It skittered at an angle due to its oblong shape; the rubber stopper at one end was slightly wider than the glass tube. It was stopped before reaching the table's edge by a hand clamping down on it. Taiyang Xiao Long turned his hand over and looked at the vial laying in the palm of his fingerless glove. The liquid inside was a shimmering black. Raven swung her boots up onto the corner of the table, propping her chair back.

"So that's what it is," She said, "And it was our job getting it. They'll know we know what it is."

Water slipped and splattered between rounded stones. A river reduced to a trickle by the dry season. Had she been here a month earlier, this water might be more than a meter deep, and she might have swam to her objective, until she could arise like a shadow in a dozen blind spots. Instead, here Raven Branwen lay on her back, crawling inverted beneath the surface of a half meter of water, hoping a wandering drunken guard didn't spot a moving shape directly underneath the surface. She completed her mental count to one hundred, and stopped. She pushed off the rocky, dirty bottom, gentle enough to not disturb the mud, and pushed her mouth and nose just above the surface.

Her ears pushed as close as they'd get to air, Raven heard the sounds of the camp around her. They were hardly in a state of high alert. Most of the insurgents were having a drunken party of some sort less then ten meters away. Dozens of eyes, but none able to focus. Still, if this little stealth op went loud, it would go loud fast, and Raven would need a guardian angel to get her out of here breathing. She didn't need faith to tell her she had a goddamn good one.

One of the drunken insurgents stumbled in her direction. These guys were what could loosely be called mercenaries in their home countries across Africa. Just enough political zeal sprinkled among their ranks for the CIA to call them terrorists in official documentation. That was how Tai had described it. Raven filled her lungs with fresh oxygen and descended back beneath the surface. The man was standing just at the edge of the stream, either looking across from her, or straight down at her. Moving nothing more than her right forearm, she reached for the combat knife sheathed to her thigh.

The surface was broken to her side; almost directly between her and the hopefully oblivious merc. A thin stream of liquid hitting the water. Raven felt a waft of warmth permeating the water at her side. She remained still, counting seconds. Eventually, the flow ceased, and the mercenary stumbled back towards the tent that the militia had set up as a bar. Raven resumed her crawl. The medical supply tent was less than 30 meters off.

A bare knuckle struck the surface of the map, which had been tacked to a piece of corkboard mounted on the wall. This had been a classroom once, for children of all ages. Now it was one of the few rooms in the building without massive holes blown in the walls and ceiling. The rest of the village looked little better. The map, today's subject of study, wasn't of the village, but of the encampment several kilometers east.

"The medical supply tent," Tai said, crossing his arms as he faced his team, "That's where they'll be keeping the package, that's our primary target."

"How do we know for sure?" Raven asked. She was reclining in her chair, combats boot up on the desk in front of her.

"Our guy says the package is a case of medical vials," Tai said, "They'll think it's drugs, or some sort of medication. So, medical tent. If not, we move for the commanding officer's tent, that's my next best guess."

"And option 3?" Raven asked.

"Just wipe out the whole camp and look."

Qrow was sitting backwards on his chair, chin rested on his hands, hands rested on the chair's back.

"Liking option 3," Qrow said, "The whole plan really picks up around option 3."

Tai gave a dismissive shrug. From the corner, hood pulled low over her eyes, Summer studied the map. She had a second map in her hands, this one a satellite image of the wider area. She was studying various angles of topography with a ruler and protractor in hand.

"We exfiltrate the hostages before going loud," Summer said.

Tai nodded in agreement and glanced at the map. In one of these tents- they had no intel on which- were a dozen abductees from the same black site the package had come from. Who they were, what they were doing out there, what the package had to do with it- it wasn't the team's job to know.

"Ray, how do you feel about the insertion?" Tai asked.

"The river," Raven said, "I move underwater. I can get within five meters of the tent. I can be on my way back out and they won't know anything."

"Dry season," Qrow noted, "Water will be too shallow."

"It'll be deep enough."

"It'll be like a meter."

"I can pull that off."

"Bet."

"20 bucks."

"Done."

Tai watched the exchange with a bemused grin. He looked to Summer. She had an eye closed and her tongue out, looking at the topographical map at an angle, as if this would allow her to see the shape of the terrain. She caught Tai's glance by instinct, more than by her periphery.

