Several motorboats cut their way through the dark waters, carrying their deadly cargo to the tiny port town. The night was not calm, with heavy, foreboding clouds all over the sky. Sandstorm was brewing in the distance. The passengers, as if in accord with the weather, were also tense and anxious. Men were holding rifles with unyielding grasps, muttering prayers and reassurances under their breaths.

On their own motorboat, Ethan and the Dimitrescu siblings shared that same apprehension. The Duke's scout just reported in - someone was waiting for them on the outskirts of that town. Still… there was no turning back now, not when their goal was so close. They were determined to cut a path through whatever foe awaited.

Ethan drew a small measure of reassurance from Cassandra's form. The woman was fully restored, and more than that, deadlier than ever. On the island raid, she looked like a professional hunter, a slayer of men and beasts. Now, however…

She looks like a fucking terminator… Jesus Christ.

Wearing full body armor, to Ethan's complete shock; armed with Barett M82 in her gloved hands; two Glock pistols with extra large clips in thigh holsters; a fucking RPG on her back; and of course, her ever present and trusty sickle and beloved knife, Cassandra was a one woman army. Ethan just couldn't help but ask the burning question.

"How can you even carry all that stuff? And why would you even need body armor?"

The brunette looked at him with an exasperated expression, as if he was a child, asking stupid questions. Her black lips curled in distaste.

"Bela, why is it whenever Ethan opens his silly mouth, I start to question your life choices?"

The blonde woman looked with a frown at her sister. Bela herself was armed, in addition to her usual melee weaponry, with a Glock. Like everyone else here, she was dressed in a simple desert-style military clothing that didn't inhibit her movement whatsoever. Her golden hair was back in that long pony-tail, to not get in the way. The elder sister's voice betrayed the anxiety she felt inside.

"I don't know, sister. Perhaps because you're annoyed at yourself for always trying to be a smartass instead of just answering a damn question."

Bela was clearly on edge, so Cassandra just shrugged and did as told.

"I can carry all this stuff because I am not a pathetic and weak human. Body armor is nice because it stops more than just bullets, but also shockwaves from explosives, fire and electricity - things I am vulnerable to." Cassandra heartily patted a solid ceramic plate as she spoke, demonstrating the point.

Daniela piped in next. She looked just like Bela, just with a red pony-tail instead.

"You forgot to mention how your swarm can't even lift it, Cassi. You're pretty much limited to a human form now. How sad for you!"

With a huff of indignation, the brunette responded fiercely.

"That's not true!... Well, it is true… I suppose… but I can just discard it all in a heartbeat if I need to! It's just a precaution...a first line of defense, that's it."

Ethan figured the brunette was still traumatized by the events of the island battle and were trying just a bit too hard now - she was determined not to get caught unprepared again. The man just hoped Cassandra knew how to use all that stuff. Ethan himself had the same loadout as he did on that island, however.

The final occupant of their boat was someone nobody expected to see here. Millie, the Duke's right hand woman. Bela was throwing an occasional suspicious glance her way. The Duke's henchwoman looked perfectly unperturbed, however. Daniela, not noticing anything particularly unusual, inquired in curiosity.

"So, why are you here Millie? You wanna fight the bad guys, too?"

"I am just here to make sure things go smoothly."

She wasn't even armed. What was she going to do if things didn't go smoothly?

"For whom?"

Bela's voice was perfectly neutral, yet her eyes were narrowed. The question itself was unexpected, however. Millie looked slightly unnerved from it.

"What do you mean, Miss Bela? For all of us, of course."

"I see."

That exchange sounded quite fishy to Ethan. Did Bela know something none of them did?

Regardless, as their boat arrived at the pier, everyone was quick to disembark. They were immediately greeted by the mercs hired by the Duke - Sandcastle PMC.

Somehow, Ethan expected them to be armed with AK-47s and dressed in turbans, due to the fact that they were contracted on a short notice in the middle of nowhere. Yet they were well-equipped and had a professional bearing to them. That was pretty strange in itself. The man himself had inkling that he was not seeing a bigger picture now, not entirely, at least. Something odd was definitely going on.

The merc leader, a lean but muscular man in his early thirties, hurried to greet them in his heavily accented English.

