Chapter 10

Burn!

08:55 pm 20th September, Minerva Mcgonagall's office, Hogwarts.

The scotswoman was going through the last bits of the assignment that she had asked her OWL students to turn in this week, just as she was done there was a knock on her door, she frowned as she hadn't been expecting anyone, all of her fellow teachers were busy and none of her students had requested to meet her, she hoped this wasn't an emergency situation especially given the ominous warning that house elf gave to Longbottom, anyhow she opened the door only to find their school's latest defense teacher, however loosely she may use the term in this case, "How may i help you Professor Lockhart?"

Giving the head of the lions one of his charming smiles he began, "ah Professor Mcgonagall, you see it seems that one of your lions, mr Potter to be specific, has not appeared even for a single class of mine till now! Is everything alright with him? I mean a great wizard like him does deserve to be taught by someone of my calibre, is he feeling too shy to attend my classes? He doesn't need to be afraid of disappointing me, i'll teach him all i know!"

Minerva stared at the man for a minute and then she began, "thank you for bringing your concerns to me Professor, i'll talk to mr Potter with regards to this, though i may warn you to not expect much, he does what he wants and given his peculiarities some allowances need to be made for him, i hope you understand what i mean," she finished by adjusting her glasses by the nose bridge to make her appear more serious, a trick that worked on almost everyone.

"Ofcourse, ofcourse, i know that, hence why i am here to talk to you," answered Lockhart.

"If that'll be all Professor Lockhart, i have OWL assignments to check" said Mcgonagall, wanting the conversation to end.

Fortunately Lockhart, though oblivious to her dislike of him, was of similar mind, "Ofcourse, have a good night Professor!"

Mcgonagall went back in her office as soon as he turned his back on her and shut its door, tight, heaving a sigh she sat back at her desk, the quality of the defense teachers had been falling over the years, but this…..was just sad. She had heard about his disaster of a lesson with the cornish pixies, and not only she understood Potter's possible reasoning for not attending a single one of hs classes but actually condoned it, and would support her lions should they petition to her to be excused from this joke of a teacher, come hell or high water.

Waving her wand she arranged the papers on her desk tidying up her work place she went to sleep, all the stress called for an early night in.

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03:48 pm 2nd October, Random Building, Vancouver, Canada.

Debris turned into spears as they were banished in the direction they came from, Harry strode down the hallway of the building he was in at the moment, his face was hidden by a improvised hood and an obscurus charm tied in it to prevent any unforeseen accidents. Poseidon, a fellow mercenary had given him the advice to hide his face, which was logical choice especially in the case he was on a mission and there were some people he spared or failed to kill, while neither of those scenarios had occurred till now, it was logical to take precautions, his a broad overview of his job was to eliminate any targets that they were assigned, the in depth guidelines of the hit wizards stated that only killers and those who voluntarily committed heinous acts were their targets, others were to be apprehended and delivered to the local authorities.

She had also told him to get an alias to go by - other than Freak Boy that is - because one, It didn't made any sense, two it was better to have an alias that corresponded to one's abilities as it made introductions easier, she used her alias as an example, Poseidon the Greek God of water, as she was the best Hit Wizard - or witch in her case - when it came to water manipulation.

He was brought back from his ruminations by the sound of footsteps coming from further down the hall, he had work to do.

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02:15 pm 12th October, Charms Corridor, Hogwarts.

"You filthy half blood! Stop hanging around Greengrass," shouted Draco Malfoy surrounded by his entourage.

Tracey Davies who had been listening to the blond rant as usual was starting to get frustrated, but she didn't want to create any problems for her father by getting into problems with this idiot - and consequently his father - got angry and at the top of her lungs shouted back, "how dare you inbred French reject piece of shite try to tell me to stay away from my bestfriend!"

Draco started to go red in face and he removed his wand from his robe pockets and said, "Crabbe, Goyle, hold her down, let's teach her how to talk to her betters!"

But before anyone of the trio could do anything someone interrupted from behind the trio, "that would be a really bad idea Malfoy".

