The first to die was just a guard. He was twenty-three years old, with three sisters he despised, parents he hadn't spoken to in years, and a girlfriend who was cheating on him.
His death wasn't part of the plan. The plan had, in fact, been intended to have it so that no one died, but had been made without specific knowledge of the hidden facility's security arrangments. The possibility that the targeted area for the initial, diversionary attack might be occupied had not been lost on the planners, but had been accepted as an unfortunatly neccessary risk.
The shells that landed on the other side of the wall he was patrolling past didn't kill him directly - that was done by the shrapnel their explosion sent screaming across the narrow median surrounding the parking lot - but they did shatter a nearly twenty-foot stretch of the reinforced concrete and open an easy path for the intruders.
Natsuki stepped calmly through the smoldering gap and turned and brought down the three guards charging out of the little shack by the gate in as many shots. She could have done the same thing with a real gun, as it happened - familiarizing herself with a normal weapon had seemed an obligatory step to mastering her Elements - but the fact that the tiny, Derringer-like weapons fired, for lack of a better term, bolts of energy rather than physical projectiles let her 'tune' them to act like tasers, and thereby spare their lives.
Behind her, she could hear a familiar ripping skid as Duran turned a ninety-degree corner at full speed, then the equally recognizable sound produced when he brought down a victim, like a cross between an animal attack and a motorcycle wreck.
All across the isolated compound, she could hear the sounds of activity begin to rise.
Kasane atta hibi
Kioku no oku he tojikome
I do not, Midori thought as she brought her axe down, want to know where they got this thing. The armored jeep whose crew had been trying to train its top-mounted machine gun around to bear on her shuddered under the impact, then started to roll slowly downhill - backwards and away from her - with a terrible cracking noise as its hydraulic and brake systems began to bleed cool liquid all over the shattered wreckage of its engine block. The driver was just sitting frozen in place, face white and eyes wide, but the man who had been wrestling with the gun cursed at it as the generator supplying its assisting motor went dead and hopped to the ground as he pulled out a pistol.
She stepped foward and poked the butt-end of the axe into his stomach, gently, so that it only made him lay down to try and remember how to breath, rather than rupturing something important.
Kinou to chigau
Watashi ga ima koko ni tatteru
"Watch out!" Mai screamed, and by the time Midori had spun to see why the high-schooler had yelled she had dived between the older woman and the guard bringing the assault rifle out from under the entryway's desk. Every round in the thirty-shot magazine ended up the same way, sparking harmlessly off of the firey barrier swirling just inches beyond Mai's thrown-out hands, but a flicker of motion in the corner of her eye made Midori sweep her weapon around before she'd had a chance to relax, or even realize what she'd seen.
Elements were, by their very nature, almost impossibly durable. Tough, strong... it was, Midori realized with more than a touch of fear, the first time she'd ever seen anything manage to bend her weapon's shaft. It was only sheer luck that put her feet at the right angles to keep her on balance as her planted shoes skidded back slightly under the impact.
Orite kita yami wa
Subete wo yasashiku daite
Akane didn't let the blocked blow disturb her or slow her down. She caught the rebound's energy easily and swept the other tonfa in with the same motion, an attack that Midori was only barely able to dance away from.
Down and back and up and around back down, a textbook attack pattern for a two-handed cutting weapon like Midori's, but Akane dashed to the side rather than trying to exploit an opening. The older woman caught the motion and turned it to the side, trying to bring the heavy blade around to sweep and catch her as she dashed off to try and confront the one both of them knew was the most dangerous on the field, but was too slow.
She was fast enough, though, to notice the unobtrusive door that Yuuichi exploded out of as he dashed towards her.
Katari kakeru no
Mamoru koto no hontou no imi wo
What, you thought they were just going to wait around and wait for SEARRS to come to them? This show's a deconstruction, remember.
Ja, -n
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"Puripuri puripuri... Bang!"