–Outside Jose’s Mansion, 11:20 AM–
The APC was almost invisible in the deep shadows underneath the trees, and the three people inside it were grinning and ready to wreak havoc. "So, where do you want us to empty the mortar here?"
Bellinger was wrestling with the four foot long tube, which would soon be used to launch several dozen high-explosive toys towards the mansion that was less than a kilometre away. Tsier and Sel were just sitting back and smiling. Sel spoke first. "Screw that hunk of junk. We won’t be using it."
Bellinger’s face fell, then he smiled. "Well, I can still use it to open doors once we’re inside."
"We’re not going inside. We are going to blast that place flat, then we’re going in there to put a bunch of bullets into the survivors. Also, stop calling me Esebert Bathory behind my back. I don’t bathe in the blood of virgins, despite the rumours going about back at home base."
Bellinger shrugged. "Well, this thing’s designed to knock things flat, so I don’t know why we can’t use it."
Tsier chuckled in his scratchy voice, then looked at Sel. "Well, at least we aren’t calling your gun Vlad. So, shall we get this show on the road, or are we waiting until it’s noon?"
Sel shook her head, than activated some of her armour’s offensive abilities, letting the jagged spike neatly punch a hole through the bulletproof glass in the windshield. "If I had to be stuck in this crate with you two for more than half an hour, you’d both be dead. Don’t worry. In five minutes we’re going to be moving in. Tsier, you might want to see if the autocannon isn’t jammed. I really don’t see the need for you to let your ass grow roots into the seat while I’m driving."
Tsier responded with an unmistakable gesture, then stood up and headed into the back of the twenty-ton vehicle, where the ammunition and autoloaders for the thirty-millimetre rotary cannon resided in what could best be called a titanium bathtub. Sel responded to the gesture by starting the engine, then lurching the heavy vehicle forward in a series of stop-and-start jerks that ate almost a hundred yards before she stopped, laughing as she listened to the vehement volley of curses from both men.
"Yeah, sit down and shut up. Now, here’s what we’re going to do. I’ll be driving this thing around the front of the place, hammering everything that even thinks of moving with the autocannon and machine guns. You two are going to be on the destruction crews. Tsier, you’re going to use the ten satchel charges in the back there to wire most of that place to pop like a zit. Bellinger, you’re going to be backup with the PPC, as well as the mortar if we need some packages of pain sent to the roof. Don’t forget. Our objective is to make sure nothing, and I mean nothing escapes. Now, let’s go in there and scalp some greenies for boots."
Sel downshifted the APC, then simply created her own pathway through the jungle, festooning the heavy vehicle with low-hanging creeper vines and green stains from plants being crushed under the foot-wide, knobby tires. In under three minutes, the APC broke out into the clearing in front of the mansion, and instantly came under fire. Six Fixed Ideas, all armed with rocket launchers, turned as one and started shooting at the APC, which had slammed into a seventh Idea, breaking both of the creature’s legs at mid-thigh. The six rockets all missed, not for a lack of trying though.
While half of the rocket launchers were being reloaded, the APC’s main guns opened up, spraying a hail of lead and steel death into a cloud in front of it, almost instantly shredding three of the Ideas that had shot at the vehicle. Tsier and Bellinger slammed open the large door on the right side of the vehicle, piling out of the APC with their guns as Sel made the unwieldy vehicle swivel into a bootlegger’s turn, slamming the door shut and blasting to bloody hunks the three Ideas that were still standing.
The heavy steel tires mulched the lawn as well as the seventh Idea as Sel forced the APC to skid towards the already-battered west wing of the house while laying down a screen of fire. Most of the massive volley smashed through the outer walls of the house, leaving a ragged row of craters in the heavy masonry, but several shells also hammered into and through a group of technos who had tried to help defend the mansion, leaving their only evidence of existence as a smear of greenish blood on the wall, some scraps of clothing, and several shattered guns.
As the APC was busy laying down the curtain of fire, Tsier was already at the corner of the east wing, wiring several shaped charges to the cornice of the building before moving to the next area, roughly halfway down the wing’s side, and right underneath a fairly large window. Bellinger, at the same time, was picking off the rooftop snipers with immensely accurate fire from his mortar, occasionally followed up by a blast of man-made lightning which shattered the cornices the surviving technos were hiding behind.
