Allistair and Hopper are doing sit-ups at the gym, while Stomp and Barricade are lifting; Saturn, Masahiro, Daybreak and Hermes are running on threadmills; Crusader and Clockwork do pull-ups. Other templars are also exercising in the gym with them. A few that finished working out chat in different places as some are leaving the showers or the restrooms. Even a few priests and some nuns are among the people exercising in the gym.
Masahiro is sprinting on the threadmill he's at, keeping his breath balanced the best his body allows to. From a afar, one of the nuns who was lifting two weights stared at the running boy, her face showed interest and curiosity towards the teenager. Her scarlet eyes then switched to stare at the teen's older brother, Allistair, who is now doing sit-ups.
'They were already working out by the time I came, probably way earlier than us.' She thought as she kept lifting her one handed weights. 'That boy, Masahiro, he always keeps his right eye closed, I do wonder what does he have...' She stared back at Masahiro who is putting the threadmill to 0 kmph to get off it.
Allistair is sitting on the spot, looking at the girl after seeing she was watching Masahiro 'Little bro, looks like you got a secret admirer' He smiles and closes his eyes, stretching himself.
The strike force members are sitting at a table in the buffet/dinning hall. Zaki/Clockwork sitting between Reimuru/Crusader and Korone/Stomp, he's mostly focused in Korone, often shifting his eyes towards the muscular woman, who is eating a big piece of meat, holding it by the bone, to most people it would be silly, maybe disgusting for some, but for Clockwork, it was the cutest sight, he can't help but watch while enjoying his own food.
"-if it wasn't for Saturn and the others, I would've been dead right now. Or worse, captured and probably tortured." Allistair finished while he was telling how was his first mission with the templars.
"Yeah, that guy also moved like a dragonfly, swift and barely visible, not to mention that there were other taimanins, luckily our Cap here did that weird trick of his and blasted their sorry asses away!" Hopper/Lucius says, taking a sip of his drink.
"I need to train with that so I don't accidentally use it too much, it always makes me tired after I use it." Allistair warned, taking a sip of his water bottle.
"Ni-san, am I going to the next mission myself?" Asked Masahiro, looking at his big brother curious.
"I think it would be a good idea, Clockwork, Hermes, Barricade and Stomp will come too. This mission is a storm one, which means we'll have to attack and destroy." Responded and explained the strike force captain.
"Sounds like a good idea." Clockwork spoke before taking a bite of his food.
"Eager to blow up some skulls, huh Zaki-chan?" Stomp teased, softly elbowing the sniper who blushed at the tease of his acquaintance.
"Sure. I just want to not sit here at the base, while enjoying the safety and...commodities, I must work as a member of the Strike Force." Clockwork replied, keeping his eyes closed with a serious look on his face.
"I agree on that, I would like to train in the real thing! Time to chop some demon limbs off, ha ha ha!" The tall woman laughed, forcefuly putting her hand on the marksman's back, maing him flinch forward from the force, also that he gulped the food he was chewing from the slap.
"Anyway, we should get ready for the mission. We also are getting new members, so I need those who stay to fill them in about the missions to do, since so far we have 6 missions already, and we finished only one. ¿Understood?" Allistair explained, taking a sip of his water once finished.
"Yes captain!" The rest of the Strike Force said in unison.
As Namuraga stood from the table, he pondered about what to say to Korone Mirioh(Stomp) while walking next to her.
"Oi, Namuraga-san." Mirioh called out to her accurate friend.
"Mmh?" Zaki hummed curious.
"Would...would you like to go and train together later?" Korone asked, scratching her hair.
"I don't see why not. Yeah, sure." Namuraga responded.
"Just you and me, Namu-san ¿Eh?" Stomp elbowed him, making the sniper blush.
"Y-yeah. Maybe we could do a friendly spar, too." He answered.
"That's the spirit, Namu-san~!" Korone beamed gleefully.
The marksman laughed at his strong friend, as behind them both Hermes and Hopper were smiling at the two. Meanwhile Barricade is speaking with one of the priests, who is telling him about different demon types. And from far the Nun at the gymnasium was following Masahiro, really curious. Obviously Allistair noticed her and rolled his eyes while sighing and holding the bridge of his nose.
