Death Squad was now in five three man groups. Each was assigned an area to attack, suppress, and eliminate all targets. Alpha was Andrei, Flen, and Edwin. Beta squad consisted of Hood, O, and Julia. Charley squad involved Loco, Poco, and Jiks. Delta squad made up the aerial assault of Surany, Mini, and Goombi. With Echo being the support unit having Sophia, Hook, and Lily.
Surany called Sunfire, her fire bird pet, out of her containment field and Sunfire was seen flying way up in the sky. Surany then channeled into its eyes and saw that the structure was the same, the sentries still in the same trees, and a beast just came out of the facility rabidly swinging the fence before figuring out it can keep going the one direction and end up in the forest. She confirmed to Andrei that real time was the same as the satellites, before turning into her phoenix form and flying off.
Beta and Charley continue on as they need to get around the perimeter to surround the facility and ensure no one escapes. Mini had taken flight and she had on her mech a 5 mile radius jammer. With it actively jamming communications both portal and vocal/visual the facility if it had either sets of devices would be useless.
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Andrei contacted Lauren and sent out a communication to everyone in the mission. "It's time to go! make sure no one escapes, take as many prisoners but if they won't surrender then do what must be done."
Loud bangs and pops were heard coming from all directions in front of Andrei as all the squads engaged. Alpha was in a full on sprint to the facility when a body fell from the trees above and landed head first into the ground in front of Andrei. Looking up Mini was hovering with a smile, "He had you in his sights, should have been looking up!" She shouted out and then flew off to the next sentry on her list to take out.
"Sophia we need healing quickly" Jiks was heard over their earpiece. They all had the earpiece but Andrei wanted to continue to use Lauren as much as possible to get her skills better and for them to get used to using her as well.
Echo headed in the direction of Charley and were cut off by a squad of five that upon seeing two girls with one guy they thought they could easily take them. Lily's confusion ability was perfect for defending a healer. Anyone would get close to Sophia and she would attack them with her ability and the opponent would then start swinging at the air in another direction. Hook had developed good instincts of defending with a shield so was always on Sophia's back defending it.
Surany saw from above the three get surrounded. She quickly changed to her normal self inflight while calling to Sunfire who swooped below her and gave her a ride. The two of them had figured out that Surany could ride on Sunfires back and with the new bow she wanted to see if she could support from the sky.
Lily was throwing out all the stops and making the five men work for nothing. She still wasn't as talented of a fighter so all she could do is defend her friend and herself. That is when the man in front of her all of sudden had an arrow sticking out of the top of his head and blood spilling out of his mouth.
Hook was taking swing after swing to the shield but never giving ground and pushing back when he could. Hook pulled out his new weapon handle and the blade formed a hook with a green tip. The tip if it pierced an opponent it would poison the person with a stamina drain. This was slowing down the enemies whenever he could get a scratch on them. Then the man's head had a dark crimson colored arrow sticking out of his head and he fell over dead.
Lily and Hook turned to check on Sophia and saw the last three men receive the same fate. She glanced up in the sky and was shocked to see Surany riding on the back of her flaming pet bird. "You're the best!" She shouted up at Surany and then grabbed Sophia to get her to Charley.
Another two men went in their path but as soon as they stood out in front of the three it was as quickly as they were removed. Goombi had flown in with his morning star and mace out and smashed their heads off before they could even react.
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O was really starting to like being in Death Squad, he had only been alive for a few weeks but knew he had found his home. Tales of Sandarian warriors were told in all corners of the Galaxy but to witness one in battle was a different thing to behold. O was head strong and didn't understand the word stealth, or couldn't grasp it with his sheer size.
The moment Andrei spoke to them with the sentence "it's time to go!" O heard nothing else and charged in without waiting for Hood and Julia. There were 25 soldiers in front of O when he first charged, when Julia and Hood joined the battle there were only two left which they both died before Hood and Julie could attack.
O laughed a hearty low laugh that shook the ground. Master Chief Hood stood there impressed but also shocked at how quickly O took care of the soldiers. They might not have been soldiers with incredible gear but to take out 25 soldiers in Standard gear should have taken a lot longer than what O just did.
