Trying out some stylistic changes and stuff.
Chapter 22: Deception
Siria clambered into the transport helicopter and looked out at the other figures approaching the helipad. She gestured at them to hurry up, but made little effort to compete against the thundering roar of the rotors shredding the air above her.
Shadrach was the second into the chopper. He sat down brusquely next to the Latias, wrestling with his headset and the rest of his kit. "Siria," he said, "Give me a rundown of who's coming and who's not."
She ignored the other 'mon who boarded the chopper, surprised that the Umbreon's voice was actually intelligible over the mike. The dragon, attributing the phenomenon to the lower pitch of the helicopter, removed that thought from her mind and focused her attention on his question. "Levina and Din aren't with us. I still don't believe that Levina's mentally ready for the mission, and Din isn't going to be too helpful at close-quarter battle. We don't need their specializations for this run."
The earbud hissed in her ear. "You left those two together?" Sirius asked. "Do you want the whole base to be vaporized by the time we get back?"
Siria felt her seat lurch as the helicopter took flight. "What do you mean by that?"
"Don't you know... never mind." A low sigh accompanied his defeatist remark, making the Latias feel a bit uncomfortable that her brother, of all 'mon, knew more about her soldiers' interpersonal dynamics than she did.
"They'll be fine, I'm sure." A previously unfamiliar voice made its way onto the airwaves. "I think my brother has standards, low as they may be."
The Latias blinked at Jul's statement and added another tick to her greatly expanding list of how many times she had misjudged the Leafeon. They had treated his ailment a few days prior to the operation, but she didn't expect him to be so different inside. Instead of an introverted, homicidal maniac, he actually turned out quite normal and casual on the outside. Of course, that eased her suspicions only slightly, but it was still surprising nonetheless.
"Alright," Shadrach said in an attempt to reign everybody's attention back to a more pressing issue. "We need to review the battle plan for one last time. Call me a prude, but we cannot fail here. Let's start with infiltration." He nodded towards Siria.
The buzz of several additional helicopters cut off her initial attempt to speak. As she glanced out of the door, the Latias saw three small choppers flanking their larger, bulkier one, peering at them with difficulty as their black hulls blended perfectly against the night sky. A quick inspection under their short, stubby wings revealed that they were armed to the teeth: two high-power gatling guns and several rocket pods on each helicopter greeted whatever enemies awaited them with several hundred pound's worth of lead and explosives.
"Well," she said, now accustomed to the attack helicopters' presence. "The attack helis will strafe the area to neutralize any enemy combatants. From there, we'll rappel down to the target building."
"Shadrach, Ward, and I will take up defensive positions and prepare to guard against any remaining attackers," Talal said.
The Umbreon shifted slightly. "I have contact with the three birds, so I'll direct their fire to ground units."
"The rest of us will stack up against the front door of the target. If it's locked, I'll blow it open." Sirius' hands glowed a faint blue as he made his remark.
"I'll throw a flashbang in there after the door's breached," said Nuwai, now much more familiar with CQB than she was when she first started cross-training with Special Forces. "And I go in and cover the left...?" She looked at Sirius for help.
"Yeah. I'll be right on your heels for the right side, so don't worry about anybody there."
Siria said, "I'll take the middle-left, and Jul will take the middle-right. If the target is not present in the room, we'll take up the second story. He should be in the bedroom if he's normal."
"Since he's a Nidoking, I'll take up the fight with him and knock him unconscious," Jul said. "From there, this helicopter will meet with us on the roof and make a clean extraction."
"What is our secondary plan if the main plan fails?" Shadrach frowned slightly at the depressing but all-too-true doubt.
Siria took out a PDA-like device and tapped at the screen. "We'll escape and rendezvous with the chopper at this LZ." She showed a point a distance away from their area of attack. "But if all goes well, we'll be done with this in about three minutes. Maybe less."
The dull thud of the helicopters occupied the space between the seven armed 'mon as they each contemplated their individual tasks.
"Hey," Sirius said to break the silence. "Why are we going after this guy, anyways? You never told us."