"I can cover the camp from the south-east," Summer said, "From the hilltop."

Tai glanced back over the map in confusion.

"South-east is a valley," He said.

Summer raised her map, and pointed to the lower corner, past where the map on the corkboard covered.

"This one. I can cover the whole camp, except over the northern wall."

Qrow was crawling prone through withered underbrush, dragging dirt and dead leaves across his body as he wormed closer to the camp's border. Raven had gone radio silent, as planned, and was probably halfway through the stream. He was getting closer to the northern edge of the camp. He had his G36 slung over his shoulder. It wasn't extraordinarily easy to move quietly in those circumstances, so he took it slow.

"Qrow, what's your status?" Tai asked over the radio.

Qrow grunted, gave up on his most recent amble forward, and clicked his throat mic. A light evening breeze was picking up, sending smoke from the camp drifting in his direction. There was something foul-smelling in the air.

"Almost to the wall," Qrow said, "Summer, you have an angle on me yet?"

"I lost you when you went into the trees. Don't get shot at until I say."

"Got it."

"And pick up the pace, asshole," Tai threw in, "I'm planting the last of the explosives right now."

Qrow felt an itch across his fingers on the hand that lay in the dirt. Moving nothing but his eyes, he looked down and saw a warped black shape crawling onto the back of his glove. The thing was about the size of his glove, its hooked stinger rising just high enough to emerge from the shadows and be illuminated by a stray shaft of moonlight. A drip of sickly green venom was formed in a bead at the stinger's tip. The creature pried at the leather strap nearest on the glove to his wrist with its pincers. Qrow shifted the weight of his hand just slightly; an encouragement to move as subtle as he could muster. The scorpion seemed to ignore the first couple shakes, then crawled forward, off Qrow's hand and into the dirt, oblivious to him or perhaps indifferent. The creature slipped away back into the underbrush, and Qrow resumed crawling.

If there was any question as to the resources this little mercenary band had at their disposal, the north wall was a crudely welded formation of salvaged scrap metal, mostly from shipping containers. Bullet holes pocked the surface, shooting clean peepholes into the camp within. The stain of blood that ran along the wall at head-height varied in age, some days, some weeks. The blood that splattered the wall beneath was less than an hour. It ran down the rusted metal, pooled in a ditch around the bodies that lay piled on the ground. There were just under a dozen corpses; fresh enough to still be leaking blood, fresh enough that the birds hadn't gotten to them yet though they'd been left out. Some were wearing medical scrubs, some tattered slack and undershirts, some were nude. Qrow rose from the ground into a crouch as he took in the sight.

"Tai, I found the hostages," Qrow radioed out, "Executed."

"Fuck," Tai whispered in response.

"Where? Where?!" Summer demanded, "I don't see them."

"Outside the north wall," Qrow said, "Just bad luck we didn't spot them earlier. There's something- they-"

Qrow had seen executions. He'd seen firing squads go for the head or the chest. He'd seen the results of choosing auto shotguns for the job, or an anti-air gun. He'd never seen it like this. The bodies had each been struck repeatedly with massive spikes, like white stakes. Each one was almost a meter long. Some had been impaled in the gut, others had been impaled with such force that they were pinned to the metal wall. Other spikes were embedded in the metal around the bodies, slick with blood despite apparently missing their targets. Qrow glanced to the top of the wall, saw the guard post unattended, and risked a creep forward.

Up close, the brutal weapons' composition was clearer, yet only raised more questions. Though soaked in blood and hanging with a strange, red sinewy material, like shed skin, they were made of bone. Qrow took hold of one of the spikes and pulled. The tip came to a point as sharp as a needle. Although a veiny structure ran up and down the spike, the vessels weren't filled with the blood that coated the bone. The veins were filled with a viscous black.

"Some sort of… biological weapon?" Qrow whispered, "I'm not sure what killed these people."

"Does it look Aberrant?" Tai asked.

"I'm not sure," Qrow said, "It could be."

"Job getting… worse," Raven whispered to them, sounding short of breath, "goddamn… surprise."

"What sort of resistance?" Raven asked, leafing through the dossier.

"These guys are hardened," Tai said, "But not extensively trained. Hardware is mostly assets stolen from the Zimbabwean and Malawian militaries. AKs, M60s, the whole package deal."