Zaki Namuraga, AKA Clockwork holds his efficient modified sniper, checking if it's in good state and loaded with the correct ammunition, Stomp and Barricade are in the other side, next to the sniper, the speedy operator Hermes sits, reading a digital copy of a demon encyclopedia. Allistair and Masahiro are speaking, very quietly, probably talking about the mission. Zaki couldn't help but stare blankly at Stomp, his thoughts being a mistery to the lighter operator next to him.
"Scared about the mission?" Asked the strike force captain to his little sibling.
"To say the truth...yeah, we're dealing with a criminal organization, especially with demons." Answers the young half-demon boy.
"Don't be scared for yourself, my brother..." The older brother says pausing, his reassuring look turns into one of...menace, a serious expression with the eyes of a bloodthirsty beast replacing the motivating smile "...Be scared for those monsters."
"Yeah..." Was all Masahiro could mutter as he looked uncomfortably to his brother. 'Geez, he's scarier than the demons we faced so far.'
The airship transporting them halts, as the hatch door opens, revealing that they landed far from their objective.
"Clockwork will lead the sniper team, Hermes will lead the scout team, Barricade leads the defender team as Stomp, Masahiro and I are with the assault team. Status of bombs." Allistair explained through radio/voice communication.
"Main bombs in stable status, backup bombs are ready in case bombs are defused or taken." A templar responded, carrying a large backpack. Another templar with a similar backpack was next to her.
"Good, scout team: Go and recon the area. Once that is done, sniper team will start wreacking havoc with their high explosive rounds, it's a good thing you have them, so make sure the enemy can't tell where they are getting shot from. The assault team, us will storm in with the defender team, once the bomb planting begins, the defender team will protect the bomb carriers until their job is done. Meanwhile, us and the scout team are going to be attacking any other zone, assuring no survivors are left. In case prisoners are found, we will take them to the base for treatment. ¿Understood? " Allistair explained then asked at the end.
"Sir yes sir! " Everyone replied through voice communication.
Clockwork and the snipers get in position, as Hermes and his scout team start observing while moving without being detected. Their assault mission is on a series of factories and bussiness buildings, somewhere near Tokyo, not Tokyo kingdom, which is actually many miles away.
"Hermes reporting. We found demons and orcs in the area, as well as...taimanins? Something is wrong. There are taimanins but they're working with Nomad, something is wrong here. " The scout team leader spoke through VC.
"Sniper team, careful, taimanins might try to track you down, make sure you are hidden after every shot, they could have sight good enough to see far away. " Allistair warned to the snipers.
"Understood. " They reply.
"Something is happening here..." The Strike Force captain says thinking aloud.
"If I may speak, captain: There are many rogue or traitor taimanins among Nomad." One of the assault templars says.
"Huh, now that explains enough.. ." The current assault team leader keeps advancing with the rest.
Clockwork signals to the snipers, the 4 snipers start firing their actually silenced guns, the shots create explosions of a 8 meter radius, blowing up in pieces the nomad mercenaries and guards. The leader decides to shoot at one of the vehicles, blowing it up and creating a chain reaction which causes even more chaos in the first building they are storming.
Meanwhile Hermes and the scouts fire at the distraught Nomad soldiers, blasting the hell out of their sinful corpses, making sure they will bleed to death if the bullets don't kill them, he starts reloading his smg, while one of the scouts throws a plasma grenade, which slaughters a group of ninjas that just left one of the buildings.
"Sniper team, ninjas are appearing, destroy them now!" Hermes communicated.
Clockwork shoots at a group of ninjas that tried to jump away from the explosion of the round, unfortunately for the bastards, they lost their legs in doing so.
"Sniper team reporting, permission to enter battlefield." Clockwork asks.
"Permission granted, storm in!" Answered Allistair.
Meanwhile, the defender and assault team are already forcing themselves into the territory, Barricade rams his way through the mercenaries, cracking skulls of some while knocking others away, the other defenders would use their heavy sharp or blunt weapons or kick and punch the punny henchmen. With his plasma sword he beheads a shield-user henchman, cutting also through the shield. After the corpse falls down, he quickly slash horizontally, slightly tilted to the right, cutting diagonally through 2 henchmen and 2 ninjas, which scream in agony as they bleed out. With his heavy and resistant shield, he bashes a leaping assassin, but from afar, a group of mercenaries shoot their firearms at him, after taking many bullets he quickly covers with his shield, then rushes forward, running over the shooters and then crushing them against a wall.
