There is a beast loose upon the streets of Moskov. She's collared but unchained, and for her the minutes pass as seconds, the people set before her made of sticks and wood, Her will as undeniable and inevitable as the sun rising and setting over Victoria. She emerges from the superstructure covered in blood, sweat, and steam, straight into streets devolving into riotous chaos.
But this beast thrives in it.
The defensive positions have already been punctured and peppered by the combined fire of Steam Knights and Cavalier's transports hitting-and-running. The Ursan reinforcements efforts hamstrung by the Royal Commando ambushes and subterfuge, the Ursans unable to pin down just where the Victorians would emerge from the underground as their lines shift and buckle, trying to reorient whenever a new threat rears up. It was part of the plan; the grandest orchestra played with the sounds of cannonfire and battle.
And Fangs roars over all of it.
It's an incoherent scream, primal and furious, and it makes the sods at the end of the street ready to face her falter. She barrels in like a train, laying one man flat without even throwing a punch as she simply rolls over him, but his battle-buddy takes the full impact of the coming steam-piston. His limp body is sent shattering against a nearby wall, the impact's cracks painted in with red. Fangs wheels her bulk, throwing a second punch as her first steeled-shield edge is retracting, another Ursan soldier sent skidding down the street. Her steam-frame hisses, whining protests at the boundaries that she continuously pushes with it. A couple hundred pounds of steel moves with the stinging speed of a street-pugilist in a free-for-all ring. The platoon has escaped from the sewer layer by now, capitalising on the disarray Fangs sows to establish a battle-line of lances and crossbows. Organised, advancing in the wake of their sergeant.
It's a right and proper scrap now, the scrum of friend-and-foe blurring with the clashing of steel, the hiss and bang of steam, the snap of bolts and harpoons as lines of soldiers converge for the intimate dance of combat.
Fangs darts between the clashing battle-lines, moving like she wasn't even wearing a steam-frame now. Whenever a scrum reaches a decisive tipping point, she comes thundering in like a mortar shell, scattering whatever combatants remain. The Ursans are pushed back, but they don't break yet- they know if the Victorians dig a toehold on the city-level, it'd be harder to rip that harpoon out of the bear's flank.
So they fight with a fervour that only damned men can muster. They need to see how futile all this death is, they need to understand that dying for Ursus wasn't as glorious as living in Her Light.
They need to be broken.
And that is why Davies had let Fangs off her chain. She rushes into the next skirmish, leaping over Victorian and Ursan bodies alike, taking a glancing crossbow bolt off the shield before sucker-punching a particularly burly-looking man in a gasmask who was busy firing harpoons into another cluster of Victorians. To Ursus' credit, this soldier's head doesn't fly off as he spirals to the ground, and even more surprising, he manages to pick himself back up-
But this isn't a fist-fight for a crowd, is it? This is fucking war and there was no such thing as "sportsmanship" here.
Thera punches down without a second thought, the piston firing into that defiant resistance and breaking it in half. Must've been an officer, or a non-com like Thera, one that the boots actually liked, because instead of breaking, they throw themselves at her with a renewed fervour, trying to drive Fangs from his shattered body.
And she cackles as they come in.
A sabre-chop met with a crushing cross-counter, a glancing cut off her frame is answered with a steel-laden backhand, the sad excuse to grapple Fangs and drag her to the ground is met with a shoulder-check and Galsgow Kiss. They come in as a wave of men crashing against the storm-wall that is Victoria's wroth made manifest.
The lucky ones are dragged back groaning and bloody by their buddies. She lets their tide recede, reform, ready for another.
"C'mon you fukken gits!" Fangs posts up, squaring off against the troopers who worked up the balls to try and box her in. Three with sabres, one with a spear- they were finally learning some proper fucking tactics.
The spear thrusts in, aimed at Fang's face- blinding for the split-second the other two needed to manoeuvre around her, dividing Thera's attention. She knows what they're doing, it's literally the first drill taught to Victorian line-soldiers. She could backstep, she could shift herself so that she's only fighting one at a time, and she very well could just stand there and menace them until her backup closed the line beside her…
But that wasn't what Fangs was known for. Fangs was unleashed when Victoria wanted to make a statement, when She took the gloves off and showed the world the dirtier side of Terra's greatest power, when you prick the lion's paw one too many times.