"Post Humans?" Summer asked.

"None are known to be in their ranks, but this group isn't as extreme about Aberrants as some of the others out here, so don't rule it out. There is one guy to keep in mind, though."

Tai reached to the stack of papers on Raven's desk and snagged a particular photograph. He held up a picture of a man, walking the down a street in Johannesburg, surrounded by burlier men in suits. The picture had a downward angle, as if taken from a hotel room window. The man was white skinned, in contrast to those around him. He wore a gaudy Hawaiian shirt and gold-rimmed aviators. Even from a distance, one could make out the self-satisfied smirk.

"Tyrian Callows. A South African national," Tai said, pinning the picture to the board, "Special Forces training. Known participant in Apartheid. He's worked as both a mercenary and an arms dealer across Africa. He worked with the CIA a few times in the past, but apparently, he's not taking their calls anymore. May or may not have obtained sensitive intel while working with them, including the location of the facility where the raid took place."

"Let me guess," Qrow said, "Our contact would appreciate if we tied up their loose ends while we got their shit back."

"He's not our target, he's somebody to be aware might be on site," Tai said, "If we can complete the op and never see him, it's a win. If you spot him, make the call whether you can put him down."

"Bet this guy started working with the Agency by taking out another stooge, too," Qrow said.

Raven had surfaced beneath a short dock- more than a meter of post between the dock and the water surface, but some hanging riggings and nets obscured her from sight. The dock was set up directly in front of the medical tent, presumably in case they left by boat and returned injured. The infiltration had been planned around getting in while the airboat, with mounted DShK, was out on patrol, and leaving before it got back. Raven placed her fingers around the edge of the dock and pulled herself from the water, leaving only the faintest ripple. She came onto the dock behind an open plastic crate of medical supplies. Packaging covered in serial and lot numbers was scattered about the dock. The mercs, it seemed, were cracking into their haul from the facility.

"Sum, you have visual on me?" Raven whispered.

"Yes," Summer replied, "You have two guards at the door of the medical tent. They're high, and they seem pretty wired, so be careful. The bar area is well lit, they won't be able to see you at all from where they are. The guy who pissed on you is throwing up in that spot now. Once you make a move, he'll see you if he glances in that direction."

"Understood," Raven said, "Only take him if you need to. And for the record, he pissed near me, not on me."

Raven slipped from around the crate and approached the door of the medical tent. The two guards were chatting to one another, AK-47s held lazily at their sides. They were trading a cigar back and forth. Her trip through the water had limited Raven's options for weapons; she had a combat knife and a suppressed Glock. She drew the knife, holding it near her chest and using her other forearm to hide the glint of the blade. She'd managed to get to the shadows right next to the tent door, inches from where the nearer guard stood, around a trash can filled with discarded biomedical waste. She would have to step into the light to make her move.

The merc standing knee-deep in water and his own vomit wiped his mouth, shook his head, and decided then and there to try and pilfer some more morphine. He turned towards the tent and took a few stumbling steps forward. Something caught his eye, and he felt his heartrate involuntarily rise like a clench in his chest. There was a figure, decked in a tactical wetsuit, crouched in the shadows next to the door. The two guards at the door were oblivious to the figure, clearly as stoned as he was, if not as drunk. He waved an uncoordinated arm in the figure's direction, hoping to draw their attention with noises rather than words.

The head of the merc standing by the stream disappeared, his body spasming as chunks of his skull hit the dirt. Raven took it as her cue. She charged into the fluorescent light, in full view of both guards for the heartbeat it took to close distance. A single jab put her blade through the first guard's neck; She saw a wisp of smoke escaping the man's windpipe as she withdrew the knife. The second guard had a quarter of a second to react, enough to make him trickier. He put up a forearm to protect himself. Raven used her smaller frame to duck under it and put the knife between his ribs. He grappled blindly, getting a massive hand clenched around her shoulder.

Raven stood and, rather than break his grip, twisted about, the man's own grip applying torque to his wrist. She wrapped the awkwardly positioned arm in an arm lock and thrust her knife into his ribs on the other side. She used the brief stun to put the knife through his throat, then punched the hilt. She snatched the knife back, returned it to its sheath, and drew her handgun.

