"They've gone quiet... thats not good." Alkire peeked out from around one of the arched pillars that supported the upper floors of the rail junction, where machinery and supplies were kept while trains went by on the lower level. He could see three seperate tunnels leading out of the junction... one was the one he, Raine and Victor had fled from just minutes before. He knew there were enemies in that tunnel. And according to James, who had joined them a little while ago and Vlad, who was still skulking around out in the darkness somewhere, there were Hellhound teams in both of the other tunnels. Damned Asmodeus had brought the entire Hellhound unit by the look of things. True, he'd played into their hands so far, rushing into various traps that he could have avoided by delaying for a few hours, but despite the success of the ambush war carried out so far, they were still outnumbered more than three or four to one. And now the Hellhounds had all just suddenly pulled back into the tunnels, leaving TEMPEST, battered, bruised and tired, in sole control of the junction area. "Vlad... can you see anything?"
Vlad clicked his tongue once in the negative. He was scouting the area around the tunnel that led eventually to the Mall station, ensuring that the enemy did not try to slip infiltrators into the junction while the members of TEMPEST recovered during the unexpected reprieve. Vlad's mind was racing, calculating, considering... trying to figure out why the enemy had changed their tactics. Up until a few minutes ago they had come on fiercely, almost recklessly, as if driven by some imperative even more important than their own lives. They had walked into trap after hastily if masterfully prepared trap, ambushes that men of the Hellhound's caliber should have been easily able to circumvent as long as they took some time, which was all the traps were designed to do... buy time, not lives. Instead they had suffered serious casualties, with more than ten dead already... prohibitive for most missions involving special forces operatives, where the loss of a single mission specialist could mean the difference between victory and defeat.
Vlad did not dare enter the tunnels themselves directly... he was confident in his ability to remain unseen in the wider open areas of the rail junction, but the newly wary enemy was sure to spot a single man moving into a tunnel towards them where no man should be. If he were to take the time to move carefully enough to attempt the sneak... they didn't have that kind of time... that would require hours if not days. He paused near the tunnel entrance, crouched low, his body pressed flat to the bricks, mechanically sensitive fingers touching the wall and floor, questing for the slightest vibration that would herald renewed movement by the enemy... there was nothing. He waited a minute more and then stole back into the main part of the junction, where Alkire and the others were erecting a centralized defense position.
James was swearing softly under his breath when Vlad arrived, the bigger man having upended his backpacks in order to ensure he had not missed any ammunition or other supplies... despite the relative shortness of the fight so far, he had still used up about half of the ammunition for his .50 caliber machine gun and if the Hellhounds made any sort of movement in force he knew he'd go through what he had left in a matter of minutes. Vlad ghosted by James without causing the other man to even look up and picked up his sawed off automatic shotgun from where he'd left it in the shadow of a pillar. It wasn't until James heard the slight click of the safety disengaging that he even realized Vlad had returned. "God damn it, Vlad, don't do that!" James muttured, a hand to his rapidly beating heart.
"See anything?" Alkire asked from where he was piling loose bricks into a low wall in front of the central access pillar, a concrete construction about thirty feet square that enclosed the stairway up to the next level, where railway employees who maintained the trains and rail lines would spend their off time. Fifty feet to the north of their position, which was being built on the slightly raised platform surrounding the pillar for fifteen feet on all sides was the wall with the old steel door that led to the tunnel where the kids and company had gone. Subway rails, diversions from the three main tracks that cut through the junction in the shape of a triangle, ran close to the elevated platform on three sides, while the fourth bordered a section of bare floor piled high with various materials... sheet metal, buckets of bolts and screws, replacement rail sections, etc, with a sheet metal office for the supply records at the far end. Every thirty feet or so there was a concrete pillar that supported the roof. There were lights in the ceiling, which was roughly twenty feet tall, but most of them were either malfunctioning or intentionally shot out by one side or the other.
"Nothing... they're planning something though." Vlad replied, moving over to kneel by where he'd left his pack, his coat brushing against the floor like a shroud. "There is only one of me, and three tunnels. I would not be surprised if there are infiltrated troops already within the junction. If I was the enemy, that is what I would have done. They will be moving slowly, since they do not know where we are but once they find us, we can expect a rush from all available forces."
"What if we made their scouts disappear?" Victor said wolfishly. "That might slow them down some."
"Problem is, we don't know where they are, or I'd agree with you, Victor." Alkire said, continuing to build up what cover he could.
"I wouldn't say that." Raine cut in suddenly, from where she lay at the edge of the platform, a grey camouflage blanket draped over her, scope held to one eye. "I'm currently looking at a group of four men who think they slipped out of the tunnel we fled from without being seen. They're pretty good... if it weren't for the brick dust flaking off them and reflecting slightly as it fell through the air I never would have noticed them. They just split up... the single is headed in a half loop around the side of the supply office, the other three are moving as a group towards us."
"I got the lone cowboy." Alkire said, getting to his feet slowly, so as not to betray position with sudden movement... which drew the eye faster than anything else, even bright color. "Think you're up to three, Vlad?"
Vlad carefully laid his shotgun down next to Raine and withdrew the silenced pistol from his waist holster. The diamond dust coated garrotte dangled loosely in his other hand. "I have a bad feeling... but not about this. Those three are already dead... but I... I don't know quite what it is... I can't shake the feeling of doom."
"We're surrounded and outnumbered by merciless professional killers, that might have something to do with it." James said cheerfully. "I'm shaking in my boots, over here, personally. We're good... but good might not cut it... we're just people, not action heroes."
"No sense in worrying about it now... its a little late for surrender, I think." Victor replied, moving over to kneel next to Raine, his gun braced and ready to fire the moment she told him to. Alkire wasted no more time on words... there was nothing to say. He took his rifle and leopard crawled across the platform, slithering face first off the four foot drop and into the material supply section. He maintained his pace... noise was less important than speed right now, he needed to get to the office room... more a shack of thin sheet metal with interior lights and a network connection than anything else... ahead of the single infiltrator. If the enemy rounded the shack before he got there, he'd have a clean line of sight at the platform where Raine, Victor and James were setting up their defenses... they could not afford that.
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Cyprus made his way slowly and carefully along the long side of the sheet metal building he had reached moments before. The building blocked all good views of the central area of the junction complex from the tunnel he had come from... if TEMPEST had set up where he expected them to, that meant the building was serving as a first class visual blind for the Hellhound teams. Unless they could get a spotter and preferably a sniper or two in position at the edge of the building to get line of sight to the central platform, TEMPEST could deploy in any direction without the Hellhounds being able to see them until it was far too late. Cyprus dropped to the ground and lay on his chest, weapon tucked in close, taking a moment to steady his breathing and cleanse his mind. He tongued his comm system. "Status report on reinforcements."
"Delta and Charlie team members have made contact with reserve forces and are guiding them into position now. ETA to complete readiness is zero seven minutes." Asmodeus replied at once. "All other teams report no sign of the enemy."
"Very well." Cyprus replied and closed the channel, opening another to Ramierez and the other two scouts. "They're at the central platform. Use extreme caution... assume you are one bad movement from being spotted and killed at all times... because you likely are. I am rounding the metal shack now, report if you spot them but do not engage unless engaged yourself." Cyprus wriggled forward a half foot or so before rising to one knee. He was about to return to his feet when he heard the ever so slight scrape of cloth against concrete... and it was coming from the other side of the shack. He froze, holding his breath... he wasn't alone anymore. His free hand inched up to the weapons and equipment slung across his chest.
Alkire pressed his back tightly against the metal side of the office, feeling the almost paper thin metal flex slightly under the pressure. He took several deep but slow breaths to recover from the high speed crawl and listened to the area around him. Silent as a gravesite... not a breath of breeze or a stirring of noise. Then, suddenly, he heard something... something so faint he could almost have sworn he imagined it... the sound of a glove rasping against something hard... just a touch of cloth on metal, but it came from just the other side of the shack, only eight feet away. He couldn't teel exactly where the sound had come from, but he felt suddenly sure that he wasn't alone now. His hand crept to his belt, feeling carefully along the three remaining cylinders clipped there until he found one with slight knobby protrusions all over it. He gripped the grenade and held his breath as he tugged it out of its bindings, trying not to make any more noise that would reveal his intentions.
Cyprus heard the distinctive snap-click of something being unclipped from a belt binder... he swore under his breath... he had been heard, probably when his glove brushed against the stock of his Gladius. Not wasting time on stealth any more, he grabbed a concussion grenade from his chest bandoleer, flicked off the spoon and flipped it up and over the shack in a lazy toss. The sphere of metal clanked on the sheet metal roof as it bounced and slid onto the other side of the building. Alkire had heard Cyprus grab and throw and had done nearly the same thing at the same time, his own concussion grenade actually passing Cyprus's in midair, less than two feet apart. Cyprus's grenade and Alkire's both landed with dull metallic "thonk" sounds, each about four feet away from their respective targets. In the second left before detonation, both men took wildly different actions.
"Oh, fucking great! He thinks like I do... lucky me!" Alkire swore mightily and threw himself into a headlong dive over a pallet of stacked cans of paint and buckets of heavy railway bolts, landing heavily on his face and shoulders on the other side as Cyrpus's grenade blew in a thunderous detonation of light and sound that toppled the top third of the pyramid of pant cans and several hundred two inch bolts down on top of him. He arced his back in an attempt to roll with the impact, but the paint cans falling on top of him impeded that effort and he ended up lying on his back, half stunned and mostly buried in dented five gallon paint cans and a huge mess of grimy bolts. Cyprus on the other hand had leapt backwards, free hand whipping to his pistol holster in a blinding fast draw. He aimed and fired almost in the same motion, the heavy caliber but low penetrating power bullet striking the timer fused grenade hard enough to send it clattering for several feet along the floor before it exploded. The flash and noise were terrible, but between the jump and shot, Cyprus had removed himself from the harmful range of the grenade, landing with nothing more than spots in his eyes and ringing ears. He wasted no time in charging forward towards the far edge of the building so he could engage the foe.
Alkire heard the sound of feet rapidly striking concrete and he forced himself upright, head still a little bleary. He couldn't quite track the exact location of the footsteps with the weird acoustics in the tunnels, but he knew the enemy was still on the other side of the shack, because he could not yet see him and because Raine and the others had not been shot to pieces by enfilade fire yet. He could not let the man round the corner, if he did he'd have a perfect shot at Raine and the others. Not bothering to aim, Alkire selected full auto on his rifle and sprayed a long burst into the office shack. On the other side of the building, Cyprus stopped so suddenly he slipped and went over backwards, not entirely by accident, as a line of ragged bullet holes chewed their way out of the thin metal side of the building above him at about chest height. He rolled to the side and came up on one knee, Gladius held in one hand, pistol in the other and he returned fire, aiming by guestimation. Alkire ducked back into cover to reload as bullets spranged and sparked off the railway supplies on all sides of him... just fucking wonderful, I got a real John Wayne on the other side of the building... doesn't know when to die or retreat. He slapped in a fresh magazine and waited for the gunfire to die down.