"We got the situation update. At the outskirts of town, we will likely get ambushed by hostile forces, number unknown, organization unknown, firepower unknown. What's the plan?"

Millie, not missing a beat, answered in a surprisingly firm, authoritative tone that brooked no argument.

"We go as planned. We can't wait and if we circumvent their ambush, they'll just follow us to the facility. We will take the fight they offer here. Put someone you like the least in the first car. The rest will fill in the others." The Sandcastle commander's eyes were wide as platters. Bela raised one delicate eyebrow at the shorter woman's self-assured and commanding voice. Before the commander could stutter out a response, Millie held a single palm up, and continued.

"Don't worry, this isn't a suicide mission. The Duke was ready for this kind of eventuality. We have a surprise for these fuckers."

The air was loaded with tension as everyone got inside their lightly-armored vehicles. The sandstorm was drawing closer. Ethan sat next to Bela and couldn't help but to notice how jittery the normally calm woman was. He gently placed a palm on her knee, which she was quick to cover with her own hand.

"First time, Bells?"

The woman, despite still nibbling on her lower lip, let out a nervous chuckle. Her vulnerable side was quite cute...

"I never did march against an army before, yes. Also, what the hell is Millie doing here? I don't like it one bit, Ethan. I worked with her for a while now, and she never lifted anything heavier than a pencil."

Millie herself was in a different vehicle, with the Duke's armsmen. Cassandra, who was on the front seat this time, spoke out in a cocky but slightly shaky voice. Even the tough-as-nails middle daughter was a little bit spooked. They were riding straight into an ambush, after all, expecting some unspecified miracle to save them.

"Who cares anyway? All we have to do is slaughter these worms and find where they are holding mother. Simplicity itself."

Daniela just kept quiet, as her eyes were closed. She was not looking forward to the bloodbath that would soon follow. Ethan could relate.

The man himself was determined to do what must be done. To do his best to recover his old family...and to defend his new one. He just hoped the Duke would do his part.

From her hidey-hole, Styx observed without being observed herself. The armored cars with her targets were on the move and the dirty mutts would soon pounce upon them.

The tiny assassin was hiding on the roof of a three-story building in the middle of town, her camouflage cloak preventing her from being seen from above. Chewing her pink bubblegum, the woman watched through the scope of her heavily customized rifle, a frown on her face.

I didn't expect that Winters guy to have so many damn guards… damn… Guess I'll let the dogs do the first move. Ugh… imagine relying on that dumb trash. My standards must be slipping…

As the vehicle column passed her building, the little gun-for-hire smirked. Her targets would be caught right between a hammer and an anvil. As distasteful as it was to even indirectly work with the Dire Wolf mercs, the tactical benefit in this situation was obvious. The mutts would take the blunt of damage, while she will quickly pick off her targets one by one, from behind. As well as any wet dog that would get in her way, of course. No mercy for these scum.

Styx grinned wide as thoughts of the mayhem that would soon follow crossed her mind. Her beautiful pets and the nasty toys she had were all in position, to be unleashed at her command. For now, the town slept in this ungodly hour. Soon, the screams of dying would pierce the veil of night, as blood colors the streets red. Explosions would bloom and fires spread, consuming everything in their path. Tonight, she will be an artist, and this will be her canvas.

Spitting out her bubblegum, the woman closed her now almost normal-looking purple eyes and focused inwardly. Letting out several deep breaths, Alice waited until the sound of her beating heart was the only thing she could hear.

thump thump thump

thump thump thump thump thump thump

thumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthump

Opening her, once again, bloodshot eyes, Styx saw the world pass her by in slow motion. An hour like this would cost her a month of life. But she wouldn't even need an hour.

Santiago grinned as he saw the convoy move right towards their ambush point. He could've crushed these second-tier Sandcastle men before they even had their rendezvous with the Duke's people, but that would've just spooked and scattered the witches he was after. As long as that midget bitch didn't interfere, this operation could be his smoothest one yet.

Now this will be one proper, text-book worthy massacre.