Sel had her hands busy at the same time, as another squad of Ideas had appeared from a side door, most of which managed to shoot at her before she tried to mow them down into bloody pulp. Two Ideas laced the front of the APC with machine gun bullets, scarring and pitting the thick armour with the impacts, but what really worried Sel was the other five, who were all firing HEAT rockets at her. Several desperate turns, including one where only the left tires were touching the ground kept the vehicle out of the direct blasts, but the shrapnel battered and ripped at the plates covering the right flank.
Cursing under her breath, Sel flipped open a radio channel, while one-arming her own gauss rifle’s barrel through the hole she had made in the windshield. Squeezing the trigger she sent six slugs on a trip towards the two gunners that were making bullets whine and spang off of the angled armour, so she mentally sighed in relief when both were cut in half by the explosive force of impact. Around their rapidly disappearing corpses, small clouds of highly corrosive acid settled, burning into the ground.
The five survivors of the squad simply responded by opening fire, and a lucky shot, hitting right in the middle of Sel’s desperate turn to avoid the explosives, flipped the APC onto its side. Inside the vehicle, Sel shook off the feeling of being tossed around like a pea in a tin can, and unbelted herself from the driver’s seat when she smelled smoke and spilled fuel. *Oh shit. Time to get out of Dodge*
Sel quickly climbed up to the passenger’s door, and, ignoring the handle, she just hauled off and knocked the door straight up, nearly ripping it off of its hinges. Her gauss rifle and pistol remained on her, and the long knife she wore in her right boot was still there, so she grabbed the damaged door, exerted her already-considerable strength, and ripped the door free. Looking at the Ideas, which had clustered together, she flung the heavy steel door at them like a razor-edged frisbee, cutting off the heads of two of them, and smacking another hard enough to knock it down.
Sel then leapt off of the smoking hulk, kicking away from the dented side panels as she heard the dull whoosh of the diesel fuel igniting. A clumsy shoulder roll onto the lawn, hi-lit by the first of three fuel tanks in the APC exploding, which set off the remaining ammunition. The APC literally vaporized in a spectacular lightshow of fire, metal and death, knocking the two standing Ideas to the ground with little chunks of metal covering every square inch of their chests. More, larger chunks of metal had embedded themselves in the walls of the mansion, and Sel had to duck to the side in order to avoid being squished by the shattered turret which had held the autocannon.
*There’s a reason why I didn’t expect to win so easily. Still, I think I’d better help out Tsier. By now he should be halfway through the back.* Sel stood up from where she had rolled, pulling her gauss pistol to messily amputate the heads from the three Ideas that were still alive. She ran towards the back of the house, easily dodging the storms of rifle bullets that carved large divots out of the lawn, and taking slightly more time to remove from the scene everything with a rocket launcher before they could shoot at her. Just as she rounded the corner to look at the back of the house, three things happened at once. First, Sel took a bullet in the right shoulder, making her arm virtually useless as the massive wound in her biceps reopened, letting her bleed. Second, Tsier just finished rigging the sixth charge and turned towards her, aiming his pistol at her face, and third, the window just above Tsier shattered as something moving very fast, wearing what appeared to be the tatters of a straitjacket and jeans leapt through the glass.
Sel reacted first, aiming and firing a volley of five shots at the figure, but every shot missed by only a small margin. "Fuck! What the hell was that? Tsier, get moving and finish rigging this place! I’ll keep cover back here so nothing can get out." Tsier nodded, and continued rigging the explosives, while Sel proceeded to swiftly amputate any gun-wielding limbs she could see.
Less than two minutes later, a new record, Sel heard Tsier yell "Fire in the hole!" and, instead of ducking and covering, she simply took two steps backwards and slid down the curved wall of a large, but empty, swimming pool. Less than two seconds later, in a concerted array of destruction, every explosive charge from the satchel charges blew up simultaneously.
The explosives were well-designed, focussing their blasts inwards and down, and the effects each blast had was multiplied by the close proximity to each other and the fact that the walls were poorly maintained. The entire mansion shuddered for a second or two after the explosions and clouds of dust cleared up, then telescoped into the ground with a dull, crackling roar. Much of the mansion’s population was visible, either in small pieces that flared into vapour as Sel climbed out of the now-ruined pool, or trapped under the heavy wooden beams that had kept the roof from falling on their heads in the first place.