With a maddened howl, Fangs lunged the moment that spear retracted, not a fucking care to how the others cut at her as she blew by them. Gauntleted fist around the haft of the spear, she uses her weight to whip that man around towards his comrades. Fear makes the fool grab his weapon tighter, makes it all the more simple for Fangs to shift him. She throws a single deadly punch, fires that piston, tears his grip from the haft as his broken body slams into the others.
And she descends upon them like a feral beast, making sure that these Ursans never get up to raise a blade against Thera's troops ever again. An act of savagery so unspeakable that the nearby fights break instantly, the Ursans pulling back under cover of bolt-fire and Arts dangerously flung between the routing units. They were fucking retreating? Already? Fangs had barely sank her claws into them-
"Sergeant!" Someone calls out, timed perfectly for after Thera's frame lets out a fresh gout of steam from the overpressure releasing. Or was that the pressure releasing from her body? She couldn't tell-
"Take cover, sergeant!"
"Out of the street! Incoming incoming!"
"Scatter! Mortars! Out of the street!"
The first explosion sends concrete and brick scattering as deadly shards, the hot blast billowing acrid smoke past Fangs, and she cackles. They can't fight her toe-to-toe, so they are targeting her with the mortars.
"What a fucking honor, ey?" She howls like a madwoman back towards the troopers who are frantically waving for her, laughing as another shell detonates closer than the first. The shrapnel pings off of her shields, the blast-wave frazzling her already-tortured hair, a shard sinking into her flash, but she doesn't feel a thing.
Sanity calls for her, beckons her towards those she swore to defend, back towards Her Light, towards Thera. It'll tell her she's done her part, that she can rest now- breathe now that the foothold is kicked in.
She's told herself that once before… and people died because of that complacency- far better people than Fangs, Thera, and Shae combined.
A quick hand gesture, Thera giving one last order for her troopers to fall back and defend the rally-point.
And Fangs turns her back to them. Those mortars had to go, one way or another. Once more into the fray- hopefully for the final time before she could truly rest. No time for a canister check as she steams forward under mortars and bolts. Shields up, legs pumping and powered by steam-filled pistons. The impacts from Ursan fire don't flinch her- sheit she barely even registers them as she charges forward until she can hear those distinct *Whumps!*
She homes in on that sound, turning sharp street corners and alleys, a seeker-bee to a flower- a particularly bulky and violent seeker-bee. That hissing, thundering frame of hers rumbles past the retreating Ursans. Some barely notice her, more concerned with nursing their or their comrades' wounds. Others drop what they are carrying, be it weapons or wounded, and run at the sight of her. Some point, shouting in disbelief when she barrels by, but none stop her. None try and intercept her, none try to slow her, none try to end her-
And that makes Fangs furious.
This wasn't rugby, but Gods damn, she's going for the longest try right now. The defence hadn't a forward to match her, and the ones that try take the tackle as well as a child would. Where's the challenge? Where's the full-back to match her?
The thumps, the orders barked from some burly-sounding cunt, and that sends the thrill up her spine. Deep in enemy lines, but she's found the mortars just on the other side of a schoolyard, tucked behind a fence. Just a simple fence. A wood fence that shatters easily when persuaded by a steam-powered piston.
Four gun tubes manned by black-helmeted troopers, different stock than the ash and trash that she'd been fighting in the streets and -more fun- what looks like their officers. Two of those tall, massive nob-heads just like the git she had cold-clocked minutes before. Pureblood Ursan stock; had the fancy Imperial red on their trenchcoats and the spooky crimson lenses in their gas-masks to separate them further.
Not that Thera gave a fuck. Hopefully these two would put up a little bit more than the last, or was all that Imperial livery just smoke?
