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Diversionary attacks. Preparations. Raids staged everywhere, apparently without a logical plan in mind.

Fog of war. Guerrilla on global scale.

Chapter 43: Demonic Warfare

It was happening everywhere, just as Diana had announced a few weeks before. Never before had peace been so illusory: no wars were officially being fought in the world, yet, people was fighting and dying everywhere, almost on a daily base. Just as the RA and the NWOA had retreated into the shadows to prepare their next moves, finally granting a pause in the ferocious, constant battling, the demons had started staging an ever rising number of attacks. The demonic creatures were powerful and numerous, but they were also totally undisciplined, and thus behind their raids there wasn't a plan. There wasn't a logic, a scheme, a precise strategic drawing of some sort behind the continuous demonic rampages that from some time were constantly on the news: demons just popped up in a town somewhere, and caused the largest possible massacre until they were either brought down, or until they retreated into Hell to stage another attack in another place, another day. They would come and hit without any warning, literally coming out of the earth, so that the mortal armies, already ill-prepared to face the monstrous powers of the demons, were forced to answer every time in emergency conditions, so that they never had a chance to take the initiative and stage a preventive blow.

It was an infamous, uncomfortable kind of war in which there never was a true military confrontation: there never was a chance to engage a decisive battle and destroy the enemy.

Agility and speed were the new indispensable attributes for the armed forces of the Mortal Plane, since they had to constantly run from a town to another to try and intervene, and most time, even if the nations did not like to admit it, the armies would arrive too late, once the demons had already ended their rampage and moved back to Hell.

Of course, the difficulties of the new war in itself weren't the only issue... For example, there still was a common line of thought in most nations, which refused to even admit that the rampaging creatures were actually demons. After all, no one was eager, or even just ready to admit that, for some reason, the Underworld was attacking and unleashing its horrors and abominations on Earth. No government was ready to face such an event, and no politician wanted to tell his constituency that Hell was on the rise and that there was no true way to resist to the bloodshed.

Even the population itself greatly favored deluding itself about the true nature of the latest attacks, over admitting that there was a Hell, there were demons, and those demons were on a rampage.

You don't like, after all, to admit, even to yourself, that you are faced by angry, nearly-unstoppable creatures laden with magic and power, against which you are powerless.

The world had never before been so divided, and the nations had never before been so isolated and angry at each other.

The World Council had ceased to exist, virtually, since no one dared to leave its own nation to meet other heads of states... Traveling was dangerous, and, after all, clustering up was seen as offering "the enemy" the best chance to strike a decisive blow.

The truest reason, however, was that every governor actually saw in the others the instigators of the crisis at hand, and the hate and mistrust was such that diplomacy had pretty much ceased to exist at all. Most nations already refused to speak with delegates of others even just by phone or over the internet.

That was it... The explanation that the governments continued to give to a terrorized population hit by millions of mournings in the last weeks was that "someone" had been running genetic-weaponry projects and now was unleashing the results of its abominable researches over the world. What nation was to blame, it was unclear, however... But most leaders had already found the perfect scapegoat to present to the angry and terrorized masses: the Northern Empire.

Most likely, the possessed global leaders and those replaced by shapeshifters sent from Hell had been the ones forwarding the idea... But Killer had no doubts that convincing the others of the truth of such assumption had been more than just "easy". He was, after all, hated by most leaders, and the relations between the kingdoms of the Northlands, and those between the Northlands and the rest of the world, had never been truly friendly.

The policy of power that Killer had used in the World Council to try and fix the many historical conflicts between "civilized" world and the Northlands had been effective, but had gained him the hate of Ire, Lunis, Ural, and mostly everyone else. Even in the Northlands, not many had been really touched by his efforts, since they had considered them just a strategy to increase the relevance of the Northern Empire on the international stage.

Besides, it was in the Northlands that the crisis had started. In Glacial in particular... and Killer and Alexis were already rumoured to be Demons themselves. For sure, the news that Killer had had sex with Regina had caused shock and outrage around the world... little mattered the detail that he actually raped the monster to death and brought her reign of terror to an end: for most people, Killer had just usurped her place, and nothing more.

With the demons first appearing in the Northern Empire, it was easy to say to the public that Killer's reign was to blame: surely, it was all about some abominable program for the development of genetic and organic weaponry gone wrong or even worse a deliberate attack on the world. No importance had the fact that the Northern Empire actually was the first area hit by demonic rampages, the first nation that had had its land painted red with blood: that was merely a side-effect of losing control over such powerful and cruel creations.

"See them ruined by their own creations!" Had been shouted about it in one of the last sessions of the World Council, to which Killer had not been admitted.

The day after, the massive skyscraper of the World Council offices had been razed to the ground by a rampaging troop of Gigataurs that Killer himself had later slaughtered... But the crisis was out of any control already, and no one showed any gratitude for the liger as he walked away from the ruins, leaving behind himself a troop of giant bull demons sliced in pieces.

Killer all but suspected that, if the empire had not yet received declarations of war from Ire and the other nations, it was merely because they all knew that the Northern Empire had several weapons of monstrous power, in the order: Killer, Alexis, and a whole nuclear arsenal ready to launch, carried by several nuclear submarines lurking in the depths of the dark oceans of the world, where no one could find and harm them.

However, that did not stop the world from laughing at the warning of the Northern Empire: the news that the world was at war with Hell was simply refused as ridiculous, as an excuse to draw the public outrage away from Kesteven and onto something that "did not exist".

The only true support that Killer had received about his warning had come mostly from Sects of various kinds, priests, holy rollers, nerds and other similar douchebags, which all but horrified the king more than the demons themselves. He had been receiving thousands upon thousands of mails from morons and 12-years-old nerds that believed to be "Demon Slayers" and had to suggest all sort of plans that branding them as "ridiculous" would have not given them justice for how idiotic they were.

Killer had been living the situation with horrible mood. He hated the whole situation... he was starting to feel like HE, and not the others, was the stupid, despite the fact he was telling the truth. And he utterly hated the feeling.

And lately, his mood had been growing darker than Hell itself: more and more often, he had been muttering about the stupidity of people, and he had risked exploding when the helping hand he had offered to the most-heavily hit nations had been slapped away bad-temperedly.

Killer and Alexis had been running daily missions around the world, moving out to wherever demons were reported to be rampaging to intervene and stop the bloodshed, slaying the creature at hand. The Predators themselves, thanks to the hard work of Siegfried, Rika and Murray, were being taught, trained and equipped to work as demon slayers... and while they still encountered immense difficulties in such role, and reported heavy losses after every mission, they could already proudly state to be the best unit in the world for this whole new job.

Specialized Demon-Slayer Teams had been flying out to the crisis zones to eradicate the rampaging demons with means of force in the areas that Killer and Alexis could not personally cover, and they had obtained several successes already, even if paying all of them with heavy tolls of blood. But these missions, that the military language continued to list under the term FID (Foreign Internal Defence) despite the fact that no one had originally planned to defend a foreign country against not an invader neighbor but against demons, were meeting not just the demon's wrath but a growing resistance by the local military units as well.

Killer and Alexis had been shot at by the regular army of the locations they had helped, and while the two ligers could pretty much walk across small arms fire without problems, the Predators team couldn't.

The Teams lately were being attacked more and more violently, and several Predators had already been killed by the ones they were trying to save. Civilians normally welcomed the black-dressed super-soldiers of the North like saviors, but the military establishment, lead by governments openly hostile to the Northern Empire, always staged full-out attacks on the DS Teams.

Obviously, to add insult to injury, while the Teams were evacuating after accomplishing their mission and killing the demons.

Killer's fury had been tremendous after a Night Spirit VTOL plane taking off with a whole, exhausted but victorious DS Team had been shot down by the local militia: the wounded and tired Predators survived to the crash had thus been forced to take on a defensive formation in the nearby ruins of a shattered building and resist for dear life until a couple of Gunships aircrafts escorting another cargo plane had reached the area and brought them all out.

Sticking to the orders, the Predators had not killed their opponents, since they theorically were "non hostiles": until it had been possible, they had used less-than-lethal rounds fired from the Underslung Multipurpose Launchers fitted under the barrels of the rifles, and then physical might to incapacitate the enemies once they had ran out of dummy rounds... And aiming to non-lethal areas when they had been forced to fire.

It had been heroic, but frustrating like Hell. And Killer could very well understand why the mood of the troop at their return was so low and dark... To be sincere, when he had been de-briefed about the events, he had thrown a fit of fury that even Alexis had had troubles restraining.

It had been the first of a series of such events, which had led Killer almost to the point of simply giving in his good resolutions to embrace the far easier, far more appealing and far more rewarding road of rampages that he and Alexis both secretly craved.

During a private briefing with Alexis in his office, Killer had thrown the maps down the desk in a moment of fury and barked that perhaps it was better if they truly ceased acting as angels and started behaving as the creatures they were and that people saw in them: demons. The temptation nearly had the better on him, admittedly... he felt he would have utterly loved to go back to the town where his soldiers had been attacked and rage them to the ground, slaughtering and raping everyone he came across. He would have enjoyed it even more than usual.

Alexis had been lovable, anyway, faithful beyond words: instead of exploiting the moment and giving him the final push he needed to let his darkness surface once and for all, bringing his and her own Lusts out to be satiated with the greatest of all bloodsheds. She had been awesomely cool, and had valiantly fought her own urges first of all, to be able to calm him down and ensure he stuck to his resolutions of redemption.

He honestly thought that it had been the greatest act of loyalty and faith and love he had ever seen... and he sure had no words to thank her properly for it.

Diana had come by too, to add her own support to his staggering will, and he had finally managed to trap and dominate his own rage. He had been absolutely ferocious in the phone conversation he had with the leaders of the nations involved in the firefight, and his voice had been venomous enough that even the stupidest of the leaders on the other side had got the message right and carefully avoided putting down the phone on him.

Killer had also stopped the FID missions for some time, however, keeping the Predators at home and limiting his interventions abroad to what he and Alexis could do personally. Obviously, since they could be only in one place at once, for every crisis tackled, a few more raged around the world... But his help had not just been refused, but thanked with bullets and bombs, so he couldn't really say he was that sorry for the victims.

He may have put a leash on his rage, but it wasn't gone. They had fired on his boys. Most of whom were literally his sons and daughters. And that, obviously, was a very nasty wrong to forget. Already enough soldiers were dying, without adding others to the lists in such traitorous ways.

Demon Slayer Teams were sent on a FID mission only under request, or at least only under insurance that no opposition at all would have been posed to their intervention... And some requests had indeed arrived.

Demon Slayers squads were already deployed in several different areas, with various numeric consistences: some kingdoms, in fact, had requested small mentoring teams that could train local military in the new field of the demonic warfare. Other teams were on full-out missions across the world, and most of the other Predators were undergoing training to qualify for demonic warfare on top of their "normal" military tasks.

The truth was that Killer was unable to intervene everywhere, and even with all three the Predators divisions reaching full competence in demonic warfare, the situation wasn't going to change. Too many attacks, in too many different places... And at times, once the DS Teams reached the crisis zone, the slaughter was already over, and they were left to look out for survivors in the ashes and ruins of obliterated towns.

At the same time, Killer was also aware that the simple fact of trying to intervene everywhere was taking a heavy toll on his armed forces: the soldiers were tired, and the planes were wearing out pretty rapidly because of the constant, demanding use in missions upon missions, where time constraints required quite some stunts, and asked for max-speed flying in. And the simple fact to send troops everywhere was wrong.

It did not take a great grasp of the concept of strategy to see that by sending teams in every corner of the world he was exposing his forces to a potential tragedy: a small group is an easier target, especially when it is operating at thousands of miles of distance from its home bases. And at the same time, every team out on mission was a brick less into the defensive "wall" that the armed forces represented for the Empire.