Sel smiled, raised her rifle with her left hand, and braced herself. The volley of fire she poured out smashed the ruins of the West wing flat, but she just walked forwards, finger clamped on the trigger as she simply smashed everything in the wing to useless dust. Bellinger was doing the same to the East wing, and they only paused to reload their guns when necessary. After almost ten minutes, Sel raised her hand to listen for any cries for help, but heard nothing.
"Okay, We’re done. Let’s get back to the city. I’ll be glad to put this damn jungle behind us, and I’ll be even happier when the jungle overgrows this entire place." Just then, Sel heard something. It sounded like a little boy screaming for help, but she had never heard such an annoying voice in her life. Pausing, she motioned the two men to go ahead, then she turned back to the ruins. Sel moved carefully over the shattered remains of the building, listening after each step as the hysterical voice redoubled its strength., pinpointing what was going to be the last kill of the day.
"Helllppp meee!!! Anybody! My home fell on me!" Sel grinned, then slammed her arm through the brittle crust of debris that made up the person’s almost-tomb. She felt something coarse touch her fingertips, so she grabbed a handful and lifted.
"Owwww!!! Let go of my hair you oversized, steroid-enhanced freak!" Sel just looked down at the boy’s head she had pulled out of the hole in the ground, then produced a second yank, pulling the rest of him out as well. His amber-coloured glasses were askew, his hair was messed up, even without her hand holding onto much of it, and his clothes were ripped to hell and dirty. The boy looked up at Sel’s masked face, smiled, and started speaking.
"Good, you can help. We need to rebuild my base of operations here, and, considering that you’re one of daddy’s latest creations, you get to deal with all the grunt work while I apply the brain sweat." Sel just stared down at the boy, the one creature that had caused so much misery to the entire city. He had killed her best friend, seriously injured several members of her team, including herself, and had nearly killed her own daughter. At that moment, she didn’t hear anything but the pounding of her blood rushing through her veins, and everything she could see was tinged red.
Twenty minutes later, when her eyes had cleared up, she found herself sitting in the ruins, her knife in one hand, and the boy scattered over almost thirty square feet. Of course, he didn’t even register as remotely human to her eyes, and she just stood up, cleaned her knife on some grass that had avoided much of the destruction that had plagued the rest of the area, collected her guns, and started walking towards the city.
Just as she passed into the treeline, Bellinger and Tsier appeared from behind some trees where they had left their lunches, and looking extremely uncomfortable as Sel continued to walk towards the city. Behind her, the only motion was a crow, picking at something. Soon the crow found what it wanted, and flew off with the little white orb dangling from its beak.
–Dr. Zack’s House, 4:20 PM–
"Well, this is where we part ways for a bit. Bellinger, Tsier, go off and drive Jenny nuts. She’ll probably need some help rooting those little assholes out from under their rocks. I have to see whether my little munchkin has blown up the insides of Dr. Zack’s place yet." Sel walked towards the front gate of the house, listening for anything untoward as her artificial eye shifted to the infrared spectrum. The world dimmed to a dull blue-green, with the exception on the window frames of the house, which remained deep blue.
Sel slowly concentrated on the house, letting the eye’s sighting laser do much of the work for her as it slowly altered the scan to cut through the layers of the house. Soon, Sel’s eye was virtually looking through the entire house, searching for heat sources. Just as she was about to walk in there anyhow, her eye picked up Sebena’s form, lying in a bed with a massive, indistinct form lying sprawled out on the floor. Sel let her eye refocus back to visible light, then walked up to the door, leaned against the frame, and waited.
Twenty minutes later, Sel smiled as she watched Dr. Zack pause as he was walking up his path towards his front door. She knew she would look like something out of a bad horror movie, as her arms and chest were covered in blood, and she also looked like someone had put her through the wringer for two days straight, as she had gone without much sleep, much less a decent visit to a shower or bathtub. Her hair was ratty and tangled, her eyes had sunk into her face, leaving dark rings, and her skin was even paler than before.
"Well, it looks like the heroine of the city has returned. Most of us heard the blasts, but we’re still curious. So, what’s left?"
"Dust, more dust, a couple of eyeballs that I missed stepping on. Nothing really. So, how was your day?" Just before she heard Dr. Zack’s response, she fainted.