WCPD Agents's Story

A line of plasma cut a swathe through the cyborgs in the street as a fighter craft soared past, a blur of blue that moved at speeds hard to keep track of with the naked eye. The Blue Eclipse jetted through the streets of the city, swerving between buildings and arcing back up and around to come by again.

Each pass was accompanied by a rain of energy and rockets that blasted holes in the crowds of cyborgs with impressive precision. Within the cockpit, Jayden's eyes were narrowed through his visor as Avita locked target after target.

Some of the shots he didn't take. Either he could see civilians in the line of fire, or he couldn't be sure that they wouldn't stray into it. It wouldn't do any good for him to be blowing up the people he was trying to protect, after all.

"This is Jayden Ryder with the Terran militia, requesting a brief rundown of what the hell is going on down there?" Jayden spoke into his headset, patched into the channel the city's law enforcement and military were utilising. "This must've escalated fucking quickly!"

The TV across Wing City flickers and changes from whatever is being shown on that channel to, at once, display the same Terracasted message. A neat-looking suited reporter is sat behind a basic desk, his black hair neatly combed. After a short moment, he looked into the camera and spoke.

"We interrupt this program to bring you a special emergency broadcast. Reports are coming in from across the City as a veritable army of what appears to be cyborgs have flooded out of the business district."

The footage cuts to show Main Street, Sol Avenue and the rest of the business district from overhead, scenes of chaos and violence unfolding below as NPA, WCPD and Invictus troops clashed with the relentless cyborgs, alongside vigilantes and civilians fighting for their lives.

"Where are these cyborgs coming from? What do they want, or who sent them? All citizens are being advised to evacuate from their homes and the city until this incursion can be contained. Those behind the cyborg lines are advised to barricade your doors and await response teams from the WCPD and NPA to clear the area. We'll be bringing you more on this story as it develops."

The camera panned around to show an NPA official seated beside the anchorman, and the broadcast went on, showing footage of the fights and repeatedly detailing evacuation protocols as they developed.

"Zombies? Cyborgs?" Arya asked as her the carrier circled around to make another pass over the street. "Cyborg zombies." An Wing City police officer said over the channel, "Yeah, what he said." Arya agreed, firing off a few shots at the mindless cyborgs on the ground.

Several NPA Enforcers began to charge through the barricade set up on the street, cutting a swath through the cyborgs to clear some sort of path to and from the streets closest to the business district. That was ground zero, who know how many people were trapped in buildings still, or hiding from the hordes that were overtaking the streets.

They needed to get them out and to safety. Despite the overwhelming numbers, the NPA Enforcers were holding their own rather easily.

Arien would be met by a wall of sorts, a block put in place by whoever was controlling the mindless horde. Whoever it was had a stronger will than the insanely violent beings he controlled, pushing back at Arien despite some of the cyborgs coming to the physical strain put on their body by the young vampire.

"Amateur." Romero muttered to himself, watching the CCTV feeds from the bunker below the business district in hopes of finding who was responsible for the mental attack on his small army. They had to be put down, couldn't give the people any hope, could he?

"Pain is a warning that your body is in danger. Heed the warning." Romero said, his lackies glancing towards him as it appeared he was talking to himself.

Again Romero pushed back against Arien, only this time attempting to send an intense pain into Arien's head.

Even flooded with crimson as they were, Arien's eyes widened at the returned mental assault. He had not been expecting anything of the sort. He staggered, grimacing with pain and faltering. His influence over the cyborgs wavered.

He gritted his teeth, forcing himself to straighten, glaring out from beneath his hood. Pain, pain was but a triviality. He knew pain, he knew it well. They were old pals. But there was no question in Arien's mind who was whose master. The silvery dagger moved again, this time plunging violently into his own stomach.

Arien gasped, shuddering as blood began to pour forth from the wound, and spreading his palm. The dark liquid began to rise as it flowed, gathering in the air in rivers that seemed to expand and warp unnaturally.

"I said," the vampire hissed, "fear!"

The tides of blood rushed forth like tendrils, tearing into the group of cyborgs advancing on him and scything through their bodies like spears. He pushed against Romero, but despite the power afforded him by his unholy magic, he lacked the experience of the older man. He was talented with the domination of minds, but not so talented as his foe. The battle of minds was one that he was destined to lose.

