TheSoviet

((!))

Outside of Teivos' conference room, two figures shuffled nervously.

"Way to royally [censored] up, War. Now that we delivered Grif back to them, they'll never trust us, and we're out of cards."

"What're you talking about?" War shrugged back to the Demolition Man. "All we gotta do is fabricate a little feel-good type story, 'bout his friend here, boom, we're top of the heap."

"And speak of the devil, here's our ticket." War gestured towards the approaching Grif. Famine stepped back apprehensively, but the Mercs couldn't help but look relieved to see him.

"Awwyeah, now for the good stuff." War beckoned, taunting one of the spirits towards him. Holding up his energy blades, he adjusted a setting on their hilt slightly, causing a rapid shift in frequencies of the blade. This had a rather kaleidoscopic effect, causing the blades to rapidly shift through colors in an attempt to sync with the oncoming spirit. War held his defensive stance, waiting for the beast to make its move.

Famine took a more direct approach.

As the spirit approached him, he reached to his knee and drew out a secondary sidearm, a large, high-tech looking pistol based off of an Arachnos model. Unceremoniously, Famine began to burst-fire at the oncoming spirit using the quickly apparent Ghostslayer rounds...

Famine yet out a shocked yelping sound, as though he'd been about to shout and the words had been scared right back down his throat. He moved quickly, almost instantaneously, to stand behind Griffin with both of his SMGs pointed past his head at Teivos. War stood boldly in front of both Grif and Famine, blades held wide in an aggressive stance.

"F-Fancy meeting you here." Famine finally managed to choke out. "For the record, I didn't want it to go down like this." Although his weapons weren't aimed at Griffin at all, the creature would none the less no doubt feel intense nervousness. Despite most likely never having heard of Famine's notoriously bad track record of double-dealing in this kind of situation, and his spotless record of executing all of his hostages post negotiation, Famine was pretty obviously not your average hired gun. The PPD had an extensive file on this "Global Terror Threat" and his casual disregard for negotiating procedure, and indeed, life. This was a man who'd taken down an eight lane highway bridge to cut off pursuit.

Granted, in this situation, Famine had better options.

But the Horseman was strained already.

And then all of a sudden the guy they were trying to negotiate with was getting stabbed.

"Nope!" War grunted, teleporting forward and blocking the lightning assault with his suddenly and inexplicably active energy blades. "Can't negotiate when they're dead." He added on as an afterthought, pushing forward against the other swordsman.

"And you think she wouldn't [censored] us over at the first possible opportunity?" Famine hissed to Griffin, turning back to him. "Look, she's in uniform. She's obviously working with someone else somehow already. And there's no way in hell I'm trusting a posse of street thugs, especially out here."

"Famine, brah," War shrugged to his associate. "I mean, think about it. She's pretty obviously not on this guy's list of favorites."

"Yeah, and we don't need any more heat than we're already pulling."

"Truth." War nodded. "Besides, we need to get moving."

Griffin probably had seen by now that the Mercenaries really preferred working with each other. They kept a good combat rhythm between them, and it could be assumed that they were used to only fighting alongside close allies.

Halting further discussion on the issue, Famine and War led Griffin forward and towards a bend in the road...

"If you honestly think we trust you enough to let you follow us, you're insane as you are ignorant, lady." Famine growled, taking a step back. "We don't have to fight here, but we're not gonna let you have yourself a jolly [censored] good time trailing us around the place."

War eyed the Thugs warily. The mercs were outnumbered, but not quite outgunned. Still, he stayed in his stance, making no hostile moves.

Famine and War seemed pleased with Griffin at his saving their hides, but before they could acknowledge this Valerie decreased the proximity between them and her rapidly, entering their literal and metaphorical 'bubble.'

Famine and War spun around, brandishing their weapons. Famine took a quick knee.

"I think I told you to [censored] off." He snarled at her, staring down his irons. War leaned close to Griff, both of his blades in a parrying stance.

"You help us ditch the company, the rest of this little trip will be hella smoother, pal." He muttered softly.

