Elvera peered through the curtains as the fighting force began to unfold like an unravelling letter, one that only delivered bad news. A total of eighty troops, half dedicated to securing the perimeter and the other would assault it if…when necessary.

Outfitted for close quarters, the only remnants of the antiquated bolt actions were the wood-furnished hand guards and grips. Mass-produced stamped steel were their weapon of choice, matching their equally as efficient and effective tactics. Or so was the narrative until this morning. Nothing in the playbook had anticipated fifty-millimetre non-explosive bullets being fired at three hundred rounds per minute. Action had to be taken while there was still time, while the armour was still not operational.

The congregation of old men had finally hashed out a rough idea of how to approach the situation. Rappelling up the walls or being dropped onto the roof was not going to work, hence working from the bottom up was the only solution. Each room would have to be cleared of hostiles and hostages before any safe attempt at damaging the armour could commence. Depending on either side’s performance, the process could take hours.

Time only continued to elapse, each second ticking by much too slowly. By the time her name was called by an officer holding a telephone receiver, the time had already reached 0638. She snatched the phone off the messenger and wasted no time in employing her acidic tone of voice.

“Since I, for one, am not feeling complacent this fine morning, I won’t waste your time in getting to the point. Give me authorisation.”

Fredrick groaned over the phone. Apparently, it was too early for such a conversation.

“Lieutenant-Colonel I appreciate your offer of assistance, but I want to keep this situation from getting out of hand.”

“I think we’re well past that point.”

“The last thing we need on top of this fiasco is having to cover up a Witch! It’s the middle of Excala city, broad daylight! If you think the military is going to somehow pull off a cover-up of that scale again, you’re sorely mistaken.”

Elvera returned his groan. The conversation wasn’t exactly a first, after all. Even if she was not intending to request the use of a Witch or a Wizard, she would nonetheless be accused of exactly that. However, in this case, that was exactly why she was calling.

“This is exactly the reason we have had Hardridge on standby in the first place. To get to this point and not ask for her help?”

“Despite what people may say, Hardridge is not god, nor is she our military’s trump card. You must be fully aware what will happen to our image if we’re found to be working with her.”

“Our first priority is the public’s safety.”

“And do you think that is achievable without the public’s trust?”

Elvera could see no way forward, and so she slammed the phone back together, leaving it with the messenger to return to wherever he had gotten it from. The assault was to go ahead as planned.

As if timing was her middle name, a long rifle barrel quickly followed by a head of orange hair rushed up the stairwell towards Elvera.

“It’s a warzone out there,” Evalyn said as she unslung her bolt action from her shoulder, using it like a cane. “Care for a sitrep?” she asked.

“They’re formulating a plan, but they’re too late. A hostage is scheduled to be killed in three minutes or so.”

“That’s still enough time,” Evalyn stated, and rightly so.

“They’re keeping you as a last resort.”

“What? Why?!”

“It’s too risky. I don’t agree with it, but there’s a second perimeter around us made up of purely the press. If any catch wind of your official involvement, that could be an outcome as bad for the army as letting several hostages die.”

“Yeah right it is!”

“I think so too, but you grew up Sidosian. It’s like the monarchy, it’s not a concept you can understand the weight of.”

Evalyn seethed in silence, unable to make a counter argument.

“Do they at least have bracelets?” Evalyn asked.

“Every one of them has three, that’s thirty uses. It’s more than enough.”

“Good. God knows Spirit magic is just about the only advantage they have right now. I’m going to check the front line,” she said, picking up her rifle once more.

A head of orange hair fluttered up and down the barricaded street. A familiar figure that had stuck herself to the back of Jamie’s head. The ‘private investigator’. Her title suggested nothing more than a stalker turned professional, but she alone had jailed a sympathiser and severely hospitalised a comrade. Her walking past so candidly made him wonder if that comrade had really killed her child. What she had said over the phone had piqued his interest like nothing else ever had.

‘…I have burnt down cities before and I will do it again…”

Whoever she was, whatever she could do, he had to know. Such a threatening adversary was something he had never come across, and he could not afford to let such a roadblock get in his way.

