“Centuri, spray down!” Moloch commanded.

He pulled a small aerosol puck of pheromone blanker; and gave himself a generous spray over the front of his armor; then he turned and got Krasus’ back and Krasus did the same for him. Down the line, the rest of the Legionnaires followed suit. Hybrids had exceptional senses of smell, and if they had a chance of getting the drop on them, they would need to mask their scent.

“Standard bearer; sound dampening protocols!” Krasus called out. The standard bearer, who held their cohort’s Legion standard, moved forward. He interfaced with the controls on the handle of the standard, which was a pole of about a meter in a half long, and as thick as his wrist. The legion standards had many uses, but their most notable feature was that they were enlivened by the Temples of the Holy Fire.

The temple used the spirit of the first fallen legionnaire from that cohort; and bound him to the standard, giving him an anchor to the physical plane and a home from which it could draw power and sustain its lifeforce. The living legionnaires would make offerings to the spirit, providing it with succor and honors and in turn it would help guide the squad in all manner of useful ways. As theirs was the first cohort of the first legion, their standard spirit was one of the oldest and most powerful of all the many legions that the Republic possessed.

The Standard bearer finished his inputs on the control panel of the standard and immediately everyone's ears popped, as if they were adjusting to a difference in altitude. One of the other functions of the Standard was that it could be programmed to project a muting barrier that could muffle the sounds of the Legionnaires if they were near it. This also muted their capacity to speak with one another.

“Switch to helmet comms!” Moloch commanded with a few quick motions, using Legionnaire’s argot; a sign language that everyone who served in the legion was taught and knew well. If the situation necessitated it, they could hold entire silent conversations without having to speak a word. The Legionnaires turned a small dial on the exterior of their helmets, which connected them to the standards comms channel. It allowed them to hear one another with perfect clarity, despite the sound muffling field of the standard.

Krasus pointed forward with his fist. The legionnaires stacked up on him as they moved silently across the caliginous trash strewn street, the standard bearer falling in line in the middle of the Legionnaires. They made their way around the side to the service entrance that Forrester had indicated. It was a wide door that was rusted in its track, the input pad beside the door that under normal circumstances would open, for legion credentials was unlit and dead, the bionic mind that ran and maintained the building was long since deactivated and likely parted out for scrap by the building’s new occupants.

Legionnaire Trench pulled a small pry bar from his pack and gently tried to pull the door apart. As he went about his work, it made a horrible grating sound, as the stuck doors refused to move and screeched in protest.

“Well - this is going to require a different approach.” Trench said as he rummaged around in his pack.

“Heh, found it.” He said holding up a compact industrial disintegrator. Then he put it to the seam of the side door, and began cutting it out of the frame, the hot blue-white beam of the disintegrator, slicing through the resisteel with silent efficiency.

“Quietly lads, we don’t want these stinkards to hear us coming.”

As Trench made quick work of the door, two other Legionnaires stepped forward to catch the falling piece of metal and they silently whisked it away, gently laying it against the far wall of the alley.

As soon as the opening was made, the Legionnaires quietly rushed into the habitation hive. Taking quick soft steps to fan out and establish a firing line, Moloch and Krasus went in last, with emitter pistols and void gladius drawn.

As soon as they were inside the building, they were hit with a hot wave of musky stench that smelt as if several dozen different animals were in various states of decomposition.

Moloch found it hard not to gag on the odor, despite the air filters on his helmet. If Krasus was affected by the stink, he didn’t say anything, but he had taken out a pair of night shades and put them on so he could see clearly in the low light conditions.

They had entered a filthy wide antechamber; that was filled with columns that supported the mezzanine level above them. Beyond were several massive spiraling staircases that led up and away to the next floor of the structure. Moloch fiddled with the tuning element on his helmet's thermal scanner, and he could see after he made his adjustments, a faint mass of heat generated from a multitude of bodies that was beyond them through the far wall.

Foresters' intel seemed to be sound. Those beggars did do good work, he thought.

A shuffling sound grew louder as what sounded like two large creatures approached them, growling, and kicking their way through rubble and debris as they moved along through their patrol.

“I don’t know why we always get sent out on patrol.” A deep voice said, that sounded like two rocks grinding against each other.

“That is simple.” A second equally deep voice said in an irritated growl.

“The Den Master hates you.”

“Well, what for?”

“You really gonna play dumb with me?”