"Get lost." Famine snapped at Valerie from his position behind Griffin, whom War was leading away at a healthy but cautious jog. Famine then proceeded to ignore the woman, putting his left hand on Griffin's back to hurry him along while sweeping his SMG around the area with his right. In the front, War had adopted a sort of sideways movement and drawn his Falcatas. His right blade was in a low, upward slash-ready offensive stance, while his offhand blade was protectively twisted to block his shoulder and face.

The two were moving away from the scene of the fight as subtly as they could, and as quickly. After moving to a side alley and holding behind a dumpster to get a better perspective on their next run, Famine took the time to further question Griffin.

"Alright, alright. Tell me a little more about yourself. What 'chips' do you have in right now? Who is 'Babe?' You remember where that lab you mentioned was, or who owned it?"

"He might have the portal tech we'll need." War interjected.

"That's what I'm banking on, jackass."

There was a grunt and a creaking noise as one of the toppled shelves in the store was shakily tossed off of what was revealed to be a disoriented War, who stumbled forward a couple of steps.

His composure was quickly regained as the tank passed."

"This wasn't us, somehow, was it?"

"No, hell no." Famine coughed from across the store, untangling himself from a pile of clothes. "Whatever's going down is some serious type [censored], and we'd better haul if we want to keep this guy."

"Agreed." War nodded. "Hey Grif, we're leaving. Say bye to our new friend."

Apparently the mercs didn't think she's be too useful.

Indeed, without so much as waiting for a response, Famine and War collected their myriad gear and shepherded Griffin out the door and stealthily away from the conflict...

"He doesn't even know!" Famine spat suddenly at War. "He doesn't even know!!" War quickly rose to his feet. At this point, both of the mercenaries were stepping towards him. Their guns were away but they now stood on opposite sides of him, circling slowly around.

"Okay, let's back up, amigo." War nodded to Griff, "Who got you in the hospital. Who shot you. Who do you work for. Who are you friends with. How long have you been here. Why did you get sent here. Why did they want to experiment on you. And why the hell are you half-griffin."

He had said it all (Save the last bit) in such a non-confrontational, almost encouraging manner, and yet the entire time both of them looked ready to close to melee and beat him down. Griffin would definitely notice that the Mercs went from extreme to extreme rather regularly.

"It was nothing!" War cut in as soon as he was thanked.

"Actually, it was something." Famine shook his head. "See Griff, we were what you would call 'in good' with the established organization of power around these parts for all of ten minutes. Then War decides we're the [censored] Rescue Rangers and instead of seeing what was going on with you, like he was ordered, he decided to go in guns akimbo and frag your way out of the hospital. Now, understand that you've cost us quite a bit. But I think I know how you can make it up to us."

"Tell me everything you know about 'Vlasta.'"

((Wait wait. Who's what where?))

"[censored] off two-bits. This doesn't concern street trash." War snarled at Max, pointing at him with the pinkie of his gun-hand.

"Not now, War." Famine grumbled, shaking his head. "Go ahead and get dressed. I don't care." He said to the griffin. "Since you're up, what the hell were you in that hospital for, anyways?"

Famine scrambled to his feet as War drew his sidearm staying down, aiming it at the strange man.

"We'll tell you what you want to know as soon as you tell us what we need to know." War grunted out as Famine slowly walked towards the griffin.

"Get up." He commanded the creature, ignoring whether he did or not. "We-Rather, he pulled you out of the fire back there. Explain to me just what they wanted you for in that facility. And don't try and run - We're not here to experiment. We just want to...do a little business."

"Haha oh my God that was awesome." War grinned to the assembled beings with him. "Oh that was the best damn escape I have ever conducted, let me just sa-"

Ka-BOOM Was the horrendous sound that interrupted War mid-brag, the door to the shop flying off its hinges and an incredibly pissed-off Famine coming in behind him.