One hefts a particularly wicked-looking harpoon launcher while the other growls muffled commands into a radio receiver, but Fangs is on top of them in a heartbeat. Tucked in tight on her shields, she jukes that first deadly shaft that rips past just as the second Ursan officer draws his sabre. Smarter than the others, apparently, as the harpoon-launcher backs up for his comrade to distract her.
"Come, Victorian bitch!" The Ursan laughs in scratchy Victorian as he cuts in, blade cleaving the air itself before crashing against Thera's shield.
The impact of it, the raw brutality, takes her off guard, shifts her footing in a way that throws off her counter, and the Ursan doesn't let up as he throws a backhand chop to catch her neck. Fangs voids back, feeling the tip whip past her ear, but when she steps in to take tempo back, the fucking nob backpedals in retreat-
-as another harpoon rips past Fangs, clips the bottom corner of one of her shields and sends it downward. She barely gets the other up and over her head as a swing powerful enough to fell a tree crashes against her cover. The frame takes the impact, but her legs nearly buckle.
But she's in arms reach now. Before the Imperial officer brings another cut down she steps into him, catches him in the gut with a sharp jab that makes him grunt. The distinct clang though, impact off hardened plate-
Instinct moves her body, the steam-frame slowing what should have been a fluid duck to the side as the blade glances off the arm reinforcement with a particularly unpleasant screech, but she's still on his inside, still has a second or two to sting before another harpoon comes in. A brutally short shot for the kidney… but when she squeezes the lever for the piston, there is nothing but a wet fart of steam from her frame.
And without missing a beat to her deadly tempo, Thera throws a second off-hand punch, a heaving uppercut just as the Ursan pivots to cut her shoulder-to-hip.
The flat, shovel-edge of her Sapper Pavise catches the Ursan under the chin… and this time the piston fires.
A sickening crack punctuating the thump of compressed steam, the thud of something heavy hitting the dirt. Thera doesn't watch her handiwork, doesn't gloat as she pivots to the next- just in time to see the three-pronged harpoon coming.
People always told her that in that moment, when you see death coming at you, the world slows down.
A load of fucking bollocks that was. She's seen death come at her like a freight-train countless times, and every single time death never decided to slow down for her.
The scream of metal being forced to give, the impact of a burdenbeast crashing into her shield, the familiar sharp and sweet burn of pain making it through her war-frayed nerves. Shield pinned against her chest, the razor-sharp prongs of the harpoon that had gotten through her steel to lacerate her belly, but it hadn't actually punctured clean through.
"Wrong ammo, git." Fangs growls, pulling her shield free as the remaining Ursan casts his launcher aside in favour of a sword. She stalks forward without a care to how much she'll bleed, taking her other steam-powered arm and slamming that burdensome steel haft off her shield.
And she squares up once more.
Plodding steps, the weight of steam and steel, of Victoria on her shoulders. Even if her muscles scream out for her to stop, even if her body bleeds until she is a ghost, even if sanity makes one final plea for her to just walk away, she trudges towards death with fists fucking ready.
First exchange; blade crashing against tucked shield answered with a jab to the gut stopped by armoured plate. Neither give.
Second exchange; her uppercut smartly dodged, the destabilising force of the piston missing capitalised with a slash taken off Fangs' steam canisters. She's leaking now- but if she kills this git there won't be need for any more steam, now will there?
Third exchange… fourth… fifth…
The grunts, the shouts, the blood and sweat to coalesce with the steam and sparks. She knows that even if she wins, there are crossbows trained on her. There are jowls and jeers, troopers cheering for their officer to skewer the Victorian cunt that dared to charge alone into their territory.
But…
Even if she loses, she still wins. She gets what she wants, she's put the fear into them, she's drawn the Ursans inward rather than out there killing Thera's troopers. A single, violent and unstoppable force of nature unleashed by Victoria, one that would make the Ursans question: 'Just how many more do they have like that one.'
Thera ducks a desperate swing, rolls a panicked off-handed punch off her cheek as she closes, stepping in with the Ursan's retreat. Two rapid-fire gut punches to keep him staggering, a savage boot to the inside of the knee to break the stance, and that final, crushing knee-pad strike to the facemask.
