Aranea’s fingers find cracks in her right shoulder. The bullet hole was already closed. The small armor caliber of the SMGs was hardly suited to piercing through both her skin and hardened bone, she plucked out the bullet without even using her claws.
"You okay?" Sly asked, sitting side by side with another soldier and furiously typing something on the terminal.
"Yeah, just got a broken bone. Since I managed to get a drop on them, I got away with just that," Aranea smirked, placing a medical patch above the bullet hole, "The blues aren’t weak. Is this the first time we ever get one alive?"
"Alive is a relative term," A soldier who treated the wounds of the prisoner said, coming from the basement, "You shattered his… hers… its? Oh, who cares, its limbs real good and I can hardly diagnose if this creature has internal bleeding or not. Unless we can get it back to the camp, it will probably die eventually. The other captives should live."
Aranea simply nodded, continuing to check her shoulder. Fighting without the power armor had become a one-of-a-kind experience by this point. The wolf hag understood that she had become overly reliant on the protection of her armor, to the point that she had allowed the blue to sense her before taking the creature down. It was an unforgivable mistake and one that she hadn’t intended to repeat in the future.
They were in a small wooden house. Aside from Aranea, Sly, and the captives, there were eight soldiers with them. Sly was asked by Scorpio himself to join this mission, as the backup for the soldier who was furiously typing on the keyboard right now. According to scarps of information that the captain was willing to share, the fall of Bloodmoon Bastion relied on the "message" that they will send from this location. The previous owners of this house had long since evacuated. Most of the team were in the main room, their most valuable asset was loudly snorting in the bedroom on the sole small bed in the house.
Greenies, sent either by Chort himself or by the command of the fortress, visited this place twice. Once they were taken down by the soldiers, but another time it was Aranea who made short work of the three ugly creatures. Their remains were now rotting in the basement, next to their captives.
The entire team for this mission was made up of volunteers, the captain made it clear that their chances of survival, if everything went as planned, were slim. Aranea was fully intended to see that Sly would get out from this mission safely at the very least. And she also planned to stay alive as well. Gone were the days when she was willing to lay down her life for a case. No matter how selfish it may sound, now the halfbreed intends to live, to ensure that the day will come when Tilden will be brought to justice, when the Wolf Tribe will reform, when her soldiers will be alive at the end of the war… And if she is still alive, she will undoubtedly find something else to do.
"All done!" The soldier next to the Sly eagerly said, punching a button at the keyboard very enthusiastically, "We got the access point open and the captain can…"
The soldier never finished speaking his words. One moment, he was starting to jump up, a smile was spreading on the tanned face, covered with a lush bush of a black beard. In the next moment, his upper head was gone, leaving just his lower jaw smiling with a grievous grin.
Aranea’s eyes widened in shock when a figure landed on the floor, the debris from a ruined wall still falling on the ground beneath him. A hand raised, index and middle fingers turning into long elongated needles that speared a soldier sitting on a bench right in the eyes, followed by a cruel twist that liquidated the brain in the head. Another hand moved out, finding a heart in the chest of another soldier and ripping it away.
All in the span of one second. He used the soldiers as a distraction to conceal his presence and sneak up on us! Aranea’s thought in panic, leaping from the place and grabbing Sly, along with another solider and the mobile terminal, and jumping into the corridor. Behind them, Chort beheaded one more soldier with a simple looking chop and sent another soldier after Aranea with a kick that pierced through the stomach of the woman. The mercenary was dressed in a grey shirt and long black pants, no boots were on his legs. His grey hair was tied up in a knot, the mercenary’s eyes looked around for the next prey. And he found it.
The remaining soldier in the room jumped to his feet, reaching for a shardgun. All the soldiers who volunteered for this mission were veterans, even such sudden carnage was not enough to scare or confuse them. The movements that every single one of them trained for over the course of their entire career were drilled into their very bodies. For Aranea, it was to grab the nearest allies and leg it for the retreat route. For the remaining soldier, it was to try and buy the time for his team to regroup.
But such methods could work against a normal foe. Chort was more of akin to a natural disaster. And one does not try to fight a raging whirlwind. One simply endures it, hoping to survive it. The soldier only managed to raise his weapon before a cruel slice of a bone sword ended his life, splitting the man into two halves.
Aranea charged toward the back of the house, past the small bedroom, and hid herself and the others behind the corner that led to a small storeroom.
"Sly, can the captain still do the thing?" She demanded to know, while the soldier gave her a shardgun from the storeroom, arming himself as well. The wolf hag glanced from the corner, noticing the wounded soldier on the floor and the spreading pool of blood beneath her.
This is the price for letting our guard down. She thought in mild shock. Chort walked from the main room, the bone sword returned to a normal looking hand, and the mercenary casually shook away the blood from his fingers. A momentary weakness that caused so many lives to be lost in a flash.
"Yes, the access point is still open, but he needs just a little more time," Sly managed to squeak, holding the portable terminal before himself like the most precious thing in the world. Aranea could understand his shock. The smaller wolfkin shook his head, "I can fight too, I…"
"His turn is now over." A voice said and all three of the soldiers turned to look behind them.