The trio turned to look and saw The-Boy-Who-Didn't-Die as his father called him staring at him, and his lackeys trailing not far behind him.

"You!" began Malfoy as soon as he saw them but was yet again interrupted by Neville.

"Yes, me, this is getting old now Malfoy, get going, no one here wants trouble, and think twice before opening your mouth, if anything happens it'll go to Dumbledore and whose word do you think he'll believe, yours or mine?" warned Neville.

No one thought it was possible but Malfoy's face went even more red, and he was shaking, then he ground out, "Longbottom you'll get yours one day! Just wait for it, Dumbledore can't protect you forever," then Malfoy left with his sidekicks following him.

Neville released a breath he hadn't realized he had been holding in, at that moment his friends also caught up to him, and then he saw that Davies was staring at him, "what?"

Tracey blinked, once, and then again, then she pointed her index finger at herself as if to ask "me?""

Neville gave her a deadpan expression.

Tracey blinked a few times again and then said, "just never thought The-Boy-Who-Lived, Dumbledore's Golden Gryffindor boy would ever help a Slytherin in trouble".

Much to everyone's surprise it was Ron who answered Tracey, but what was surprising was not the fact that he answered her back, but how he did it, "why? wouldn't it be the Noble and Courageous thing to do? The Gryffindor thing to do?"

Everyone now stared at him.

Ron went as red as his hair and started to rub his hand at the back of his neck, "what? It's not right for anyone to be treated the wrong way for something as stupid as blood status, and though i still don't trust Slytherins, i hate Malfoy, So if something makes his life harder, I'm all for it".

Tracey gave him a small smile and said, "Yep, if it makes that blond twit's life harder I'm all for it too".

All of a sudden Hermione said, "guys all this is heart touching, but we'll be late for class if we don't get moving right now!"

And in a mutual moment of panic the five started to run.

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09:35 pm 17th October, Amelia Bones' office, Department of Magical Law Enforcement (DMLE), British MInistry of Magic.

Amelia was bent down on her table intent on completing her this week's paperwork so that she could get a day off tomorrow, oh how she hated being bound to the desk and not being on the field. All of a sudden there was a knock on her office doors, she frowned wondering who it could be this late, nevertheless she called out, "come in".

Kingsley Shacklebolt one of the more seasoned aurors of the department glided in her office, closing the door behind him, she felt the privacy wards that had ceased functioning when Shacklebolt opened the door snap back in place, it paid to have permanent privacy wards installed in her office, after all you never know who could be listening.

"Good evening Madam Bones," he greeted her with a nod.

"Good evening to you too, and it's Amelia to you King," she replied with a exparsated shake of her head, she gestured at the seat in front of her knowing that he will not take a seat unless indicated to.

Giving his senior and friend a small smile, he sat opposite her and then all of a sudden all humor disappeared from his face and his expression went blank, something that raised all sorts of alarms in Amelia's brain.

Without any preamble Kingley began, "I've come across some troubling information, it's about the Shadow Hit WIzards".

Now that was a topic they didn't discuss everyday, those from the said division were affiliated to the national authorities only loosely and mainly answered to the ICW, they were an experiment only active in some countries, at the time of You-Know-Who's reign of terror they were newly formed and didn't have sufficient manpower or efficiency of any form to help britain out, not to mention their methods were very brutal, and whatever Kingsley had to say about them couldn't be good. She bowed her head slightly to prompt him further.

"They have a new combat operative, and its someone from here," he continued.

Amelia's face remained neutral, though the fact that they had a new operative was a rarity on its own, the fact that it was from britain was rarer, with this new character there were now a total of 5 british operatives in the program. People who could have become useful aurors if they could rein in their attitudes, most of the combat operatives that joined the Shadow Hit Wizard operation were usually people who were either vigilantes who believed that they would deliver judgement on the wicked or those who were there to hone their skills and weren't shy to get blood on their hands.

"And it seems that it's someone really powerful, probably Dumbledore, and You-Know-Who kind of powerful," explained Kingsley while Amelia could make out the unsaid, 'probably as ruthless as the latter'.