Cyprus stopped firing, holstering his pistol and hit his mic with his tongue. He switched out magazines as he spun to the side, changing positons almost unconsciously while reloading the Gladius. Completing his spin he dropped into a kneeling postion, his finger on the secondary shotgun trigger of the Gladius. As soon as his knee hit the pavement he uttered a blood curdling shriek over all channels... the warcry of an obscure tribe of South American headhunters he'd studied way back in high school. It had curled his toes the first time he'd heard it and it still sent shivers down his spine... a high, wavering banshee wail that seemed to hang in the air like the frozen breath of death. Given the mask he currently had on, he would not have blamed an observer, if there had been one, for mistaking the sound for the howl of a real hound from Hell. He heard metal shifting on the other side of the building and aimed for that spot, holding down both triggers of the Gladius, sending a heavy shotgun slug and a slew of hypervelocity bullets in that direction, shooting through the battered building like it wasn't even there.
Alkire had stood to shoot, but then he'd heard that warcry... a yell that had turned his guts to ice and sent goosebumps crawling up and down his limbs. He didn't know what that sound was from, but he didn't really want to find out either. He'd shaken it off, but then the enemy had opened fire again, firing more accurately this time and with a heavier weapon, the booming cough of a low gauge shotgun loaded with solid slugs. Real man stoppers, a low gauge shotgun slug would tear through any body armor made and throw the unlucky corpse a good five or six feet back at close range, which he certainly was at. He swore and dived, just barely in time as smaller whining bullets nicked his back and leg armor after boring blue and grey bleeding holes through several paint cans. The shotgun slug struck a bucket of bolts and shattered the entire thing, sending the heavy bolts flying in a brief horizontal rain of clattering metal. Unwilling to stay on the defensive, Alkire popped back up right away and fired back at the gaping hole where the shotgun slug had penetrated the building, sweeping his fire low and horizontal towards the closer edge of the shack, where the enemy was likely headed. Come on, you bastard... just die already. Alkire held down the trigger, even as he heard other weapons join the battle... the rest of the enemy had arrived.
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Vlad had stalked his prey with the patience of a starving lion. The three men whom he watched, now behind them and only ten feet away, were quite skilled. He'd almost been seen twice now... in fact, he was reasonably sure the man in charge, the one who was currently on point, knew that he and his men were being stalked. There just wasn't anything he could do about it... whenever they tried to turn and catch Vlad out they failed dismally, telegraphing their movements far too soon. It did not help that Vlad had undergone intense training in reading people and how they would react, not even considering his years and years of solo assassination experience, relying only on himself to watch his own back. This men were soldiers, scouts, infiltrators... but they weren't assassins. There was a difference. And now that difference would be deadly. Vlad slithered up a wall, his metallic fingers digging into the crevices in the bricks with nary a sound as he hauled himself up above the rearmost of the three, who was in the middle of turning about the check their backtrail. The man revealed his relative inexperience... he checked low and middle, short and far, but neglected to check high... most soldiers did not think to look up unless they were on low ground... and there was no such thing as low ground in a subway tunnel. Unless you happened to be able to climb with an ease unknown to humans with flesh and blood limbs.
Vlad leapt over the heads of the soldiers, propelling himself ahead of them with a mighty push from his arms and legs, reaching out for the next pillar to grab hold of the concrete decorative edge about three quarters of the way up. It was not easy making such a leap soundlessly, but the noise he'd made came from behind the soldiers and they spun in that direction, glaring red eyes staring fruitlessly at nothing, weapon muzzles rotating and jabbing into shadows fiercely but uselessly. Hanging from one hand, Vlad slowly removed his coat one sleeve at a time, switching hands in the middle. His feet were about a foot above the head height of the enemy, just above their line of sight. what he was planning to do was tricky... but he felt sure of its success, despite the still unshakable feeling of doom that continued to weigh upon him. Balling the leather garment up as much as he could with one hand, Vlad tossed it away from him, waiting for the slap of leather on pavement to dig sharply into the pillar with his metal fingers, digging out two deep and angular gashes in the pillar. Distracted by the loud slap of leather, the soldiers either did not hear the sound of the crushed concrete or likely assimilated it in as related to the leather sound. To their credit, no man opened fire, but such fire discipline was really nothing less than expected for a team like the Hellhounds. Glad again for the unnatural strength of his mechanical arms, Vlad rotated himself one hundred eighty degrees, digging his feet into the footholds he'd created so that he was hanging upside down with his head about eight feet off the floor.
He couldn't stay that way for long... the footholds would deteriorate eventually, and even faster with the load he was soon to put on them, but they would last long enough. Vlad looked down and waited. The Hellhounds had investigated his coat and recognized it as a decoy, though they still hadn't figured out where he was... if they did see him he was dead, hanging exposed in nearly plain view, but with the narrowed field of vision imposed by LAG's and full face masks, plus the utter insanity of the idea of being attacked from above in a tunnel combined to make him practically invisible to them. He let the first two pass slowly underneath him, grinning at how close they were to death... but he'd resolved to do this carefully... despite how pleasing it would be to just drop and kill them all, it was best to ensure at worst two to one odds... and probably more satisfying in the end. His moment came... the final man passed below him, hesitated a moment... his last moment... and Vlad brought down the diamond dust coated wire, already twisted into a loop, slipping the metal wire with long practiced ease around the man's neck, the wire digging in under the chin strap of his mask. The man barely had time to see the shadow of the wire pass in front of his face... by the time he realized the threat it was too late... the metal wire was already abrading through his skin, cutting his jugular and windpipe as his body was lifted soundlessly off the ground by unbelievable strength. He tried to fight, to make some noise of warning, but by the time the first flash of pain reached his mind the abrasive loop was already grinding away at his spinal cord and he had no breath left to even choke on.
The first sign Ramierez had that his bad feeling, the feeling of being watched by eyes with intent to harm, had any sort of substance at all, had come with the sound of leather striking pavement about fifteen feet away. He and his men had instantly hit the ground, scurrying for cover, weapons and eyes searching for targets... but there had been nothing. Just a long leather trenchcoat, balled up and apparently tossed as a decoy. Ramierez had also heard the sound of metal hitting concrete, and had assumed there was a bomb or grenade hidden in the coat, a trap for unwary investigators, but after twenty seconds of watching the coat with no explosion, he'd been forced to write that off too. Maybe a knife or something in the coat or maybe it was armor lined... neither would surprise him. Swearing under his breath, unable to shake the feeling of being hunted or herded into a trap, he and his chosen two scouts, Quentin and a man from Bravo team had continued on, making their slow and careful way towards the center platform, which was now almost visible to them through the small forest of support pillars. The Bravo man was in the rear, checking behind them at random intervals to ensure they were not followed or tracked... but he'd yet to discover anything and now with the coat Ramierez had confirmation that they were being stalked.
The second sign Ramierez got that something was horribly wrong came in two parts... one was the explosion of gunfire from over where the LT was, followed closely by the LT's war cry... the second was the warm splatter of blackish-red liquid that drizzled down from the shadows near the ceiling, right over the position he'd last seen the Bravo man standing. He snapped his gaze upwards and almost instantly spotted the hanging corpse of the Hellhound... it took him almost a half second to realize the man was being held up there by another man behind him, somehow clinging to the concrete of the support pillar by means Ramierez could not discern. Given how limply the Hellhound hung, and the quantity of blood he could see pouring down the man's chest and legs, Ramierez knew him to be dead. Thus he felt no compunctions about swinging his Gladius up and spraying fire at the enemy, shielded behind the body of his now dead ally. Almost as soon as he opened fire the Hellhound corpse and the man behind it dropped to the ground, the Hellhound corpse being propelled forward to strike Ramierez full on, the still pulsing blood from the gaping neck wound washing up over his mask sensors even as the warm body bore him to the ground, his fire going wild. By the time he'd recovered, wiping the gore off and throwing the dead weight off him, Quentin was firing too, but there was no sign of Andre Forkav. Ramierez swore audibly, spinning to stand back to back with his teammate... eyes now forced to watch the ceiling as much as anything else.
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Frost bulled his way down the tiny maintenance shaft, pulling his way forward with his arms while pushing with his legs, ignoring the momentary flashes of discomfort as he forced himself to squeeze by any obstacle he couldn't either break off or crush aside. Despite the odd method of locomotion, given his strength, size and endurance, he was actually moving along at the speed of a brisk walk... moving faster than the Hellhound teams out in the main tunnel, since he was not worried about booby traps or ambushes. Unfortunately he also had a lot longer distance to go, as the maintenance shaft did not exactly follow the path of the subway tunnels... its primary purpose was to provide a means for power and communication lines to be laid underneath the city and it meandered back and forth between the big power and utility hubs beneath many different buildings and locations. He felt the subsonic rumbles of high explosive detonations several times, but ignored them... they came from behind him or to the side... Pink was ahead of him, he was certain. He was unaware of the froth on his lips or the gleam in his bloodshot eyes. Today was the day of reckoning... it had to be. He pulled himself along faster, unwilling to wait a single instant longer than need be... his enhanced mind assured him that he was close to his goal... another few hundred meters and he'd be in the railway junction where Pink must have fled through. From there it would be a matter of minutes to trace her and run her down... and then the fun would start.
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"There's the signal... damn, never thought I'd live to the day when the LT needed to call for help." Glory said, shouting over his shoulder as he sprinted down the tunnel like a linebacker racing for a sack as the echoes of Cyprus's warcry echoed throughout the tunnels. He was followed closely by the other Hellhounds, their feet pounding in long strides, each man competing for speed and space, each desperate to reach the combat zone as fast as possible... in this fight, a matter of seconds could decide the difference between life and death. Asmodeus followed at a more sedate pace, more a jog than a mad scramble... this was partly out of concern for his men, since they were tightly packed in the tunnel and adding a man waving a four foot sword into that jumble was asking for a friendly fire incident... but mostly because he saw no reason to just charge blindly in... that was not his way, not really the way of the Hellhound, like Cyprus had pointed out to him. He would take the battle at his own pace and use his strengths to bring victory. As he advanced he contacted the reserve forces again, ordering them to advance with haste and to come prepared to enter a full scale close range infantry fight.
Asmodeus jogged around the final turn and came face to face with a battle of an intensity he had not witnessed since the late stages of the last war... the battle to retake the Victoria spaceport, to be exact. That had been one bloody knife brawl of a battle... and what he saw now looked like the same sort of thing... just confined to a room the size of a warehouse instead of spread out over several dozen square miles of savanna. Even with flash supressors on many weapons, the light from automatic weapons fire lit up the junction like a strobe light and even with silencers the muted claps of high velocity rounds sounded like the applause of an audience of thousands with the acoustic echoes in the underground room. He kept to the back, sidling along the outer wall of the chamber, sword held low and to the side, pistol up and tracking along with his eyes as he surveryed the battle and calculated how best to win it.
The enemy had built a strong position in the middle of the big room, out of direct line of sight from any of the three tunnels leading in to the junction. No matter which direction the Hellhounds came from, the enemy had a fire lane to cover it, and had seemingly managed to build themselves covered bunkers from which they could fire easily but were shielded from most return fire... certainly the enemy fire did not seem to be slackening, even with the amount of incoming attackers. There was also a seperate, smaller gunfight going on off to Asmodeus's right, he couldn't get much of a good look at it, but there were several people in fierce gun battle that seemed to be taking place in the middle of a supply yard. Asmodeus frowned... why had TEMPEST stayed? During the reprieve they had been granted by Cyprus's call for reinforcements, they could have easily slipped away, taking the same route their allies had. But instead they'd stayed... a rearguard action. A smile crept onto Asmodeus's face... they were guarding the bridge, so to speak, buying more time for their allies to run. Now all he had to do was discover where this "bridge" was... once that was taken, the battle was won. He continued moving along the wall, staying out of sight of the defenders, while he searched for what he knew had to exist.
