Sergeant Christopher Bye stood at attention within one of the lesser-known entrances to Buckingham Palace. He stood still, his L85A3 pressed firmly against his shoulder, his hat weighing heavily on his head.
Lunch was on his mind. Corporal Barland had said bacon sandwiches were on the menu today. Barland was a bit of a joker, but he was also good friends with the chef at Wellington Barracks. Despite himself, he was looking forward to bacon...it had been a while. Lord rest his soul if Barland was lying.
In the back of his mind, his count finished. He snapped his boots together and began his march, pointedly ignoring the very few pedestrians near him. He heard several "ooh's" and 'aah's" as he smartly marched fifteen paces, turned on his heel, and marched back. A maneuver he'd practiced so many times he could do it asleep.
A scream rang out in the distance. He continued his march. It was probably someone getting proposed to. That happened a lot around here...bleedin' tourists. He came to a stop and resumed his position.
The tell-tale crunch of rending metal sounded down the way as well, and Sergeant Bye, keeping his neck still, glanced that direction. He saw several civilians running down the alley, toward his position, many of them getting much too close to the gate for comfort.
He snapped his boot to the ground with an audible clack and shouted, "Stand back from the Queen's Guard!"
He'd seen more than one motor vehicle accident in his day...hell, he'd seen more than one blown to smithereens by IED's. A little fender-bender wasn't reason to storm the palace.
Still, they ran in panic. Something caught his eye from above. Unable to help himself, he glanced up and felt his jaw slacken.
A witch on a broomstick? Of all the many things he thought he might see, never had that crossed his mind. Yet, there it was. Plain as day. A woman in black robes, wearing a pointed hat, swooping around on a broomstick.
He heard a distant cackle as she threw her head back. She outstretched her arm and...launched a fireball! He saw the flash as it illuminated the rest of the alley. The civilians running suddenly made sense.
Years of combat experience kicked in, though stilted. He'd never fought a...witch...before. The principal remained the same, however. Fight. Eliminate the threat.
Sgt. Bye yanked the cover off of his scope, for all the good it would do him. He wasn't carrying ammunition for the rifle, but the bayonet was fixed and there was ammunition in the primary guard shack. That was his destination.
As civilians ran down his alley, he ran toward the entrance, making his way to the primary shack. It was just around the bend, thankfully. When he rounded it, he was greeted with complete pandemonium. People were running in every direction and it was hard to tell friend from foe.
For certain, there were foes. Several bodies lay on the ground, alongside a great deal of gore. Near the shack he saw two bodies, hauntingly dressed as he was. Nothing to do about it now.
Between him and the shack, he saw a young woman kneeling over the chest of a man. Her face was literally buried in his chest, and she was thrashing back and forth. Small spurts of blood jumped from side to side, a sickening slurping sound audible over the crescendo of noise around him as he watched.
But, Sgt. Bye was no amateur. He was a professional. He needed to act, and so he ran forward, bayonet pointed at her back, and let loose his fiercest war cry. It took her a moment to hear him, and by the time she did, it was too late.
He buried the bayonet into her back, pushing her forward and off of the body. She snarled in response. He didn't know what he expected from a woman eating a man's organs, but that animal snarl certainly wasn't it.
The tip of his blade scraped against concrete as she fell forward. She thrashed, trying vainly to free herself and he twisted it. Still, she moved. He planted a well polished boot into the middle of her back, putting all of his weight on it, and yanked the bayonet free.
She turned back at him, unable to free herself from his weight. He still got a quick glance. Vicious long fangs...yellow, slitted eyes. She was a monster. He steeled himself and thrust, letting loose another battle cry.
His bayonet sank into that critical junction in the base of her neck. The blade scraped bone and he felt her vertebrae separate. Her movement finally ceased.
It took him a second to recover from the shock of it. No one seriously thought they were going to run a bayonet charge, not in this day in age. It was bloody effective, but he'd rather stick with bullets.
He rushed to the primary shack, the door of which he found ajar. A box of filled magazines lay on the floor, several of which had fallen out. It didn't look like anyone had the chance to use them.
He grabbed several, stuffing them into ridiculously small ceremonial pockets, and slapping one into the magazine well of his rifle. A round slid into the chamber, and he was in business.
The sergeant was unsure what hellish nightmare he'd stumbled into, but he was damned sure that if any of these creatures wanted the Queen, they'd get to her over his dead body.
Using the vacant shack for cover, he aimed into the sky. That honest-to-god witch slung another fireball, this time into a fast moving Metropolitan Police cruiser. He centered the reticle on her chest and loosed a round, smirking at the crimson streak that leapt from her back as she slumped quickly to the ground.
It was a small part of the chaos erupting around him, he could tell. But then, he could only do his part. The reinforcements from Wellington would certainly be on the way and the Metropolitan Police had armed responders in the area.