Giving a signal with a wave of his hand, the large man huffed in satisfaction as a missile streaked towards the first armored car, blowing it up and everyone inside in a fiery inferno. His men, hiding inside and around the blocky buildings, preemptively cleared of civilians (in a non-lethal way, he wasn't a complete monster, after all.) opened fire upon the stuck vehicles.

Before he could celebrate his blood-less victory, a pair of tiny, unmanned helicopters soared past the urban battlefield, dropping a number of small spherical objects. He didn't have to give an order for his stinger unit to open fire on the drones, shooting the damn things out of the air and turning them into flaming comets, descending down from Heaven towards the sinful Earth, far from the battlefield.

The damage was done, however. Every single metal orb dropped, as if guided by an intelligence, hopped from the ground and launched itself towards the nearest occupied house or an alley, spraying fleshettes doused with a potent neuroparalytic agent on its next impact with the ground.

Just like that, eight lifesigns of his men flashed red on his PDA, making the commander drop his expensive cuban cigar to the ground. The chaos that ensued allowed the remaining hostiles to vacate their embattled vehicles and disperse into the safety of buildings. His perfect ambush was ruined, as the enemy clearly had expected it. Someone tipped them off.

Snarling in rage, Santiago grabbed his battle rifle and went into the fray himself, determined to fix this mess, even as he roared orders into his headset.

Ethan and the Dimitrescu siblings were quick to abandon their vehicle the moment Millie roared for them to do so through the car's radio. The merc driver of their vehicle was dead, shot right in the head. Ethan himself was only intact thanks to his own armor deflecting a bullet meant for his heart. It still broke a rib, or at least it hurt like it did. Still, the man was-combat ready. A number of rounds went through the girls at his side, but they were predictably not bothered by it too much.

Entering the nearest building, with Cassandra breaking the door down easily, the company was immediately greeted by two hostile mercenaries, their assault rifles instantly barking lead the brunette's way. The middle sister roared in anger, as her heavy armor stopped not only the bullets, but the woman herself dead in her tracks. Crying out in embarrassment, the woman fell flat on her rear, as the kinetic energy of numerous impacts proved too much for her usually intangible form.

"Fucking armor sucks!"

Her sisters, not burdened, swarmed their way in quickly, vicious sickles finding their mark in their assailant's unprotected necks, ending the men's struggles swiftly and brutally.

One more mercenary was quick on his feet as he jumped down the stairs, a pin on an incendiary grenade pulled out already, aiming the deadly canister right at Bela. A single moment later, and the blonde woman would've become nothing but a charred husk, if not for Ethan's quick aim with his Kel-Tec KSG shotgun. Eight metal pellets found their way towards the merc's torso, his own body armor preventing penetration. The impacts were enough to drop the man himself on the floor, in a twisted parody of what just happened to Cassandra, but far deadlier, as the merc's own primed canister fell right on his prone body, engulfing him in a roaring but short-lived inferno.

Ethan will never forget the screams of the man as he was burned alive by the superhot incendiary compound, nor the smell of charred flesh. But if that meant Bela would be there to give him this grateful look, it was worth it. Even if that man will haunt Ethan's dreams for the rest of his life, it was worth it.

The second floor of this building was no longer accessible, due to the incendiary fire still burning at the stairway, but going outside was suicide. The noise of gunfire and explosions coming from the street was deafening. Heavier sniper rifle rounds were heard among the smaller automatic gunfire. It was pure mayhem.

Ethan looked at the girls, and they all seemed scared, even Cassandra. The brunette's fierce visage was marred by grime and her yellow eyes jumped back and forth from Daniela to Bela, making sure they were both alright. Despite their numerous 'hunts', the sisters never actually took part in a battle of this scale, with firepower far beyond what their typical prey wielded. Their faces betrayed their distress.

Ethan had to be strong, not just for him and Mia, but for them, as well.

"It's fine, girls! Just follow my lead, and we will all be fine! We need to stop this fire, so we don't choke to death! Otherwise, we can just stay in this house and wait for the fighting to die down a bit. We need to keep watch on that door and that window, as well."

Bela was quick with her wits - her blowflies searching around the premises and locating a small fire extinguisher which she hastily used to douse the burning form of the merc and the carpets underneath him. Cassandra took watch next to the door, her extraordinarily powerful rifle ready to claim its first blood. Daniela stood next to the window, making sure nobody would sneak on them that way. Ethan breathed a sigh of relief. They will all be fine.