They moved closer to the facility as the barracks was just cleared out by O. They entered a side door and then froze as they didn't know how to proceed. Hood touched his earpiece, "We have a situation, there are hundreds of captive humans in here."
The first part of the facility that Beta went through was the holding cell area for Ra's experiments. A number of the people in the cells were wearing clothes synonymous with the poorer parts of Hathin. They came across no resistance in the area and so continued to move through the facility to find whoever was in charge.
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Alpha squad even though they were the squad attacking the entrance had run into the least amount of resistance. Andrei had actually only taken out a few men in the trees with his sling shot, Edwin and Flen were yet to use an ability.
They reached the main entrance of the facility when a man with an impressive set of beast armor came out of it. He was followed by 4 more that all had similar looking beast armor. The four spread out in a V formation with two on each side of the apparent leader.
"Not sure who you think you are but this area is private property giving me full authority to kill you onsite." The man in the middle shouted out to Alpha. Andrei responded in kind, "Private property doesn't save you from being a terrorist organization, you can tell your men to stand down and so will mine. Or we can do this and whoever is left standing will give us the answers we are looking for, what say you?"
"Haha, that is a good one, you think a group of children can take on Ra? We are eternal and will forever ensure the survival of the human race." The man in the middle shouted a little less but was still yelling to make sure what he said was heard.
"What is this guy the ultimate supervillain?" Andrei muttered to where only Edwin and Flen could hear and both chuckled. "As I just stated, tell your men to stand down and I will do the same or continue to be slaughtered because if you do the math these children have eliminated your entire exterior force, yes all 200 of them."
The smile went away from the man in the middle since he actually didn't know the situation at hand with his own numbers, he just assumed they were under attack and with 3 coming up the middle looking like toddlers that this was some training exercise.
The man in the middle leaned back and to his left as if trying to hear what was being said behind him. The furthest on the outside had put his hand over his mouth to stop the sound from traveling towards Alpha. "A glitch or miscommunication there's simply no way, we would have been informed about any type of approved attack on this facility."
Andrei hearing that confirmed his suspicion and was thankful Hood even mentioned the fact he was going to report it. If Hood had taken it into his own hands then this entire operation would have failed.
"As for these three I have always wanted to see a Tantan fight in person, now we get two! Kill the aliens!" And with that he pulled out a large mace off his back and charged directly at Edwin.
Alpha simultaneously pulled out their longswords, Andrei made them each one before the fight, and pulled off an attack that scared all five of the Ra soldiers. All three did their "Fireblast" spells with Andrei using "Dragons Breath". The resulting wall of fire and the fireball projecting out of it caused all five men to leap back, get singed, and the leader took the brunt of the "Dragons Breath" was on fire.
The second to the left was a water user and shot a tunnel of water on their leader to put out the fire. They all regained their composure realizing they were going to be in a fight for their lives with these kids.
"You burned my armor you asshole, I'm going to use your corpse to clean it off" the leader grunted in anger towards Alpha.
"I was going to say last chance but since you just called my friends aliens that mentality needs to die with you" Andrei retorted back to the leader and followed that by summoning his army with the command to kill at will.
The 5 men seeing the sudden fire elemental, the giant beast, the clones of both, LaLa and Prince in their advanced stage standing next the three kids literally caused them to scream in fear.
Andrei didn't stop, he summoned a Demon Army using one of each for the Grunt, Stalker, and Terror. Even Andrei had never seen them and when they appeared out of a cloudy dark blue/black portal he felt a shiver run through him. He had no idea what they were going to do and never got the chance as his pets caught the 5 of them from behind and took them all out without putting up a fight.
Edwin and Flen both looked at Andrei and simultaneously "Those yours?" Which Andrei chuckled "Apparently the big guy is a Terror, then a Stalker who is always invisible unless he strikes. The ugly one is called a Grunt. I can only summon one Stalker, but apparently can summon more Terrors and Grunts at cost to my Spirit"
Andrei was thinking about how to get rid of them and a pop up in his interface appeared.
[Summon Army Cancelled? Y/N]
He did so and three separate portals appeared which caught them all off guard as there was a portal right at the entrance meaning the Stalker was trying to go that way. Fluffy and Burny stayed out but Prince and LaLa returned.
