Taco Nicks's Story

Fahim jumped out of his sleep at the sound of weapons discharging, the Persian man was obviously startled. But, was just a small drop of piss hitting his underwear. He noticed the cybernetic corpses coming his way, but what could he do? Fahim sat there, staring at them as they approached.

He thought he'd died from an overdose one day, but it seemed he was wrong about that too. He was wrong about of things now that he thought back on his life. He was going to embrace a fitting, violent, end to an equally violent life.

Fahim took a deep breath, shut his eyes and waited for his demise.

His life was prolonged when a van came crashing into the horde, on the front of the van was something similar to a cowcatcher usually seen on trains. The two sliding doors on the van open, several black clad men leaning out with assault rifles, pistols, swords, and baseball bats.

Each man taking out as many of the cyborgs as they could.

Taco leaned out with a shotgun, blasting a zombie's head completely off as he passed it. "I guess he just... lost his head." The man joked, "Oh, that was horrible." Telford said, shaking his head.

Literally the last thing Reisel wanted to hear from his agent was the word no. Unfortunately, sometimes you just had to hear it. Gritting his teeth the man didn't slack in pace. The two others were in close radius, hidden by the shadows until their fire revealed them. "Higher," Reisel commanded. Each soldier moved towards the sky a bit. A better view. This trend continued, the far blip of the fifth growing closer with each downed zomborg. Venomsquad had the advantage of height, two following close to their royal's command while one scouted ahead and aside.

"V-noir" Patched through from the scout. A black van of some sort, which meant survivors.
"Two," Reisel responded. The scout and one other member's blips began growing farther as they investigated. Reisel's eye comm activated and he watched the scene unfold.

What the... What? The van was souped, in one way or another. It looked ridiculous, but was no doubt efficient at cutting through the zomborg army. Reisel almost choked on his tongue when the van doors open and armed people leaned out and started taking shit out. "J'ignore," The breathless voice of a female came back through. She didn't quite know what to make of it either. After a moment, the view cam bobbled. She was on the move.

"Hâte," He commanded, partially unable to believe his eyes. The blips in his comm signified the two vampires were in hot pursuit of the armed and moving vehicle. The firing of a tank rang through his comm.

"Gregoire?" No response, just the roar of zombies and fire. Then, a gasp. What the hell was going on over there? "Gregoire?!" Reisel continued running on the rooftops, following his two agents who followed the van.

"Actually, we've been in the thick of it for awhile." Taco told Biohazard, "I'm going out right now." Taco reached out to touch Preston's shoulder, the team leader being the driver of the van.

The van began to slow down, Telford and several other Invictus jumping out of the van. Rolling so that they didn't hit the ground too hard, "Don't die." Preston told Taco.

"I won't, not until I bang your sister." Taco said, hopping out with the others. "What?" Preston asked, glancing back to look for the other soldier.

"Infection is the least of your worries. It's what happens, after that." A hooded figure appeared out from behind the end of an alleyway, and pointed to the slain zombies, as they lay at the feet of the soldiers. He didn't care to smell their putrid filth any longer. "You consume your own, and you die like a dog."

The hidden gaze of the man drew a hapless glance at the fellow poor man. "I was waiting for you to scream." He slipped his sooty hands into the confines of his sweater pockets. "At least once." The dimly lit area might provide the demoted man a vision of the enigma's face; ghostly pale skin, and wretched scars delivered an eerie conclusion of who this individual might be.

"'st foutus?"

How was Genienne even supposed to respond to that? She focused on the pursuit, growing closer and closer to the van with every step. Her partner, a male, seemed more troubled than she did on this mission. It was only the undead with a twist, she thought as she came to position on a roof top. The two Venomsquad agents kept to the shadows as they flanked the van.

"No," If the ones on the ground could handle it, they could handle it up here.

"Invictus," Sounded through their ears from Reisel. These were allies out here. Genienne charged up her gun and blasted without a second thought. She picked off zombies from her advantage angle, sure not to shoot too close to the ones below. For a moment, while black mist engulfed a zomborg and dissolved it, she ceased fire.

Badass, Genienne grinned. The shots continued. Jacob was sure to cover her back and his own. He noticed someone emerge from an alley. Who was that? He activated his video and zoomed.

Fahim was quick to get to his feet and join the people with the guns and skills to fight the hordes. He was an opportunist and this was the best way not to die. "I don't scream." Fahim said, his Persian accent slipping through the cracks in his nearly perfect English.

