[IC] The Promised Children : Eat, or Be Eaten

[ERode]

It wasn’t going to be the end of anyone there. That, #13 could guarantee.

As the helicopter shook from the initial impact of the explosive weaponry, the raven-haired youth calmly slid his Kindle back into his pocket, before unbuckling himself from his seat and sliding on his parachute. There was a part of him that was afraid, yes, but at the same time…he was getting way too dizzy from all the spinning to be afraid. Urk, he might even hurl at this rate!

Before he could, however, his keeper leapt out, and #13 decided to follow.

The winds that whipped by were truly cold now, slicing into his cheeks and passing easily through the white collared shirt he wore. Where had his jacket gone? Oh yes, Augustine had it. He wanted it back now. Could he take it back? The failing chopper told him no, a hunk of broken machinery obstructing his view of his keeper as the winds pulled them apart. Smouldering rings flickered about, searching for the third member of the doomed flight, but there was no other parachute blooming against the night sky.

#13 took a sharp breath, pulling the string on his own parachute. The harness dug deep into his shoulders; he dug deeper into the recesses of his power.

Slowly, the death spiral of the helicopter was arrested, rising up towards the Promised Child instead. Doomed as they were, the propellers stopped rotating, instead twisting and folding alongside the rest of the vehicle. The fuel tank, burning and fuming, was torn out of the chassis, ejected by a mysterious force before, moments later, it exploded in a fiery mess. #13 blinked away the fireball’s afterimage while the remains of the helicopter, swearing pilot included, matched his own rate of falling, held afloat by a mysterious miracle.

Time passed until both touched the ground. Immediately after, #13 ejected the pilot from the vehicle as well, the parachute already twisting around him in a rudimentary form of padding and protection from the elements. The wreckage of the helicopter suited him well too; though there were no innate weapons, propeller blades were still propeller blades and made for a cool, if not crude, sword. The transformation was swift and loud, tortured metal screeching as #13 reformed it into his daunting armor, folding sheets into themselves to increase thickness. The RPG won’t catch him aware a second time, that was for sure.

Hm…but with this, he couldn’t exactly communicate with gesture alone, huh?

As a helmet of polycarbon sheeting and military grade steel completed itself, #13 turned to the pilot (quite a rugged, manly man, all things considered) and said, _{“so uhg…oh excuse me…”}

A loud cough, and his throat was cleared.

“Right,” the youth tried again, boyish mirth and embarrassment in his tone, “I'm just going to sit tight here. Watch my six, and hopefully my keeper can show up soon enough. Do you have a...name?”

Hopefully it'll end without a direct confrontation with whoever blew them out of the sky to begin with.

But that was just childish naivety.

The ground began to rumble soon as well, #13 drawing more material from all around him to further fortify his Sarcophagus.

[OwO]

---

The frigid walk that Six had ran was brutal. While she did have a few extra layers under her jacket and everything, she was still nipped by the cold. Her dash to the gate managed to help keep her warm. Warm enough to still have control of her fingers, at least. Once she was there, the first thing that she did was notify the frozen soldiers about the car.

The place was pretty guarded, that's what Six thought. Well, whatever the place was supposed, it didn't concern her. She just needed that car. Then, like the soldier said, she could leave the god-forsaken country that was Romania. Well, at the very least, she could at least find herself on a map.

Then her plan of not being harassed by her handler had a massive hiccup. An explosion in the distance, followed by the careful advance of the guards. Their slow advance towards the snowy woods had been halted by one guard, barely in the view of Six, having his head be clapped. At least he died quickly, which was all that Six could say about what she saw.

One guard screamed for her the soldiers to get her inside. He began to fire his gun, too. Though the firing quickly stopped as he was brutalized by whatever caused that. One of the remaining soldiers had grabbed Six by her hand in an effort of protecting her, which had lead to her first words in hours.

"Let go, shithead." She exclaimed to him, recoiling her hand away from his. Still though, she went to run inside since it was pretty smart to hide from whatever was causing the instant-death-syndrome in all of the guards. Quickly after she entered with the soldier, she partially shut the door. Leaving just enough to peer outside through a crack, she looked out into what could have been causing this weird phenomenon. A boy with shackles slowly walking towards the base and, oh hey, the snow train was there too!

From there, Six could make a few observations and deduce a few things. First, whatever caused it was probably caused by the boy. Why else have him in shackles and advancing into an armed compound, other than to be a really bizarre distraction for a sniper? Two, the boy probably had a power that could instantly kill people. Three, he probably needed to see his targets. The last point was based on the fact that Six was still alive, so she could say that she'd probably be okay as long as the boy with the unknown power didn't spot her.

Fully closing the door after getting all of the information she needed, she turned to the soldier that came in with her.

"Give me a gun or something," she demanded, "and how would you react to being a mea-" A brief pause stopped her from calling the soldiers meat shields to their faces. She reconsidered her phrasing. "How about we all work together to solve this problem?"

[Rune_Alchemist]

St. Peterburgh, Russia
-- // JANUARY, 23

---

Getting into the Hermitage was easy. Just a bit of wall scaling, a bit of finesse with her corrosion, and sneaking about. While three took the first floor, she had made her initial entrance point on the third. Better to split up like that and meetup in the middle, but this was odd. So very odd. Walking briefly through the hallways of the third floor, she expected something. Any sort of defenses, but there was none to start with, which more than spooked eleven. Gave her a bad feeling, twitchy feeling, moreso than usual. Like being locked in a pitch-black room.

"Keh..." She exhaled, lowering the mask around her face slightly, grinding her teeth together. No reason to keep that up here. Suppressing her powers was always unpleasant. Like sucking in her breath to fit into some clothing and holding it indefinitely. She could get used to it, but it was always annoying. With a long, pleased sounding sigh of relief, the cloud of Miasma around Eleven began subtly growing thicker. It'd take a few minutes to get up to a decent resting place, but for now she wanted to find good access to the ventilation.

She had been skulking about long enough to find the central air unit. Pumping this entire building full of toxic air would be easy, all she'd need to do was - The lights in the building flashed on. Music began playing. She quickly glued her back to a wall, staying just out of sight. What the hell? One of Eleven's eyes opened wide, while the other remained in a squint as she stared at the animatronics springing to life, the robotic soldiers quickly forming up and patrolling the floor in a group of five. A perfect formation, with each watching another back, covering their flanks. Finding a good position to just take one out quickly and quietly wasn't going to be an option, and fighting directly was going to be...implausible. Not without a bit of help from three.

Hissing lightly, Eleven retreated. That armor looked thick and heavy, too, so simply weakening it a bit enough to penetrate it was going to be difficult. What sort of security was this? It certainly wasn't normal...but that was fine, and she really didn't want to fight a walking mass of metal. She just needed to evade, wait for them to be weakened and then deliver to them a swift death. She was quickly becoming hungry and angry. Clicking her tongue impatiently, she moved swiftly into the room where she had located the central Ventilation.

They had just checked the room, so she had a few moments to give this a try this. If those things were everywhere, then being able to give three a bit of an easier time would be for the best, and if there was some mastermind here, it'd spook him as well, hopefully.

So Eleven got to work.

ripping off the ventilation covers, she began pumping the toxins into the vents. The mist around her swirled as she inhaled, taking a large breath of air before exhaling. A thick stream of mist left her mouth, forcing its way into the central ventilation duct. Eventually even the pipes would corrode if they were exposed long enough, but it should be enough to deliver a fairly large dose to everywhere in the Hermitage.

[Kazemitsu]

St. Peterburgh, Russia
Midnight // JANUARY, 23

After a moment more lights came on. Seriously? Who the fuck leaked? He thought angrily as he maneuvered quickly into a crevice. No matter how hard people tried they couldn't banish all the shadows in an area. But this was a good attempt. The music was instantly drowned out as he waited while the doors and windows sealed. Then the guards started to come out, mechanical automatons that looked to have thick armor.

[color=red][i]So someone leaked that Eleven and I would be on this mission...she can't fight something that will last against her Decaying. But they didn't seem to fully know what he could do, which was just as well. It all depended on his imagination honestly. While he sat there and thought for a moment before a cloud came through the vents. God damn it Eleven...there went the normies.

Sighing Julius came out of his shadow, but kept himself coated in it. Darkness didn't decay after all. A flick of his wrist and a blade of concentrated shadow zipped through the air and wrecked a camera that was swiveling towards him.. He repeated this while keeping ahead of the mechs with their beefy arm and spear. No need for anyone to be able to see him and establish that he had actually been here.

