“Force up! Check your weapons and gear!”

Mike’s words shook the rest of his squadron. Each took the second that was given to them by their squadron leader to reload their weapons and prepare for the next fight that was behind the large, hangar-like doors. McCann waited next to the switch to open the door, and he waited as the rest got into position.

The gas that was released from the previous encounter had fully settled. The airborne toxin that had killed over twenty gunmen had dissipated and now clear air was left. Mike wouldn’t let his team take of their CBRN gear. Being exposed to even a spec of the gas was playing a game of Russian roulette with five out of six bullets loaded. He wouldn’t take that chance and have another squamate die.

“Primary systems are online. Enable force deployment for all cells, but correlate defense here. Stop the Federation before we have to pull out.”

A deep voice grew over the intercom. The voice belonged to the primary target of this manhunt, Raven. By his words it provided the evidence that he was on site, and Mike was willing to jump the gun to get line of sight on the bastard who was orchestrating the attacks on Zivaland.

Nodding, McCann turned flipped the switch and the metal doors opened. A large warehouse was revealed behind the groans of the metallic hangar doors, and in the center a large metal casing loomed ominously over the scattered gunmen that protected it.

“Fed Agents!” One of the men cried out as a flurry of gunfire erupted throughout the warehouse sending everyone present for cover. “Get those mages on the line! We need backup!”

In the rear-entrance to the large room, five troops pushed forward casting protective barriers on their fellow gunmen. If there was a time for Leccamaradel to showcase her abilities, now was the time as enemy mages had shown on themselves to the battlefield.

This was a first for both Mike and Richard. A true test of magic and steel had begun.

Two distinctive trench-like walls surrounded the large casket and led to a makeshift structure above. Under the protection of smoke grenades deployed by Richard and a hail of ice casted by Jorge, the squadron split into two teams as they each took a trench with Mike, Lecca, and McCann taking the left and the rest on the right.

As soon as McCann, who was on point, entered the trench, snapping whispers appeared right above his head as small tuffs of concrete dust fell down upon him and the two behind him. Bullets scored the concrete and splintered off small chunks from the wall. They had walked right into a kill zone set up by the protected gunners, and Lecca would have a difficult, if not near-fatal time trying to disperse the protective magic casted.

“Keep your head down!” Mike ordered as he placed his hand on McCann’s left shoulder urging him to move forward out of the kill zone.

Pushing forwards and reaching a stairwell the led above the large metal tomb, Mike tapped the princess’s shoulder and switched with her. Getting on her stomach and crawling with her rifle two steps up, the silver-haired marksman turned on her side as she shover the barrel of her rifle through the gap present in the step. It took five seconds for the marksmen raining down lead to determine where the three were, but by that time she had already adjusted for the distance they were at.

Channeling her second and final amplified, nullification bullet, she kept her body steady as her finger snaked around the trigger and decompressed it rapidly. Within a single second a screaming bullet erupted and fired out of the lever-action rifle. The recoil slammed into her shoulder as she fought to keep the iron sights on her chosen target.

In that same second blood painted the brick wall behind one of the four mages. The range was short enough for the bullet to pass through the mage a split second before the roar of the anti-material round fired filled the air. Just like the bullet she fired in the Frontier, the bullet continued and buried itself into the brick wall sending shrapnel along the shape of the wall.

Following the death of the mage, three gunmen lost their magical protection and remained shocked as they stared at the dead corpse beside them. The other mages bolted for cover and the fire of lead momentarily halted giving an opportunity for Mike and his squadron.

“Take out the gunners!” Clutching his radio, Mike’s voice directed fire towards the men above.

“Going 40!”

Taking one of the remaining seven HEDP grenades he had for his underbarrel launcher, Corporal Richard did what he was trained for and lined up a shot on the men above. Launching the explosive, the grenade landed at the center of the platform sending shrapnel up through the floor and through the gunmen unlucky enough to be caught in the blast radius. As the wire supports snapped and the platform caved inwards, the mages and riflemen screamed as the slid off the platform towards the ground. The first two gunmen to hit the ground broke their legs and arms while the rest were just lucky enough to dampen their falls by hitting the large casing in the center of the room before hitting the ground.

