RPC Authority

KTCHOOM

The crowd screams as the window shatters, splinters of glass striking the metal bars.

Mishio's mouth hangs open as her eyes slowly roll up. She wobbles unsteadily from a newly-formed hole in her head, perforated from the back of her skull and straight out of her forehead. Blood gradually trickles down her brow, her nose, her mouth. She collapses, lifeless.

"MISHIO!" Mari screams in horror as she leaps towards the body, herself bathed in the milisecond-long glow of the door as the explosives lining its opposite end collectively detonate.

BR-KOOM

The door blows apart from its hinges and flies across the shopfront in so much splintered wreckage. The captives scream in equal parts terror and pain, enhanced ears throbbing in agony from the loud sounds. Before the smoke can even clear, unidentified figures begin surging into the fray. Unidentified, save for the bright blue streaks on their black uniforms, and the emblem of the fox head imposed over a globe.

"Ooorrkk, grrrrgghh-" Otsuko croaks. Right in front of the door when it blew open, her lean body soaked-in the worst of the blast. Little remains of her other than a bloody torso and splintered limbs tangled amidst the wreckage. One figure approaches her, noting her elevated skull and distended jaw.

"Aberrant sighted." Each drum of a falling hammer heralded a gunshot, and all five of them sent solid lead splintering through Otsuko's skull, pulverizing her brains on the way out. She groaned no more. The pistol is holstered for a knife and a probe of unknown make.

"Ab euthanized. ID'ing…" The operative crouches down, cutting her flesh apart and feeding samples to the probe. As he does this, several other operatives storm the building, rifles at the ready under a chorus of electronic-scrambled voices.

"Hands on your heads! Knees to the floor! Now!" The captives scream and cry as several acquiesce, with many others fleeing back into the confines of the hidden prison in a panicked and futile bid for safety. The sampling operative's probe dings as certain biological markers are detected.

"HQ, extranormal party ID'd: Hostile group 'Darwinists' also have plans for Exploitative group 'Traffickers'' cache. A crackle brought a response that echoed across each operative's headsets.

"Acknowledged. Ground team, expect organic weapons. Adapt tactics. Give them a taste of that 'Law of the Jungle' they love to preach about."

"Otsuko! Mari!" Oitsuwa charges out, shocked at the sight before him. "You bastards!" The operatives open fire on him as he begins greying over. Hastened by his adrenaline, Oitsuwa's softened body rapidly reforms with each round poured into him as his Redirectors spew lead back at the assailants.

"Defensive biological countermeasure! Cease fire!" Several operatives cry out and fall as the bullets strike them and shatter the shop walls in Oitsuwa's blind rage.

"Seek cover! Get the kids away!" Others throw up tables between themselves, the captives, and Oitsuwa.

"I don't know who you all are, but I'll kill you all the same for what you did to my gang!"

"Clear the zone! Min 10m seperation from hostile." Operatives scramble, several running out of the store.

"Not so tough, huh?! That's right, feed me more bullets or run! Cowards!" But, they were not fleeing from him. They were setting a safe distance for what was coming next.

"Rubber-fruit this, freak." An object the size of an iced coffee can is hurled towards Oitsuwa's webbing, and it is absorbed and engulfed. He scoffs, about to mock his enemies for resorting to throwing trash. The hissing and burning of his webbing, however, made him realize it wasn't just a drink can after all.

"Wuh-? No, no! Aaaah! Aaaah!" Oitsuwa panics and tries to eject the cylinder from being fed into his body. His biomod complies and begins excreting the object from his torso - but not fast enough. The end of a high explosive grenade can be seen emerging from the flesh-

BOOM! goes the charge as the huddled captives cry in terror, the smell of gunpowder-scorched flesh mixing with the stench of soiling. The Blue Book operatives rise from cover and inspect the explosion site - one big black scorch mark with two toppled pairs of lower legs, all that remained of the bodybuilder.

"We got another!"

"No! No!" Sarada cries as an array of gun barrels stare him down. "Please don't shoot me! I'm a noncombatant, I surrender! I swear, I don't have any weapon bio-mods! I can't fight at all!"

"Assume the position." Sarada quickly complies and is cuffed, led out of the server room by the neck. He groans at the sight of Otsuko, Oitsuwa and Mari. A chair is propped up, and he is directed to sit on it in a circle of Blue Book operatives training their guns all on him.

"Tell us now: how many more of you are there? Your continued existence is dependent on your truthfulness."

"J… Just one more. He's not going to survive this, I know it. But to be honest? After what you've done to everyone else, I hope he takes half of you with him." Garbled electronic screams echo from the back of the shop. Sarada's trembling lips manage a half-hearted smile. "Looks like he's started."

"High-threat Aberrant! Evacuate, evacu-aAAAAA-" Tsssht- crackles the electronic voice, as it breaks back into a real scream of a dying human, and the crackle of splintering flesh and tearing bone.

It has been half an hour. The surrendered captives huddle in sheets at the corner furtherst from the doorway into the building. A perimeter of barricades have been established in the shop, blockading said entry.

"Are… are you here to rescue us? My, my parents…" 'Lizard-girl' briefly looked up to whisper. The operatives remained silent.

"Bio-response is here. Stand clear, we are entering the Zone of Ops." A deeper tone of electronic voice scrambling blares across the room as a trio of heavily armored operatives stomp in, weighted footfalls thumping with the weight of their gear.