They proceeded into the entrance with Edwin in the lead behind his tower shield. They figured the entrance would have guards or defenses but apparently this facility never expected anyone to get this far. There was a reception desk with a partition behind it that once you walked around it the entire facility came to view.
Each of them gasped when they turned the corner seeing the amount of people that were locked up. All of them looked to be in poor health, poor spirits, poor hygiene, just poor. Alpha proceeded to find out what this facility was exactly.
Halfway into the facility Alpha and Bravo squad met up and proceeded together to check out the basement. Near the center was a large winding staircase leading downwards. The upper floor was clear of enemies so they had to check the lower floors.
The clone pets led the way down the steps and were checking for any traps. They stayed in sight but ahead so that anything triggered could be avoided. The spiraling staircase led to a lower floor where the scene was gruesome. In the center there lay an angled slab of stone with straps on it in the locations associated with strapping legs and arms down.
Around the slab of stone was caked on dried blood in a large radius. There were dead beasts piled up in a corner that seemed like it had another purpose but they could not tell. Parts of beasts and human remains were scattered everywhere.
Andrei noticed that on the computers there was an "Interact" So he headed over to it and hovered his hand over the computer. His mini map lit up and now he had a detailed overview of the area. He noticed directly above the slab was a trap door. He then looked closer at the slab and noticed that it looked like it would be lifted to the trap door.
Andrei started putting two and two together and realized that they were either feeding the people to the beasts or the beasts were the people. "Mini we recording everything on this mission from your end at minimum?"
"Aye boss, I have been recording, what do you want me to record now?" Mini responded while in flight above the facility making sure no one was coming as back up or anyone getting away. She hadn't seen anyone in a while so was getting bored just hovering in flight.
Mini left her two clones on auto patrol and headed down into the facility. There was a break in the roof from earlier fighting so she flew down in through the opening and down the spiral staircase landing right next to Andrei in a smooth motion as if she had done it millions of times before.
Glancing around she started to do a slow 360 degree turn so that all her recording would get all of the entire room. Andrei then activated a switch next to the slab and it lifted upwards, simultaneously the roof opened up and they could see sunlight. Mini flew up to record the slab going through the opening and then flew out along the fence line. Her sensors picked up the tracks of beasts and displayed them for her to see but she ignored them as she was trying to get this facility recorded.
She flew back into the top floor and recorded all the people. Everyone that was in the basement came back up and they still weren't sure what was going on. Looking at all the people Andrei asked everyone to fan out and figure out how to release them.
"Halt!" A disembodied voice was heard over the PA of the facility. "Do not release the prisoners, they have all been infected and can not be released" the voice continued.
"Why would I believe that?" Andrei shouted out in no general direction.
"You don't have to believe me, but if you release them and the rest of Hathin gets what they have then it's 4 billion lives on you." The voice persisted.
"Valid point…"Edwin chimed in, thinking of what could be going on.
"What are they infected with?" Andrei asked to the voice.
"There is no cure so no point in giving it a name, they will become beasts or die in the next minute to 72 hours for the newest of them. With no one to manage their turning so that they can be the best tier possible for us to collect their cores after they feed in the wild, they will soon start to kill each other in the cages till there is only one and that one will consume the rest to survive for many months."
"If you notice they are separated into groups of 20 and the winner of each group gets to leave the facility to only be hunted later as they have tracking chips in them. When they exit the facility the chip will send out a signal once the beast core has matured to its full potential and then we go collect them."
"The group of five that you just easily handled without breaking a sweat were in charge of hunting them down and collecting their cores. They were dicks and I'm glad they are dead. Ra isn't a terrorist group but those guys were."
Andrei finally realized that he must be talking to a scientist of the facility who was probably in the wrong place at the wrong time and ended up in this mess. "If Ra isn't a terrorist group, explain this?"
"Simple, we are creating more advanced tier beasts that can be easily defeated so we can have greater gear to be more powerful. The greater good of humanity is being put first in this endeavor." The voice explained.
"If you want to believe the internal propaganda then look at it as their sacrifice as weaklings makes us stronger." Andrei knew what this guy was going to say and not change his mind from it so he stopped the line of questioning and decided to change it all up.
"Who is the leader of Ra?" Andrei inquired to the ceiling.