The robots however were another matter. Their upper bodies were huge as hell, but they had skipped leg day and looked to be incredibly feeble compared to their arms. He honestly didn't know how many of them there were per floor, but he could handle what he could see. Which was five of them patrolling in a patterned formation.

The blackened man with pure white eyes, a strange effect of his ability running, waved a hand lazily. A tendril of shadow, the robots own shadow actually, wrapped around its leg and pulled as it stepped. Making it fall down on its front. A twist and the shadow pulled the leg off from the knee down. Even on robots the joints would be the weakest spot. He only did this to one however just to see how the other robots would react to this little tactic. If they even had something to counter his strategy.

[Temporary]

[ Liverpool, England ]
[ January 24th, 11:00PM ]

---

”I suppose so,” Fourteen replied, bearing a warmth with her words to vaguely mask the dissonance in her tone. She let her head tilt towards the sky, peeling her sight away from the dirt and grime of the city streets, and losing herself in the abyssal night above them. On days and ventures like these, rarely did she return the man’s simple comments. React she did, but what verbal responses she allowed herself were few and uncommon on the best of evenings. The two of them, wandering out into the dark and cold, on the hunt for something to assuage her depthless hunger - up until the meal itself, Fourteen did not take pleasure in the activity.

To look up into the sky, starless and infinite, allowed reprieve for a time: from the fractured world that called itself their surroundings, and from the equally starless, infinite hole of her yearning. It had been a few weeks since her last Emergence - the time left until her next ran thinner with each passing day. Kill and eat, or succumb. Neither option was desirable, but the former always managed to find itself the lesser of two evils. To distract herself from that, if only for a moment, was something Fourteen sought at each and every juncture. To be elsewhere for as long a while as was available, rather than hunting ne'er-do-wells in dismal streets, in her own skin.

Her gaze was forced downwards once more and fell upon their obstacle, as her Handler stopped his onward march. The ones that stood in their way were ragged, chewed up and spit out by the world at large. Unkempt, uncivilised, they had lived through the end of the modern world, and to Fourteen the damage was more than obvious. The hair of their forerunner, the filth that once belonged to the city clung as a veil to their flesh. Though she herself had never had to experience the squalor that was all these people knew, Fourteen read the pain and loneliness of such an existence like delicately printed prose. And on a baser level, The Hound considered how the build up of grime would alter their flavour.

In the evening chill and midwinter winds of England, the pink-red ribbons and billowing black fabric sleeves of Fourteen’s attire took to a gentle flutter. Through the first days of her station the nighttime cold had worn on her, but time passed, she grew accustomed, and rarely now did she have a need to wear much anything to shield her skin from its bite. As her Handler spoke, she found herself watching his own outfit - his clerical attire, his rosary, his hair. He talked, and she listened, to both him and them, not for their words but for their meanings and intents. For many, these would be the last words they ever heard, last emotions they ever felt, and last actions they ever took. And invariably, she thought, all these young men would be dead before daybreak.

Compared to an announcement of the beauty of the night, the commandment of death was a much simpler task. Nothing as grand as words, merely a gesture. A nod of the head. Her discontent surrounding the scenario vanished, and Fourteen took to a sprint with the element of surprise at her disposal, as fast as her genetically modified speed could carry. At first directly towards the bat wielding individual, but then to the right, deviating to the side and towards the first gun wielding member in range. Her hand whipped out towards his armed hand, twisting and snapping his wrist, and taking control of the firearm. Weapon in hand, Fourteen flipped it right-side-up in his direction and pulled the trigger, firing a single bullet from below the jaw into his head.

Before the corpse could crumple to the muck, she fired a second volley, targeting the other firearm wielding individuals with lethal intent, using their hesitation at watching their own die to rapidly pick them off. Followed closely were those with close quarters weaponry - they would receive less mercy. Any that ran would be shot dead, but those that remained would be hit in the arms or legs, just enough to incapacitate them. At the centre of a circle of corpses, and bloodied, dying children and young adults, Fourteen looked back towards her Handler.

”Did you want to talk to any of them, Father?” she began, licking a number of blood splatters from the back of her hand, and gesturing to one of the fallen, surviving youths with the barrel of her gun. Her gaze flicked between the bodies, studying intently the rapid breaths of the soon to expire, and the steady spread of fresh blood across the mud-laden street, ”Or can I start… cleaning this up?”

[Melkor]

Tokyo, Japan
Daybreak // January 24

The face of Five’s neighbor felt odd. It had all of the structure and musculature and was very different from the female faces of his victim's parent which he had grown used to over the last few days. The teeth ground as he clenched the jaw muscles and tried, in a hushed whisper, to say a few words and get used to the new facial geometry. This was all a part of the ritual he had learned before Five stepped into this country.

The extremities were particularly different and moved in odd ways, each more muscular and more voluminous than the others. These thoughts seemed to always cross Five’s mind when he donned a male form. Father had called him male, but this seemed off. Perhaps Five was female… but that didn’t make sense… Father could not be wrong. Father knew every and all things. So, therefore, Five must be male. But then why was this form so alien to him? He did not think he could know that. And frankly, his interest was growing faint as his hunger filled him.

His borrowed mouth began to water as he thought of the meatsacks around him. All of these people… their bodies devoid of fat… the tender flavour as the meat parted in his mouth and the bitter crimson juices running over his tongue… the satisfying snap of the bone and the delectable marrow inside… His body's pleasureful undulating ripple only lasted a second before Five noticed and fell out of his stupor. The night crows were fleeing to their cages and the morning birds began entering the city, reforming the crowds and getting to work. Five would have to work to keep up the form. He hadn’t eaten in several hours.

But as a problem arises, a solution presents itself. A troop of teenagers, perhaps thirty-strong, pushed through the growing crowds. Their backpacks swayed slightly as they walked and their tired expressions made it plain that they were ready for sleep. The people around them tried to make room as an understanding passed around that the students were on their way home after a long night of education.

Five made a u-turn to pursue, getting mistakenly jabbed and shoved as he pushed his way through the crowd. He didn’t even notice those he pushed, his attention was focused wholeheartedly on the students. The riotous noise fell away and all his senses were focused on what was important... The stomach pangs began setting in. Five never liked those. The memory of the man he’d ripped in twain came back to him from the first time he’d felt a hunger pang. The forceful lessons in control he had endured after that incident did not elude him now.

Each step after the teens was agony. With each one his salivating became more of a problem forcing him to clear his mouth of saliva every few seconds. Hunger grew. Grateful for the concealing crowds, Five maintained his pursuit. Once one broke off for their home, he would pounce. He felt positively feline, stalking his prey as a large cat might. His fur was his neighbor’s skin, hiding him in plain sight. His claws were his teeth and he would pounce when an opportunity arose. His tongue twitched in anticipation and he couldn’t help but feel almost giddy. His excitement only overshadowed by his ravenous hunger.

When the first female broke from the group, Five’s body moved of its own volition in pursuit. His natural camouflage did it's due and kept him hidden as, well, a human in a crowd. Just then, the sun crested the horizon and golden crepuscular rays streaked across the sky, meeting again on the other side of the world.

[Eleven]

vii. seraph

---

^{｢ Geneva, Switzerland | January, 23 | Midnight ｣}
Seven didn't like this masked man or the way he seemed to peer at her, the etched smile on his false visage taunting and sinister. At Emmanuel's order, her lips curled into a frown, trembling as protest threatened to spill out. I don't want to leave you, she would have liked to say. Instead, she heeded orders like the dutiful child Emm expected and ran to her brother, taking hold of his hand to lead him outside. Whatever Ten's friend injected into him seemed to have counteracted his earlier punishment, but she was still worried for him.

"Let's go!" she said, even as she herself moved reluctantly.

They were halfway to the entrance when Seven turned to look back. A throng of zealots now surrounded the two handlers, moving slowly at first, circling them like predator would a prey, until Ten's friend all but gave them the signal to begin their hunt. Seven continued to run, but faltered in her step as a thought popped in her head.

A few of them were 'close' now, weren't they? Seven nodded to herself, convinced that she has found a loophole in Emm's orders. As she reached the wide double doors of the entrance, she harnessed as much fear as she could muster: fear so deep-seated that it ravaged mind and body, penetrated soul. Collected more and more until she was overflowing with it.