The truth was that he was stretching his forces thin, separating them on tens of different troublespots, exposing his forces to the risk of being taken by surprise at home, or obliterated while separated in so many different locations abroad.

But he did not have many choices. Either stay at home and ignore the slaughter outside the borders of his reign, or intervene whenever he could, wherever he could, to save as many persons as possible.

And he felt that his task was the second one. No matter the risk.

FID once had been just a routine for a Predator. Foreign Internal Defence mostly only meant walking in, often by forcefully breaking down the door, defending the sector that had been assigned to your unit and eventually arm and train locals so that they could fight themselves. The Predators had been the best at it, as they were the best in everything else.

They would come, take position and lead the local forces to victory by supplying the needed boost in terms of technology, training and brutal force.

But of course, back then, most of the time the FID teams were welcomed by the nation that was going to be helped... with the latest crisis, with the depleting of the international relations, with the whole new heights of terror that came from fighting supernatural, unstoppable demonic creatures, that wasn't the case anymore.

For the Predators themselves, besides, it was a whole new kind of warfare... and while they were absolute masters of Mortal Warfare, they were beginners in terms of supernatural fighting: they just happened to be... less-ignorant than the others, as Alexis had once very wisely stated in a short and resolute speech to the troops.

It was complex, sweaty and bloody stuff. And it was far too easy to die before collecting the needed experience to be able to claim the status of true demon slayer.

The Demon Slayer Company that night walked the ruined streets of Dacca's main port city, Saratov: a massive metropolis revolving around its port, one of the greatest in the whole world. Now, the ships were sunk in the bay, and the top of their superstructures was all what still towered over the surface of the water here and there. The port had been completely flattened by angry Gigataurs, but the Predators had fought them back and exploited the wasteland to create a Forward Operating Base, resupplied by landing hovercrafts going back and forth from the landing ships NES Ocean, on station 50 miles away from the coast, in relative peace and security, guarded closely by a destroyer and a couple of frigates.

The metropolis was a gloomy doomsday scenario: most of the few buildings still standing were just empty, abandoned and damaged skeletons. Most of the population had already been slaughtered, and the few survivors were hiding or fleeing however they could, trying desperately to reach the FOB of the Predators.

The Ocean had already her on-board hospital facilities crammed with people, and a couple of hospital ships made up from STUFT cruise vessels (Ships Taken-Up From Trade) were already on route from Faslane to reach the island-continent of Dacca, to the far west of Kesteven, across the ocean.

It was like Armageddon, the day after the ultimate nuclear holocaust... and the Predators could trust nothing and no one.

Good old warfare. I miss the times of shooting Javelins from a hole in the ground on a horde of charging battle tanks.

There was a rumbling. A loud explosion, which was automatically muffled to acceptable noiseness by the headphones of the fully-enclosed black helmet. A warning flashed in red on the visor, but he hadn't enough time to find a cover.

The heavy security door exploded forth, and metal wrenched and sparked before crashing into him and pressing him against the wall behind. Under the impact, clad in his flexible, bullet-proof tactical vest, the Predator saw black and white stars explode across his vision, he tasted blood in his mouth, and the last air was forced painfully out from his lungs.

His training kicked in, despite all: it sure wasn't worse than last time Killer had punched him in training.

Now, that was bad...

He pulled the door's twisted frame apart and forced it off him with a grunt, blinking dazedly in the soft moonlight that came in from the empty frame of the door, looking as his comrades sprinted out of this and ran off to different directions, while a couple of gunners and snipers gave fire cover from the two shattered windows on the sides of the entrance.

Something groaned from outside, a terrible whine that was reptilian and agonizing and that almost hurt the ears, and he saw an Incubo demon collapse across the threshold, headless.

The soldier sprinted forwards and leapt out, jumping over the demonic corpse of the dinosaur-like creature with the crescent-shaped mantis's blades, wincing as he saw the deadly steel spikes covering its scales and growing in a deadly row of blade-like fins down the back of the monster.

He ran across the street, ignoring the broken and mangled corpses of civilians that were abandoned between the rubble and ruins covering the cracked asphalt, and threw himself against the cover of the cracked wall on the other side of the wide lane, aiming his rifle above the heads of who had preceded him, his comrades securing the corner and aiming their rifles out to cover all directions.

It was the time of the gunners and snipers to move forth from their positions at the windows... And it still was so weird to see a luminous blue line outlining the silhouette of invisible comrades on the visor, as the active-camouflage cloaking of the latest tactical dress made the soldiers virtually transparent.

Only as the sniper of the section came up close and kneeled at his side, he noticed a bit of a blurr outlining him: otherwise, the "Death Cloak" was perfect, showing him the projection of what lay past the soldier. He could only see the ruins, the street, the corpses, like Ken was totally transparent.

"B in position."

"A moving." It was again their time to move off, as snipers and gunners crouched at the corner and covered the rest of the squad, ready to unleash brutal bursts of bullets onto whatever was to pop up and menace them.

The Predator ran forwards across the street, avoiding a pile of rubble from the fallen walls that had once been the facade of the tall building ahead, and he aimed his rifle from side to side, looking down the scope for targets down the street.

He saw nothing but burning, wrecked cars and shattered buildings with torn apart facades, the ruins piling up in the street, but the demons could be everywhere: the Astarhi, a limit case, were invisible and ethereal until they decided to strike, and this made them extremely dangerous, despite the fact that they weren't exactly the strongest demons.

They had a very precious First-Strike ability thanks of their invisibility... And they were vulnerable only when physically attacking something. Which meant that they usually did not need to be strong and durable.

And unfortunately, so far it had been impossible to design a device capable to sense the presence of Astarhis in the surroundings, much as experiments had been done in that field and researches had been carried out with urgency. For the moment, the task was still simply beyond the capabilities of modern technology... But at least, the latest version of the MK2 enclosed helmet that the Predators were wearing was fitted with a first version of a device dubbed "Psychic Repressor". It had been the source of many discussions and jokes when it had been introduced: there was who had said that it was meant to keep the soldiers stupid so they would always do what they were told, and conspiracy-fanatics and stupid peace-activists that had immediately thrown out the rumor that they were brainwashing devices to fully control soldiers like robots...

But the actual troops had soon learned to love them: while they weren't fully effective yet, they largely screened the mind of the soldier from the evil influences of the Samanhis. And such influence, as Killer himself had seen in Argolis, could be a terrible battle-winning weapon: lately, the cases of desertion, the brawls and the suicides had all been on a dramatic rise between the soldiers deployed in demon-plagued areas.

The psychic repressors had been invaluable in ensuring that the Predators could escape such self-destructive trend when deploying in theatre.

The soldier ahead raised his assault rifle and fired a DK grenade that he had just inserted on the flash-suppressor at the end of the barrel: the small weapon flew off with a loud pop and smashed into the closed door of the building ahead, 30 feet away, knocking it clean off its hinges with a first small explosion before detonating inside the room to clean it from any hostile presence with a 360 degrees hail of slivers.

The group of Predators ran up the short distance in the meanwhile, and the Team Leader was about to enter the door when a blurr distorted the air in front of him.

"Down!"

The soldiers dropped flat to the floor while the shout arose from the commander's mouth, and an Astarhi appeared from nothingness in front of them, a floating figure cloaked in a dark, torn cloak that swung out a massive scythe with a burning-red crescent-shaped blade.

It sailed just above the soldier's heads, and in that same moment there was a loud, even if somewhat muffled rumble of thunder and a massive magnum round smashed in the front of the demonic creature, straight under the hood, just where the face should have been, had the monster possessed one.

The creature was slammed backwards without a cry, and it toppled over onto the floor with an awkward backwards somersault before vanishing in a cloud of black smoke, such was the power of the latest ammunitions developed for Ken's heavily-customized, deceptively-ancient Lee Enfield rifle.

"Got'ya." Ken barked, grinning slightly as he chambered another round with a swift, elegant move, working the bolt without moving the rifle from the shoulder, eye on the scope, ready to engage another target.

The soldiers ahead straightened back up, and the Team Leader entered the smashed door, turning to the right and getting down to a knee as he occupied the corner, aiming his rifle across the room in search of hostiles.

The second soldier was already moving to the opposite corner, going down to a knee as well as their firing ranges overlapped...

And then the Predator followed in as well, pulling up close to his comrade, leaning his back to the wall and aiming his rifle past the frame of the door with a hand: the digital camera mounted in the aiming sight reeled the images back to his visor, without him having to expose himself.

He nodded silently when he failed to detect hostiles, and the soldier crouching in the corner stood up and sprinted forth, crossing the threshold and getting back down on a knee, back to the wall, rifle aimed and ready to cover as the others followed.

The house was in ruins, and the Predators grimaced seeing the horrendous splatters of dried blood that covered the walls and the damaged furniture.

A broken table laid in pieces in the middle of the room, with shattered glasses and dishes from the last dinner, abruptly interrupted... Everything was covered in dust and ruins: what was left of the wall ahead, which had been smashed across by something big and strong.

An Incubo, or more than just one... They had slaughtered the family reunited for the dinner, and feasted on the corpses: the soldier spotted a broken hand in a puddle of dried blood in a corner, and then a body laying under several chunks of wall.

The medic of the team swiftly reached it, but it was useless, and he knew it even before checking and silently shaking his head.

Outside, a wrecked 8-wheels armored vehicle was still burning, the flank torn open like it was made of paper, a blackened, burnt body hanging out of the hatch on top of the turret. Several rifles, reddened by blood splatters, were scattered around the vehicle, some broken miserably in two useless parts.

The Incubi had all but devoured the corpses, and little was left behind of the people slaughtered, other than bits and blood and shredded clothes.

The soldier tripped into something that clanked on the floor, and his gaze shot down with a mumbled curse to see a cracked armor-plate that had once been part of a tactical vest... And immediately shot back up as a horrible, hissing roar filled the air.

He raised his assault rifle together with his gaze, and immediately found its target as a massive 22-feet tall Incubo leapt into the street and charged at them, the demonic T-Rex with mantis-like blades in place of hands swinging its whip-like tails forwards from over its ugly, four-eyed head.

The Predator reacted swiftly this time, and his finger squeezed the trigger as soon as his thumb pushed the safety's little lever up. There was an echoing, loud boom as the 60-mm tube mounted under the barrel of the rifle blasted out a shotgun shell, potentially the largest and most powerful ever, which shredded the chest of the demon with a concentrated hail of massive steel pellets, knocking the huge monster backwards with a howl of agony.

The Predator cursed, however, knowing all too well that Incubi were nearly unstoppable, no matter the damages you made to them... And in fact, the monstrous demonic reptile immediately leapt back up to its feet as the massive gaping hole in its chest filled with twisting tentacles of meat and muscle that were already joining together to close the wound as the demon snarled and charged at the group of soldiers.

The Predator backstepped with a wince, but kept his eye on the CQB Red-Dot sight and blasted out a second shell, this time aiming the correct way: the enormous shotgun round smashed in the head of the creature, and obliterated it in a splatter of torn flesh and broken bone, sending the demon crashing lifelessly on its belly, before the body vanished in a dark cloud of smoke.

The head was the only point that, if destroyed, would ensure the end of an Incubo: any other hit, no matter how savage and devastating, would have merely slowed down the demonic monster at the best.

Cut the head. The only thing that mattered was to cut the head. And that was the work for which the special shotgun-shell for the Underslung Launcher of the Predator's rifles had been developed in the first place: it was the deadliest bullet ever, and it carried the power needed to ensure that even a not really accurate shot could still destroy the head of abominations like the Incubi.