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"You know, why did we volunteer for this bullshit? I've been wondering." Victor said grouchily, firing several bursts of sub machine gun bullets off into the junction area, probing into the shadows between pillars where he knew the Hellhounds were trying to sneak closer. He could almost see their beady red eyes whenever he popped up to shoot. He ducked back down behind the overturned table and bench he was using as a bastion, furniture hastily looted from the supply and office rooms up the staircase. There was a door to the outside world up there, but no way out... the staircase to the surface must have been damaged by the mobile suit battle on the streets above, it was choked with rubble and completely impassable from below. "We could have been hightailing it to the exit along with everyone else... but no, we stayed behind... and now look at us. We're pinned down, running out of ammo, about to get shot to pieces... what went wrong?"
"Less talky, more shooty!" James replied, he'd picked up Vlad's automatic shotgun and was using that to scour the shadows, conserving his .50 caliber for when he had actual targets. He ducked back behind his own cover as a fusillade of hypervelocity bullets flew back at him like invisible and horizontal rain, sending chips of brick and spouts of concrete dust everywhere as the platform and staircase pillar took the brunt of it. He paused for a couple of breaths and then popped back around the cover again and fired two quick shots. He let out an exclaimation of victory and ducked back again. "Hah... bastards were getting cocky until I sprayed that sorry fool's guts across two pillars. They're getting antsy... they're going to make a move soon and theres not much we can do to stop them... we're heavily outnumbered."
"I'm working on fixing that." Raine replied, firing single shots from her sub gun. It was nowhere near as accurate as her sniper rifle, but in the relatively close quarters of the junction, she probably could have been sniping with her pistols and soon would be, considering how her SMG ammo was dwindling. She bracketed a shadow filled cavity between three pillars, intentionally firing high and wide in a bid to flush out the two Hellhounds she'd seen dive for cover there. She stopped firing as one rolled out, weapon blazing in wild cover fire, she elected to let him pass... anyone that brazen would slip up again, she could pick him off later. His cagey friend waited for return fire and seeing none came out low and fast, almost diving for the next bit of cover. He made it one and a half steps before Raine's shot struck him just behind the ear, blowing his jaw off and scrambling his brains inside his helmet. She narrowed her eyes as return fire picked its way along the platform edge in front of her, sending showers of grit and gravel into her face, pattering against her LAGs. "But to answer you Victor... we're doing this because its the right thing to do... we're mission specialists and this is our special mission. You're right, we could have run, run off with the kids and we'd be safe. Probably."
"Probably? Fucker!" Victor questioned, cursing as a ricochet bounced off the wall and dug a bloody crease along the back of his calf... painful but not debilitating... he ignored it for the moment. "We'd have been long gone, with all the Hellhounds back here, stumbling around the tunnels."
"We didn't know they'd be so slow, now did we, Victor?" Raine replied, firing and missing as three more Hellhounds advanced another five feet closer. "At the time, Alkire had to consider that the enemy was going to be right on our heels the entire time... and Lacus and some of the other kids aren't exactly long distance sprinters. Hell, I don't know if I could go flat out for more than a few miles, especially in small little dark tunnels, with an enemy right on my ass. We might have been safe as a group... but if we weren't then the enemy was going to bag us all at once... thus the rear guard action we find ourselves in. I don't want to die any more than you do, Victor... but I have to agree with Alkire's thinking that if we do die... better us than Lacus and Cagalli, people who might actually have a chance of bringing peace to the world."
"That's just great... now I can't even get angry, since it's a noble sacrifice." Victor mumbled. "There had better be a lot of pretty girls at my memorial service!"
"Oh shit! Oh Shit! OH SHIT!" James suddenly cried in horror, his mouth agape.
"WHAT!? What is it? You shot!? How bad!?" Victor cried, turning to look at his friend. In doing so, he found out exactly what was causing his friend's constrenation. "Motherfucker... what in all the names of damned shit-hell is SHE doing back here!? She's supposed to be running! NOT GOOD!" he pointed at the steel door to the maintenace tunnel... which was even now still swinging open, revealing the fiery and determined face of Cagalli Yula Attha, armed and dangerous and completely out of her league as she stepped into the middle of a battlefield.
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Kisaka is going to kill me. Cagalli thought, her righteous drive to help the people defending her completely derailed by the situation she suddenly found herself in. And he'll be right to do it. She'd been ready to burst out the door and come to the aid of the TEMPEST members, perhaps even firing and killing a few of those Blue Cosmos bastards as they tried to follow them through the subway tunnels. She'd expected to find the situation already well in hand... perhaps be forced to listen to some of Alkire's false bravado or Vladimir's gloomy sarcasm... what else should she have been expecting... every other time she'd been around them in combat things had been like that? But not now. Now she couldn't even see them, though it didn't take a genius to figure out that the relatively small amount of fire coming from the central platform was her allies, while the overwhelming majority of the gunfire in the room, aimed at that central platform, was the enemy. She finally caught her first glimpse of the enemy that had been sent to kill her and it stopped her cold in her tracks. It took her a near fatal second to realize that the enemy weren't humanoids with the heads of demon-dogs, glowing red eyes fiery in their faces but instead were just men in scary masks. While she herself stood almost frozen, she found herself unable to fault their reactions or reflexes... the three she could easily see spun almost as one, wicked looking assault rifles already up and aiming at her just as she stepped out of the door. She fancied she could see the bullets in midflight, haloed by the restrained flickers of flash suppressed muzzles. I'm gonna die... and its my fault. I should have listened to Kisaka and Athrun... funny how obvious that seems now. I should be scared... but I can't seem to be anything but surprised.
An irresistable force struck her from behind, throwing her to the ground to land squarely on her face, her nose striking the ground and gushing blood as her forehead struck and stars seemed to explode out of everywhere. The weight holding her stunned on the ground was warm and firm and very strong... and familiar too. "Abrun?" she muttered, spitting blood from split lips and bloody nose out of her mouth from where it was pressed into the ground. She couldn't see very well... there wasn't much light in the room, just a few flickering lights on the ceiling and a great deal of gunfire flashes... more light spilled out of the maintenance tunnel behind her than there was in most of the rest of the room. So instead of seeing it, she just heard and FELT the bullets whining by just above her head, whipcracking the air and dusting her and Athrun's backs with brick dust and stinging shards of concrete. She could have sworn several rounds parted the hair on the back of her head, that was how close it felt. Suddenly the incoming fire died down and stopped, though why she didn't understand until she managed to look up and see the three corpses, picked off by accurate long range headshots, laying on the ground nearby. Raine's work, no doubt. Damn.
"Cagalli! Are you hurt?" Athrun hissed harshly in her ear, his hands and legs scrabbling on the concrete as he pushed them both into relative cover behind a pillar, tearing their clothes and skin on the rough pavement as they moved. He kept one arm firmly around her shoulders, pressing her close to him even once they were in cover, with backs to the pillar.
"My pribe, mosbly." Cagalli replied, spitting again to clean the copper taste out of her mouth. She held one hand up to her face and brought it away wet... stupid nosebleeds... she'd probably broken her nose, landing on it like that and there was probably a gash on her forehead too. "Who saib you coulb save my libe?"
"I'll remember to ask permission in the future." Athrun said, his voice slightly choked... if he'd been a second slower... no, less than a second slower, Cagalli would have been cut down by the merciless fire of the enemy. He didn't think his heart would stop hammering until it burst out of his chest, which should be any minute now, considering how he felt. "Don't scare me like that!" he admonished.
"I'b sorry, Abrun." Cagalli said, truly contrite. "I really screwed ub this time. Kisaka is going to kill me, I know it." she finally cleared the last of the blood out of her mouth and put pressure on her nose so she could talk normally.
"He might have to wait in line." Athrun muttered. "I'm not your number one fan right now either." Shotgun slugs dug craters out of the pillar a few feet above their head, followed by a spate of autmatic fire that left their ears ringing... plainly the enemy had realized what a prize had stumbled into their backcountry and was allocating forces to handle it... they didn't have much time. Unlike Cray, who was content to stay at a distance, blasting away, Athrun had the sick feeling that the special forces division troopers would not waste time closing the distance and ensuring a quick kill.
"Hey, you didn't have to come back after me... but you also told me that you didn't like the idea of running away and letting other people fight your battle for you." Cagalli retorted, checking to make sure her gun was still alright... it hadn't jammed during the tackle by Athrun.
"Just like you didn't have to follow me into GENESIS." Athrun replied, knowing she wouldn't be able to answer that one. He was right too. She just gave him a narrow look, like she usually did when he really scored a good point. "Yet you did and so did I, now." His breathing slowed as he gathered himself... now that they were here, they might as well make the best of it and help out. He closed his eyes and watched the seed fall... this wasn't his preferred battlefield... he'd need every edge he could muster. "Future concerns aside though... we're here, now and there are people trying to kill us. Let's return the favor, eh?" Before she could reply, Kisaka came hurtling out of the maintenance tunnel, already in a rolling dive for cover, managing two or three shots from his pistol to keep the heads of the enemy down as he came. He reached their cover with nary a scratch on him, breathing calm and measured, fierce light glinting in his eyes as he tugged a pair of compact LAG's down over them.
"Wonderful... the Hellhounds. I expected as much... though not so many of them." Kisaka said calmly. "I'd really rather face a group of ZAFT redcoats... at least they're usually too cocky for their own good."
"I'm..." Cagalli started to say. Kisaka waved it off, handing over two more sets of LAG's, little more than sunglasses in shape and size.
"These are civilian models and they won't last for long on the batteries, but if we're engaged for more than thirty minutes or so anyway, we're all more fortunate than we have any right to be. And not being able to see... intolerable." Kisaka explained. He paused. "We're going to have a very, very, very long talk after this is over, princess. Athrun will be attending as well. We're going to have to work out a few things between the three of us or else I'll be forced to keep you strapped to a hospital bed for the rest of your natural life... if for no other reason than to allow myself to sleep well at night." he continued, still calm. "I trust there are no objections?" he did not receive a reply, which he took as agreement. "Now, this is not going to be easy... TEMPEST is outnumbered heavily and pinned down. So are we... and we're not wearing armor. The enemy is well armed, well armored and extremely well trained. Consider them all about as good as I am, and you'll start to get the picture."
"HEY! KISAKA! YOU OUT THERE!?" Waltfeld's voice called from the tunnel. Before any of them could reply, a long bout of automatic rifle fire sprayed the tunnel entrance, raising enough dust to form a small cloud that hung in the air for several seconds after the gunfire stopped. There was a multiple second pause. "OKAY! YOU'RE HEAVILY ARMED. I GET IT! BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY..." Waltfeld continued, his voice unimpressed. He was cut off again, this time by multiple shotgun blasts and a hucked grenade which bounced through the doorway, detonating seconds later in a smear of light and noise that left everyone in the immediate area with their heads ringing like a struck gong.
