The fight was still going strong as both sides would peek from behind cover and take potshots at the other side. That was until they all heard blaring music.
The fight paused momentarily.
"Wait! Timeout! You guys hear that?!" One of Junior's personal security members, the one with the muttonchops, asked to everyone.
"Yeah, it sounds like music…" Faust replied, causing Luke to nudge him with a perplexed expression.
"What? They asked us."
"W-w-what?! You didn't need to answer them!" Luke replied, completely flabbergasted.
The music quickly got louder and louder, until finally, it reached a crescendo, and a van tore through a thin sheet metal door for loading equipment. The van screeched to the side and came to a stop as all the people on the outside slowly got up from the ground.
"What the fuck? Who are these guys?!" Someone from security screamed.
The people in the van filed out and the people on the ground joined them. Then they all started opening fire on everyone they laid their eyes on, including Leo and his squad.
"You idiots, that us!" Linus shouted from behind a box.
"Who?" One of the purists asked.
Linus popped up for a second and said, "Us! I called you he-" Then one of the purists shot him in his other shoulder.
Linus fell back and cursed violently. "Goddamn it, shoot those fucking idiots!"
Leo aimed and shot one of them in the head, killing them instantly. The rest quickly followed behind him and opened fire, including the security team, killing most of the purists who were unarmored and unprotected.
Two though, completely evaded the assault and took cover behind their van. They started returning fire quickly and the room descended into a three-way firefight.
In Leo's squad, they had the advantageous position as they were near some ammunition that they could use, meaning they could fire as much as they wanted. The empty shells already littered their feet, creating small piles. Andrew spent most of his time quickly reloading magazines, having fast hands was a perk of being a grim, as well as a dealer.
On Junior's security side, they had limited ammo, but had actual armor, so they could be slightly risky. They were currently multitasking, trying to keep the two injured individuals from dying and shooting back. They had lost four of their twelve in the initial ambush, two were injured, and two are helping the injured, meaning that only four of them were shooting back.
The building security had realized that they were way out of their depth, so they instead focused on taking random shots at Leo's squad and the purists.
The two remaining purists just primarily hid because they were being outgunned.
"Hey, Fletcher, that guy I shot looked like the guy who hired us."
"What?!"
"Yeah, he fits what that accountant guy said."
"Then why'd you shoot him dipshit?!"
"I thought he was bullshitting us!"
"Why would you think that?! There was already a gun fight going on when we came here, it's not like they set a trap for us!"
"I don't fucking know! I just shot! What do you want from me?!"
"I want you to use your brain for two seconds!"
The purists argued back and forth, their names were Fletcher and Ernie. Ernie was the one who shot Linus for the second time while Fletcher was the brains of the group, which wasn't saying much.
"Hey! Guy, we shot earlier, were you telling the truth? Did you hire us?" Fletcher shouted from behind the car.
"Yes! Why the fuck would I lie?!"
"Well, sorry! Uh, wanna team up?"
"FUCK YOU!" Linus released a guttural scream, making his voice tremble from the strength of it.
Ernie looked at Fletcher, "I think he's mad."
"No shit."
Leo pipped up next to Linus, he yelled towards the van, "He's just mad from earlier, yeah lets team up, shoot the guy's we are."
"The security people over there?"
"Yeah, don't shoot the one in the suit unless absolutely necessary."
"Alright."
And with that, they were teamed up and were shooting towards the guards.
"Okay, okay, timeout!" The man with muttonchops spoke; his name was Austin.
"Timeout?! What do you mean timeout?! This isn't a playground!"
"I mean stop shooting for a second so we can-" A bullet landed right above to his face on a steel beam, "Uh, so we can talk."
"Alright." Leo looked towards his squad and motioned for them to stop firing.
Austin peeked his head out slightly, before standing slightly out of cover, "We're running low on-"
Before he could finish a bullet hit his leg and he fell to the ground, before someone dragged him back.
"You fucking cunts! Fuck you! What happened to the goddamn ceasefire!"
"We didn't shoot you! It was those purist people!" Luke yelled.
"They're purists?! Why the fuck are purists here?!"
Junior pipped up, "Because Linus hired them, didn't you hear what he was about to yell at them before he was shot?"
"No, I had more important things to worry about!" Austin paused for a moment before commanding, "Alright, someone give me a goddamn grenade."
Ernie looked at Fletcher, "Did he just say grenade?"