The NPA Enforcers were fighting valiantly, their advanced training and armor undoubtedly giving them a much needed-edge in holding back the tide of rampant cyborgs. Arya and Jayden fought from the skies, raining vengeance down on the brutish ravagers below. Police officers barricaded streets and ushered civilians to safety, Invictus Elites covering the streets as best they could. Everywhere, the forces of order and humanity fought against the all-consuming maw of chaos.

But as the battle raged, it became increasingly evident that they were outmatched. Even if they managed to hold their ground against the pressing hordes of zombie-borgs, they could never hope to reach the rest of the city and commence rescue operations. Buildings sat stranded in an ocean of hostiles... terrified citizens able to do little more then barricade their doors and pray for rescue.

One such small collection of coworkers were doing just that, desperately stacking furniture in front of the entrance to their office building.

"Why didn't I get off this planet..." one of them growled as he threw a plastic plant into the pile, "...should have gotten off this planet last fucking month... bought tickets to Misrana... should have left dammit..." His dress shirt was rolled at the sleeves, his tie was wrapped around his bicep where he was bleeding. Sweat pooled off of his skin in rivers.

A scream erupted. "Ohmigod... ohmigod one of them is trying to get in..."

Every head turned and every heart stopped as one of the cyborgs approached the entrance, smashing through the glass doors and madly fighting its way through the crude barricade of furniture and office supplies. A metallic screech filled the lobby. Very human cries of terror followed shortly after.

...and then HE was barreling into it. Wrestling it to the ground. Smashing its gnashing face into the floor and paralyzing it with an arc of electricity from his hand. No one in the lobby had seen precisely where he'd come from. Had he flown in from outside? Emerged from the sewers of the streets? Maybe he'd been with them in the lobby all along... waiting in the shadows...

When the beast lay motionless on the floor, he rose to his full height. His dark cloak fell about his shoulders like a shadow, menacing and discomforting to the onlooking crowd. He was dressed all in black, save for the white mask splayed across his invisible face, stoic and emotionless. Rather then rushing up to embrace their rescuer, the workers only cowered deeper into the lobby, beset with a new, unfamiliar terror. This guy had just saved their lives... so why were they more afraid of him then they had been the cyborg?

He spoke, his voice a subtle mix between cooing whisper and brooding rumble. "How many other people are in this building?"

Every one was silent for a good five seconds before a woman finally worked up the courage to answer. "Uhhh. Besides us twenty in the lobby, there's about... I dunno... maybe... eighty in the stories above? We're the only ones who came down."

"You all need to stay here," the stranger stated firmly, "I'm going to protect this building as best I can before I leave. Do not leave this building. Keep hope. Help will come."

Reaching down, the stranger slung the motionless cyborg over his shoulder before sprinting out of the building all together, his cloak fluttering behind him like a pair of black wings. The crowd only watched in muted silence, unsure what to think of what had just happened. They were glad to be alive, to be sure, but
the nature of their hero was discomforting. Guardian angels were the ones who were supposed to save people... so why had they been rescued by a demon?

The next few cyborgs who tried to enter the building would be mysteriously shocked into unconsciousness.

"He's got potential." Romero said to himself, smirking slightly at the thought of someone he could possibly turn his cause and train to surpass even Romero himself. Every dark lord needed an apprentice or two.

Romero pushed back even harder than he did before against Arien, trying to make it clear to the younger man that there was no room for little boys in a man's world. Or, a man's underworld.

Darkness blanketed over the business district, Sol Avenue and about fifteen block further into this city in all directions. Romero was forcing his minions, despite their injuries, to keep attempting to fight and kill. At least those who still had a brain to corrupt and control.

Some were missing chunks of their bodies or missing limbs, but the cyborgs continued limping, crawling, towards anyone and anything they could see or smell or hear. Now it was becoming a scene out of a horror movie, except the chance of a happy ending were much slimmer when Romero was the one writing the script.

Arya's Seraphim carrier flew close to the ground, whipping about dirt, old newspapers and just about everything people left when they began to run from the cybernetic zombie horde that had descended on main street not long ago. Not only was that, but now apparently a battle between people with superpowers had broken out.

"On that roof!" Arya yelled, rushing to the cockpit to point the pilot in the right direction. A large group of people had taken refuge on the roof of nearby apartment building, it was likely that the building itself was overrun or falling apart due to the fighting on the street.