Once, she had explained to Emmanuel that she imagined her miracle was like her favorite part of church: Communion. Seven has been to countless masses in Italy, and while she never paid attention to the repetitive prayers and the long sermons, she was fascinated with the Communion rite. There, people held hands, kissed in a sign of peace, and feasted in the body and blood of their lord. Seven especially appreciated the lattermost ritual; it was similar to her own ritual with her best friends, although perhaps theirs may be more symbolic.

Ah, but back to the point. As she told Emm, in her Communion line, she is the one administering the Host, which in her case, is made of an emotion of her choosing instead of bread. The people around her are corralled into this line, mouths pried open in anticipation, whether or not they've consented.

This was what she did now. Seven picked the woman furthest back in the mob and served her a healthy dollop of fear. The switch in her mood is instantaneous, like a whiplash. Irrational fear swallowed this woman whole before she could blink, and down she went, curling into herself, heart beating erratically and mind rendered blank in terror. Then Seven targeted the older man next to her, then the man next to him. All three reacted differently; Seven has noticed there was no singular way to experience an emotion. One pissed himself – unfortunate, she thought pityingly – while the other turned tail and fled, his bloodcurdling scream loud even in the midst of all the commotion.

Seven did no more after that, afraid that Emmanuel would notice and threaten her with the cage again. They were out of the ballroom now and she had shut the doors for good measure. What was happening inside was a mystery to her, and she could only hope that her Emm was holding his own.

"Brother," she called, wringing the skirts of her dress in worry. "Where do we go now?"

[Haha]

C H A P T E R 1

N o t A S i n g l e S t a r
_________________________________

Fort Hood, Texas
—- // JANUARY 23

@Zoey White
"That's 2 for ya'."

Antoine flashed an appreciative smile at the promised child he looked after for a moment, but quickly flattened his expression as he made his way back to the vehicle parked nearby. Hoping that the other two would follow suit, he once again snapped the driver door open and scooted his little behind into the seat. He stared at the steering wheel intensely for a few moments, grasping the severity of his actions that would come. But he was paid well for this job, and he had mouths to feed back home just like everyone else. 'Sorry America' he thought to himself as he raised his keys to the ignition, slipping them inside to turn and start the engine.

As the truck hummed to life, Akasha slid into the seat directly behind Antoine. The young pink-haired figure leaned into the back of the driver's seat, a shit-faced grin developing upon her face. Their backpack was carefully placed at their side, zipped and secured to fully conceal the contents within from any unwanted eyes. Their destination wasn't too far of a drive, they returned to the to base perimeter and sponsored Akasha in with their false identification cards and drove the slow but not overbearingly so route to the on-base home of the residing commander of Fort Hood. His address was actually quite easy to get a hold of for the operation, and due to the security of the base the man's home was quite unprotected.

"The end has come for all mortals. Indiscriminate of race, or gender, or anything really. It's just an express trip back home after all right? Ha ha ha!" The young pink-haired demon child snickered quietly, her hands raised up to her maw as she places fingers into her mouth. Akasha seemed to tearing at the seams in anxiousness for the atrocity they were about to commit. Antoine parked a few houses down from the estate, it was quite large even for a captain, military men did well for themselves in this day and age. The brick building was two stories in height, simple two car garage, double glass panel door at the entrance, no security detail.

---

???, Romania
Midnight// JANUARY 24

@OwO
"Work together! Did you see what happened to those others guys? No way in hell!" The soldier pulled the handgun from his holster and tossed it off to 6 with the sheer look of terror painted upon his face. The soldier stomped his way to the very back of the building, finding a secured closet and diving into the safe darkness within. Soon after, the complex would begin to shake violently, file cabinets tipping from the walls and other meaningless decorations breaking as they fell to the floor.

Then a shout. "They're in the building! Surround it, there's only one entrance." A gruff voice audible right outside the door of the building was heard, and shortly after, the exchanging of gunfire from two separate directions. Then the banging, [i]Thud!... Thud!... Thud!..[/i. The rhythm was chaotic and inconsistent, multiple people trying to enter perhaps? The door was secured of course, a much-braver soldier stood at the entryway and kept his back to the reinforced wall at it's side. While the door was made of thick layered steel, we didn't know what was behind it. There were no windows after-all!

But behind that door was a battlefield, Russian men whom had ventured for miles upon miles till tonight to reach this place unmarked on any map. It probably took a lot of coordination, planning, and the hard work of countless men dedicated to taking down the church pigs whom had reached their dirty fingers into their country too many times. This is retribution, true divine punishment for the evil men that had strung puppets nearby for far too long and trusted that fear could keep them under control. But fear was a Russian thing, they knew how it worked better than any. Or that is what they thought when they breached this mysterious compound with the intent of victory.

The figure from the forest line calmly approached the compound, stepping through the broken barbwire and blankly watching the carnage ensue. He had his own agenda, looking to the non-simpleton soldiers 'six' ironically in number. They were assembling a large breaching charge upon the entrance wall, which sparked joy within the boy's mind as he skipped through the snow approaching the group. He was quiet, nothing but hums and grumbles coming from his mouth as he eventually made it to the group of Russian demolitionists. He gestured silently, pointing to the explosive and then the door, and then the wall, and then gesture an explosion, and then pointing to the big ear to ear smile on his face. The Russians as a result stood dumbfounded, their black facemasks concealing the majority of their facial express but we could assume their thoughts would something along the lines of. 'What the fuck?' The men then shook their head, one of them that secured the charge to the door threw the other five a thumbs up to give the all clear. They then uniformly backed away several feet before another pulled a remote from his waist, and pressing the detonation button.

---

Several Miles from Varkhaus, Finland [Wilderness]
Midnight // JANUARY 24

@ERode
"Thanks, I guess. If I died up there, it'd probably be better easier than surviving out here."

The tall, tattooed, dark-haired, hunk of man smacked his cheeks a few times with cloth-gloved hands to wake himself from the stupor of the falling helicopter. He looked down to the promised boy, a grimace developing on his face and squinted brown eyes. This was the situation after all, just an old soldier and this freaky kid out in the cold wilderness with no food or water. But that was only his problem, after all, and maybe Augustine's if she survived. He pointed south, a stern expression developing from the negativity that once consumed his face.

"We need to head towards the town South of here. I don't care what the Saint said, I will die out here if we don't keep moving. And as much as I'd like to have your back, I can't just sit here. I've survived in some shitty situations, but this one, this one is pretty bad." He nodded to 13 and looking away from him and to the direction in which he mentioned.

Meanwhile, the Saint had slowed her advance towards the two's direction. The sprint was further than she anticipated, and the ground's unstable elevation and rocky surface even in the woodsy environment was difficult to traverse for the woman. 13's coat kept her warm for the most part, but her face was beginning to crack and split. Her eyes strangely began to turn a golden-yellow, strange, but her charge did not falter and she kept moving. That was, until a single bullet grazed through the woman's platinum hair taking with it a chunk of her locks and piercing a tree a few feet in to her right. She froze. Every instinct within her body telling her to move, but she fought those senses and stiffened every ligament within her body.

In the distance a man in furs and black leather with the German Flag painted on his back whispered quietly to himself as he laid in a blanket of snow. "Found ya' you monster bitch." 13 and the pilot would hear this gunshot in the distance, perking up and drawing his own handgun from the his side.

Distant figures would begin to appear around the clearing they stood within, the same identifiable black coats and fur. These weren't military men however, they were the the resurfacing Red Army Faction- they hadn't created much of a presence lately but they had an affinity for finding themselves picking out specific targets that they dumped money into stumbling upon. And it seemed that this promised child and it's keeper was their target today.

---

St. Peterburgh, Russia
Midnight // JANUARY, 23

@Rune_Alchemist@Kazemitsu
The soldiers within the second floor had advanced through the storage room that they entered from into the second floor display gallery. It wouldn’t be long before they realized the lockdown that had taken place. It was a trap, they both realized this, but they had been trapped before. Information gets leaked, in this day and age people would sell eachother out for a shilling. And that was exactly what happened. The automaton guards on the second floor would soon sight of the two, though their directive did not target them, so the red light simply glanced their direction before moving on.

“Thank god.” The dark-skinned operative breathed into a sigh of relief.

“Don’t thank something that doesn’t exist.” His compatriot responded.

The dark-skinned soldier widened his eyes as he looked back to his friend too late, realizing that a weapon had already been on him and then. Bang! Quick, simple, the double-agent crept down over his wounded former-ally and pulled the weapon from their hip. A smile would be offered through his ski mask, eyes looking down on his former friend as if he were less than him.