With the room cleared, the two teams raced towards the top of the metal casing. There they met a central terminal and as McCann stepped up to it to interface, the rest of the team noticed that two doors were being cut open on the far side of the warehouse where they entered.

“Unauthorized access detected. Initiating firewall subroutine.”

Looking at the terminal that was being taken over by the unknown voice, McCann turned to the rest of the squadron, “This is going to take a minute. Keep them off me!”

Without a word the four man group walked off towards the front ready to face down the enemy. Finding a ladder and lowering themselves back onto the ground, the four took positions behind pre-set barricades in front of the large coffin. Raising their rifles as the music of the torches stopped, the entire complex shook as heavy explosives sent the doors flying off their hinges and towards the large entrance. Smoke grenades were thrown in and perforated to obscure the movements of the trained hostiles that Mike’s team now had to face.

With only a few hundred bullets spread between each other and not enough time to load more magazines, the four began to unload round after round into the steady stream of men that pooled out from the two doorways. At least ten confirmed kills were shared until they all had to stop and reload with the exception of Lecca who tried to keep pace of her magic.

“Fuck these guys don’t give up!” Richard exclaimed rebooting his HUD. There had been a strong amount of interference for the Ranger’s goggles ever since he had descended into the underground, and now it appeared he had reached the source which was fully putting his goggles on the fritz.

“Don’t let up!” Jorge shifted his position as bullets were scattered on the ground just in front of the large casket. There was no doubt that the men trying to assault the defensive position Dimond was in were trying to avoid to do any damage to the object in the center of the warehouse.

Five gunners remained as they shifted on the upper balconies continuously moving to avoid being shot. Each had set up a shield just before them. One made of pure ice, two of magma that moved with their bodies, and two more that was a wind gale that did little to stop the bullets but instead attempted to redirect them.

“Mages with guns!” Mike cried out to the princess as he kept his head down. Grasping a grenade on his vest the staff sergeant looked towards Richard who eyed him out of the corner of his eye. The corporal understood what was about to happen if Lecca was unable to take out at least one of the gunmen, and he too took the spilt second necessary to reload his underbarrel grenade launcher.

If she failed, they would need to kill the five with perfectly timed explosives to bypass any shielding they had up. Her usefulness for pure destructive and burst power had been rapidly depleted with her second anti-material, and nullification bullet. Any more and she would risk using up the rest of her reserves she had left in her body, so she decided to improvise.

Gathering her mana into the palm of her hand, and electric-like charge began to extend beyond her point. It disrupted all electronics in the room including the lights, but she kept charging it as the circular boundary grew larger-and-larger until it had reached a maximum size that was just able to reach the five gunmen. Snapping her eyes wide open a burst of mana flew into the circle disrupting the shields the gunners had activated.

“System curtailed.”

Ignoring the computers voice, the four on the ground instantly revealed themselves with the barrel of their guns. In addition to the disruption, the five enemy hostiles had been staggered by the blast. This made the staff sergeant question why he and his men hadn’t been effected, but he paid no mind as they all focused on putting down the remaining hostiles.

Magic was still beyond the two Rangers apart of Dimond squadron. Sure, they had grown used to the supernatural, but it truly seemed that those powers acted more as trump cards rather than true equalizers like the guns they fired in succession.

Ten. Twenty. Thirty bullets. That’s all it took to rip the five unarmored men to shreds. Even after their bodies were full of holes, three of them still tried to move. Out of pure frustration and rage, Agent Jorge sent one final volley of ice shards, but he detonated them before impact making a blast of shrapnel fall upon the men killing them instantly.

Gruesome was not an appropriate description. It was quite tame for what was a brutal counterattack.

Sometimes Mike considered himself lucky enough to have magicians on his side. Who knows what SF and SOF would do with them back home. That or the regular GIs, those grunts were crazy.

“You guys did something big!”

