Chapter 39:
In the Thick of It
Nameless and the girls with him were struggling valiantly to keep their cool.
It had been especially difficult for Milly to let Erica go in with Miranda, but there was no stopping the feisty Katje.
They were standing just outside an empty warehouse across the street from the machine shop, inside which a team of medics were setting up to prepare for the eventuality of dealing with the wounded.
“She’s okay.” Nameless once again made to reassure her; “She’s okay, I think it’s over in there.”
The sudden rapid sound of continued weapons fire from the scrap-yard on the other side of the shop put the lie to his words.
Volka shifted at his side, her eyes vigilant and her shield ready to be brought up at a moment’s notice to protect her master, her bond-sister, and the little Gripau attached to Milly’s back.
A sudden crash from the side of the building drew their attention; Jez reacting first, her arm shooting out to point excitedly towards the disturbance.
“She’s getting away!”
“What do you mean?” Volka demanded.
“I saw her! Sethany Binclair! She’s right over there!”
Volka took up her shield and drew her glowing sword.
“Alright, let the people inside know, Binclair is that way, and that’s her name now!”
She paused only for a moment to smile and wink at Nameless before she gave a flap of her wings and took off in pursuit.
“Wait, Volka!” He called in vain.
“Why? How do you say it?” Jez said at the same time he did.
Milly looked to her master, a torn and worried expression on her face.
It took him all of two seconds to decide on a course of action.
“Miranda is going to kill me. Milly! Leave Jez with me and go back her up!”
She nodded, all but hurling the little frog girl into Nameless’s arms.
“Hey! Watch the hands buddy!”
“Come on! Erica is in the middle of that shit, I won’t risk distracting her by trying to fill her in on the fly like this!”
Somehow Jez had scrambled up and over his shoulder, then flipped herself back around so her legs were wrapped around his waist.
“So, what does that mean?”
He was already running towards the broken doors of the building, a canister in each hand, though both were trembling.
“It means we have to tell them about Volka and Milly chasing Sinclair!”
“Hang on! You’re too important! Even I know that!”
Despite her protests Jez did nothing to stop him.
“We just need to find somebody, anybody!”
But he had barely entered the shop when a stocky man in greasy overalls burst out of hiding under the stairs and came to a halt right in front of the pair, surprised panic writ on his face.
When the fight had spilled outside he had hidden in desperation, hardly believing that the main Aegis force had overlooked him in their efforts to not get shot.
The shouting and weapons fire had ceased from inside as the taskforce pursued his compatriots into the scrap-yard, so he had decided to make a break for it.
Now the only thing standing between him and freedom was a snot-nosed Aegis cadet and a tiny frog girl.
Nameless took a solid punch to the face before he knew what hit him, falling back and rolling over the railing of the stairs as his canisters clattered harmlessly to the floor.
Jez cried out as she was knocked away from him as he fell.
“WATCH OUT! IT’S A RAPIST!”
She had to hop away though as the probably-not-a-rapist took a swing at her instead, a frantic gleam in his eyes.
Nameless meanwhile was struggling to recover his faculties, but he didn’t get the time as the man drew his leg back and kicked him in the shoulder.
He rolled away with the force of the blow; Kavanaugh’s training kicking in as he scrambled across the floor in a bid to get some distance between him and his assailant.
But the man was relentless, chasing him down in a bid to finish things with another kick from his heavy boot.
Nameless brought his hands out in time to block the worst of the blow, but it still sucked, the force of it snapping his head back and rolling him onto his back.
“Sorry kid, but it’s you or me!” The greasy man said above him.
When the Aegis cadet got his bearings all he could see was the sole of a boot about to crush his face.
But it never fell as Jez’s tongue lashed out and entangling the man’s ankle, pulling him off balance.
“Eave im aoone!”
With the perp distracted, Nameless recovered enough of his faculties to help her the only way he could think to; his hands grappled with the man’s leg and he managed to spin around on the floor to bring his own feet to bear, knocking the man off balance until he tumbled down beside him.
Once he was down, Nameless reached for his belt, scrambling to grab one of his canisters, instead he came back with Erica’s claw.
He hesitated, and it nearly cost him everything.
