My eyes were glued to the screen as I rewound the clip for what might've been the 10th time.

It was the same as usual; an armored van and 6 cars worth of armed escorts, 3 on both the van's sides. The streets were already cleared by the police a few hours prior but there were two policemen on bikes leading them on, just in case, or maybe it was just for show.

The chief liked to pretend that he gave a shit. Maybe he really did, but I'm sure you know that caring just isn't enough. It was probably for a bank, I never really checked.

0:00

-

11:22

Long minutes of silence, nothing out of the ordinary. Just combined footages of the convoy making it's way through the planned routes. It's night time, but visibility isn't an issue. 11:23 Convoy enters downtown area. Cameras seem to be stuttering frequently, but otherwise, nothing out of the ordinary. 11:32 There's static on the screen; it seemed controlled, rather than a technical difficulty. Like a scratchy CD that kept screwing up the screen. At first, it was uncanny seeing that mess of pixels just slide along the top of one of the cars. 11:36 Static flares all over the screen and the video freezes for maybe the quarter of a second, then plays without a problem. Static's gone, but so is one of the escort vehicles. It was the same one where the static was. 11:39

A car falls from above, out of the camera's line of sight. It lands on one of the escort vehicles, taking out three in a chain reaction and panic ensues as the static returned. The crashed vehicles tumbled forward, forming a makeshift blockade. Not very effective due to excessive space but the van should have trouble moving through that.

11:44 Some of the guards exit their vehicles, frantically signalling the rest to move on with the van. The static was about the same shape as the guards. 11:50 Static moves towards the van, which was having trouble moving through the debris. The guards shot at the figure, though bullets just seemed to miss. 11:51 Static makes contact with the armored van and the screen freezes once again. Both of them vanish as soon as the video returns to normal. Cue confused guards who mouthing words into the radio. 12:13

Static appears again amongst the guards, as the video devolves into an incomprehensible mess of pixels, screaming, and gunfire

13:04 Static vanishes completely. There was nothing else worth clipping after that.

There were no survivors.

The guards were killed by some sort of cutting implement, most of their wounds remained somewhat consistent; clean cuts in the gaps between body armor coming from multiple angles. Legs, arms, chest, neck, wrist. Anything vital or at the very least, functionally threatening.

There were suggestions multiple assailants, though the the recordings don't quite match with that. There was friendly fire, so it'd be safe to assume that the assailant broke into formation to reduce the chances being shot.

Before the guards were killed, they described the attacker as "something black". Vaguely humanoid in shape, but kept darting around so they couldn't mention anything conrete. They kept loosing sight of it, judging by the repeated shouts of "where is it!?". They didn't say anything about there being more than one, and there were conflicting reports on its approximate location.

The armored van was later found on the 3rd floor of a nearby car park just a couple of streets south of the route, completely emptied. The driver was shot in the head, and left dead on the floor. If the files were right then this was just an aromored convoy for a bank, but there could've been something else inside. Everything just seemed...so excessive.

Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.

It didn't look professional, that's for sure. Too many holes. If there were more of those things, then why not kill the guards first? Why prioritize the van? Why did it come back after what seemed to be the perfect getaway? Did it even need an extra team waiting on another building? As effective as it was, it just seemed... sloppy.

Come to think of it, there could've been something like this a few months back. I should go look at the files.

Ah, yep. Here we are; a few gang fights with rather similar wounds. Guns, bruises, and cracked skulls. Typical stuff, only with a bit of those clean cuts added in as an extra.

Mentions of some ghost, broken videos and so on. There were some rumors popping up here and there but they weren't really backed up with anything concrete back then, so they were promptly ignored. Made up stories by kids with nothing better to do.

And who has to deal with the aftermath? Me. I should get a better job...

I'll make a memo of that, moving on;

Let's see... A spike in gang activity in the last 2 months, multiple skirmishes in different areas.

2/07 Rumors of the Crows raiding a certain facility. Requires further investigation. 2/13 Hounds against the Crows; No reported casualties. A clean affair. Nothing unusual. 2/16 Hounds against the Crows again; A little messier, with more damages on both sides, still no casualties. Hounds suffered more losses so it's safe to say that this one ended in favor of the crows. 2/24 An unidentified party attacked the Crows, causing significant damage. Deaths reached double digits, with more wounded. A notable lack of restraint from the attacking side suggests outsiders.

That. Does not bode well.

2/29

Hounds are attacked by an unidentified party; likely to be the same entities involved in the last incident. 5 deaths; 3 identified to be members of the Hounds and the other two seemed to be unaffiliated mercenaries, now temporarily tagged with "Outsiders".

There seemed to be more wounded. Rumors of a ghostly figure in black start spreading, and they don't think it's a Crow. I'll tag it with "Ghost" while I'm at it.

3/09 Reports of Hounds and Crows seen together without fighting. Speculations of a temporary cease fire.

Hm. I don't know what I should feel about that.

3/15

6 Crows and 2 Hounds found dead on an alley way. There were signs of struggle, all killed by a sharp weapon. Likely to be the work of Ghost.

3/23

There was a big skirmish that lasted a few days. High ranking members of both gangs were spotted. Outsiders suffered a significant amount of losses and are now speculated to be unable to continue operations within the city for the time being.

No deaths amongst the gangs, but there were wounded. And there's reported sightings of Ghost making their way around. There were the usual cuts, though they were anything but clean. They put up a good fight, I suppose.

And then there's last night...

3/30 See clip from above.

From what I've seen, Ghosts abilities seem to be stealth oriented:

-Teleportation with unknown limitations, likely to have less than 200 meters in range, judging by the distance between the scene and the location of the car park. Able to move large objects along with its contents. Might be able to warp repeatedly within short spaces.

-An ability to distort visual information, judging by the pixelated mess I have to work with, along with repeated witness sightings that tell of "something black" without any further details.

-Some skill with edged weapons of some sort. Cuts were consistently clean, aimed to destabilize before going for the killing blow. There's not much footage with any discernable details so I can't say much.

Welp, for now, I'll just assume the perpetrators behind the incident to be the Outsiders. The pecularities in the clip's operation seemed to suggest a certain level of desperation and clumsiness which would remain consistent with the chain of events.

Since their first appearance didn't have any mentions of that Ghost, it's safe to assume that they're a recent addition to their team, so they're most likely to be unfamiliar with the extent of its abilities, and are thus, unable to fully utilize them.

With that out of the way, the Outsiders are likely laying low, or barring that, making good use of their newly acquired funds. Whether or not they stay in the city remains to be found. But still, I'd have to take a look in the underground for any job openings; people these days have a strange tendency to not quit while they're ahead.

Though if I'm lucky, I won't have to do anything. And if I'm really lucky, I won't even have to do any paperwork.