"Haha you think I'm suicidal, why do you think I'm talking to you over the PA system? I will tell you this, Ra is everywhere." There was a loud clack over the PA and Andrei assumed that was the talking device being dropped wherever this guy was talking from and he must have headed out.
Mini's clones spotted the man jump out a window on the side of the building they swooped in. They each shot out a wrangling cord from their arm that wrapped around the legs of the man and tripped him up. They each landed on a side of the man and held him down by his shoulders and hips each.
Andrei told Delta to hold him while he made sure that the facility was in fact clear of any other Ra personnel. He walked back into the basement of the facility and Prince suggested a gift of kindness. Andrei agreed and they found the containment field and lowered all of them. Prince and LaLa went out and put all of them out of their misery. Andrei was getting EXP for each but it felt wrong. He didn't want to tempt the fate of the planet if what the guy they spoke with was telling the truth.
Prince returned and even said that he felt bad for killing them and he was an eternal spirit. Saying they all seemed to be thanking him with their last breaths of life. Andrei shuddered thinking about it and continued his search along the walls. He had a feeling that the mini map wasn't showing him everything since the basement was blank. Then he found what he was looking for and it was next to the pile of dead beasts. There was a door that looked exactly like the wall but there were scratch marks going under the wall from a beast.
He kept trying to find a lock or a code, however he got frustrated and without thinking about it hit the wall hard enough to knock the door right off its hinges and go flying back into the hallway that it led to. The noise startled everyone on the first floor and quickly in his earpiece Andrei could hear them asking if he was ok.
Andrei pulled out his longsword as it was dark in the hallway, it led to another door that once again did not seem to have any mechanism to open it so he didn't waste time and kicked it in. This time it did not go as far as it hit another object and stopped still standing up then fell back towards Andrei with a loud smack.
Screeches, growls, tweets, and noises that only beasts could make filled the air as he seemingly woke up a lot of them. The noise from them could be heard above and Death Squad didn't talk into the earpiece; they all just reacted and bolted downstairs. Andrei stepped into the next area cautiously as the noise was loud but also not changing. He couldn't hear the beasts charging so he proceeded forward.
Turning the corner from the door on the ground he then saw even more cages similar to the ones with the humans; these were full of beasts. Andrei ran his "Identify" on them and noticed almost all of them were standard beasts with some intermediate. He could not fathom what they could be doing with so many beasts and with them being so low, what that scientist or whoever he is said was not making sense to Andrei.
Death Squad entered the area and saw what Andrei was looking at and all were stopped in their tracks. There had to be thousands of them, and Andrei was just staring at them. They didn't know he was scanning all of them with Identify to see if there were higher tier beasts. They all proceeded to walk further down in the nest of cages and the noises intensified as they moved. Andrei hadn't said anything but they all started to follow as he went further.
At the end of the area were two cages with Advanced tier beasts according to his interface and then the last one had an Epic tier beast. What Andrei was most intrigued by was the fact that the Epic tier was a humanoid beast and fast asleep. That is when Jiks noticed there was a gas in the cage and blurted out "I think they are keeping this one asleep, I can see gas similar to what my sleeping ability produces."
"This one is an Epic tier beast that must have done something to trap it, not sure if an Epic tier beast has been seen on this planet since I have been alive." Master Chief Hood commented about what he was seeing in the cage. He could tell it was an epic tier because it had skin markings of 4 different elements, with Wind, Fire, Nature, Water all being present. Andrei turned around and noticed that the last couple cages were all humanoid while all of the beginning were not humanoid at all.
Then it clicked with Andrei and he realized these were the beasts that the scientist was referring to being captured easily. This one in particular was going to give them an Epic beast core displaying four elements would make that piece extremely powerful for anyone to wield.
"Fan out and find the controls to these cages then prepare for battle." Andrei ordered to Death Squad. O jumped up and down and moved back to the center of the beast area and started to taunt all the beasts as best he could. He wanted to take them all on and knew he was worthless at finding electronics; he spewed insults in all directions trying to grab as many beasts attention as possible.
Mini found the containment field and in the earpiece gave a countdown so that everyone would be ready. "3,2,1 Fight!" with a giggle she hit the button to release the containment fields on all the cages and the chaos ensued.