"Famine dude wha-" War had barely choked out before Famine thew a full-forced Haymaker into his Maxillary nerve, sending a spray of blood and broken cartilage out of War's nose. "YOU [censored] TRAITOR!" Famine roared at the top of his lungs as he brought his fists down in an overhand strike, but War was ready, blocking the attack with the metallic shields in his forearms. Forcing the other merc off and headbutting him upwards in the jaw. Famine staggered back.

"WE'RE [censored]!" He screamed at War, barely coherent thanks to his dislocated jaw. "WE'RE GONNA [censored] DIE HERE NOW!" He threw a jab at War, which the latter blocked, but then quickly followed up with an elbow to the jaw that sent War to the ground.

"YOU IDIOT!" War screamed back, drawing his sidearm less than a second after Famine drew his. "THIS IS OUR TICKET! THIS IS OUR TICKET! PUT IT AWAY! PUT THE GUN AWAY!"

"WAR YOU [censored]!" Famine roared again, "WE JUST BETRAYED THE GOVERNMENT MAN, WE"RE [censored]!" He wavered though. He wouldn't even consider actually shooting War, but it didn't hurt for War to not know that.

"Dammit Famine!" War hissed, lowering his gun. "He's our ticket. Dammit, he's our way out. We'll get triple what we were gonna for this guy and boom, we jack a portal home."

"God dammit War." Famine groaned, sitting down unceremoniously and forcing his mandible back into position. War blew the blood out of his nose and leaned back against the wall.

"Why don't you tell me this [censored], man." Famine whined, re-holstering his pistol.

"Man you knew we were about to back-stab these guys. I don't see what you thought I was doing."

"Yeah, if you had told me you were gonna gun down half the hospital and abduct the prisoner instead of just holding him hostage there like we usually do, I wouldn't have thought a damn thing of it. Now how the hell do we even get the money for this guy."

"I dunno right now." War gasped, gingerly bandaging his nose out of his belt-mounted medical kit. "I dunno."

"Sorry about the nose, man, but it's not like what you did was reasonable in any way. I could only assume it was betrayal."

"Nah, man." War nodded sagely (but gently.) "Blood brothers. Now I pulled the dart out of this [censored] ages ago to stop residual narc flow, he should be waking up soon..."

((It's like the Gods conspire against me at every turn.))

"Finally, action!" Rezyin growled almost heinously as his rocket-boots sparked to life and he rapidly made his ascent after Brawler, gathering momentum (And building up his concentration) for a Headsplitting strike.

---

"Do it dont do it do it dont do it do it dont do it do it dont do it--"

"Ahh, [censored] it."

War looked back into the porthole.

"Don't. Move." He mouthed slowly before calmly and collectedly crushing the door hinges with his hands and kicking the door in. In one smooth motion, his energy blade snapped to life and he dramatically swung it into the needle's base, neatly severing it without moving the needle already in the creature's head a millimeter. The energy blades whirred as he slashed off the restraints on the creature, and just as suddenly as they had activated the cracked back into an inert state as War whipped out his TMPs and pointed them at the doctor behind the glass.

"Move and I ventilate you." He yelled. With his eyes and guns still on the scientists, he instructed the strange creature. "Take what's left of the needle out. If you can't move, wait for me to. Try and sit up. I'm getting you out of this hole, and you're gonna owe me for it like you don't even know."

---

Famine heard Brawler's opening volley.

"Promising." He grunted to himself, hastening his journey to the fight...

Rezyin only casually glanced at Max and the others before sitting down unceremoniously and producing a medical syrange filled with an absolutely disgustingly electric-blue gel-like substance, which he rather forcibly jammed into the nerve cluster at the back of his neck and injected himself with.

---

War appeared again next to Famine.

"Plans? Plans?!" He asked impatiently, looking around ravenously for their marks.

"Let's go for the dead men walking first."

"Thought our orders were to take them alive?" War grunted, miffed about the stipulation.

"I'd certainly hate it if we had no choice but to put them down, wouldn't you?" Famine shrugged. "Besides. I have a plan. I think our little buddy in the hospital is-"

"A huge trap bro."

"?"