“You mean the piddle-bucket incident?”

“I mean the piddle-bucket incident.”

“I was just having some harmless fun; I didn’t mean to throw that welp as hard as I did. I didn’t know my own strength at the time.”

“You threw one of the welps carrying a piddle bucket ten meters up into his nest. It splashed all his hens, ruined his dust stash, and it stank for weeks.”

“I got the welps to rebuild it, with resisteel too. It's better than it ever was, and now if any fighting ever breaks out, he can even hide in it like the bloated coward he is.”

The other bear laughed in a low horrible tone.

“And then you blamed it on Grux. Oh, was he ever sore at you!”

“Bah Grux, I swear he has more lapdog than hippo flowing through his veins.”

“Oh no Den master, I would never defile your nest with excrement!” The hybrid said, doing its best at a high-pitched imitation of the other hybrid.

The second voice laughed appreciably.

“Don’t worry mate, if fighting ever broke out in here, for you I’d throw another piddle-bucket in his nest, and he can drown in it. He thinks he is so mighty now that he has the Nightwings.”

“Who would have thought, the first dose he makes himself that actually works well, would just make a bunch of little versions of himself.”

“They are mean feathery buggers as well.”

“Like I said, just like him.”

The two deep voices laughed again, oblivious to the one hundred concealed legionnaires that they were about to walk into.

“I heard the old Den Master was a real artist, he could make you into anything you could imagine.”

“Oh yeah? What would you change about yourself? I saw you rip a constable in half just yesterday, during that dust raid. What more do you want?”

“I dunno, I heard crude doses, give you the stings. I get 'em all the time now. In my paws and in my guts. Also, I get the brain-torments every time I close my eyes to sleep. I see terrible, horrible visions.”

“Those are called nightmares, you utter clod.”

“See? I can’t even remember words I used to know now. I’m just so hungry all the time.”

“Stop talking about food, okay? You aren’t the only one who is hungry all the time.”

“Maybe if we get lucky, we can eat one of the citizen husks they are using to make the new welps when we’re done with Patrol.”

“No way, Den master always keeps them for himself and his ‘inner circle’ of clawlickers.”

“Well, what do we do? Only meat and dust soothe the stings and dreams.”

“Well, I’ve had my eye on a very misshapen goat serving welp named Steven that would probably taste none too bad.”

“He will probably taste like a goat, and goats are good eating.” The other hybrid said, with a tone of joyful expectation.

“Yes, he would likely welcome death, after the Den Master’s botched dose twisted his limbs.”

“We could lure him down one of the tunnels.”

“And split him right down the middle!” The other hybrid said.

“Even-Steven.”

“Even-Steven!”

The pair laughed again, and quickened their pace, so that they might finish their patrol and move on to see a goat named Steven about an early supper.

Moloch peeked out from the pillar that he had taken cover behind. There were two hybrids on patrol that looked like they got the heavy dosing of a grizzly bear. They slowly walked by on all fours, tossing their huge heads back and forth giving the occasional snort. Any resemblance to an Anoekian citizen had long since vanished. These hulking beasts had grown heavy, and thick. Their bodies were covered with shaggy long fur, their ears were wide and pointed, and their maws were filled with long thick yellow teeth. They stood three times taller than the tallest Legionnaire in their squad.

This did not deter guardsmen Trench from moving up and taking cover behind a wide column nearby. Moloch indicated that the rest of the squad followed their lead and on the first floor, there were plenty of columns for them to take cover behind.

He was grateful for the standard; for without its sound dampening field these hybrids would have heard them the moment they entered the building.

The bear-patrol stopped, and one of them sniffed the air.

“Stinks of fresh air,” the first one said.

“The door must have been opened.” The second growled out. Then they dropped two all fours and began quietly sniffing around cautiously making their way towards the door that had been cut out of its track. They passed so close to Trench that he might have reached out and touched their greasy fur.

When the pair saw that the door was now nothing but a large, neat hole, the first one tried to lift his head and howl out a warning.

The other turned to run in the direction from which they had come, with the intention to warn the rest of the den of potential danger.

Trench pulled electro garotte wire, and lunged on the closest grizzly, trying to loop it over his head and around his neck. The Hybrid whirled at the last moment; warned by one of its keen senses, that another being was trying to creep up on him. The wire did not cleanly loop over his neck, but got caught on the creature's elongated snout, and sheared unevenly through the top of his head. A geyser of blood shot out of the wound, drenching Trench with a crimson shower; and causing the electro wire to sizzle and spit.

