Berlin, Germany, Europe
Adrian stared out the open hatch of the dropship, which he'd learned was appropriately named the MV-261 Orca for the massive ship. The city skylines zipped beneath him in the warm glow of the sun, the quietness was almost unnerving for him, having gone through more cities in ruins than still intact, it was odd to see a massive city in all its entirety not in the middle of an invasion. The urgent mission he was called for required a less obvious approach, hence why he was brought along so soon, of the couple other members of Overwatch he'd met, subtlety was not their strong suite. According to Lena Oxton, the teleporting Brit, Overwatch had a wide net for intel and many undercover operatives that kept tabs on pieces of interest. One of these was a research facility looking into some classified material, Talon had caught wind of the tech and wanted it for themselves. Unfortunately, bad timing meant that an employee had seen their break-in and now the whole situation had developed into a hostage crisis, with the Talon agents leveraging the hostages against the cops to buy them time to get the tech. Though this whole crisis brought one idea to his mind…
"So why are we sneaking into this?" Lena turned to him; he still wasn't sure where he stood with her but it obviously wasn't very high.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean I get talking a subtle approach, but shouldn't we be working with the cops? Coordinating? Why aren't there more of us helping out on the ground?"
Lena gave an exasperated sigh, "Because we can't! Overwatch isn't an official entity right now."
That was news to him, from the technology and the base, it was clearly understaffed but he'd assumed it was a private military or a newly opened division, "Hold on, what the hell do you mean this isn't 'official'?"
"Overwatch was disbanded years ago, now we're trying to get back together to fight the growing Talon threat. The problem is that many governments are too keen on an independent group operating across the globe, hence the secrecy and lack of support."
"Jesus fucking christ, what have I stepped into."
The comms speaker blared, "Alright, I'm just about to pass over the roof, get ready to hit the ground."
The Orca momentarily slowed down, pulling a light turn as Adrian saw it fly several meters off the ground of a building. He saw Oxton hop out and do her…teleporting trick to land safely on the ground. Following without any of the fancy tricks, he jumped out and landed with a well-practiced roll, spreading the force of the impact throughout his body. Brining himself to a crouch and drawing his silenced M7S submachine gun, he watched as the Orca blasted from the rooftop and into the clouds. There's no way anybody didn't see that, but it wouldn't matter much anyway, the cops wouldn't risk coming in with the hostages and Talon was probably too focused on getting their tech to notice anything else. Breaking into a sprint he brought himself flat against wall to the side of the door and waited for Genji and Lena.
"We know that Talon is occupying the top three floors of this building, the first and last of those three floors are where they're holding the hostages to act as human shields if the cops decide to break in. The tech we want is in-between those three floors, I say we work together to clear this top floor, after that it won't be long until the others realize that something is wrong. Oxton, Genji, you should take the bottom floor and free the hostages, I'll take the middle floor and secure whatever they're trying to steal."
"Hold up there mate, who said anything about putting you in-charge?"
"I agree with Kasporov's assessment. He is a tech specialist and has the most experience with such situations. If Talon tries to escape with the tech, they won't be able to go any lower because of us, so we'd push him to the open roof."
Adrian gave an affirming nod, at least someone here had some tactical sense. He opened the door and crack and peaked in with his submachine gun, checking the corners and moving in he motioned for the others to follow him down the stairs.
"Alright we'll follow you. Just try not to mess this up, lives are at stake."
They reached the entrance to the top floor, he turned to Lena, he understood her skepticism, he always had the same feelings when he'd had to work with a non-ODST group, but the Covenant made sure that everyone knew it wasn't personal feelings, "Exactly, that's why you and Genji are handling them. You two have history, you understand each other's moves, I'm an outsider to this group."