"Yes, yes he did." Fletcher said as he turned and ran from the van, realizing this, Ernie turned too. As they ran, a grenade landed underneath the van's gas tank. A moment later, a massive explosion happened, engulfing the van into flames.
Right as Fletcher made it to cover, his head was hit by debris, and he fell unconscious.
At the same time, a large piece of shrapnel whipped by and cut along Ernie's arm. Ernie fell to the floor and began crawling behind some cover. Austin noticed this and began firing, managing to hit Ernie in the leg as well. Now Ernie and Fletcher were separated from each other, and Ernie was injured. Not a moment later Leo shot at Austin, instead hitting his gun, sending it flying towards the floor, broken.
"Nice shot." Andrew said as he finished putting ethereal cartridges into another magazine, he was starting to get lightheaded, but he kept going.
"…Wasn't aiming for the gun, but thanks." Leo mumbled.
"Did you not hear not hear Vinnie?! This is a munitions depot, and you just caused an explosion, not to mention, now there's a fucking fire! Do you want to kill us all?!" Linus yelled while holding his shoulders awkwardly.
"You're the dickheads that decided to fight in here!" Austin yelled.
"And you're the dickhead that threw a fucking grenade!"
"Can't we all just get along?!" Faust interrupted.
"W-what?! Why do you keep saying such stupid things?!" Andrew asked.
"I'm under stress asshole, maybe I don't want to be blown to bits or shot!" Faust retorted while pushing his finger up towards Andrew's face.
"If you two start arguing again, I'm going to shoot both of you." Leo said without looking.
"And I'll be helping him." Luke said.
"Alright. What now?" Someone yelled out.
"Guess we start shooting again." Someone responded.
"Wait, wait! I wanted to do a trade." Austin cut the others off.
"Trade what?" Leo yelled back to him.
"You let my men take my injured out and they stay out, and you hand over some ammunition!"
"The hell kinda trade is that?!" Luke yelled out.
"We have two injured, excluding me, and two treating them! They all leave the field permanently! We lose four people but get ammo in return!"
"You're only losing some dead weight and the two people treating them! This deal is awful for us, spice it up a bit!" Leo responded.
Austin thought for a moment, "We'll send the other guards away then!"
"What?! Are you mad?!" Junior asked with widened eyes.
Leo pondered the proposition and eventually answered Austin.
"Alright, what type of ammo do you need?"
"7.62x51!"
"…"
"I'm sure you've got plenty of it!"
"…"
"…"
The room went silent besides the van that crackled slightly due to the fire.
"Alright, we'll give you two cans. Use them sparingly."
"Three."
Leo thought about it for a moment, "Fine."
"Luke, get them three cans." Leo ordered, "Everyone else, make sure to keep him covered."
Luke after hesitating for a moment nodded and started using his snakes to search for the proper cans. While this was happening, the two security members that were taking care of the injured, dragged them out of the room carefully. Then the building's guards left as well. After a few minutes of shifting around, Luke found the proper ammunition.
"We'll leave them in the middle of the room. We go half-way; you go half-way. We'll do it one can at a time." Leo shouted.
"Alright, we can do that." Austin replied.
Luke dragged a can along the floor with one hand, in the other hand he had his handgun. He dropped off the can and quickly ran back to his squad.
After checking the coast, a security member quickly ran over to the can and lifted it back to everyone else. Luke grabbed a second can and dragged it to the middle.
Fletcher slowly awoke from his slumber and lifted himself up wearily, slipping slightly. He lifted his rifle and looked across the room with weary eyes. Seeing someone run across, he fired his gun.
Luke, as he turned to head back for another can, was hit in his leg, causing him to stumble and fall. He clutched his leg and groaned. He looked up with slightly bloodshot eyes and raised his gun.
He pulled the trigger, and a bullet flew across the room. A body could be heard falling at the same time as a shell hit the floor. Fletcher's body had hit the floor, with a large hole right in his eye, going to through the back of his head.
"Fucking asshole!" Luke yelled as he started crawling towards the rest of the group who was now scanning the entire room for anybody else. Luke directed his blood to his leg to speed up his healing process and when he got near the group, Leo hopped out of cover and quickly dragged Luke back to the rest.
"That's your last can!" Leo shouted.
"We agreed on three!" Austin retorted.
"That was before my man was shot!"
"That's not my problem!"
"It is now!"
What none of Austin or his men noticed was that Luke's blood started abnormally making its way towards them.
After that brief fight, there was a pause.
"Fletcher?" Ernie said on top of Fletcher's body, he had crawled all the way over to him. He poked Fletcher's body and got no response.