Even with Jez’s tongue tying up one of his opponent’s legs, he still had arms, and each one was half again as big as Nameless’s. Without delay the bigger man took hold of his wrist and wrestled the knife out of his hand, rolled over on top of him, bringing the blade up over his shoulder in preparation of killing the little shit.
But Jezebel had released his legs.
And Jezebel routinely trained with an Amazon.
“FROGGY KICK!”
Her foot may have been tiny but she drove it into the side of Nameless’s assailant’s head with enormous force after jumping against the wall and thrusting herself laterally at him.
He toppled off of the beleaguered cadet, the purple-bladed knife clattering across the floor as his grip slackened.
As quickly as he could manage, Nameless pulled himself to his feet and snagged the first canister he could off of his belt.
“Jez! Clear!”
The frog leapt straight upwards as the dazed worker, now on all fours, shook his head to cope with the sparkles she had set off behind his eyes.
Then a strobe skittered across the floor and went off right in front of his nose.
He shrieked with the agony of being so close to the blinding light, rolling over onto his back and gripping his eyes with both hands.
Nameless winced, but with one palm pressed tight to his bleeding head, he was ultimately unsympathetic.
“Hey! You still with me bucko?” Jez asked him.
“Yeah, y-yes!”
Adrenaline surged in him from the scuffle, but fortunately the Gripau knew her business.
“Good, because like you said, we have to tell the others!” She declared as her tongue shot out and quickly bound the screaming perp, only finishing her thought once she had a tongue-full of criminal; “Ow et oing!”
“R-Right.”
His hands shook even harder as he took up the knife and his dropped canisters and darted towards the sound of weapons fire coming from the back, running out into the yard.
__________
In the thick of the melee outside, Miranda was shouting orders in between throwing out canisters.
“Box them in! Oldeera! Don’t let them take the high ground!”
Hornets swarmed everywhere, their lances already bloodied from the conflict, but they kept having to veer off as the men below unleashed their flamers wildly in the air in a bid to keep them at bay.
Miranda was distracted suddenly when Kala tackled two men to the dirt immediately to her left so she didn’t see a third taking aim at her with eyes tearing from the noxious smoke in the midst of their ranks.
Erica did though.
“Miranda down!” She cried out even as she let fly with a pair of knives.
The veteran operative didn’t hesitate to drop to the earth even as the man’s weapon bucked against his shoulder and the Katje’s knives found his chest.
“Ah fuck me.” Miranda groaned with one hand pressed to her side.
“Shit! You’re hit!” Erica slid into the dirt at her side.
Kala was nearby still wrestling with her perps, but she was sidetracked by the spike of pain she felt from her bond-mate.
“Erica! Is she okay?!” The Amazon demanded.
“She’s fine!” Miranda growled as she brought her bloody hand to her face; “Just a graze, stupid cat saved my life.”
Fighting with the other Wolfen nearby, Jan likewise felt her mistress’s distress and tore free of her latest victim, blood covering her face around her mouth while she darted over to reach her side.
Erica’s face was pale.
“You and I have very different definitions of what constitutes a graze!”
With Jan’s help the Katje pulled her behind a slab of solid stone torn from the ground by a nearby earth elemental.
“Whatever! This is a complete clusterfuck! How are we doing?” Miranda asked while Jan fumbled with a bandage.
The nervous cat-girl poked her head over the slab, taking in the scene.
As Miranda said, it was utter bedlam.
Weapons fire was coming from everywhere, but so were the shouts of the Aegis, the snarling howls of Lilly’s pack, and the buzzing of Oldeera’s hive.
As the cat watched, two Hornets darted down and snagged one of the flamer-wielders by his skull and hefted him off his feet only to twirl around each other in midair, snapping his neck before tossing him back down to be torn apart by a waiting Wolfen.
At this point, anyone still holding a weapon was given no quarter.
“We’re winning, I think.”
But even as she said it she saw one of the Aegis operatives take a shot to the gut from somewhere and crumple in on himself, his two bond-mates howling in rage and agony as they felt the piece of their souls living alongside his die within him.
Erica felt queasy as she watched the grief-stricken pair recklessly tackle the man that killed their master and tear him to pieces, only to be engulfed by an explosion a moment later launched from another of those odd cannons wielded by a man huddled against the side of one of the scrap heaps.
“Oh fuck that guy!” The Katje snarled as she leapt out from behind cover and sprinted towards him.
