Marcus had, only moments before, crouched a third of the way down the staircase (the only way to get to the upstairs of the house) to set up a firing line on the front door, when said door was splintered in and violently swung open.
The household alarm went off and it would provide the background noise for the entire following affair.
Not even yet comprehending that Rosie had been right about everything she had told him, Marcus instead automatically flipped to what he had long ago coined as his combat mode.
He raised the shotgun and pointed it at the open doorway, flanking it from the right side, which was perfect because the door was facing away from him, giving him the perfect firing angle on anyone who foolishly decided to enter his home.
Suddenly, a small object was flung through the doorway and landed a few feet inside the house. Marcus couldn't tell exactly what it was, but he had a damn good guess.
Firmly closing his eyes and laying the shotgun in his lap, Marcus covered his ears with his hands and turned away from the doorway just as the stun grenade (or flashbang grenade) went off, briefly filling the room with a impossibly massive cacophony of light and concussive sound, most of which Marcus was thankfully able to defend against.
Forcing himself to slowly count to two after the concussive force hit him, Marcus, still with his eyes closed, raised the shotgun to his shoulder and pointed it at the doorway.
He knew what was coming.
Snapping his eyes open, Marcus wasn't surprised in the slightest to see that a man dressed in black with a shotgun similar to his own had stepped into his home, followed closely by a second similarly dressed man with what appeared to be an assault rifle of indeterminate make and caliber.
They would have likely thought they had the drop on him.
They were gravely mistaken.
Not even thinking twice, Marcus fired the shotgun four times in quick succession, forcefully racking it after each shot to chamber the next shell.
The 00 buckshot that the shells contained ripped into the two men and, at such a close range, shredded them. Blood and bits of flesh rained down on the walls and ceiling around them as the two men collapsed to the floor.
One had taken much of a shell to the face and a good portion of it was gone; he was clearly done. The second had taken a shot square to the chest, but Marcus wasn't sure if he was dead yet. At any rate, it didn't seem that his attackers were wearing body armor, so, even if he had still been alive, he was out of the fight.
Racking the shotgun to chamber another shell, Marcus quickly and efficiently reloaded four of the five remaining shells from the side saddle into the shotgun.
He didn't have much time.
As he loaded the fourth shell, Marcus stood up and pulled one of the two grenades from his vest with his left hand. Ignoring most of his pain, Marcus limped down the stairs, expertly pulling the pin from the grenade with his teeth and arming it.
As he made it to the door a third man, also dressed in dark clothes stepped in, stumbling on the body and the blood slick of one of his downed comrades.
The man didn't even have time to look up before Marcus leveled the shotgun at him using just his right hand and fired directly into his face from less than two feet away.
The man's head more or less exploded.
What should have been a startlingly shocking moment was utterly lost on Marcus, as he, without wasting any time, gingerly stepped over the three bodies and calmly tossed the armed grenade out the front door, before scampering at his relatively slow top speed towards cover in the living room.
Most people may have frozen or hesitated at any point during what had just happened. Not Marcus. He had been in situations exactly like this before and it was all quite normal to him.
This was the only thing he had ever been truly exceptional at. This was what he did.
He could live all alone on Iroquois Point. He could even live on the moon. He could spent his whole life running and avoiding this incredibly simple fact about him, but it wouldn't make any difference.
This was who he was.
Entirely unfazed, he passed the kitchen, but couldn't make it to the light switch without exposing himself to the light of the room, so he simply raised the shotgun mid-stride and destroyed the chandelier style light fixture with a well placed shot, hoping dearly that none of the shards of glass it created, or any errant buckshot pellets would hit his father's medals display on the wall in the dining room next to it.
Marcus racked the shotgun again and loaded the final shell from the side saddle into it just as the grenade detonated outside. He could feel some of the fragments of it enter the house and embed into the walls near him. It didn't feel as though any of them hit him.
The other good news was that the Tramadol or his adrenaline or some combination of both had begun to alleviate his pain to some extent.
He was still much, much slower than he had been in his prime and the limp in his left leg would always remain, even if he couldn't feel the pain, but at least he was somewhat mobile. He couldn't sprint, nor could he jump over furniture or other objects very well or anything like that, but at least he was still somewhat combat effective. Even still a little drunk and in pain, he was combat effective.
His calm composure was, as it had always been, his deadliest weapon.
It had been quiet for a few moments and Marcus knew he had a little bit of time before the attackers could reorganize and form a new plan, if they even did at all. Retreat was always an option and given that the attackers had themselves been ambushed on their target's home field, it wouldn't have surprised Marcus in the slightest if this had been the path they would choose.
Though, instead, Marcus gambled on his bad luck. This would prove to be the smart choice.
Given the recess in proceedings, Marcus made some quick calculations. Firstly, he had six shells remaining in the shotgun. Secondly, he had downed at least three of his attackers and there were supposedly nine more.