"One wasted." The Team Leader observed calmly, and the Predator bent his head in shame: wasting the first round wasn't something than a member of the elite should do. He had let the tension and urgency have the better on his training, and he had made a mistake. There was nothing else to add: he knew perfectly that he could not afford making such errors and hope to survive long in service.

And doing such errors in a Mid-Term Qualification Test would have meant being kicked out of the Predators without compliments.

The unit would test its men once every six months. And who did not qualify with flying colors was discharged and sent back to regiment he had come from the first time.

And such an event was feared by the Predators almost as much as Death itself.

The Predator slid his back against the wall and bit his lower lip a bit, reprimanding himself harshly for his stupid mistake even as he pushed the stack of ammo out of the Launcher mounted on the rifle. There still was a shotgun shell ready to launch at the bottom of the stack, but he preferred to put one full, 3-rounds stack into the tube and drop the mostly-empty one in a pocket of the tactical vest.

At the first pause, he would have recovered the shells spared and stacked them in clusters ready for use... but for now, it was better to have all the firepower possible at the ready.

It would have utterly sucked to hear a dry click in the worst possible moment.

They were soon moving again, walking up a pile of rubble that once been a block of flats and taking position on top of it until the other half of the team reached them: it was standard procedure. A fire base with men scanning the horizon for enemies, ready to open fire against them, and a moving group advancing from cover to cover.

The two teams continually swapped roles, so that whoever was moving across a street was sure to have comrades protecting him from the back.

On a larger scale, the same happened with the Heavy Weapons Platoon: it would stay back, moving with its huge, heavily armed jeeps to climb on a dominant position from which it could give fire cover to the infantry moving on the battlefield.

But at the moment, the Heavy Weapons Platoon was having a bad day, since there weren't true hills in the surroundings, and they had to change position constantly to avoid getting their firing range screwed up by the town's buildings and by the mountains of ruins that piled up everywhere.

The Predator's eyes narrowed as he gritted his teeth when the images on the visor in the helmet faded and degraded into static: they had by now learned that the demonic corruption coming off from Cracks or from demons themselves could easily screw up their communications and even the most advanced electronics they carried as part of their kit.

He immediately looked nervously around to spot any sign of demonic presences, just as his comrades also made a step to the side to put their backs against the wall, rifles at the shoulders and aimed as they aimed from side to side... Before a blast of demonic fire erupted out of the shattered front of a pub and crashed into them with violence.

The soldier instinctively jumped, rolling to one side as the blast washed over him. The outer layers of his Osprey Tactical Combat Vest boiled and peeled off like skin worn by a bad sunburn.

But the training that he had endured had been so hard, so continuous and so obsessive that it truly had become a part of his instinct: it was in his nerves, in his bones, in his skin. His reaction was perfect, and came bare of any thinking, as a lifetime of training simply took over and guided his actions.

The AMASR rifle went up to the shoulder as he rolled to the side, and he fired a long burst from side to side, along the trajectory from which the fire was coming and he made sure to aim low: if the enemy was standing, he would chop their legs off. If they were crouching or lying on their bellies, he had good chances to kill them.

His closer comrade reacted pretty much in the same way, but he was armed with the Grenadier version of the AMASR, and the six-barrel revolver-like grenade launcher arranged around the rifle's barrel vomited a barrage of High Explosive bombs into the front of the building, the pop-pop-pop of the grenades taking off followed by the monstrous explosions that shook the whole street as they crumbled the facade of the three-stories palace.

His eyes cleared as the demonic flames died down, and there was a howl of agony coming out of the ruins of the building ahead, which was now literally falling on itself, the last grenades tearing the walls apart and erasing the ruined pub under a rain of rubble, dust and cracked concrete. Whatever had attacked them, now was out of the game.

His finger slid up the trigger-guard automatically, and pressed the small lever that sent the empty magazine falling down as his other hand drew another clip from one of the pouches on his chest, pushing it in piece.

The AMASR had no arming lever: once the magazine was in place, the weapon was ready to fire, since it worked with electric ignition and had no mechanic system... so he checked instead on his armor.

Although the Osprey was tough like Hell, especially in its latest version, enhanced for better protecting against demonic threats as well as explosions and bullets and slivers, its hardened plates couldn't survive too long to the demonic fire, which was far, far worse than normal flames. The Osprey jacket was smoking lightly, much as the internal cooling system struggled to rapidly bring the temperature back down, providing some relief to the Predator, who had grown dripping with sweat in a bare second, and felt his front burning like it had been lying face-down on a hot grill.

He tried to ignore the pain, however, and made sure that everything was okaish, letting out a soft sigh of relief when the armor's camouflaging nanomachine-fabric projected first trembling, confused textures and then stabilized, once again blending into the ruins and urban environment as it took on the color pattern of the surrounding terrain.

It wasn't of great help against demons, which had far more effective senses that just the easily-trickable eyesight of mortals... but since the Predators could always expect to have problems with the latter as well, it was better to be as chameleonic as possible.

The display on his faceplate flickered back to life as well, showing first of all a transparent layer of ghostly green topology in front of his left eye: the satellite-map of the area. 20 kilometers overhead, a reconnaissance drone Dark Angel was spying across the clouds with its radar and infra-red imagery sensors, giving him all the info he needed.

A single triangular dot appeared in the middle of the map, showing him his exact position.

Then additional dots appeared on his heads-up screen as well . . . first appeared the dots relative to the men of his team, then a few tens more, spread along the ruined town, whenever a Section of Predators was doing its grim clean-up job, chasing for demons to slain and survivors to help. Unfortunately, the latter had been in very short supply so far. A Section was missing 3 men, and probably other dots hadn't shown up, but he had no time and no true wish to know who hadn't made it, for now. After the mission, he'd check the roster to see who they'd lost, but for now, he stuffed his feelings into a dark corner of his mind and forced onwards, aware that he was already tired, tense and nervous enough without adding the shock of deaths to the fear he already struggled to contain.

There was no way in Hell he did not know who had died. All Predators knew each other, at least a bit... And he truly did not want to imagine how his friends might have ended up, killed by angry and hostile locals or slaughtered by the monsters from the Underworld.

"Keep moving. Stay focused!" The Team Leader ordered, but his voice was gentle and supportive: he wasn't feeling any better than his men were, after all... But he had responsibilities towards his boys, and he did his best to encourage them a bit. He had switched for a moment the display of the helmet from the TACTICAL MAP function to TEAM BIOLOGIC DATA immediately after the encounter with the fire-demons, and all members of the team showed skyrocketing pulses and blood pressures, with other signs of evident stress, adding to the body temperature insanely high caused by the demonic attack. But they were all still green and online. All alive. And that had been incredibly good, at least.

The active thermal jacket inside their tactical vests would provide to the temperature, and was already quickly cooling them down. The training and the teamwork, hopefully, would have kept them sane and reactive.

The Leader made a series of quick, sharp hand gestures, ordering the soldiers resume moving ahead in a loose arc formation to cover more ground and still give each other cover. They had to move stealthily, but fast.

"We've got you covered, boys." Ken announced on the radio reassuringly as the first half of the Section resumed the advance down the doomsday-scenario of the ruined, narrow but long street. It was the veteran speaking, and his voice, and the awareness that he was there for real, and that he was the best sniper ever - Alexis excluded. Hugh. She's so unfair a rival. - gave the Predators a much needed boost of confidence.

The sniper, with his robotic arm that had been very conveniently wrapped in flexible plates of armor covered with the special nanomachines-made texture of the Death Cloaks rendering it transparent and invisible to the casual observer, had taken position on top of a pile of rubble from where he had a good view down the long, straight street. His eye was glued to the scope, and he was scanning down the ruined facades of the buildings on both sides: any one of those hundreds of windows could hide a sniper, a machine gun, a demon, any kind of deadly threat for the men carefully advancing down the road.

The gunner of the team, laying down behind his powerful machine-gun, was doing the same, finger ready on the trigger to unleash a furious burst of huge bullets onto the first target that was to pop up. That straight road was a bitch... it was like walking between two lines of soldiers with rifles aimed, since every building could be a stronghold well concealed but ready to lash out at the patrol as it passed by. And the Predators had their movements made miserable by the ruins piling up on the road... At least, though, it was a two-way problem: the ruins, the wrecked, abandoned vehicles crowding the street and the arsons and smoke that further reduced the visibility would hide them to the enemy's eyes as much as they hid the enemies from them.

In theory. Because now we are fighting demons... and those beasts are far more capable than anything else we'd usually face.

"We've got company." Ken announced, framing in his scope the far-away figures of people advancing miserably past the wreckage. "Locals, I'd say."

"Armed...?" The Team Leader asked, a chill running down his spine as he dropped to a knee and raised a closed fist, signaling the others to stop as well, as they silently sidestepped to flatten against the wall nearby. The Leader's visor blinked and the map was replaced by the images coming from Ken's scope, and a red arrow cued the officer into looking in the correct direction. Automatically, the system of digital cameras and sensors built on top of his enclosed helmet zoomed in and took the best image they could... and the computer built in the tactical vest analyzed the images in real time before outlining with a red line the clear silhouette of assault rifles and handguns and grenades on the incoming men.

"Armed." Ken agreed simply. "Their uniforms are gone and they look like beaten-up shit, but they are definitely soldiers. Local army's units... or what's left of them, at least."

"Potentially not friendly." The Team Leader grumbled, and he made sure to push a stack of Less-Than-Lethal rounds in the launcher tube of his rifle. The soldiers did the same, but none of them was happy. Save for the gunner, who had six launcher-tubes arranged in a revolver-like system, they had a single Underslung Launcher.... and they would have rather kept it full of massive shotgun shells than of non-lethal rounds for incapacitation that wouldn't have scratched in the slightest even the weakest of demons. "Remember, they are not hostiles. Moderate use of strength, no killing. Fire only if you are forced to." Hope we don't get around to trying reasoning with "not-hostiles" firing their rifles at us, this time.

"I've got them under aim." Ken announced: he had a secondary, smaller barrel mounted under the wood-embraced one of his beloved Lee-Enfield, and he could fire from it not-lethal rounds that would knock down unconscious even heavily-armored soldiers. "At the first hint of hostility, I knock them all flat. We'll reason better with them if they stay still."

The Leader grunted quietly in agreement, and the Predators looked to the images on their visors as they progressively cleared up as the newcomers drew closer and closer with their slow, miserable march.

They had been defeated and beaten down, and it was more than evident. The way they walked, the slouch of their shoulders, the weapons shouldered or almost dragged along tiredly... and their torn, dirty uniforms splattered with blood. Their faces destroyed and uncared, their beaten up bodies. And last, the fact that two of them, in the middle of the group, were carrying a makeshift stretcher with a trembling, agonizing injured.

"They don't look like people who's willing to start a brawl, do they...?" Ken observed quietly, and there were murmured nods on the radio.

"I doubt they have any appetite left for troubles and fighting in them... In such a dire state, I'd be amazed of the opposite." The Team Leader agreed, giving the slightest of nods. "But better not to take chances. They also look terrorized and stressed enough that they could very well go rock-and-roll and empty their rifles on us as soon as they see us moving. Better to be careful." The Leader paused and turned to look at the men grouped up around him, giving them a quick, silent gesture and then looking as they gave a nod and silently moved to the nearer door, entering the ruined, desert buildings along the street to find a path that could bring them on the side of the incoming strangers. Better to be ready for things eventually going FUBAR.