Slowly opening the door, he inched on through, the movement-detection system in his helmet would let him know if people were walking by, but what if someone was on their smoke break by the door? That's why its always important to check corners, and for now its better than Overwatch knew less about his capabilities as possible. He had no problem with the broad strokes of his universe's technology, but there were still a lot of unknowns about this world and the less impact he had the better. Splitting up, he took the hallway directly to the right from the door they'd left. They'd looked at a layout of the building previously, the staircase to the roof was separate from the main staircase for the rest of the building, he also knew that following this hallway would wrap around the entire floor. This floor was mainly personal offices, but there was one large conference room at the end of the hall, they each clear a the hallway they were in and check the side offices so as to not get surprised when they made a push on the conference room.
Pushing open the first few doors, they were all empty, he heard a series of footsteps coming from around the corner of the hallway. Ducking into the nearest empty office he pressed himself against the doorway and waited for them Talon mercs to pass. His radar picked them up, appearing as two yellow dots, he watched as they got close enough so he could hear their conversation. When they passed, he popped out of the door and let off two quicks bursts from his submachine gun into their backs, the full metal rounds tearing through their light armor with ease. Their bodies fell to the ground with a dull thump, leaving them behind he continued to check offices until he was nearing the end. Adrian was about to open the door when his motion-detector popped a target right in front of him, tempted to simply fire through the door he had to remind himself this was a hostage situation. It was unlikely, but there was a chance that a hostage had been lucky enough to avoid being found and had taken refuge in one of these side rooms. Cracking the door he peaked in, there was no merc waiting in the room but there was also no hostage either, he took a sweep of the room when he heard a sound from his left. Flicking to the side he saw nothing but noticed the large wooden desk in the corner, the pieces fell into pace as he slowly makes his way over it. It was unlikely that a merc was cowering under a desk and it would only jeopardize the mission if the hostage yelled, so he decided to risk it. In a hushed whisper he spoke, "I know you're there its…the police. We're here to rescue you." When nothing happened, he spoke again, "Look if I already know you're in here, if I wanted you dead I'd already have done it." At that a young man with dirty blonde hair crawled out from under the desk, he was wearing a lab coat, maybe he was one of the scientists working here.
"Oh thank god, I thought I was dead for sure."
"You're safe now, but I'll need you to stay here until you here the police come."
"Wait…I thought you were the police?"
"Never mind that, just wait here alright. There's still more Talon mercs outside, do you know if there's another way into that conference room?"
"Uhmm…aaa…. yeah…yeah there is! There's a ventilation system that runs throughout the building in case of chemical spills, it should be large enough for a person to fit through. There's an entrance hatch in the janitors closet the next room over."
"Nice job kid." He turned to leave but the hostage called out in a whispered tone.
"Wait, please, after the hostages on this floor are freed, can you find my fiancée Sarah? She was taken away from the everyone else and brought to a lower floor. She's the operations director, I think they wanted her open up the restricted access" That stopped him in his tracks, a hostage on his floor would complicate things, throwing in a human shield would make his job that much harder.
"I'll do what I can." With that he left the man and check the last few rooms before making his way into the janitor's closet, he saw the maintenance hatch on the opposite side of the room and pried it open. Crouching into it he radioed the others, "Its Kasporov, I've found a ventilation shaft into the conference room. I can get behind them and take out one or two, but I'll need you guys to act fast and take care of the others." A series of affirmatives answered him. When he found himself at the conference room vent, he quietly began to ply off the crate and pulled it into the vent with him. He walked up a small incline to get here, now he was a couple meters off the ground near the ceiling. He counted four Talon mercs, all facing the glass side of the conference room leaving him in their blind side. Two of them were close together in the center closest to him, the other two were on the far ends, he'd leave those two for Genji and Oxton. Slowly creeping out of the vent, he grabbed onto the edge and stealthily lowered himself to the ground. Landing practically without a sound he holstered his submachine gun and drew his knife, the close proximity of the two guards to each other would make guns a hassle to use. He couldn't see either of his teammates, but he'd have to trust they wouldn't let him down. Crouching behind the first man, he brought his blade across the back of the man's ankles, severing the tendons in a splash of blood, his body began to crumple in pain but he didn't even have time to scream before Adrian jammed his knife into the man's neck, silencing him completely. His partner however heard the brief commotion and turned to look, only to see Adrian rip his knife out of the first man's throat and bring is across the second man's neck in a swift movement. As soon as his knife slid across the second man's skin, he heard the glass of the conference shatter with the force of Genji and Oxton breaking in. Genji had thrown a handful of shurikens into the man's body while Oxton had teleported behind the man and fired off a quick burst from her dual pistols. The man in front of Adrian aimlessly grasped as his throat, gurgling as he choked on his own, eventually falling to the ground with a pitiful suffocation.