"I swear, I don't understand him sometimes." Kisaka said, bouncing to his feet and spinning around the pillar, snapping off four quick shots at the Hellhounds he could see, missing three times and wounding one man in the shoulder. "He's a brilliant commander and a likable man... but his actions are inexplicable sometimes." he dropped back behind the pillar. A vibration and ringing came from one of Kisaka's pockets. He fished out a cell phone and tossed it to Cagalli. "Answer that... and keep your head down or I'll shoot you someplace non vital to keep you down."
"I thought I was supposed to be in charge." Cagalli muttered mutinously, but she did as ordered. "Yes... this is Cagalli. Yes, Mr. Waltfeld, there are a lot of enemies out here. Me? I'm fine... just a few minor injuries... Athrun inflicted. Kisaka is busy. So is Athrun..." Cagalli kept up the running report as Athrun threw himself flat out in the open firing three times to perforate the head and throat of a Hellhound who had tried to run to within grenade range. Athrun was yanked backwards by Kisaka just inches ahead of a spurt of auto fire. "Yeah, they're real busy. Kisaka won't let me fight. No, I'm not going to tell him that. He's not very happy with me right now. Neither is Athrun. Listen, you! Wait... what? You're gonna do WHAT WITH LACUS?"
"Why do I have a bad feeling all of a sudden?" Kisaka groaned. Cagalli looked up from the phone, her eyes wide.
"Waltfeld requests covering fire... as much as you can give him." she informed them.
"What's he planning on doing?" Athrun asked suspiciously. "You didn't sound too happy."
"You wouldn't like it." Cagalli replied. "Hell, I don't like it either. Kira doesn't like it. Just about the only person who does like it so far is Waltfeld. But Lacus gave her permission and that is that, apparently."
"Gave her permission for what?" Athrun asked, even more suspicious now.
"Just shoot, damn it! There's no time to explain!" Cagalli retorted. Athrun and Kisaka traded glances and then both ducked out of cover, pistols firing as fast as they could pull the triggers. Almost at the same time, more pistol fire came from the maintenance tunnel, as Waltfeld and Murrue came charging out, laying down a wall of fire as Kira came out behind them, Lacus held in his arms, face pressed close to his chest. Dr. Simmons stayed in the tunnel... she had no place on the battlefield, but she couldn't bring herself to just up and leave either. Murrue, Waltfeld, Kira and Lacus quickly made their way over to another pillar, about thirty feet to the right from Athrun, Cagalli and Kisaka. The phone buzzed again and this time Cagalli handed it to Kisaka. They saw Waltfeld hand his gun to Murrue and take the cell phone from Lacus. At thirty feet in the noisy room the cell phone was the only way they could be sure to hear each other, using them like two way radios.
"So, I assume you have some sort of logical reason for risking Ms. Lacus's life?" Kisaka barked into the phone. He listened for a minute, as the enemy continued to pour fire at them to little avail, though the opposite face of their pillar was looking much the worse for the wear.
"Why are they not shooting at them?" Athrun asked in a low voice.
"Hmm?" Cagalli asked, gun back in her hands... she'd stay low but that didn't mean she couldn't shoot back.
"All the Hellhounds... even the ones closer to Kira and Lacus... they're shooting at us and utterly ignoring Commander Waltfeld and Captain Ramius. They're concentrating all their fire on us, ignoring a threat closer to them to do it... it doesn't make any sense."
"Huh... you're right." Cagalli watched, noticing like Athrun had that no bullets dinged off the pillar Kira and Lacus were behind. "Unless they've been given orders not to shoot at them. Maybe they want to take them alive?"
"But they want you dead? No, Lacus is popular, but you're Cagalli Yula Attha... in Orb there isn't any girl more popular than you. Why would they shoot at you but not Lacus?" Athrun replied, frowning. "These guys work for Blue Cosmos... they should want Lacus dead before you. I don't like this."
"I'm not particularly fond of it either... we're getting shot at more than our fair share." Cagalli said with a grin that quickly faded when Athrun did not share it. "No point in worrying about the unknown... better they shoot at me and you anyway... at least we shoot back. Speaking off... shouldn't we be doing more of that?" she looked over at Kira and Lacus, who were hugging each other tightly. Geez brother, can't you pick a better snuggle time?
"So, is this close enough?" Kira asked Lacus, holding her to him, one hand on her back, the other on her head. The noise in the room was overwhelming... not because it was particularly loud, though it was far from quiet, but because of what it was... the sound of thousands of gunshots and small explosions blending together into a medly of destruction and high speed death.
"To the people in the room, yes. To you, not nearly so." Lacus said with a small smile, her eyes closed. She had her hands pressed firmly to her ears, trying to block out the sound of the room as much as possible... it was hard to concentrate with so much white noise. "There's at least thirty of the enemy in here... it's hard to tell, some of them keep flickering in and out of my vision. I don't know why... maybe Katie would but she's out of reach, isn't she?" Lacus said in a louder voice as Kira closed his arms about her even more tightly. To Lacus, with her eyes shut, the room was an entire different place... a large blank void filled with shadowy representations of objects she could not quite make out and populated with more than thirty, perhaps more than forty flickering mental representations... most varicolored soldiers, sometimes worse things, a few better, but she didn't get any sense of the wrongness or evil she sensed from Cray or Frost or Cervantes or other people like them. "Alkire... Raine... Victor... James... Vlad I think... yeah, they're all alive still." Lacus reported, brow furrowed in concentration.
"How many are coming after us?" Waltfeld asked, crouching down next to them as Murrue fired several shots just over their heads, forcing a couple Hellhounds to stay under cover long enough for Athrun and Cagalli to pick off another enemy between them.
"Ten? Maybe? Most of them seem concerned with killing Alkire and TEMPEST but theres a significant portion of them... oh no." Lacus replied, her brow creased in sudden worry..
"Oh no? What do you mean, oh no?" Waltfeld demanded. Lacus was spared from answering that question, as it practically answered itself. In sharp contrast to the stealthy and precise movements of the Hellhounds, a tide of screaming, shouting and shooting Earth Forces infantrymen came pouring out of two of the subway tunnels, spreading out into the room like an avalanche. Their weapons were not flash supressed or silenced and the volume in the room rose from deafening to excruitiating... it was no longer possible to communicate even with the cell phones. Everyone was forced to duck back into cover and stay there... to expose even a small part of your body was to risk getting shot multiple times.
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"Sorry to have to do this." Sergeant-Major Thomas Glory mumbled to himself, dropping his gatling gun as it ran out of bullets after he'd sprayed the TEMPEST fortifications yet again. The fortifications were hastily built, but built they were and they were just about the only things keeping the enemy forces alive, though they were starting to disintegrate now under the renewed weight of fire from the infantry company reinforcements. Glory had listened in to the men reporting the sighting of Cagalli Yula Attha and then Lacus Clyne. Why the two girls had returned to the fighting was beyond him, but he wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth. Personally, he didn't have anything against either girl... to be truthful he rather admired them both... if more girls their age had that sort of drive and committment he was sure peace would be far more quickly accomplished. But to Glory, orders had always been orders... you didn't get into the Hellhounds... didn't survive the kind of missions Glory had survived... by questioning the sometimes idiotic and unethical orders you were given. The decision to massacre the civilians above on the streets was beyond reprehensible, but even Glory knew there was nothing he or even the LT and the rest of Alpha team could have done... the order was already given and even killing Cervantes would have done nothing to stop the killing. But more to the current point, the orders were to kill Lacus Clyne and Cagalli Yula Attha. And he was currently in a perfect position to accomplish at least half that goal. He unslung the missile launcher with its single remaining missile from his back and swung it up onto his shoulders with a reassuring thump.
It wasn't easy aiming the bulky weapon from behind the cover of the pillar he'd been using as a bastion... in fact it was impossible, since the remaining tube was the one closest to his own head, the bottom left tube... standing behind the pillar, if he fired, he would only blow himself up. He gauged the amount of fire in his immediate vicinity and nodded with professional concern and determination. With the infantry firing all over the place, it wasn't exactly safe for anyone to be out of cover, but he was safe enough for his purposes. His armor should be able to handle any stray shots or richochets and if not... well, it wasn't like it would be the first time he'd added a few ounces of lead to his bodyweight. With a single fluid step he cleared his cover and advanced forward, dropping to one knee with the missile launcher aimed towards the access tunnel where the girls had come from several minutes before. The weapon had two modes of firing... point and shoot, which he had used up to this point... and aimed fire, using a wireless connected laser designator for precision fire. A crosshair window winked into appearance on his HUD inside his helmet, showing him exactly where the missile would impact. He centered the crosshair over the bullet riddled pillar that sheltered Cagalli Yula Attha. Best to get rid of the combatants first... a ten year old with a bird gun could kill Lacus Clyne... not so much with Cagalli Yula Attha. He tongued his helmet mic. "All allied forces, 'ware incoming missile to CYA's position." His finger slowly and smoothly started to squeeze the trigger as the rifle fire pinning Cagalli Yula Attha and her friends down slackened off as the soldiers flattened themselves into cover to avoid any flying fragments. "Better luck next time."
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"What do you mean, "She came back"!?" Alkire screamed hoarsely into his comm system, diving headlong for a low stack of replacement subway rails as he did so, hypervelocity bullets from the Hellhound he'd been fighting since the beginning of the fight nipping at his heels, leaving divots in the cement in a trail marking his progression through the supply park. Still not out of ammo yet... what's the capacity of the Gladius again? Fifty bullets, right? He must have reloaded at least four times by now... he's got to be running tight on ammo... and then he'll be down to his secondary weapon. Alkire thought smugly. Smugness died sharply though, when he thought about his own situation. He'd never been one to just run for cover... he'd shot back as much if not more than his opponent had shot at him. His own assault rifle had a magazine of thirty rounds and he'd gone through seven magazines during this whole running fight in the subway tunnels, with two magazines remaining before he too was on his knife and pistol. He'd sometimes thought of going with a weapon like the Gladius, with its superior ammo capacity... but he liked the targets he shot to stay down once shot and the caseless rounds of a Gladius, despite their speed, lacked the stopping power of his heavier and larger bullets... it took three or more good shots from a Gladius to put an armored man down for good... his rifle could do the same with one bullet.
"I mean Cagalli and Lacus have entered the battleground and are currently pinned down by overwhelming enemy fire on the far side of the junction from you. The addition of all these fucking infantry to the mix sure hasn't helped matters." Raine replied, her voice equally strained as she attempted to return fire without much success... she could get off one or two shots, or maybe a short burst of auto fire, but any more time exposed than that would get her shot full of holes. It was intensly frustrating... it had been unfair when they were just fighting the Hellhounds... now it was just impossible with the addition of seemingly hundreds of fresh and eager infantry.
"Well, doesn't this just clusterfuck everything?" Alkire muttered to himself. "The whole plan, down the tubes because two stupid little girls couldn't follow the most basic human instinct... to run away from a threat you can't overcome. I swear to god, if Kisaka doesn't, I'm going to tan both their hides once we get out of here... Coordinator boyfriends or not. This is insane!" He had lifted his head momentarily, but was forced to almost slam it down into the ground as several more bullets grazed the top of his helmet... too close. A wicked clang sounded as a heavy gage shotgun slug dug a two inch crater in the solid steel of the rail piece next to his head, the whisper of the deformed slug flying past his head was loud enough to almost feel. "How can a man be that fucking accurate with a goddamn heavy underslung shotgun?" Alkire complained, trying to become as thin as paper.