Styx breathed in the devastation. Her nostrils twitched in delight. This was why she volunteered for that shit genetic enhancement program in the first place! This was life!

Her nimble fingers produced another ordinary round from a large pouch on her chest. She had a lot of these pouches and they were all unmarked, almost identical. Yet she knew exactly what was where.

Her rifle was quite unusual in its design as well. A single shot model, that required a manual reload after each round fired. Normally, something like that would take precious time to operate, but for her? An instant. Her fingers moved with utterly monstrous speed that would make any normal human observer drop their jaw to the floor in complete shock, chambering the next round in. Wielding the gun with that same unreal swiftness, the woman took a millisecond to aim at yet another covering mercenary, reaching a doorway - she didn't care which faction he belonged to - and fired.

Six

The bullet went right between his eyes. The man never saw what ended his life. Perhaps he never even felt the pain of death. He just dropped dead, like a marionette with its strings cut. A painless death was a gift in its own right. He should be grateful.

A flash of light in the corner of Alice's eye. Not a moment passed for a normal human as she lurched to the side, a bullet whizzing right through where she was. A Dire Wolf sniper looking for fresh prey. He didn't realize that he was the prey. She was the hunter.

Styx glanced at the window from which the shot came. The pitiful mutt must have realized that he fucked up when he gave himself away with his scope reflecting light. A rookie mistake. He was huddling now, too afraid to show his face. But his fate was decided already. She was the harbinger of death that night and no canine trash that crossed her would walk away.

Quickly inputting a command into her own PDA, the woman forgot about the dead man who did not know that he was dead yet, and searched for a fresh victim.

A couple of civies running for their lives, screaming. Boring.

There. Taking a mere fraction of a second to rotate her gun ninety degrees she squeezed the trigger, another round already chambered in during the previous motion. A Sandcastle mercenary, trying to carry his injured comrade into the safety of an alley. A dumbass with a new breathing hole right above his ugly, crooked nose. His corpse fell right on top of his squadmate, causing the latter to cry out in distress.

Seven

An explosion boomed to the right of Styx, right where that puppy sniper took his pathetic shot at her, courtesy of her suicide drone.

Eight

A trio of Duke's armsmen were crossing the street, a sewer grate right in their path. Alice grinned in delight at that sight. Her nimble fingers reached into a different pouch, producing a futuristic-looking round. Not even bothering to aim, she immediately took the shot in the general direction of that pitiful band of scrubs that were about to meet their grisly ends.

Nothing happened when the strange round struck the ground next to the armsmen. They kept on their crossing, hopeful to find safety in the large warehouse-like building on the other side. As they approached the sewer grate, a pair of incredibly long tongues struck out from the darkness, constricting around the two men's legs and bringing them down, hard. Before the third armsmen could even yelp, a terrible monster of skin and bone burst its way up from the grate, slicing him across the neck with its clawed paw, even as its tongue was still tied to one of the downed men. Another, similar monster was quick to emerge, using its razor-sharp teeth to quickly bite through the necks of the prone fighters. Not a moment later, both monstrosities disappeared the way they came from.

I can never decide if I should count these as my own… ah, what the hell

Eleven

A Dire Wolf trooper was advancing towards her position, not sticking his head out of cover. The brawly dog threw a grenade into her nest, surprising the assassin that he was even able to throw it that far and that high. She guessed he ate his veggies as a kid. Too bad the dumbass was not smart enough to cook his grenade. In a single, smooth and insanely fast motion, Styx readjusted her body in a way that allowed her free hand to grab the offending device and throw it, with unerring precision, right back at the filthy mutt that dared to bare his teeth at her. His limbs, flying in every direction, spurting blood everywhere in such beautiful bright red arcs made her own rapidly beating heart soar in joy.

Twelve - kill of the day, I think!

A whirring sound warned the assassin that someone was approaching her hidey-hole from below. An evil smirk was the only thing she did in response to the threat. A popping sound was heard next, which was immediately followed by choking and gagging noises of a male - they subsided momentarily.

