I'm not ready for the dead to show its face, whose turn is it anyway?
There are archangels moving in on the Kashtta Tower. Rather a lot of archangels, considering - when archangels move in groups like this, they're usually either hunting some serious prey, or going drinking. Most archangels do not go drinking quite this heavily armed
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Sky gave them a couple explosives to use on the doors, just in case they had trouble getting in. Georgia fixes it to the door, sets the timer and then glances back to her kids. "Sophie's team goes in first. Take out anyone you find inside, we'll cover you. Ready?"
She waits until the kids have backed off a sufficient distance, starts the explosive ticking, and then springs back, grinning fiercely. "Fire in the hole!"
Around about a minute later, the doors blow inward, with what Georgia thinks is an inordinately bright flash of light. She has a suspicion Sky did that on purpose.
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Lionel's near the front, near Sophie, because he's probably the only in the group with as much experience as Sophie does (besides Isaac, but no one really knows about him), gun at the ready.
"Hi, Honey, we're home," he quips, which is like asking to be killed, but they're archangels and these are just meddling humans who side with demons and cause problems for Romana. Arrogance is just something some archangels are going to have to get over the hard way.
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The first is that Jack knows how to make an impression, and dropping the biggest man there within seconds of them coming in the door is going to make an impression.
The second is that Jack is a very good shot.
He puts a bullet though Lionel's head, right between the eyes, and follows it up with two shots to the heart before he hits the ground, then rolls and steps back from the balcony. His revolver's been modified more than some men mod their cars and there's barely any muzzle flash, but given the sheer number of guns down there, blind chance could mean they hit him.
He doesn't have time to die. Not to mention that they might take the precaution of tying him up or disarming him.
Welcome home, he thinks, but a quip now would call attention to his position, and he's not going to give up his location for that kind of satisfaction. Just go, find a new position, weigh your options, see if you need to ( ... )
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Well, this is going to be harder than they thought. Still, weapons are out and a few of them attempt to shoot into the balcony despite not being able to see worth shit up there, but they might hit something, especially since some of them lucked out on the thermal imagery equipment- good thing Jack ducked and rolled and some of the more trigger-happy kids only got the basic weapons training. The smarter ones are conserving bullets and waiting for a better shot.
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He taps his comm. "Fifteen at a headcount. One's down. One of our own is on the ground with them - slender, Asian, spiky hair, black clothes. Over."
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Sophie turns partially back to her angels, gun in her hand, in the best defensive position she can manage, trying to find something to get behind to provide some cover. Not that it's easy to defend against bullets, but it looks good, anyway.
"Archangels. Focus. Lionel made a mistake. We can't afford mistakes so calm down and do as you were trained. Thermal scanners indicate at least one demon in the wings."
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Takes the knife. Firm grip, just as trained, just as practiced and used again again again and
One hit, solid, through the spine, base of the neck, one dead Archangel, fast, no chance to react no way to survive. Knife comes out, glistening white and clear, spinal fluid and Angel blood, and Tachi's blood is thrumming, and Tachi's eyes are burning.
Too many archangels. Too many. Withdraw regroup make for attrition Tachi turns and sprints for the back hall, which is too far, too far-
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"She said there was a demon in the wings!" Someone shouts and makes to start firing, but Isaac is already making a run for the stairs, dodging and weaving bullets that aren't there, and vanishes into the darkness before anyone can tell him to hold his position. Like he'd listen. He's here for the thrill of the hunt and cares nothing for organization. It's the sort of mentality that gets people killed. Most likely him.
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But what lurks in the shadows at the top of the stairs isn't human, and 175 pounds of bloodlust barrelling up at Malek in raptor-form just makes the blood run hotter. As Isaac reaches the top Malek rises up before him, absorbs a hit into his side, and closes his teeth down first on Isaac's shoulder, then a second time on his neck, scraping across the mask, then bites down hard into his chest and uses his entire weight of muscle to brace himself and catapult Isaac's mangled body over the railing to the floor below.
It hits with a wet slap, blood forming a pearl rain in the arc of his trajectory, and most of his neck didn't make it down with him. His head smacks into the floor and rolls, connected by a shattered spinal column and a cord of skin and muscle.
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{"It's- a third angel is down. And our angel. She was shot, she's not moving-"}
That's never a good thing to hear from your dispatcher. Not the words, but the tone - Maya's not trained for this. Jack doesn't imagine most of Torchwood is. But even so, better in the control room than seeing all the carnage first-hand.
He activates his calm, keeping his voice low. "Maya, I want you to listen to me. Look away from the screens. Can you do that?"
A moment's pause.
"Look at Marshall." Reach out, touch him if it helps. The reality of his breath, his presence. Remove yourself from those images. "Are you doing that?"
Another momentary pause, but this time she responds. {"Yes."}"Good." He's keeping an eye on the angels, but at the moment, they're panicking. "The bitter taste at the back of your throat is epinephrine. It's what's increasing your heartrate and breathing. I want you to sit down, take deep breaths - don't keep your chest tense. Full up your ( ... )
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He considers taking a shot at the one who shot her, but he's got a much clearer shot for someone closer. Just some prettyboy, and he gets the shots off one-two-three (because you never, ever, ever trust that an angel will go down with one bullet, and even two's risky), then he moves -- fast for a demon, almost angel-fast. Something to make up for being the runt -- he's a quick runt.
Might not be fast enough, but he's running on killing instinct and adrenaline. It's not the kind of hunt he'd prefer, but he's killing archangels, and that, he likes just fine.
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"Get the hell in there," she growls at her team and Martin's. "Fire on the balcony." If it doesn't take anyone out, it will at least get them to keep their heads down until her angels can move in. And in typical archangel fashion, Georgia leads the charge, coming through the door at top speed and already firing as she does, Martin right at her back.
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Jack darts back to the door at one end of the hallway, snapping "Malek, with me." He activates his comm, giving a quick "We're taking heavy fire. Abandoning the balcony. Lock down those doors as soon as we're through and wait for us to take up defensive position."
With the maze of halls in the Kashtta Tower, this is going to become a game of division. Let the game begin.
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They really shouldn't have been prepared for this. The way it was laid out said that these guys were going to be fish in a barrel- well, who are the fish now?
Still. It's not like a group of archangels to ever say die, and they press for the stairs, occasionally firing shots when they think they can spare the bullets.
War is, apparently, on.
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