Siria straightened up, chasing her thoughts away. "He's the center of all the Tamsus operations in and around the city. By removing him, we create chaos and misguidance among Tamsus so that our military can move in and destroy resistance quickly. It helps that he's demanding, at least."
"Demanding?"
"All of his subordinates need him to approve of operations and actions before they carry them out. If we behead the top, the lower units can't operate."
Sirius leaned back into his seat. "Ah."
Viiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnn.
Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzt.
"So some of the deadliest weapons in the world sound like Golem farts," Sirius said casually as he watched a virtual wall of bullets, courtesy of the allied gunships, tear into the buildings below them. "Wouldn't dakka dakka have been a better sound?"
"Pay attention, Sirius. We only have half a minute left before landing." Siria watched as two thin rockets trailed from a helicopter and shot towards the ground. The explosions illuminated the bodies of a couple 'mon before permanently erasing their existence, throwing body parts into the obscurity of the dust cloud lingering behind.
The sudden drop of the helicopter only intensified the Latias' queasiness as she turned away from the mutilation. No time for that. No time to be sorry.
As the wheels touched upon cracked pavement, Siria bailed out of the helicopter and began to mentally scan the area for remaining enemy combatants. She instantly regretted that, finding nothing but the brainwaves of half-alive, agonized souls crying for help that would never come.
She raised her head up, shoving her nauseous thoughts down. "Get a move on! Stack up!"
The Latias darted out of the road and into an alleyway. She saw the door of their target approaching rapidly, and halted so that Nuwai and Sirius could assume their positions ahead of her.
As the dragons in question nestled themselves besides the door, something bumped her from behind. "Ready?" Jul asked. "Analysis of interior?"
She closed her eyes for a moment. "Eight on the ground floor, six on the top. We're going in hot. Sirius, whenever you're ready."
He merely grunted a reply, sound made almost inaudible from the blasting of machine gun and rocket fire surrounding them. "Reinforcements," Shadrach said over the mike as if interpreting her thoughts. "We don't have long."
The Latias quickly turned her attention to the scene in front of her. With a quick jerk of his hand, Sirius thrust a slight Shadow Ball at the door.
CRACK.
The lock burst apart at the force of the attack, allowing Nuwai to tap the door open and toss in a grenade with perfect accuracy. Unlike Tia, the Latias noted with a faint flicker of a smile.
BANG.
"Go, go, go!" Nuwai and Sirius lunged into the door, the former drawing her rifle in preparedness. Siria followed, breath hot with the vestiges of a Dragon Pulse.
The interior of the house did not fail her expectations. The instinct to look left and right sternly oppressed by years of training, Siria looked straight ahead and identified her first target: a Raticate aiming a rifle straight at her gut.
She let loose her charged Dragon Pulse before he could react. The blue beam crossed the distance between them in a matter of milliseconds and pierced his body. As the body slammed against the wall and slid downward, Siria caught the images of a Tauros and a Rapidash neighing out in pain through the fist-sized hole she put in the insurgent's chest.
Her attention was quickly diverted from the painting on the wall when a small, round object tapped against her boot.
"Oh, Arceus-"
It was at that moment when Jul kicked the grenade out from under her and into a door. As several shouts of pain emanated from the next room, the Latias gaped slightly at the Leafeon, trying to grasp just how in the hell he was able to do what he did at such an impossible speed. Her stunned state only increased as he bounded forward and punched a Swampert in the gut. The 'mon flew back and slammed against a plaster wall, leaving cracks as he slid downward in unconsciousness.
Instead of stacking up against the door leading to the next room, everybody simply stared at Jul. "What?" he asked.
His simple question jerked Siria out of her contemplative state. She motioned at all of them to stack up against the door in preparation for another incursion.
"Hold," she called, suddenly aware of a presence behind the wall. It was waiting... no, cowering...
The Latias grabbed lightly at Nuwai's rifle, who relinquished it without complaint. Siria slowly crept around the corner of the door, aiming down the sights as she did so. She specialized in special attacks, yes, but when it boiled down to pure reaction times, guns were simply better.
Seeing nothing in a majority of the room, she finally stepped in and looked down to her right.
