The streets of downtown Riftmoor were in absolute chaos. Glass laid everywhere as fire rose into the sky and water fell, threatening to extinguish it. Dead and injured alike sat in pools of sticky blood.
"Late last night, a sprawling gunfight happened at Myer's Munitions, a manufacturer of all sorts of weaponry and ammunition. Now, just hours later, two separate firefights have descended in our beloved city of Riftmoor. As of now, we're unsure if these two events are related. The fights are happening just a few blocks away in the financial district of the city. Whatever you do, stay clear of the downtown area, the police have it locked down, but we don't know if these fights will expand or move into other portions of the city.
"We barely know anything about these fights as the police have been withholding information. Listening in on police radios, the situation seems dire and both firefights seem to involve the use of magic. It is likely that this is an attack upon our city by demon hit squads. These may be the first attacks of many. As such, the government has declared a state of emergency and is bringing down the national defense force. We'll see how the situation pans out, back to you Tom." A reporter said in the dark early morning.
After Arlo attacked the hitmen, the entire area shook slightly as many miniature explosions appeared. The police were all but gone and because of that, they quickly retreated from the scene that was just a death zone.
Arlo looked across the hit squad and sized up the remaining members. Unfortunately, despite many of them being injured, the rest seemed heavily alerted to his presence. Then, there was also a singular man staring at Arlo.
Edward stood with his gun in his hands, looking at Arlo, completely fine from his attack.
Arlo looked down and saw the gun, he then looked back up at Edwards nearly uninjured figure. Arlo rubbed his neck slightly with a sigh as he asked, "Grim?"
"An executioner." Edwards corrected.
Arlo was a soul mage, meaning he got countered by Edwards. Arlo sighed once more and spoke, "Well, let's get this on the road then."
He raised his arm and swiped it across the battlefield. At the same time, the hit squad focused their efforts on attacking Arlo. Edwards watched Arlo as he used premonition to avoid the small explosions.
Edwards was also watching the building where Andrew had hidden at earlier. His top priority wasn't a fight but rather the recovery of Avery Junior. Edwards ordered his men through a small microphone to create a small team that would advance towards the building. Then he ordered his other men to suppress Arlo. They complied but were running short of ammo, they hadn't expected a third party to arrive. One small bonus for Arlo was that the men were humans so they didn't get premonition about him.
Arlo saw the squad of men quickly forming just as he started receiving a hail of lead in his direction. He quickly hid himself behind a vehicle's engine block and subtly observed the people shooting at him. There were many of them and they were all behind cover.
Arlo's eyes narrowed as he rapidly thought. He ducked underneath the car he was hiding behind and swiped his hand under it. He did this while being able to see the other cars that the hit squad were hiding behind.
After swiping his hand, small explosions of pure force erupted with a loud CLAP and lifted the cars up and back, crushing many people in the process. With a single move, he wiped out half of the forces by crushing them with cars.
While everyone was in disarray, he jumped up and created more explosions. He focused these explosions on those going towards the building Doe squad was in, and at Edward.
While his men went into cover to avoid the explosions, Edward just avoided the explosions with premonitions while returning fire to Arlo. Thus, Arlo found himself at a disadvantage again.
He raised a wrist and spoke quickly into it.
"They've got an executioner on their ass who isn't playing around. Send over Solomon if you can."
A voice came from the other side, slightly distorted by static, "We're still dealing with these dolls, once I tackle the gunslinger guy, I'll head over."
"Did I forget to mention there are like twenty-five other dudes also shooting at me? Plus, some dude in the buildings around me with RPGs and Blight knows what else?"
"…fair point." It went silent for a moment, "I'll head over quickly."
Leo quickly made his way back to Faust after finding a first aid kit. He slid over to his side and opened it up. He and Luke quickly started digging through it and pulling various things out. Andrew looked back for a moment at the two before turning his eyes back towards the battlefield.
One of the men that were advancing towards their building had an exposed arm. Andrew calmly aimed at it and pulled the trigger, removing it from the man's body entirely.
Edward looked back towards the building and then towards one of the men near him. The two spoke for a moment and he handed his assault rifle over. Edward flicked his wrist slightly and like a magician, a magazine of ammo appeared out of nowhere.
He swapped the ammo that was in the gun with the magazine that he had brought out. The bullets inside were slightly glowing in a magical way. He aimed at the building where Andrew was and fired some rounds.
They instantly cut across the battlefield, and as they did so they left behind a practically solid white trail. When they hit the building, the area where Andrew was got obliterated. The ammo that Edward had made completely dwarfed the ammo Andrew had. If Andrew's bullets could a fist-sized hole in a door with a small ammo size, Edward could blow a torso sized hole into the door with the same bullet.
After firing only a few rounds, the gun produced a weird clicking noise and Edward tossed it away. He didn't even bother checking if it was broken, because he knew that it would break as soon as he loaded the magazine.
Andrew looked across the hall at the spot he was just at with shrunken pupils. There wasn't anything there or behind the wall anymore besides rubble.
"Oh…" He muttered with a weak voice, "Guys, I think that one dude is getting serious."
The Leo and Luke didn't respond as they finished up working on Faust. Luckily Faust's wounds weren't life-threatening since it wasn't a bad wound and they worked on it quickly enough. But regardless of if he'd make it, he wasn't going to be able to fight.
While Leo and Luke cleaned themselves, Faust laid on the ground with a pale sweating face. His eyes were closed as his body was shut down.
