Moments later,

Lani found the elevator. She pressed a button to open the door, aiming her pistol in as it slowly let her in. The young man followed behind her and stepped into the elevator. He punched in a code that allowed the elevator to start its descent. A moment of silence passed before either of them said anything.

“Hide,” the young man said as his hands started to shake, “I’m gonna try talking to him. Maybe he’ll see reason.”

Lani stood there with no expression on her face. Deep down, she knew that this man had no reason left. She was also unsure why she was allowing someone to convince her to let them live.

“By the way,” he said quietly, “thank you for not killing me.”

This guy is gonna irritate me, she thought internally as she tried to stay her temper from delivering a hard punch to his face. She tucked herself against the wall beside the buttons and waited for the door to open.

Meanwhile,

John continued to look through his scope. He thought it suspicious that there was no more movement. Ain’t shot that much people, he thought to himself as he watched the windows of the service center for movement.

Dimitri keyed over the radio. “How much you can cover approach of building?”

“Can cover the whole approach,” John replied.

“Men want to occupy service building, they need our cover,” Dimitri explained as a Ukrainian officer stood over him yapping away.

“Lani don’t want the interference dude,” John reminded Dimitri as he saw a head pop up from the roof. In seconds, John had a solution and let off a .338 round. A few seconds of travel went by and the round struck the collarbone of the target.

“These guys kill Ukrainian men,” Dimitri repeated for the officer who was now speaking to him aggitatedly, “They killed soldiers before our arrival, now soldiers want blood.”

“We can’t really stop em if they’re determined,” John replied, “Just make sure they knowin’ what they gettin’ into.”

A few moments of deliberation between a couple of Ukraine sergeants and a junior lieutenant went on before the officer nodded to Dimitri.

“They’re doing it,” Dimitri said over the agent channel, “Lani you there?”

“She might have gone underground,” John replied, “some shit about a lab experiment or something.”

Underground,

The elevator door opened. Lani and the young man stepped out quickly, the young man reached in and sent the elevator back to the top. As the door closed and started to climb, he hit the call button to bring the elevator down. Lani watched, realizing his plan.

He took off running down a set of metal stairs, tripping over himself scared. “Damien,” he called out, “they’re up top!”

“Billy,” the man addressed as Damien called out, “what the fuck are you blabbering about?”

“Babe the task force is here, those two from the video are here,” Billy ran to Damien and threw his arms around him tightly. “I tried to tie up the elevator coming down here to stall them, but they’re killing everyone up there!”

Damien chuckled, hugging Billy and running his hand through his hair. “You fairy fuck,” he said softly, “you didn’t wanna fight them, so you lead them to me.” He gripped Billy’s hair tightly and yanked downward, forcing his head back and turning his face upward.

“No please,” Billy said softly as he winced in pain, “they tried to team up on me.”

“Shh,” Damien said softly, “We’re gonna go wait by the elevator for them, and when I kill whoever is coming, I’m gonna break a couple of your teeth before blood nutting your ass cheeks. Sound fair?”

A shot rang out. A few of Damiens teeth flew from the side of his jaw as Billy watched in horror. Damien slowly turned his head toward Lani, who stood in an unlit corner of the room with her pistol leveled off on him. Billy swung his fist at the half shattered jaw of Damiens face and escaped his grasp just enough to throw himself to the floor, clearing himself from the path of Lani’s shots.

Lani began firing her weapon as fast as she could at Damien. Damien weaved sideways and dodged most of the more fatally destined shots as one of the rounds tore his ear from his head. He reached down to grab Billy, who put his foot against his chest and shoved him back. Using this momentum, Billy rolled out of the way and started putting distance between himself and Damien.

Lani reloaded her pistol quickly, letting the slide slam forward before firing more. Damien jumped up on a workstation and leapt toward Lani. How the fuck can he jump that good, Lani thought briefly in her own mind as she shuffled to the side to escape his path. His incoherent screams and unintelligible words echoed through the lab as he drew his knife and lunged toward Lani immediately after landing on the catwalk.

Others came running from small rooms as Damien charged at Lani, dodging her fire as she continued to run around to escape his furious advances. Billy knew that he would be seen as a traitor and attacked. He also knew that he had absolutely no way to escape what he had done. He picked up a knife and threw it at one of the gunmen running to engage Lani. It landed in his eye, causing him to double over in pain just long enough for Billy to run after him and grab the knife, finishing him with a quick stab to his throat. As he let the gunman fall to the ground, he grabbed his P90 and yanked a magazine from his pouch and stuffed it in his back pocket.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

As Billy armed himself, Damien continued swinging his knife wildly at Lani. She managed to deflect and dodge his attacks but just barely. The knife got close to her throat as he thrust forward, she grabbed his wrists but he was still inching toward her. She found herself backed against a wall barely able to hold him back. She managed to lean herself away from the knife and free one of her hands to grab his face and yank his jaw from his head. As she pulled it, she angled the teeth and slashed his neck. His artery is cut, she noticed as she hit him, he won’t last long now.

Though Damien had less than a minute to live, he was not slowed or weakened in the least. He brought his knife hand back and swung it hard toward Lani’s head. She put both of her hands up to deflect, but she wasn’t able to stop his movement entirely. She managed to move her head out of the way before he managed to embed the knife into the wall behind her.

