~The Man in the Red Coat~

April 27th
1:23 am
Nightfall Research Base, Main Laboratory
Jeremy "Dirge" Dakol

"It's time for a little Rebellion!" a male voice echoed. I hesitated for a second, only two see two civilians in the room. One of them was male, in a long red jacket, and the other was a girl, wearing a blue hoodie and very short shorts. "…What..?" The guy muttered again, as he reached for something that wasn't there.

"Stay back, both of you!" I shouted. "I'm not sure what you two are doing here, but stay away from that thing!" to my surprise, the man (He looked no older than 25) pulled out twin pistols and began firing on the giant creature in a few seconds.

"Dirge, I've located some explosive ammo that works with my gun. Sonata said something about things going boom, right?" Skye called over the comm.

"Alright, now we need to find out its weak point, and then use those explosives on it." I said.

"You gotta do better than that." The strange man said. "A hunter Demon is a powerful one. To put it scientifically, you need to blow its brain out its ass." The man continued fire with his pistols while the young woman hid behind a few crates. A sharp crack filled the air as one of Skye's supercharged bullets hit the (apparently named ) hunter demon in its face. I saw a scar open up, the inside area a fleshy red.

"Angel, cover me. I'm going to do something really stupid." I called out to my teammate. She nodded, firing both machine pistols at its head. I ran towards the thing, jumped over a knife swing, and unloaded five consecutive slugs into the creature's scar. I then was knocked out of the way by the thing's backhanded swipe, skidding across the ground until I stopped next to the red-coated man.

"Hey, man, are those standard issue in your military?" He asked while helping me to my feet.

"What, my gun?"

"No, those brass balls you're wearing." A laugh from Angel nearby meant she had overheard the joke. "Because that was both one of the stupidest and one of the coolest things I've seen a guy do when fighting a demon."

"You know these things personally?" I asked, stowing my gun to a magnetized portion of my suit. I had run out of ammo with that last barrage.

"I kill these motherfuckers for a living where I'm from. Name's Dante, by the way. The girl over there is Kat." He said, reaching into his coat. "Try this, I call it 'Revenant'." Dante held out a gun to me, a small weapon that looked like a sawed-off shotgun.

"Thanks." I replied, taking aim at the demon. There was a ton of recoil, and it almost blew my arms off because I hadn't expected it. Te demon simply shrugged off the blast and I looked for a way to reload the shotgun I was given. I found no such device, no clip or break in the barrel, so I experimentally pulled the trigger once more. The gun fired again, and again the next time I tried. "What the hell…?" Deciding not to question the lack of reloading, I continued my assault on the demon.

"I could use some help with this ugly motherfucker over here!" Raiden almost bellowed out of the Comm. "None of my shots are hitting him!" A sharp crack filled the air as Skye shot a round off to the other side of the facility. "Thanks for stealing my thunder!"

"I thought you wanted help, little man!" Angel replied for Skye. She herself was on her last clip in her guns, and when they ran dry, she tossed both of her machine pistols at the demon's face and pulled out her knives. The firearms merely bounced off his face, leaving not even a bruise. The Hunter Demon crouched low and swiped with his knife fast, and a gash appeared on Angel's stomach.

"Angel!" I shouted, jumping over to her. She had fallen to the ground and was losing a lot of blood. I grabbed her limp form and started dragging her to the outskirts of the battlefield, near to where Kat was. "Can you help her? I'm not exactly the best medic."

"I'll do what I can. I've had some training in first aid." She replied, pulling a tube of gauze from a holster on her waist. It was next to a spray can of some sort. Deciding to help her out by defending her, I joined Dante on the battlefield once more. Skye's sniper rifle fired off another shot at it, the bullet hitting at an angle to tear off part of the Hunter's face.

The demon recoiled in shock, and clutched his bleeding face. He let out a primal roar, and turned to face us. "YoU aRe MoRe TrOuBlE tHaN iT's WoRtH." He said, backing up. The purple smoke around the area started to vanish. "We HaVe WhAt We CaMe FoR. gOoDbYe, HuMaNs…" he leapt out of the building, and any surviving demons followed him out of the area.

"They're turning tail and running!" Raiden called out. "Should we go after them?"

"Negative, Raiden." I replied into the comm. "We're low on ammunition and Angel is badly wounded. I'm ordering evac from Sonata to meet us here." I turned to face Dante. "And you are coming with us."

"What? No, I don't think so. I came here to find out where Demons had been disappearing to. I know now, and now I'm gonna go back home." He stated, keeping his guns out.

"We're in the middle of a crisis, and you said you fight these things for a living." I replied. "You're coming with us, conscious or not." Before he could reply, my fist met the side of his head. The guy was out cold before he hit the floor. I looked up to Kat, and shrugged apologetically.

"I'll go too. No need to knock me out." She said quickly. "Dante's just got a hot temper, and a single minded attitude. He'll help out once he realizes what's going on with you guys." She helped me carry Angel out of the facility, while Skye hefted Dante over a shoulder, his MSR slung by a strap over the other. Raiden escorted the guards that he managed to save, and met us outside the lab in a big, open area.

"Dropship has arrived." Sonata's voice said. As we boarded, she asked me, "Did you kill that big demon? I no longer read it on my scanners."

"No. Get this- it spoke, and it said that they 'got what they came for'. However, two civilians showed up during the fight, and one of them said he fights these for a living. They're with us on the harrier."

"They got what they came for… troubling, but I'd call this mission success. Good job, Skyrunners. Report to base for debriefing."

~Meanwhile, unknown location~

"So, you have brought me what I had requested?" A feminine voice, but demonic in nature, asked of the Hunter Demon before it. The demon did not speak out of respect, and instead held up a small tube full of a green liquid. "Very good, my child. With a few more items, the citizens of this world will be lost."

"Yes… lost in their own grand Delusion."

~End of chapter~

Author's Note: I'm back, bitches! ~Nano