"Feed is live." Spoke an operative with a laptop, raising a thumb. "Purges 1, 2 and 3: You are clear to go." One of the heavy-suits with a "1" on the helmet nodded, and the trio walked past the parting barricades. Floodlights from their headsets bathe the darkness of the shop in blinding light.

"Upper office is clear. Internet server room is clear… We see corpses. All Traffickers. Proceeding to Trafficker hideout." The figures clomp into the toilets with the slowness of bell divers trudging the bottom of the ocean.

"We are at the true entrance." Their lights fall upon the massacre of their cohorts, the sounds of heavy clomps upon dry tiles transitioning into wet splatters across bloody gore.

"Holy shit." Purge-2 doubletakes at the carnage, carefully nudging a corpse. "Motherfucker ripped straight through kevlar."

Purge-1 waves him off. "Language. Command, we sight three casualties. Multiple dismemberments, no signs of life. Survival unlikely."

"Acknowledged. Proceed with kkkrRRCcccrrr-"

"Command? Unidentified interference, please repeat."

"It's coming from him!" Yelled an operator from the front of the building. Sarada's cries of agony mingle with the pummels of an unrestrained beating. The static clears with a line from the entrance outpost.

"-cchhrrrrrk comms reestablished. Attempted sabotage by captive "Darwinist" youth rectified."

"Acknowledged. Resuming sweep-" That was the moment a mangled arm flew straight into Purge-3's helmet with a meaty splat.

"Hostile in the zone! Blood on visor, switching to camera feed." Lamps sweep over to the corner of the bathroom where the limb flew from. Nothing.

"No signs of hostile from projectile origin. Hostile on the move. Purge-2, switch to heat vision. Purge-1 maintaining standard view."

"Heat trail sighted." Purge-2's helmeted visor scanned across the walls, and up. "It's all over the room… Holy shit, it's fast-behind us!" Purge-2 raises his armament, only to be met with a wave of vomited gore splashing his entire front.

"Senses compromised!" A guttural bellow precedes an oversized nematode of rasping teeth flinging itself forwards, enveloping Purge-2 entirely.

"I'm pinned!" Purge 2's weapon arm flails amidst the blanketing smother of flesh. "Eating through my suit! Need backup, now!"

"Hold still P2, we've got this." As Purges 1 and 3 raise their weapons, a tumorescent lump emerges from the side of the creature, skin parting to reveal hair, eyes… Manabu's head. His cheeks and throat swell as his lips pucker, gushing a torrent of ochre bile and enzymes towards the remaining operatives. Both Purges remain unmoved in their aim, their composite armour built impervious against such biological threats… as well as that of their own armaments.

"Primer!" The hose-like ends of the operatives' cannons launch balls of concentrated dark gas. Within these balls roil a classified cocktail of the most dangerous chemicals known to mankind public or otherwise, many outlawed for usage against humans. However, against enemies who would not hesitate to weaponize diseases and living weapons of their own in their bid to forcibly "cleanse" mankind of uncountable perceived failings, this privilege of human rights was… understandably retracted.

Manabu instinctively sensed danger from these balls and threw his untangling mass from Purge-2. He successfully dodged a plume, only for the other to impact the tail end of his 'mass'. Manabu's submerged eyes widened as the dark gas fused and spread across his flesh, causing welts and angry blisters to creep up on him. His dislocated senses frayed as he quivered in a muffled screech. His nerves frayed under the cellular apocalypse, a cancerous overload of itching and fiery burning spreading upwards, tearing and blistering his cells apart in its path of destruction.

"Hostile primed. Spark!" Purges 1 and 3 flipped switches on their cannons, only for Purge-2 to be sent hurling into their faces. Their aim wildly veering off, their guns harmlessly launch thin jolts of electricity across the room.

"Shit!" Purge-1 quickly grabbed his gun and aimed at the fleeing mass. "Spark!" His cannon missed, a jolt of electricity striking the mat leading into the toilet. "Damn it! Hostile escaping!"

Manabu's eyes teared as his face writhed and reddened under the membrane. He could feel himself losing control over his body, a rapid blossom of fiery tumours incinerating and compressing his nerves.

"Not before… Not before…" Manabu sensed light. The light of outside. Those idiots, they left the barricades open! He may have failed to kill the specialists, but at this point, someone, anyone will do. He sees a standard operative standing behind the doorway, arms crossed behind their back. Standard… like the ones he ripped apart in the bathroom. Someone to kill! One last kill!

Manabu roars phlegmatically as the burning tumours gradually choke his throat from within. He tenses every last working muscle in his overheating body… And leaps.

"Spark." Manabu leaps straight through the array of electrical emitters lining the doorway. The arc trap comes to life, and the jolt of electricity mingles with the chemicals ravaging his body, setting it all alight in a bouquet of flames. The operative calmly sidesteps the burning lump of flesh as it lands with a crackling squelch.

Manabu screeches his last as a barrage of bullets rain through his nematodic form. Like a slug under a salty hail did he flail and twist, shrivel and blacken, gradually curling upon himself… finally moving no more. All that was left of the fat boy was a blackened clump of burning flesh, a stench of charred carbon that smothered the shopfront's interior. The modified children sob and huddle tightly, that nightmarish slug's final dance etched into their vision.