He relinquished his post at the scout’s roost and made his way downstairs towards the foyer. He reached over the reception desk and chose one of the three cream-coloured phones at random, dialling the number he had already memorised, his movements never suggesting he was in any sort of rush. On the other side of the connection, the tepid voice of a young communications worker answered. He yawned as he heard them stumble with the receiver.

“Yes?”

“The orange haired woman with the tattoos outside, get her on the line.”

What sounded as if someone had blended the phrase, ‘yes sir, right away sir,’ was vaguely audible over the speaker before he heard the worker drop the phone entirely. Thirty seconds lapsed before she answered.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

“Who’s this?”

“Jamie Welrod. I believe we’ve had a conversation already.”

“You….”

Jamie saw three figures enter the foyer behind him. Two of his senior men and one hostage. A girl, perhaps in her twenty somethings. Hair tangled, clad in light pyjamas. He figured the gunshots had been her alarm clock that morning. Jamie had suggested picking a hostage at random, yet he figured some sadistic junior officer had interpreted that instruction differently.

The woman was made to kneel as one of his men lifted a sidearm to the back of her head, as if to line up an unmissable shot. The woman had been crying for an hour most likely. Her eyes were bloodshot red, her arms and legs quaking with adrenaline and her chest would not stop rising and falling.

“I noticed you in the crowd and I wanted to ask you something,” he said over the soft whimpers of the woman beside him.

“Who are you?”

“Who am I? Is that really what you’re asking right now?”

“Yeah,”

“…Hardridge. Private Detective.”

“So, the detective part wasn’t a lie…what about the city burning part?”

“…I’ll let you guess.”

“I see…” Jamie said, chuckling. His grip loosened on the phone as he looked out at the now empty foyer. Completely empty, save for the men who had been guarding the hostages until recently. He could make out the blurry silhouettes of the army just beyond the windows.

“Let me ask you the same question, Jamie Welrod.”

Jamie sighed, trying to think of an answer to a question he had never bothered considering. “I’m…a captain of the Sidosian Human Independence Army. There isn’t much to it, really.”

“What did you lose to Spirits?” the woman asked, as if he had lost a poker match to one.

“Is that the burning question you ask every S.H.I.A. member?”

“Yes, it is. Who was it?”

“…it might have been my father, I haven’t seen him in a while…my sister maybe? Does it really matter?”

“Whoever it was, I’m sorry. On behalf of my father.”

He sighed, a small smile across his face.

“I don’t think this is the time for reconciliation. There’s a woman here about to be shot, that’s significantly more important than either of our pasts.”

He listened as the man racked his sidearm, chambering a bullet as if it was simply business.

“But what’s more important than both of us at this very moment is whatever it is we’re fighting. Now I don’t have a clue what your motive is, or even if you’re just another soldier, but that doesn’t change the fact you have everything to lose, and I have everything to prove. Isn’t that right?”

“Seems like it.”

He turned to his men, motioning to them to cancel the execution.

“I’ll give both of us time. We still haven’t gotten this armour off of the ground and it seems like your side still hasn’t gotten itself together.”

“Why?”

“If our best can beat your best, then we’ll have won everything then and there. Whatever you and Geverde are is what Sidos is becoming, that’s what we exist to destroy.”

He put the phone down. The woman he had spoken to knew better than many the implications that being part of S.H.I.A. held. Whether they hated or idolised her father, the one consistent truth was that everyone who swore to its flag had lost everything, and the will for revenge burned hotter than the tacky shoeshine polish of loyalty.

His superiors hoped they could at best have their prisoners released while escalating the already drawn-out battle to the next level. Yet Jamie intended to end it, then and there. S.H.I.A. was better than the alliance, Sidos’s people would come to see that.

So, he radioed in another order, to hammer the final nail in the coffin just that much further.

Eight members of the forty-second division were stationed in Geverde city. They stood in the borders of the Sidosian Embassy on 62 Jarep street, central Excala. To many people who passed through the area, they were a frightening sight to behold. Armoured juggernauts that some residents even remembered from ten years prior, yet to the locals they had become nothing but statues. Not reacting an inch, even to those who had the guts to poke them.