Stomp impales two ninjas with her claymore, then throws them into a mercenary with a machine gun, after that she swings downward and vertically slices in half another ninjas. A ninja with a staff manages to land a few hits on her arms and abdomen, yet she counters with a slash across the chest, then a cut through the stomach. The muscular woman cuts the hands of a nomad shinobi then stabs her claymore through the assassin's throat.
Masahiro stepped on the chest of a mercenary then jumped off to kick a ninja in the nose, followed by few strikes with his tonfas, finishing with a flip strike of both batons, knocking up in the air the shinobi, then he starts beating the mercenary, but behind him a rogue taimanin swings her sword towards him, he ducks in time to dodge the slash then kicks the female rogue ninja away. More nomad ninjas attack him at the same time, he blocks the attacks and hits them while doing so, either parrying the slashes and stabs.
"Masahiro!" Allistair calls out, shooting his shotgun and hitting some of the ninjas with the pellets. The younger tonfa user ducked in time then gave an uppercut to a nomad ninja.
"Thanks Ni-san!" He said before swinging and flipping his left tonfa and sending a mercenary upward.
Allistair slams his shotgun into the skull of a rogue taimanin, destroying his forehead as brain chunks splattered out. Followed by a blast in the neck to a female rogue taimanin; Meanwhile Mirioh (Stomp) keeps slashing at the nomad mercenaries, by the corner of her eye she notices many mercenaries and ninjas with firearms, bows, shurikens, crossbows and other throwing weapons firing and running towards the templars. She sheates back her claymore and grabs her LMG, then fires and sprays deadly rounds as the nomad members took cover while some unfortunate bastards got caught in the fire.
Some templars of the assault team joined her, covering other directions. Namuraga (Clockwork) rolled past a slash from a greatsword rogue shinobi, then stabbed his side deeply, followed by other deep stabs in different spots of the taimanin's chest, after that he dashed to dodge another attack from a mace nomad mecenary and the shot of a revolver user, followed by stabbing the mace user in the back, which after that he dodged the many shots of the revolver mercenary, but she was smart and smacked the sniper with the firearm, then used her spiked point boot to kick stab Namuraga in the gut, foolish move due to the templar armor, the dagger wielding sniper stabbed his blade through the female mercenary's knee cap then flipped her over, slamming her into the ground and finishing her off with a stab into the forehead.
A rogue taimanin kicked Zaki(Clockwork) as he rolled along the floor, but luckily for him, one of his snipers fired 2 consecutive shots at the shinobi with his rifle, hitting her in the chest and the shoulder.
"Thank you!" Clockwork thanked his brother templar.
Another of the snipers was dashing around and between three nomad ninjas, using his katars to cut them as he dodged their attacks, the sniper team kept advancing along the scout team who were spraying bullets with their weapons.
Ikari(Hermes) uses a nomad mercenary as human shield as he keeps blasting with his gun at the incoming ninjas who try to hit him with arrows, kunais and shurikens.
"Time up!" He yells then throws the already dead mercenary towards a shinobi squad as he pulls out his kukris "Time for a little of the ol' chop chop!" He grins as he rushes forward with his team, who also reach for their other weapons and one of them throws an incendiary grenade. He starts chopping a ninja, who counter-attacks with a hammer bash, followed by a kick to the side. Hermes cuts the assassin(ninja)'s left hand off, then impales his stomach from the front, after that he starts chopping on his neck from both left and right until the ninja's head falls off.
A rocket impacts against one of the defender templars, blasting him away and leaving a burnt hole in his chestplate. Barricade shield-bashes a mercenary but is assaulted by a ninja with a spear, taking multiple stabs in the chest armor, as this happened, another nomad shinobi started slashing at him from the left side. He blocks the kunais of a female stealth mercenary with his shield, then cuts the spear-wielding ninja in the chest, followed by stabbing the other through the chin up to the top of his head. He then shakes the dead ninja off his blade, throwing the corpse at the shinobi, knocking her into a jeep. Kiro (Barricade) starts advancing, blocking more shots from the mercenaries. One of the defenders shoots using an automatic shotgun, hitting a rogue taimanin that was using a crossbow, right in the shoulder, as he falls off the top of a van he was standing on. Then another mercenary is reached by the defender's proejctiles, in the head and the chest, as she falls limp, dropping her SMG.