Thirteen

Suddenly the world slowed down even further for the tiny assassin and once again she could hear nothing but the mad beating of her heart. Color started to drain from her vision. Blood trickled down from her ear canals, as well as her eyes, nose and mouth. It hurt. She gasped out a breath and could not take the next one.

Thumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthump

Not wasting even a moment, her hand shot to her hip pouch, producing a small syringe that she immediately impaled into her own heart. The sounds and colors quickly returned as she gasped in relief, breathing air greedily.

Not even four minutes in! This is bad… Fuck… I can't play around with this riff-raff… Where is that dumbass Winters!?

Styx's hyper-focused bloodshot orbs took in the whole battlefield in mere moments, searching for her prize. Dozens of corpses were identified and discarded until finally she spotted a tuft of red hair through a window of some two-storey house. The same house #6 went as she cut him down.

One of the bug-bitches had red hair! Has to be it!

Chambering another licking round in, Alice lazily shot it through the window, before screaming out loudly, in her maniacal high-pitched tone, for everyone to hear.

"COME OUT AND PLAY, ETHAN WINTERS!"

The sounds of carnage outside were slowly but surely dying down, as the number of active combatants inevitably decreased. A single Sandcastle ally tried to seek refuge in their little sanctuary, but was cut down by an enemy sniper, who struck him right between the eyes. Ethan dreaded to think what kind of skill it would take to land a shot like that on a moving target… What monster were they up against now?

For a couple of moments everything was peaceful inside their house, with the Dimitrescu girls giving each other hopeful glances. Suddenly a round hit the wall opposite the only window in the room. It must have been a pretty low velocity one, since it didn't even deform from impact, nor leave a mark on the wall itself. Ethan had no time to ponder upon it though, as all three Dimitrescu girls suddenly clutched their ears with their hands, as if to protect themselves from some loud noise. The man himself heard nothing strange, beyond some inaudible girlish screaming in the distance.

"What's wrong girls!?"

Two sisters quickly recovered, though Daniela kept hissing in pain. Bela was the one to answer, her voice unsure…

"Didn't you hear it? Some kind of deafening, high-pitched noise...what was that?"

The man couldn't answer that. But he had a very bad feeling about it…

Daniela finally took her palms of her ears, stepping forward a bit as she felt dizzy from the unexpected and unpleasant experience. Her booted foot stepped on some broken glass, producing that distinct cracking sound. Not a second passed until a long, pinkish tentacle-like appendage burst through the window, clamping around Daniela's exposed neck, strangling the girl and making her horrified eyes look like they would pop out from her skull.

Either the redhead panicked completely or the filthy thing was exuding some kind of paralytic poison, since Daniela did not disperse into her swarm form and just struggled feebly against the inhumanly strong tentacle. Cassandra rushed to her sister's aid without missing a beat, her gear clunking loudly in the night...attracting another tentacle from the doorway, as it grabbed her around the torso. The monstrous appendage pulled hard, dragging the brunette outside, with all her gear in tow. Whatever creature this was, it had to be incredibly strong.

Even as Ethan's survival instincts screamed at him to stay still and make no noise, the sight of Daniela choking to death was enough to force him into violent motion. With a combat knife out, the blonde man did not hesitate to plunge it deep into the monstrous thing, his blade going right through its fleshy mass. An inhuman screech of pain followed, before the abominable appendage retracted, with the freed redhead falling to her knees; her hands shooting up to her throat as she coughed hard and breathed deep.

Seeing Ethan rush towards Daniela, Bela hurried forward to assist Cassandra, instead. The brunette, however, needed no help as she caught her bearing quickly and stabbed her own knife into the thing, producing a similar result. The monstrous owners of the tentacled extremities seemingly retreated and the group let out a collective sigh of relief.

"It's not just the humans here, these things are definitely bioweapons!"

Before anyone could respond to Ethan's obvious statement, the man's own sharp ears caught a new sound. Like something with an engine was coming their way. Fast.

"TAKE COVER!"

The world around the man slowed down as he grabbed Daniela's stunned form and roughly shoved her inside a small restroom next to them. Bela immediately followed, with Ethan getting into the doorless frame to use his armored body as a shield. Cassandra jumped outside the house, instead. Not a second later a drone plummeted right inside the house, before exploding into a firestorm of hungering flames and flashing sharpnel.