Taco and the Invictus soldiers took to fighting off the cyborgs as they waited for their van to swing back around for the the civilians. "Not the best place to just wander around." Taco told the man who had stepped out of the alley, "Other than zombies there might be... a fuckin' Sarlaac Pit demon hole." The soldier said.

"For those who don't follow Star Wars, a Sarlaac Pit is creature that is basically just a giant mouth with teeth. Kind of like Nina's vagina, but probably not as gross." The Invictus medic joked, but his fun and games would soon be coming to an end for now.

The loud crack of a sniper rifle could be heard, the bullet slamming into Taco's armored back and sending him falling flat on his face.

A gun had to pack a punch to do that to someone as armored up as the Invictus.

His conscious thought escaped him for a moment, when one of the soldiers tried to ensue comedy in peril. He quickly disregarded the ambiguity, and lifted his head to sight the source of gun fire from above. His neck whipped back to capture a glance of the Invictus soldier driven into the ground. "Apparently, you're right." He replied.

One of the rampant creatures found it's way to the hooded man. It was rather thin in distinction of the other zombies. He shifted his stance, and spun on the ball of his foot. He had turned tail, and run in the opposite direction. As mysterious as he might have appeared, he was not in a position to fight a cybernetically enhanced creature. Only stamina allowed this one to endure the feats of destruction this city attracted. He wondered if the ones above would eliminate the monster. Though, he did not consider it.

"You!" He shouted at the man trailing the black mist. His legs pumped, as he sprinted toward the man. The zombie followed. The vigorous thumps of his feet neared the tail end of Myles. "Do it, now!" He called, only a couple yards away, before he veered to the left.

Jacob spotted the Taco go down before Genienne did, furiously swearing and retreating into the nearest shadow. He emerged moments later from a shadow behind her. She was busy firing at what was on the tail of the idiot coming from the alley. Jacob's blip all but deafened her at his rapid location change, the rest were notified as well.

"Quoi?" Reisel wanted to know what was up. He had caught the zomborgs tailing the civilian in the alley, then what lokoed like an Invictus going down. Genienne growled and crouched down on the rim of the roof. Her eye was trained on the fallen and the one that helped him. With three solid shots she took down another fucker that had jumped on the tails of the two, exploding the head and chest out of one before it could even think of getting close.

"Quoi?!" Damnit, she couldn't respond! Looking over she saw Jacob making his way down towards the ground. The soup. The fuck was he doing?

"Victime," Jacob snarled through to Reisel.

Oberschütze Juskis Von Himmerstein shouted over the heavy machine gun, firing into the zombies as Heinrich pulled the det cord out his pocket, running down the stairs with the other three members of the squad, all with their weapons raised while Heinrich disarmed the plasma claymore and put it on his back, and Oberschütze Wilfred Steiner did the chains, opening the doors as the Panzer Iv turned to face the oncoming horde fully.

Himmerstein quickly lifted his LMG and ran down to the Panzer as the rest of the squad covered him, along with the tank commander who was sat in her seat with her head and arms out the hatch, firing away at the zombie horde, as it pressed ever closed. He jumped onto the tank and set up, while Heinrich, Steiner, Rosinfrive and Woods climbed on, opening fire with short bursts, effectively taking down the horde, pushing them back with all their fire power.

The Tank slowly started to reverse away from the horde while firing in rounds into the horde, killing hundreds at a time. It turned the corner and kept going, moving into the area of which voices were heard by the squad as the guns stopped firing. They jumped off and appeared on the same street as the group already there. The tank turned and roared up the street as the Cybrans came towards they, weapons raised just in case. "Hullo?!"

"I'm good!" Taco said as Biohazard lifted him up, "Patrick, you're the sniper, you know where that came from?" Taco asked, his tone of voice becoming deeper and more authoritative. This was Taco the soldier, not Taco the joker. It was time to be a little more serious when you had such a threat looming over your head.

"Everyone! Take cover!" Taco ordered, he himself pulling Fahim along as he moved to take cover behind of the makeshift homes. "Let's go, lad." Telford told Myles, gesturing for him to come along. "Ain't gonna be much use if you're dead, will ya'?" The Scotsman asked.

The sniper, snipers, were situated on the higher points in the slums. Old buildings, piles of debris, even an old water tower that was barely standing on it's own. Some heavy wind one day and that would be an old landmark that wouldn't be attracting tourists anymore.