"Fletcher?" He tapped it again, and again he got no response.
"Who killed Fletcher?!" Ernie yelled as he lifted himself up despite his injured leg, he looked across the room, his upper body exposed.
"Who gives a shit?!" Austin pointed his gun at Ernie and Ernie dropped himself to the floor.
"Wait! Where did you get a fucking gun?!" Andrew yelled at Austin.
"I always had one!"
"Don't bullshit me, I saw a bullet land right in the chamber, and besides that, none of you had that gun coming in!"
"Shit, they're probably near the gun storage! He grabbed a new one!" Linus yelled.
"Shut the hell up Linus, you old goat!" Junior insulted from across the room.
"I'm 42, you douchebag! I'm ten years younger than your dad!"
"Piss off!"
"Everybody shut the fuck up! Can't we just shoot each other in silence?!" Another member of the security team yelled.
"He has a point." Leo mumbled.
A momentary silence descended.
"But where's the fun in that?!" Leo suddenly yelled and started firing back at the security team. They too, returned fire and the room quickly descended back into chaos.
Around a minute later, a voice rang out.
"Wait!" Austin shouted.
"Oh, for the love of the gods, what the hell is it?!" Linus yelled.
"We never grabbed the second box of ammo!"
Leo groaned out in annoyance.
"Just grab the stupid fucking box, holy shit!" His voice was exacerbated.
Austin looked at the three men at his disposal and picked one, "You. McKendrick, go grab the can."
McKendrick looked towards the can and surveyed the area, noticing it to be clear. He steeled himself and quickly got up and ran over to the box.
As he reached the box, all of Doe Squad raised themselves from behind cover and aimed their guns at the man.
"Put your gun down, now!" They ordered. McKendrick hesitated for a moment before carefully lowering it to the ground.
"Raise your arms and place them on your head." Leo commanded. McKendrick slowly raised them and placed them on his head, interlocking his fingers as well.
"Now turn around." McKendrick, of course, complied.
"Hey, dickhead! Give us three guns chambered in 5.56 and you'll get your boy back!" Leo yelled.
"Gods damn it all to hell…" Austin muttered. "How do we know you'll give him back once we give you the guns!"
"You don't! But as long as nothing happens like last time, all will be fine."
Austin thought about it for a moment and Junior spoke up, "Just leave him there and call the other guards in!"
"Respectively sir, shut your goddamn mouth." Austin said, glaring at Junior out of the corner of his eye.
After a few seconds, Austin finally decided.
"Alright, give us a minute and we'll give you your guns."
Austin ordered one of the men to find some assault rifles and while they were, the remaining man asked him a question.
"Why do you think they asked for specifically chambered guns?"
"The one who's injured probably doesn't want to search for more ammo and that one guy had a rifle."
"Oh, I completely forgot about him, why's he barely been firing?"
"Now that you mention it…" Austin's eyes narrowed slightly. He spoke into the microphone on his wrist.
"Did you find any?" He asked.
"Yes, I'm bringing them back now." A voice came back, slightly distorted by static.
"Take out the firing pins as quickly as you can, I'll stall them."
BANG!
Austin looked over to find McKendrick on the ground clutching his foot.
"Remove the firing pins, and he'll die." Leo spoke calmly.
"W-what?" Austin could barely even mutter out.
"You heard me. Tell the guy you sent to put the pins back in and to give us the rifles."
"How did you hear that?" Austin said, his throat getting dry as a bad premonition appeared in the back of his mind.
"You caught us by surprise, I'll admit that, but it's really time we leave." Leo said.
A pause happened.
The silence in the room was palpable as Austin leaned into his microphone once more and retracted his last order.
After a confused voice came back, Austin reaffirmed what he had just said. A few moments later, the man arrived carrying three guns slung over his shoulder, sweat trickling down his face.
Austin placed the rifles in the middle of the room and headed back. Leo walked over to them, and quickly picked them up, aiming at McKendrick with his gun the entire time.
When he arrived back, Leo handed out the guns to everyone, save Linus, who instead was given a handgun. Faust looked extremely tired, Luke looked annoyed, and Andrew seemed slightly tired.
Andrew then handed out the fruits of his labor and the source of his headache. He had been manufacturing ammunition this entire time. At first, he was doing it for emergencies and was also mainly doing it in 9mm, but also in 5.56 for his own gun.
