Lilith

“They’ve thinned out! Push forward!”

Hearing the comlink in her ear hiss out the order, Kira took a deep breath and run around the jeep she’d been hiding around. As Salman had said, the enemy had indeed thinned out, now reduced to around half a dozen soldiers. Granted, those were half a dozen Commonwealth soldiers, all of which by the looks of things had at least one Imperium, but even so, the fewer the better. Trying not to draw attention, Kira re-adjusted her mask, bent over so low she almost looked like she was crawling. With the spotlights taken out, her dark bodysuit should make it difficult to-

“You!”

Suddenly, the ground in front of her rose to block her path, causing her to nearly slam into it in her attempt to stop. Turning around to face the voice revealed that a Commonwealth soldier had somehow ended up behind her. Cursing under her breath, Kira leapt to the side as the wall fell forward and smashed against the ground where she’d just been standing. Hurriedly wiping the dust off her visor, she balled her hand into a fist and swung it in the direction she thought she heard the voice in, sending the unearthed rocks flying in that general direction. Lucky for her, a pained grunt confirmed she’d been successful in at least hitting them, and she quickly ran off before the soldier could grasp their barings once more.

Her visor dust-free, Kira could once more see through the thick desert night. Looking ahead as she ran, she could see Salman’s dark, towering figure attacking the metallic wall of the storage facility with his bare hands, already making large dents in it.

“Quickly, anyone with Metallica, tear through this thing!” Salman bellowed, his deep voice echoing all over. A few sideways glances revealed that the rest of the Commonwealth troops had been dealt with, with the remaining IRF troops making their way to their leader. The action done for now, Kira took the opportunity to stop and rest for at least a few seconds.

“You’re welcome, by the way.” Kira jumped slightly at the voice, only to relax upon recognising it.

“Welcome for what exactly, Jean?” she said, taking the opportunity to lower her mask, exposing her sweaty lower face to the blissfully cool air. Turning around, she looked the young man up and down, silently concerned at his bent-over figure and awkward shuffle forward.

“Who knows?” Jean replied sardonically, not-so-discreetly gesturing to the Commonwealth trooper - the same one who had attempted to stop Kira moments earlier - sprawled out in the dirt next to him, sporting with a cracked helmet and almost completely caked in sand. “Maybe for taking out the guy about to put a rock in your skull?”

“Oh! Would you like a kiss, o Grand Duke?” Kira asked, kicking out her heel and batting her eyelashes. Not that he could see her eyelashes, but Jean clearly got the point, muttering various Luxembourgish curses under his breath as he turned his attention to the gauntlets attached to his hands. Smirking slightly at her little victory, Kira’s expression softened somewhat. “Your links holding up?” she asked. The links that Jean was using took the form of a sort of pale blue bracelet that expanded around his hand, creating a kind of funnel. It honestly looked pretty stupid, but it helped him control the direction of his wind, so at least it did its job.

“Mmm, they’re doing fine I suppose,” Jean muttered, blowing out dust with a flick of his wrist, before looking over at Kira, lowering his voice. “Say… you haven’t been using… you know…” Kira scowled slightly.

“Of course I haven’t! What kinda-?”

“We’re in! Everyone, over here!”

Sighing, Kira gestured with her head, pulling up her mask as she turned back. Flexing his fingers, Jean quickly followed her towards the large, gray, rectangular building, with now had a large rip in the side. Already the CRF gathered there were pouring in, the sounds of screaming and fighting picking right back up. Jean grimaced under his mask: more fighting.

The pair ducked into the rip, finding themselves in the midst of an outright bloodbath. Kira ducked as jets of water and fire flew over her head, forced to jump every now and then due to chucks of the concrete floor tearing themselves out of the ground and flying around, conveniently freeing up the earth beneath for her to use. Scanning the area, Kira spied Salman wrestling with a large bull of a man in the corner of the room, who was so tall he nearly came up to Salman’s shoulder. Deciding he could probably handle himself, Kira turned her attention to another struggle on the opposite side of the room; two CRF men were holding back a Commonwealth soldier with the Pyyrah imperium. Flames burst from his open palms and engulfed the area around him. One of the CRF managed to stumble back in time, but his ally was not so lucky, going down screaming in an inferno of fire.

Letting out a low growl, bright orange flames flew from Kira’s fingertips towards the enemy, washing over the unsuspecting target. They were pushed backwards by the sheer force of the flames, yet the black, angular armour that coated every inch of their body negated any damaged caused by the intense heat. Their own natural fire resistance probably helped as well. Stepping onto a patch of exposed rock, Kira leapt into the air, lifting the ground beneath her feet to act as a springboard. She pulled back her arm as she flew across the room, her fist exploding into a ball of fire as she suddenly shot it forward, colliding with the helmet of the Commonwealth troop.

A loud crack tore through the air as the soldier crumpled to the ground. Kira swore loudly as the flames dissipated, holding her bruised knuckles. Flexing her fingers painfully, she was relieved that her hand didn’t seem to be broken, though she made a mental note not to use it as much until she got it looked at..