Meanwhile, the bombers have finished planting the bombs.
"Bomb team reporting, bombs have been planted, we are all regrouped and ready to fall back." The bomb squad reports through VC.
"Good, fall back now!" Allistair replies through VC.
Meanwhile, Masahiro is dodging the slashes from an armored Nomad soldier, who is swinging around a single edged greatsword. Both are fighting in the streets of the zone. The teen lands a direct strike with his flipped right tonfa, then blocks with the same baton an horizontal slash coming from his right, the attack didn't hurt him, but still pushed him with its force. The part-demon boy jumps over another slash and spins in the air, hitting with his weapons against the helmet of the heavily armored soldier.
"Hold still, kid!" The armored soldier yells as she tries to slash the boy once he lands, but her swing is blocked by the two batons.
The teen starts hitting the armored woman, spinning and flipping his tonfas, using both ends of each stick to land swift blows and to block the deadly cuts of the lady in the armor. After a series of hits in the breastplate. The soldier lands a slash on Masahiro, who retaliates with a kick in the belly before going to hit her with the handles of his tonfas, the ends of the handles being pointy to use as picks. The armor starts getting chipped and very dented.
A figure with red glowing eyes watches from the shadows as the teen is battling the Nomad soldier. Her silhoutte being similar to one of a female who has straight claws coming out of the hands. Masahiro punches the armored soldier into a truck, making a hole through the vehicle and a closed store, he then stands, panting and sweating, with barely visible cuts which look like the woman grazed him with her sword.
The figure from a moment ago jumps out of the shadows, though its steel a silhoutte as it tries to lands on the teen, who rolled out of the way in time to dodge deadly claws and a woman, who created a crater once landing. Clockwork sees what just happened after slicing a ninja's throat.
"Hikaru-san!" Yells Zaki(Clockwork) as he jumps down and rushes towards the teen, who is on guard as the shadowy figure is slowly revealing herself.
Magenta hair, a pale skin, crimson eyes and a red latex suit with the cleavage mostly exposed as each hand has a gauntlet with claws coming out. Half open eyes with a smug smirk as she stares at the boy and the sniper who just arrived.
"Ara~, looks like I won't have much trouble getting the kid..." The lady says as she laughs and walks towards Masahiro, swaying her hips in an attempt to persuade the lost taimanin.
"Who are you!?" Namuraga asks, getting on guard as well.
"Hmm? You can simply call me Oboro...which will be the last name you shall hear, except for the boy." Oboro replied, staring at Masahiro.
"Me? What do you want from me?" Masahiro asked, blushing since he stared at the swaying hips of the woman, who stopped to answer.
"My master, Edwin Black wants you, since you are the so called Lost Fuuma Clan child." The lady crossed her arms, making her bust stand out to the teen.
"F-Fuuma Clan? Am I from a clan...You mean, a clan of taimanins?" Asked the confused and blushing teen.
"Taimanins come from clans of ninjas, where they are trained for their respective academies." Oboro's short explanation was. She then readies her claws. "Anyway, shall you come by the hard way or the easy way?"
Masahiro and Clockwork got on guard with their weapons, making the seductive lady frown playfully.
"Aw~ And I wanted to tease you in the way back. Looks like I can at least play with you!" She rushes towards the two, laughing crazily. As the fight-or-flight response of the teen started acting out.
Masahiro Fuuma dodges a slash from Oboro and blocks the following one, at the same time Namuraga(Clockwork) tries to cut the woman's throat, but fails by his dagger getting blocked with another clawed gauntlet. The teen and the sniper start trading blows and slashes with the lady in the red suit. Dashing the two men into the woman as their weapons clashed and sparks fled around them. Meanwhile Allistair, who smacked off the jaw of a rogue taimanin, sees the fight, gasping as he starts running towards his sniper friends and his brother, his body is covered in many light cuts and some bruises, since some Nomad members managed to hit him. The rest of the assault team, the scout team, snipers and defenders are overwhelming the zone with their teamwork and power.