The thunderous crack of a .50 Caliber rifle echoed across the camp from the south-east. It was loud enough to interrupt the party, sending the mercenaries scrambling for their weapons. It wouldn't take them long to find the three bodies less than 15 meters from them. Raven slipped into the tent.

The base had woken up. The wait was over, and finally, there was excitement again. The Zimbabweans were running about like headless chickens, trying to find the source of the sniper shot. They were shouting, waving about their guns, barking panicked orders to one another. Mindless noises of the faceless as they took their places, like performers in a carnival. Tyrian stood stock still in the intersection of the camp's worn goat paths, reveling in the movement of the men around him. He couldn't have looked more out of place amongst them, his khaki shorts and polo shirt contrasting their muscle shirts, bandoliers and headwraps. His raffia fedora was pulled low over his eyes. His aviators were hanging from his unbuttoned collar; it was night, he wasn't a complete asshole.

He stood with his arms outstretched, his palms facing the night sky. The wounds along his arms still dripped blood, though they had stopped leaking that viscous black substance. It had been almost an hour since the last hit. He wasn't expecting his earlier target practice being tested so soon, but here he was. And here they were; CIA dogs, or dogs the CIA paid for. The devil had come for his end of the bargain.

Tyrian reached into the front pocket of his polo shirt. He put the syringe's capped end into his mouth, and plucked the cap off with his teeth. Turning the needle about in his hands, he looked at the black ooze, refracting light oddly, as if it were squirming within the syringe. He squeezed his outstretched hand into a fist, and plunged the needle into his arm. He watched the black spread through his veins, a wide grin spreading across his face, revealing a mouth filled with shining white teeth.

Stinging pain in his wounds; it was like his flesh was bubbling. He let out a hissing laugh. Pus oozed from the tears in his flesh, then more black slime. Tyrian coughed and black spray struck the mud at his feet. Blades of white bone cut their way through his flesh, some emerging from the bloody gouges, some tearing new paths out of his body. Bone spikes as long as his femur sprung from his forearms. A couple grew from his biceps, bent backwards. The mercs that had been running past him glanced over in horror and disgust. He gave them a savage grin as the bones continued to extend. The spikes of his spine pierced through his skin. He swung an arm around his shoulder, and one of the spikes was launched from his forearm with impossible force. It hit a stack of sandbags in one corner and punched through it. Tyrian cackled in excitement.

Summer's finger released the trigger of the rifle. She refocused her eye without lowering it from the scope. The man on the other end of it still stood in the center of camp, stretching and flexing, the spears protruding from his flesh twitching. He raised one arm, the curved bone blades sticking from his forearm forming what looked like a massive pincer. He was laughing. Summer adjusted the rifle's position by millimeters, and spotted Tai, hidden in the bushes not far from the man's position.

"Tai, can you confirm what I've just seen?" Summer whispered.

"Think that's Callows," Tai responded, "That syringe he took caused some sort of… mutation."

"What?" Qrow whispered.

"It looked like…"

"Like it gave him an Ability." Summer said.

"That's impossible," Qrow whispered.

Callows was moving now, wandering the camp, peering in the shadows and dark corners. Tai was crouched in the bushes next to a small building, set on small pillars to keep it sinking into the mud. He slipped under it to avoid Callows' gaze.

"Come out, little doggies," The spiked man was whispering, "Come out and play."

"Take him," Tai whispered.

Callows glanced about. Tai was speaking into the mic wrapped directly against his throat. His voice had barely been louder than a gust of wind. Callows wandered back in the direction of the structure Tai was hiding under.

"They know I'm here," Summer said, "Another shot, and they know my position."

Tai had his face down in the mud. With less than half a meter's clearance between the bottom of the structure and the dirt, he wasn't in a position to fight his way out if he got caught. He drew his AA-12 closer. If Callows got too close, he'd settle for blowing his lower legs off from under here, then just getting the Hell out.

"Tai, moving for your position," Qrow said, "I use my Ability, we put him down quiet."

"His Ability is a mutation type," Summer reported, "He's growing some sort of projectile spikes out of his body."