Back home, it had always been an odd feeling to be dealing with militias and insurrectionists, not to say he had qualms about it but more so that if felt so pointless in the grand scheme of everything that was happening around them. He'd never argue that the UNSC was perfect, but for the insurrectionists to keep fighting humanity instead of banding together to fight the Covenant was pathetic. They had a common enemy, a threat that applied to them all, the insurrectionists freedom wouldn't matter if the Covenant were just going to glass their entire planet anyway. This thought was especially prevalent when he'd be rerouted from a mission to deal with some damn innies, instead of fighting with his brothers against the covvies, he'd be elsewhere fighting fucking humans, the very people he was also trying to save.
He shook himself from his thoughts and back to reality, to the hostage crisis. He looked over to see Lena using her bubbly personality to assure everyone that they were safe now and to stay here until the police arrived. Stepping around the corpses of the mercs, he flicked the blood off his blade and wiped the rest off it of on his armor.
"Times tickin' Oxton, we gotta get a move on." She nodded and left the crowd, they made their way to the staircase and headed down to their respective floors.
"Alright, just remember that the police will move in as soon as the terrorists on the first floor are taken care of. We have to be out of here by they time they reach these floors." Adrian nodded and split from the duo, walking into the new area he saw that it was far different from the floor above. This looked like it was entirely a research area, the plus side is that so much of the walls were glass it was easy to see Talon on the opposite side of the room, ducking down he hid behind the waist high wall, the double-edged sword however was that they'd also be able to see him easily. He'd have to play this smart and fast if he didn't want to be stuck here with the police. He made his way from wall to wall, staying out of sight below the glass, constantly being reminded that he was on a time limit he couldn't see, lucky for him ODST's thrived on working under pressure. If anything, the stakes only made him work better. He was nearing the Talon group when he begun to overhear an argument, peaking around the corner he saw a red-headed woman in a similar lab coat to the one the other hostages were wearing, she must be the operations director, Sarah. There was a total of four mercs, the one arguing with Sarah and three others standing off the side.
"Just keep your god damn eye open you stupid bitch! We can't access the vault unless we get the retinal scan, this would all go a lot easier if you'd stop closing your fucking eye!" The lead merc growled, he'd had shaggy hair and sported a nasty set of scars across his mug, he grabbed the woman by the face and turned her to face him, staring directly into his yes.
"Piss off," Adrian couldn't help but chuckle with respect when she spat out the thickest glob of spit he'd ever seen, she would've fit right in with the ODSTs.
The merc wiped it off with a growl, "Oh that's it you fucking whore, you want don't want to make it easy? That's fine with me, I'll just be having myself a lot more fun." He drew knife from his belt, "Anthony, hold her head in place. If she doesn't want to cooperate, we'll just carve her eye out."