“Alright, gather round!”

Upon hearing Salman’s booming command, Kira turned, somewhat surprised at how fast everything had been resolved, not to mention how well it was going. Yeah, they only had about a dozen people left, but even so, they’d managed to take out every enemy they’d faced. Even now, despite a few losses, thanks to their quick and sudden attack, they now controlled the warehouse. Kira looked around at the dead and beaten bodies scattered about the broken area, proud of what she’d achieved. Then she saw Jean, hand over his mouth like he was about to throw up, and immediately felt guilty.

“Hey! You two!”

“Coming coming!” Kira said as she and Jean jogged over to the rest of the group. They were all gathered around Salman, who stood in front of a large stack of black, metallic boxes.

“Alright,” he began, his voice still coming through clear despite the mask. “We’ve made it to our destination. These links are admittedly a bit out of date in the Commonwealth, but they’re still much better than the ones we’ve got, so we need as many as we can. Sid, Khalid, use your imperium to carry this stuff out ASAP. The rest of us will either cov-”

Whatever Salman was going to say next was immediately drowned out by a loud, ugly tearing sound from behind him. Accompanying it was a bright, flashing light expanding out of nowhere. It was as if someone had ripped a hole in the very air itself. Immediately Salman turned and put his arms up in defense, only to let out a gasp when he saw the light.

“Shit! Everyone back off! It’s the Fifth Imperator!”

As if summoned by Salman’s words, a figure suddenly dropped from out of the light and hit the floor in a crouching position, surrounded by a swarm of blue pixels. The figure then let out a tired grunt and rose to his fill height, as the light and pixal swarm faded, revealing his features.

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Before the dozen or so fighters was a young, caucasian man who looked to be in his early-to-mid twenties. He appeared to be fairly tall, though it was somewhat difficult to notice on account of his awful posture. His hair was long and disheveled, almost ratty, reaching down to the middle of his back, and was an unnatural grey, with his dull blue eyes were complemented by the dark circles underneath.

His clothes proved to be just as unkempt, despite appearing to be very high quality. In addition to a dark grey dress shirt and black trousers, a wrinkled, midnight trench coat clung loosely to his figure and came to a stop just above his knees. The man looked like he’d woken up five minutes ago, having slept in his clothes, and immediately made his way there before doing anything else. Even so, there was a sense of arrogance in how he held himself. His entire demeanor gave the impression that he was just going through the motions; that the people in front of him were so beneath him that he couldn’t even pretend to consider them threats.

“Now then…” Henry said, casually stretching his limbs as he stared down the shocked group in front of him. “What do we have…?”

He trailed off as Kira, without warning, suddenly leapt through the air towards him, the fire coating her fist only rivalled by the intense, furious expression under her mask. Throwing her arm forward, flames flew off her arm, shooting towards Henry a head-sized fireball. Henry himself simply exhaled before he vanished, consumed by a wave of pixels for a fraction of a second, then disappearing, leaving the projectile to fly through the empty space and crash into the metal crates instead, knocking them over, soon followed by Kira himself

“KIRA!!” Salman roared as Kira fell to the floor amidst a growing pile of boxes. “Are you trying to kill yourself?!” Seemingly ignoring his shouts, Kira quickly scrambled to her feet, her head whipping left to right as she panted heavily.

“Where is he? Where did he go?!” She shrieked, her arms and legs shaking to such an extent that it was a miracle she could even stand. “He has to be somewhere… WHERE THE HELL IS HE?!?”

Kira’s response was a sick, weak scream that sounded like someone was drowning. The entire group turned around, revealing the CRF member at the far back to have a large, bloody blade sticking out of his neck. The man weakly groped at his throat, blood spewing out of his mouth, before the blade retracted, and he collapsed spasming onto the floor, revealing Henry, who apathetically twirled a large machete in his right hand, sending blood flying off the neon cyan weapon before lazily pointing it at the rest of the group. The air around the blade seemed to be in a flux, constantly warping and glitching, the blade itself emitting pixels like a form of radiation, alongside an irritating, monotonous drone. It was as if reality itself was attempting to erase the weapon from existence, like it was something that shouldn’t exist.

“There he is!” This time the shout came from Jean, who ran towards Henry and promptly shook off the gauntlets on his forearms. He then rotated his arms in a large, circular motion, feeling the surrounding air rush around him in a cone, before thrusting them forward, sending it all shooting towards Henry in a large, unrefined column, not like a small, controlled burst of fire Kira had use, the funnel of wind pushing away everyone else to the side.

To Jean’s surprise, instead of teleporting like he’d anticipated, Henry just stood there and let the blast of air hit him, sending the corpse flying like a ragdoll. The collision made the air spread out like a fan, and Henry himself shot backwards, flying several meters through the air before finally warping out of existence. Practically instantaneously, he reappeared above the rest of the group (most of whom were still attempting to figure out what was going on) and sped downwards, his momentum preserved as he drove his machete through the head of yet another person. This seemingly shook the rest of the group out of their apparent stupor, and everything from knives to water to the floor itself were sent flying towards him, only for the man to yet again vanish, leaving the projectiles to hit each other and the people throwing them, throwing up a mountain of dust to boot. As the group tried to see through the thick cloud, three more gargled screams rang out before Jean cleared the air, granting visibility once more. A trio of corpses now littered the floor, and Henry was nowhere to be seen.