“And that’s what your faith earns you.” He sneered, a muffled laugh hissing out only being cut short as he noticed the caustic vapor sifting through the vents. It traveled down pretty quickly, streaming through the second floor first and then down to the first floor shorty after.

It slowly began its corroding process melting away the metals, woods, and plastics of the inner workings and the millions of dollars that they would cost. As the substance met the automatons the process would be slower, it wasn’t your ordinary metal, this substance was specifically made to withstand something of this nature. Information was key in warfare, and it seemed the enemy had more information than 3 and 11 did.

As the shadow tendril encroached around the automaton’s leg and attempted to pull it from the construct’s body, 3 would find the automatons were not simple mindless entities. It in turn activated a module with itself causing the magnetic plates to drop from it’s forebody to its legs rotating in a condensing spiral. The others would then mirror this stance, seeming to kneel down in a lowering defensive position with their weapons drawn out in a defensive phalanx.

---

Tokyo, Japan
Evening// JANUARY 24

@Melkor
That power nap was exactly what Henrietta needed, she felt refreshed, renewed, reborn, realizing that she needed to find 5 today or the church was going to send someone to Japan to help. She couldn’t have that, no help, flying solo was how Henrietta preferred things so people couldn’t step on her toes and she in return couldn’t step on theirs.

She remembered the smell in the building and decided to pursue that lead. Fresh blood in an apartment complex in the same general area as the disappearances? That’s fishy. The huntress decided to skip the shower, skip wiping the drool stain from her sleep, and bust out the big gUns. From he leather bag she retrieved a pair of goggles, dorky looking things albeit but they could have looked cooler the purpose of them was to imbue the wearers vision with the ability to see stains and other not quite visible to the eye signs of things. Two small ultraviolet lights at each side, magnified lenses, they were something out of Sherlock Holmes and she wore them with pride.

Exiting her room she began to peer around the walls, the nearby stairs, the rooms to the other doors within the building. There was mess everywhere, though this wouldn’t exactly specify if it were blood or some other bodily fluid Henrietta’s sharp sense of smell would come to that conclusion. One door on her floor in particular had a strong metallic sent coming from within. Room 36 of the tenth floor, could this be where 5 made his nest?

Should she break in? She could likely find some other form of entrance into the room other than the door, were she more tech savvy she could likely go downstairs knock that bitch out and manually add her I.D permissions to every door. But this was something, anything was better than nothing. She removed the goggles and slid them back into hr bag and instead took out a largre cylindrical metallic device. “You made me so this 5.” She would then rotate the device’s top half causing a green light to turn on. Wherever 5 might have been, if it were in a ten mile radius from her location his skin would start to itch and his mind would begin to feel foggy.

---

Geneva, Switzerland
Midnight// JANUARY 24

@Eleven
“N o w h e r e .”

That masked figure had appeared, or perhaps a different one? He looked the same, the ringmaster getup with the overcoat and the suit underneath and even the top hat. Did he have a double worked separately from him, or perhaps the one in the ballroom was a fake? It mattered not at this point as spun and twirled his cane as clacked hardened heels to the floor below until he finally was a few feet in front of the two.

“N e v e r, e v e r, d i s o b e y. I’ll give you a little warning today, my little angel.” The masked man Gabriel sung his words without a care in the world, not a sliver of fear or remorse in his words. And he leaned down towards ten, grabbing the boy who should have been strengthened by the chemical agent by the head. “You’ve got a neat trick, boy, but you’re much too rebellious to be of use to god.” Gabriel’s Hess canted left and right further investigating the promised child that seemed to be losing consciousness, his pupils dilated, veins throbbing out of his body. It was like a rabid animal, looking up at a human whom had just caught it in a cage. Ten’s many hands would lash out towards the masked man, but they felt weaker despite the drug given to him earlier.

The man then glanced back to seven, his aggression seemingly non-existent towards the girl who had clearly used her abilities on some of the church’s men. “You continue being a good little girl, little Seven. Your handler should be arriving shortly, just wait outside.”

It wasn’t but a moment later that 10’s head erupted into a bloody mess of bone and blood within the masked man’s hand. It was quick, effortless, like a bug too small to even put up a fight. Just what the actual fuck was this guy to be able to execute a promised child with relative ease. What was his name again? Gabriel, God’s Strength, who bore a for god a number of different tools to assist the race of man, including a lantern. The masked man wiped his hands off upon his hands as the lifeless child fell to the floor and convulsed, looking to eleven a final time he spoke with a little more sternness. “Begone, and if any of the idiots come out before Emmanuel. You may kill and eat them.”

---

Liverpool, England
23:00// JANUARY 24

@Vocab
“Always save one, just in case we need a hostage or an example for a later time.” The priest sang calmly as he stepped through the carnage towards the survivor. He beamed his pristine white teeth down at the poor kid with a inky black pompadour.

“Don’t worry, your friends are in heaven now. Nos, remember that question I asked? I don’t like asking the same thing twice so I’ll ask you to think deep down and try to remember.”

The punk teen could barely manage to get words out of his quivering lips, his eyes nearly glossed over and the priest reached out and grasped his hand. It was warm, it made him feel a brief and subtle sense of comfort. The priest continued to feign the sympathetic look upon his face, a thumb tracing over the man’s palm in hopes that he would be won over.

“Th-th-th dock.. R-r-royal Alb-b-b..” the youth struggled to get those words out. His sense of reality beginning to slip away as he fell in and out of consciousness.

“You’ve done good boy. You can Rest In Peace now, meet up with your friends in heaven. I’m quite jealous actually, I have a daughter and a wife up there. But my job isn’t done, holy war, quest for redemption and all of that. The priest plucked a knife from his boot and quickly slit the boy’s throat vigorously pouring blood as his muttering turned to choking gasps for breath.

The priest then rose to his feet and pointed his bloodied knife to the west. His lensed-eyes holding a different, more adventurous and excited look to them. The man wasn’t right in the head, I guess that’s why he had been a priest for the church in this day and age after all. No that wasn’t it, most priests actually just sat around and did religious stuff in a church or out in the world. Was he doing that?

“Its about a two hour walk to the docks if we don’t dilly-dally, what do you say, shall we wrap up this vacation within this god-forsaken country? I’ll want some pictures of us in the Cathedral first.”

[Kazemitsu]

St. Peterburgh, Russia
Midnight // JANUARY, 23

Julius watched how the robots reacted to the tendril of shadow. They each dropped and phalanxed, but seem to lack any form of projectile. Purely melee with a spear-like weapon and didn't seem to have any light making capabilities either. Three's vabors spread quickly enough through the facility, the only thing saving him was that he was already cloaked in Shadows. But it seemed her decay didn't seem to affect the robots very much.

So they know how to deal with her...what do they have to deal with me? He thought as he stretched out his arms and legs before cracking his back with a long lean. "You're clearly not fast, you can turtle well, undoubtedly strong just by the weight alone...so what can you do? He questioned out loud as he located and destroyed another camera with a blade of hardened shadow. No need to be putting on a show for the security, although standing in naked light while being a solid black was show enough.

Still, the thing about the robots were that they had shadows literally all over them. Every bump made a shadow, every ridge a dark crevice. Their insides also held shadows, but those were harder to access. But for now, another little test of the robots. At the shoulder joint a ball of black with reddish electricity popped to life and promptly exploded while wedged between the plating. Time for a durability test, he started with the explosive force of a grenade. More shadow meant bigger boom, he had only used some of what the shoulder generated from the lights.

[Rune_Alchemist]

St. Peterburgh, Russia
Midnight // JANUARY, 24

---

For a few minutes, Eleven continued to simply let the place soak in her rot. The room she was in soon filled with the toxic mist, rapidly aging the unprotected room by what looked to be decades. Not that it bothered her, but she could also feel her own cloak and bandages rapidly deteriorating. Mildly annoying, really, but it was fine in the end. Less things getting in her way or slowing her down. A heavy cloak was not made for agile movement.

Using her left had, Eleven drew one of her Iridium blades. Bullets would likely not do to much against those mechanical dolls, but with her strength and agility she should easily be able to handle them now that their armor should be weakening. Slowly, Eleven began exiting the room, mist trailing behind her as she walked calmly out into the hallways. Finding the mechanical toys, she quickly realized a few things - they had apparently spotted the mist and were moving in on her location. Annoyingly, they still seemed to be covering for the other. Even the one in the 'rear' was annoyingly being observed by at least one other.

Worse still, they seemed to still be made out of some corrosion resistant material. Iridium? No, it was still corroding, but at a much slower rate still it seemed.