The helicopter approached the roof, Arya, a few Invictus Elites and a few NPA Enforcers on board reaching out to pull as many people as they could inside. "How many left?" The pilot asked, "Just a few more." An Invictus soldier answered, but as that same soldier turned to grab what he thought was an injured woman he was met with the face of one of the mindless killers.

"Shit!" The soldier shouted, reaching for the revolver on his hip. Before he raise it up the cybernetic zombie was pouncing him. The gun went off, bullet slamming into the back of the helicopter pilot. The pilot, also being an NPA Enforcer, was armored, but the pain he felt only for that moment caused him to jerk his body and lose control of the helicopter.

The helicopter spun around, it's back end clipping a building. Again it spun, the pilot trying to take control once more. But, the damage was done. The helicopter was spiraling out of control, coming down towards Charles.

The shadows of the area started to quiver as something moved through them. Soon a Dragon appeared from the shadows on top of a nearby building that seemed to be safe enough for the time being. Not that he couldn't handle his own. He wasn't weak, he wasn't completely all that strong either, but he was strong enough to defend himself when necessary. And to him that was enough to give him some sort of peace of mind, if only a little.

Scales as black as night, eyes a dark forest green, Draco of the Shadows had arrived to the scene and looked at what was happening with a cautious curiosity. Some of his attention was towards the Horde of Androids who were fighting the local militia/police/etc. while another small portion of his attention were on the giant metal flying things that he was not familiar with, and finally, the rest of his attention was on the battle between some sort of wolf and stone man. They seemed to be the bigger threat here.

Of course, one couldn't truly blame him for thinking that way, he was over a few million years old (most of that time spent dead) and felt like he could take on the entire world. But that was not his intention, not in the slightest. He was merely observing at the moment.

"I simply can't understand the reason why humans are always trying to either kill each other, or other races, or why other races are doing the same." he thought aloud to himself. "I know Dragon's are no exception, but still, other races, (humans especially from my own experience) just love killing each other." he finished his thoughts with that for the moment, looking around the scene again.

He would not help anyone unless asked, this was not his fight. He turned and headed for the nearest shadow big enough for him to use on the roof. When he got to it, he disappeared within it, and reappeared on another build nearby that seemed much more stable than the one he was previously on. He flapped his wings gently to stretch them out, and his tail twitched behind him. He felt...something odd about this place. This city, it felt off. He had always felt it, but it was stronger than before this time. Though that was probably the air being disturbed due to the Seraphim carrier flying so close to the ground.

The Seraphim spun out of control, rapidly spiraling towards the city below, a collision that would mean certain death for the soldiers on the carrier. The mindless brute gnashed its metal teeth, roaring as it struggled with the Enforcer even as the aircraft descended into a free fall. This wasn't good...

A dark shadow passed over the doomed Seraphim as something flew past it. A second later, a stranger's feet clanged on to the Seraphim's entrance, magnetizing to the floor quickly. His dark cloak fluttered behind him like a raging shadow, the white mask spread over his face betraying nothing. With a flick of his hand, he launched some sort of blurring black projectile at the single cyborg in the carrier, striking the beast in the chest and forehead with powerful force, sending him barreling off of the Enforcer and plummeting out of the opposite entrance.

"Everybody hang on!" he roared over the raging wind and the screaming of the Seraphim's failing engine. All at once, he threw back his cloak, the fabric fluttering to either side of him like a pair of black wings. His torso was plated in a tight-fitting shaded armor that could have been metal or buffed leather. The symbol of a crescent moon was etched between his pectorals.

With several swift motions, the stranger cut every seat belt and restraint in the carrier, his abysmal projectiles sticking to the hull of the ship after being thrown and emitting a faint, misty aura. From his cloak shot out black ropes like strands of sticky ink, latching on to every crew member in the Seraphim and pulling them close to the stranger's chest. If all went according to his plan, every soldier would be forcibly tied to the stranger's own body in a matter of seconds.

With the crew harnessed to his own body, the stranger leaped, abandoning the carrier just as it descended into the rows of skyscrapers below. His cloak shot out against the yellowing sky, rippling madly for half a second before straightening into a rigid glider-like structure. Even with what was likely over a dozen people strapped to his body, he seemed to have no trouble flying. A ball of red flame plumed beneath them as the Seraphim crashed and exploded.