Without anytime to think, Adrian stood up from behind his corner and unleashed a hail of controlled bursts at the terrorists, the first man went down like a bag of cement. The second had taken a burst to the gut and slid down the wall, leaving a dark red smear behind him as he went. The last two had reflexes quick enough to get out of the way, the lead merc threw Sarah too the ground and they took cover behind a pair of columns. The leader fired a burst from his submachine gun, Adrian rolled out of the way but felt a few bullets hit his breastplate. He motioned for Sarah to make her way towards him as he laid down covering fire from his M7S, he meets her halfway and used his body to shield her. His composite titanium was built to withstand plasma, granted it would melt over your body and burn like hell, but technically it would still be together, so glancing shots from small weapons fire wouldn't do much on the armored sections of his body. Bringing her around the corner, he fired at the third goon whose foot was barely peaking from his column. The FMJ bullets caused his foot to erupt in a shower of blood and bones, the man stumbled forward with a yelp, straight into Adrian's crosshairs. He let loose another few shots, the rounds connected with the man's skull, an eruption of brain and blood coming from the exit wound.
The last merc swore under his breath, he hadn't been expecting so much shit to go wrong. First what was supposed to be a quick job turned into a hostage situation because some dumb fucking egghead came on his day off to check some god damn data. Then someone triggered the alarms, alerting not just the cops, but whatever the fuck this guy was, fucking hell was he special ops? He'd never seen anything like him, for a brief second he thought the guy might've been some new Talon operative, but no one he'd seen had operated with such a cold efficiency. Even Reaper was just pure animalistic rage, with Widowmaker being like a cat teasing her prey, nothing he'd ever seen came close to this guy.
Adrian gestured for Sarah to stay put, he inched out of the corner and put his back against the wall, just out of sight of the last Talon mercenary. With quick efficiency he slid across the wall and pulled out his M6C sidearm, crouching down he pushed himself against the opposite side of the column the merc was hiding behind. Putting his pistol into his left hand, he slowly peered around the edge fired twice into the unsuspecting man's gut. The leader stumbled back in surprised as Adrian fully unveiled him from the corner, Adrian fired a single clean shot to the man's head. He stumbled back and ungracefully landed in a pile of tangled limbs, Adrian turned back to where he'd had the civilian hide and walked back to her.
"It's alright ma'am, you're safe now but we need to get a move on." He gently pulled her up by the elbow as she nodded, "Your fiancée is safe on the floor, I personally met with him, but first I need you to open up that vault. Whatever Talon wanted you know they'll be back for; I can keep it safe and stop them from ever harming you or your fiancée again."
"Ye-Yes…you're right. Okay I'll help you; the vault has several passcodes but they'd managed to hack through most of them. The final one is what stopped them in their track, it needs a retinal scan of an authorized member, I was the only one here today with high enough clearance to access it." She said as they walked past the corpses, she bent just a bit and placed her eye in front of a tiny monitors next to the door. Air whooshed past them as the massive vault door cracked open, the sound of straining hydraulics echoed throughout the lab as the entrance creaked open to reveal a blindingly white room. It was entirely empty save a single pedestal in the center, on top of the pedestal was a rather small object, more like a fragment than anything else. The closer he got the more unusual it seemed, aside from the fact he'd barely been here over a day, this piece still looked unlike anything he'd seen here. Visually it was almost indescribable, yet it held a familiarity to him, he felt himself eerily drawn to it, the only way he could describe this feeling was uncanny. He turned towards the woman, "What is this? It's unlike anything I've seen here."
She looked reluctant to speak, "Well…It be more apt to say we never created or invented it, but rather we found it."
He circled the pedestal, "You found it?"
"Yes, about a week ago it was uncovered at a mining site, it was initially just considered trash, but the it was doused in massive amounts of radiation. The Geiger counters went berserk, further inspection shows that its actually technological in nature, we just aren't sure what. The radiation fell almost immediately after moving it here, but its still war too little for us to do anything with. We've kept it here while we reach out to other institutions to come and look at to, well that was the plan until today."
Adrian shook his head, there'd be time for study he was stick on the clock and time was running out. Smashing the glass with his elbow pad and grabbed the fragment, just as he was putting the tiny fragment into a chest pouch, he saw a black mist rolling in from the ceiling outside the vault. The mist began to swirl and twist, taking on a humanoid shape, eventually it seemed to solidify itself into a man – though the term man was pushing it. It seemed more like the god damn grim reaper, it's voice even lent itself to this ethereal being, gruff and synthesized with a touch of what he could only describe as 'dread', "You, will give that to me and your death will be painless. Resist, and I will relish in breaking every bone in your body." They circled each other as Adrian subtlety motioned with his hand for Sarah to run.