But then Leo told him a plan after Luke had been shot suddenly. Instead of letting them get the second can, start fighting somehow and give Andrew time to make 5.56 rounds for his rifle exclusively. When Austin noticed they didn't get the can of ammunition, the next portion of the plan started.
Everybody takes whoever they send out hostage and get guns that can fire the right rounds. Leo used Faust's sound manipulation to let them listen in on the conversation. It was very complicated, but Faust's has a perception of sound much higher than others that he can change at will. Combine that with changing the sounds themselves and you have the perfect eavesdropper.
He amplified the sound of the radio just enough to hear it from his spot, but he wasn't great at doing anything that specific yet, especially at that distance, so he grew very tired.
Then, after they get their guns, they load up the special ammunition provided by Andrew. This special ammunition was armor piercing. Now that they all had rifles, even with normal ammunition, the armor on the security wouldn't have done much to protect them.
But this ammo was like armor piercing on crack, tested by Andrew himself, it'd be able to metaphorically kill a building.
They all loaded their guns with the special ammo and prepared themselves for another fight. They only had a magazine each of these special rounds so they had to use them sparingly, especially considering the guns weren't designed to fire rounds as powerful as the ones they were using.
On the other side of the room, they were getting a man to walk across to escort the injured McKendrick. Then, suddenly, all of Doe Squad stood and began firing, killing the two of them instantly.
Austin and the remaining member froze at the destructive force they just witnessed. McKendrick and the other member were ripped apart and the walls near the door was littered with deep cracks, and that was after the rounds ripped through some crates filled with who knows what.
The three remaining men, Austin, Junior, and the final member all hid behind the crates that Leo's squad refused to fire at, because they'd hit Junior. The final member readied their gun and slightly peeked above the box to return fire, but Andrew immediately removed the upper portion of their head.
In a final gamble, Austin grabbed Junior and held a gun against their head.
"Hold your fire!" Austin yelled and he stood up his arms holding Junior in front of him as a hostage. They could both get out of here since Leo wouldn't fire at them, at least that's what Austin thought.
When they stood, Leo and his squad didn't fire, instead they watched them.
"Junior and I, are leaving. If you try anything funny, I'll shoot him."
Leo lowered his gun and started walking forward calmly.
"Stop." Andrew commanded.
Leo continued, his steps casual, like a stroll in a park
"Stop!"
"No."
"I said stop."
Leo stood in front of the two now and he whispered, "No."
After slight hesitation, Austin started pulling the trigger. At least, he tried to.
After finding there to be an abnormal amount of resistance, he looked at his gun to find little red snakes wrapped all around it, especially the trigger. He looked down and noticed a blood trail from the middle of the room had made it's way over to them.
Leo raised his handgun and shot Austin in the face, near deafening Junior in the process. Austin's body fell unceremoniously to the floor with a soft thud.
They secured Junior and started leaving the building from where the van came. As they did, they noticed a large amount of people surrounding the exit, so they instead went the way they came. As they walked past the van, they heard a voice.
"Goddamn freaks…"
Leo whipped his head around and saw Ernie pointing a gun at him. The bullet flew and stuck Leo in the shoulder and he stumbled slightly due to the pain. Andrew quickly shot Ernie before he could do anything else, and they started checking on Leo. He seemed okay so they all quickly headed the way they came.
"Are shoulders not sacred anymore?" An exhausted Linus mumbled.
The group, after walking a bit, noticed that nobody was in the facility anymore. None of Junior's security, none of the building's guards, nobody. As they reached a certain point in the offices, Leo heard another voice. An instant expression of surprise appeared on his face as he looked to his side.
"It is unpleasant surprise to see you, Mathias." A thick accent and imperfect grammar.
Leo looked to his right and saw Montague running at him full speed from around a corner, and Leo got tackled into another room. Luke instantly began running after the two with a sight limb but then a flood of personnel with guns started aiming at the group. Luke managed to slip past them, but Andrew and Faust failed to. The two raised their guns and fired into the crowd before running to find cover with Junior and Linus in tail.
As Montague stood up and Leo groaned on the ground, his mask had fallen off.
Leo mumbled, "That's the second time in a row I've been sidewinded…"
Leo slowly got up and Montague let him. Looking, at Montague, Leo said, mocking his voice, "It is unpleasant surprise to see you too, Monty…"
Leo's guns were somewhere on the floor, underneath the mess made as a consequence tackling someone as hard as you can in an office space.
Montague and Leo looked at each other for a moment, before they both raised their arms and got into a fighting stance…