The Leader waited for a moment longer, following the progresses of the two soldiers thanks to the images coming from their helmet and rifle-mounted cameras, following the movements of their dots on the map to verify that they had indeed managed their way into the shattered buildings and now had gained advantageous positions from where they could easily take down all of the strangers if needed. The Team Leader then raised his hand, palm out, and silently switched the gesture to point ahead with two fingers, moving forwards prudently in a crouch as the soldiers followed on his footsteps.

The Predators were silent like Death itself, and the Active-Camouflage of their uniforms greatly helped in making them nearly invisible as they moved across the desert of ruins like chameleon, taking on the color of the rubble around them.

When the beaten-up, exhaust locals noticed the presence of the Predators in front of them, the distance was perhaps as small as 20 feet away: the Predators had their rifles at the ready, but to look less menacing, they were keeping them at the chest, eye away from the sights. It was only an illusion, though: every rifle-sight had a built-in camera linked to the visor of the helmet, and every Predator was using this to aim in the head of the strangers. They did not need to physically get their eye to the scope to aim: a small pop-up projected image on their visor made up for that.

"Friends!" The Team Leader immediately clearly stated, rising his rifle over his head and rising his other palm to show that he had no hostile intentions, eyeing with attention every move of the twenty or so desperate survivors he was facing: all of them looked shocked by the sudden apparition of a small number of heavily-armed and well equipped troopers, and some had instinctively brought their rifles up to the shoulder, and their trembling fingers resting uncertainly on the triggers were not a nice and reassuring sight.

"First Regiment, First Predators Division, Northern Empire's Army." The Team Leader explained calmly. "You should have been warned of our presence in the area."

"We were." One of the beaten-up survivors answered neutrally: his voice wasn't friendly, and definitely showed no happiness at their presence, but at least he signaled the others to lower their weapons.

Everyone quickly complied, especially when two more Predators popped up from the empty frame of a shattered door behind them, walking calmly up to the rear of their formation: it caused some of the survivors to instinctively group up, massing together as they stared at the newcomers with a mix of fear and amazement. It did not help that the survivors, mostly wolves and a couple of deer, were all around the six-feet of height, while the Predators were all well over 8 feet tall, with the Team Leader being 10 feet no less, and towering over them by a good bit even when crouching.

The effect, on those poor, exhausted soldiers that had barely escaped a cruel, violent death in their last fight, which had left them bloody and beaten and wounded, was incredible: it was fearsome to face those powerful giants and their advanced, enormous weapons. It was clear that engaging them would have been simply suicidal... But their fear, not gone yet, was to be attacked themselves.

"We have been told that a division of foreign troopers would come to fight the demonic invasion." The survivor continued, rather cold in the tone of his voice, but careful in not sounding hostile to the giant, armor-clad tigers standing before him.

The Team Leader gritted his fangs a bit into his mouth, but refused to comment or add anything at all: on a side, he was more than just irritated by the cold way he and his men were welcomed, like they were just an added nuisance, or a useless burden. He was furious to be treated that way, when he and his men were risking their lives to save them all... And definitely, it should have been the Predators to talk with complain to the locals: the locals were the useless burden, not the other way around.

But he had the patience and cool blood to keep quiet and ignore the provocation... and he also avoided to answer to the unexpressed question in the survivor's words: it had been pretty clear that he was curious to know more about where the Predators were, and what they were doing and a lot of other info. He was asking either for simple, bugging curiosity, or for more dangerous reasons, the Leader did not know. But for sure, he was not going to put the mission and the lives of his comrades at risk to satisfy the questions of such a little, arrogant prick.

"I'm speaking to...?" The Leader asked without emotions, and the wolf looked up at him with a bit of a glare, like he reputed that the Predator had either no right to know, or had the obligation to know it in advance. Most likely, he was angry for not getting any information from the silent, professional huge tigers.

"Mark Wit, Sergeant, 52° Infantry Division, nation of Dacca." The wolf proudly stated, like he was part of gods-knew what kind of elite... that struggled with the way they had been fleeing, and in such dire conditions. They came from a vicious, humiliating defeat... but still this officer was dripping pride all over the place. Even his men looked quite horrified of it, and the Leader grinned slightly inside his helmet at the eloquent looks he saw being exchanged between the survivors.

"What did reduce you in this... state?" The Leader inquired, and the officer for the first time did betray true terror as his eyes widened and he gaped stupidly, mouthing silent words for a long moment, before he let out in hoarse voice: "Demons..."

"Yes." The Team Leader replied calmly, but he sighed impatiently within himself. This was actually evident. I hoped to know something more accurate. You know, a little bit of useful info...

"Anyway, I see you have an injured in serious conditions, there. We'll have him evacuated to our Forward Operating Base, and you can go with him." The Team Leader announced, and he turned away from the shocked officer before he could argue something about his leadership being overtaken, as his expression suggested he would have liked to do. The Predators leader instead looked to the middle of the road and reached a finger up for a button on his wrist-mounted mini-computer to call in a MULE drone.

They had been able to bring with them only a few of the useful robot-vehicles, unfortunately... He would have loved to have one in Warfighting configuration to send down the street scouting ahead of his soldiers, but the only two available for that role were being used in areas of the town where the danger was higher. He could still have access to a flat-bed transport MULE, which was also equipped for fast Casualty-Evacuation (CASEVAC) role. He called this in, designating the area where he wanted it to show up...

And soon, little time after they had taken on a defensive formation around the stretcher with the injured man, the drone came in with its quiet, almost-imperceptible buzz as its electric engine propelled it, its wide rubber-made tracks climbing even the worst mountains of rubble and ruins as the MULE swiftly reached the spot assigned to it.

It was a flat-top vehicle, with solar panels covering part of the surface of the flatbed on top: a stretcher was solidly attached on a side, ready to take on board the casualty to evacuate, while the other side was covered with boxes of ammo, the huge rucksacks of kit of the men of the Section and a few anti-tank single-use rocket launchers at the ready in a rack. On the front of the vehicle, a large unmanned turret topped by a large thermal camera attached to a menacing heavy machine gun was ready to engage automatically any recognized threat.

The survivors looked at this with surprise and genuine interest, but they quickly switched back their attention to their injured comrade as two bulky, huge Predators walked in to lift him up and move him to the stretcher of the MULE.

The officer gave a bit of a hostile look to them and grumbled something under his breath, but the other survivors quickly stood up and helped moving their comrade.

The other Predators stood in a circle around the MULE, ready to defend the evacuation, as the Team Leader helped the survivors pushing gently the unfortunate soldier from the rude, makeshift stretcher to the medical post on the drone: he was admittedly horrified when the dirty, bloody cloth that had been covering the injured as a blanket fell off and showed that the soldier had no legs anymore, but under his waist he had been horrendously torn apart.

He stared at this in a mix of horror and deep, sincere sorrow, trying to ignore the shrieks of agony of the poor wolf, before the survivor at his side nudged him quietly.

"Pardon my sergeant, but he's always been a prick... and he's shocked, now, so he's all but gotten worse."

The Team Leader looked to the side quietly, surprised, but not even so much. He could guess that those boys had had a few terrible days, lately, from when their area had been invaded by demons on a rampage that, differently from the routine, were massacring people and smashing things to bits from more than four days in a row by now.

"I can understand. But I'd like to know what lies ahead of us down the road... you know, I have my own soldiers to take care of, in the best way I can." The Leader said calmly, keeping his own voice low and confidential as they carefully strapped the injured in.

"Perfectly correct, Sir." The beaten-up deer agreed. "A mile down the street, you'll meet the thick of the current battle. We were a whole battalion at the start of this mess, Sir... now, we are all what's left of 150 good soldiers."

The soldier paused a moment, looking down sadly to the ground, and the Leader grimaced inside the helmet as well, trying to grasp the full concept of such horrendous loses: no one of 150 soldiers of the unit had been left untouched... and perhaps only 18 would have survived their wounds. It was terrible... And perhaps, there were units which had suffered an even worst fate, and others were being slaughtered right in that same moment, judging from the loud noise of battling coming from ahead them.

"We were stormed upon by thousands of Plasmids... they popped out of a Crack in the square, in the middle of our positions... and they so many that we had no other chance than to call in the air support and have the planes pouring down napalm and bombs onto our own positions." The deer said tiredly, and the Team Leader made a grimace into his mask, thinking about how many of their own they had been forced to sacrifice under the rain of fire, to be able to escape being literally crushed by the sheer numbers of the Plasmids and eaten alive... Plasmids were the weakest of lesser demons, but they came in such numbers that they could easily be far more than a simple nuisance, especially if they could find a way to surge directly into your positions.

"Later, we had to deal with mostly anything... Incubi, Samanhi and Gigataurs as well. We've managed to keep the Incubi and Samanhi under control, but the Gigataurs tore our ranks apart, and they are still rampaging in the centre of the town."

"Gigataurs. That will require some heavy artillery support. We're going to merely tickle them, with bullets..." The Team Leader observed calmly, more to himself than anything else, as he browsed through the pages of the network thanks to the buttons on his wrist-computer, until the map on his visor showed the availability of a few Smartfire missile-launcher modules, placed outside town. Exactly what they would need very soon.

"Sir, the biggest problem is... a creature we don't really know." The exhaust deer added, as he sat down tiredly on the MULE, near the stretcher with the leg-less comrade. The Team Leader turned to look at him with renewed interest, and the soldier made a bit of a grimace as he nodded. "We don't know what it is. It looks... like... a gargantuan Gigataur, physically, but it is more like a horned wolf. Someone here suggested calling it a werewolf..." The soldier paused, then looked up to the full moon that shined in the dark sky above, staring at it silently with the only eye left on his face, since the other one was mostly destroyed, with blood streaking down his face. "Once I would have said that it was a demented assumption... But now? Now I could believe to anything... And the moon is there."

"Indeed." The Team Leader agreed. "What's the problem with this... werewolf...?"

The deer looked back at the Predator silently, and made a grimace before spitting out: "It is invincible, that's it. No matter how much we damaged it, it heals at obscene speed... And it keeps growing bigger as well. It was bigger than Gigataurs to start with, and stronger as well... And yet it keeps growing. It is totally out of control, and it is smashing everything to dust."

"Hell. We may have to call Lord Wyvern in, then... If missiles are not going to work, we'll have to step aside and let him do." The Team Leader mumbled, and he reached up for the buttons of the wrist-computer to send out a pre-alert and a first, fast report. He hated calling in help before even stepping into the battle, but it was the order of Killer: sent out a warning as soon as you catch signs of troubles.

If the werewolf was going to prove itself truly so complex to bring down, the Predators would have confirmed their request, and Killer and Alexis would have come as soon as possible to fix things up.

"Wyvern is... is here...?" The beaten-up deer asked incredulously, staring to the Predator officer in a mix of awe and fear, and the Leader nodded with a bit of a grin.

"He's somewhere around town kicking demon's asses. But he's ordered to call him in at anytime to take care of the harder demons." The Team Leader answered, and then he moved away from the MULE, ignoring the somehow-happy look of the wounded deer, who had brightened up visibly at the news.

"Come on lads, we are moving!" The officer snapped, and the Predators stood up and quickly readied for the march, while the survivors grouped up around the MULE, and several of the worst-wounded and beaten soldiers climbed up to sit all over it, wherever it was possible.

The Predators quickly went to the drone, one by one, to retrieve from the rucksacks and crates the ammo they needed, and then the drone finally moved back towards the Forward Operating Base just outside town, moving at a pace that the survivors could keep up with.

Their war was hopefully over.

The Predators' one was just starting.

"A werewolf...?" Killer asked curiously, arching an eyebrow inquiringly. "Now, that's new stuff."

The huge male was awkwardly sitting inside the troop-compartment of a Centurion IFV, and it wasn't a comfy ride in the slightest: if the Predators could complain about sitting tightly shoulder-to-shoulder in the foldable, blast-resistant hanging seats of the armored vehicle, Killer simply did not really fit inside the tank.