Amelia's eyebrows furrowed in a frown, someone that powerful would have without a doubt left a mark during the Wizarding blood war, so either it was someone young enough to have not been a participant during the war or was someone who either came back from wherever they were during that time or were working using a false identity, neither of these scenarios was appealing, it raised many questions and quite a lot of them disturbing.

"It seems this new operative was the one who dealt with Hoppers, a total of 165 killed by this one operative in a matter of hours," added Kingsley with a grim expression.

Amelia blinked, 'now that's just bloody great! A possible sociopath who is making You-Know-who look like an amateur'.

"Now I wouldn't go that far," said Kingsley in an amused tone.

It took Amelia a second to realize that she had said it out aloud, she released a soft breath and then said, "I'm so damn tired that i'm starting to go bonkers, maybe it's old age catching up, time for me to retire already".

Kingsley chuckled a little and questioned, "would you say that in front of Mad Eye?"

Amelia gave him a deadpan look that screamed, "HELL NO!"

Sighing Kingsley once again began, "If i stumble across anymore info I'll let you know, till then remember to call me if you need anything".

Amelia gave him a nod - because really, there was nothing they could say without any more information - and then said, "well if you're that willing to help me out some sandwiches would be helpful".

Kingsley snorted and then said, "I'll do you a better one, chinese takeout from the restaurant at 13th".

Amelia gave him a soft smile as she said, "You're a lifesaver King!"

The dark skinned man's laughter echoed in the room as he left to get the supplies.

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11:03 am 18th October, Black Lake, Hogwarts.

"Good Morning Heir Longbottom, Heiress Bones, Scion Weasley, Granger," greeted Daphne as soon as they arrived, her blonde hair shining in the sunlight.

Hermione's eyebrows twitched at the way she greeted them, but to her credit she didn't fuss about it, something that didn't go unnoticed by her friends.

Tracey who was standing next to Daphne sighed softly in exparsation at her friend's habits.

Neville gave both a small smile and returned the blonde's greeting, "Good morning Heir Greengrass, Tracey".

Daphne raised an eyebrow at the informal manner Neville referred to Tracey but said nothing, and then she began after taking a moment to presumably gather her thoughts, "i would like to thank you for helping Tracey out with Malfoy a few days ago, it could have gotten ugly really fast and you stepped in when you had no obligation to, should you every need help - anyone, including your friends - and there is something that i can do, don't hesitate to ask me for it, as far as my abilities as heiress Greengrass let me".

"Thank you, but you don't need to worry about it so much, she was in trouble and we helped her out, that's it, no big deal, and i believe i speak for all of us but you don't need to feel obligated to return the favour, it's just a school yard squabble," said Susan, and her friends nodded to express their agreement with her.

Daphne's eyebrow twitched but before she could say anything Tracey interrupted her by saying, "Guys don't mind her she's paranoid cyanic, she expects the worst of almost everyone, and thinks that the only reason someone does anything is for others is for their own hidden agendas".

The blonde shot her friend a betrayed look which was promptly ignored.

"That's alright if the Optimists gave us brooms, the Pessimists gave us gave us cushioning charms, they're a lifesaver alright," said Ron, surprising everyone, and while the girls were staring at the ginger boy, Neville gave a snort and wrapped his arm around his friend's shoulder.

"Damn Ron, that's the second time this week! You got anymore surprises?" queried Neville, half amused and half genuinely glad that his friend had been learning to think before speaking.

At this the ginger blushed and then said, "well we hang out with Hermione, you can't not learn anything when you're always around her.."

Now it was the bushy haired witch who went red, while their mutual male friend grinned like a cheshire cat, and Susan subtly stole glances at both Ron and Hermione.

Both the Slytherins too were amused by the antics of the quartet.

"And honestly she's a little barmy about learning, i mean if we let her be she'll house in the library for the rest of her life!" continued Ron.

'Normal service resumed,' thought Neville as Hermione's lips thinned and nostrils started to flare and Susan facepalmed, Hard, while Trace was gaping at the ginger boy digging his own grave, Daphne had a slight expression of amusement that most would have missed, and he too caught only because of years of trying to read people to know what they wanted from The-Boy-Who-Lived. 'Oh well as they say baby steps and all that'.

