LANGUAGE USE WARNING

GRAPHIC VIOLENCE WARNING

Gambit, his team and the Ace Ops were riding a truck across the Tundra, heading towards a village where some of Atlas' drones had recently seen people interact with Ruby and her faction

Gambit, Pigmallion, Harriet, Crystal, Elm and Vine were in the back, while Crystal and Cipher were driving

"So...Mohawk Girl..." said Gambit, in a very dark masculine voice

"Call me that again one more time and I'm breaking your knees"

"Well it looks like someone already broke yours"

"Will you shut the fuck up?!"

"Not until you tell me"

Harriet would then throw a subtle kick at Gambit, landing right on their shoulder cape

"Wait what?"

"What? You really thought you were the only one with prosthetics?"

"Oh. So that is why you're asking"

"Yep. I will go first. Grimm bite...Really ugly...yeah. How about you?"

"One of the people we're hunting"

"Hmm. Silver Eyes?"

"Cold"

"Defector Informant?"

"Still Cold"

"Feline Faunus?"

"Cold"

"Faunus' Girlfriend?"

"Cold"

"Umm...That one with the combat dress?"

"They all have combat dresses, which one?"

"Blue one"

"Slightly warmer"

"Hmm...Defecting Commander?"

"Yep"

"Brutal..."

"Ah...If we find her...Let me have a..."

Harriet cracks her knuckles a bit

"Small conversation with her...I want to set things straight"

"So...you're doing this for revenge?"

"Yeah..."

Gambit sighs then continues

"I understand... But remember, we have orders. If I see you going out of mission, I'm forcing you to crawl back to Atlas to get replacements"

"Come and try it, you..."

"Alright, heads up. Village on sight, ready your weapons"

"Ready your weapons? They are just civi-"

"Shut up. They are civilians, but they struck deals with the enemy. They're now hostiles..."

Vine and Elm look at each other, while Harriet gulps some saliva. Gambit loads their carbine, while Pigmallion begins booting her drones up

"Wait...what are you going to do?"

"Shock and awe...until we find someone that talks..."

Belfry and the rest of team BLSG were some miles away from where they had the encounter with the Hojarasca, when they saw a Thunderbird fly over

Thunderbirds had the shape of a crow, but unlike the official Freighter that His Excellence the President used, it didn't have anything particular in the wings. Thunderbirds are more commonly used in bombing runs, which could only mean one thing

Graphene looked at the sky with a bit of concern

"Umm...Which one of you has the radio?"

"Laudanum has it" says Belfry

Laudanum begins checking his backpack for it

"Here"

Laudanum presses the button

"Balisong to Thunderbird, over"

No reply. The Thunderbird keeps flying away from them

"Balisong to Thunderbird, over!"

Then, a reply

"Balisong, this is Vulture 2, over"

"Vulture 2, this is Balisong. You may be flying over the wrong area. Aren't you supposed to be flying over Sector 5, over?"

"Negative, Balisong. We have been given instructions to sanitize Sector 7, over"

"We already cleared sector 7, Vulture 2, over"

"Negative. There's some Blighted Hostiles 2 clicks ahead of you, over"

Team Balisong begins running north and into the swamp. They would quickly traverse the muddy, wet landscape, surrounded by willow trees and other marshland flora until they saw it. An illegal settlement, all in flames

"Ah...Pull out your weapons" said Graphene, as they entered the village

The huts, made out of scraps and rotten wood, were burning in tall, greenish white fire, while the people inside them screamed. Team Balisong went home by home, killing anybody inside, wearing protective masks to avoid breathing in anything

The Blighted were individuals who had been in contact with the Pools of Light, but then had the misfortune of encountering the Grimm

The opposite energies would react violently, leaving people pale, with an illness that nothing could cure. Rotting alive, unable to die, but still able to feel.

Contrary to what Vulture 2 told. The Blighted weren't hostile. They couldn't even bother getting violent amidst the insufferable pain

Belfry was going house by house, turning away as they shot at the ailing survivors, while Laudanum made sure that the bodies burned, just so the swamps weren't infested

It was all going well...

Until they found a hut where the children were hiding

"Where. Are. The Fugitives?" asked Gambit, throwing a punch for every word he directed to the man he had tied on a chair

"We don't know anything...Please let us go!" said the man, weeping

"Bullshit. We know they spoke with the people in this village, so you better fucking tell me where they are"

"I DON'T KNOW, I WASN'T AWAKE AT THE TIME"

"Oh, so you actually knew that they were here, didn't you?"

Gambit kept on throwing punch after punch, while Cipher and Pigmallion rounded up prisoners

The Ace Ops and Crystal however, were doing...the cleanup

"What is wrong with you, people?" asked Vine

"Yeah. Do you go torturing people like this every day?" asked Elm, carrying in another body with Harriet

"I don't know...I'm just a Novice, after all...I guess" replied Crystal, as they all tossed yet another body into the pit

Harriet would be walking away, when she got a call from General Ironwood

"Yes Sir?"

"Harriet. How are you and our contractors doing with the search?"

"We...Are doing fine sir..."

"Is there any problem?"

"I want to cite moral concerns, sir. Their methods...aren't conventional at all. I can't do this"

"Negative. If you want to capture Ruby alive, you will have to ditch those moral concerns down the drain, Bree. Or else...you will meet the same fate that Councilman Sleet met. Am I being clear?"

Harriet gulps

"Y-yes...Sir"

Ironwood hangs up