He was bent forwards to fit in the low room, his head still brushing the roof, and his legs ached, begging for stretching space. Alexis wasn't really enjoying the ride herself, tall as she was, but she was at least still far lither than the bulky, muscular male, who was awkwardly sitting on two seats at a time.

"We don't know if it has any relation with the werewolves of the ancient beliefs, but that's what it resembles, at least if we believe to the reports coming in." Siegfried answered calmly from where he was sitting, with far more measured discomfort, on the other side of Killer. "The problem is that it won't die. They've been using anti-tank missiles to wound it, and managed to tear an arm off it... But it only popped out a new one a couple of seconds later. It keeps growing bigger, and it is kicking their asses all over the place."

"Well, it won't kick asses for much longer, whatever it is." Alexis ensured, as she absently ran a finger down the blade of Blue Vixen. "It may be feed by the energy of a crystal, like that bastard in Glacial... Or perhaps it is just dripping with healing magic or some other nonsense. But we'll deal it enough damage that it won't be able to patch itself back in one piece."

Killer nodded, giving a bit of an agreeable grunt, even as he recalled how complex it had been to take down the last of the Winged Commanders of the RA until they had discovered its source of energy... Its unique weak point. We could have pounded him forever, but only smashing that damn piece of glass to bits we managed to kill him.

"You know what it takes to kill a werewolf...?" Siegfried asked calmly, leaning back in his seat with a bit of a smile as he looked upon his Desert Storm handgun: he had welcomed Alexis's suggestion, and now the massive pistol was a lucid silver, with a naked, beautiful girl etched on the side of the barrel, depicted as she lay on her side welcomingly.

Alexis grinned a bit as she caught sight of that detail. "You could have bigger boobs on her."

Siegfried blinked, and then looked at her flatly for a moment. "People does not believe that boobs like yours can exist, until they see em', you know. They would have called me a tits-pervert if I were to etch you on my gun. And they wouldn't have believed without seeing you."

"I suppose so." Alexis replied airily, grinning cheerfully and giving him a teasing wink, to which Siegfried answered with a little smile.

"I did pose a smart question, however, before this." He pointed out, and Killer tilted his head curiously as Siegfried took on his usual teacher-like posture. It wasn't a true question, it was just its way to introduce another one lesson of his own.

"It takes silver weapons."

"Oh, come on...!" Killer grumbled, crossing his huge arms on his chest and letting out a grunt. "I can't believe I'm hearing this. I can't believe I'm running a war taking into account frigging myths, drunk-dude's tales and fantasy movies! It is absurd!"

"Do you ever realize how absurd your strength is...?" Siegfried asked flatly, but he was almost grinning with amusement. "And how absurd is what we are already living and facing and what we are fighting...?"

Killer snorted, but he fell silent, admitting that he had been forced to drop many, too many beliefs already... and simultaneously forced to accept as truth concepts and beings and laws of the world that he had always treated like fantasies. In his cold, logic even if often impulsive nature, he had always refused to blindly believe to religions, that he had always hated and considered a mere conspiracy to keep a lot of people living in the luxury while doing next to nothing, exploiting people's stupidity. Goddamn priests...

Besides, in his cold vision of the world, shaped by the iron and fire of the war that he had first experienced when he was still a cub, the churches, of any kind they were, had always been reactionary, obscurantist entities which all but tried to keep people stupid. Because stupid people is so much easier to control and exploit.

And last, he had learned from History that the religions, the belief in the gods, the pursuing of supernatural powers, had been the greatest causes of conflict between the populations: uncountable wars had their roots in religions and beliefs, and no disaster, no tyrant, no epidemic had caused as many deaths and as much sufferance as religion.

And now, piece by piece, his certainties were being dismantled... And much as he still struggled to accept some revelations, he was being forced back, away from his previous positions. And he had to admit that Siegfried could have easily been right, for how things had been going lately.

"So, this damn wolf-on-steroids will go down only if we hit it with silver...?" Killer asked, and he couldn't avoid some venomous irony to drip into his tone, despite all. Siegfried, however, seemed to miss that detail, and only nodded slightly as he bent forwards to retrieve something from under the seat.

"It is a possibility. I'm not saying it will work. But it could." The tiger explained calmly, and when he straightened up, Killer recognized three long, sheathed Katana swords in his arms. "As leader of the Demon Slayer teams, I'm trying to do the work you've given me... Read into the ancient history and beliefs, and try to prepare our men for the challenges ahead."

Siegfried dropped two of the swords in his lap, and drew the third out of the sheath with a swift gesture worth of a samurai, glancing proudly over the long blade as it gleamed in the soft light inside the vehicle. Siegfried was an excellent blacksmith, a truly capable one. The fact that it was merely a hobby for him merely meant that there were too few of his precious creations to equip more than just the family members and a few of the most valuable and valiant officers of the armed forces. He had started learning the art of forging and shaping the metals years before, when he was little more than a cub, and he had been an eager, constant and profitable pupil for the blacksmiths that had taught him. He was too measured and honest to vaunt his ability with people, but Killer knew well how ridiculously proud Siegfried was of his blacksmithing: he still preserved like a treasure the first large nail he had personally shaped, and he had a room back at home in Kesteven where he collected "his treasures", the swords and weapons and armors he shaped for himself.

He had personally etched the beautiful females that now decorated his handgun, and he had forged personally the perfect, refined Katana swords, just as he had much earlier shaped the twin cleaver-sword he always used in battle.

And the blade of a Katana was a miracle of blacksmithing art that Killer could only admire: the steel alloys, manually bent over 5000 times to be compressed together and shaped in such incredible cutting edges, the curve of the sword... Kesteven had always been famous for its blacksmiths, but Killer had to admit that the last "artist of the steel" that had been able to vaunt abilities superior to Siegfried's had to be the one that centuries before had forged Wyvern.

And this is saying a lot.

"I shaped these three some time ago, using silver... I thought they may have been useful one day, soon or later, with all the weird things that were popping up... Werewolves are very common creatures in the ancient myths, and I thought there had to be a reason of some sort." Siegfried stated with a little smile, angling the katana under the light to admire the way the blade shined in so many different glows. Killer had never seen a blade so lucid and luminous as that one.

"At the worst, they would have been awesome weapons to parade around anyway." Siegfried concluded before handing the sword out to Alexis, who eyed the blade with genuine amazement before handing it to Killer.

The huge male was tempted to run a thumb down the edge of the blade, but he realized that, if he wanted to conserve his fingers, it was better not to try. The blade was clearly deadly like nothing else he had ever seen...

He seized the blade in a hand, but wrapped his fingers carefully around the spine of the sword, avoiding the mortal edge like he would have avoided a minefield, and he leaned his thumb idly against the side-face of the blade.

There's definitely silver in here... this sword is light and agile, almost like it was completely weight-less. And the silver explains why the blade shines this much...

"But bro, silver is a stupid material for a blade. It is good for jewels, but it is too weak and soft for making weapons with it, come on...!" Killer observed, and he idly pushed his thumb forwards against the sword.

He winched and made a grimace as he saw the blade bending under his force, and immediately he was almost deafened by Siegfried's howl as he leaned over Alexis's lap and tore the katana out of his hands.

"You... you... frigging vandal!" Siegfried shouted, and Killer leaned away from him, raising his hands towards him as he smiled stupidly and shook his head quickly.

"Didn't want to do that! I swear!" Killer winced, and then he rubbed a hand slowly in his mane, looking to Siegfried nervously as the younger liger glared up at him.

"Huh... Forgive me...?" Killer asked temptatively, smiling stupidly, and Siegfried rolled his eyes with a snort before carefully grabbing the spine of the blade with both hands and bending it back to its original form with a loud grunt, muscles bulging with the effort as he gritted his fangs and called in his own formidable force.

"You frigging moron!" He snapped, grumbling a few curses under his breath. "Wanting to teach me how you blacksmith, goddamn it! This is not pure silver, obviously! It is an alloy that I had to come up with, inclusive of an as large amount of silver as it could be managed! And it is hard like hell, too! You are tricked by your strength, as always! The fact you can lift a fucking battleship single-handedly doesn't make the warship "light", you know! You always have to smash apart everything you touch...?"

Killer curled up a bit in his corner, making a grimace like a child caught being naughty, and Alexis traded with him a wince as Siegfried mumbled something else while looking in horror down the sacrileged katana.

"It will never be the same again..." The blacksmith told with resigned voice, before glaring back to Killer a bit, snorting as the huge liger looked back with a "please forgive me" face. "You know what, it's yours. Keep it. And blame yourself for its lost perfection."

Killer blinked in surprise as the sheathed katana was bad-temperedly showed in his arms, and he turned to trade a gaze with Alexis, who shrugged with a little smile.

"Well, it went nicely." Killer observed mildly. "He didn't decapitate me."

"Very funny." Siegfried grumbled from where he was grudgingly seating, even as he handed another katana to Alexis. "You don't know how much I wish to do it, right now."

The Gigataur stomped over the wreck of a car with a snort of steam from its large nostrils, the steel-wrapped hoof of his foot crashing through the roof of the vehicle as it was stamped down flat, and the 30-feet demonic bull grinned cruelly as it swung down the massive sledgehammer he handled in his large hands.

The Predator winced, looking out of his cracked visor as he scrambled backwards on the rubble-covered street, kicking hard but trembling hard and feeling like he was motionless.

His hand trembled on the grip of the rifle, and he squeezed the trigger desperately, until the rifle clicked dry... But he had no more super shotgun shells, and the armor-piercing bullets that so awesomely worked to knock flat soldiers wearing the most modern bullet-proof jackets hadn't enough power to truly damage the muscular giant advancing towards him.

The swallow wounds they inflicted only made the gigantic bull bellow angrily and glare down at him with even greater hatred.

The Predator saw the immense sledgehammer fall, and he stared at it like he had been hypnotized, condemned to be stamped into a bloody stain on the floor... But his moment hadn't yet come, and an anti-tank rocket sailed in above his head, smashing into the demonic bull and exploding.

The Predator was quick, despite the horror, at kicking into the ground to roll on his side and slid away to safety, grunting as the earth beneath shook with the impact of the gigantic hammer and the Gigataur howled out in agony.

The creature stumbled backwards a couple of step, crashing across a wall like it was a sheet of paper, and it screamed its agony out as one of his huge, muscular arms hang from a tearing link of muscle and skin, his shoulder nearly obliterated and the arm almost completely torn off.

Still, the Gigataur snarled in a mix of agony and fury and charged forth towards the Predator on the ground, raising up the huge hand left to punch down into the far-smaller tiger, and a barrage of grenades came in, smashing again and again into the demon until the giant crashed backwards on the street, laying still on its back, its front completely destroyed by the explosions.

The Predator jumped up to his feet and changed magazine to his rifle with moves that were as rapid as they were shaky and hurried up by the adrenaline and the terror, as he looked back to see his comrade standing on a pile of rubble, the six-barreled grenade launcher/rifle still smoking slightly.

He was so shaken he couldn't really manage to perform even the simplest of grateful gestures... But there was no time for it anyway, since the Grenadier had to leap quickly away to safety before a wrecked bus crashed down onto the mountain of ruins and bounced back up in the air before finally crashing across a building and stopping, half-in and half-out of the destroyed house.

The Gigataurs were bad, but the "Werewolf" was a whole different kind of nasty: it had enough strength to pick up a full size bus with a hand and throw it at them like it was a tennis ball... And it was practically invulnerable to anything: the anti-tank rockets did deal to it some very nasty wounds and damages, but not enough to knock him over... and in a few short moments even the worst of disablements would heal without leaving sign.