Fortunately for the occupants, the small drone exploded on the opposite wall from them, winning them precious, life-saving distance from the otherwise bone-powdering shockwave.

Ethan's hard body armor saved his organs from being utterly annihilated by steel fragments. The pain in his poor, abused legs, mutilated by shrapnel and heatwave was exquisite, however. Nevertheless, they were still attached to his body and that was a major win in Ethan's book by this point. Giving a thumbs up to the horrified Dimitetrescu, the man collapsed, his ears ringing to the point of deafness.

Quickly recovering herself, Bela wasted no time in spraying a first aid bottle all over his injured legs, making sure to put out all the metal spikes still embedded in them. Ethan could only thank his adrenaline from sparing him the worst of the pain the violent process undoubtedly produced.

They didn't get to relax just yet though, as the feral growling was the only warning before a monstrosity that looked vaguely like a huge, muscular humanoid burst in right through the stone wall. It wasted no time in swinging its clawed paw at Bela's head, clearly unimpressed with her pony-tail style haircut. The blonde vampire reacted fast, however, and ducked down at the last possible moment, even as she reached for her sickle; Daniela aiming her gun instead. But the creature, clearly aware that it lost its element of surprise was already gone. The group had a momentary respite, with Ethan finishing threatening his leg wounds and Bela looking around.

"Shit… where is Cassandra? CASSANDRA! WHERE ARE YOU!?"

The elder sister's desperate cries were met with no response, which was hardly surprising, considering how loud the gunfire outside still was.

Before she could run out in search of her missing sibling, the disgusting monsters returned. One of them burst right from the ceiling, filling the area with dust and rubble. The beast roared, as it swiped its paws at the blonde woman in quick succession, Bela dodging them all with inhuman grace and agility. Daniela and Ethan took that opportunity to unload on the creature, a pistol and a shotgun singing the song of destruction together.

The damn monster was fast though, and as the first rounds struck its side, drawing blood, it lurched down to the floor. Still, the numerous fresh wounds had a stunning effect which allowed Bela's sickle to strike it true. Right into its malformed skull, with all of her superhuman strength behind the blow, her bladed weapon went deep into its brain. With an agonized shriek, the creature twitched for several moments, before expiring.

Not giving them time to celebrate their victory, the second creature attacked, from that hole in the restroom. Ethan gurgled as he felt a tentacle roping around his own neck, this time. The disgusting wet thing immediately started dragging him back, hard, outside the house. Daniela screeched in terror as she beheld the horror that held Ethan in its unyielding grasp now. It was not a tentacle… It was a tongue.

The redhead was quick in unloading the rest of her clip into the monstrous owner of the appendage but the beast was resilient as well, and 9mm rounds had a hard time getting through its thick skin. Shrugging off the pistol bullets, it continued its grim work at pulling its hideously long tongue back inside its toothy mouth, drool running down from its abominable maw.

Bela rushed ahead to save the man from his imminent demise from these sharp teeth, and was quick to shoot her own pistol, right into the creature's partially exposed brain. Blood and gray matter sprayed everywhere as the horrible beast finally succumbed to its numerous wounds and dropped dead, but not before it gave one last powerful lurch with its tongue, pulling Ethan out in the open, away from the safety the house provided.

A loud bang pierced the night.

Bela stood still, as her own face was sprayed with blood. His blood. The woman could only wordlessly stare at Ethan's face, frozen in terror as he gazed right back at her, with unseeing eyes. A horrible exit wound now marred his forehead, the supersonic round going into the back of his skull, right through the brain.

no no no No NO NO NONONO! NOOOOOOOOOO!

Author's Note:

Cliffhangers are bad :/ I'll try to post part 2 ASAP.

There were not much badass Cassandra or Bela scenes in this chapter, but they will pick up the slack in the next part, trust me :)
I did want to write them as somewhat overwhelmed by being in actual warfare, which is far more intense than their typical hunter/prey interactions. Despite everything, they are not hardened warriors.

Hope you've enjoyed my assassin OC, though :)