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"Che."

"Child's play" seemed to have regained his composure though he still seemed quite nervous.

"Put the gun down old man. You can't break the rules I've already set. The only reason why that woman managed to get out of my control is because she seems unusually dense. And to answer your question I will chose truth for obvious reasons. Enjoy this last win after this round the rules will change and you will all perish."

"Captain?"

Turning his head Ignar looks towards Karen.

"Right now he should be forced to answer any question that is in his power to answer. I have deducted that his power is based around certain rules that he can set up. He will have to abide to those rules as well as everyone else. Any ideas on what we should ask him?"

She nods slowly.

"Where are the leaders of the Fallen?"

With an evil smile she points at Rose.

"Rose, I want you to record everything he tells us as of now and send it to our superiors."

"Yes Ma'm."

Everyone looked at the boy in anticipation. Though he tried to keep his mouth shut he suddenly started talking in a similar fashion that me and Rose had before.

"We do not have a united leader, we follow the same goal and have all been abandoned by . There are no leaders whose location could be compromised, I must apologize."

Ey? What'd he say?

With disbelieve in his face Songe takes a step forward and clenches his remaining hand into a fist.

"You think we'd believe that? You have hundreds of members. You expect me to believe that nobody is responsible for this?!"

"Child's play" seems oddly quiet and seemed sad. While letting his head sink down he looked towards the floor.

"I have told you the truth. If you seek for someone responsible for the founding of the Fallen ask Arthus himself. He is the reason... We have been abandoned, all of us. All that's left is rid this world of sinners. Sinners like you and me. But allow me to send you ahead, I have already said too much."

We thought we could prepare for his power. But we couldn't and once more all members of A3 were frozen in place, held by a force we couldn't fight.

", please end this. I do not wish to converse with these people anymore."

Then he turns towards his third comrade.

"... I didn't think that you'd last this long. I will go ahead, I politely ask you to dispose of the bodies afterwards if possible."

The man nods.

"Sure..."

One last time "Child's play" turns around to us and watches us with pity in his eyes.

"I do think that your death is needed. You have committed too many sins. Goodbye, we will undoubtedly meet again in hell."

Then he walked out into the dark corridor and out of the house.

The woman -- and looked at us and everything around us started to flicker with heat.

"Don't think too badly of us, this is the only way to surely kill your kind."

The woman's voice was surprisingly calm but did not hide her homicidal tendencies. We knew it was probably over, none of us could move and we felt the ground under us burning. We would be buried in molten stone like our other comrades had been.

"I'm sorry I pulled you guys into this."

Karens voice drifted to us, not over the com but from her mouth. Rose simply laughs once while Liam shakes his head.

"I regret nothing" both of them said at the same time.

Ignar and Songe seemed to think the same. I too wanted to contribute to our bond but before I could open my mouth another question interrupts me. It seemed to be directed at Rose and came from the big red haired man .

"You. Woman. How strong are you really? We fought once but it seems you barely used half the power when you fought your comrades."

She faces him and takes her helmet of looking into his eyes and tilting her head.

"If I had been unharmed you'd barely take me 2 minutes."

He returned her smile to her.

"Next time we meet, let's fight with all we've got. I know you're better than those puppies. I would love to see you try to take me down in 2 min."

Rose simply shakes her head closing her eyes as the six of us start slowly sinking into the ground. Luckily we did not feel the heat.

"Sure, we'll fight again. I'll go all out on you."

She smiled again but it was the sight of a defeated person accepting her fate. I too closed my eyes. I guess at least we went out with a bang.

Then something interrupts our thoughts. One person who was coughing and another sound... It was a loud crack followed by something wet hitting the floor.

Then 's ominous voice fills the room.

"It's a promise then, my name is Khorne. Remember it, repay me by fighting me next time with all you've got."

We opened our eyes and instantly noticed that ... no, Khorne had disappeared. He seemed to have left us with two more corpses though.

did not even seem to have been able to defend himself. His eyes were bloodshot and he was bleeding from his mouth, eyes, nose and ears. He had died choking on his own blood.

's body on the other hand did not leave this world unharmed. Her head had exploded. Small fragments of bone and grey matter had been sprayed all across the room decorating the walls together with the other corpses.

Rose spoke out loud what all of us thought.

"What the hell just happened?"

I followed her immediately.

"Why did he save us? I thought they were working together..."

With loud cracking sounds Karen freed herself from the grasp of the ground below.

"It doesn't matter, we can move again. I suggest we leave now. Ignar, get the parts we lost will you? We need to get out of here. I don't want to get into any situations with the police... Though I'm surprised that they haven't arrived yet."

Her voice was filled with coldness and we didn't dare to say anything, she seemed mad. As such we simply follow her example while Ignar picks up the two limbs and helmets Songe and Liam had lost.

From outside we could now clearly hear the sirens from the police.

Liam seems stressed and I can hear him swearing over the com.

"They are such chickens. Only arriving when the shooting and fighting has stopped... We wouldn't have tolerated this in SWAT."

Karen turns around to him.

"Doesn't matter, we have to go now. Rose, contact our extraction. I want to get out of here as fast as possible... If you guys have not realized we've lost "Child's play"... Our mission was a failure. So no fuckups now. Understood!?"