"Dude, who would trust extra-dimensional mercenaries with that kind of info? I bet the whole thing is one huge-[censored] Xanatos Roulette." War knowingly cautioned.

"But what if us assuming he was lying to us is the whole point?" Famine quickly shot back, reloading his double-drum magazines.

"[censored]! Ugh never mind." Okay, we do it right, maybe just this once." War nodded. "We'll investigate his friend more later."

"What if there ISN'T a later?"

"Ugh you disagreeable little [censored]! Fine, tell you what. You go after the targets - I'll go after the patient!" The Swordsman snapped.

"Sounds like a plan." The Demolitionist nodded in agreement, splitting from the Warrior once again and stalking his way across the street in pursuit of his original targets.

War, on the other hand, faded to a literally undetectably huge plume of his teleporting form and drifted into the hospital, where his mist increased in density and sped through the vents of the facility, stopping once every so often to come back together completely so that War could listen in on the possible whereabouts of this important patient...

((Hey you guys so sorry about that, I lost internet for a few days.))

"Hahahahah!" "Ah, now we party!" Came the cackling pair of voices from inside the smoke cloud, and just as two outlines came into form at the edge of the haze there was the unmistakable sound of a drawing charging handle, a slight pause, and the pulling of a second one. There was a pronounced schwing as a pair of swords were drawn.

Those in the know on sword technology would instantly realize that the sound of metal-on-metal with the simple unsheathing of a weapon was obviously the result of extraneous metal inside the scabbard, put in place for the sole purpose of intimidation.

Indeed, just like that, the figure with the two as-yet unidentifiable automatics, holding them guns-akimbo and pointing only loosely at the thugs, began to fire off four-to-five round bursts from what could only loosely be described as two drum magazines smashed together on each weapon. The swordsman took two steps forward in the haze and then disappeared completely.

For now, he didn't reappear.

---

Rezyin lurched in the door, slimy off-color blood trailing out of his chest and left arm. His broadsword was half out of its scabbard, and it had a rather noticeable nick in the lower part of the blade. "Damned machine." The swordsman cursed quietly, his wounds slowly closing. "Who are our friends?"

"Implants?" War had questioned, frowning. "Sorry, bud. I'm willing to integrate with your little network, but my cyberware is custom-tooled."

"Can't use it." Was Famine's excuse. "Last time I went beyond basic skeletal reinforcements the EMP wave from a Nuclear Bunker Buster put me into a coma for seven hours."

"Don't lie." War grinned. "You're just afraid your own cybernetics could be used against you."

"Hey, [censored] you."

"ANYWAY!" War exclaimed, "Pursuit huh? No, no car will be necessary, thank you. Famine, bro, I'm already zeroed in, do you still have your emergency patch?"

"Well, yeah. You can get us there with that?"

"Same basic principle. It's all breaking down matter, bro, it's just the particle size that makes it different. Now online your stuff and get ready for jump in three..."

"....two..." War tapped his own teleportation device and put a hand on Famine's shoulder, where a green light had winked not a second before.

"Yoink." The Mercenary grunted as the two men exploded into a fine mist and swept out of the room at hundreds of miles an hour.

---

Famine appeared without War, the latter Horseman's mist continuing to sweep down the street. Where he wound up was perfect for the plan, however. He was exactly one block in front of the stolen vehicle.

The Mercenary quickly went for his cargo pockets and began tossing Arachnos wide-area glue grenades in twos and threes, and before long the entire street was a sticky mess.

Just as the vehicle approached the killzone, War's haze swept backwards, skimming down the street as visibly as possible like some sort of hellish mist. Just in front of the car, the mist came together and War appeared, hurtling towards the windshield, swords extended, with every intent of assassinating whoever was in the driver's seat.

War and Famine's eyes met for less than a single second.

"Yeah, he's been cracking down especially hard lately." Famine began.

"I won't lie; we've done work for him before, but he's not exactly one to stick to his word on payment." War added.

"But hey!" Famine cut back in, "Before that business gets started, what say we help you with your little rebel problem here, hmm?"