The snipers opened fire again, firing on the cyborgs and their mutual enemies. It seemed no one was really safe. Whoever these guys were, they had no love for anyone but their own. It made sense when you knew they were Russian gangsters and terrorists, some of them former military.

And they were dangerous.

Too dangerous.

The Venomsquad agents all converged on one street as the chaos centralized. Isn't that funny? Reisel found himself thinking. When the snipers emerged things started getting a bit more serious. Who the, where the, why the? Damnit! That explained Jacob's last message.

Jacob, meanwhile, was having a riot of a time. Not a good one, so to speak. From the moment he hit ground it was a hair situation. He cleared a path for himself, keeping to the darkness like vampires did. It was an advantage, for certain. Jacob flashed up onto a car just in time to see Genienne hurdle over his head. What? Looking over he saw it was because the one who fought with dark mist had summoned them. She fired twice before her feet hit the ground, using her landing momentum to cap another coming close. Snapping upright she shot Jacob a grin and began firing her way closer to the van.

"Protégé," She whispered through the comm unit. The other agents sprang into action. All but one.

"Patrick, do your thing. We're going to start pulling out, mindless drones are one thing, but fuckin' snipers? I like my face where it is. On my face. Keep Biohazard from getting deaded." Taco said, "Got it, Matty." Telford said, exchanging his assault rifle for the sniper rifle he carried. "Let's go." Taco ordered the others.

Taco and the rest of his team began to herd the civilians they found along, Fahim barely able to figure out what was going on. There were soldiers, or cops, or terrorists rounding people up. Zombies? Monsters? Gunfire. He was close to having a mental breakdown.

"Ripper-1, this is Ripper-4, we need you to bring the van a bit closer. We've got snipers out here and it's time to move out." Taco said over his commlink, "We have a mission, we can't just pull out now." Preston responded, "It's damn near done. We can grab a few of the civilians, pass the rest off to the other soldiers in the area. We can't help anyone dead." Taco argued.

"Point taken. Team Ripper, we're moving out." Preston said, "Grab anyone you can, throw them in the van and let's get the fuck out of here." The leader of the mercenary team ordered, "Double time."

Char looked around confused. He had no idea how he ended up here, he must of glitched again. This place seemed like a warzone, all Char could hear was gunfire.

It was not long until a zombie stumbled upon Char. Char looked at the zombie and scanned it, this creature had no intelligence. Char could tell the zombie ment harm. Char decided he might as well shred the thing.

It took a few seconds for Char to shred the zombie into bits. Now that it was done, he was unsure of what to do. He looked around expecting more zombies to shred. He was now wondering if anyone else was around killing these damned things.

Genienne and Jacob made it to the van, grinning to themselves as they slid aboard. Things were getting intense and it was time to book. From their position they kept their weapons engaged and aimed outside. Jacob sniped off what few zomborgs were left to cap near the vehicle while his female counterpart comm'd in.

"Sûr," Genienne breathed through.

---

On the other end of the comm, Reisel Dracul was relieved to hear that those two were safe. But where was Gregoire? Nothing was patching through and-

What. Did that civilian just...Nevermind.

"You!" Reisel shouted at the shredder, then pointed up while running straight for it, "Higher ground!" Approaching the one, he shot a zomborg that wasn't too close but could be a threat at some point. Just because they were "thinning" didn't mean the peril was gone.

Meanwhile, Biohazard continued to take out numerous zomborgs, making a path for himself. The snipers...in the back of his mind, they haunted him. Hopefully their bullets wouldn't do the same. Finding them, however, was the priority.

He continued down the direction of where the bullet that hit Taco had come. His steps were quick, and he was able to make it through the zomborgs with ease. He aimed the Eye towards the buildings, looking for heat signatures, hopefully that of someone crouched low over a ledge...

But that's when he found several figures hopping along the buildings and alleys, all around. He stopped, frowning beneath the nanite scarf.

Who were these people?

A lone figure strode confidently down the road into the slums from the direction of Wing City, clad in armour of black and gold and wielding a large halberd. The man, or perhaps woman (it was difficult to tell beneath their armour) raised their weapon aloft as they approached the area that was the focus of the fighting. Occasionally a bullet ricocheted off of the armour, grazing it but apparently neither penetrating it or leaving so much as a dent.

"I call upon the storm's power!" boomed the figure's voice. Though the voice was hearty and deep, far from feminine, it was identifiably that of a woman. "Lightning, come to me!"