The panicked voice of Lieutenant McCann as he secured a rope on the large casket as the locks on top snapped open. His boots slammed into the ground and he folded onto the ground from the impact, Richard helped him up, but everyone remained in place as they watched the mechanical servos tear open the cover to what was held within the casket.

A wailing siren made the group flinch. It continued as a warm pules emerged from what was once hidden.

“Holy fucking shit.”

Gazing upon them like a burning eye was a large mana-crystal that was easily six times the size of a standard truck that the Federation Army used. The crystal was surrounded by a large isolation chamber and several lines of electrical cords ran to generators nearby.

“We need to deactivate that thing!” Richard said.

“Yeah, but how?” Richard coughed out as he stood up getting away from the corporal.

“Destroy those generators! We can’t allow Raven to carry out his plan with this! Destroy both then meet back here!”

Splitting off into two teams once more, Mike led his group consisting of Richard and Jorge. They sprinted on the right hand side following the mix of cables that led to the back corner of the warehouse. Continuing to wail, the large crystals pules began to intensify as it slowly gathered an enormous and unbelievable amount of energy.

Raven’s plan was simple but ingenious: Filling a mana crystal of this size with an unsustainable amount of energy created a bomb that could potentially destroy an entire city. Why the rogue hero wanted to do this was beyond the staff sergeant, but it would no doubt lead to war and perhaps the entire extermination of either side.

Nuclear weapons did not exist. There was no deterrent, and not even magic could substitute the power of splitting the atom. So, it was paramount that this mission was a success as the mission directives had just changed in the blink of an eye.

They only had so much time, the nullification pules that Lecca had spent no more than a minute ago had stalled the gathering of energy, but she along would be unable to stop this madness.

Reaching the generator, Mike kept the grenade he had withdrawn earlier and knelt. “Five seconds!” He shouted pulling the pin and letting it go on the ground next to the square metallic generator. In an instant he and the two sprinted for their lives back behind the casing of the crystal. The sudden explosion sent shrapnel in a circular pattern with some shard even managing to embed themselves in the brick and concrete walls nearby.

Seconds later a similar explosion ruptured from the other side of the warehouse letting the staff sergeant know that the other team was successful in their objective.

“Raven got a bunch of agents causing havoc down there! Request permission to pursue targets?”

“Shoot to kill.”

“Roger that! Moving to breach.”

“System corrupted, Bailey “Lucky” Maxwell, authorization Echo-Echo-Tango-Alpha—”

High above the sounds of glass shattering brought the attention of Mike. He spotted ten armed men reading to descend into the warehouse using ropes and the moment he brought his rifle up to shoot at one of the armored riflemen, his M5 jammed.

“Fuck!”

Leaning back into cover as the first four hostiles began to slowly descend, Mike cleared the jam in his rifle and prepared to peek back out to cut down any who would try to stop their sabotage of the mana crystal. Before he could gain the momentum to raise his weapon up, the staff sergeant spotted a red glint.

“What the hell?”

Staring at the red beaming laser focused on his squadron leader’s chest, without thinking he dragged Mike and threw him into the wall just in time for a bullet to slam into the concrete floor sending a small amount of lead into their boots.

“Ambush! Ambush!”

“Lucky, we’re engaging unknowns! They’re shooting both us and the agents!”

“What!?”

Heavy caliber bullets streamed past. Their paths were shown by the vapor trails as they penetrated and tore through the heavy metallic surface of the casket cover. As the unknown shooters engaged Lucky and his gunmen, Mike began to move away from the firefight to rendezvous with the other team.

“I can’t see shit!”

“Where are they!?”

The petrified screams of Lucky’s men haunted the three riflemen as they moved swiftly trying to avoid the stray bullets that managed to tear through the cover above them. As they reached the other side, there was a section of open ground that they would have to traverse to reach the other side and the armored section.

Making a bolt for cover, Mike slid behind the bottom of the casket just in time as the unknown shooters began to redirect their fire away from Lucky’s troops. McCann was up next, as Corporal Richard peered around the corner providing suppressive fire, he broke out into a sprint.