The square of the town was a true Hell... everything had been mashed up and destroyed, and now it looked like moonscape, craters and ruins and flames everywhere. Corpses and shattered vehicles littered the ground, and the battle - better, the massacre - was still raging between the few Gigataurs left, the Predators sections that had been running here from all around town on emergency call, the local troops and, last but worse, the gigantic, 50-foot monstrosity that had been dubbed "Werewolf".

Difficult to tell what it was, actually... its form was warped, and if earlier its muzzle had resembled a wolf's one, now it already was deformed enough that the Team Leader wouldn't have called the demon a wolf.

It simply was a monster, which grew bigger and stronger as the minutes passed and he smashed things and people apart in blind, unrestrained fury. It walked on curved, powerful legs ending in 3-digits feet with enormous, cruel talons which pierced into the concrete and asphalt like into soft sand, and the beast hunched forwards like its enormous, too-long arms were too heavy for his frame.

The sexless creature was deformed by its own too-big musculature: huge, powerful bulging muscles that looked impossible and distorted its proportions, so much that the black fur covering the beast was stretched apart in bushes separated by ample parts of exposed, stretched skin. Twisted, branch-like horns topped its head, new and new ramifications growing from them as drool fell from its muzzle, forced always open by curved, enormous fangs.

Its eyes glowed a dull white full of fury, and bare of any intelligence or interest for the world around it... The beast's purpose was just to smash things to bits, and nothing more.

The Werewolf had clearly been the worst problem from the start of the massacre: the wrecked, crushed tanks and self-propelled artillery guns were a proof of it. The Gigataurs were certainly almost unstoppable creatures, and they had massacred the Dacca's infantry easily... But the heavy artillery had still chances, and the massive firepower of big-caliber howitzer had somehow kept them at bay.

The Werewolf, instead, had walked even across the artillery fire, and torn the Dacca ranks apart without the mortal soldiers having a single chance to survive.

The Team Leader had ordered his Section not to engage with the Werewolf. To stay away from it as much as possible, and had immediately confirmed the need for Wyvern to come and take care of it personally.

There was no mortal weapon, save perhaps - perhaps! - a nuke, that could stop that goddamn creature, and the worst fact was that it evidently continued to grow and mutate, drawing energy and demonic corruption from the very same "Crack" - so Killer calls them... - that had allowed the demons to surge up from Hell in the first place.

It looked like a massive scar on the surface of the earth, and it glowed a vicious red light from the depths of the Underworld... But it also dripped with a black goo that scared the Predators deeply. In fact, that fluid seemed to corrupt and mutate in abominations of all sorts everything it touched. And probably, it supplied an immense amount of energy to the "wolf".

The Team Leader looked down the sight of his rifle, and framed a Gigataur as it bent down to grab a four-wheel armored personal carrier, lifting it up over his head and throwing it forth towards a group of local soldiers who shrieked in terror and ran away in every direction... and he quickly pressed a button on the side of the weapon after planting the red-dot of the CQC sight on the demonic bull.

Outside town, an innocent looking, massive crate received the signal via satellite data link and one of the vertical launch canisters that made up the pallet ejected a missile, throwing it one hundred feet into the air thanks to a jet of compressed gas.

Mobile fins on the missile's body and a system of small air-thrusters set the missile on the general direction of the target and in the same moment the main rocket engine ignited, shooting the weapon towards its objective.

It flew rapidly on a pre-programmed path, so to avoid areas of the sky that were being traveled across by friendly planes and choppers and ensure that no accident could happen, and it dived down towards the Gigataur after less than a minute from launch.

The Team Leader had only needed to keep the target framed... and now, he could search another enemy to hit as the missile acquired the Gigataur with its own on-board seeker and then hit, exploding and tearing the demon apart, splattering pieces of it all around in a horrible rain of blood and gore.

Ken, looking down the scope of his sniper rifle, was doing the exact same kind of thing... It was the safest and fastest way to get rid of the Gigataurs left on the battlefield.

God bless the Smartfire missile launchers!

"Werewolf incoming, 1-1-5" Ken coldly announced on the radio: basic rule of the walking dead men, to tell the rest of the team what's killing you. "Changing position!"

The sniper slid backwards on top of the pile of rubble he had been hiding upon, and quickly rolled on himself to vanish behind it, folding in the same move the "Death Cloak" camouflaging cloth that had been covering him entirely before sprinting down the destroyed street to roll into the smashed wall of an abandoned house.

A second later, a slight blurr could be noticed at a window... but it was a moment, before it quieted and became completely invisible.

The rest of the Predators also quickly moved away from the area as the gigantic monster stomped towards them with a roar, drool dripping from his gaping jaws. Several Dacca soldiers still hadn't learnt their lessons, however, and were not lucid enough to simply break contact and retreat in good order: four of them were locked in place, like hypnotized by the advancing giant.

The werewolf noticed the four small creatures around his foot, snorting as they uselessly fired at him, bullets bouncing off harmlessly, incapable to pierce into its corrupted, powerful body, and he let out a roar of tremendous, cruel hunger as he turned towards them and lashed out a fist.

It smashed into two of the soldiers, knocking them into the ground with a splatter of red gore and pieces of bones that spurted up to the first floor of the nearby buildings, before the werewolf's gigantic fist crashed into the block of flats and smashed it down like a paper castle, the walls exploding in dust and pieces of bricks under his blow.

The soldiers all around the square shrieked and turned to run away, but one of them was not fast enough, and the demonic monster stomped a gigantic foot over him, crushing the unfortunate into the asphalt like a bug.

The wolf howled in merciless satisfaction, and he twisted his paw on the ground, completely destroying the soldier as blood sprayed up from around the giant's toes, before the asphalt itself cracked and sunk under the pressure, creating a deep, paw-shaped crater.

The Predators looked at this in horror, calling in other strikes of Smartfire missiles as the werewolf noticed a battle tank speeding off from the battle and seemed to grin, growling as it savagely charged across a three-store buildings, going through it like it was brushing branches of a bush apart.

The tank made a steep turn and speeded past, trying to escape as the turret simultaneously trialed in and fired its long, huge gun at the drooling monster.

The explosion dug a gaping, bleeding hole in the werewolf's chest, knocking him backwards with a brief snarl of agony... but the wound merely dripped streams of that black, horrible goo that the Predators already had noticed, and the damage immediately begun to seal itself up, new and even stronger, thicker fibers of muscle developing in front of their astonished gazes.

Three more missiles, coming from the Smartfire pallets outside town, found their target and smashed into the werewolf's enormous body, exploding with cruel, furious force and ripping holes in his torso, from side to side, back to front: the slivers drew wicked slashes all over his form, and he let out a howl of agony as he fell backwards and collapsed atop the ruins of a block of flats.

The Dacca-signed battle tank stopped, turned rapidly on the spot and trailed its gun back on the agonizing monster, firing at it again, and some of the soldiers stopped around the enormous vehicle to add their own fire as they inflicted the last, decisive blow...

"Idiots!" Ken spat out, and the radio filled with the shock and horror of the Predators as the Team Leader stared at the scene with gaping mouth, horrified, and yet trying to find a way to quickly communicate with those stupid, deluded soldiers, to tell them to flee and exploit the little time they had...

But he knew he had no way to contact them. And the little time available was over already.

The werewolf moved, stomped a paw down with a howl of fury, and the smartest between the soldiers resumed their escaping immediately, a moment before the gigantic monster pushed back up on its feet with a blow of his back, the earth trembling beneath him as he jumped up and then leaped forwards for the tank.

The vehicle screeched backwards on its tracks in a desperate retreat, all but smashing into a couple of soldiers and crushing them to a past under its tracks, headless of the shrieks of torturous agony and of the way every scream abruptly ended...

And then the hand of the werewolf grabbed the long cannon sticking from the tank's turret, and the wolf roared in victory as he effortlessly lifted the tank up and used it like a gigantic hammer to stamp several soldiers into stains of gore on the broken asphalt, before throwing the immense vehicle away like a baseball.

"Down!" The Team Leader shouted, and the Predators dived forth to lay down on their front, arms protecting and covering their heads instinctively, even if they knew well that there was no way in hell to survive the impact of a main battle tank falling over them from the sky.

The Team Leader dared to open an eye a bit, staring ahead in terror to see the tank smashing onto the earth with its heavily-armored front, sending an earthquake shaking the whole street as it absurdly bounced back up with a groan of bent metal, flipping over the terrorized, shrieking Predators and crashing on its side behind their backs.

"Thank you fucking god! Thank you fucking gods! Thank you everyone! Thank you thank you thank you!" Ken stupidly howled out, turning in shock to see the massive tank stopping absurdly in the middle of its second bounce.

He noticed almost in the same time a Centurion IFV with the rear ramp lowered standing in stand-by nearby, and he immediately, instinctively knew who he was going to see when the wrecked, unrecognizable mass of metal that had been a battle tank was hurled bad-temperedly off to the side.

Alexis snorted, throwing steam out of her nostrils even as she grinned cheerfully, throwing the massive tank off to the opposite side of the street, clearing her path with a flex of her mighty musculature.

Killer followed slightly behind her, to her right, the crimson blade of Wyvern balanced idly on his shoulder as he looked out to the tank with a grin, but no surprise at all for Alexis's crushing strength: he could see where her hands had grabbed the massive vehicle and stopped it in midair. The steel was contorted and twisted like a miserable cloth.

Siegfried followed a further bit behind, his twin, long cleavers drawn out and held point down, out to either side of him as they advanced down the street jammed by corpses and ruins.

"What a big, fugly ass!" Alexis snorted amusedly, grinning a bit as she looked coldly over the rampaging Werewolf ahead. "This may finally give even you a bit of a serious workout." She added, tilting her head towards Killer with a teasing lick of her lips, a mischievous gleam in her eyes before she reached a gloved hand up to draw Blue Vixen from the sheath on her back.

"Let's make it fast, possibly." Killer stated simply, glaring a bit over the demonic, drooling creature. "There are better ways to spend time than slaughtering drooling beasts."

"You bet. Seeing how many different positions I can assume while riding your big cock is one." Alexis cheerfully agreed, giving a slight nod as she grinned widely, walking past Ken with a teasing wink.

The fellow sniper, less used to assist in first person to the stunts of strength of the femme fatale, had been left astonished by seeing her behind the tank: he had definitely expected to see Killer in her place.

"Never make bets with me, baby." Alexis said, grinning widely as she mimicked a pistol with her fingers and idly aimed it in Ken's direction. "You'd lose em'."

"I'll attack... him...? Her? Whatever... I'll smash at it right away, from the front, and I'll try to deal it the greatest possible damage in the shortest possible time. Cold, you can come with me." Killer stated calmly, lashing Wyvern idly out to the side a couple of times, trying a balance with the blade that years of symbiotic existence had made natural enough to be a part of his being. Wyvern was another limb of his body, which he had total control upon.

Siegfried nodded, coldly and professionally. "With you, brother."

"Yeah, kill em' all, baby." Alexis agreed with a wide grin. "I'll draw his attention on me. I'm gonna give him a wicked headache that he'll never forget."

Alexis held out her free, open palm, and both males slammed their own on hers as they exclaimed: "Today is a good day to die!"

"For them." Alexis added.

The femme fatale grinned and sprinted forth with blazing speed, leaping high up into the air and slamming her feet out against the facade of a building to shot up even higher, grinning as she squared Blue Vixen down and squeezed the trigger, emptying the clip in a long burst and looking on the explosions of smoke and blood and black goo that climbed up from the nape of the neck of the monster all the way to cracking open its skull in a splatter of gore.