Qrow was advancing towards the center of the camp. He reached one of the walkways that divided the camp laterally, and got an angle on Callows, down the path. The mercenaries around them on all sides were digging into their positions; if they'd realized their enemy was already inside, they might have been checking their blindspots better. Qrow was less than 10 meters from a group manning a machine gun nest. They were huddled behind sandbags, sweeping the massive, ported barrel left to right, whispering harshly to each other in Xhosa. Qrow was on their flank, but there was no doubt they'd hear his rifle, even suppressed. Picking Callows would mean having to take them out before they could respond. Taking them first might give Callows a chance to run for cover.

Callows' head twisted about, his spine arching. His nostrils flared. Qrow took aim. 20 meters down the path, under a tool shed, Tai risked shifting his position; he needed the movement of his elbow to keep his sights on target. Callows was trembling, taking rapid inhales through his nose. He abruptly snapped up straight, turned, and, from a standing position, leapt cleanly over the tent that had been behind him. He'd escaped Qrow's sight by the peak of the jump. Qrow cursed under his breath.

"Callows moving in your direction, Raven," Summer reported, "I'm taking him."

Qrow bolted out of the shadows, straight at the machine gun nest. The mercs inside had time to look about, but not to do anything more.

The medical tent was no more than two long tables set up side by side, piled with disorganized supplies. There was a row of fridges and containers on one side, exposed power bars and cables scattered about in the dirt in front of them. A gurney at one end had an unconscious mercenary on it, an O2 mask pulled over his face, bandages on his side covering a deep wound but not stopping the seep of blood and pus. Raven tossed aside packages of morphine, scavenged boxes of syringes, and piles of bandages. Near the end of the first table, she found it.

It was about the size of a tissue box. There was a plastic rack inside made to hold a dozen vials. There were ten vials still there, the spaces nearest the opening of the box were empty. The fluid inside was viscous and black. An empty vial, the inside smeared with the black slime, lay on the tabletop next to a used syringe. Raven picked the box up and found a label, a block of text, mostly strings of digits.

"Lot number… 312… 02132016…" Raven read, "Experimental compound: GRIMM."

The word was in capitals, though the font was so small the letters couldn't be described as any larger than those around. Nothing more usable about the substance other than the name could be found.

"Fuck!" Summer shouted over the radio, "That was a miss! Raven, incoming!"

Raven dropped the box into her drop bag and drew her Glock. She took position behind the furthest table from the door and levelled the handgun at it.

"Miss!" Summer shouted, her voice edged with frustration, "He's moving erratically."

The sound of the first shot echoed outside, then the second. Then, the flap of fabric serving as the door was thrown aside. Framed by the outdoor lighting, Callows' figure was covered in spikes and blades of bone. His gaze had been drawn briefly downwards by the two bodies he was stepping over, and Raven didn't waste the opening. She rose and fired, squeezing and releasing the trigger as fast as her hands would allow. Callows' body spasmed in bizarre fashion, looking more like a strange seizure than a dodge. The bullets shot over his shoulder as he half-rolled, half-cartwheeled into the room. Before standing, he swung an arm through the air, and with a sickly schluck! sound, A bone from his arm was fired across the room. Raven dove to the side and the projectile pierced the side of the tent, flying out into the darkness outside.

Callows hopped onto the first table and skipped to the second. He let out a wild cackle as he swung his arms downwards, sending bone spikes flying down at Raven. She pushed into a desperate roll to the side that put her underneath the table. The bones plunged into the earth exactly where her heart and throat had been. She fired up through the table, Callows dodging the bullets with spastic flailing dodges. Raven was keeping count in her head; three left. She rolled.

Callows jumped from the table and turned in the air. He thrust the bone spike protruding from his wrist forward, stabbing it beneath the table. He hit dirt and glanced under the table. Across from him, he saw the briefest glimpse of Raven's combat boots flying upwards and out of sight. He rose up again and caught a knee across the face. Raven pushed off the table and followed up with an elbow strike. As he stumbled off balance, Raven saw the opening for a lethal thrust, and took it. Reverse-grip, her left hand clapped over the end of the hilt, the blade shot towards the exposed ribs.

It was like Callows sockets simply abandoned their designed positions at will. His chest and arm twisted inhumanely to catch Raven's grip. He snapped his body straight again with such violence that it diverted the strike. With her left hand, Raven abandoned the hold on the knife and chopped him in the neck. He forced his way through the strike and thrust another spear at her chest. Raven grabbed the end of the blade and cried out. Though having the appearance of a malformed growth, the bone spikes were edged like razor blades. As Callows pushed forward, Raven backed up, desperately holding the spike from plunging into her chest. Blood spilled from between her fingers. Callows snickered.