Steel checks steel-
And the Ursan's mask gives. His limp body slams back against the wall.
And to punctuate this victory, she throws one final strike, piston firing to ensure the kill as she embeds that crimson-coated Ursan into bricks.
Stunned silence, this courtyard serving as the eye to the storm of chaos beyond, and Fangs finally relinquishes, slinking back to be chained once again. Just in time to leave Thera standing there to feel.
Her blood flows from the accumulated wounds.
The relief of a mission accomplished.
The weight of her frame binding her to this spot, unable to move without steam.
The cracks-
The thunder-
And she greets death one more time.
"Thumper get your ass over here!"
"-get 'im! That one!"
"Shoot him, before he gets away-"
"Fuck you, Ursskie!"
The crossbows snap in concert, but the steel barbs thud into the concrete of the street. The man below jinks, dashing double-time further down the straight-away. Curious, considering there were alleys he could have ducked into-
"Thumper, fucking get him." Leftenant Davies barks, frustrated at the poor showing of the platoon's crossbow gunners.
So Orianna pushes her way through an apartment kitchen to a window facing the street Davies was engaging, dispassionately smashing the glass as she braces her lance against the frame. She can't… see a weapon on the Ursan, but the figure certainly is a soldier given the overcoat and helmet…
A single squeeze of the lever, a yellow-tipped spheroid sailing on sizzling steam, the impact of the payload knocking the man flat- if the blast of it didn't shred him first. Damned fine shot- for a shot that damned a man.
Orianna breathes out, dragging her lance back into the darkness, eager to just sit the fuck down as the other troopers cheer her. It's all deaf to her ears though, at least until the screams, shouts, the chaos of a street erupting into a furious exchange of crossbow-bolts between apartments begins anew. Been like this all day, take an apartment block, fire-fight with the neighbours across the way before going over and really giving them a piece of Victoria's mind, rinse repeat.
But that's not her prerogative right now- at least not until Davies calls her team up. She crosses the hall to another apartment who's door is wide open. Well, blasted off its hinges to be more specific- not that she'd apologise to whatever civilian called this place home days before. For right now it's her home away from home, hopefully for the next hour or two if they were lucky. Orianna props her lance against the wall before throwing herself back into a creaky chair beside the kitchen counter. A full day of fighting, the red sky of dusk approaching, the last chance to get a bit of shut eye before the inevitable night counterattacks come. She can't hear the groan coming from her as she sinks deeper, but she can feel it rumbling in her chest- see how Cunninham looks over from her post with concern etched on her face.
"Boss, you-"
"Fine." Orianna grunts, forcing herself to at least slouch forward, hands clasped together. Her leg's bouncing now… hadn't done that in a while-
"We shouldn't be holed up here for too much longer, right?"
Bless Cunningham for trying to make conversation, but every time the Perro woman spoke to Orianna, it was always an asinine question first- usually one that she should already know the answer to!
"Whenever First decides to get off their arses and take over our post- and who knows when the hells that is. Might be here until morning."
Cunningham's ears droop slightly, and Gods be damned, that tugs at what little heart strings Orianna hasn't severed yet. "Just… settle in, Hammy. I'll take your sector." She grunts, trying her best to smile as she forces herself to stand once more.
"You sure, boss?"
"Most sane folk would leap at the opportunity to get a little shut-eye after dashing through a core-city's defensive gunline, taking auto-bow fire through maintenance shafts, climbing six flights of stairs, clearing house-to-house for a day, and being fukken shelled the moment we stick our noses out to breathe fresh Urski air."
Despite the gruffness to her voice, Orianna motions for Cunningham to take her seat as she drags herself up and to the window. The blonde Perro woman hesitates, but relents when Orianna tosses a blanket she had yanked from the bedroom over her head.
At this point, no one winces when the mortar rounds land close. Orianna could pick it out- they aren't aimed at Third platoon's building, but she and Cunningham exchange furtive glances. Teller slips in about then as well, for once the motor-mouthed Feline not saying anything as he takes his post in the apartment's bedroom.
