Phantom Protocol

Naples, Italy, 1103 hrs Now Playing: Clair de Lune Stand up. He’s on the ground. How did he get on the ground? Everything was white. Stand up. His legs have stopped working. He feels like he’s submerged in hot water. His arms flail about. His eyes are stinging. His arms feel like jelly. Where’s the ground? Stand up, Markus. His palms feel hard asphalt. He tries to push himself up, but his gloved hands slip. He falls back down, finding that he has no air to knock out of his lungs. He remembers to breathe, and finds out that it hurts. Markus Reinhardt, stand up. He takes deep, horrible lungfuls of air. It smells like burnt bacon and charred meat. His eyes finally start working, and he wishes it hasn’t. Wheezing. Hurting. Pushing. He needs to get up. Why does he need to get up? Why is he here? Where is he? Do you want to be weak forever, Markus? No. It doesn’t matter where he is and why he’s here. He needs to get up. His arms scream as he pushes against what he thinks is the ground. His eyes water. He blinks rapidly. His body slowly comes back online. “Get up, Markus.” A voice came. A gruff, rough voice. Is it coming from nearby? Markus tries to push himself up again, scrabbling to his feet as fast as he could. The whiteout to his vision fades. He could barely see black shapes around him, some vaguely people-sized. His training kicks in. Pick up your sword, Markus. He does. His sidearm is melted into his armour. Remove it, the heat’s burning into his side, ammunition might go off at any time. He tears it off with some effort, taking more lungfuls of burnt meat and gasping for breath. Good. Run. Finish the mission, Legio. Light’s coming back. It’s bright out. Someone’s on the floor. Two people? No. Luca, in two pieces. Keep going, no time. He’s gripping his sword tightly. Loosen up the grip, you can’t use it like that. His grip loosens slightly, enough that his index finger and thumb has the most pressure. Good. Run. Finish the mission, Legio. He ran. No mind. No time to think about anything except the mission. Rubble on the ground. Jump over it. Avoid the molten metal. The suit will protect from contact burns for two seconds. Lavender scent. Getting stronger. One foot in front of the other. The smell of burnt meat and lavender. Crumbling yellow tuff. Ash. The smell of lavender. Acrid, powerful, like soap water being thrown onto a burnt pig. He keeps going. Over fire. Another dead operative. Her head is gone. Kirana. Make a note. Keep a mental layout. Keep going. Tinnitus fading. Hearing coming back. His mind is able to form coherent images with his eyes now. He mentally sends a command to SIBYL, who brings up a HUD over his retinas. The polizia are dead or dying. The carabba are still fighting. Heavy casualties. Legio casualties are mounting. Cell 15 and Cell 29 are activated. Cell 34 is wiped out. Cells 6, 14, and 27 are trapped by fire. Not good. HUD out. Keep going, Markus. One more block. Legs are screaming. Blast mask out. Fumes are getting worse. Brackish smoke, in garish green and electric orange, the kind of smoke you’d expect to see in signal flares or flashy performances. Flashes ahead, through the smoke - screaming, yelling. Indistinct words. SIBYL is reporting more losses. Turn the feed off. You don’t need that. Markus leaves it on to see the steady stream of data and movement beyond the smoke - market street, usually busy this time of year, this day of the week. Ignore the bodies, keep moving. Climb over the debris. Don’t get any of the biochemical flame residue on you, it’ll stick. More bodies. Intact submachine gun. SIBYL scans it. Undamaged by flames, somehow. Markus picks it up quickly, slings it over his shoulder, keeps it within arm’s reach. Sword still out. Unsubs already proven to be resistant, if not immune, to small-arms fire; still might be useful to have a firearm just in case. Keep going. Tiny change in air pressure. Slight breeze against the back of his neck. He immediately turns, a quarter-second before SIBYL blares a brief alarm; someone coming at him. A blur of orange, sickly-pale purple and green - green blurs whizzing past his head. Fire, projectiles of some kind. Markus lets his body move on its own; one click of his gladius-patterned high-frequency blade and it hums to life in one second. Markus doesn’t have a second to spare. His Agathium gauntlets took a single stray hit of the bolts - residue’s burning rapidly, as hot as thermite, but he manages to flick most of it off and limit the damage. He twists his body to the side in a smooth motion in the process, dodging the figure that attacked him. As they pass him by, he gets a good look at his attacker; humanoid, no eyes, no mouth, no ears. Sickly-pale purple skin. Orange thorn-like growths all across its body. Streaks of orange and green across its frame. Sharp talons. No other recognisable features. Markus assumes it is like any other human and falls back on his training. Identify center of mass. Thrust. It barely dodges. Pivot on foot, avoid predictable swing. He doesn’t see it, but feels the shift of air pressure and breeze against his back. He knows where the arm is, so its body should be - thrust. Twist. A choked noise escapes it - it still has a respiratory system. Good. Pull out, kick it down, coup de grâce to the neck. Some kind of oily residue spills out - and immediately catches fire upon touching flames. He pulls his sword out quickly, and makes for an exit. He was in some kind of a cafe? White heat envelops him briefly once more. He’s off his feet again - on the asphalt. He shakes it off quicker this time - was expecting it. On your FEET, Legio! Did I train you to be this slow!? He pushes up and takes several