The massive werewolf turned stupidly back and looked up at her from eyes absurdly separated by a massive wound of exit of her bullets. Alexis grimaced at this as she quickly dived down over him to smash both feet into the creature's deformed mouth, grinning as his enormous, saber-like fangs cracked and shattered, pieces of tooth flying in all directions as the wolf howled in pain and slapped at the air with his gigantic hands.

Alexis leapt backwards after the kick, flaking back up into the air like a spring, her back arching as she sailed above the first angry punch of the beast, flipping backwards once and slamming her feet upwards into his other hand, grinning at the vicious crack that resounded in the air as the wolf's wrist shattered. She tilted her head to the side, and seized a clip of ammo from the ones secured around her bicep with her fangs, throwing the magazine high up in the air as she ejected the empty one from Blue Vixen.

It all happened in a blink time, but Killer could still stare at it with amazement: the empty clip falling, and Alexis's foot meeting it in midair with a vicious kick, sending the piece of steel shooting into the face of the wolf like a bullet. Her free hand diving for the holster at her hip, drawing out a Desert Storm and aiming it, the other arm slashing Blue Vixen in the air to meet the full clip as it fell back down turning rapidly on itself, the timing perfect to send the clip in place as she trailed the sword back on target and fired with both firearms, grinning ferociously.

An hurricane of bullets punched angrily into the wolf's devastated face, tearing its eyes out of a deformed skull that all but exploded in slivers of bone as Alexis trailed her fire downwards, obliterating entirely the werewolf's head and blowing massive holes in his enormous, muscular chest as she landed on her feet on top of the beast's hand to leap upwards in the sky again as the demon stomped all over the square, punching and slapping at the air desperately to hit her.

Alexis was an impossible target, however: the 50-foot giant smashed a punch into a ruined building, sending it collapsing in crumbs, but the femme fatale had already leapt off it to land on the beast's arm, grinning as she ran up it and swung Blue Vixen blade down, sinking the sapphire sword in the flesh and muscle and tearing the demon's arm surgically open as she dragged the sword forwards in her race, slicing his monstrous, out-of proportions bicep open.

She let the empty Desert Storm fall back into the holster and drew out the twin handgun from the other side, and fired all four barrels at once, aiming at the monstrous form of twisting, growing and pulsating flesh that was already growing up to form a new head to replace the destroyed one.

Every barrel was loaded with 10 stacked High-Explosive rounds, and all 40 were fired together in a tiny fraction of second, sending out such a thick mass of steel that it acted like a single, gigantic projectile, blowing everything on its path to pulp and gore, before Alexis leapt away, just in time to see the beast slap its own ravaged arm savagely.

"You are always late!" Alexis exclaimed, and the headless creature turned towards her voice, despite the fact that its chest ended in a bloody, devastated stump. Somehow, the lack of ears and eyes did not seem to affect the demon too much.

"This perhaps will wake you up!" The femme fatale teased, and she held up her free palm, sapphire flames appearing over it... and suddenly, a massive arson of blue flames exploded into the linear slash that ripped the werewolf's arm open, consuming it as it tried to heal itself back in one piece.

The demon couldn't howl its pain out, but Killer could imagine it from the way the giant stumbled back and forth on the square, grabbing his own arm desperately and trying to suffocate the flames with his other hand. It did not work, and the wolf charged forth to attack Alexis, lashing out angry blows at the sky as the femme fatale leapt back and forth, from side to side, beating the creature down with every passage, and making it mad with impotence and fury as it tried vainly to chase for the far too fast female.

Killer and Siegfried traded a nod as they charged forwards, and Killer tilted his head to the side in a sharp gesture.

Siegfried nodded, and sprinted to the left quickly, leaping up over a crumbled building and then turning towards the giant's back.

Killer, on his part, charged straight at the werewolf's leg, and he winced as the gigantic beast moved in his hopeless chase for Alexis and nearly stomped over the liger. Wyvern gleamed as it slashed across the air, in a powerful upwards cut that bit into the thick, absurd muscle of the wolf's leg, chopping it and cutting straight across the thick bone with a loud crack before coming out of the other side.

The monster arched his back in agony, and stumbled in the middle of a step as its foot staid planted on the ground, severed from his leg just over the ankle, black goo and blood exploding from both sides of the cut, before Killer leapt up and pierced Wyvern straight forwards in the abdomen of the monster, sending the blade poking out of the other side with a roar.

Siegfried came in from the side, diving down from a tall building nearby, slashing his twin cleavers in a X that drew its form with two cruel, deep wounds crossing the back of the werewolf from shoulders to waist, the young tiger handing a moment from the handles of the swords pierced deep into the giant before kicking backwards into the air, flipping forwards once and ripping his blades out in the same swift movement just to stab both forwards again, piercing the wolf's torso from back to front with a snarl.

Killer roared as he dragged Wyvern upwards, huge muscles flexing and bulging as he cut the thick blade of Wyvern upwards, slicing the wolf's abdomen and chest open until the giant sword ripped free out of the stump of the monster's neck.

Yet, it was not enough, as a splatter of disgusting black goo erupted from the devastated body and new flesh, and new muscle immediately developed under their eyes, closing and healing the horrible gashes at impossible speed.

Siegfried could feel the pressure of the new, growing musculature sealing the slashes up and squeezing into his twin cleavers with such a force that he snarled and forcefully pulled them back out before the pressure could snap or bend the blades. Killer, from the other side, let out a roar as he slashed Wyvern to the left, in a wide downwards arc, before switching hand in a swift gesture and cutting down to the right, chopping the monster's arms off before kicking forwards into its devastated chest with both feet, flipping backward fluidly exploiting the momentum of his own potent attack and landing on his feet on the ground.

He grunted at the impact, and immediately looked up to commence another assault, but his eyes widened as twisting tentacles of muscle shot out from the healing-wounds of the werewolf and shot at him, wrapping around his thick form and squeezing viciously at his chest, forcing his arms to his sides with unbelievable force as he was dragged clear off the ground and pulled towards the gaping wounds in the beast's chest, where new flesh and new muscle was sealing the gash up, making it look like an horrible, deformed and warped mouth ready to swallow him whole.

He snarled as the tentacles squeezed even tighter around his frame, and he let out a groan as he felt his ribs crack, his hand spasming on the handle of Wyvern, that was growing heavy and difficult to hold as his arm was savagely compressed, a tentacle snaking around his thick, enormous bicep and squeezing into it like a massive, powerful serpent intent on shattering its prey's ribcage.

Shades of black surged in his view, turning to a red mist caused by his own blood compressed towards his head, and he roared out in a mix of agony and rage as he pushed his chest out and arched his potent back with a violent gesture, flexing every mighty muscle of his body, his musculature bulging against the tentacles with enough force and volume to snap several of them, sending pieces of twisting flesh flying in every direction as he immediately leapt away to safety, panting harshly as he landed in a crouch and glared up at the headless creature.

Killer looked up as he heard Siegfried's voice shouting, and the huge male saw another tangle of tentacle-like muscle fibers lashing across the air to throw Siegfried away like a baseball, sending the tiger smashing into the façade of a ruined building, smashing across its front wall like a bullet and vanishing in a cloud of dust and ruins as a couple of floors collapsed over him.

Killer snarled in rage at this, and he charged forwards like a fury, both hands grabbing Wyvern's handle as he prepared a vicious strike. But his eyes suddenly widened as another twisting mass of tentacles erupted from the severed leg of the wolf, most of them smashing into the ground to act as the feet they were going to regenerate, but some whipping at the air in vicious slashes towards him.

The liger sidestepped a first stab, and Wyvern rose in a arc to cut in half several more of the nasty appendages before he half-turned on the spot as he ran forwards, letting three more tentacles shooting past his side, before he dropped on his back in a slide on the ground as six or more twisting muscular fibers the size of anacondas shot forth like a massive spear, letting them sail above him with a wince as he slid forwards on his muscular back.

Killer grinned when he found himself between the two enormous legs of the demonic monster, and slammed his hands down into the ground with a grunt to donkey-kick the werewolf at the exposed, sexless crotch with all the power he could muster.

The giant was thrown clear off the ground, and it flew across the air to crash like a meteor into the façade of an abandoned building, crushing it to bits under its weight as the demon collapsed with a spasm of silent agony.

Alexis dived in from high up into the air, letting out a roar of battle lust as she grabbed the deformed mass of muscle and flesh that was growing into a new arm and dragged it forwards over her shoulder, muscles bulging with might at the effort as she threw the giant monster up into the air and slammed it face-first down into the square, the 50-foot-plus monster crashing with a rumble of thunder and opening a crater in the ruined asphalt as it twitched in agony and staid still.

Siegfried, leaping out from the pile of rubble that had collapsed atop him, landed on top of the demonic monster and stabbed its torso with his cleavers, again and again and again, before leaping away, panting and dripping blood and black goo that he shook away from his body with a grimace of horror and distaste.

"Ok, it is pretty clear that we could cut it down to little cubes and make of him a snack, but it would still piece itself back together." Alexis observed calmly as she landed in a crouch near Killer, and the male grunted agreeably, looking over the demon as new limbs rapidly formed and new muscle filled the wounds, making him all but grow larger, taller and stronger.

"It is also tremendously dumb and primitive, but even his intelligence is growing by the minute." Alexis added coldly, looking briefly to the side only when Siegfried approached them, blood dripping from several gashes and minor wounds all over his muscular form.

"Either we find a way to deal it the ultimate damage it is not able to regenerate, or the fight we'll last days... And we will ultimately lose as he grows bigger and stronger, and we grow tired..." Alexis observed in a matter-of-fact voice, looking over the creature as it flexed the long, saber-like talons of a hand completely new, just reformed from raw flesh and muscle twisted together. "...and bored." She added with a grin, rolling her shoulders a bit. "He's not much in terms of workout. But he's going to get better very, very rapidly." She idly held up a palm, and a sphere of blazing sapphire energy emerged immediately, floating quietly above her hand before she threw it at the wolf with a contemptuous snort, grinning as the explosion obliterated the just-renewed arm and turned the left side of the demon to a paste of destroyed, mangled flesh.

"There are no crystals fueling him and his regeneration." Siegfried observed coldly. "We have stabbed, kicked and mashed up all of his body, and there's nothing inside him. We would have broken it to bits already, if there was."

Killer nodded, gritting his fangs a bit as he glared out to the demonic monster, Wyvern balanced on his shoulder, the Katana secured to the back of his belt, and a very serious question going on in his mind: how the hell do we kill this thing...?

The werewolf let out a roar that shock the ruins of the whole town, and the three warriors looked up with a grimace to see that it already had popped out a new head and regenerated its limbs. But as it pushed back up to its feet, Killer snarled at the sight of the demonic black goo that flowed out of the Crack in the middle of the square: it moved like it was alive, and it crawled in streams that looked like serpents to reach the gigantic demon and wrap around its body.

Alexis and Siegfried traded a nod with Killer and immediately spaced out, sprinting to opposite directions and facing the monster with their blades at the ready: the werewolf had grown even further, and it was now nearly 60 feet tall, a behemoth covered in massive, impossible and incredible muscles that deformed its shape and proportions even more, making it hunched and leaning on its enormous, abnormally-long arms. The alarming factor was that the black goo was covering him up entirely, climbing up his legs and slowly solidifying in place, to create a true, black and glass-like armor that protected its body, covering it in impenetrable armored plates.

Its new face was as warped and obscene as the precedent, the muzzle still lined with absurd, curved saber-like fangs that forced its mouth always open, and its eyes were still empty pits of light... But Alexis immediately noticed the expression in its glare, the sparkle of a growing intelligence and awareness. The werewolf was growing fast, not just in power and raw strength, but in smartness as well: it wasn't anymore a headless machine of destruction intent only on stomping and smashing everything to bits. He was going to be a far harder rival now... And with every moment that passed, it became harder still.