But leave it to Cunningham to break the silence with a fucking asinine question.
"Any news on Sergeant Thera?" She calls out to Teller.
Teller glances at Orianna from the doorway, but Orianna feigns having not heard. She wishes she hadn't heard, especially when Teller quietly shakes his head. Cunningham curses under her breath, bundling up but clearly not restful- and just who does she have to blame now? There's that constant shifting, the sound of Cunningham bumping something next to the chair as she fruitlessly tries to get comfortable.
Thera was MIA still after that initial breakout streetside. The Steel Cavaliers had pushed the perimeter out, set the watch posts, secured the route as best they could through the day, and yet no sign of Thera. She could still be out there in the city, or back at the rally, or the aid station, or the ammo dump, or casualty collection…
"Thera's tough." Orianna answers, eyes not leaving her sector. "She'll catch up with us-"
"-or we'll catch up to her." Leftenant Davies says from the apartment door, knocking on the frame after the fact. "Pack it up, we're moving again."
"Again?" Teller puts a little too much whine in his voice, earning a particularly pointed glare from both Davies and Orianna.
"Ursans will probably hit this building tonight, we're moving one over under the cover of dark. Thumper-"
"Aye, leftenant?" Orianna twists slightly to catch the eyes of her officer, but keeping her own still on sector.
"When we post up in the next building, I want you and your team on the second-to-top floor, closest to the roof. You're going to be overwatch for tomorrow's advance. We've got a nice tall perch picked out for those eyes of yours."
"Aye, leftenant."
Davies nods, turning to leave, but hesitates for a moment. There's a soft look to her, the kind of pitiable sort of glances that Thera'd give too; like they thought Orianna Leepu was going to crack under a little bit of pressure still.
"Thera'll turn up when we push the perimeter out tomorrow. Probably tuckered out from routing half the local garrison. Just be ready to move your team Thumper."
Davies' joke felt full of an empty sort of hope; a pastie that was puffed and delicious looking, but when you bit into it there was nothing but hot air. Of all the people in the Division to survive on the streets of a hostile city on her own, it'd be Thera. Yet as much faith as Orianna held for the good sergeant… if she hadn't turned up by now-
"I'll pack the ammo, boss." Cunningham leaps from the seat, suddenly champing at the bit to just leave.
"Oi, Hammy, don't hump that all yourself-" Teller barks, making to get up and move before Orianna's eyes shoot steam at him. Just because they were packing up didn't mean that security was to be lax. They'd hold, Cunningham would pack up, then they'd all slip away alongside the rest of the platoon.
In an hour or two. That was an hour or two of shuteye for Cunningham.
"Sit the fuck down, Hammy. You've been firing on all steam-pistons for the last six hours." Orianna growls, "Rest."
Cunningham glares, but she bites back the insubordination with a soft huff. Curls right up on the chair again, and sure enough it's only a few minutes before Orianna can hear those deep, nasally breaths from beneath the bundle of blankets. At least one of the team will be rested for the move tonight and hopefully it will be only a move. If it turned into an eviction… well…
A soft knock on wood- Teller tapping the bedframe to get her attention.
"Boss. Two-o-clock low." He half-whispers, and Orianna takes a peek. Two Ursans- soldiers moving down the street… yes confirmed combatants when one of them turns down a nearby alley, flashing a sabre on his hip. A patrol maybe? Were the lines that poorly defined still despite everything command said?
And was that even a question that Orianna's mind came up with? Of course they were. She tracks them with her lancetip, the footsoldiers unaware that they were being watched from the upper floors. The one who went down the alley comes back, motioning at what could be a side door? She's unsure, but there is one thing that is certain-
Orianna's grip tightens on the trigger, feeling the poundage of it mount against her palm until she hits the wall and…
And she holds her fire.
"Boss? Should we…"
"Leave them." Orianna whispers back, "We're moving, best not kick the nest before we do, aye?"