Leo stood and looked over at Andrew, who pointed him over to the wall. Leo looked at it for a moment before turning back to Andrew, "Is the proctor here?"
"Yeah, but he's a soul mage and that one guy is an executioner."
Leo pondered for a moment before saying, "He's probably already called for backup, we'll just have to keep ourselves and Avery Junior here-" Leo looked around the room for a moment.
He looked back at Andrew with narrowed eyes, "So. Where's Junior?"
"Uh." Andrew froze. He was the one in charge of making sure Junior didn't go anywhere while Leo and Luke worked on Faust.
"L-look, I've been making sure nobody pushes up to us."
"That's nice and all, but we have two jobs for this mission. Make sure nobody dies, and kidnap Avery Junior. If we don't have Junior, we don't have any points. So, you're gonna help me look for him even if he died in an alley due to a stray bullet."
"Yes sir." Andrew said while looking nervously at Leo.
Leo then looked at Luke, "Take Faust higher up in the building and hide with him. We'll call you when we come to get you."
Luke nodded hesitantly. He didn't really want Faust to move all that much, but he also knew that staying in the lobby was a death sentence. He left to search for something to lay Faust on so he could drag him. Meanwhile, Leo and Andrew prepared to search for Junior.
Arlo kept creating small explosions near anybody who was exposed but it was a very hard process. Even after all this time, he hadn't even injured Edward.
Then, while peeking around from underneath his car, he noticed a pair of feet slowly advancing towards everyone from the opposite end of the street. He raised his head ever so slightly and looked through the window frames of the car. Immediately, a bullet grazed his head and he fell to the ground.
But he had seen it. Someone that sent shivers down his spine. It was a person wearing a doll mask.
The significance of a mask was not to be understated. You had four primary sets of ranks in the Abyss. Firstly, is the average soldier, the captains and everyone beneath them down to the privates. Then there are the Second-Class Special Operatives; these are the Inquisitors and Knights.
Knights were what Doe squad were currently taking an advanced placement test for. If they pass it, they'd get past the ranks of the average soldier in one fell swoop. Knights are special operatives sent out generally only in their squad to achieve specific objectives.
Inquisitors were a part of the Military police and were scary individuals that nobody ever wanted to see. They are responsible for internal affairs as well as the gathering of information from enemies, generally from torture. They are sent to various areas within demonic territory to do operations, they rarely do operations outside of demon territory.
Then above them in increasing rank, you have Majors, Lieutenant Watchers, and Watchers at the highest rank. These people command everything beneath them following the guidelines handed out by High Watchers to a tee.
Finally, you have four more, technically three more, ranks.
Blood Hunters, often just shorthanded to just Hunters. If knights are special operatives, these are the men and women who topple countries without so much as a whisper of their names being uttered. They are the individuals handpicked for being the deadliest and most tenacious demons available within the ranks.
Then Adjudicators, they command inquisitors and investigate the highest levels of corruption, if they are ever found out of being corrupt, they will be immediately executed. To be promoted to High Watcher one must be an Adjudicator for at least 10 years, even then, many never become High Watchers.
Then you have High Watchers. They manage the forces as generals whenever the kings are busy or missing, which is extremely often.
Finally, you have the kings themselves, which isn't technically a rank. They command the Abyss and there are only currently two left alive. Only their children, the princes and princesses can succeed them and there can only be three kings at a time. But that has yet to happen.
The reason why everybody in the demon or angel armies are afraid of masks is simple. They have an entire military branch dedicated to themselves despite numbering at only around five hundred people. That, and those wearing masks answer to two ranks of people alone.
The high watchers and the kings.
Meaning they are the deadliest creatures in existence after the gods and kings themselves.
And just then, Arlo had seen one. He had been fighting the dolls earlier with the rest of the proctors, but he knew they were outmatched. What could they do? They were only knights, and they were fighting archangels, the angel equivalent of blood hunters.
But the rest of the proctors didn't feel this way. John was basically a veteran hunter without a mask, and the other two had iron wills. Arlo on the other hand was generally new to being a knight.
The person in the doll mask stepped forward and their gaze swept past the carnage. Their gaze settled on a man standing across from them. They lifted two revolvers from their holsters and aimed towards the man.
It wasn't Elinor, instead it was her executioner subordinate, known as the gunslinger doll.
Across from them was a man with a long ponytail. The man reached into nothingness, and he pulled out a sword. His name was Solomon, and he was a specialist dealer.
He was often called the mirror swordsman and he was being considered to get a promotion to the blood hunter rank.
The two stared at each other and the doll pulled their triggers. The bullets quickly travelled over to Solomon, but he simply swiped his sword, creating a strange wall. When the bullets hit the wall, they immediately turned back around.
As if expecting this, despite not having the premonition advantage, the gunslinger doll fired two more rounds and they hit the bullets travelling back towards them. The four bullets merged into two and fell to the ground.
The doll had managed to predict that his bullets would come back, and he fired rounds at them to prevent them from hitting him. An impossible feat.
Solomon dispelled his mirror while the gunslinger doll started spinning the revolvers in their hands. Then they fired the remaining eight rounds that were in both of their guns.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
The two guns fired their four rounds at irregular intervals and the doll immediately swapped out the ammo, their hands blurring as they moved faster than an eye could comprehend. Solomon swung his blade with frightening speed and the rounds were cut apart and deflected away.
Once more the two stared at each other. Solomon's blade had slight smoke rising from it, while smoke came out of the gunslinger doll's guns.
The entire battlefield froze as they watched the two.
For the first time since the fighting had started, the battlefield was finally quiet.