"What'd you say!?" Raine asked, ducking before another storm of bullets could chew her to pieces along with the walls behind her and her rapidly deteriorating brick and bench barricade.
"Nothing important. Can we reach their position and make a fighting withdrawal into the maintenance tunnel?" Alkire asked, rolling onto his back and gathering himself for another forward push. He popped up from behind the rail pieces in a sitting position, rifle up and mostly aimed with one hand. His opponent was caught out in the open, in the middle of sneaking closer to more advantageous cover. "Oopsie." Alkire smiled wickedly. His rifle bucked and tried to twist itself out of his grip as he emptied the magazine in a torrent of hot shell casings and foot long muzzle flashes, twenty four heavy bullets spraying out to mutilate the enemy. Or at least they should have... whoever his opponent was... Alkire had a strong suspicion that was only reinforced now... had reflexes almost like some of the Coordinators Alkire knew... as soon as Alkire had popped up, gun in hand, the Hellhound was already moving, sprinting and diving-rolling to get behind some kind of protection. Alkire knew he'd at least winged the man once or twice, but he doubted he'd struck solidly enough to end the fight... there wasn't enough blood on the ground.
"You're kidding, right?" Raine answered. "There must be at least sixty hostiles between us and them, plus another sixty or so approaching their position from various angles... it's safe to say, I think, that the enemy knows Lacus Clyne and Cagalli Yula Attha are in the room."
"And what is our condition?" Alkire replied, his mind whirling, trying to come up with some sort of strategy. He ejected the spent magazine and slammed in his second to last, scrambling to his feet and racing another fifteen feet closer to Raine and the others before two bullets tagged him high on his right shoulder. The bullets didn't quite penetrate his armor, but the bruises were going to be terrific in the morning and the force of impact was enough to spin him forward in a face plant. His head bashed painfully against the inside of his helmet as he skidded along the ground, ending up where he'd planned on going, behind a rack of paint cans. Stunned by the impacts, Alkire lay still, his arms outflung and body limp. "Maybe it's time for a little subterfuge..." he whispered to himself, forcing himself to stay relaxed and limp, as if unconscious. He knew he was lucky he was mostly behind cover... he would never trust an enemy to be dead or incapacitated in a situation like this until he shot him a few more times to be sure and it was unlikely his foe would be less cautious. Unless of course he's pressed for time and has an overriding mission objective... like the deaths of two females of my acquaintance. Somehow it felt almost sinful to palm an enemy off onto Lacus and Cagalli, but if it worked, who was he to argue?
"Desperate. We're all on the last couple mags... James still has a full load on his grenade launcher, but getting the opportunity to use it is going to be hard. Vlad is down to his pistol and throwing knivesbefore he has to start meleeing... and the .50 cal is down to less than a quarter load. The fortifications are starting to fail too... a few more minutes and we're going to be relying on wishes and luck to keep the lead out of our systems. We're just lucky none of the enemy has closed to within grenade range or we'd probably already be dead. I don't see how we're going to get out of this one, Alkire. We're pinned down... running out of ammo... massively outnumbered... starting to get wounded... mission a failure... we're really S-O-L, wouldn't you say?" Raine replied, double tapping a too eager member of the infantry who'd tried to get within grenade throwing range. The kill brought little elation... even if she did likewise every time she shot, she'd still run out of bullets before running out of enemies.
"Never say die, not even when the reaper himself is standing over you." Alkire replied, trying to sound cheerful and confident, though both emotions had scant presence in him at the moment. "We've all been in tight spots like this before... maybe not THIS screwed, but similar. We'll think of something." He dropped his voice to a whisper. "Wait one." C'mon you slick bastard... come on and confirm your kill already. Alkire thought as he felt the rack of paint cans judder slightly as someone else bumped up against them on the far side from Alkire. Fortunately the rack of cans was too heavy and well positioned to tip over... the Hellhound would have to actually come around the rack to check him. That's it... a little more... come on, shithead, just look around the corner already... I ain't moving. His eye's barely caught the motion down low on the ground... a fiber optic camera cable, pushed around the corner to allow the enemy to check him while remaining perfectly safe. Son-of-a-bitch. Gonna make me do things the hard way. Alkire slowed his breathing, making his chest rise and fall in the deep rythyms of a person in a deep sleep. He let his grip loosen on his rifle and allowed his head to loll about loosely on his neck, doing his best to mimic someone who was semi-conscious at best. He heard a faint scrape as the camera was withdrawn. It was tough looking out of the corner of his eyes, watching both ends of the paint rack for the enemy. Nothing happened for almost thirty seconds. Bastard better not have just left or I'm going to feel really stupid. Almost as he thought that, the Hellhound came around the corner.
The man didn't just step around the corner... he came in a rolling combat dive, rifle up and aiming even as he came to his feet. The Hellhound stood over Alkire's limp body, his stance tense for a long few seconds while he observed his fallen foe. Finally, he relaxed a tiny fraction, gun still held aimed at Alkire's head, but attention perhaps not fully upon him, Alkire sensed. He might have heard the exceedingly faint crackle of short ranged radio communications... whatever it was he knew that his chance was now. Abandoning his rifle on the ground, Alkire almost threw himself to his feet, legs lashing out to kick the enemy in the shins, knocking him off balance, Alkire ducked his head in close to his chest so that the automatic tightening of finger on trigger sent the hot burst of bullets whizzing just over his head and into the ground behind him. He gained his knees and reached upward with both hands, gripping the Hellhound by the wrist with one hand, forcing the gun up and away from him, the other hand balled into a fist which struck his enemy solidly in the gut, elicting a grunt of pain. Unfortunately, the armor killed much of the force of the blow and the enemy was quick to respond.
Dropping his own rifle, his free hand snatched for his pistol in a lightning fast quick draw, while he turned his backward stagger into a rearwards fall, lashing out with one of his own feet to kick Alkire squarely in the sternum, throwing him backwards, the breath knocked from him and his grip torn free from the Hellhound's wrist. Even as he fell, the Hellhound's pistol was in his hand, already aiming at Alkire. Well, that confirms it. Only one guy I know of in the Hellhounds with a quick draw like that. Damn it all, why do I always pick the tough guys to fight? Alkire bemoaned as he twitched to the side as the heavy bullet left a trail of fiery pain along his side where it grazed him. He snatched out his own pistol as he hit the ground and fired back twice, missing once and nicking the Lieutenant's shoulder with the other, throwing out a divot of armor-cloth. Cyprus ignored the pain and altered his aim to a more true angle to fire again. Before he could though, Alkire fired once more... the fateful bullet struck not a single portion of Cyprus's flesh, but impacted squarely upon his pistol, tearing it from his grasp. Surprised at an event which usually confined itself to the pages of fiction or the false glamor of the movie screen, Cyprus hesistated for a near fatal moment. Another bullet from Alkire creased his sleeve, leaving a bloody wound in the process and the famed LT jerked back into action.
Rolling to the side, narrowly escaping two more desperate shots from Alkire, Cyprus regained his feet and instead of retreating actually dived forward, leaping bodily on top of Alkire in a grapple. Alkire felt iron strong hands grab his gun hand and slam it against the ground repeatedly, despite his best punches to the abdomen and chest, which elicted pained grunts but no results. His hand quickly went numb with pain and soon after he heard the metallic skitter of the gun bouncing out of his hands. Almost instantly, both men went for their knives, drawing them in near identical motions... they'd likely been trained by the same men or even man. Despite that, they fought in entirely different styles. After pushing apart from each other and regaining their feet, both men squared off. Alkire stood in a half crouch, body full on to Cyprus, knife in his right hand held low, his left arm held up high to block or grapple. Cyprus stood side on to Alkire, knife held high in his left hand, held almost like a sword, right hand low and held straight like a second blade. For a brief moment both men stood still, sizing each other up. Alkire took the lead, giving a shout partly muffled by his helmet as he ducked forward, knife ripping upwards for a disembowling strike, left arm bent like a shield to block a downward swing from Cyprus. Cyprus did not oblige him, instead spinning inside Alkire's reach, flesh passing millimeters from the honed steel knife edge as his free hand snapped upwards, speared fingers stabbing into Alkire's lower ribs, the concentrated force of the open hand attack easily penetrating the pectoral armor as Cyprus's finger tips actually penetrated his skin between his ribs, drawing blood and more than a little pain.
What the hell kind of counter was that... that wasn't anything they taught us at EFSOU!? Alkire complained mentally as he stumbled backwards, left arm now low and covering his wound, knife up high to block. Cyprus was already back into his stance, the same one as before. Alkire snarled and bared his teeth... fancy moves or not, Alkire wasn't going to lose a knife fight like this. Not even against the Lieutenant of EFSOU. This time he charged, punching with his free hand, which Cyprus blocked with his own hand, and slashing with his knife in a roundhouse cut that Cyprus bobbed under with ease. Both had been feints, letting Alkire build up the momentum to leap into the air in a spinning side kick, which landed squarely on Cyprus's left hip, doubling the man up and throwing him backward. Alkire landed after completing the spin and kept moving... momentum was key in a fight like this... he couldn't let up the pressure. However, Cyprus wasn't nearly as hurt by the attack as he'd thought... by the time he'd landed Cyprus was already standing upright again and was moving to counterattack. He'd shifted stances, now bouncing forward and back on his legs almost like a boxer. As Alkire came forward Cyprus feinted forward with his knife, drawing Alkire's own blade out wide before dropping low, kicking out with both legs in a sweeping strike, balancing himself on his free hand, kicking Alkire's legs out from underneath him. Collecting himself, Cyprus pounced forward as Alkire hit the ground, knife drawing a crimson trail along Alkire's back down to his buttocks as Cyprus dived completely over him, landing in a roll and spin that brought him back to the ready within seconds.
Arcing his back at the unexpected pain, Alkire cried out, but kept moving, rolling to the side, leaving a long line of red on the ground as he did so, before getting to his feet with only a slight stumble. The two men stared at each other from several feet away, both breathing slightly heavily but by no means exhausted. They didn't say anything... though acquianted, talking between foes on the field of battle was not a vice either man indulged in. What of consequence could they really have to say to each other when engaged in a life or death struggle? This time it was Cyprus who started the attack, lunging forward, knife sweeping down like a sword from on high. Alkire brought his own blade up in a block, the two combat knives throwing off small blue sparks as they met. The shock of contact was such that both men lost their grips on their weapons, knives not being designed to be used like swords. Not pausing a moment, they both went after each other like mauling tigers, neither giving an inch. Alkire fought with closed fist punches, with an elbow thrown in here and there for flavor and perhaps a knee to mix things up. He did not try to grab Cyprus, knowing that with his back wound he would be at a serious disadvantage in a grapple.
Cyprus on the other hand kept his distance, compartively speaking, fighting in a very defensive manner, waiting for Alkire to strike at him before counterattacking in swift, efficient strikes using chops of his hands, speared fingers or long sweeping kicks from his shins and feet. Alkire landed an enormous roundhouse punch to Cyprus's jaw, sending the man stumbling backwards, only to return with a open palm gut punch that left Alkire bent over, vomiting slightly inside his helmet. Sensing his advantage, Cyprus suddenly closed the distance, grabbing Alkire by the arms and slamming him into a grapple, quickly working his way around to where he was behind the TEMPEST operative, one arm around his neck, the other slamming punches into his sides and lower back. It would only have gone downhill for Alkire from there if Fate hadn't decided that perhaps dying in a subway tunnel wasn't the best way for Alkire to leave this world. "JAMES! DON'T!" Raine's voice suddenly clamored over both his radio and audibly, the tone of voice causing both men to momentarily cease their struggles.