Eleven growled.

"Fancy little things, aren't they. Tricky little things, keh-heh." Well, that was fine. Fine fine fine FINE. Eleven exhaled, running down the opposite hallway for at least, an attempt at a flanking maneuver. Her biggest ally here would be her own mobility and flexibility. Big targets. Big, predictable targets.

Having enough of skulking about, Eleven made her first move.

Like a feral animal she leaped out of a doorway, the tip of her blade poised to sink into the space between the robots head and neck as her clawed feet gripped its body. A thick, concentrated blast of corrosive mist followed alongside the edge of her blade, sending it deep into the machine's insides while delivering a concentrated blast from her mouth, intending to weaken the armor from within and the outside at the same time. As soon as she delivered the blow, she'd push off with her feet, intending on ducking back out of the room, thickening the mist behind her to cover her retreat in hopes of engaging in guerilla tactics, slowly weakening her opponents before taking them out.

[Zoey Boey]

Emily, or #2

Fort Hood, Texas, January 23rd.

That's 2 for ya.

Emily found herself in the backseat next to Akasha. The little witch was probably more brainwashed than Number Two was. It was a strange sensation, to realize one's own conditioning and not be able to do anything about it. To know that Antoine was a meaningless, snivelling little cretin, and yet for her heart to soar with happiness whenever Antoine was proud of her nonetheless. An appreciative smile, and she was wrapped around his bony little finger. He was her handler, and she did what he told her too do. Those were the facts of the universe, eternal and unchanging. Like gravity, the sun, and the swelling of the oceans.

#2 looked disconcertedly over at the cat-shaped backpack. What the Hell was in that thing? The brunette guessed it was a bomb of some kind. Explosive? Biological? She bit her lower lip nervously when the pink-haired teen started going on about the end of days.

"All mortals? Christ, hope the bomb's not really that big." She joked, using shit wit to hide her nerves. "At least your genocidal murder plot isn't bigoted. That's refreshing. It is 2023 after all; terrorism is egalitarian now."

She began messing with her right bracelet, the accessory suddenly too tight for her wrists. Big ass bomb. Creepy little girl. Military base. Cowboy hats, sombreros. Tasteful company. This whole thing didn't sit right in her stomach. January in Texas. Cool in the shadows, warm in the sun. Too much dirt and gravel. The brunette rolled her wrist, flexing her fingers. When the car pulled to a stop, Number Two hopped out and adjusted her shorts and tightened her belt to fortify against any wardrobe malfunctions. She flattened out and tightened her shirt as best she could, pulling the collar back up to her slender marble shoulders.

Exposed. That's how she felt. Inside a military compound and out of random car comes the freak show. "Fucking clowns in a clown car." Number Two complained to the air.

"A kawaii cat girl, a wannabe vlogger, and a basic white bitch walk into Fort Hood. Sounds like the start to a shitty joke. Only question is:" Number Two closed the door to the car behind her, the smirk on her face losing it's humor. "Who's the punchline?"

[ERode]

Was it really that bad? #13 couldn’t help but feel as if the pilot was maybe a bit of a depressing asshole, if winter survival was what got him wishing to die in a helicopter crash instead. Ah well, most humans were like that, especially in these days. Something to do with rising sea levels and decreasing political stability. Must suck. Sympathies to pilot-man, really.

“Well, you do you then,” was #13’s simple reply. “I’ll just clear out the ones that found us.”

As he spoke, the hulk of mismatched machinery turned to the shadows that rose from the clearing around them. Red Army, huh? And then there was that gunshot in the distance. Meant for Saint Augustine, perhaps? The Promised Child let out a low sigh. He had been looking forward to spending his time a cozy, cold village in Finland, but now it feels as if he was just going to be stuck in the bitter wilderness instead, fighting nameless grunts. Shifting his form to better cover the pilot behind him, #13 considered his options briefly, before deciding to go for the simplest one of them all.

Clothing and armor and weaponry all count as objects viable for his Sarcophagus. Reaching out with his Miracle, he proceeded to liberate these men of their armaments and attire.

Maybe that'll be enough to scare them away?

[Melkor]

Tokyo, Japan
Evening // January 24

The savoury flavour lingered on his tongues. All but one of his mouths zipped shut, concealed beneath the skin, Five appeared passable as human. The woman’s face, who used to be the girl’s mother, felt much more familiar on Five than his neighbor had earlier. The slimmer physique was more manageable and he could more convincingly imitate the more graceful movements.

The taste fleeting and his desire to replace it growing, Five found himself in another housing district. This one seemed more upscale than the one the girl and her family had lived, before he ate them. The memory brought back the experience but just a wisp of what it was. Five moaned softly, remembering the sensation. The screams. He was forced to vanish when the neighbors rapped on the door, evidently worried about the noise.

When the door had been broken down by law enforcement the small, plain, room of an apartment had been exactly as it had when Five entered. The thin grey carpet still lined the floor, unblemished. The minimal wall decorations were still in place; the small television, the small love seat and coffee table, all untouched… with one exception. Their apartment had a new table. Nondescript, in the corner, with nothing on it. The same colour as their coffee table but with longer legs. If the police had been more observant, they would have noticed that the carpet underneath each leg was fully depressed and the floor occasionally creaked slightly.

They were too focused on finding the disappeared family. The neighbor gave a description and they left. After another hour, Five transformed into the woman and left. But this left Five in a dilemma. He was forced to cover his face in public, until he could find somewhere to transform again.

He was in the residential district to find another face. And he thought he had found one that would work. The only hitch was that they were in a building and he very well couldn't enter without giving himself away. He spent a few minutes contemplating how he would do it.

But other plans were in the works… out of the blue Five’s vision became blurry and an incessant ich hit him like nothing he’d ever experienced and it was all at once all over his body! He collapsed in the middle of the perpetual crowd. The land of the rising sun erupted into bloodcurdling shrieks and howls as his body took on a mind of its own. He had lost control with his already growing hunger and the sudden onset of pain and mental opacity.

The collapsed woman's body began to wriggle and change colour and it began to melt into an amorphous mass where her slim form was. She was replaced with disproportioned globs of dark material in a lazily assembled pile. It writhed and changed several times into unobjects - nearly fully formed cars or animals or people. But none of them were quite what they may have been intended. After a moment the mass began to grow. The crowd had long since began to flee, but they were so densely packed that those closest to it were trapped between a wall of people and what they couldn’t accurately describe.

Long dark tentacles shot out from the mass and smacked several city-goers away. Loud snaps marked the shattering of bones as long fissures raced away from where it was. The crowd had packed itself so tightly that no one would move without getting closer to the beast. The monster lifted itself up, several long legs raising the jolting and thrashing mass. It quickly began running toward the nearest source of water, the ground quaked with the impact of each long step. Great dark shadows were cast over the wriggling mass of people. Those who were unlucky enough to find themselves in it's path were simply crushed. Most, if not all of the bones in their bodies were shattered to dust and their innards were squished out creating unrecognizable splatters on the pavement.

[OwO]

---

Well, that was easy. It was easy to suppose it was due to a mixture of fear and their allegiance, but the soldier gave her his sidearm with very little fuss. He would be a faithful ally to the girl, willing to give his li—oh he hid in a closet. Quickly following the cowardly soldier to give him a piece of her mind, she quickly gave it up considering how there were nore not-cowardly soldiers ready and waiting to fight back in the building. Well, she was nonetheless armed. She could fight back against the menace that threatened her life and, more importantly, avoid getting abused by her handler because she took too long.

Now, the plan to fight back. Of course, the greatest threat was whatever that odd child could do. That wasn't so say that the soldiers weren't a threat; militants of any caliber were always dangerous. If you gave a chimp a gun, it'd eventually shoot someone. What was the most important, for now, was to ensure that whatever caused the cerebral explosion earlier was stopped. Then, the closet man and his cronies could fight back using more traditional and predictable .30 Russian short.

Extreme rumbling bumped from outside. What were they doing? Maybe driving trucks into the doors to no avail. Didn't matter; they couldn't get in. Whoever made that door did a good job, apparently. Yelling came outside. Surrounding the building, one entrance. Well duh. Six, however, wasn't too phased by the danger of being trapped in the building. Walking through walls had a great mitigating effect on claustrophobia.

A soldier stood to the side of the door, anticipating the entrance of the troops. He was ready. Well, apparently not that ready, considering that an explosion erupted from the wall next to the soldier. Made sense; concrete didn't bend to eat the impact of high explosives. Shards of shrapnel flew out as a large dust cloud obscured the entrance. Were it not for the fact that she ran after the idiot coward, she would have been standing right in the stone rain.