An Ivysaur, looking no more than ten years of age, stared at her with surprise before charging at her with a knife. Taken aback for a second at his apparent change in emotion, Siria did what her brother had taught her years before. A quick jerk of the rifle to the arm, then to the head.
"Clear!" She handed the rifle back to Nuwai as the Gabite entered. "And stairs!" she said as she saw a staircase rising to the second story.
They ascended quickly in single-file order, with Sirius covering everything ahead of him and Nuwai looking cautiously around for anything that the Latios could possibly have missed. "Stairs clear!" she called.
Siria looked around in the hall before settling on a door not even three yards from the stairs. "This is it," the Latias said after a brief scan. "He's in there alone." And if he doesn't surrender, we can make him.
Sirius' hands grew dark as he formed another Shadow Ball. They all knew the threat that lurked behind the door; room-clearing procedure only impeded their speed if all hostile elements were known.
CRACK.
Unlike the previous time, the wooden door tumbled down under the force of Sirius' attack. With nothing arresting their attack, Nuwai and Siria rushed into the room, only to hastily dodge a large, purple tail that crashed into the floor below them. "Surrender!" the red dragon shouted obligatorily. Inside, though, she knew that surrendering was tantamount to death, especially for Tamsus 'mon.
"Yeah?" the indignant Nidoking asked, lashing out at them with his tail once more. "Over my dead bod-"
It was at that peculiar moment when Jul kicked at his stomach and knocked the wind out of him. As the Nidoking gasped for air and tried to recompose himself, the Leafeon aimed a quick strike at his neck.
"Over your unconscious body, more like," said Jul, seeming to pick the Nidoking up with hardly any effort. "Siria, is the helicopter positioned for extraction?"
"Get on the roof first. We'll talk there." As Jul and Nuwai started for the next stairwell, she adjusted a knob on her headset to tune in to a different frequency. "Echo One to Stalker Five."
"Stalker Five here, flying lonesomely. What'cha want?"
"Extraction on the roof."
"Gotcha." An incessantly loud buzzing began to fill the sky, calling for her to get the hell out before the reinforcements Shadrach mentioned found their way to her. She had to wait for the rest of her troops to make it the roof as well, though.
Shadrach burst through the room and onto the staircase, not even looking at Siria before going on to the roof. Ward and Talal followed in an equally agitated state. Which left...
"Sirius, you idiot! Hurry up!" she shouted through the door.
"Wait, sis, hold up."
"If you haven't noticed, we're running on a tight sched-" Her voice immediately faded as the Latios in question walked into the room. The small, wooden box with twenty-something vials of black, soul-sucking liquid he held was more than enough to send shivers down her spine.
"W-what is that?" she asked, fearing the answer.
"Uhh, hold on." Sirius fumbled for a piece of paper in one of his breast pockets. "There were some papers on top of the stuff. Shadow, fifteen percent or something. Is this what they were talking about? Seems pretty weird... sis? You look pretty pale."
The Latias stood staring at the vials, newfound terror piercing her mind. To think that Tamsus was in possession of that much Shadow...
Her brother slammed the box shut with finality. "I don't think we need to care about this right now. Siria, let's go. C'mon."
She wordlessly followed her brother up the stairs and out into the star-bespeckled night. The helicopter she asked for hovered a foot above the concrete building, which allowed Talal and Ward to draw the Nidoking's body up into the transport. Shadrach manned one of the door guns, helping Jul and Nuwai actively scan for threats that could still exist.
Sirius jumped onto the chopper with box in hands, nearly slipping when his foot squished the poison-type's leg. He thought nothing of it until he seated himself. Wait, squished? Since when did legs squish? And since when were Nidoking that color?
"Siria!" Shadrach yelled. He pointed at the Nidoking's body, which was slowly turning a very vivid pink. "We've been had!"
She whipped her head back from the surroundings. "What?" Her perplexity changed to surprise when the body began to lose its large, defined form. Her surprise then changed to horror when the Nidoking reverted into a plain, pink, shapeless blob. A Ditto.
Hundreds of thoughts raced through the Latias' mind as she considered the implications of this new development. One that stood out particularly clear from the rest in her mind was...
"Oh shit."
Siria's world went from starry night to blinding day as gunfire erupted all around her.