Author: Seth
"War makes people do... terrible things."
"What do you want with us!?"
The forest was bathed in a thick mantle of pearly white fog, but the members of Trifecta paid the picturesque scene little heed, their attention captured by the five figures in front of them.
"You know very well what we want." The silver haired man at the head of the squadron shot a meaningful glance at Blitz who instinctively clutched his neck. "You could save the both of us a lot of trouble by coming quietly." He looked at Aurora dispassionately.
Aurora heaved a sigh.
"If you know that much, then you know we can't do what you want us to." The weary roujin met Rai's gaze, her eyes growing cold.
"You mean you won't." Rai's eyes narrowed.
"We mean we can't." Inferno interjected calmly. "We have neither the resources, nor the experience, nor the skill to be guaranteed a success."
"But you can still try, can't you?!" The blue haired girl standing beside Rai burst out. "People are dying and you can help them, but you're doing nothing!"
Rai placed a light hand on her shoulder. "Easy Shadow."
Blitz laughed bitterly, fingering a small chord about his neck.
"Have they told you nothing of the price?" The blonde panthryan asked silently. "We've only got one chance. That's it." He let his hands fall to his sides. "If we fail, it's all over. Do you really want to make that bet?"
The rain of ice shards that accompanied the word 'bet' made whatever response either Rai or Shadow may have uttered completely academic.
"Subjects are on the run; close the circle. Double personnel at the south-southeast sector of the rim." Rai said tersely into the microphone built into his right arm, using said arm moments later to irritably bat away a flaming arrow. Removing his trident from its holster Rai broke wordlessly away from the group in the direction the arrow had flown from.
'How did they know we were here!?' Blitz thought frantically as he tore through the forest, away from both the Jericho soldiers and his comrades.
Careening around an old fir Blitz was forced to skid hastily to a halt or run right into a trio of grim Jericho soldiers.
'And for how long? If they've had enough time to set this ambush up…' Slamming his reflexes into overdrive, the young panthryan was about to charge past his new adversaries when…
'Dammit, reinforcements.' The neon haired blonde cursed to himself, instead throwing himself away from the sudden profusion of enemy troops.
'There's got to be a way out somewhere.' Blitz thought desperately, constantly running away from his pursuers, carefully avoiding going back the way he'd come. No matter where he ran though, soldiers continued to materialize from the mists. 'What are they up to? They aren't trying to attack me, but…' The hydrophobe's face darkened as he reached an epiphany. 'Herding me, they're herding me back to the clearing!'
Blitz gritted his teeth as he poured on even more speed, but still he didn't meet even one true hole in the circle of enemy soldiers. This was ridiculous, there had to be a hundred, maybe even more soldiers here. There had been absolutely no rumours of troop movement. How had they manoeuvred all these men into position without tipping their hand?
It hit him.
'Black Ops personnel, they're trained to get around unnoticed. But so many…'
And he was right. The Jericho army only had so many soldiers in the Second Battalion, and to deploy what looked like almost the entire battalion on a single mission was unheard of.
'They're getting just as desperate as we are.' The panthryan threw himself to the side as a knife whizzed past him. Apparently whatever grace period he'd been afforded was now over.
Realizing that the window of opportunity he'd had to break out of the circle of advancing soldiers had long since evaporated, Blitz turned and sprinted towards what would be the centre of this ring of soldiers, hoping that his companions would have the same idea. They usually did.
Trees flying past him started thinning and suddenly he burst into the clearing just in time to see Inferno take Rai's trident to his shoulder.
Growling, Blitz flicked his quarterstaff out of its holster and leaped at the scarred panthryan, a blade of pure energy snapping into existence at the staff's tip. Sparks flew as trident met scythe, electricity crackling in the air. Raitou made as if to twist his fellow panthryan's weapon out of his hand before suddenly retreating without warning.
'What is he…?' Blitz's eyes narrowed, the blue eyed boy faltering for that crucial second in which a pair of bolas wrapped themselves around his stomach.
Coughing, the young panthryan stared dumbly at the metal spheres twined around his gut before he fell to the ground.
Miles away, in a roaring tavern a man sits, surrounded by revellers, friends and strangers alike. He isn't one of them. The reason for his dampened mood, a small, folded piece of paper, sits in his left hand while a shot glass lies within reach of his right. Staring at the small message he takes a deep puff on his cigarette before stubbing out the cancer stick in a nearby ashtray. Grabbing the glass of vodka, he downs it in one gulp, places the shot glass firmly back on the counter, and then taps the person to his right on the shoulder.
"Yeah?" The young woman asks, an alcohol induced blush splashed across her face.
He hands her the paper.
She watches him fall. She watched them both fall, and there was nothing she could do about it.
Numbly Aurora ran towards her downed comrades, a dull, throbbing beat building up in the back of her mind.
*Thud*
Falling to her knees, she rolls Blitz over onto his back as the Jericho soldiers close in on them. He's alive, but he can't move, can barely speak, his voice little more than an unintelligible moan.
*Thud thud thud*
She turns her eyes to Inferno. The redheaded tsumejin's right shoulder is bleeding profusely, and she can see shards of bone peeking out. As she watches, the point of Rai's trident lowers over the sharpshooters left shoulder.
*Thudthudthud*
A gloved hand grabs her shoulder from behind.
"Aurora," Blitz croaks weakly, "Don't listen to it Aurora. Don't do it!"
She can't hear him. The screaming beat has already consumed her.
Spinning around the roujin catches a glimpse of the surprised face of a boy, not more than eighteen years of age before her hand rips through his stomach.
The young Jericho soldier falls down with a gurgle, his blood clinging to the claws that have sprouted from her hands. Uttering a wordless roar, torn from the depths of her soul, Aurora charges into the massed forces of the Second Battalion.
The blood follows.
Whirling around her like a living thing, the ichor seeks anything that would harm her, ripping into flesh with a savage glee as it draws more and more of its brethren to join the massacre.
Spinning through the enemy forces she tears apart anyone that appears before her, heedless of the wounds she takes in doing so.
Body after body hits the ground and soon she is nothing more than a red cloud, the glint of a seething, lambent green peeking through the bloody haze as she swirls through the carnage.
"Retreat!"
Running, suddenly they are all running.
The word means nothing to her, but it still draws her attention. Reeling towards the source of the voice Aurora feels a moment of detached satisfaction as she feels the bloody tentacles strike home before…
That face. She knows that face. She shouldn't be seeing it. Not here. Not like this.
"We couldn't let you fall into the wrong hands." Marten whispers, whispers even as the light fades from his eyes, in a pleading voice she's never heard him use before.
For the second time that day she falls to her knees, the blood falling with her, splashing inertly into the ground. Shakily, she pulls herself over the bloody ground to the fallen Black Ops Captain.
"…Father?" She asked hollowly. No reply came. "FATHER!"
Mono says nothing as he watches his captain read the four words he knows to be on the paper, over and over and over again.
Slowly, she traces the signature on the scrap of parchment before folding it back up and tucking it carefully under her bandana.
"Bartender," she signals the man behind the counter, her voice tinged now with sadness, not inebriation, "Gimme another shot. And keep them coming."
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