"Look what your masters have cooked up," He laughed, "Look what they're making."

"Qrow, do it!" Raven shouted.

A flood of disgust so strong her stomach churned. For what they were doing, who they were taking money from. For taking another private contract and leaving the kids alone, because it needed to be the four of them. She'd braced herself; it hadn't been enough. Callows was clutching his head in shock, the bone spike left in Raven's slacking grip, dripping both of their blood. The blade of a combat knife stabbed through the side of the tent, behind Callows. It was dragged downwards, and Qrow forced his way through the improvised door. He swung his G36 up into his hands. Callows' eyes snapped open, his mouth stretching into an inhumanly toothy grin.

A blade of bone was launched from his elbow. Qrow had nothing but his rifle to block the attack. The bone pierced straight through the action, stopping an inch from Qrow's chest, pointed right at his heart. He threw the rifle aside and drew his 1911. Callows slipped around Raven and kicked her in the side, sending her tumbling towards Qrow. Qrow side-stepped her, letting her slam into the gurney, and fired at Callows. He got off two shots that Callows ducked under before tackling Qrow off his feet. Qrow brought the gun back, but Callows took hold of his wrist and pushed the gun aside. Without releasing his hold, Callows flipped his body over, elbowing Qrow in the face as his spike covered back landed on Qrow's gut. Qrow let out a cry of pain. With a swipe of his hand, Callows sent Qrow's gun tumbling from his grip.

Tai sprinted through the gap between the tents, moving towards the bar structure. The mercs had gathered that they'd been infiltrated at this point. They were sprinting about, checking behind every box, waving their guns around every corner.

"Three on your next left," Summer whispered, "You'll be on their six."

Tai turned to his left as he came around the corner. His first two blasts took a head off each. The third merc started to turn around. Tai put a shot in his center mass, then took his head as he fell.

"Behind you."

Tai swung around. He saw two mercs; one taking aim at him, and the other falling to the ground, his leg blown off at the knee. Tai put a burst into the one still standing, then a finishing shot into the downed man. The sound of the sniper rifle echoed across the camp.

"Clear path behind you now. Reinforcements closing from all other sides."

Tai sprinted down the path, past the three mercs he had flanked. He snatched a detonator from his belt and flipped up the safety cover over the little red button.

"Fuck it, now or never," Tai said, "Detonating!"

He clicked the button. The ground shook as shockwaves came from all directions around him. A blinding flash of light illuminated a sky suddenly filled with debris. It felt like the noise itself struck him in the chest from all directions, threatening to knock the wind from his lungs. His ears rang. Summer was trying to say something to him through his earpiece, but it was lost in that head-splitting whine. He came within view of the bar, and the half dozen mercs who were patrolling that area. They were still stumbling, clutching their weapons. Across the stream, the ammo stockpile, where Tai had planted most of his Semtex, was still raining down on the buildings around it. Most of the pulverized chunks were landing with heavy thuds; some with wet splatters.

Tai opened fire, sprinting to take cover behind the bar. Half of the mercs went down, the hail of buckshot tearing them apart. The others scrambled for cover of their own, the disorientation from the explosions delaying return fire for precious fractions of a second. One of their heads was sent spraying across the dirt. The others had managed to find cover that offered protection from the south-east. Tai scrambled behind his meager concealment as cheap wood and bottles of booze were shredded behind him.

"Tai, do you copy?"

Summer's voice barely cut through the cacophonous noise. Tai clapped a hand to his throat mic.

"Yeah, bunch of 'em, I noticed."

"I said the boat is back."

Tai reached the end of the bar, and sent a spray of suppressing fire at the two mercs. They had been ducked behind cover already. Past them, on the river, an airboat was sliding across the shallow water. The DShK on the front end may have been crudely bolted onto the vehicle, but it had been fitted with enough armour plates around the massive barrel to offer the two-person gun crew decent protection.

"Fuck's sake, of course that's what you said."

"Detonating!" Tai called out over the radio.