They would glide for a half a minute before the stranger safely brought them down on to the roof of a smaller building, quickly detaching the entire group from his body upon touching ground. Assuming everything went as intended, no one would be harmed. Everyone would have survived.

"Is everyone alright?" the stranger looked at the small party inquisitively. His chest was rising and falling rapidly, as if he were out of breath.

With a final curse of anger, Arien retreated from his attempts on the cyborgs' minds, buckling under the pressure from their unseen master. Shaking the disorientation off with a grimace, the young vampire took a step backwards, returning his full focus to the more physical side of his attack.

He was like a kraken at the centre of a writhing mass of crimson tentacles, lashing at the approaching creatures violently - some thrown from their feet, others run through. Arien's eyes slipped upwards as the darkness flooded the streets, narrowing in irritation. Perhaps it was time to make an exit.

Still fending off the horde with his tendrils of red, Arien began to back away towards the closest alleyway, intent on escaping to the rooftops.

The Invictus Elites and NPA Enforcers looked to each other, then to the civilians that had tried bringing aboard earlier. Everyone seemed to be okay for now, the helicopter itself was on it's way down to the street.

"I'm good." Arya told Paragon, "We're all good it seems." The Invictus soldier added, "Looks like we're going to have to get into the thick of it." Sugar, an Invictus soldier with bleach blonde hair, told the group.

"I'm fine with that." An Enforcer said, "I'd rather have kept my .50 Cal, but I can work with my eagle." Arya told the others, "You NPA boys are all armored for a real battle, Bones and the rest of our team will work on getting civilians." Sugar said, "You can tag along or do your superhero thing." Sugar told Paragon.

The pit had been a buzz since the massive events striking wing city. After hours of thought and planning a strike force was being moved to the city. It wasn't an army no it was just a small group of commandos and some close air support. More would be one the way but it would take at least a day to reach the city. This was just a desparate throw of support to the terrans from the Joes.

Will Jackson sat in a sleek helicopter bristling with weapons. Around him were commandos in the latest drop armor, full wingsuits with parachutes. They carried a variety of weapons with them. "Two Minutes To drop." The pilot announced as the approached. The floor below them began to retract as the city came into view. They were still high up. Each commando had a hud Viewer over one eye and their target was labeled. A buliding on Main Street. It was across the street from a few heavily fortified buildings. They Joe strike force would take this and help in the effort to repel this force.


Will opened up his comms to the other forces in the area. "Attention Terran Invictus and other forces in the Area this is Major Will Jackson with JOE. I am leading a small strike force dispatched to provide assistance in repeling and evacuation efforts. I have some fire support assets as well." He said.

"Drop." The pilot Chimed in after will finished. He unhooked and dropped around him 35 commandos formed up. They glided down sticking close the sky scrapers. Soon the building came into view. "Pull!" Will shouted into his comm as the Joes activated their chutes. 5 failed to open and those men and women plummeted to their death Will frowned that rate of failure was unacceptable in his book. He landed hard as the others began to as well.

Overhead more helicopters swept the area, continuing to pick off the cyborgs flooding the streets below. Spotlights swept the buildings to illuminate the abominations as rifle shots cracked through the air. It was from here that Maria lent support to the battle below, firing shot after shot into the fray. As her rifle ran empty, she passed it off to an Invictus soldier who quickly replaced it with a loaded one. Raising it back to her shoulder she sighted down the barrel only to have her vision marred by a form colliding with the side of the helicopter.

"What the hell was that?" one of the men barked.

As the cyborgs managed to overtake surrounding buildings, they had begun to throw themselves from windows at the helicopters that had strayed too low. A second cyborg landed on the tail end of the helicopter which spiraled alarmingly.

"Fuck, get us up above the buildings," someone yelled to the pilot.

Maria meanwhile rose to wrangle with the one that had appeared in the open side of the helicopter. With a rifle grappled between the pair, Maria managed to keep its head and hands at bay, but the cybernetic enhancements of the undead abomination afforded it a strength to match her own.

Her lips curled into a snarl as she wrenched the rifle back and slammed it into the gut of the cyborg to successfully dislodge it. Before she could regain her footing though, the helicopter jerked beneath her feet and she found herself in a free-fall as she joined the cyborg in his descent towards the ground.

"Shit," one of the men yelled. It was too late to do much for the woman who had fallen from the helicopter though, and the hard movements had dislodged the second cyborg as they cleared the heights of the surrounding skyscrapers.