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James had seen Glory step out of cover and swing up the missile launcher into firing position. For a long moment he'd thought the game was finally up... their hastily built barricades would stop bullets and even grenade fragments, but an anti-vehicle missile was quite another story... the barricades would only serve to sop up their bloody pulped bodies if that thing hit anywhere nearby. But then he saw that Glory wasn't facing at all towards them and there was hardly room in the rail junction for the fly by wire guidance systems of the missile to kick in. His mind and heart had calmed and then rapidly accelerated again... if Glory wasn't going to be firing at them then who else would he be shooting at? There really weren't that many more options and of them, only two made sense. Lacus Clyne or Cagalli Yula Attha. Both were pinned down about forty yards away, by the maintenance tunnel doors they should never have come back out of. Their cover was just about as solid as James's own... perfectly fine against bullets but again, a missile was not even close to a bullet. If Glory fired that missile, one or perhaps both of the girls would die... the odds of Glory missing at practically point blank range were almost nil. Victor and Raine had yet to notice the predicament, their arcs of fire and vision not including Glory. James locked eyes with Vladimir and both men nodded as one, in linked understanding. If either girl were to die here, now and today, not only would it be a loss for them and the people they knew, it would be a nigh irrecoverable loss for the world as a whole, perhaps mortally wounding any chance of a cohesive peace movement, either here in Orb or world wide. They could not allow it to happen. There was no time to give warnings or make plans, Glory was already settling the launcher onto his shoulder and bracing himself on one knee in preparation for firing.
James threw down the automatic shotgun he'd appropriated from Vlad, it was nearly spent anyway. He scrambled to his feet, snatching up his beloved .50 caliber from beside him as he did so with his left hand, his right hand snagging the carry strap of the grenade launcher, slinging it up and into his right hand as he jumped forward off the platform, enemy bullets whizzing and shrieking by him on all sides. He bent his legs and tumbled into a roll when he landed, hearing bullets impact around him in a constant series of sharp cracks and whines. Out of the corner of his eye he watched Vlad sprint out of cover, pistol spitting bullets in the eerie quiet of a silenced weapon. He heard Raine shout over the comm line, and heard her through his helmet pickups as well, she'd seen him go but not Vlad. Within a second or so, Vlad had reached shadows and cover and was gone from James's sight, gone on whatever urgent mission he had dreamed up as a solution to the calamity waiting to happen. Glory was just finishing sighting in his missile when James came up from his roll, eyes darting all around as he struggled to divide his attention in such a manner that would allow him to live through the next few instants. He noted several places where the enemy fire still coming at him and his friends was heaviest.
Those places he aimed and fired his grenade launcher at, the revolving eight chambered cylinder spinning with rapid "whirr-clump-blam" noises as it cycled through its load of alternating HE and Frag grenades. 40mm grenades spat out of the launcher with tails of smoke and gases, the big, heavy projectiles spiraling into the shadows before detonating in flashes of light too bright to look at, throwing bodies and pieces of bodies wetly through the air. At the same time he opened up with his .50 cal, though it bucked and clawed at his one handed grip in a ferocious bid to escape his control he held on with the determined grip of a man defying the devil in his own hell. He aimed the heavy machine gun at Glory... well, he pointed it in his general direction anyway, and prayed for luck. Speaking of, his own was starting to run out as the infantry his grenades hadn't brutalized started to get their range on him, augmented by the remaining Hellhounds in the area. He heard and felt several bullets impact him high on the back, sending him stumbling forward into three more shots which impacted on his chest and gut, fortunately not quite penetrating his armor, causing him to stagger to the side and down to his knees as both the grenade launcher and .50 caliber clicked back empty. He saw several Earth Forces soldiers, infantry who had left the safety of cover to get better shots at him, get flung backwards, neat bullet holes between their eyes, and knew Raine was doing her best to pull his fat out of the fire with her uncannily accurate pistol fire.
He thanked her for the thought, but privately believed that he'd fallen a bit too deep into the coals to be saved by anything less than an utter miracle. He dropped his heavy weapons, yanking out his twin machine pistols as he did so. Glory had been hit by his desperate fire, bright blood pumping from a massive wound in his side, just above his hip where at least one .50 cal slug had burst through his armor like it was wet paper and lodged itself deep within his body. He was still on one knee, still trying to aim the missile launcher, but he was wavering towards unconsciousness. Finally the blood loss claimed the big man's higher mind and he toppled backwards, but at the same time his finger tightened on the trigger, launching the missile with a monstrous blast of fire and noise that utterly quieted the room for a moment as soldiers started in surprise, even forewarned as many were. James's heart leapt into his mouth as he perceived the trajectory of the missile, which was nearly horizontal. He watched with dread in his eyes as time seemed to slow, the missile loafing towards Cagalli's position with streamers of stop motion fire spewing from its tail end. The projectile seared within feet of the pillar behind which Cagalli hid, passing above and to the left, pulled off target in the final moments by Glory's lack of consciousness. The missile traveled perhaps another fifteen feet before striking the back wall in a roiling ball of fire and smoke, throwing out a concussion wave of sound and blast force that stunned everyone within thirty feet of the impact point.
James had been so concentrated on the missile that he did not notice two other things. The first was the rending of metal as the solid steel maintenance hatch that covered one of the entrances to the power and communication line tunnels was punched off its mounts by Frost as he at long last reached the rail junction. The BCPU slithered face first out of the tunnel at just about the same moment that Glory's missile impacted on the wall about fifty feet away, so perhaps James could have been forgiven for missing him, especially because of how fast Frost moved and the conditions James was under. Besides, Frost lacked any real ranged weapons and posed no immediate threat to James. This was not true of the second thing... rather the second person. Asmodeus stepped around the same pillar Glory had abandoned to fire his missile, having backtracked after Kisaka and Waltfeld had joined Cagalli, he'd planned on coordinating a cohesive multi-flank attack on their position, but when he'd heard Glory's missile warning he'd been willing to accept that as well, though it was messier than he normally liked. It would be more of a chore identifying the various corpses afterwards, but he could deal with that. Until James Ramsgoth had to play action hero, defying the odds to disrupt Glory just enough to cause him to miss by the barest margin. Asmodeus could not let an irritant like that stand. As he stepped around the pillar his custom pistol was already rising, the blue laser target sight playing along James's body from less than twenty feet away. Asmodeus smiled a thin smile behind his mask as he noted how Ramsgoth's head was turned slightly away from him. Sloppy... not a mistake he'll get to make twice.
James never heard the sound of the first gunshot, despite the fact that Asmodeus's pistol was less than twenty feet away, this was largely due to the massive integrated silencer built into the barrel but also owed to his distracted with relief mind. The impact he did not miss though. The full sized assault rifle bullet tore through his already weakened frontal armor with absurd ease, striking him on the right side, high, just under the collarbone, breaking it with a moist snap and a puff of blood that smeared his goggles on the right side. He didn't feel pain, just a insistent numbness that only grew as he fell sideways, still on his knees, rotating to face fully towards the man with the absurdly large handgun who had shot him, his own twin machine pistols rising with agonizing slowness, wavering in his hands for an unaccountable reason. He was just about to fire when Asmodeus shot him again twice more, this time in the center of his body mass, one right in the middle of his sternum, the other a few inches lower in the pit of his stomach. Like the first shot, both bullets penetrated his armor like it was barely there, the deformed slugs blasting entirely through him, leaving exit wounds big enough to fit a grown man's hand into. James heard five of his ribs snap from the sternum shot and his entire lower body seemed to melt with the gut shot... his collarbone and shoulder were just starting to ignite with pain as he collapsed backwards, fingers tightening on his machine pistol triggers, sending useless dual bursts of thirty low caliber bullets whining off into the shadows as both guns emptied themselves before he even fell halfway to the ground.
Voices of all sorts were screaming in his ears... some even felt like they were screaming inside his head... but James couldn't focus enough to pick them out as anything but white noise. His entire body was being enveloped by alternating waves of searing numbness and boiling agony, tending towards the numbness. A faraway logical part of his mind flagged this as an extremely bad sign, as only the very, very worst sort of wounds had pain that faded rapidly. Heknew he was going into shock, knew that he was losing blood at a far too rapid pace, but he couldn't seem to motivate himself to do something about it. His parents had always said he was a lazy bastard sometimes and right now, he was forced to agree with them. All he wanted to do now was close his eyes and fall asleep. But some part of his mind and training wouldn't let him just yet. He lay on the ground, staring blankly up at the brick ceiling, not quite seeing it as his eyes drifted in and out of focus. He watched bullets drift by overhead in the green half-light of his LAG's, he felt like he could see each little lead shell as it spun through the air, leaving an intricate spiral of displaced air in its wake. There were so many... dozens, hundreds even, all spinning through the air over his head, most heading back towards the way he had come... back towards Raine... and Victor... and the... others? There were more, he was sure, but he couldn't concentrate enough to remember who they were right now. Footsteps came from nearby and he tried to see who it was. "Raine?" he whispered. "Raine... I... I always wanted to say... I always did l..."
Asmodeus stared down at the big TEMPEST member. The man was rapidly bleeding to death and would leave the land of the living within minutes if he did not receive prompt medical care. The thin smile did not leave asmodeus's face, matched by the cold glare of his unchanging eyes, their color almost the same hue as the laser designator that drifted lazily along James's leg, up to his waist, along his heaving side, caressing along his neck and finally centering itself between the glowing green eyes of the LAG helmet. Rapid and intense fire from the infantry and remaining Hellhounds whipcracked past Asmodeus on all sides as the soldiers kept the other members of TEMPEST pinned down and unable to do more than pray for a lull before their pitiful fortifications gave up the ghost at last. Ramsgoth mumbled something inside his helmet, but Asmodeus neither knew nor cared what it was. "Thus always to fools." he muttered and pulled the trigger a fourth time. The helmets were armored... but not that armored. Blood and brain fragments coated his boots as Ramsgoth's head exploded with a sloppy snap and a squeal of feedback that seemed to come from within his own mind. He twitched and shrugged, swapping out the partially emptied magazine for a fresh and full one, ducking into cover again and heading back for Yula Attha... his job was not done. He passed several soldiers who were bent over as if sick, clutching their heads as if in pain. He paid them no heed... they were probably just green kids, in their first real battle... they'd get over the sickness soon enough.