Despite being partially deafened by the resulting tinnitus, she still barked an order at the remaining troops. "Make noise! Shoot through the hole! Anything you got!"

Then, two deep breates. She began to run towards the solid wall. Still, the smoke obscured her. It was more or less safe, unless a blind shot gatted her through the hole. It was still safe, considering how it was a general bad idea to stand close to breaching charges. Once she approached the wall, she dove towards the ground holding her breath along the way. Rather than colliding with harsh concrete and concussing herself, she passed through the Portland cement as though it was water. Her body quickly vanished beneath the flooring, leaving nothing behind.

The constricting embrace of the deep took hold over her. She quickly spun around in the water and looked to what would have been the sky. From her point under them, she could see the slight reflections and shadows of the soldiers outside the gates. There was one figure spinning around and having a generally good time. It was the boy, of course. The rest were holding what must have been guns, ready to fight into the building. She would remain in the safety of the riptide for now. Once the boy was distracted, she could do what she did best.

Or, of course, she could just run away if the soldiers bit it without getting the boy's attention.

[Eleven]

vii. seraph

---

^{｢ Geneva, Switzerland | January, 23 | Midnight ｣}
Her miracle has made her attuned to people's emotions, and it was with this prescience that Seven first realized they were not alone. This man's immense presence, and the cold fury beneath, almost knocked the wind out of her, even physically stopped her in her tracks. Seven reached for her brother's hand instinctively, only to find him standing face to face with the masked man himself. He was even bigger and more menacing up close, even more so as he approached them as though to strike. She didn't realize what he was doing until it was too late. Before the scream could reach her lips, the masked man caught hold of Ten, grabbing him by the head like he was nothing more than a rag doll.

At a loss, Seven defaulted to what she did when her siblings were engaged in a fight: make herself scarce and move to the sideline. She was by no means intended for the front line, and she wouldn't dare test the limits of her combat prowess now, not when her brother's life was at stake. Instead, she gave way to the phantasmal hands springing forth from the ground, ceiling, and wall, willing them to give the aid Ten desperately needed.

Seven watched as they wrenched and pulled and clawed, all for naught. The masked man was unperturbed, swatting away the hands as though they were mere flies. She froze when he directed his attention to her—ironic, she'd think later, that she would feel the same sort of fear she imparted just minutes ago—but she felt no malice in his gaze toward her. His words only confirmed what she intuited.

"I'll teach Ten to be good, too," Seven appealed. Perhaps, he'd spare Ten if she can convince him that he will no longer disobey orders. She'll user her miracle on him when he's being stubborn, even though she hated using it on her siblings. She'll do anything if it meant saving them. "I can, I promise!"

Her desperate pleas fell on deaf ears. In the seconds it took for her to beg, the masked man had carried out his sentence; judge, jury, and executioner in one fell swoop.

Blood splattered her face, her hair, her pretty pink dress. Seven wiped where she felt it rolling down her cheek and stared at her hands, uncomprehending. Blood was good. Delicious. Her second favorite thing to consume, after the heart. But this… She stared at her hand with rising panic. This repelled her, made her wretch, made her sick to her stomach. This was Ten's?

Her eyes hesitantly drop to where Ten's body laid, convulsing and grotesque, blood still gushing from the hole where his head used to be. His head! Seven frantically searched the carnage but found no remnants of Ten. No haughty smirk, no confident gaze; everything that made him Ten reduced to shattered bones and a mess of brain matter. If he'd remained in tact, there was hope, however small a sliver, that he could be saved. But what now?

Wordlessly, Seven walked past the masked man to pick up her beloved brother's body, and carried him outside. There, she found a corner to sit and wait as she was ordered, cradling what's left of Ten in her bloodstained arms. She held his hand and wept violently. It had been so long since she'd seen her brother, and they didn't even get to talk. Now there was no mouth for him to speak with, nothing left for her to call brother.

In her grief, her light became volatile, 'turning on' without her say-so to envelop her protectively. The light she radiated was not as wide and encompassing as it normally would to entice people further away, but brighter and more intense, almost blindingly so. It called for one person in particular—her Emm; he'll make things better, she just knows it.

Anyone still alive would undoubtedly feel its pull as well, but all the better. Seven will make sure they experience exactly what Ten went through. Twofold.

[Haha]

C H A P T E R 1

N o t A S i n g l e S t a r
_________________________________

Fort Hood, Texas
—- // JANUARY 23

@Zoey White
"Let's get the show on the road." Antoine rolled his eyes and replied rolling out black ski masks from his pocket, tossing one to 2 and then reaching up to place one over his own face.

"I brought my own." Akasha quickly noted, donning their own ski mask. They'd then quickly fire the handler and 2 a kawaii peace sign before jogging towards the very home the operation revolved around.

There were flower hedges around the face of the building, creating natural barriers around windows to dissuade any curious or ill-willed perpetrators from peering within. This wouldn't be a problem for our 2 though as nature as a whole bent to her whim. Akasha had the knowledge of this, turning towards her and quietly gesturing towards a window close to their garage. L a u n d r y R o o m. Such a serious operation just to break into a lowly military leader's home, where his wife and children likely safely slept in peace without a worry in the world.

Antoine on the other hand made his way to the rear of the house, shuffling through thick grass and layers of sandspur which stuck to every part of him. Eventually he would reach his own window, exposed, small, but he could squeeze in if he was careful. He drew a six inch, thin, tactical knife from his waist and pressed it carefully through below the screen layer over the glass popping it out. Then the knife's tip would even more carefully be wedged in the space between the two glass panels. His gloved hand would slowly add pressure till it reached the locking mechanism and then he would quickly pull up to unlock the window. Then, like a snake Antoine reached his forebody through the bathroom window ending up in the Master Bedroom's shower within their bathroom. Shower curtains of dark-green and navy blue patterns blocked vision of his entry, and he quietly sat with quiet breathing before pressing a button attached to his belt.

On Akasha's waist a faint green light would be triggered by Antoine's device, marking his successful entry, infiltration was his forte after all. She would dust her hands for a moment as she waited for 2 to breach the window that had been directed towards. "Your keeper is in, let us hope he fulfills his job so we may fulfill ours."

---

???, Romania
Midnight// JANUARY 24

@OwO
As the wall came crashing down and the reinforced steel flying into the building as the charge detonated, soldiers within ducked and dived for cover. Six screamed orders at them, and while in most scenarios they would just ignore the creature- this was life for death. They screamed primal roars in defiance of their fate, aiming their rifles out into the smoke firing aimlessly outside in hopes of taking down their enemies before they could breach their building. There were a few groans and yelps in pain, but not as many as those soldiers would have liked and the sounds could have very well came from the ongoing battle going on outside.

The telekinetic boy would sense something strange as the smoke rose and clouds of stone residue blew in the snowy wind. His eyes were drawn towards the snowy ground below curiously, unknowingly, but the urges of instinct drew him to run towards the soldiers that were positioned for cover behind the snow-train. It was a short jog away, the distance would take only a minute to cover but could that minute be all it took for his own demise. The boy was young, but not entirely dumb, he made a break for it watching the ground and generally behind him as he sprinted and slipped on snow as adrenaline pumped through his veins screaming 'D a n g e r!'.

Meanwhile, a car would just be making its way into the battlefield. Rifle fire would make its way to the moving vehicle, piercing the glass and aluminum along the good until the driver came to an abrupt stop. The driver armed himself opening the door and ducking behind it for cover before aiming through the window to fire at a group of stationary rifleman that were firing at them in particular. It was quite the distance to aim with his small handgun, though he'd luckily hit one of ten men in the shoulder, knocking them down and taking them out of the battle. Out of the rear door came out Six's handler, a smile of almost relief painted boldly across his chubby face. He held no gun, instead within his fingers were several throwing knives. Gunfire would make it's way to him, and inhumanly the man dodged each bullet ease. It was an eerie sight, no gun, bladed weapons, his advance was a calm casual stride as he tossed one blade at a time effortlessly at the rifleman who fired- striking three directly between the eyes at nigh unavoidable speed. The fourth was hit in the hand, which was due to him raising his arms up to aim at the man he would survive but lose a few fingers instead.

"Now, where is my Six?"