Those gargoyles had come to life that morning, rifles loaded and ready, their gleaming white eyepieces scanned what was but a lonesome city street only a few hours prior.

The embassy had four corners and each corner had two soldiers. A single foot soldier at the base of the building carrying a heavy automatic rifle designed for accurate yet sustained fire, and a scout stationed on the roof, armed with the same rifle modified purely for long distance precision.

Members of the embassy had all been called to its premises as soon as the slightest sign of danger had reared its head. As far as Sidos officials were concerned, the embassy itself was the safest place in the city.

After all, four members of the forty second stationed in the same place was already considered overkill, let alone eight.

The curfew had silenced the city street. Even if one hadn’t been ordered, the truck bomb only a block away would have convinced everyone in the vicinity to cover their heads and hide in their homes.

The only sounds the wind carried were the sounds of itself whispering through invisible nooks and crannies.

“First floor Northwest contact, be advised, there’s human activity to your right, over.”

“Copy, over and out.”

Northwest contact raised their rifle, the chain of bullets hanging from the mag-well rattling as it hung loose between the gun and their forearm plate. They kept their armoured finger on the trigger guard, cautious not to accidentally fire.

An old woman trotted into their iron sights.

“Ma’am! You need to get out of the street now! It’s a curfew.”

A local cautiously peered out of their door, beckoning the woman inside, all while a gun was trained firmly in their direction. The woman receded, slightly confused, and Northwest contact lowered their guard.

The sound of wind returned to the city street, yet unlike before, it carried a sound nestled amongst the whispers. A consistent drone barely audible through the audio dampening helmets.

“Northwest contact to North West scout, possible audio cue of a vehicle, please confirm, over.”

“Positive, Northwest contact. Subject is moving away from the building, over.”

“Rodger, over and out.”

As the transmission cut, Northwest contact caught a glimpse of something. A figure atop a building, towering over the edge. The distance was too great to tell, yet whoever it was, their attention was square on the building.

A grey coat. Coat tails swaying gently in the wind that betrayed no sound. Northwest contact moved to report the man, yet a transmission beat him to it.

“Southwest scout to Northwest contact, southwest contact, multiple fighting aged males spotted on the fourth floor of building 61, directly across from you.”

Northwest contact painted the entire building with his eyesight, zeroing in on one window in particular. Glimpses of movement were visible, yet they were still only glimpses. Speculation at best. They turned back to where the grey figure stood only moments ago. Whoever it was, they were gone.

Their finger danced around the trigger guard as anticipation readied their body for what could come. They turned their attention back. A fight would not come from a single window, and instead either multiple windows or by exiting the building entirely. Without concealment through smoke by or other means however, the aggressors be cut down with ease.

Where was is going to come from?

“Southwest scout to all teams, small arms sighted. I repeat, small arms sighted in adjacent building.”

The silence before the storm. With one final check over their rifle, Northwest contact raised it towards the building’s bottom floor. Waiting as the seconds passed. They stood perfectly still in their armour, not a single joint so much as creaking. Only the slow, laboured breathing through the bulletproof gas mask.

“Northwest! Northeast! Vehicle to your left! High speed!”

Northwest whipped their rifle left. The vehicle rounded the corner completely unmanned, heading straight for the middle of the street. Northwest and South West began mercilessly squeezing the trigger in an attempt of setting off an early explosion, but it was useless.

The car flew towards them before tearing itself apart, each shred of scrap metal divorced from another. A thunderous explosion. A shockwave. A fireball.

Northwest felt the repeated beatings in quick succession. The pounding shockwave succeeded by the rain of shrapnel. Yet that did not phase them. They were too heavy to be lifted by the shockwave, too dense for the metal to penetrate. Their gleaming eyes scanned through the smoke as it rolled off of their dented armour, clinging onto the metal as if it was a final, futile attack.

Gunfire. Sixteen men at first glance turned to twenty and only kept increasing. A torrent of bullets pinged off of Northwest’s armour, desperately trying to find a pinpoint through brutish trial and error. They returned the favour, the precise churning dropping three instantly as more kept on coming.

Grenades, armour cracking bullets, makeshift explosives. A second stand-off had begun.