"Hang on! Clockwork, Masahiro!" The captain yells as he approaches the two templars who are fighting the magenta-haired lady.
Oboro stabs her claws into the pavement, getting stuck; Masahiro takes advantage of her by kneeing her in the side of the face, followed by many smacks and slams with the tonfas - Namuraga stabs her in the back, many times as his dagger got covered in the lady's red vital liquid. The creepy woman gets unstuck from the street ground and manages to slash Masahiro square in the chest, earning a cry of pain from him, followed by stabbing her other claw into Clockwork's stomach, who grunts and some blood leaks from his mouth.
"Bitch!" Namuraga cuts many times Oboro in the face, making her stagger. Letting Masahiro hit with both sticks the lower back of the woman.
"You pests!" She shouts as she spins and cuts both, knocking them a few meters away, smirking as she licks the blood off her weapon. "How tasty."
"Hands off my friend and my brother you slut!" Allistair yelled, surprising Oboro with a dropkick which was followed by a roll forward and an upward double smack with each baton.
"Guwaaah!" Oboro then flips on the air, landing on her feet as she glares at the strike force captain, she smirks later, laughing smugly. "Well, looks like I'll have to convince Oni-chan to let me play with Masahiro-kun!" She laughs after her taunt.
"I can tell that you're another of Nomad's pawns." The older Hikaru brother rapidly moves towards Oboro, his right tonfa clashing against Oboro's left bladed gauntlet, both are now in a lock.
"I'm more than a pawn, I'm Nomad's elite and you shall die humilliated by me, Oboro, so now police man, are you going to arrest me or- Eh!?" Oboro was interrupted as the captain ended the lock by pushing her claws apart, then with the woman exposed, he backflip-kicks her in the middle of the face, shoving his foot into her mouth and nose as blood poured out from both holes.
"Hmph." Allistair landed well as Oboro did, too. "You're nothing but an arrogant bitch who probably sucked more cocks than she could handle." He then signals her to come at him, taunting. "Come try kill me, Elite lady."
Oboro wipes the blood of her face and grits her teeth, growling "A hard to take guy, huh? I like when my victims are tough at the start." She does a cross slash with both of her clawed gauntlets, which the Strike Force captain dodges by performing a backdash, retaliating with a rough side kick into the forehead of the woman. "You damn...!" She then tries to kick him which the man dodges by ducking before blocking another claw slash aimed at his left shoulder. After that he strikes her with the front of both tonfas, followed by flipping the sticks and smacking her with the other ends of them.
"Good lord, you're even slower than the other one ¿Are you holding back?" Allistair mocks her while blocking and avoiding her vicious attacks, hitting any opening with direct attacks and parrying a few slashes. Meanwhile Masahiro and Clockwork are holding themselves against nomad ninjas that seemed to be accompanying Oboro.
"Shut up!" Oboro shouts back and suddenly a red glint appears in her eyes, which makes them leave a trail with each movement. Her attacks suddenly pickup speed as the clawed gauntlets manage to graze and barely poke into Allistair's skin, until he finally starts getting serious cuts and bruises. Oh parries another slash, making both adversaries be pushed away from each other.
"That's what I'm talking about." Allistair said then he balances his breathing, Oboro thinking he lowered his guard starts running towards him, preparing her long clawed guantlets to slice him.
"Nii-san!" Masahiro yells out and tries to go help his big brother, but more ninjas appears as he growls and starts smacking through them.
"Nii-san!" I heard my little brother Masahiro call out to me. I saw Oboro surrounded by a red aura as she's getting getting closer, everything is slowing down around me. This instinct is slowly kicking in , I need to focus and find a way to use it before it runs out. I brainstorm as Oboro seems to become slower the closher she is to me. Then I get an idea. I put my adaptia into my right hand, also channeling through my tonfa, I'll try to make a parry move, but not just a simple parry. A parry that reflects the damage. I will work with not only close combat attacks, but also projectiles. I feel power in my hand as Oboro is painfully slowly doing a diagonal cross-slash, her claws leaving their red trails. Then swing my right tonfa to parry them and the slash back at her.
'And I know how it'll be called!'