“Shit!” Salman cursed. “HURRY! Grab a crate of links and get out!” the giant fumed, pointing at a random person who wasn’t dead before turning his gaze to Kira, who was still looking around for Henry, a glazed, frantic look in her eye. “The rest of us will provide cover! That includes you too Kir-!”

“Oh Imperia… THIS is what you lot are after?”

“-ah?!” Salman yelled as he span towards the stacks of metal crates, his fists flying up ready to fight, only to see Henry crouching on one of the shorter colloms, holding a link in his hand and examining it lazily. The link in question was a black, armoured glove what wouldn’t look all that out of place on a medieval suit of amour. Henry held onto the device with his gloved fingertips, running his hand over the grimey stubble that clung to his jawline.

“This stuff is AT LEAST three years out of date. Was probably going to be recycled. Is the AU so backwards that they need to steal our rubbish just to try and keep up?” Henry asked with a strange mixture of mockery and genuine interest. Salman let out a low growl.

“We have nothing to do with the AU! We are a multinational-!”

“Mate mate mate,” Henry interrupted, tossing the link over his shoulder without a care. “I’m not here to compare propaganda. I just wanna stop you from getting this shit.” At that point, Henry stopped and rubbed his chin in thought. “Wait, if that’s the case, then why am I wasting time trying to kill you lot…?” the young man said, more to himself than anyone else as he glitched out of existence just in time to avoid a large rock, which hit the box he’d been squatting on and sent it tumbling.

“Kira! Will you just calm down!” Salman roared as Kira lowered her arm.

“Calm down?!” She screamed back, turning towards the goliath. “The Fifth Imperator is right in front of me and you’re expecting me to calm down!? What, do you want me to just stand around and gawk at him like these clowns!?”

“She’s right!” This time it was Jean who spoke up, rounding Salman’s girth to join Kira’s side. “Are you seriously expecting us to just step aside and let him go!?”

“She’s a bad influence, boy…” Salman said as he glared at the two. “Forget about your selfishness and help us-!”

“Sir!”

“-WHAT?!” Salman shrieked, turning to face his subordinate with murder in his eyes, only for the hate in his gaze to dissipate upon seeing the scene before him.

In his left hand, Henry loosely gripped a modern, sleek black pistol, the narrow barrel silently smoking as he stood slouched in front of two more dead soldiers. The remaining half a dozen or so men scrambled to get away from him as he tossed a small, obelisk-shaped object up and down in the other hand.

“Now this...” Henry said, holding up the gun and catching the obelisk. “... is cutting edge stuff. Or maybe bleeding edge. I don’t know. Any case, kiss your precious rubbish goodbye.” With that, he tossed the obelisk to his right before vanishing in a stream of code for the final time. The obelisk began curving downwards towards the crates, its grey form emitting an increasingly brighter glow.

“Grenade!” Salman yelled. Understanding the underlying order, Kira stepped in front of Salman, who almost comically attempted to hide behind the much shorter woman. Likewise, the remaining soldiers clustered around Jean, who formed a large, uneven sphere of wind around them, just in time for the obelisk to hit one of the boxes and erupt into an inferno, flames bursting forth and quickly consuming the entire room. The fire swam around Jean’s air bubble, keeping those within safe from half.

As the flames approached her and Salman, Kira laced her fingers together and held her palms out before her, the fire bending around the two, leaving them unscathed. After a few seconds, it dissipated, a lack of any substance to burn. However, the mountain of metal crates had taken the brunt of the blast, and in its place was now a burning, half-molten mess.

“Shit,” Jean said, as he let the air return to his natural state, sweat already beginning to form underneath his bodysuit. With the immediate danger gone, Salman strode from behind Kira and addressed his remaining forces.

“The mission is over! Evacuate the area and go to one of the meeting points ASAP! Don’t let anyone follow you! Move move move!” Following his lead, everyone turned tail and sprinted towards the rip in the wall, slipping through into the night. Kira too went, trailing just behind Jean, only to stop at the gash in the wall, turning back to look at the spot where Henry vanished. An audible noise could be heard as she ground her teeth in frustration, and for a brief moment, it almost seemed like she would head back in, where it not for Jean yanking her through abruptly, forcing her to resume running.

“Come on, imbécile! We’ve got to get there ASAP!” He harshly whispered as Kira fell into line behind him, a deep frown marred on her face.

“If I’d used it against him, I might have-”

“Don’t,” Jean interrupted, not looking back as he ran forward. “You’re still not combat-ready with that. Besides, if you’d shown what you can do, he’d have killed you for sure.”

Growling bitterly, Kira simply ducked lower and spirited onwards, leaving the crippled base behind her.