Gunmen began realizing that Billy was armed and no longer on their side. As they tried to engage him, Billy ran around the room jumping from table to desk to workbench, firing short bursts at everyone who tried to take aim at him. His 50 round magazine got him through six men before he had to reload. There were two more gunmen who remained, one of whom had a ballistic suit and a PKM. Billy managed to load his last magazine and throw four rounds in the neck and head of one more gunman before focusing his fire on the crotch of the ballistic suit gunman. He held the weapon steady, keeping his 46 round burst centered in a five inch pattern, shredding the hole in his suit and shattering his pelvic bone and leg.

Lani continued to deflect blows from Damien, her arms getting bruised from the force of his strength. Suddenly, Damien got lucky and landed a full force blow to the side of Lani’s head. She was dazed for less than a moment, but the feeling was familiar. I haven’t felt that since the orphanage. Damien swung his other fist and landed a solid punch straight under her eye. This left her confused for a second, just long enough for him to grab her by the neck and pull her away from the wall in an effort to slam her head against the concrete.

A shot rang out. Billy had picked up her pistol and gotten to the side of Damien and shot the back of his head out. Damien froze, slightly turning his head toward Billy who fired another shot into his eye. Damiens grip on Lani’s neck loosened, allowing her to fall free of his grasp and catch her breath. Billy continued to fire until the gun locked open. Damien fell dead on the floor with no head left to shoot.

Lani stumbled about, her head throbbing like it hadn’t done in so many years. Losing her footing, she fell to her knee and started fumbling toward the floor. Billy grabbed her before she could fall down and helped her back up, placing her gun back in the holster on her leg.

“Easy,” he said softly, as he started helping her walk toward the elevator, “you got him and saved us all.”

“Billy,” Lani whispered softly as she worked to put one foot in front of the other.

“William,” he said with a faint smile, “He only called me Billy to demean me.”

“I’m Lani,” she said through a grumble, “what the fuck was that?”

“He’s an Enhanced that tested an enhancement process on himself,” William explained, “the Order sent us here to find a way to increase our numbers. It doesn’t make you as powerful as a legit enhanced for a regular to undergo it, they’ll be fast and strong but their minds don't keep up.”

“Why’d he do it to himself,” Lani asked.

“He was power hungry,” William responded with a tear escaping his eye, “wanted to be better, mainly to kill you.”

“It clearly wasn’t enough,” Lani said as she entered the elevator and hit the ground floor button and sat down.

As they reached the ground floor and came to a stop, Lani stood back up and walked through the door. She heard boots clomp their way toward her. She saw down the hallway men in Ukrainian uniforms. She threw her hand up and waved at them. “It’s me you fuck!” She reached behind her and grabbed Williams shoulder and pulled him close to her. “Defector,” she said as the soldiers closed in on her.

“Junior Lieutenant Yuleshi,” the leading soldier called out, identifying himself, “he’s prisoner?”

“My prisoner,” Lani responded, “Task Force needs his information. He has taken no part in hostilities.”

“So it’s a rescue,” the officer said as he dropped his bag and pulled clothes out of it, “Put this on, enemy might watch you leave.”

William put the pants and jacket on quickly, taking a balaclava from another soldier who offered it. Lani took her vest off and placed it on him, they knew that they had to make him look as basic as possible.

Once he was dressed, they began moving away from the building as a small team. A Land Cruiser drove over and stopped next to them. Lani and William jumped in the truck. As they departed, they realized that John and Dimitri were also in the truck with them.

“Lani,” John said with shock in his voice, “what happened?”

“I got bruised up,” Lani answered with a snark in her voice, “the other guy got no face to bruise.”

“Alice is raging bitch,” Dimitri said with a sour tone, “she is pulling us back and-”

“I’m the senior agent,” Lani said with a scowl, “who the fuck does she think she is?”

“To be fair,” John said, putting his hand up as if to try and diffuse a temper, “you did go out of contact.”

“I was six stories underground,” Lani barked, “they have a functioning people enhancer lab down there.”

“Whoa,” John said with surprise, “is that how you got that black eye?”

“We gotta keep them from fucking with it,” Lani exclaimed furiously, “Those clowns don’t know what they’re dealing with.”

“I’ll make sure they don’t,” Senior Lieutenant Bachev interjected before getting on a radio and barking some orders in Ukranian, while repeating the orders in Russian so that no man had an excuse. “No personnel may go down the elevator, stay out of the lab, let nobody in until told otherwise. Scorpion Group order!”

“Spaisiba,” Lani said softly to Bachev, “William, how many more people does the Order have in Ukraine?”

“Like,” he said thinking, “five guys, no enhanced people. Went to the reactor to fish for rods.”

Bachev shook his head. “We killed those,” he said with a smirk, “there was nothing left for them to find, got into a stand-off with special forces. How do you say it, ‘we don’t play that shit’ I believe.”

“Then that’s it,” William said with a relaxed smile, “They’re done here.”

John tapped on Lani’s knee. “I got news,” he said as he leaned in, “Michael made it into surgery half a hour ago. He’ll be recovering when we reach the German office.”