---

Maria tumbled through the air, her eyes wide before she struck the roof of a warehouse alongside the cyborg she had dislodged from the helicopter. The weight of their momentum broke through the rotted oaken boards of the building and both came crashing through to land inside of it.

Had Maria been human, the fall would have killed her instantly, but even her regenerative capabilities had their limitations against such widespread damage. It would be many minutes before any sign of life was detected from the building.

Torn muscle and sinew, fractured bones, and ruptured organs began to re-knit themselves as gashes along her skin closed over until the woman at last stirred and opened her eyes. Shoving planks of wood and hunks of cement from herself she grit her teeth against the pain of her mending wounds.

Her pantleg was soaked through with blood and she cleared the debris enough to assess the damage. Her calf was perforated clear through by a large fragment of wood which she took in her hand and tore free with a growl. Once free of the foreign object the wound began to knit closed with the rest of her injuries.

She retrieved her rifle from the fallen debris and rose to her feet to shove the cyborg onto its back with a foot, but the creature hadn't fared as well as she had. No sign of life came from it and she left it where it lay as she limped towards the front door of the warehouse.

---

Maria stepped out into the street and raised a hand to the glare of a spotlight that swept past her. It didn't take long to assess her situation. She had landed well clear of the blockade, and deep enough within the thick of the cyborg horde that she hadn't time enough to lower her arm before one of them was upon her. She grappled with it briefly before shoving it free of her to strike it across the side of the head with her rifle.

The crack of the firearm filled the night as she raised it against the cyborg to finish it off before it could rise, but the scuffle and gunshot only drew more of the constructs down upon her position. Shot after shot fired off, but for every one she felled, there were another three to take its place and she was losing ground. Her rifle became little more than a club as the cyborgs overwhelmed her.

When Maria's weapon was torn from her grasp she grabbed the offending cyborg by the head and jaw, twisting viciously until the headless body fell at her feet. Discarding the head, Maria was grabbed from behind by a cyborg who tore into her shoulder and neck with gnashing teeth before she dislodged it to bring it to the ground. She jerked a combat knife free from its sheath on her thigh and drove it deep into the mechanized eye of the cyborg before it could rise again. Blood ran in heavy rivulets down her arm, thick and crimson in the moonlight, but still she fought on with an unbridled ferocity.

More cyborgs piled in upon her, rending and tearing at the woman even as her wounds re-knit closed again, but there was no fear in her as dead flesh and metallic hands dragged her down. A primal fury filled her as her grey eyes took on an amber hue before she was lost from sight beneath the flood of enemies.

A flash of blinding light lit up the sky over the business district for just a moment, as two figures appeared atop one of the restaurants in the area that was still standing. The attention of the horde below was no doubt immediately drawn to them, and so Elante spared only a few seconds to kiss Aeryn goodbye, before he stepped back, and with a wave of his hand, he was gone again.

Aeryn turned from the rapidly fading after-image of his husband to face the cyborgs assembled below. It seemed that the bulk of the NPA resistance here had been forced back, though he could see the Invictus soldiers still holding the Palace in the distance. The cyborgs were beginning to rapidly climb the building he stood on to reach him.

The silvis flexed his fingers, the golden bracers on his arms rattling with the motion.

"Like shootin' fish in a barrel," he murmured, grinning broadly and tossing his silvery hair back. The bright, rich colours of his attire was a stark contrast to the greys and blacks he had worn once upon a time. He seemed a lot more regal clad in a perfectly diplomatic blend of golds and reds, silvers and blues. The colours of both his realms. He was a man of many realms, these days, many loyalties.

Now wasn't the time to ponder on that though. Now was the time to knock some freaky cyborg zombie heads together.

"Alright you sketchy motherfuckers! Trivia quiz time!" he yelled, kicking the first cyborg to reach the edge of the roof in the face and launching it violently away to topple into its fellows. "What do you get when you cross a horde of mooks with a guy who's basically already the main character in like..." he counted on his fingers for a few moments, "...three separate legends in the making?"

There was a pause, as though he genuinely expected the horde to answer him.

"Alright, alright, I'll tell ya." The bracers on his arms began to glow gold, "You get a fuckin' kickass action scene, that's what! Like, watch this shit."