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12:19 am 19th October, Gryffindor 1st year Girls Dormitory, Hogwarts.

"I don't know what to do right now, i mean i've liked Neville since i was a child but he doesn't see me that way, he sees me like his friend's little sister, what do you think i should do now Tom?" Ginny wrote to her new friend.

"Hmm, i would say give it some time, he'll see you for the amazing person you are soon enough, get better at magic, and that is something that i can help you out with," replied Tom.

"Will that really help?" she asked not understanding how the two things were related.

"Of course it will, from what you tell me Neville sounds like someone who is a warrior, and wouldn't stand down against any kind of injustice," he replied.

"Yeah, he is, the future successor of Dumbledore the greatest wizard to ever live!" exclaimed Ginny.

"Ofcourse he is, now taking all that into consideration he would want a partner who could stand by his side and that is something you can do that only if you're magically strong," explained Tom.

"Ofcourse! But what should i do to get stronger?" she questioned back, she knew that it wasn't all that easy to get strong enough to fight, Personally the strongest wizard she knew was Bill, her oldest brother who was powerful and talented enough to be scouted by Gringotts soon after he left Hogwarts.

"Leave that up to me, now what were you telling me about this enigmatic prodigy?" he answered.

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06:15 am 31st October, Near Mekong River Delta, Vietnam.

A group of 7 people watched with a sense of horrified awe as their 8th partner, a child really, killed people in droves, a sabertooth tiger made out of fire next to him, covering his back, while he turned their enemies in Inferius. They had known who the boy was from the beginning, an upstart rookie Shadow Hit Wizard who had completed 78 missions within 4 months, out of which 25 were D ranked, 20 C ranked, 23 B Ranked, 8 A ranked, and 2 S ranked, the man who had been leading this team thought back to the events that led them to this exact moment.

Their ongoing was an S ranked mission not only because it was difficult but because the secrecy they had to maintain, their target was a man who went by the moniker Thanatos, a necromancer so ruthless and unstable, that even Gellert Grindelwald one of the most dangerous Dark Lords of the millenium refused to partner up with him, and if it weren't for the fact that Grindelwald was quite stronger than Thanatos, the Necromancer would have tried to kill the Dark Lord.

His dream was to turn the whole world into that of the undead, including himself if some sources were to be believed, a group made up of like minded individuals, including quite a lot of muggles, threatening not only the safety of the world but also putting the statue of secrecy at grave risk, hence why when they received intelligence about him shifting his base of operations to a new location, one which was vulnerable at the moment, the high ups at the ICW responsible for the Shadow Hit Wizard initiative (S. H. W. Initiative) decided to send 5 of their most experienced and powerful comat operatives, along with the infamous rookie and two muggle combatants who were in the know with the statue of secrecy to deal with this problem.

It was a simple mission, - even if quite suicidal - break into enemy stronghold, kill Thanatos, and his four Apprentices/Generals and get the hell out of dodge after planting - more or less simply throwing it as soon as the second objective was clear - a modified thermo bomb meant to evaporate everything within a 2 kilometer radius.

Since the mission had been set up on the fly they didn't have a lot of time to strategize, the Six Magical combatants were two men named Lone Wolf, and Baba Yaga, the former wore gray overalls and a Wolf mask, hence his name, while the latter wore a black russian combat outfit with a red mask, and a fox pelt attached to the back of his back, both men had holes in their masks to see, and three women known as Shadow, Poseidon, and Izanami, the first wore an all black, skin fitting suit complete with mask but no visible holes for eyes, the second wore ocean blue overalls with a sea green mask that had a spiral pattern with eye holes, the last wore a white Japanese kimono along with a kabuki mask. The last member of the magical combatants, a boy coincidentally - perhaps not - named Freak Boy wore black overalls and a hoodie with an obscurus charm to protect his identity.