---

Several Miles from Varkhaus, Finland [Wilderness]
Midnight // JANUARY 24

@ERode
"What a terrifying power you have there. That's some X-Men shit." The pilot grunted as he took aim at the defenseless men and women whom had all of their belongings reaped away from them effortless by the boy.

The man advanced out towards the people, he was pretty quick for someone who was just complaining about the cold and hunger a few moments ago. Maybe it was the thought of food, warmer clothing, or perhaps just the thrill of battle. Nonetheless, he quickly made headway on their fleeing positions and fired his handgun at the left leg of a larger blonde, fair-skinned, male causing his sprints to be briskly interrupted. The german man had become airborne flying forward with the propulsion of his run and smacking into the ground with a slide across frost below.

The others would be left to 13 or free to flee back to wherever they came from. Though, the pilot would focus all his efforts on the wounded man on the ground. He lurched over him as he squatted down and extended a hand over the man's head, his clutch grasped into the german's golden locks tugging his head up by his hair and turning it manually to make him face the pilot. "Strange for you guys to get information about the church. Maybe someone a few notches up on the totem pole, but the very bottom? Who hired you - no - who hired your organization to go after the kid?"

"We aren't after the kid." He groaned.

"Then wh- Augustine." He dropped the wounded man on his face, turning back to 13 with a loud audible shout into his direction, echoing through the forest. "They're after the Saint! We're heading in her direction!" He would then fire another round into the blonde man's other legs completely disabling him from leaving the tree he laid under.

---

St. Peterburgh, Russia
Midnight // JANUARY, 23

@Rune_Alchemist@Kazemitsu
The explosion of shadow would erupt from the guard's shoulder. While metal would warp out from the point of explosion, the innards, cables, fibers, and other workings within the guards were resilient. Of course, recognizing their target's response to target their cores was acted upon. The plating that was grounded in defense quickly raised up and spun back to guards' chests and shoulders and their speed revitalized as they quickly took to a speedier offense against the shadow-wielding promised child. Two in particular took the vanguard, dashing towards him with ex-shaped attacks slashes of their armaments. All the while, simultaneously the the others would begin to surround number 3.

"If my toys were that easy to break, I would have never been hired to bring you guys in." The rough voice spoke nonchalantly over the loudspeaker system. Punctuating his statement were a series of loud, exaggerated, mocking laughs that cracked and buzzed through the microphone he spoke into. "Also, there's no point destroying all the cameras. My Gardna's eyes are my eyes, so unless you plan on trying to tear their heads off, I'll be seeing a whole lot of you. Also, you, on the third floor-- 11, that's right, I know what your subject names are! Good luck trying to corrode my toys, they were specifically created with durability in mind."

Upon the third floor as 11 charged in for a flank, the guards spun into action at the ready though one unlucky Gardna would be leaped upon and barraged with layers of her noxious substance. While the innards would take some time to corrode, the reinforced plating covering the gardna would take the brunt of acidic residue without any issue. Though like the gardna on the lower floors, realizing that their enemy was aiming for their vital locations-- the wounded gardna would pull back to their rear of their formation while two would chase after the figure who dipped away.

---

Tokyo, Japan
Evening// JANUARY 24

@Melkor
"9 1 1, What is your emergency?"
"Yes! There's a monster! GPS our location! Send the military!"
"We've zeroed in on you, forces are on their way!"
"Thank you!"

The crowd of people ran from the faceless amalgamation that outraged within the crowd of people. Some were not so lucky and were consumed by the creature, others were wounded by lashing tendrils, but it wouldn't be long until armed men would show up to kill 5 or atleast constrain him and take him into custody. Somehow. A few people in the crowd even began to livestream the scene with their smartphone, posting the creature on social media, sending it to news sources, it wouldn't be long until the whole thing went viral. Henrietta was going to regret this.

Speaking of her, while in the middle of her investigating within the apartment people would begin flying out of their apartments and running to the elevator as if there were some emergency going on. "The monster is supposed to be a few blocks away! Lets go before the military comes!" Said a very tall japanese man in his mid to late twenties by estimation, following him were a few similar in age though not nearly as tall. Luckily Henrietta caught his eye and he stopped in his tracks as he took interest in the burly looking woman. "Hey there, wanna come see history be made?" Which the handler flashed a predatory smile towards the man, shaking her head innocently. "Would I?" Then nodding in acceptance, following the group into the elevator and taking the long trip down.

As the crowd exited the apartment building, crowds were beginning to rush through the streets like a living-breathing river. The roars of dialogue and random noises made it difficult to pick anything really useful from the masses, but Henrietta blended in thankfully and followed the flow until it took them to the destination. Her hunt would soon be over, and then the next step would simply be to get her reigns back on him and disappear again. But the fact that this was making news, probably on a national level would result in some consequences. Nonetheless, she would finally make contact with 5, looking at his shell of his former self was a bit of a sight for sore eyes.

"Five. You forgot the mission. Get your head together, or you're going to die." She spoke just audibly within the roaring crowd of people for 5 to hear, and if he did, her voice would sound soothing to the creature- quelling his nerves and filling him with the sense of euphoria.

---

Geneva, Switzerland
Midnight// JANUARY 24

@Eleven
“There you are, sorry about the wait.” Emm was the first figure to walk out from the building donning the same smile-faced mask as the man. Then behind him a crowd of surviving figures dressed well, though splatters and stains of blood littered their clothing. Even Emm had some blood around his sleeves and even some sanguine clumps within his hair.

The vibrant lantern would captivate everyone besides Emm, though he still quietly paced towards the girl who sat in rage and shock at the curbside. Typically he would be bitter or indifferent towards the girl but in this moment he quietly paced up behind her and planted a hand onto her head. "Hey now, if you let your lantern go out of control it'll end up being a real nuisance for both of us." His face was hidden by the smiley-face mask, but still a sense of dread would come over 7 as his presence loomed over her.

It was only a few moments after this that the top-hatted man would step out as the last figure. The familiar clacking of heels like a ticking time bomb, as he stopped a few steps behind the promised child and her keeper. "[color=grey]The loss of Niko is quite unfortunate. This wasn't at all what we had planned for today, it was supposed to be a nice fancy feast- for us and for them. But it seems there are still some of you orphans who don't want to be subservient to Archangels. I'll be heading home to 1, and then briefing the pope on what's going on. Thank you for disposing of the bodies for me by the way, you were always the most loyal of the dogs Emmanuel.[/color]" The ringmaster looking figure began to laugh hysterically, walking past the two without any words or a wave, simply advancing to a black limousine in the parking lot and entering the rearmost door and driving off.

As the elongated black vehicle pulled off, Emm's facade and he would bring his pampering of the girl's hair to a halt. Happily drawing himself away from 7 and towards the crowd of people whom were continuously drawn towards her, shaking his head. 'Such a creepy ability' he thought to himself, as he stared at the people creepily. Just pawns in the Church's games, that what they all were, and if Niko would have just kept his head down like a good dog they wouldn't have had to kill him in there. But that was in the past now. "If killing them all will make you feel better, then go ahead."

---

Liverpool, England
01:00// JANUARY 24

@Vocab
"You aren't very talkative 14, why not liven up the mood? We won't have much time for talking once we're under the thumb once again- you know, I think you might have social anxiety. Which, if you do there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. You need to live your life to the fullest after-all, also, if you get hungry let me know and we can just snag a transient and you can gobble them down. I'm so lucky to be looking over you- you know that 14?"

The priest was definitely a talker, annoyingly so, and as they reached the forementioned docks they would be met with the sight of tens, twenties of armed forces with standard assault rifles. They patrolled constantly, there weren't even any boats, just armed figured and boxes of merchandise,

They weren't mercenaries, just men and women of this very country trying to make ends meet in one way or another. Gangs and mobs seemed to run Britain in this day and age, and what little government presence was left was filled by people with their hands in these illegal organizations. But calling anything illegal here was a joke, drug-use, prostitution, all of it blatantly filled the streets with nothing keeping them in check. May as well call this place the Kingdom of Sodom at this point, and this priest and his charge were here to purge them-- or atleast just a specific number of them. Their target was Damon Walash, in the past he was a respected bar owner- though the respect of his peers and a surplus in drunkard's money allowed him to use his bar as a front for numerous shady endeavors. Now, years later he had become something of a kingpin and is relentless in his advances around the country as he sells weapons and drugs to even the commonfolk causing the chaos to be even worse. The Priest, and 14, were doing the world a favor in their mission to take this guy out.