Despite being horribly wounded, the creature still was able to whirl on him, backhanding him with a hard swipe that sent Trench flying, slamming him hard against a far pillar. It turned to chase down Trench, but as it moved, it stumbled from the rapid blood loss, and stood still momentarily careening from side to side. Krasus stepped away from his pillar and put a searing emitter round into its skull, and three into its broad chest. It wheezed and then fell hard to the floor, its large mass kicking up a swirling plume of dust.

The other bear-hybrid, who had turned to flee and warn the others, caught the scent of fresh blood. Instead of running back up the staircase, howling that there were intruders in the den; it swung back towards Trench, its animal appetites overriding the higher brain function to warn the den, instead it slavishly followed its beastial instincts which urged forward towards the pursuit of blood and flesh.

Trench rolled to his feet propelled up by his golden mechanical arm, casting away his garotte and pulling his void gladius and dropping into a ready posture preparing to meet the charge of the hybrid, baring his own teeth with a look of manic glee.

“Come at me, you overgrown gobshite!” He roared.

The Hybrid lowered its shaggy head and lunged, going for the soft flesh of Trenches abdomen. Trench pivoted and tried to drive the gladius down between the hybrid’s shoulder blades. He stuck the blade deep but was shoved aside by the hulking creature as it reacted to his strike. It slashed him twice, with its long-hooked claws, tearing out chunks of flesh and leaving deep furrows across his chest.

Trench staggered back and tried to dive out of the way. He was far too slow, and the grizzly hybrid, clamped its long fangs down hard, seizing him by the shoulder, as its jaws sank deep into the muscle and flesh shaking him violently from side to side, Trench kept driving his mechanical fist into the Hybrid’s eye socket, repeatedly until it released him with a roar of pain and flung him into a far wall. Then it pawed at its eye, that Trenches fist had pounded into a jellied mess.

Trench tried to get up again, but he could only rise to one knee as blood streamed from a dozen ragged wounds as he gasped in breaths.

Finally able to get a clear shot, Moloch took aim with his emitter pistol on the hybrid and squeezed the trigger. The rest of the legionnaires followed suit.

They melted the hybrid in a blaze of emitter fire. It staggered back and forth, as the shots impacted on it, trying to close the gap on Trench to finish what it started. After several impacts, its flesh and bone began to dissolve with increasing rapidity, until it fell on its side with a terrible final gasp, as the emitter shots continued to dissolve it into a smoking charred carcass.

“Medicus! Moloch called into the comms, attend to guardsman Trench!”

Then he walked up to the grizzly-creature and inspected the corpse.

“Look at this Krasus, judging from the development of the animal features this hybrid was on its sixth or seventh dose.”

“This creature's form is jarring to look at, as if someone began crudely tweaking its genetic code, and then stopped halfway through but kept adding muscle.” Krasus said.

It was an accurate observation, as the creature did have grizzly-bear like features but without any of the proportion and simple beauty that nature bestows upon her own creations. This unfortunate brute with its blunted and crooked countenance looked as if a child had carelessly molded it from cheap clay.

The rest of the Legionnaires stepped over the rapidly disintegrating pieces of the beast and continued to move up the stairs. Moloch cast a backwards glance towards the Medicus as he ministered to Trench, dosing him with an injectrix and spraying colag paste into his wounds. The paste would staunch the blood flow and rapidly knit the torn muscle and flesh back together. Then he put down a gurney bionic that transformed itself from a small disk, and Trench gingerly got into it. It floated off the ground and began slowly moving out of the habitation hive. The Medicus double timed it back to the group.

“Trench got slashed up pretty good, but he’ll live. I administered a strong analgesic dose and directed the gurney bionic to take him outside to the staging area, to wait with constable Salazaar.” The Medicus reported.

“Let's hope these are the only injuries that happen today, now fall in and keep your head down.”

“We can always hope but we both know that is unlikely.” The Medicus said somberly, nodding and hurrying up the stairs with the rest of the Centuri of legionnaires.

Moloch looked up as he heard a familiar sound.

There was a very slight tinkling coming from the blessed bells that hung in several small clusters from around the standard. They did not ring, unless the spirit that enlivened the standard was about to appear on the physical plane.