The two muggle operatives on the other hand, dressed in dark blue & gray camo army outfit full with a mask which had a single long slit for eyes was one by the name Brain Splatter because of his ability and habit of making headshots his weapons were two pistols and one automatic rifle, while his partner a woman who went by the name Mysterious Magenta dressed similar to the former except her dress for colored green and gray, her name came from her eyes which were magenta colored, her weapons were 2 pistols just like Brain Splatter with a semi-automatic Sniper Rifle.

They were outnumbered by 25 to 1, when Lone Wolf who had been appointed the leader for this mission asked for input from his fellow combatants, their available resources were : A rough map of the enemy base, A magically reinforced and upgraded SUV which was at this very moment headed towards the enemy base, a huge batch of support type potions, and magical upradges applied to the two non magical combatants, such as a Geminio charm applied to their gun's magazine to ensure they never run out of ammunition.

It had been barely half an hour since they had received the confirmed intelligence and given that the assassination specialist of the ICW was down with Dragon Pox they were forced to take a heavy handed method or risk their target becoming aware.

Freak Boy put forth a simple plan, enter through the front door where no one would expect them, make a blitzkrieg with the best of their respective abilities and then escape, the plan hadn't gone all that well with every one, Magenta, Poseidon, and Shadow, were in agreement with it simply given they had a similar line of thought given their current situation, Izanami, Baba Yaga, and Brain Splatter weren't in agreement because while they didn't have a problem with the fact that what they were doing would most likely go quite bad, quite fast, they wanted to complete the mission, their pride of never having failed any mission was on line - and in the case of Baba Yaga,who was a necromancer himself understood the gravity of what Thanatos wanted to achieve, and the threat he posed to humanity and was determined to stop him at any cost - though they too didn't have any other plan they could come up with at such a short period of notice.

Lone Wolf was unable to make a decision because he understood and agreed with the points being made by both sides so he asked, "Freak Boy, do you have any contingency plan or any backup that could be used in the event we fail to achieve one of our objectives?"

As it turned out there were actually additional steps he intended to take to ensure their missions success, just didn't share it because no one asked.

When they were 25 minutes/1.5 KM away from their destination - a nondescript 8 story building spanning over 18 sq meter, with a concrete boundary wall 250 meters away from the building itself , approaching from eastwards, intending to change their route to the front in the last 300 meters, everyone except Magenta got off the car and started to proceed on foot, while she was waiting in the car for their signal to reach them as fast as they could, afterall it was common sense that a car could be detected far easily when compared to people, and if they were caught unaware they would become target practice, car reinforced or not.

Soon they encountered their first obstacle, an alert ward, quite a basic security measure but would have definitely worked had it not been for the fact that Shadow - who had taken the lead for now - had been literally casting three different detection charms with every step she took, and they were still a whole KiloMeter away from the base.

Taking down an alert ward was a job of delicacy and took around 15 to 20 minutes, and that was for someone as skilled as Shadow who was the stealth expert for the S.H.W, when she was about to begin dismantling the ward Freak Boy went to her and held her hand, and started shaking his head to tell her to stop,when she did as he asked, he removed his own wand and pointing it towards where the ward was started to wave it up and down repeatedly, no one could make sense of what he was doing but before they could question it he turned his wand towards them and shot out a golden webbing that attached to them and the next thing they knew was that they were standing at a different spot, it was quite a bit away from where they were earlier around a 115 meters, and Shadow turned back, the rest of them with her, and again began running diagnostics much to their surprise the alert ward was still there and they had crossed it without triggering it when they turned forward again the rookie was missing.

They waited for a few seconds, unsure of what to make of the boy's absence, the next thing they knew was that an SUV appeared out of thin air, it took them a second to recognize that it was their SUV and both Magenta and Freak Boy were seated inside, then again before they realized they were displaced from where they were standing to being seated inside the car, though they were not a little distressed by these events it was only years of practice that stopped them from reacting overtly, while the one causing wrote to the driver of their car, "Drive forward till i signal you to stop".

Without questioning, Magenta began doing just that, soon when they were about 520 meters away from the base she was given the signal to stop, and immediately once again Freak Boy disappeared, only to reappear 19 meters away from their car, crouched with his wand in his hand touching the ground.