"ULTRAKILL-Metal Parry!" As my tonfa makes contact, an expansive wave covers us, which means the parry is working, suddenly, the cross slash becomes a blue diagonal cross of clawed gauntlets, but quickly his Oboro in her whole torso as she's blasted through some cars and into a building a few squares ahead.
"Ngh!" I grunted then hissed as I stood on one knee, panting as I could hear gunshots and I turned to see that Hermes managed to help Masahiro and Clockwork.
"Captain, we have a problem. As the bomb team was leaving after planting the bombs, all the bombs were defused." Said Hermes.
"W...What...?"
I stared bewildered at Hermes. I then comunicate with the rest of the teams through radio.
"Bombs have been defused! Regroup at extraction point!"
"Yes sir!" I heard all teams report back.
"Defender team, taimanins engaged, we need backup!" Barricade said through VC.
"Roger that! New orders, find and support defender team!"
We start heading towards the location of the defenders, using our radars/minimaps.
"Clockwork, I need you to and the snipers to beware and advance with the scout team, we'll fight them all together. The non rogue taimanins are tougher than the rouge ones!" I say to Namuraga.
"Understood." He replied.
The sniper and scout teams move faster as they advance towards the location of Barricade and the rest. I switch my shotgun to Charge Mode which lets me pump up power into each single fire I do with it. I pump it to 4/5 of the power as I see that Barricade and the others are fighting many Taimanins. I slide down below one of the taimanins and fire at him in the face from below, the pumped up shot knocked him into the air. I then jumped to avoid a sweep kick then kicked the other taimanin.
I saw another taimanin throw shurikens at me, I decided to do another Parry, with my left hand having Adaptia I then punch the shurikens as time seemed to stop once my fist collided with the sharp projectiles, then 0.5 seconds later time resumed moving. I suddenly realized that it wasn't exactly my hand but a third ghostly one did the parry, since I had my left hand still ready to pump the shotgun. Now the parried shurikens headed back at the taimanin but once they hit her, they exploded and knocked her away.
'So the parried attacks can create an explosion ¿Huh? Destructive."
"Crap." I blocked a chained sickle then switched to my tonfas. Dashing forward while flipping my sticks and back-end striking the shinobi in the chest and head many times. But he cuts me in the sides, I managed to block most of the attacks, but still got cut many times, I smack the taimanin into the ground by slamming my still flipped sticks on the top of his head, his skull caves right into the ground.
"Shit!" I duck as another taimanin fails to slash my neck, then turn around and smack them in the jaw, hitting at their left side. I caught a glimpse of Barricade shield-bashing a taimanin hard into the wall.
As the Strike Force team was fighting against the recently arrived taimanins, from one of the buildings, at the rooftop of it stood Asagi Igawa, the Almighty Taimanin.
"Everyone, get away from them but don't run away." Asagi said through an earpiece.
All the taimanins jumped away from the templars. Allistair looked around confused, all cut and bruised up with blood trailing from his forehead, nose and a new scar on his right cheek. He then saw Asagi and both stared at each other.
"Allistair Hikaru, we finally meet." Asagi said as she jumped down from building to building until she landed few meters in front of him. The captain held his guard up in case she planned to take them out herself, rather go down with a fight. "Don't worry, we're not here to fight, not anymore for now..."
"¿What?" The Strike Force captain asks, confused by the 180 turn of the behavior of the taimanins. "What do you want to talk about?"
To be continued...
First author note: Thanks for bearing with me and reading up to this part. Please leave any criticism, don't hesitate to point out what I must improve on. A writer can't get better without the feedback of his readers.
Happy late new year, granted that this chapter was released 4 days after New Year. I hope you guys also had a nice christmas and spent the new years with your dear relatives, friends, or lovers.
Before finishing this chapter I also must clear out something. This fanfic is set in the AT universe, although there are many changes here. Expect to read more about the Templars and Adaptia in future chapters (Most likely in next chapter, too. Don't worry)
Also thanks to Lilith for creating the Taimanin franchise/multiverse, in a...very bittersweet way. Since I guess you readers played the VN's, watched the OVA's, or played TABA/RPGX/Action Taimanin. I will soon write next chapter, and hopefully don't take so damn long, sorry for that.