We nod without exception.

"Yes Ma'm!"

With a gesture she orders us to charge out through the back of the building. We were greeted by three armed uniformed men but we knock them aside without much problem.

We did not need to put much focus on stealth now. If we moved too slowly we could be potentially caught. As such we simply ran. Jumping over fences and leaving flabbergasted officers behind us.

There was no sweet talk out of this... We had been defeated. Yes of course we had taken out over 15 enemy espers. But we only survived because somebody else stepped in. And we did lose "Child's play"...

Che!

Since we were running at full speed it did not take us long to reach our extraction point. A black transport helicopter was already waiting for us thought it wasn't the one that had brought us here. Nobody said a word as we jumped inside. Small sparks flew away from where Liams arm had been before and danced around the inside of the heli while we lifted off.

Rose was the first one to interrupt the silence. Throwing her helmet into the middle of the space she swore once.

"Fuck."

Then looking at Karen she started talking.

"Captain. What now? Command won't look at the whole thing too nicely. 4 of their higher ranking esper operatives are dead. It doesn't matter if it wasn't our fault. And we even failed with our mission to take out "Child's play". Yes we did get and the others... But let's be real here, the Fallen have many more like them. Us taking them out will not have any big effect on their overall fighting force. And th-"

With one motion filled with superiority Karen forces her to stop talking. Her face seemed bare any emotions looking down at us with cold eyes.

"Corporal Cooper, I am fully aware of our mission. Right now the thing that matters most is that we have survived, whatever command might say... it will be dealt with accordingly. I do not think that I have to remind you that everything you have heard and seen today is confidential. The information "Child's play" has given us will be transmitted and processed."

Using Rose's family name she showed us how mad she truly was. Ignar raised his hand looking at his Captain with worry.

"Ma'm. With all due respect, thi-"

He does not get any further as Karen stares him down making him shut his mouth.

"I did not ask for your opinion on this matter Sergeant."

Stressing his rank she reminded him of his place. Sighing she leans back and looks at the ceiling.

"What went wrong during this mission. Coporal Jensen, you have the permission to speak."

With his remaining arm Liam saluted once. For now they were simple soldiers answering their superior.

"A3 went in without enough information on the target. We were unaware of the fact that he had a body double. As such we were overwhelmed by "Child's play"'s psychic power."

She nods once.

"That is correct. Command will demand a report on this whole affair when we come back... Corporal Cooper, explain everything to Ms. Mercer when we come back. I don't doubt that command will investigate her due to this. As a matter of fact, all of you will probably be called in at least once. But.. do it in base please, they will give us at least a day to recover before interrogating us."

Interrogating? I must have shown my confusion because Liam just slowly shook his head, motioning me to stop.

Don't ask anything right now. Rose will talk with you at base. Karen is just worried at the moment, you have to realize, this mission was not officially approved by command. They only gave Karen freedom due to respect to A3 as a whole. But now we failed and as such we are officially responsible for the deaths of their espers on site.

Even if you have questions. Wait until Rose comes to you, she'll tell you everything you need to know.

After his silent message he closes his eyes and rests his head against the back, much like Karen was doing.

The flight seemed longer but it was just my imagination, soon enough one of the pilots in front informed us that we where touching down. On the ground we stepped outside of the dark Helicopter and were greeted by the sight of a small procession of five unknown soldiers. One of them stepped forward and saluted in front of Karen.

"Captain Ithild, command would like a full report on the mission, we are here to escort you to headquarters, another chopper is ready to take you with us."

Karen seemed to have expected as much. Turning around to us she nods.

"Soldiers, I want you all ready when I come back. Get the repairs needed that everything works again. Corporal Jensen, Corporal Parker get those limbs replaced and tell the mechanics to fix my helmet for me. Aside from that, dismissed."

The five of us salute. Then she steps away from us in full gear and follows the soldiers outside. A sense of defeat filled me as I watched her walk away.

Then I feel a hand on my shoulder and look behind me. Rose looks at me in pity.

"Don't worry about the Captain too much. She can handle everything command throws at her. It's more important now to get some rest. You held up good considering we threw you into the fray from the get go. Just get changed and sleep over it, I'll talk to you when we've all had at least seven hours in bed."

I nod once while Liam, Songe and Ignar had already stepped inside of our compound. The two of us followed them got rid of our armor in the same room we had put it on. It was a liberating feeling as the plates fell of my body. Surprisingly enough I hadn't sweated much except on my head.

Rose seemed the same and we quickly got into the standard military clothing and headed towards our living quarters. On our way we met the other three again. Liam greeted me with one hand.

"Don't worry too much about everything. I only want to say that we're proud that you held up the way you did. This can't really be counted as a good mission for newcomers."

I nod towards him but can't seem to say anything. My thoughts were still too puzzled to from anything coherent. Thankfully Rose steps in for me.

"Same goes for you, we need a good night's rest right now. So all of you should go to sleep right?"

Everyone agrees and we go our different ways. In front of my door I bid farewell to Rose and wished her a good night.

Inside I simply crashed onto my bed. Only one thought reigning supreme in my mind.

This is exhausting.

Then I fall asleep letting the blackness overtake me.