Aranea remembered about this woman. How could she not? All of them heard her loud snorting, the warlord did little else than sleep in the bedroom. She slept during all of the attacks, her loud snoring was an ever-present sound in the house. But amidst the chaos of the attack, Aranea failed to notice how the woman moved, she failed to notice the moment when the snoring ended. And she certainly failed to recognize that the woman stood next to them.
Valerye Foulsnout was standing behind the soldiers, hands folded on her chest. Her power armor was still powered down while she leaned against the wall. But the gear of a warlord was a marvelous thing, unlike power armors of the lower ranks, it could not be detected by electronic devices of the Resistance, and it could be powered up at a moment's notice. The warlord carried an armor-piercing pistol on her belt.
"Keep the terminal running, everyone." Valerye addressed the trio, lifting her arms off her chest and clenching a fist.
The soldier in the corridor came back to life the moment Chort passed her. She grabbed his legs with one arm, tearing off a pin from a grenade that she hid beneath her body. The mercenary moved, breaking the hold on his legs with ease, one of his legs kicked up, sending the grenade flying in the air, and with a snap, he sent it back to the main room, where it exploded against the wall, partially collapsing the roof. His second hand pointed at the soldier’s head.
The warlord moved along with him, crashing through a wall that separated them, intending to land a clear hit against his right shoulder. At the last possible moment, the mercenary caught the incoming punch with his palm, the force behind the blow shattered his own hand against his shoulder, and the momentum behind the Valerye’s movement sent both opponents through the walls of the bedroom, right into the open.
The walls of the house cracked, the support beans that held the roof in place were almost destroyed, and Aranea jumped to the wounded soldier, grabbing her into her arms and charging outside, followed by Sly and another soldier, while the roof fell behind them, burying the dead beneath the wood.
The warlord and the mercenary were locked up in the struggle, their bodies were almost curled into a ball, while the warlord tried to pin the mercenary to the ground. The moment she was above him, she punched, and the man dodged at the last moment. Valerye’s fist connected with the ground, sending tremors across the ground, making even Aranea jump in the air slightly. The ground opened and the cracks that ran in all directions between the two opponents were wide enough to swallow a person whole.
The mercenary kicked, an attack that was pushed aside by the warlord before it could reach her body. Even still, the kick allowed the mercenary to slither from beneath her, darting a few steps back. Chort looked at Valerye with a mix of hatred, fear, and anticipation, the earlier punch had shattered his left hand.
"You." Chort said, putting both hands in the pockets of his pants and standing upright, smiling almost casually to the warlord.
"Hm?" Valerye turned her head to the side and lifted one arm, pressing a hand to the ear hidden by the metal of her helmet, "Are you saying something? Speak louder, old fart." Aranea was sure that Valerye was baiting the man. The power armor of the warlord was in pristine condition, her cape was flapping in the wind, and the lenses of her helmet shone brightly as the light of day.
"Clear up the shit outta your ears, doggie. You marked my face," Chort said, cracking his neck, "I've been looking forward to seeing you again. That bitch back in Belaz barely served as an appetizer. Time to collect the de…"
"Ok, I heard you clearly," Valerye cut him off, still holding one hand to her ear, "You’re the one I didn’t want to meet ever again, is that what you just said? Can’t really blame you, old fart, the last time we met you ran with a tail between your… Oh, sorry, you left your tail, along with your manhood to us."
"You really are delusional," Chort said, his smile reaching all the way to his ears, "But don't worry, I'll clean the shit out of your ears. Right before I mount yer head on a tavern’s wall."
"Do me a solid and don’t run away this time."
Chort’s pockets exploded, and Valerye ducked when a bone shard flew above her, hitting the tree behind Valerye. The small bone shard, Chort turned part of his index fingers into detachable bones and launched them with the snap of his thumbs, pierced through the massive tree with enough force to bisect it in the middle. The massive tree behind the warlord barely started falling when Valery moved forward in a blur of crimson streak, landing a punch between his legs and sending him into the air.
Without stopping, Valerye grabbed her cape with one arm, pulling it in front of her and reaching for her pistol.
Yes! Aranea felt her heart beating faster the moment she understood the plan. In the air, he can’t dodge the shot…
Chort smiled, and two more bone shards flew from his pockets. One hit directly into Valerye’s pistol, bending the steel and jamming it. Another hit her in the temple, sending a thin crack against her helmet.
"Land a solid hit on you? Sure, I got you covered" Chort laughed, while his leg extended like a tentacle, wrapping itself around the nearby tree and stopping him in the air. A trickle of blood showed from the corner of his mouth, and the mercenary coughed, while the warlord fell on one knee, blood pushing from her cracked helmet. Aranea grabbed her weapon and the mercenary looked at her, "And this time there will not be anyone to help you!"
The ground before the soldiers exploded, unleashing greenies at them. Aranea barely had enough time to shoot the first one before the second kicked the shardgun out of her arms.