He leaped from his perch, propelling himself forwards with a burst of wind that seemed to flow from nowhere, on a course to land dead centre of the road in the midst of the cyborgs. He hit the street, and it erupted in a rippling of concrete and earth, sending them flying in all directions in a spray of debris. Barely audible over the thunderous roar of the impact was a yell of, "I am so not paying for that!"

The wolf melded in from the shadow's atop a nearby roof grinning widely to himself as he watched the horde of cyborgs, so this was the source eh? It smelled heavily of the things here. Wrathgar stood tall and arched his back, a furious raw erupting from the depth's of his throat. A roar powerful enough to crack the roof on-which he stood upon. Taking two swift step's forward he launched himself off the roof with a snort, having watched the show-off and his entrance. The roar was sure to gain part of the hordes attention and that was just the plan. The beast wanted to kill as many of the thing's he could and before he even hit the ground two metal spikes in the shape of almost a trident joined at the front tore out through the front of his gauntlets. Each one coated in his own brand of lightning that would arc through the cyborg's nearest to the ones that it hit.

The spikes hit the ground before he did,rebounding off of the floor and then the wall to begin tearing through the horde in row's. The beast himself thumped down shortly afterward,his strength and fall-speed cracking and blowing apart the concrete to leave a crater,sending a group of the monstrosities flying from directly around him as his arrival sent out a miasma of shadows to hopefully blind and cut apart parts of the horde. Another roar sounded from his maw as the cyborgs closed back in. Wrathgar happily pulled out a large crystalline weapon from the ground and leaped out of the pit, it seemed to be a cross between a hammer,and an axe. The wolf began to crush skull's with the odd weapon as he landed,barely able to keep the large horde back even with his spikes,shadows and weapon. There were just so many of the thing's for close combat and far too many for proper ranged combat from this position. Regardless,he worked his way through,cutting,crushing and impaling the things in an attempt to reach the show-off.

"'ey! Fancy arse, If yer done playin' pretty boy, Think ye'd like to fight together hm? Chances are if we work together we'll stem the tide faster. I ain't no good guy but if I'm gunna murder some fuckers it might aswell be the undead right?, Now lend a wolf a hand before he has to make thing's get ugly eh?, I prefer NOT to get serious during a fight with brainless fucks." He yelled to the being,hoping they could hear him over all the sounds of battle.

The wolf's armour turned a tint of red,sacrificing strength for insane speed, 'flash-stepping' across the field in leaps and bounds,slicing and crushing through one group and then re-appearing elsewhere in a blink of an eye before he landed near the other fighter.

"Furface, I'm never done playing pretty boy," Aeryn yelled back, grinning broadly. The scattered cyborgs were already being replaced by more who rushed past even as those that had been closest to Aeryn's impact tried to regain their feet, but he didn't give them a chance to close on him.

Lightning sparked from his bracers, arcing violently outwards and leaping between the ranks of the cybernetic horde. Oh, but it had been a while since he'd had the power of the artefact at his fingertips. Elante had been very strict about them never using it on living foes except in dire need, due to its power, and he had to admit he had a point.

Zombie cyborgs, on the other hand? Now them he could lay into.

Still, there was something a little unsatisfying about relying on the power of the bracers, as fun as it was to wield the elements at his fingertips. It felt a little disconnected, impersonal. That wouldn't do. He was here to have fun, wasn't he? Well, that and save some lives. Mostly the latter. Honest!

It took but a thought for him to embrace the power of Lustre, the magical energies that ran through the whole realm like lifeblood. The Silver filled him. He could feel the Gold, too, on the edge of his senses. His frequent travel between the two realms gave him some measure of control over both. The Silver had been what he had mastered, though. It was like liquid, cool and relentless. Unlike the aurean, where to master it one must seize it, wrestle it like a tempest of flame, mastery over silverite relied upon total surrender, letting the flow take you. Yes, you could force it, as he had done in the past, but it was hobbling yourself, restricting what you could do. It had taken a lot of training for him to make the transition, from the woman that was now High Sage of all things! Illura would be the slow, methodically dull death of him yet, he was sure.

A calm came over Aeryn, an evident shift in his posture, his expression. He still wore that same slightly goofy grin, but it had a serenity to it that had been absent but a moment ago. He moved gracefully, like a swordmaster running through stances, and struck. Silver-white light poured forth from him with each shift, blasting through the cyborgs and incinerating them in sweeping strikes of radiant force that caught them up with its strength only to toss them down blackened husks.