“Wait!” Miranda called after her, her hand outstretched under Jan’s arm.
But the furious cat either couldn’t hear or wouldn’t listen, instead ducking and weaving through the melee, letting loose one knife after another into any foe that blocked her path towards her chosen target.
Franticly trying to reload his devastating weapon, the man didn’t see the leather clad Katje sprinting towards him.
Only when he placed the cannon back on his shoulder did he finally spot her, but he was too late to do anything more than yelp as she threw herself at him, her knives bisecting his windpipe as his devastating weapon fell into the pile of assorted metal with a heavy clatter.
She tarried beside him just long enough to ensure he was dead before launching herself back into the fight with a spitting hiss.
Despite the death of the Aegis operative and his two bond-mates, Erica hadn’t been lying: the taskforce was steadily and ruthlessly dismantling all resistance.
The weapons fire was more often than not blocked by a Golem, her earth magic working in tandem with Linda’s clay to erect solid barriers just like the one that Miranda was huddled behind, the thick slabs popping up like dominoes all over the place to protect the Aegis personnel and hem in their quarry.
They would likely have suffered worse casualties though if it weren’t for Nina keeping nearly half of the attention on herself, the criminals simply had no answer for the little giant; even their biggest weapons only seemed to piss her off.
“COME ON YOU PUSSIES! IS THAT ALL YOU’VE GOT?!” She roared and brought her hammer down and crushing yet another unlucky perp, the impact shaking the earth.
Meanwhile, the pair of tiny Spriggin were invariably targeting their little arrows at those whose weapons posed the greatest threat, just as Erica had.
And when their opponents tried to rally around the perimeter of Nina’s rampage, Bruti found them.
In the heat of the pitched battle, the Grizzly had let loose with all of her rage, and it made Nina look only slightly miffed in comparison.
Whoever the circling Wolfen pack didn’t take down, the enraged bear tore apart with brutal force, her thick talons dripping with blood and gore as her bestial roars resounded around the scrap-yard.
Like the mighty Gigas, she drew no small amount of weapons fire, but what injuries she suffered did nothing to slow her down.
Within a few minutes of Miranda getting shot, workers were throwing down their arms, while the last few who were committed to fighting to the bitter end soon got their wish.
In the lull immediately after the last couple men died or surrendered, Miranda sat up from her place on the ground to take stock of the situation, her hand clutching her bloody side.
All over the scrap-yard Bethany’s cohorts were being stripped and restrained.
“Anybody who can move help those who can’t! Our workday isn’t over yet!” The wounded operative shouted; “Benjamin! You alive?”
From his place on the back of someone he had just taken to the ground, the stout man responded tersely.
“I am.”
He had a nasty cut on his cheek and a burn on his shoulder, but was otherwise unhurt.
“Good. I’m wounded, don’t know how bad yet. You’re in charge now!”
“Copy.” The even tempered operative nodded as he smoothly began giving orders; “You heard her people, anybody got eyes on Sinclair?”
There was a chorus of negatives as the Aegis swarmed the scrap-yard and some headed back into the shop, searching for the wanted fugitive.
With the shooting done, Nameless gingerly poked his head out from behind cover; when he had come into the scrap-yard and seen what was happening he had one thought above all else.
Fuck that shit.
He had then unashamedly hidden, knowing that trying to get involved in the Aegis team’s coordinated assault would very likely result in his own death or someone else’s.
Neither were outcomes he could live with.
“V-Volka has her! She’s in pursuit with Milly!”
Benjamin whipped around, his eyes searching for the face to go with the words.
“On your feet cadet! Which way?”
As ordered Nameless scrambled to stand, then closed his eyes, silently feeling for his Valkyrie.
“East, not far. Where the scrap-yard meets the cross-street, she caught up to them but she still has a couple men with her, they are heavily armed, some kind of rapid-fire weapons.”
He could see Benjamin working his jaw as he came to a difficult decision.
Like Miranda, and most everyone else present, he knew the value of the young Empath.
“Lead on, but if there’s any more shooting get behind Semper and his girls.”
Grant was there in an instant with Bruti and Linda, bleeding from a scrape to his forearm but otherwise unharmed.
And he did not look happy to see Nameless.
Nameless swallowed, but nodded.
“Yes sir.”