Whoever this was, they were messing with the wrong people.
Corporal John Cantec rolled his shoulders and bent his knees, allowing blood to flow to his extremities. Atrium duty, though good for people watching, was a very static assignment. He, along with the rest of his squad, stood there and remained visible.
It was supposed to be a reassurance that TFA, and by extension MACUSA, was serious in its commitment to keeping the Ministry free of Death Eater influence. A worthy task, no doubt about it. But one that sucked, too.
Cantec was standing to the left of the walkway from the Floo Hall. Private Snyder was standing on the right, just opposite him, the crowd slowly funneling between them.
What approximated to a lunch hour was approaching its end and Ministry employees were filing back in. Sergeant Jorgensen, along with the other three members of his squad, were back near the elevators where Ministry Security had its wand checkpoint.
Thankfully, the internal security group for the Ministry handled all of the actual duties now. Cantec just stood there in full gear, ready to jump in if shit got serious.
"-lete nonsense, Bertha," a man was saying as he passed, talking to a tall and rather beautiful blonde. Not what he pictured when he heard the name Bertha. "It was probably just an accident."
Arhythmic green pulses flashed throughout the hall as more employees and visitors entered. Many of them waited for others, choosing to go through the lengthy security process with a friend or two. It left the whole hall feeling weirdly lethargic, while at the same time a bit rushed.
A bright pulse flashed from the fireplace nearest Cantec and a disheveled looking wizard with a torn shirt stumbled through. He fell almost to his hands and knees and those closest to him backed up a few steps to give him room.
The man pushed himself up, wild eyes looking back at the flame before he darted toward the fountain room, elbowing past several others.
Cantec looked over at Snyder, who was already looking at him. What the fuck was that about? Snyder shrugged, but adjusted the sling on his rifle to make it more accessible. Cantec did the same.
A few more pulses in the back and someone shrieked. Cantec stood up on his toes, trying to look past the crowd, but he couldn't make anything out. Still, the crowd seemed to decide together that it was time to move on. People started a slow shuffle toward the fountain, and by extension the elevators beyond.
That didn't last long. As a rippling tide, people from the back started to yell and scream, pushing the people ahead of them forward. Within a few heartbeats, the crowd around Cantec and Snyder began to stampede.
This wasn't a threat to the two operators. Both were off to the side and had metal barriers that went up to waist height in front of them.
"Sarge," Cantec said into his radio, "we've got a problem here. People are panicking." He craned his neck, trying to get a better view, but to no avail. Beside him, Snyder took a fighting stance, shouldering his rifle.
A thin spot formed in the crowd as they surged past. He heard Jorgensen respond, but what exactly he said never reached his brain. Through the thin spot, he caught sight of an enormous spider jumping onto a fleeing woman. It was easily larger than her and not by any means alone.
Cantec raised his rifle, centering the reticle between glossy black eyes. Each time he tried to pull the trigger, another person ran into his line of fire. Faster than he would have thought possible, the woman was covered in a cocoon of webbing and the spider leapt for its next victim.
Several shots rang out from beside him and the spider shriveled in midair, all eight legs curling in on themselves. The giant spider crashed into one of the Floo's, hard enough he thought he heard brick cracking.
"Holy shit!" Snyder shouted. The last few civilians pushed past, giving them a clear line of sight into the Floo room. He saw several dozen of the giant spiders. A few were on the floor, crawling between downed figures. Some crawled up the walls toward the operators and still others were already on the ceiling.
Cantec targeted the closest one and fired several shots, aware of more flashing in the background. More creatures pouring in. He targeted the next spider and fired, quickly shifting to a third. This was a feral looking person. They looked human, but they were snarling and had blood dripping from their chin and a terrible look in their eye.
Two shots, center of mass, and he transitioned to the next target.
Behind him, he could hear footsteps and gunfire, the rest of his squad joining the fight. He shot two more spiders, one of which was preparing to jump at them. The damned things were getting closer, there were too many.
Someone shot a jet of flame down the center of the walkway, incinerating a pair of spiders that were too close together. The security wizards joined them, he guessed.
"The QRF will be there in two mikes," Cantec heard over his radio. It sounded good for a brief second. A full platoon of operators would give them a lot more manpower.
That good feeling drained away as a monsterous, if not rather stupid looking creature tumbled through one of the Floo's. The creature was impossibly big, and yet here it was. It groaned, pushing itself up from the ground and retrieving a thick wooden club.
Cantec aimed at the large creature as it took a stumbling step toward them, but was knocked to the ground as a giant spider dropped from the ceiling, pinning him down. He could feel the weight of the creature pressed against him, its obscene jaws hovering just before his face.