There was a rumbling of thunder in the clouds above, before a bolt of lightning seared down from on high and into the halberd the warrior woman carried. She levelled the long and now violently crackling weapon at a crowd of the dead nearby and unleashed the electrical strike into their midst, burning and blasting them away with potent force.

Roaring a battle-cry, Anria charged forwards, swinging her blade at one of the beings not felled by her lightning and severing its head from its body. "Come, foul beasts! Come, evil-doers! By my ancestors, you will be vanquished at my hands in glorious battle! Come, meet your ends, or are you cowards?!" she cried.

Taco and the rest of the Invictus soldiers on the ground got who they could into their van once it slowed down enough for them to do so. "Patrick, let's go." Taco shouted, climbing into the van behind the others.

Patrick continued opening fire on the enemy snipers, eyes catching sight of new arrivals. He couldn't be sure if they were friend or foe, but he'd keep his eyes on them just incase.

"I'll stick with Biohzard." The Scottish sniper responded to Taco, "Can't leave 'em hangin'" Telford said, watching as the enemy snipers began to disperse from their positions once they had to contend with fire from multiple sides.

They seemed to disappear. They were good. They were well-trained, experienced. They had the higher ground, Patrick knew this gave them the advantage. But, Biohazard was going to do his superhero thing, that wasn't smart.

These new people were going to agitate these guys, they didn't even know who they were. That wasn't a good idea either.

"We should leave." Telford shouted to Biohazard.

Sporting a look of sheer determination, the blind bowman mowed down the raging undead with ease. His shots were precise. The dismembered remains of the Zomborg menace piled at his feet. It seemed they had some intelligence, for instead of charging face-first into the assault, a few had came up with the idea to avoid the main street by navigating throughout the side alleys.

This was to no avail however, for Benjamin was already aware of their presence before they reached his vicinity. His bow was reduced the Reishi particles used to create it, before being reassembled into the shape of a Su Yari. It didn't take much, a few slashes with the double-edged weapon enough fell the lumbering creatures.

Preston drove the Invictus van through the hordes of undead, it's cowcatcher making short work of those in it's path. "There's a lot of them, don't know about making it." Preston said, speaking into a communication device. "This is Bones, my team and I are right in the area. Let us clear a path."

"This is Sandman, I don't see you." The sniper said, looking through his scope for the team. Almost on cue Arya and her team charged through the hordes, two of her people in front projecting a wall of energy.

Arya raised her pistol, firing at the hordes as she shot electricity from her free hand. The rest of her team utilized their own weapons and abilities, seeming to make light work of the hordes. It was easy to tell that out of many of the Invictus soldiers on the street Arya's team had the most experience with things like this.

It was literally the only thing in their job description.

"Open the gate!" Nina ordered, Chemo and those holding the broken gate up allowing it fall. Preston drove the van right into The Courtyard, bringing it to an abrupt stop to allow those inside to join the fray or get medical assistance. "Winter is coming." Taco said as he stepped out of the vehicle, moving up to join the fight.

"He should really work on his catchphrases." Chemo said, "Where's Biohazard and Telford?" Nina asked Preston who moved to help Fahim out of the van. "They stayed behind." Preston answered, "Why? That's stupid. Why didn't you order them to get in?" Nina asked.

"I don't know. I agree. And, we didn't have time to wait. We had people to help, some of them being our own." Preston explained, "They're our own too! I'm going to go look for them." Nina said, heading off towards where she had parked her car.

"You have orders. I'll talk to Arya Bones and see if she can handle it." Preston called out, "Don't do anything foolish, Nina. You'll get hurt."

At the border of the abandoned slums, the zomborg situation had been all but fully contained. Many had fallen, but not enough to allow the Cursed Wood to become ravaged by such beasts. On command from a higher officer, few of the Forces Vankoryth took off into the wood. Just in case. Another small unit assembled one of the zomborg bodies as a package. It was to be transported back to base for experiments. As the small troupe assigned to the delivery was about to take off, another body arrived for transport. This one was a soldier, or something, from one side or another of a seemingly unrelated battle. Quickly the thing was packaged up and hauled out.

The Forces Vankoryth would continue to camp, in their mass as they were, until given command to take down and leave. Venomsquad, as a whole, had yet to return. The troops quieted as above storm clouds began to mass in thunder and rumbles. Hesitantly they armed themselves, lightning cracked down from the sky. Some jumped, others shook their heads, most stared into the Abandoned Slums with grave expressions on their faces.