Though, now that the buzzing in his ears from shotgun blasts and grenades and subsided to some degree, Marcus could hear at least one man screaming in pain outside, even over the house's ongoing alarm system tone.
Maybe his grenade had tagged someone.
Marcus toppled over a shelf laded with books and crouched behind it, his back to the wall. He had a thought of what might happen now and he was correct.
No sooner had he taken cover then bullets began pouring through the windows and walls of the house. This was both a good and a bad thing.
It was good because Marcus could tell they had nothing too large in caliber (like a .50 caliber machine gun, for instance) and it also didn't seem like they had a designated machine gunner, or a belt fed suppression machine gun of any kind. Nor did it seem that they had any sort of explosives, or rocket propelled grenades. This was very good news. As rounds entered into the first floor his home and ricocheted about chaotically, Marcus estimated that this group had an assortment of automatic rifles and shotguns and little else.
And it was bad because, well, any one of these random bullets might just hit him in the face at any moment.
Hiding behind the downed bookshelf (and the books it contained) as bullets whizzed very closely to him and destroyed many of his belongings and many of the vases of flowers that Rosie had collected, Marcus remained entirely still.
It was mostly dark now, but still barely bright enough for Marcus to see, his eyes having adjusted to the lack of light.
A bullet passed right by his ear and Marcus didn't so much as flinch. He subscribed fully to the belief that if a bullet had your name on it, there was nothing you could do about it. So, he calmly and steadfastly held his ground, unmoving, defended by, essentially, a stack of books.
It was amazing to consider, but he had been through worse.
He knew they couldn't keep this up for much longer. This group likely hadn't packed enough supplies for a full on war. The fact that twelve of them had shown up just to assassinate one man was, in Marcus's opinion, overkill. But then again, Marcus smirked as a bullet zipped by his foot and impacted the wall behind him, they likely hadn't expected any sort of a struggle at all and had only sent so many men as a precaution. Even still, they had likely only brought so much ammunition. They'd have to stop wasting it at some point soon.
This was a hit squad of some sort; likely terrorists. Somehow, someone had found him. Marcus wondered if this had anything to do with Rosie, but that just didn't seem likely.
Rosie.
It was the first time he had thought about her since this gunfight had started. She had known. Somehow she had known. He had even calculated how many targets were left based on information she had given him without even thinking about her, or how impossible it was for her to have done so in the first place.
He was just starting to worry if any of these stray bullets might reach her upstairs, when all of a sudden, the gunfire stopped.
Marcus turned his attention back to the present and then focused on what was to come.
The front door was to his right, though he couldn't see it from here. He doubted they would make their move from there, given that he had just lobbed a grenade out of it. If he was lucky, they thought he was still covering that door.
Something moving on the main deck caught his eyes and he slowly spun to face the deck and the sliding glass door (which miraculously hadn't been destroyed by the gunfire) that led to it.
These men were armed somewhat well, certainly, but if this behavior was any indication, they were by no means trained professionals. Marcus could safely eliminate the very unlikely scenario that the Government was trying to kill him for some reason.
The shadow slowly moved towards the door and Marcus patiently waited until he was right about to attempt to open it, before springing to his feet for stability and firing two shells directly at the figure, shattering the glass door and downing the man.
Thinking for a split second, Marcus rapidly fired the remaining four shells through what was left of the sliding door, aiming a little to the left with each subsequent shot.
The shotgun clicked empty and Marcus casually tossed it away, deftly pulling the M4 from his back and flipping the safety off. The M4 had a mounted flashlight, but Marcus decided not to turn it on just yet. He'd have to use that card as a surprise play.
No sooner had he thought this then a bright light coming from the deck was activated, blinding him. Suddenly automatic rifle fire engulfed him. He felt a shot enter his left shoulder and it may have shattered some bone. He also felt a shot impact him directly in his chest plate armor.
Flinching a little at the sudden burst of pain in his shoulder, he dropped to a crouch, raised the M4 and fired at least twenty shots out the door directly at the light. He heard a man scream and the light was dropped to the deck, rolling away and exposing two other men, who were stumbling over his deck chairs, attempting to duck out of the line of fire.
Marcus didn't let them.
Firing another thirty to forty rounds as quickly as his finger could pull the trigger, Marcus raked the men with as many shots as he could, only ceasing fire when they had stopped moving.
He was just about to form a new plan when a bullet entered his throat from his right side.
Working on pure reflex, adrenaline, whiskey and narcotic painkillers, Marcus spun to his right and fired the M4 rapidly until the rifle clicked empty.
They had come through the back door and down the hallway while he was distracted with the men on the deck. Maybe this group wasn't as clueless as he had first thought.
He couldn't tell how many people, if any, he had hit, but Marcus saw another silhouette of man not even eight feet away and he realized he had no time to reload the M4. Instead, not even giving himself time to think about it, he plunged headlong towards the figure.