Something wet sprayed against his legs and he didn't wait to find out what it was. With his rifle pinned to his chest, he pulled his sidearm free and pressed it against the creature's maw and began rapidly pulling the trigger. Concussive blasts slapped at his face as metal slugs blew chunks of the creature away. A sickly ichor poured from it as the legs shriveled up and the creature rolled off of him.
He sat up, spitting the foul fluid from his mouth and intending to try and free his legs from the web that had glued him to the ground, but that behemoth was getting closer. Sitting there, he snapped his rifle up. Spellfire streaked against it harmlessly, small ripples appeared against the thick skin of it's chest and abdomen as rifle fire concentrated against it. Nothing seemed to penetrate.
Angling up toward the face, Cantec fired one shot. The round caught it just beneath the nose and it jerked its head back before looking down at him and glaring. He'd just pissed it off!
It roared and the sound echoed throughout the chamber. For a split second, the sound froze him. The creature, still staring at him, began to walk forward and he finally remembered to act. He returned the reticle to its face and began pumping round after round at it. Several harmlessly bounced off of its cheeks and forehead, but it took one in the mouth as it opened for another roar, and then another caught it in the eye.
This dropped the creature to its knee, dazed. The pounding of boots behind him signaled the arrival of the QRF. Just beside Cantec, someone dropped to the floor, placing an M240b on its bipod. He loosed a long stream of steel ammunition into the top of the creature's head, blasting it apart. The hulk dropped to the ground.
Fire around him was sporadic as they mopped up the rest of the spiders. One of the new arrivals began cutting the webs binding Cantec to the ground, allowing him to get back to his feet.
"Looks like we scared 'em of-" one of the QRF soldiers started...a complete asshole unfamiliar with Murphy's Law.
More flashes erupted within the chamber, on both sides. Another of the large creatures tumbled through. Spiders crawled up the walls from those green flames, more of those feral people. Pale, inhuman abominations scampered through on all fours followed by robed figures in metal masks.
They weren't in the open for long. The ones not cut down by the withering return fire from Cantec and his line of operators took cover where they could. Most of them ducked behind the brick Floo's, others behind the substantial bodies of those large trolls.
A streak of green caught the M240 gunner and his fire immediately stopped. Someone pulled him out of the line of fire, and someone else jumped down on the gun, getting it back into the fight.
Cantec returned to the world of his reticle and began firing as well.
"-two wounded, four KIA, we're running low on ammo. We need support ASAP!"
"Roger, Calico Actual, we're working on it," the radio operator replied with cool and calm efficiency. Sumner nodded curtly and left the man to his tasks. He stepped out of the command trailer and headed to the communications center where a joint conference call was in progress.
He'd stepped out in the middle to get a progress report on the developing situation at the Ministry. It wasn't pretty. Several casualties, diminishing ammunition…
"Report, Colonel," Thomas barked as soon as Sumner stepped in.
"The entire Ministry element is engaged in a firefight for control of the Ministry Floo chamber. More and more creatures and wizards are pouring through. Ammunition is starting to run low. They need relief and they need it fast."
"I've got several Aurors heading that way as we speak, they should be able to help." Madam Bones looked grave. All of them did.
"I'm afraid it doesn't end there," Scrimgouer said, appearing in one of the crystal balls. "There are reports of werewolves, trolls, acromantula, and all manner of dark creature crawling all across Westminster."
"A major breach of the Statute," President Harris sighed, "a major breach."
"We're scrambling every electronic signal coming in and out of London, but that won't last forever. We need to contain this fast." It was an officer Sumner didn't recognize. Faces around Fort Bragg seemed to be changing frequently in his absence.
"What can we do?" Thomas asked. He wasn't asking Colonel Sumner, nor Scrimgeour. It was obvious what they needed. They needed personnel and fire support and they needed it fast. No, he was asking President Harris what they were allowed to do. The partnership between US Presidents gave a great deal of latitude in how TFA would be used in response to magical crises.
"Send everything we can," Harris replied simply. "I'll send for Head Auror Matthews, he'll be able to put something together quickly. On your end, send everything you can, General."
"Sumner," General Thomas grunted, looking into the computer screen. It was dizzying, juggling around so many devices, but it was what they had. "Pull together what you can and send it to London. I think we're going to need all hands on deck for this one."
"Understood," Sumner said, nodding to his aide. The man rushed out of the office, already knowing the first steps to take in fulfilling that order.
The rest of the briefing was short. They didn't know much, just that they needed boots on the ground as quickly as possible. Sumner crossed back to the command tent and began organizing who would be sent to London.
The process was short. He kept his teams and information well organized. He'd keep a token defensive force at the castle and FOB, along with the personnel that wouldn't be much use in urban combat, and send the rest.
With officers out relaying and fulfilling his orders, he turned to one of the few not currently tasked with something important.
"Get me a line to the French." He might be able to get some additional support headed that way.