breaths, clicks his sword off to prevent accidents. Shock-absorbent suit was doing work. Quick second, and he was moving once more - down the street. Bodies. Collapsed buildings. No bodies of the creatures - assumed to be the explosive nature of the creatures’ blood. That’s new. “SIBYL, hostile unsubs explode when incapacitated.” He mutters out. “Understood, disseminating.” More pings on the feed. Dozen ahead to the east. Cell 14 is engaging with a carabba unit. He runs - over burning debris and across collapsing roofs. More crumbling yellow tuff all around him, sounds of fighting. Screaming. He felt the shockwaves a split second before the fireball envelops the building ahead. He manages to stay standing -contacts reduced to 4. Carabba unit wiped out. Cell 14 wiped out. He jumps through a burning window and turns his sword on in the process - letting his training take over once more. Contact in front - stab in chest cavity, leverage and throw into their neighbour. Use momentum to push away. His entire body is screaming at him as he endures a combined explosion - lifted up in the air and right through a wall. He is prepared for it though, and recovers within a second, long enough to avoid more projectiles coming from his right. One dings right against his shoulder - he pulls the rapidly-burning ablative plate off whilst repositioning outside. Two mobile con - another explosion rings out above him, delayed. He takes several steps back, scanning the collapsing house. One mobile contact left. He takes cover behind a piece of wall, noting possible positions. Unsubs are more mobile than normal humans - so he expects the aerial attack as they jump over the wall right onto him. Avoid the claws, grab the arm, shift momentum, slide shortsword into their sternum. He manages to take a good look at its faceless head as his sword slides in - rippling like some kind of alien surface as it gurgles and seems to swell up. Immediately he shifts his foot to the side and, his entire body screaming in pain, uses his entire body to throw them right back into the burning building. The body explodes before it hits any surface, but he had enough time to dive for cover this time. His muscles are extremely tense and bruised by now - SIBYL’s health monitors are blinking at him but he ignores the warnings - as he picks himself up and continues to run towards the center of town. SIBYL’s feed notes that the leader is there, along with several cells - 15 and 29.Cell 6 is wiped out. Cell 27 is engaging. Cell 0 is engaging. Markus’ blood runs cold as that scroll appears on his HUD. The trainee group - they shouldn’t be there - His legs find a third wind as he rapidly climbs to the Neapolitan rooftops, not skipping a single beat as he keeps on running along the tiles towards ground zero. From his position he could see the figure, hovering in mid-air, looking like any of the other unsubs he fought that day - as their clones ran amok with the carabba units and operatives still fighting them back. Cell 0 could be seen amongst them - identifiable by the white stripe across their arm. He could see his baby brother there, fighting amongst the others. The figure lifts one of its arms and points at a trainee operative - and a lance of light strikes him, going through his armour effortlessly. He falls. They point at another, and one more lance of light explodes from their finger. Another falls. A primal scream, curdling his own blood, rises from the back of Markus’ throat. He can’t reach them from here. He turns his high-frequency sword off and reverses its grip before reaching for the SMG he kept from earlier. Ignoring several warnings from SIBYL, his helmet withdraws, letting free his matted, bloody auburn hair, as he takes aim. “HEY! Over here, you bald freak! FIGHT ME!” He pulls the trigger. Controlled bursts of fury. Confirmed hit. Confirmed hit. Confirmed hit. He keeps firing in bursts until the figure seems to look up and turn to him. The voice that emanates from them rings out for nearly a quarter-mile, causing everyone in the immediate vicinity to stumble from the sheer volume. It is shrill and scratchy, with echoes of masculine and feminine in an alien vibrato. “Hahaha! Yes! Très magnifiqué! Finally, a handsome lead protagonist, come to save his friends from the all-powerful villain!” They extend their hands outwards, towards Markus - who is still, ineffectually, firing at him with bursts of SMG fire. The bullets seem to explode before they even reach the figure. “Ah, but this is not yet the climax, my young, handsome lead.” The figure raises a hand up - Markus growls. Click-click. He’s out of ammunition - rookie mistake, didn’t track the shots. He throws the SMG at the figure impotently and tries to find the fastest route to them - difficult, too much fire, too much rubble - but by the time he’s figured out a route his feet are already moving. “Yes! Yes! Come closer! The people are watching! The Gods are watching!” They laugh. Another short scream - another body falls. Markus’ legs are screaming with pain, but he pushes onwards through it. Sixty feet. He could see the figure in the air above - about ten feet now, their head seemingly following his movements. He had no plan, but he had to do something, anything. Forty feet. He stumbles against a fallen body, briefly, catches himself before he loses his balance. Thirty feet. The heat emanating from the figure is getting stronger. They seem to be saying something, but the ringing sound in his ears borne of rage is unable to make it out. Twenty feet. He picks up a fallen pistol on the ground and lifts it up to try and fire. It jams. Fifteen feet. He throws the pistol at the figure. And then everything goes white