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Cagalli was still disoriented from the missile concussion when another bomb of sorts seemed to explode... this time within her mind. There was a feeling of despairing sadness and then a scream that was far beyond the audible, an exclamation of sorrow and regret that tore through her like an invisible claw, leaving her feeling drained and weak as she wobbled her way through the darkness. She'd lost her borrowed pair of night vision glasses when the missile concussion hit... her short term memory was mostly a blur, really... she remembered being pushed by strong insistent hands... probably Athrun's or Kisaka's... pushed out of cover in the brief lull caused by the missile explosion, pushed farther back into a more secure location. She remembered a few things with crystal clarity... the bloom of light that was the explosion, the image of Kira and Lacus holding each other close, mouths open in synchronized yells as they reacted to something neither of them could see, since their eyes were closed. But everything else... including the present whereabouts of Athrun or Kisaka, were beyond her, currently. She was forced to feel blindly with her hands as she stumbled along the wall, trying to get some distance between her and the rest of the battle so she could clear her mind. Her questing hand, the one that was on the wall, suddenly met nothing but air and she toppled forward with a cry of surprise she quickly tried to stifle, a bit too late. She felt warm wetness running down her face again... her bloody nose had unclogged again, probably when the missile concussion hit. She held one hand to it, applying pressure again, but it was stubborn this time and it was still leaking sporadically as she picked herself up and continued along, free hand out and feeling blindly.
Suddenly her hand contacted something that wasn't stone, something warm and slightly yielding, covered in cloth. "Abrun?" she asked tenatively. "Kibaka?" she asked after a moment with no response. Maybe they're hurt... unconscious even. Damn it all, I wish I could see something... its almost as dark as a cave in here. Stupid lights. She moved her hand along the person, a frown starting to creep onto her face. Whoever it was had a massively muscled build... wherever her fingers probed they met only very slightly yielding flesh, slightly hot to the touch, curved and taut, bulged slightly in long ripples that could only be solid muscle. Athrun wasn't built that well, he was slimmer. Kisaka then, probably. But there was something wrong with that too... she was sure she'd grabbed whoever it was by the upper arm, but she'd been feeling out at her own chest level... at best she would have grabbed Kisaka by his lower forearm, given how tall he was in comparison to her. Also, Kisaka would have said something by now, or made some sort of noise even if hurt. But if it wasn't Athrun... and if it wasn't Kisaka... and Kira and Lacus and the rest were behind her... who the hell was this? At that moment one of the lights she'd been cursing flickered to momentary life, just overhead.
Cagalli froze, her mind derailed with sudden terror. Her hand was on the wrist of Zacharis Frost, who was standing before her, looking directly at her. His mouth was quirked upwards in a sneering smirk while his eyes stared her down with utter malice, like windows into the pits of hell. Faster than she could blink, he snatched his arm back and grabbed her by her wrist, his fingers locking around her arm like a steel vice. His other hand started to come up, slowly and deliberately, moving at a pace she could both appreciate and dread, with a sense of intent that was impossible to ignore. Frost was still reaching out for her when the light burned out in a violent flash, leaving her in darkness again. "If you could scream for me, that would be nice." Frost's voice was like a whetted blade. He sounded intoxicated, as if he'd just drunk his fill of some terrible elixer that had empowered him even more than he usually was. "I heard such a delicious scream a few moments ago... it filled my head with such pleasure as I cannot describe to you... give me an encore and perhaps I'll show you, eh?" Frost's hand touched her neck, slowly tightening the grip as he drew her closer to him until they were bare inches apart. "Scream for me." Frost ordered, his voice a whisper from death in the darkness. Cagalli could not help but oblige.
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Athrun shook his head once more to clear the lingering effects of the missile concussion. He was shaking, shivering with how close he had come to death. How close he and Kisaka and Cagalli had all come to death. If it hadn't been for the suicidal bravery of James Ramsgoth, that missile would have impacted right on top of them, rather than a good distance behind them... they'd have to be picked up with a mop, if that had happened. But thanks to James almost single handedly taking on a reinforced platoon of infantry and several special forces soldiers before wounding the man with the launcher in time to throw off his aim just slightly enough, that calamity had not occured. It had, however, been replaced by a calamity of a different sort. Horribly exposed and out in the open because of his mad rush to stop the missile launch, James quickly started to attract unhealthy amounts of fire, staggering to the left and right before being forced to his knees by multiple bullet impacts... none of which penetrated his armor but were doubtlessly painful. It was during this time that Kisaka pushed Cagalli off into the darkness behind them, urging her to find a safer place to hide, farther from the direct line of battle, just in case the enemy had another such missile handy. She hadn't put up much of a fight, dazed by the concussion of the missile, bleeding afresh from her likely broken nose, she'd trudged off into the darkness without a backwards glance. It wasn't until she was already out of sight that Athrun realized she'd dropped her NVG's back with them and was now wandering blind, for most intents and purposes.
He'd just picked them up and was about to go after her when he saw James jerk backwards, the explosion of blood visible even from almost forty yards away. James had been hit again, for real this time, high on the shoulder. The big TEMPEST member struggled to bring his weapons to bear on the aggressor, a thin man wearing a horned demon-dog mask with baleful red eyes, a monster pistol in one hand, a long straight bladed sword in the other. Asmodeus Sark, if the description Athrun had of him was at all accurate. The true Hellhound of EFSOU. As Athrun watched, horrified and unable to do a single thing to help, Asmodeus shot James twice more in the chest, sending the big man sprawling backwards in a flood of gore. James's pistols discharged uselessly to the sides as Asmodeus slowly approached him, weapon unwavering in its aim. "NO!" Athrun, Kisaka, Raine, Lacus, Kira and Alkire screamed as one. Their combined voicepower did not even slightly slow the bullet. James's head exploded in a wide splatter of brain and vital fluids. Asmodeus wasted no time on consideration, relaoding his weapon and melting back into cover before anyone could even attempt to throw off their shock and horror long anough to draw a bead on him. Just like that... a matter of seconds had passed and a man they had all known and befriended was dead, gone forever. It didn't seem real. Lacus's wail of sorrow and denial cut through the air like scissors through thick cloth. It cut through more than just the air.
Athrun's head filled with visions of everything he'd ever felt sorry or guilty about, all the memories assaulting him at once, overwhelming him, sending him crashing to his knees, hugging his head and crying in mixed anguish and agony. Next to him, Kisaka was doing similarly and a small part of Athrun's mind noticed that the junction had grown silent... he and Kisaka weren't the only ones affected by Lacus's inadvertant use of her Newtype powers. He did not know what she had done... all he knew was that he didn't ever want to feel that way again... he resolved to speak with Katie about possible methods to mitigate Lacus's influence on himself... he did not like being incapacited like this, even temporarily. Fortunately, the feelings of shame and guilt and long lost agony were quick to fade, just a brief detonation in his mind that left a sour aftertaste of bile in his mouth as he forced himself to concentrate on the task at hand... finding Cagalli. Unfortunately, only ten or fifteen seconds after the effects of Lacus's scream faded, a new scream came from nearby, this one easily recognizable as that of a girl in abject terror. Whereas Lacus had assualted his mind, this noise attacked his heart, the sheer fearful essence conveyed practically denying any possibilty that the issuer was in any predicament less than immediately life threatening. Cagalli was in trouble... big trouble from the sound of it. He had no idea how big until about five seconds later, when a bank of overhead lights, which had been intermittently flickering for some time now suddenly surged on bright as new, afflicted by some sort of power surge or something. To be truthful, his attention was not on the lights, but the sight they revealed.
Cagalli had just come around a pillar about fifteen feet away. She was walking awkwardly, which was understandable considering Zacharis Frost was walking right behind her, one arm pinning her left arm to her side while gripping her right wrist tightly, immobilizing both her arms, while his other hand rested almost negligently on her upper back, idly caressing the nape of her neck and playing with the disheveled ends of her hair. Frost held Cagalli in front of him in such a way that he was barely visible to Athrun... certainly not visible enough for Athrun to feel confident enough to risk a shot, even at this close range. Being shorter than his hostage was a decided advantage to Frost. "Well... the boyfriend. Imagine that." Frost lisped, his amusement almost tangible. Athrun heard the sharp intake of breath from Kisaka behind him as he took in the situation as well. To put it mildly, this was bad. Cagalli's face was frozen in a sort of half grimace, her eyes wide and staring, almost unseeing in her shock and fear. Athrun saw that and knew that she was in the grip of nightmares worse than he could imagine, and would be of little help in orchestrating her own escape. Not that he could blame her... there were few more dangerous and unhealthy places to be than held in Frost's grip.
Frost looked at Athrun and his grin grew. Though Yula Attha and Zala were not his primary targets, that did not mean he couldn't have a little fun with them. Like an appetizer, before he got down to eating the Pink entree. The quivers Yula Attha was giving off were quite flattering... she was literally so scared of him she had lost control of her fine motor skills... he was almost disappointed that she hadn't wet herself. Her boyfriend, Zala, looked like he was about to shit blood in his own terror of concern, while the enraged look on Kisaka's face was almost enough to remind Frost of himself in calmer moments. Frost decided to see what he could do to tweak the two men a little bit... if he could make them start quivering it would be simply delightful. "She's quite pretty, I will say. You're a lucky man, Zala." Frost commented. "Are her lips soft?"
"What sort of question is that?" Kisaka snarled, his fingers gripping his downturned pistol so tightly they were almost completely white.
"The curious sort." Frost replied. He waited a few beats of his heart. "Fine, don't tell me. I'll find out myself."
"Wait...!" Athrun cried out, but he was too late. Frost's hand darted up, grabbing Cagalli by the back of her head. With little exertion, Frost overwhelmed her tightly strung neck muscles and turned her head down and to the side, towards his own face, so that they were almost touching. He waited a few more heartbeats for Yula Attha to calm down enough to recognize what was about to happen. As soon as the revulsion started to creep across her face, Frost stood up on tiptoe and kissed her on the mouth, forcing his tongue along her teeth and gums, so roughly that he actually gashed the flesh before drawing away, licking the blood from her upper lip and the tip of her nose almost delicately as he pulled away. The fury and humiliation that warred with the fear in her eyes made him feel more alive than he had in months. He felt like a god.
"Mmmm... soft indeed. And with such a sweet and spicy tang to her blood... fiery almost. You're a very lucky man, Zala. Well, you were before today, anyway." Frost informed them. The looks on their faces were like fine condiments to the meal he had already taken from Yula Attha. Both men looked like they wanted to do nothing more in this world than kill him in an extremely violent manner. Zala especially was almost foaming at the mouth. "Oh, I'm sorry... did I offend you by kissing her? Huh... don't you worry... I'll do far worse to her soon enough. Maybe I'll even let you beg me to kiss her later, instead of what I want to do to her. Yes, I like that idea."
"You... sick... bastard...!" Athrun gritted out. Frost smirked.
"Running out of descriptive terms, I see. I could swear you've called me something like that before. At least call me a monster... I'm no bastard... I just don't know who my parents are. I cannot deny being a monster though." Frost paused. "As for being sick, I must disagree there as well. I've rarely felt better, actually. I haven't been this lucid since I was a fiver." Frost relaxed his grip on Cagalli's head, freeing up the hand to do a little exploration. He moved slowly and deliberately, ensuring that Zala and Kisaka could not miss a single movement.
"Damn you, don't you dare...!" Athrun trailed off, unable to voice threats dire enough to convey his feelings about seeing Cagalli being groped in front of his eyes by Frost. His voice failed him and he could only stare in pure hatred, powerless to help his beloved. A single move forward and she would be dead, killed in an instant by the fear and madness made incarnate standing behind her.