Coating the ground in red, a small splatter of blood flew from the lieutenant’s leg as he collapsed to the ground. Instantly reaching out his arms to start crawling, a single bullet tore through McCann’s head, his blood was held within the helmet he wore. Trails of crimson liquid trailed down the side of his face, and it took three seconds for Mike to recognize that the bullet he was killed by had went straight through his skull and tore open the side of his jaw after yawing.

“Fuck!”

Collapsing to the ground, Corporal Richard scurried behind cover. A small hole had torn through his left shoulder and blood seeped into his multi-colored BDU. “I’m hit!” He groaned clutching his wound as he moved further behind the slim piece of cover he was trapped behind.

“Initializing, detaching containment. Pressure increasing.”

“God, damn it hurts!”

“Critical subsystems, exposed.”

“Staff sergeant!”

Making a gut punching decision, Mike detached his IFAK and tossed it to the corporal before turning around and sprinting to the other side where Lecca and her team had just arrived. The corporal called out to him as he tried to stem his wound, but he couldn’t get any words out due to the excruciating pain.

With Lecca dematerializing her rifle, the princess stepped in front of the large crystal. Lucky’s troopers were putting up a fair fight against the unknown hunters, but they were slowly being picked off one-by-one by the superior armor and weapons the new enemy possessed. There were only so many seconds remaining for her to stabilize the mana crystal before it went critical.

“I need you to crack the shielding around the crystal!” Lecca ordered. “We need to break through so I can disperse the building mana!”

“Fire on mark!” Mike directed chambering a bullet into his rifle.

When the others did the same, it would only be three more seconds till all the riflemen would break the protective barrier. Two systems of computers were exposed and the staff sergeant didn’t know how much firepower would be needed to lower the protective glass or provide an opening for the princess to do her work. As he aligned his reticle on the exposed panel, his voice boomed to the men around him drawing attention solely to him.

“Ready!”

Lucky’s fireteam began to fall back and try to stop the destruction of the crystal’s protective barrier.

“Mark!”

In succession the men unloaded their rifles on the exposed panels causing the wailing alarm to resurge and a pulse of electricity to surround the crystal.

“System corrupted. Initiating shutdown sequence.”

As the protective glass lowered, Lecca focused both of her hands towards the make-shift bomb. It would take a massive amount of energy to disperse the mana gathered, and she alone couldn’t do it by herself.

That’s why it was paramount she timed it correctly with Richard’s grenade.

Trough the pain the corporal raised his rifle and aimed his grenade launcher. It would take a synchronized explosive along with a pulse of negative mana to disrupt the crystal and leave it vulnerable for destruction or stabilization.

“Ready!?”

“Ready.”

“Go!”

Exchanging just three words all that followed was the thunderous boom erupted as a large dust cloud emerged from the center of the crystal. Electricity was dispersed and an uncontrollable leak of mana spread throughout the warehouse colliding and fighting against the small, directed burst of energy that Lecca had casted. Lucky’s men were instantly killed by the exposure to the high levels of mana bursting and burning through their skins, and the heavy amounts of electricity that flowed through their bodies as they remained too close to the bomb.

Small sub-explosions began to detonate all around the crystal as the pumps that were used to monitor and redirect the pressure build up burst causing a heavy leakage five meters around the crystal.

As the explosions continued, the unknown hunters began to quietly make their exit as Mike and his team sprinted towards Richard who was just on the edge of the contamination zone. The corporal swore like a sailor at the squadron leader as he and Jorge picked him up and moved the poor man away from the contamination zone and towards safety in the previous room.

Continuously dispersing the energy gathered, the crystal fought to retain what remained, but it would eventually stabilize and return to a neutral state as an emergency lockdown protocol was activated and the metal coffin it was once held in began to shut.

If it were up to everyone present, the crystal would never see the light of day again, but they all knew that wasn’t going to happen.

“Holy fucking shit!” Corporal Richard cried out as they took cover as the direction of the final burst of mana had a single way to escape. A flash of light emanated from the slim edge in the coffin and cut clean through the nearby walls that surrounded it melting it instantly.