"You see that building on the most-Eastern side of the docks? That's where our boy is. It likely won't be much trouble for you, but if you'd like- I can take half of these heretics, you can take the other half? Team work! Togetherness, just the two of us- you and I?"

---

Berlin, Germany
01:00// JANUARY 24

@Savo
"He needs to be executed discretely 9. No big scene, no cameras, nothings- just vanish into thin air." The handler sat next to his promised child in a room of complete darkness, no windows, no ventilation, it was completely separate from the rest of the world. But they were in Berlin, the busiest most dangerous place in the Germanic Empire. Puppeteers in the most absolute sense, manipulating the inner goings from the shadows and waiting for the opportune moment to pack their shit and move.

9's whole operation was a risk to himself and his handler. Their target was the German Chancellor Cheska Ridenour, a very beloved woman in German coveted by her people with treasured ideals. In the crumbling world she abandoned the faith entirely instead choosing to focus on the state feeding, sheltering, and helping the people while all other resources went into the military. The German's were very similar to Russia in the sense that they didn't wish to be absorbed into their growing empire, but instead took a different approach and allied themselves with a number of nations and opened conversations of unifying under a banner against them. Belgium allied without any issue, even being absorbed into the German Empire though retaining most of it's political structure- though Ridenour still holds power within their country, the Netherlands was a strange case, while they are still highly faithful and agree with a great deal of the church's decisions- they do not agree with their encroachment across the world. The Germanic Empire wasn't really an empire, but it did have a fair amount of power due to the amount of weapons they exported to other countries in Europe who wished to fight the Church.

"She should be exiting her car with the bodyguard in 01:30 so be ready. If you fuck this up, we're going to be stuck here for a couple more months." He grunted, shaking the red hair from his face. He could barely see the grim sight of the promised child, but he did have faith in his number more than some did. 9 had set his threads into a French Envoy sent to Germany, which despite their neutrality meant nothing. He was a tool for the church to utilize, and his death would be a sacrifice needed for the greater good.

[Kazemitsu]

St. Peterburgh, Russia
Midnight // JANUARY, 23

Julius observed what the explosion had done to the shoulder. Just the outer plating getting fucked up and wrecked but still functional. So they were tanky, but not really super tanks. They just had the appearance of super tanks. Julius folded his hands behind his head as the robots transformed again back to normal and started to charge him. "You're severely underestimating me...that was just a small explosion, your typical grenades power." He stated as he dropped onto his back, avoiding the slashes before 'melting' into the shadow beneath him.

It was impossible to surround him since he could just phase into a shadow at literally any moment. It also helped he always expertly positioned himself to be standing in or next to another shadow no matter how faint it was. "Oh boy, you know our subject names and some of what we can do." He mocked, changing his tone to be as grating as possible. He zipped off and plopped out of the shadows in a dark corner, probably about twenty feet away from the robots.

While he'd love to go medieval on them, numbers trumped skill every day of the week. He'd have to play the game of cat and mouse... Although the puppeteer did give away that their heads contained cameras. But that could just be a plot to go head hunting. So Julius did the opposite of that and went for their bodies once more. The wounded ones joint bubbled up once more before an even larger explosion rocked its frame, the force was roughly about the same as an H.E. grenade.

[Rune_Alchemist]

St. Peterburgh, Russia
Midnight // JANUARY, 24

---

She managed a clean getaway, but this guy. Annoying. She wanted to rip and tear. He was right though. If it had been anything else, it'd already have turned into a delicious soup. What were those things made of? Iridium? Tungsten? Titanium? All of those were used in old world space craft for their durability. Didn't matter, she supposed. In such a situation, the main target should be the one pulling the strings. These puppets weren't something she should waste her time with.

She just needed to find him.

"Keh-heh. Got quite a mouth on ya." She cackled, turning a corner, leaping into the air and using one of her powerful legs to kick off form the wall. "But watch all the eye candy you want! I hope watching your impending death coming is amusing!" Coming to a halt, Eleven inhaled, seemingly pulling in all of the mist around her. It pooled around her, rotating slightly as the Gardna's chased her around the corner.

The thing with Eleven is that while she could handle stealth missions like this, it wasn't what she was most suited too. No matter where she went, if it turned into a firefight, things would always just end up being destroyed on a large scale. Not that she could really help it - even if she restrained herself, some part of some building was going to get destroyed. Fine with her, really. She reveled in such destruction. And on a multi story building, things could get messy quickly.

"Keh-heh. Lets see how smart your puppets are." The mist began moving faster, eating away at the floor beneath her feet, and soon the floor would be far too weakened to support the weight of these things, let alone her. As soon as they rushed towards her, the floor would collapse under them, hopefully sending them to the floor below. If they were smart and tried to avoid it, either way it gave her time to make an escape via the stairs.

[ERode]

"Um, thanks," #13 replied bashfully, "But my elder siblings have even cooler ones."

As he spoke, his Sarcophagus was already becoming more and more terrifying, a veritable mass of blackened steel that bristled with he firearms and armor that he pilfered so casually from the members of the Red Army. Rather than a giant knight, it had evolved now into a walking tank, but #13 found no particular reason to attack yet. Natural selection was something the youth believed in, after all. When stripped naked and forced to flee through the bitter wasteland of Finland's wintry wilderness, who amongst them would survive to pass down their superior genes to the next generation? None of them, probably. The pilot did well with his own interrogations though, and the information certainly matched that gunfire both had heard moments before.

#13 just had difficulty being so alarmed by this. As far as he was aware, Saint Augustine was pretty strong herself; she had to be if she was stuck being the keeper of one of the Promised Children. Would a .50 cal really be the end of her, when he could easily unleash a whole artillery barrage of agony in any situation? No, right? Still, it was now a question of blind obedience versus genuine loyalty, and in this case...yeah, he'll go with it.

The Sarcophagus moved. Slowly at first, before quickly building speed as the landscape around them continued to converge around the golem. Each step rocked the earth, each movement defied the howling winds. Within, stolen weapons were reconstructed, fused together, forming deadlier and deadlier ordinance, and as the speed of the Sarcophagus outpaced the pilot, #13 swept him up in an arm of softer soil, before plopping one of the radios on him. It was still buzzing with static and high-speed German, enough so that #13 had no real clue what was being said, but maybe the pilot did.

Or maybe he didn't, but helicopter types probably had a better clue as to how to use a radio well compared to Promised Children.

[Zoey Boey]

Emily, or #2

Fort Hood, Texas, January 23rd.

2 caught the balaclava and frowned. These things were so stuffy, and messed up her hair. She'd probably have a rats nest by the time this was over...oh well. Rolling the soft material over her face, she took a moment to adjust it. Her eyes and mouth were bright in comparison to the black ski mask. Her brown hair smooshed against the back of her head and the ponytail drifted out from the bottom of the mask. No more glorious flowing hair, at least until this was over and done with.

2 smirked, glancing over at the creepy schoolgirl with the ominous face mask. It made her look pretty silly. Like she was pretending to be a bad guy. Without the mask, she could just be a creepy schoolgirl. "You look even more ridiculous than I do." She commented humorously. She used her index fingers to pull the mouth of the mask wide, sticking out her tongue. "Mleeeeh." Giggling, the mask wearing creature approached the window Akasha had motioned.

She smiled, looking at the flowers. Simple shrub roses. Easy to grow and maintain. Practical and efficient, and easy on the eye though unfriendly to unwanted visitors. They were being used at a barrier. Well, maybe they didn't want to be used as a defence anymore? She asked if they did, and like always, the flora agreed with her. They would much rather be used to open the window. Few windows are totally airtight. Common thieves tools would be unable to breach the small gaps that allow air to slip through, but obviously 2 was no ordinary burglar, and she certainly had extraordinary tools at her disposal. The roses grew, stretching and flourishing. They reached up to halfway up the window. Sprouting thin, wiry, almost invisible string-like thorns, the flowers went about their traitorous work.

It took a moment, but the organic strings worked their way inside. Carefully they slid, grasping fingers cloying for the plastic latches on the otherside. With two clicks, the latch became undone. The thorns receded and the flowers returned to their normal positions amongst the shrubbery. Like the red sea, the bush parted for the intruders to enter the house unobstructed.

"I'm in." 2 announced in a faux-serious hacker voice she learned from the movies. Thanking the roses, who assured her it was no issue, Number Two went to the newly unlocked window and peaked inside. No one in the immediate area. Quietly, she slid it open. Taking the initiative, the woman threw her leg over the edge of the window and stooped gracefully inside. Holding it open, she gestured for Akasha to follow her.