Teller grumbles, but he holds his fire as well as the Ursans disappear through that side door. Eyes open now though, ready for every single movement in the windows, the doorway, the alley- it feels like Orianna doesn't blink for an hour straight until there's a break in the stillness. Even in the coming dark, she can make out the jacketed Ursan taking a peek from that side door, glancing both ways. Disappears again…
Teller shifts, and in the haunting silence Orianna can hear the groan of his lance's lever when another shadowed figure exits the building… and another, and another… She holds her breath as a squad-sized element piles out into the alleyway. They were hiding in a building that should have been cleared? Something was off about them though, they were being beckoned… or rather corralled by one of the clearly uniformed men.
"Corporal. It's a squad."
"Hold fire."
"It's a fucking squad-"
"Hold. Fire." Orianna snarls through clenched teeth. Could be a squad, but she had that inkling… the way that group moves is not like soldiers. Huddled, hushed, waiting for the last of them to get into the alley before they move. Eyes squinted, she can't quite make out the details with sundown.
A judgement call. Could be a squad coming out of hiding to regroup, or could be civilians.
A single grenade could answer the question. The platoon wouldn't be here by sunrise, she'd never know the results, never have it on her conscience…
Hand squeezes on the lever again, she feel that reassuring tension, confident in the knowledge that if they were threats, if she caught even a glimpse of more weapons, she had them dead to rights.
But they could only be civilians, of course they could only be civilians. She can feel the fear from that group… and she understood. She knew that fear, once.
"Teller, wake Hammy and start packing."
"Boss?"
"Do it. I'll watch them."
Orianna can feel Teller staring at her, but eventually the Feline man drags his lance off the bed and makes his way over to the kitchen. She can feel his tension as he stiffly brushes past, but what exactly does Teller have to be mad about? He was green, straight out of training, hadn't seen… a friend die yet.
Orianna's hand hits the wall. Just a touch more and that group would be shreds of meat and cloth.
Why the hell does Teller hate Ursans like Orianna hates Ursans? Made no sense. Does any of this make sense?
The group starts slipping further away into the dark, deeper into the alley where Orianna knew she could hit, even if she couldn't see-
It's war, isn't it? The more dead Urskies, the better right?
And with a deep breath out, she eases off the lever.
The clitter and clatter, the clanking and clunking of the platoon packing in the dark hid Orianna's humming. Not a nervous humming, not anymore at least, but it was still an embarrassing little nursery diddy- a rhyme that Orianna's mum used to sing to get her and her brothers to shove their toys back in the chest. A song to pack it away: the ammo, the kit, the anxiety and fear. It's all thrown over her back, everything all squared away until she'd get the chance to unpack it once again.
Five little fowl went out one day,
Over the hill and far away,
Mother fowl said, "Quack quack quack quack quack",
But only four little fowl came back.
Bandoliers overlapped so the grenade-pockets lock on one-another to keep them all from rotating out-of-position while she's running, a tip from Dunni.
Four little fowl went out one day,
Over the hill and far away,
Mother fowl said, "Quack quack quack quack",
But only three little fowl came back.
Lance over the shoulder as she double checks the safety; no cockup negligent discharges like Fumbles.
Three little fowl went out one day,
Over the hill and far away,
Mother fowl said, "Quack quack quack",
But only two little fowl came back.
Sabre loop loose, blade always ready for the draw -just in case- exactly like Thera taught her.
Two little fowl went out one day,
Over the hill and far away,
Mother fowl said, "Quack quack",
But only one little fowl came back.
She files into the hall with Teller and Cunningham, second-to-last team to head down the stairs. They pass the rearguard squad, everyone exchanging pleasantries in the dark, but none of the anxiety as they stack up. The rest of the platoon is already running, moving for the apartment building across the street. Door kicked in, the dulled thumping of steam-shot and shouts- civilian or soldier, it is anyone's guess.
Orianna takes that deep breath as the line moves forward, the next team making their run across. She still hums though, still counts the seconds as they crawl by. Mortar–fire would start up as soon as the Urskies noticed the movement-
But she packs that fear away as well. The line moves up, they're next.
One little fowl went out one day,
Over the hill and far away,
Mother fowl said, "Quack",
But no little fowl came back.