The whole group watched him patiently, they had learned one thing about the boy, he wasn't a team player.

10 minutes passed.

And then 25 passed.

But when it reached the 35 mark the crouched boy stood up all of a sudden and holsted his wand above his head and with a deafening bang and blinding light a dome formed around the enemy base, and they came to realize this was the Hades Realm, the contingency he had informed them about, a ward made by him to keep things inside rather than out, and everything that tried to get past it would be turned to ashes.

The enemies were no doubt alert now, and once again the boy was back in the car immediately, and instructed Magenta to drive, which she eagerly followed the car was now moving towards its destination at full speed and all of a sudden the point at which they were supposed to turn towards the main gate they found their car beyond the said gate going without pause, before they knew it they were in the centre of the enemy base, and about to become victims of the said enemy's highly frenzied yet all the same deadly spell fire, and the next thing they knew was that Freak Boy was on top of the bonnet of the car with his wand stretched out and a golden shield, which the Magicals recognized as an Aegis Shield, snapped up and protected them from every attack coming in their direction.

Not ones to let someone else fight for them or waste a good opportunity they got out of the car and started to fight back, Lone Wolf and Shadow used basic destructive spells like Reducto, and Bombarda along others, while both Magenta and Brain Splatter and Magenta started to use their more heavy weapons to provide fast and accurate support to their comrades who needed time to use their more powerful attacks, while Freak Boy was maintaining their defense.

Baba Yaga was the first to finish his spell as indicated by his grunt of Piertotum Locomotor and five semi-humanoid creatures made out of stone and earth rose and out of them three started to charge towards the enemy decimating many of them, while the other two stayed back and flanked the eight man team, then Posiedon went next waving her wand in a dramatic arch of her wand she shouted in a smooth voice, Tidal Terror! and a torrent of water poured forth her wand engulfing everything the golems missed, and following her lead Izanami too waved her wand in a similar fashion, and then whispered Raijin and electricity buzzed from the tip of her wand using the water provided by Poseidon to full advantage and instantly electrocuting those who had escaped the golems and the tide.

Freak Boy dropped his shield and rushed ahead of the rest of them coming to a halt just 5 meters away from them and then he held his wand aloft after which a humongous inferno spewed forth from his wand, the sheer rise in temperature told the rest of them that this wasn't some simple fire charm, and if their guess was correct the boy was using Fiendfyre, and that had Lone Wolf, Brain Splatter, and Poseidon cursing right and left, Lone Wolf thought that the boy had bitten more than he could chew with this curse as the flames weren't taking a solid form as they were supposed to but were simply rampaging, Brain Splatter had similar thoughts and it brought back some trauma as he had once seen this spell in action and that hadn't been a good day for him, lost most of his previous team to it, while Poseidon was stressed because she couldn't use her trademark water based spells while the Fiendfyre was present, as it was it had already evaporated her previously conjured water.

It had been 3 minutes since the inferno had started wreaking havoc and when they saw the trail of destruction left behind they came to the realization that the spell wasn't out of control, rather Freak Boy had simply chosen to use the cursed fire in a more flexible manner rather instead of the traditional beastly form, this way he did more damage and faster, soon the spectacle ended and there was nothing left but destruction and the inferno, oddly enough the building itself that was their prime target remained untouched.

Then leaving the cursed fire be, he started waving his wand in seemingly utterly random manner, it would have looked like a child who was playing with a stick rather than a powerful wizard casting magic had it not been for the fact that the wand had been constantly emitting an orange vibe that was moving in a manner similar to sonar.

Turning towards them Freak Boy signalled them to follow him and started marching towards the entrance of the building, though he also flickered his wand once behind him just as he started his march, and the flames condensed into a beast, a Sabertooth Tiger to be more precise, the beast was humongous but what caught the eye of the mercenaries was the sheer amount of detail in the flaming feline, they could make out muscles and individual teeth of the tiger, a feet that spoke of the boy's control on the spell, it promptly started to follow its creator, soon after they entered the building and in the hallway they encountered two of Thanatos' Lieutenants Charon and Azrael along them were some 30 - 40 people behind them but before anyone could do anything tendrils shot out of the flaming feline and made short work of most of them, the rest were turned into Inferi courtesy of Freak Boy, and were prompt;ly set on the task to seek others.

while this was grim enough on its own, the small band of mercenaries barely gave it a thought at the moment because, really, they were here to kill them, the methods meant little, and it wasn't like Freak Boy would be the first necromancer in their ranks, and while Baba Yaga was the theoretical expert at the art he wasn't the only one, just the best.