Adrian could only stare in disbelief, once again uttering a phrase that was becoming more and more common the longer, he spent here, "What the fuck." Mist poured forth from the thing's body, warping into the shape of guns aimed right at him. Not leaving Adrian a second to react, the grim reaper fired one of its shotguns nailing Adrian right in his chest plate, it sent him flying across the vault and out into the lab. Struggling to stand up, each step caused a wave of pain in his chest, the blast had probably fractured some of his ribs. Realizing that he was out of his elements with time running out, he dashed towards the stairwell, blindly firing his pistol behind him. Darkness enveloped his legs as he watched the shadowy haze swish past his legs, looking up he saw the smoke reform once more into the grim reaper.
It reached out clawed hand, wrapping itself around Adrian neck it slammed him into the wall, "Give me the PIECE!" He bellowed, its voice sound hoarse and haggard, rage laced with every word it spoke.
"God damn your breath fucking smells. You want a mint big guy?" It yelled in fury while tossing Adrian to the ground, it stepped on his arm and he could feel the force coming close to breaking his arm. A pierced gauntlet came down to his body, running it ways from his neck to his chest, it grabbed the pouch. The grim reaper opened the pouch and turned it upside down over his hand only for finely crushed bits to come floating out like dust. Clearly infuriated, it let off a roar unlike anything he'd ever heard of.
"Looks like you got a little too rough, maybe lay off being so handsy next time." Adrian could feel the pressure on his arm lessening just slightly, using this brief moment he pulled the knife from its sheath and stabbed it into the being's leg, unsure if this haze could actually be harmed. It seemed to work well enough as it let off a pained roared, stabbing once more for certainty, Adrian heaved the reaper off and dashed for the door. It seemed that he'd lost it, but the more likely reason was that it'd simply lost what it came for in the first place. Hauling himself up the stairs, he burst out of the main stairwell into the top floor, he yells of surprise he turned to see police in SWAT gear at the end of the hall with the hostages. Swearing himself he ran down the hall to the rooftop entrance and tired to get in touch with Genji or Oxton.
"Where the bloody hell have you been?! We've been trying to reach you for the past ten minutes; the police have already started making their way to the top floor."
"I was a little fucking preoccupied, I'm just entering the stairwell to the roof."
"We'll be there mate, just don't be late."
Adrian stomped his way up the final staircase, as soon as he was opening the door to the roof, he could hear the door below him burst open with SWAT. Dashing to the edge of the roof he heard the Orca engines coming in from behind him, soon it flew down into his vision and waited at the edge of the building. The door behind him was kicked open, police poured out calling for him to stop, he pushed himself even more and jumped off the edge of the building. His chest slammed into the floor of the dropship, he desperately tried to get a grip on the floor as he felt himself slipping with the dropship beginning to move. A firm grip on his arm stopped him from moving, he looked up to see Genji standing there, "Thank Christ, I never thought I'd almost die from something so pathetic."
"Your time is not yet, there is much you must do." Genji spoke as he hauled Adrian up into the troop bay, the hatch closing behind him.
"You damn wanker, do you know how close you were pushing it?" Lena gave an exasperated sigh, "It wouldn't be a good look if you died on your first mission."
"Yeah well, I ran into some trouble, you know anything about a fucking grim reaper?"
"You ran into Reaper? It's no surprise that he was here, he's one of Talon's big players and extremely dangerous."
"Yeah, I got some first hand experience," Adrian sat down with a grimace, his ribs were definitely fractured, one of them may have even been broken, "Also…did either of you know anything specific about the tech they wanted? It was destroyed in the fight – but I was just curious." Both of them shook their heads, leaving him more questions about why it had seemed so familiar, what the hell made it so important?