Slipping through the carnage for all the world like a dancer upon a stage as oppose to a warrior in battle, Aeryn drew close enough to Wrathgar to allow them to cover one another's flanks. "It's not just playing," he continued on from his yelled response a few moments prior, "It's like, a way of life, maaan. Don't hate me because I'm beautiful."

The group of Invictus soldiers known as the Custodis Caeleste, lead by the southern belle known as Arya Bones, moved through the building down to the streets. Herding anyone they could find to the NPA Enforcers who were setting up a safe haven on the last few floors and the roof.

"If you have food, water, medical supplies, clothing, cellphones, radios, take them with you. There's no telling how long we'll be here or what will happen." Sugar said as he and the soldiers marched through the building from floor to floor. "Incoming transmission." One of the other soldiers said loudly.

"Caeleste, this is Sandman of the Benevolentia and Team Ripper. We've got these... things moving in on the Palace, the rest of my team are out trying to get civilians to safety." Sandman said over the soldier's communication devices, "We need a distraction or they can't get in. Can you make it?" Sandman asked.

The Invictus soldiers glanced to each other, gauging what the general consensus was on the matter. Most nodded their heads, a few giving thumbs ups or shrugs of their shoulders. "We'll be there in fifteen." Arya told Sandman, "Hold the fort." She added, gesturing for her men to follow as she began to rush down the staircase to the ground floor.

She knew what was waiting on the other side of the door, but she wasn't sure if she really wanted to be that close.

Will had landed on the building as did the rest of his team who went to work barricading the lower floors and taking up firing positions. Will was on the second floor, he had his sniper rifle loaded with 50 cal explosive tipped rounds. These were usually reserved for taking out armored vehicles but they would suffice here. He noticed that the cyborgs were jumping from buildings so he began to pick off ones he could see above their position. "1...2...3." He mumbled trying to keep track of his kills. Around him he could hear the other commandos firing their munitions. He broke off of his attack and lowered his rifle for the moment opting for a commlink.

"Jackson To command Requesting munitions supply drop at our location would be nice to get some heavier weapons down here." He said.

"Copy supply drop in route, We have close air support in range but be mindful of Civilians Major." A robotic female voice responded through the commlink.

So they give me these toys but then I can't use them? He thought rolling his eyes. He retrieved his rifle and resumed taking shots at the cyborgs. He had to switch Targets as the joes location was swarmed he began to fire below into the street. He retrieved a grenade from his belt and tossed it into the street below. "Hornet, this is Foxtrot requesting you sweep the street on our location Over?"

"Roger." Responded, an F-18 Could be heard as it's 20mm Gatling gun opened up on the cyborgs in the street thinning the numbers a bit but from a skyscraper another jumping cyborg clipped the planes wing. It spun helplessly out of control crashing into the mob in the street in a plume of flames and a deafening explosion.

"We're making it too easy on them." Romero said as he watched the chaos gradually spread from his bunker below the rubble of the old Jupiter Corporation's Terran headquarters, "Should we let the others out? The smarter ones?" One of the lab technicians asked Romero, the necromancer thought on the question for a moment.

"Yes." He answered, "Let them go. Can't have the enemy thinking they stand a chance." Romero said, the men and women working the lab went to work on implementing the next step in Romero's plan. Another doorway opened on the underground complex, out of this one came another batch of the cybernetic zombies.

But these were different, they wore dark blue uniforms and black body armor bearing the Jupiter Corporation's name in white letters. They wanted everyone to know who was behind this, it appeared. These cyborgs carried guns, flashbangs, grenades, rocket launchers, energy weapons, plasma weapons, and they all seemed to be communicating.

The organized zombie horde began pile out through the same exit that their predecessors had gone through. Eventually, they emerged on the streets, climbing through the already cleared rubble with ease. Almost immediately they opened fire on the NPA and Invictus on the streets, forcing them to take cover and return fire.

A cyborg pointed up into the air at a news chopper, prompting another with an RPG to kneel on the street and take aim. "Bye bye." It said, voice raspy due to not using it in a long time. It was a walking corpse, it was only 'awakened' a few hours ago.

The cyborg fired the rocket from the weapon, watching as it soared for the news chopper. Eventually the rocket hit, exploding the helicopter into a free-falling ball of fire.