Andrei had his longsword in the ready and when the containment field dropped his stroke rang true to the neck of the sleeping Epic cleanly slicing the head off. LaLa fetched the beast core as she was intrigued by its power and wanted to touch it. The Advanced tier beasts weren't subdued and both came out of their cages ready to fight.
Andrei shot out "Storm Bolt" at the closest to him with his longsword and the beast blocked it seeing the longsword pointing at it. The attack was too fast for the beast to see but the longsword pointing gave it away. Andrei put the longsword on his back and opened his shield and summoned an "Ice Axe" in his right hand.
He then, spinning on his left foot, threw the "Ice Axe" out with great force and the beast was struck before he could get his arms up to block it. The "Ice Axe" stuck into the chest for a moment then disintegrated. He summoned another "Ice Axe" and took a couple steps forward to engage the Advanced beast.
This advanced beast had a Nature ability to harden its body which already looked like bark from a tree. Its head looked like a fish bowl as its mouth and eyes were not water but the rest was water. Then it had lightning blue eyes and out of nowhere shot out a bolt of lightning hitting Andrei taking off 20 HP. Andrei had not been hit in a while and the pain was a sudden reminder that he was in fact in combat.
Andrei not long ago had a base HP of 20 but thanks to his armor, the time spent on Dracula and "Mini's Alarm Clock" he had 2240 HP now, which made him wonder what would have happened if that 20 HP was his only HP, he had never gotten that low nor wanted to test it out. The 20 HP hurt like hell but his "Internal Focaine" worked its magic and healed him quickly.
Being distracted the beast did not let up his attacks and shot out another five shots at Andrei till he realized he couldn't penetrate the shield as Andrei was able to anticipate the attacks knowing his eyes would glow more right before and then Andrei would pull his shield to the right area in time.
His shield was building its charge but was only a quarter full which told him how incredibly powerful that Legendary strike was and how he would have died if he didn't have the shield. He decided to change up his tactics slightly since this beast wanted to fight at range and Andrei threw the "Ice Axe" again but this time he followed it with a "Lightning Pellet" from his sling shot going straight through the heart of the beast. It collapsed to the floor and LaLa hopped to the core.
Andrei had sent his pets to help with the beast clean up knowing they could each handle anything they came across. LaLa was now on core duty for Andrei who had one more Advanced tier beast to fight so he thought. He turned around to see Flen and Edwin holding out the beast core to the other Advanced tier beast. Both with big grins on their faces as they felt like they accomplished something defeating an advanced tier beast as a tag team.
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Delta and Echo squads were standing with the prisoner who had refused to talk to any of them as none of them were Andrei, so the scientist persisted. "I will only talk to your leader is all I will say." Which was repeated at nauseum. What they did not expect was to see O come stomping out of the facility absolutely drenched in beast blood. A few minutes later and the rest of Death Squad exited the facility all covered in beast blood.
The mantra of the prisoner had stopped and the look of complete shock and horror replaced it. He could not fathom how fifteen people could take out thousands of humans and beasts and were laughing about it. "What are you people nuts!" he exclaimed.
"Sure now jackass wants to talk. We ask the questions not you, you moron!" Sophia said in disgust as she was wishing her ability was not the healing kind for the last 20 minutes wanting to shut him up permanently. Surany landed next to the scientist on the back of Sunfire and it literally caused him to shriek out loud. They all laughed at the sight, even Andrei appreciated how comical the scientist reacted to an elemental beast landing next to him.
"What has he said?" Andrei inquired as he approached them from the facility.
"Absolutely nothing!" Sophia exacerbated. "Would only speak to the leader!" She made a comical voice impression of the scientist.
"I am the leader of Death Squad, Andrei, yours?" Andrei inquired of the scientist offering out a blood covered hand and a warm smile. The scientist audibly gulped and stuttered a response of "As in SPRU Death Squad?"
O slapped Andrei on the back and yelled "See Death Squad already has a reputation that causes even the ladies to shit their pants!"
"Why do you ask if we are SPRU or not?" Andrei inquired of the scientist to see what the answer might be as he was curious if there would be a response. The scientist looked at them all nervously.