The ground shook. Raven had just been pushing up off the gurney, drawing her Glock again. She had to slow down for a split second to keep from stumbling. Just as her aim lined up on Callows' head, a hand clamped onto her shoulder. The injured man had woken, and was grappling her from behind. He snatched a scalpel from the tray beside him, covered in dry blood and flecks of meat. Raven blocked his forearm with hers, the razor blade stopping an inch from her throat. She put a bullet through the man's wrist, sending the scalpel dropping towards the ground. She shoved his wounded arm aside, then kicked off the ground, leaning further back over the gurney to give her a better angle. Landing on the man's wounds hadn't been a planned move; more of a happy accident. As he wheezed in agony, she put a bullet under his jaw and out the top of his skull. Then, she kicked off to stand back up.

Callows was crouched over Qrow, a knee on his gut. He pulled Qrow upwards by the throat, while swinging his head downwards, his back arching as he headbutted Qrow in the teeth.

"Do it again," He hissed, "Do it again, freak!"

Raven levelled the handgun. Callows spun with unexpected speed, twisting his legs about to leg sweep her. Her aim went off, and she thrust her finger away from the trigger. She was taking aim at him again even as she fell. He intercepted her with an elbow strike and took hold of her wrists before she hit the ground. He spun around on top of her, keeping the gun pushed away from him. Qrow put out a hand from where he lay. He saw it hitting Raven again, just as hard. Callows spasmed, but his scream became a mad cackle as soon as it left his mouth. The spikes still sticking out of him extended a bit, the wounds they'd appeared from spilling blood. Callows licked his lips.

"You got a good one, boykie!" He cackled.

Qrow started to pull himself from the ground. Callows brought a leg about and planted it in his chest. Raven moved to reposition her arms, trying to line up a shot. Callows applied pressure on her wrist, and twisted, sending jolt of pain up her arm. He elbow-struck the gun from her hand, and aimed the end of a forearm spike at her face. His arm tensed, and the spike twitched in place, the tip brushing against Raven's eyelashes. Callows turned his arm about and looked at the spike in disappointment.

"All that for 5 minutes a pop, eh?" He snickered. Blood and black slime were dribbling over his teeth.

Raven grabbed one of the spikes sticking from Callows' lower back. She pulled at an angle, sending a gush of blood spewing from the wound. Callows roared in pain, and spasmed. Qrow pushed off the ground, putting all his rising momentum into a punch across Callows' face. Raven kicked him in the chest, sending him tumbling backwards. Qrow fell on top of him, landing fist-first on Callows' throat. He crawled atop the downed man and swung his fists wildly into on his face. Raven stood, raised the handgun and walked around the two.

"Hold him," She said.

Qrow took hold of Callows throat. Callows grabbed at him, so Qrow held one arm down with his free hand, and pinned the other with his knee. He writhed and squirmed on the ground, trying to free himself. Raven put her last bullet into Callows' bloodied face. He spasmed. Raven released her spent clip, and took another off her belt. Qrow stood, and walked over to where his handgun had fallen. He put three in Callows' chest, and emptied the clip into his head. Raven through in a few more shots to his head for good measure.

Raven gave Qrow a look that he refused to return.

"You okay?" He asked.

"Yeah," Raven said, "I'm fine. It wasn't… are you okay?"

"I'm fine."

They reloaded their handguns. Qrow picked up his rifle, grunting at the sight of the mangled weapon.

"You're bleeding," Raven said.

"Yeah."

Qrow grabbed a morphine syrette and jabbed it into his leg. Then, he pulled up the front of his tac vest. The spikes running down Callows back had jutted out to different lengths, at different angles. Most of the cuts across Qrow's gut were ignorable. Some were deep enough to be spilling blood. Qrow grabbed a surgical stapler from the table beside him. With his other hand, he squeezed one of the gouges shut. Raven clicked the button on her throat mic.

"Summer, do you need me out there? Callows dead. Qrow is injured, he's going to-"

"I'm good."

"Qrow is injured, and he owes me money, and he's going to hold position here."

"Still a few left," Summer reported, "Boat is back and shooting at Tai."

Tai was sprinting past a shipping container. 12.7mm rounds were tearing through the metal behind him like tissue paper. A merc came charging around the container ahead of him, firing a shotgun wildly. Tai dove forward, firing in mid-ar. The shot caught the merc in the shoulder, tearing it apart and sending him stumbling back. The barrage of heavy machine gun fire tore its way over Tai's prone body, continuing until it reached the wounded merc. He fell in chunks against the tent at his other side.