He felt a bullet impact his left thigh as the man raised his weapon towards him and began firing as he did so. Marcus was on him, basically falling into him by this point, before his attacker could get a clean shot off at Marcus's torso and he pinned the man to the wall with the empty M4, leaning his full weight against the rifle. The man, to his credit, struggled to raise his own rifle to shoot Marcus, firing as he did so, but he was merely putting rounds into the floor.
Marcus, blood pouring from his three gunshot wounds, but most noticeably from his throat, scrabbled about at his chest holster for his Glock 17 as he put the full sum of his remaining strength into keeping this man pinned where he was.
The attacker, thankfully, was totally preoccupied with trying to shoot Marcus and didn't attempt to grab him or use his hands to attack.
Finally getting a grip on the blood coated Glock, Marcus pulled the pistol, shoved it into the man's face and pulled the trigger three times, before letting the body drop at his feet, near another body of a man who had been downed by his hail of M4 gunfire moments before.
Sensing someone next to him, Marcus snapped the pistol up with both hands and a young man, no older than he was, entered his sights.
The man threw down the rifle he was holding and raised his hands. "Please, no-"
Marcus fired seven shots into the man's chest, neck and head. Then had enough energy and presence of mind left to calmly put another bullet in the dead man's head and another one into the heads of each of the two other bodies around him.
With no further embellishment, Marcus unceremoniously collapsed in a heap to the floor, a pool of his blood forming around him and consciousness quickly leaving him.
He felt no pain at all by this point; the shock had set in. Marcus had been here before. But it didn't look like anyone was going to pull him out this time.
Marcus was about to get around to accepting his fate, when he heard and felt footsteps coming towards him.
One last attacker was then standing over him, a handgun raised to his head.
So this was it.
Marcus, having difficulty breathing, gurgled up some more blood which ran down his chin as he managed to smile. Blood coated his teeth, as it leaked out of his mouth. He hoped he looked ferocious; that was exactly how he wanted to look as he left this existence.
He was about to try one last ditch effort of raising the Glock at the attacker, not at all expecting to make it in time, when a sudden red flash of light lit up the room and the man was flung like a rag doll four feet into the wall, before crumbling to the floor.
"You will not hurt him."
Marcus heard Rosie's voice all around him and suddenly there she was, standing between him and the man, who was attempting to get back up. Both Marcus and his attacker stared on in awe on what was between them.
Rosie's body was surrounded by three rotating circles of refracting, dark crimson light and she had hexagonally patterned energy of the same color focused in spheres around both of her clenched hands, with her right one tightly gripping his PPK/S. Her eyes bled the crimson light and on her forehead was a diamond, surrounded by paralleling and then angled away bars and four perfect triangles set around them in what looked like an emblem of some kind, the same color as the energy. Somehow, wind gusted around her and made her flowing hair whip around her face violently.
"You will leave," she said to the man, not shouting, but somehow her voice was shaking the walls.
The man looked terrified as he gazed at the impossible happening before him.
It looked like the man was about to manage to stand up when, with the last of his strength and with darkness inevitably closing in around him, Marcus put a bullet right through the man's nose.
Rosie turned her attention to Marcus, the light fading rapidly from around her, but he could see her face perfectly for that split second.
It was a look of pure fear, concern and something else.
In that moment, something happened to Marcus that he couldn't even begin to explain.
And then the next moment he was gone.
Off the coast of Oahu, Cora was already, after only five days, profoundly bored. She was in the process of following her orders and circling Oahu while taking in as many observations as she could.
Naturally, the humans had overreacted to her presence and there wasn't much in the way of movement around the island. Cora hoped that that would change soon. She imagined Missouri would be quite upset if all of her observations on the humans of the Hawaiian islands was just them hiding in their run down homes.
The brunette girl in the fancy black dress with white trim, scanned the darkened island intently, trying to stave off the boredom by throwing herself fully into her work, even though she hated every moment of it.
Even with fully detesting it, doing something was better than nothing.
The sun had been down for nearly a half an hour now and Cora had quickly adjusted her optical scanners to handle the lack of light.
Suddenly, something she would have never predicted pinged on her scanners.
It was Wave Force Armor, otherwise known as a Klein Field.
Startled, Cora gazed off to her left, back the way she had come. It was a small Klein Field, it was at least fifteen miles away across the island and it had only lasted a few moments but the scanning signature it left was unmistakable.
Accessing her records and the Joint Tactical Network, Cora double checked to make sure there wasn't another Fog ship in the area. She already knew there wasn't, but she checked anyway.
What was more interesting, was by her calculations, the Klein Field had come from land.
Cora smiled her trademark wicked smile, already deciding not to report this, at least not yet.
She adjusted her course back the way she came, slowly looping her mammoth ship body around, homing in on on the location where she had detected the Klein Field.
Maybe this all wasn't going to be so boring after all.
Author's Note:
Call To Arms, by The Black Angels