The team decided to take a ten second break to gather up their breaths and wits, Baba Yaga's remaining two golems still flanking them, even Freak Boy and his flaming feline waited for them, and then set forward, what they saw when they set out at first baffled them because the hallways and the rest of the building was empty, at the moment they were on the third floor and they hadn't encountered a single soul, that bafflement turned to horror when they reached the fourth floor because they once again witnessed the destruction brought forth by the Inferi they came to another realization, the number of Inferi had Doubled, at least, and slowly Brain Splatter commented, "Guys that's not supposed to happen right?"

Baba Yaga gave a stiff and small nod and turned to Freakboy whose obscurus charm was doing it's job of not revealing his face at all, not the best thing given the circumstances, but anything they could have said was cut off by a chilling laughter, the kind that struck fear in the hearts of most battle tested veterans, these being no exception aside of the one who was ironically the most inexperienced.

And the group saw ahead, around some 139 meters away from them, to look that a lone man was surrounded by the Inferius, he was not a man of great stature, he looked just like any average man they could find on the streets wearing rimless glasses, but it took no time to recognize the man as Thanatos, their main objective of this mission. He didn't looked scared at all, if anything he looked quite ecstatic as if he wasn't surrounded by a large number of Inferius that could tear him apart within a few moments, then again this was a psychopath who wanted to become an undead himself so that shouldn't be all that much surprising.

And then he spoke, oh he spoke, usually novels give these kind of people a high pitched voice or a gravelly one because they are fiction and want to make their characters sound dangerous, nut this, this was real life and the man who was in front of them had a voice that was anything but a prime example of a normal - if somewhat sweet and melodious - voice, and to someone like them it was something that set them on edge, "Oh young, boy what is your name? Oh my saviour, oh the destined one, make me too into one of your masterpieces so that we shall as once bow before lady death, free from the restraints of this tedious life!"

Looking back to this moment in future they would find it really anti climatic, but while the 7 experienced fighters were waiting for the things to go lopsided and the crazed necromancer looked like he was about to launch into a monologue, the youngest member of the group launched what appeared to be a small ball of light and heat in a howitzer trajectory, hitting its target with a dead on trajectory, at first they weren't able to witness what the spell did because the moment it made contact with the madman because they found themselves back in their car, which was now apparently now standing nearly half a kilometer away from the boundary wall of the base but within moments it became clear as to why it would have been a really bad idea to stay where they were as the whole compound was swallowed by what looked like a miniature sun and they could do nothing as they saw it expand and devour everything with greed and gluttony, and it kept expanding steadily reaching to them, as they realized that they had been too transfixed by the sight in front of them, they snapped out of it and made preparations to get out of the path of this thing, but when they saw the non-reactions of the person responsible for all of this they put stop to it simply observing the humongous ball of fire.

The heat was scorching as the ball was now just a literal meter away from their car, but in a literal blink of an eye the ball disappeared as if it was never there taking the base and most of the evidence of the events that transpired today.

Magenta took the end of the lightshow and the absence of the base, thus clearing their third objective as her cue to start the car and get the hell out of dodge.

A/n : that's it for today folks! I would like to heartily apologize to any and all readers for my abrupt absence, due to Ramzan between work, fasting and prayers never got a chance to write, so now as soon it was possible for me, this was more or less a filler chapter. Now onto some notes For shadow and Freak Boy imagine the Venom-suit being worn by Tobey Maguire in the 3rd spidey film except completely pitch black and being worn by a woman in Shadow's case and having a hoodie in Freak Boy's case, i'll try to get other chapters up asap, i have the frame ready, now all that's left is to get it down on paper..