"One Man Army was sent to take out five of you, we never heard back from him. He was over 40 cycles old and hadn't lost a fight since he gained his 5th clone, he could do 10. His shield was indestructible and a part of his ability was cloning his gear with his clones so that they were all equally powerful." The scientist told them with some hesitation in his voice trying to figure out what to say.
"When One Man Army didn't return from his mission most of the base were spooked out as they all knew his record. You guys were the talk of this facility, since there won't be anymore talking. Except the five that were decked out in beast gear the rest were scared shitless of you guys and some were talking about trying to get reassigned to another operation in Ra." The scientist was just talking and no one was stopping him.
"If you would have just announced that you were Death Squad they might have all shit themselves and surrendered minus those five guys. You didn't seem to struggle with them anyways and to be honest what we were doing here was pretty disgusting." the scientist had a remorseful tone when saying the last part.
Andrei was unsure who to trust in the Military currently so he needed to figure out what to do with the scientist until he knew who to trust. He looked at Death Squad and told them to head back to the base and he was going to hold him in the Goliath until he can figure out the next thing to do with him. They all agreed and said their goodbyes to him and he grabbed the scientist's arm and then ported to Goliath.
They arrived surprisingly in the holding cell area and Andrei just had to walk out of the cell and the door closed behind him. Turning around he gave the scientist a warm smile "Temporary arrangements till I can figure out what to do, look on the bright side, you're still alive!"
With that he ported back to his room and headed out of the barracks back towards the cadet building. He was in search of Paul as he was someone he could trust, or at least he needed to figure out if he could trust him or not. Stepping into the cadet building Andrei was surprised to see it was full of new cadets just like he experienced not long ago. He figured if they were all in the assembly hall then maybe Paul would be free in his classroom.
Andrei remembered it being under the blue balcony and was hoping they hadn't changed the color scheme. To his relief the teachers were in the room discussing their next steps with the new cadets and Paul noticed Andrei come hurriedly walking in. He excused himself and headed over to Andrei and grabbed his shoulder to usher him away from the other teachers.
"What seems to be the issue as you are sweating, covered in beast blood, and just bursted into this room?" Paul hushed just above a whisper to Andrei. Andrei was so focused on what he needed to get done he didn't even contemplate the fact that he had most of his face covered in blood.
"Did you know of me going into SPRU before graduating?" Andrei directly asked and not exactly quiet which caused Paul to physically react. "Shhhh" Paul hushed again at Andrei.
"I informed SPRU Command about the fact they needed to consider you and your team as a perfect candidate for them the first day of class. Why do you ask?" Paul was now quizzically looking at Andrei trying to figure out why this line of questioning.
Andrei had pulled a patch off the uniform of one of the deceased soldiers, he removed it from his inventory and it appeared in his hand. Paul reacted by quickly closing Andrei's hand around the patch and looking around to see if anyone saw it.
"That is a terrorist organization, please tell me you are not a part of them?" Paul continued in a hushed voice.
"Me? No, myself and Death Squad just removed a couple hundred soldiers, a couple thousand humans turned beast, and a couple more thousand beasts just 10 miles south of this city in the dense forest."
"How you might ask, I will tell you how, my aerial team running training missions spotted the facility and were fired upon all because they were out flying just south of this city. The military is infested with these people according to the facility personnel that we interrogated before their demise. I have one question for you and it better be the right answer. Do you work for Ra?" Andrei looked him dead in the face with no emotion, just intent to know the answer.
Paul, taken aback by the accusation, reached out with his hand and put it on Andrei's elbow in a manner to say "listen up" just by his movement. "Ra is a terrorist organization that if I had the power I would remove all of them out of this galaxy. I have no affiliation with them, I never will have an affiliation with them, and if I see them I will kill them on-site. So when you accuse me of working for Ra I am not sure you understand how much I hate them."
Paul's sincere response got to Andrei and he knew that he was serious as there was a hint of pain in the way he delivered the response as if he was holding back some painful memories, most likely something Ra did in his past. Andrei knew that look all too well from his parents and Sam's parents as inquiring young minds ask questions that would get that response.
Andrei didn't figure out who the mole was but he figured out that he could trust Paul. He didn't know if trusting Paul with the scientist was quite there but he wasn't blaming him for being attacked anymore in his head. So Andrei called it a win on that front and went to meet up with Death Squad as they would be arriving back at the base any minute.