Laying the corporal on the ground, Mike threw of his assault pack as he ripped it open grabbing all the medical supplies he had and throwing them on to the ground to find what he needed. His team sat beside him silently as the staff sergeant fumbled with a pair of medical gloves trying to put them on promptly.

Ripping the quick-escape tabs on Richard’s plate carrier, Mike tossed his armor to the side and grasped a pair of medical shears. Jorge and Lecca moved to the side holding the corporal in place as cut open the multi-camouflage shirt revealing the shoulder wound.

He examined the wound first. His eyes bored into the hole in the young man’s skin and the pinkish blood surrounding the entrance wound. Moving to his side and grasping a small alcohol towelette, Mike held the shoulder as he began to clean the entrance to the wound and the surrounding area. Only then did he retrieve a cauterizing agent from his pack.

It was one of three, and he would gladly use it to save his subordinate’s life.

Uncapping the top of the needle and finding a blood vessel near the wound, Mike plunged the needle into the skin and pressed it down.

“Fuck!”

Tearing up at the searing pain that tore through his shoulder, Richard held Jorge’s hand tightly as he waited for the cauterizing medicine to do its work.

Following up on the medicine, Mike grabbed his remaining gauze and proceeded to wrap it tightly around the wound. He didn’t stop till it was on tightly and stopped any chance of the wound reopening, and once he had secured the fabric with a small pin, he directed the others to lay the corporal on the ground while providing a elevated position for both of his feet.

“Phantom One-One in the blind, any and all OMFS agents respond to this priority one call.”

“Phantom One-One, Dimond Zero-Three, target Raven is unable to be reached. We have taken heavy casualties and are currently at point two-two-three within the underground labyrinth. Be advised, chemical agents have been confirmed on site.”

“Acknowledged. Routing MEDIVAC and DECON to your location now. Glad to hear you guys are still alive.”

Taking off his medical gloves and collapsing on a nearby wall, Mike took heavy breaths as Leccamaradel took a seat on his right. Neither of them bothered to remove their gas masks. No one had at this point, and it wasn’t worth the risk dying to a possible chemical still in the air.

“What the hell.”

For the first time in five minutes did Mike finally speak letting out a heavy sigh. He had just watched two more teammates die and there was nothing he could do but watch. He was lucky enough not to lose a third, but considering Richard did get shot, he would be out of the game for some time alongside Simon who was removed from any combat duty.

Richard was just another piece of Task Force Spare that was being taken away. The only one he had left was the princess. She was somebody who stuck by his side the entire time, and soon enough, without doubt, he would be left alone again as he had failed to stop the only person that was going to trigger a war between the Federation of Zivaland and the Kingdom of Yondel.

There was no going back for this failure, everyone knew this.

Dimond Squadron may have saved the lives of hundreds if not thousands.

But how many lives were truly saved in the grand scheme that was formulating behind the darkening horizon?

Publicly Available Information: Makeshift Weaponry — XDPP – 35 “Plasma”:

The Experimental Dual Purpose Platform MK 35 [XDPP-35] Plasma is the most advanced and ambitious energy generating and weapons platform ever created within the Federation of Zivaland. With it being the peak of energy conservation and creation technologies and it being the single most dangerous device ever to be created and discovered, the XDPP-35 Plasma is a technology that might bring the world into the next five technological generations.

Being developed and created by a terrorist organization and its first deployment being within the underground network found within the city of Ignis, the XDPP-35 had an unknown goal and is believed to have been placed strategically under a collection of critical infrastructure with the intent of detonation and destruction of a third of the city.

When in combat with the unknown device, the terrorist organization under the leadership of Raven is most vulnerable when deployed and its core exposed.

If the core is exposed without proper precaution, the mana crystal held within will initiate a countdown till a security protocol to discharge excess energy is activated for self-defense. Though, this can be nullified and delayed if a negative mana is discharged such as when a nullification spell is casted.

Raven and his men are willing to use any tactic to avoid the loss of the Plasma. This includes scorched earth tactics, including the premature discharge of energy to eviscerate anything within a five-meter radius to the core.