"That was so uncalled for." War pouted as they re-entered the bar, pulling back on his suit's hood to wipe the blood out of his ears and off of his neck while his world came back into focus.

"Don't be such a [censored] [censored], War." Famine snapped at the modern-day Blood Knight. He turned to face Vlasta again.

"Right..." He thought silently to himself for a moment. "Well, the thing is, we don't work alone. We've got what you'd call a bit of a network back home that we need to make sure stays above the fray. Namely, our fellow Horsemen."

"Death and Pestilence." War continued for him. "Our Master Assassin and Bio/Chem specialist, respectively. We've also got a truckload of staff we need to keep with us."

"If you factor in their help, and the combined aid of the Horsemen, including tactical oversight from our Overwatch command, Team Uriel, I'd be willing to put us on paper for no less than government positions in the new regime."

"High ranking government positions." Famine added. "Ones where we could do the work remotely and had little chance of being bloodily assassinated."

"And we demand Sovereign Rights to the entire landmasses of our world's Libya and Cuba."

"We also demand rights to select governance of New Cuba," War continued, "And let's toss in seeing that guy at the hospital."

"This is pretty informal I know." Famine continued again, "But you have to understand Death is usually the one who negotiates our work as a whole, so we're gonna have to run this by him anyway."

Vlasta was suddenly enveloped in a cloud of red mist that swirled torrentially around him before forming into the fully-armored War once again.

"Hey man what gi--" Was all that Vlasta could hear of the horsemen before the Mercenary suddenly reverted to grunting in pain as the flashbang exploded right beneath him. His hands went for his ears, hesitated, and then covered his eyes, and the heavily disoriented Horseman stumbled backwards a bit.

"Holy [censored] what is going on man!?" War's barely audible cry could be heard.

---

Famine casually strolled over to one of the VB troops.

"Hey guys...What's, uh, going on with that whole thing out there?"

"Hey man where ya going?" Famine frowned. "These are the good guys..."

"Deal with them." War shrugged to Famine. "I'll go see what's up."

Just like that, War exploded into a viscous cloud of vaporous blood which proceeded to sweep its way across the bar and through the kitchen.

"Jesus I hate his stupid Bloodport. Hey gents, how can I help you...?"

"It's obvious you're not using enough force." War nodded wisely to his new acquaintance. "But maybe there's a better way to go about this."

Famine looked past War again. "War's right. We haven't ironed out the fine print of our contract with these guys yet. Chances are we won't until we've met with their rep again. We might be able to convince them to fill us in on this guy as part of our deal with them, if you think it'd be worth a shot..."

"Of course," War interjected again, "As much as we love making friends, chances are if they agree we'd be giving something else up. So we may require some sort of reimbursement..."

"Everything's hell to my associate here, buddy." War grinned, shaking Vlasta's hand firmly. "Name's War, as far as everybody knows. Raging War'd be my Title. I'm what you'd call a hired gun. This here's Bleak Famine, my friend and coworker, who you'd call a hired bomb."

"I do what I can." Famine nodded behind his ally.

"It actually seems like a nice enough place." War shrugged, glancing around again almost as though he was making sure he wasn't lying to himself. "Besides the whole being spilled here through a hellish vortex."

"War, you teleport all the [censored] time, don't be such an [censored] to our new friend here." Famine snarled, "Sorry, pal, we really do get along when it's down to the wire, honest. So, what's the deal with your friend over in the triage? Doc's doin' some kind of delicate surgery?"

War turned to face the newcomer with little surprise. He'd worked with plenty of alien forces before when the Horsemen were hired by the Russian government, after all.

"Yeah, man. Had a bit of a run-in with an exploding portal, got dropped here, you know. Next thing we know we're working for the government, or what I sincerely hope is the strongest faction in these parts, anyway."

"Funny how these things go." Famine nodded from the other side of his armored comrade as he flicked a training balisong quietly between his his hands. "You sign up to this hell for merc work? What's your story?" He asked of the alien, only slightly frowning as he clumsily let the trainer close around a finger.