"Summer, take that boat out." Tai said, between quick, desperate breaths.

"Dealing with an artillery team right now."

A crack of her rifle over her radio, reaching the team ahead of the sound wave itself.

"Don't have an angle on the driver. Driver? Captain."

Another shot over the radio.

"Operator. Helmsman?"

"Do you have a shot on the gunner?" Tai asked.

"Not yet. Artillery team done. They fired one shot. They missed me."

Another shot.

"Okay, taking the gunner now. Go."

Tai pushed off the ground and rushed back in the direction he'd come. He dashed back out between the bar and the shipping container. The mercs had been expecting him from the other end of the container, and had stupidly advanced past the alley Tai had run down. The gunner on the boat was the first to notice Tai emerging at full sprint. He swung the gun back in Tai's direction. A spray of brain matter came through the slit in the shield that had been allowed for the gunner's sights. Tai poured the last of his drum magazine into the mercs at his side as he charged the boat. The mercs on shore dove for cover, screaming and spraying panic fire. A few of them were cut down by their comrades in the confused barrage.

The support gunner on the boat was dragging the main gunner's corpse from the DShK. Tai's feet left the ground. He sailed over the water, bringing his shotgun forward. He landed at the very tip of the boat, the starboard bow corner. The support gunner took hold of the wooden grips of the machine gun, and hopelessly tried to swing the massive gun around in time. Tai stepped around the ballistic shield and bashed his empty shotgun across the gunner's face. A kick to his gut sent him tumbling off the side of the boat. The helmsman was moving to draw a handgun. Tai grabbed hold of the DShK's grips.

He swung the gun about on its mount. A better designed weapon platform might have prevented the gun being aimed directly at the helm. That sort of safety precaution seemed to have been neglected in this case. The muzzle of the gun was mere centimeters from the helmsman when Tai pulled down the trigger with both fingers.

He swung the smoking gun back towards shore, the ballistic shield dripping a thick coating of viscera. He opened fire, but hadn't needed to. Raven was on the remaining mercs flank, and she was picking the ones at the back first, so that those in front didn't realize they were being cleaned up.

Tai tapped the end of the glass vial on the tabletop. The liquid inside bounced around, a thick consistency, like tar, maybe. Qrow was lounged on a couch in the corner of the room; another abandoned building, some kilometers north of the camp. Summer was tending his wounds; mostly undoing his shoddy field work.

"We deliver this shit, they see some is missing," Raven said, "They find out we know what it does…"

"So we say it all got destroyed," Tai said, "Mission failed, we didn't find shit."

"Callows body is destroyed," Summer said, "But we can't be certain we destroyed all evidence that we engaged with his Ability."

"Hnn…" Qrow breathed, his eyes glazed over by a generous supply of painkillers, "Main in weapons."

Summer lowered an ear towards Qrow's mouth.

"What was that?" she asked.

"Mainin… making. Making us… weapons."

Summer nodded.

"How do we feel about a visit to that black site?" Tai asked, "Try to find out for ourselves what's going on out here?"

"Tai, if we go to that black site, and we come out alive, we're done," Raven said, "No more mercenary work. No more contracts with the fucking Agency."

Tai rolled the glass vial across the table. Raven stopped it with one finger, then picked it up in her hand.

"You saw what it did to that lunatic," Tai said, "Think it does that to everybody? Or does everyone get something unique, just like with a real Ability?"

"What does that change?" Raven asked.

"Everything," Summer said, "Since Post Humans began appearing, governments have tried to control or exploit them. Rarity was the limiter. With this… substance, the GRIMM, they've created means to generate Abilities to be exploited, in subjects they can control through supply. We are at the dawn of a new form of arms race."

"How do we survive it?" Raven asked.

"We report to the CIA that we've encountered complications," Summer said, "we tell them Callows fled with the package, and we are in pursuit. We work on a story that will smooth things over as we part ways with the CIA, and back-up plans, in case it fails. We go to the black site. We find information that keeps us alive."

Raven set the vial down on the table, and spun it. It brushed a simple pattern into the dusty surface as it rolled about.

"Alright," She said, "Let's do it."