"Don't I dare what? Careful now, you wouldn't want to give me any more ideas than I already have." Frost taunted. He was so full of enjoying the effect of his actions on Athrun and Kisaka that he neglected to watch Cagalli as closely. She took advantage of this relative distraction to stamp her foot down solidly on his insole, a foolproof tactic for escaping a grappler that Kisaka had taught her long ago, while slamming her head backwards into his face, also a good tactic for discouraging a close assailant. Unfortunately, those moves were designed for use against fully human opponents and Frost was in no way fully human. He barely felt her foot stamp and her head butt didn't even draw blood when her head smashed his lips against his teeth. "Fiery indeed." he breathed in her ear, quite calm. "Let's see how far down the fire reaches, hmm?" He once again turned most of his attention to Cagalli, alert only for any overt movements from the two men while he drank in her desperation and shame like fine wines. It was because of this focus that he once again missed something. In this case, it was the slim and dark haired shadow that suddenly detached itself from the greater shadows of the railway junction behind him, stealing up on him on silent feet that he did not hear until the enemy was right up behind him. A blackened metal chain slipped quickly around his head, settling just under his chin before tightening against his throat. "What the-!?" Frost exclaimed, actually surprised.
"There's always a bigger monster." Vladimir whispered in Frost's ear as he twisted the handles of the garotte, looping the chain around itself and tightening it more and more with every twist, so that soon it started to cut into even the reinforced skin of Frost's throat. With a heave of effort Vlad lifted Frost up off the ground, causing him to release Cagalli in the process, half tearing off her shirt as his hands were lifted away and then dropped them both to the ground, with Vlad on top, landing with his elbows digging into Frost's upper back. "Get her out of here!" Vlad yelled through teeth clenched with effort. Even with a chain cutting into his throat, even without being able to breath and lying face down on the ground with a trained assassin laying on top of him doing his best to break his neck, Frost was putting up a massive fight. Most men would have been dead the moment they were lifted from the ground, but Frost was still lashing around like a beached shark, each heave almost dislodging Vlad from his back despite his best efforts to hold on. Vlad frowned... he knew he would not be able to kill the monster like this... Frost was too tough and too strong. The garotte was not enough. He banged the handles together and engaged the locking device in them before slamming his hands into Frost's back, propelling himself backwards and to his feet while crushing the short man into the ground.
Frost was up and standing in an instant, even as Athrun and Kisaka were starting to rush forward towards the still dazed Cagalli. The BCPU wasted not a single second... ignoring for a moment the chain still around his neck, he charged forward and lashed out at Athrun with a fist, flipping up and over to kick Kisaka square in the chest as he did so. Both blows were so fast neither man even began to block them, and both hit with enough power to send Athrun rolling backwards only barely conscious with a jaw that was likely cracked and Kisaka stumbling backwards so fast he fell over with several popped ribs and lay gasping for breath that would not come. Turning like a blooded lion, Frost ripped the garotte off his neck in a shower of metal shards and quickly clotting blood before turning towards the helpless Cagalli. "Nobody leaves, unless its to go straight to hell!" Frost cried maniacally, his eyes bloodshot and his mouth foaming. He raised his hands to tear the girl-flesh in front of him into tiny shreds. He was interrupted again, as an immense force struck him on the side of the head, actually drawing blood and sending him crashing to the ground again. He flipped to his feet again, only to meet a kick to the jaw that barely staggered him, then a solid blow to the stomach that forced spittle from his mouth.
"Goddamn it, Kisaka... Athrun... I can't keep him at bay forever! Get her out of here!" Vlad demanded, keeping the pressure up on the BCPU. By any man's estimation, Vladimir... Andre Forkav... was one of the most deadly men in the unarmed arts to currently walk the globe... and that estimation was before you took into account his mechanical arms, with strength and range of motion far superior to flesh and blood limbs. As things were, it was that strength that was the only thing keeping him alive... his other attacks, from foot or knee, just didn't have any sort of discernable effect on the BCPU 6. Athrun slowly rolled to his feet, gasping in pain, but stumbling forward to put his arm around Cagalli, who was sitting on the ground, weeping and shaking as the fear evacuated her body. Slowly, so slowly, they began edging their way away from the fight.
"Mechanical man... I remember you, from the forest." Frost raved. "I beat you then... I'll beat you now. I'll tear you limb from limb!" he charged forward, using no strategy besides brute force and bloodlust and his natural abilities.
"That's all too likely." Vlad replied sadly, ducking away from the mad charge before whirling back in, slamming three heavy blows into Frost's midriff, feeling flesh ripple and bones bend under the impact. He ducked low and spun, coming out with a spinning backhand that hit Frost right in the nose, breaking it and flipping the heavy little guy completely head over heels. Frost landed on his hands and flipped again, coming to his feet perfectly on balance. He licked his own blood off his lips and spat it to the side.
"Not nearly as good as her's. Or yours, I'm betting." Frost charged back in again, faster than before, his internal machines and augmentations coming to full combat mode, pumping him full of endorphines and pure adrenaline.
"Get her away, Athrun!" Vlad swore. "Get them away, Kisaka!"
"What about you!?" Kisaka called back, almost picking up Athrun and Cagalli after regaining his breath and his feet, hurrying them away.
"Since when did you ever give a damn about my life?" Vlad retorted, blocking one of Frost's punches with one fist, watching the metal hand shiver under the impact. He countered with a spearing straight thrust of his arm that penetrated his hand almost two inches into Frost's lower chest before the BCPU backed off to come again bare moments later from a different angle,speed and power still increasing. "I'm sorry that you can't be the one to kill me. You deserve to be the one... you or Waltfeld. I betrayed you and Robert and Raine and all the rest of my friends. I killed your fiancee... gunned her down in cold blood from the back, while she was carrying your unborn children, Kisaka! Spare not your pity for me... you shouldn't pity a man... a monster like me!"
"You talk too much... you bark like a little doggy. You know what happens to barky little doggy's?" Frost grunted. "Something like this." he grabbed Vlad's left arm with both of his own and planted his feet widely. With a heaving motion he lifted Vlad off the ground and whirled him around like a small child would whirl a ball at the end of a string. He completed two full revolutions before taking two steps forward and slamming the man into a pillar. There was a loud series of snaps and crunches as numerous bones broke in Vlad's legs, back and chest areas. Vlad coughed a bright jet of arterial blood, and more blood trickled from his ears and the corners of his eyes. "You said something about being a bigger monster than me? You look more like a victim." Frost declared.
"My name is Andre Forkav. I am the Strangler Horrificus... the slayer of hundreds of Coordinators. I am the bogeyman of modern legend... I terrorized an entire generation of people. Compared to me, you are just a tiny night horror, barely above the level of a psychopathic maniac killer from the movies." Vlad staggered forward, feeling the internal bleeding start to take its toll already. Another blow like that and he was done for surely. Hell, even without another blow like that, given his current injuries, he was done for anyway. He'd had a feeling of doom all day... now he knew why. It really was, his day to die. He was at peace with that... in truth it was a better death than he could have hoped for. He was helping defend the peace of the world, or the future peace anyway. He could not imagine a more noble cause for a monster to champion. "If you cannot tell the monster from the victim then perhaps you need a little schooling." Vlad suddenly lunged, displaying reserves of speed and endurance he had kept untapped for nigh on a decade now. His first blow to the face dropped the smirking Frost to the ground. With a howl of rage, Vlad leapt bodily upon him, straddling him and gripping tight with his knees, pounding strike after merciless strike into Frost's face and chest with his hands, the steel fingers bent into claws. To his surprise and constrenation, Frost started laughing.
"My, my, my, my... I'm getting nostalgic!" Frost cried even as Vlad started to draw blood, the repeated mighty blows splitting flesh and cracking bone. "You remind me of myself. Only problem is... I'm never this WEAK!" Frost screamed, suddenly jamming one his forward, fingers clawed as well. He struck Vlad square in the stomach with the force of a jackhammer, his hand punching entirely through the all too normal flesh and blood of Vladimir to protrude, wrist and all, from his lower back. Vlad paused, eyes boggling in unbelieveable agony, before he vomited blood, a torrent of it all over Frost. Vlad staggered back, Frost's arm withdrawing through him with a soggy suction sound. Vlad tried to say something, but no words would form. Frost was up in a heartbeat, a punch slamming Vlad backwards to impact another pillar, painting it with gore. Frost did not let up, raking his non bloodied hand along Vlad's chest, gouging the flesh and tearing the muscle away deep enough so that Vlad's upper ribs were visible afterwards. "Not so boasting now, are you, Mr. Forkav!?"
"Vlad! Vlad! Vlad, hear me!" Kisaka roared. "Damn it all, Vlad, you don't have to lie to me... I did the forensics on my wife's death myself... the bullets that killed her did not come from your gun! The bastard who killed her died only a few seconds after he shot her... Robert killed him. I didn't want to believe it... I blamed you anyway, because of the betrayal and how I felt about Mariel's death and the children... but Vlad... Andre... god damn it, you may have done me a terrible wrong... but I can still respect you for who you became! I can still thank you for what you've done! Don't die without knowing that you won't be forgotten... least of all by me!"
"SHUT UP! SHUT UP! DAMN YOU ALL, SHUT UP ALREADY!" Frost bellowed. "I'm SICK OF THIS NOISE! TIME FOR SOMETHING A LITTLE MORE SOOTHING!" he grabbed Vlad by the shoulders and held him pressed against the pillars while he twisted and ripped at the man's shoulders, where the metal met flesh. Vlad did not scream... barely made any noise at all, his nerves already overloaded far beyond the point of feeling pain. Frost didn't notice or care... he was too absorbed in the sound of rending metal and tearing flesh. "That's right... that's right... not saying much now... no, he's not. Not saying much now... no." Frost rambled, finally clenching both hands and jerking them apart with all his strength. With the sound of bolts shearing and bone splintering, both of Vlad's mechanical arms were ripped from their sockets and tossed aside, the left clanging in a twisted heap against the wall, the right landing and skidding to a halt, damaged but whole, almost at Kisaka's feet. Relatively little blood gushed from the shoulder stumps... Vlad was almost bled out from his stomach wound anyway, only barely conscious and rapidly fading. "Die... die... die... die die die... DIE DIE DIE... DIE!" Frost chanted. "DIE ALREADY!" he drew back his fist one more time.
"And foresooth... justice is served. I accept my sentence with head held high and no complaints." Vlad threw back his head and shouted. "Thus dies the Strang..." he was cut off by Frost's fist bashing his entire face in, crushing the front of his head into a pulped mass.
"Die... die... die. DIE! DIE!" Frost panted. He started laughing again, even as a monumental explosion came from the streets above, rocking the junction to its foundations, partly collapsing the roof and knocking out all the lights, sending men stumbling this way and that in the darkness and dust clouds. Unnoticed in the chaos, the remaining members of TEMPEST along with their charges finally were able to make their escape... leaving two of their finest behind. No thoughts were on the dead... such would wait for later... all minds worried most about what had become of the civilians above and the Merciless.
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Author note: Sorry for the delay in posting... work has been more than hectic lately. I meant for this series of events to only fill up one or two chapters, but it just kept getting longer on me as I built up to the rather frenetic events near the end and it ended up being three chapters. For all that, theres still a whole nother half of the battle to go, with Cray facing off with Dearka, Miriallia and Ysak for what might be the final time. The focus will be shifting away from TEMPEST for the next while and will feature a lot more of the canon characters... this series of events was one I was building and planning for, for a long time now. In any case, I'm very strongly interested in what you all think of these three chapters and eagerly await any and all reviews... especially the ones longer than five sentences.