"This day you die, Lord Wyvern." The werewolf claimed, looking to the liger male with what was supposed to be a grin, and Killer snorted contemptuously.

"You even speak?" Killer teased, grinning slightly. "You are a little less dumb than I thought. Some more effort, and you'll level up to moron."

The werewolf looked a bit confused, but he carried on after a short pause: "Everyone will pay me. I bring you to Hell, and they honor me over every imagination."

"I like you more when you shut the hell up." Killer spat. "Always the same nonsense. You all seem to follow the same lines."

"Fantasy is in short supply, almost as he has short supply of sex. No dick, no boobs, no pussy, no ass." Alexis grinned, standing on top a single, solitary column, all what was left of a tall building facing the square, her strong arms crossed under her sumptuous bosom and glaring down at the wolf with predatory flames in her sapphire eyes. "You are, like, totally useless."

The werewolf turned to look up at her stupidly for a moment, and then he snarled, looking outraged.

"He did get it." Alexis observed calmly, grinning widely. "Amazing. It only took him a life or so."

The werewolf charged towards the column, and Alexis quickly drew her Desert Storm guns out, grinning as she crossed her arms and fired both weapons, blasting the monster's eyes out of the back of its head, sending the whole backside of its skull exploding in a rain of gore.

"No, no, no." Alexis teased, shaking her head slowly as she grinned over his dying assault run.

The werewolf twitched, then roared in fury and fired a beam of darkness in her direction, Alexis leaping high up to avoid it as it melted the column of reinforced concrete like butter, the wolf turning on the spot with a furious snarl as she spat the ray of energy out across the sky, from side to side, following the evolutions of Alexis as she danced back and forth with deadly grace, avoiding its attack and blasting Magnum rounds all over the wolf's body, digging bleeding craters in its form.

Killer charged forwards again, and he grinned as he slashed Wyvern around himself in a windmill, turning on its heel as he chopped both legs of the monster in half, jumping away from there just before the falling demon could breath its ray of darkness over him: the beam of demonic energy dug a gash in the ground across the whole square, cutting in half a damaged skyscraper with a surgically accurate wound, from roof to ground.

Killer met Siegfried in midair, the younger tiger heading in the different direction to make his own attack, and the huge male lashed Wyvern out, grinning as Siegfried stomped his feet on the flat of the blade and propelled himself in a faster dive, Killer turning on himself in midair to slash his gigantic sword and throw Siegfried forwards like a bullet.

The wolf, crawling on his arms, roared out another beam of darkness, but missed as Siegfried flew above it, twisting on his side in midair before landing atop the demon and slashing furiously at it with his twin cleavers, digging deep, horrible gashes all over its back.

The werewolf howled in outrage and agony and quickly rolled on his side to crush the tiger under its weight, but Siegfried leapt away rapidly, shouldering the cleavers with a snarl of frustration and drawing out the Katana at his belt, to lash out lightning-fast at the demon's arm.

The blade did show that Killer's concerns were unfounded, and that Siegfried's mastery in blacksmithing had only improved: the long, thin sword cut a surgical gash across the arm of the creature, and it did not chop it off just because Siegfried was too distant from the target already to cut it from front to back.

However, at the moment, no one noticed that minor event.

The Werewolf deafened the whole town with a roar of tremendous agony mixed to the most terrible of fury, and Siegfried and Killer were slammed away by a tremendous, invisible but solid force exploding out of the demonic monster: wind circled around it like an hurricane around its eye, growing faster and more and more wicked by the second, the tremendous shockwave of energy digging a circular crater that obliterated in an instant half of the town.

Killer grunted as he was thrown like a doll against the walls of a ruined building, smashing across bricks and concrete and passing the structure from side to side before crashing into a second block of flats with a groan, head pulsing with pain and his back cracking noisily as he stepped out of the liger-shaped crater left in the thick wall behind him, stepping forth in the tremendous, ever growing demonic wind, the energy in the air growing to such levels that electricity cracked noisily in flashes of blue light in the sky.

"No good." Alexis said calmly as she landed beside him, and he nodded with a grimace.

"No. Definitely no." The huge male agreed, and the werewolf, almost like he could hear them from so far away, jumped back up to all-new paws and arched his back in a howl of excitement at the new, immense power flowing in his expanding body. The black goo climbing up his legs had already turned into a solid armor, plates of which covered his legs entirely with black, glass-like brimstone, and already his chest was getting thickly armored as well.

"You can't go on forever, Lord Wyvern, and we both know it! Strong as you are, you'll grow tired... The time is on my side. I have all the time I need, to get stronger than you and kill you! It is just a matter of patience for me!" The Werewolf announced with a laughter, and the monster held his arms out and violently threw his hands up in a lifting gesture, grinning.

Alexis and Killer stared in horror as wrecks of cars, trucks, busses and tanks, even soldiers and combat vehicles were all lifted up in the air, floating absurdly in the sky around the wolf and beginning to circle in the hurricane that surrounded the monster with ever rising speed.

"Where are you, Lord Wyvern...?" The Werewolf teased, laughing maniacally. "Hiding from the weight of your responsibilities...?"

"Taking a break from your stupid babbling, actually." Killer replied coldly, standing on top of the damaged building, Wyvern held out in front of himself, Alexis standing at his side with her powerful arms idly crossed.

"Found." The Werewolf stated with a grin, and he threw his hands out before himself, open palms aimed at Killer: immediately, the immense fleet of tanks, trucks and cars and even people was shot at him like a burst of bullets from a machine gun, the shrieks of the people still alive being so mercilessly toyed with hurting the ears.

"I'm getting that people!" Alexis growled out, and she leapt up from the roof of the building to grab the first two persons that flaked by, by now hopeless and resigned to become stains of gore on the walls of a building. The femme fatale grabbed them unceremoniously for the arms and pulled both against her chest, both men hanging from her neck and soon a third holding on her waist for dear life as she slammed her feet into a flying car, warping the roof of it like paper as she leapt to the side to save the others.

Killer, instead, faced the attack with coldness: the first object that came at him was a deformed, damaged bus that had been twisted on itself like a wet cloth by the wolf's tremendous force. Wyvern flashed once in a hard forwards slash, and the vehicle was neatly cut in half, the two parts of it sailing past Killer out to both sides.

Several cars smashed into the buildings beneath his feet, and the liger growled coldly as he felt the structure shake and groan loudly, but Wyvern reached up with perfect timing to slash a wrecked tank apart, the turret sailing above the male's head as the body crashed into the building and ultimately forced the structure to surrender and collapse.

Killer leapt off it with a roar, gritting his fangs as he battered to the side more and more objects, from vans to wrecked, shattered cars, feeling the rubble and the pieces of steel sailing too close ripping gashes on his arms and legs, before he snarled and pulled his free hand up to blast out a tremendous beam of blinding, blazing golden light.

It was like the sun of moon dawning all of a sudden: the night turned day in one instant, luminous like the sun was shining from merely a hundred feet above earth, the light so intense that no shadow at all was left as the gleam hurt the eyes...

And whatever was on the path of the beam of immense energy was vaporized, obliterated entirely, like it had never existed: tanks, cars, rubble and wrecks... And ultimately, the beam of energy washed like water against the werewolf, electing from it a howl of agony as it fell to his knees and spasmed, everything that still was uncovered from the black armor melting away like butter on the fire.

But when, finally, the light died away and the darkness of the night slowly returned in, Killer could see the black, glass-like armor of the demonic monster still resisting, even if gleamed white because of the heat: smoke came from the space between a plate and another, where the flesh and muscle and bone had been completely obliterated... And, as an enclosed, medieval-like helmet took shape around the head of the wolf, the demon looked up with a high-pitched groan of agony, looking at Killer with a face and eyes that weren't there anymore, replaced by a white-hot mess that still smoked.

"I'm invincible, Lord Wyvern." The Werewolf claimed in a snarl. "Drop your useless attempts! I'm invincible! And you will fall, inexorably, and plead me for mercy!"

Killer gritted his fangs and did not reply. Hell, it was starting to look like it was true... nothing seemed to be enough. No matter what damage they dealt it, the demon was always back on its feet, bigger and stronger. Killer, instead, was panting, and feeling the energies dropping inexorably: the last attack had had a high cost in terms of energy, and his stamina, even if impressive, wasn't infinite.

Soon or later, I'll run out of steam...

"I'm invincible, Lord Wyvern!" The Werewolf laughed, stomping forwards to come and deal a definitive blow.

"He's so not." Alexis sentenced firmly, landing back to Killer's side. "Look at its arm. One wound did not heal." The femme fatale pointed out, and she aimed at a gash that, indeed, wasn't healing at all: the armor had left the wound uncovered, and dark blood still streaked slowly down the bicep of the monster.

"I used the Katana to make that cut." Siegfried added as he pulled up by Killer's other side, the long, thin silvery weapon at the ready in his hand and still dripping blood from the edge. The tiger looked both surprised and proud as he grinned towards Killer teasingly. "I was right this time, bro! Silver is what it takes!"

Killer grunted, but he couldn't help smiling slightly as he realized that yes, they still had a shot. He drew his own Katana out, and turned towards Alexis, before blinking once in surprise. "Does that one come with us...?"

Alexis looked at him with a frown, and then looked slowly down to see a 7-foot tall soldier still holding for dear life at her waist, his face sunk in her bare, powerful abdominals as he cried silently and trembled with fear, his legs hanging down and his feet not reaching far enough to touch the ground, such was the length of the femme fatale's breath-catching legs.

"Oh, come on you big pussy!" Alexis grumbled, easily grabbing the soldier by the back of the neck like he was a cub and dropping him off to the side. The soldier, one of the many that Alexis had rescued in midair, looked up in terror and finally opened his eyes, and he was fought between the security offered by the tall liger female and the terror she caused him. The soldier half-crawled back to her, but quickly scrambled away as he saw her glare and the massive werewolf running over the ruins and buildings of the town to charge at them.

"Sticky little boy." Alexis snorted, and Killer grinned in amusement as she drew out her own Katana.

"Aim for the intersections of the armor plates. Looks like they are nearly invulnerable." Killer ordered calmly, and they traded a nod before leaping forth towards the charging werewolf as it shattered a massive building to crumbles, running across it heedlessly with its by now 80-foot muscular frame, running over houses like stepping onto bugs that were crushed with loud cracks.

"This is the end of it!" The werewolf laughed, and he roared out a massive beam of darkness towards the three tigers.

Killer had enough time to grunt as a solid wall of unbearable heat seemed to smash into him, and he stared to the semi-liquid ray of demonic energy incoming for a short instant that felt like a whole age as he realized he was unable to stop that attack...

And then Alexis was in front of him, surrounded by a wide, circular shield of sapphire light held before her to cut a path in the beam of darkness, the femme fatale gritting her fangs in the effort of standing up to the tremendous force of the wolf...

"The end indeed." Killer venomously said as he slammed his feet into the top of the chest armor of the werewolf, the Katana flashing as it found the way to stab forwards in the crevice between chest plate and helmet, the silvery blade sinking deep into the vulnerable throat behind the invulnerable armor.

Alexis landed beside him, and a hand of hers guided her sword down to strike in the same small window of opportunity, even as she looked straight ahead with a tired but victorious grin, roaring as she sent her barrier exploding forth, straight on the wolf's face, ripping it to a bloody pulp with deadly slivers of blue energy.

Siegfried landed on Killer's other side, snarling as he sunk his own Katana down with both hands, pushing the blade all the way down to the handle, ignoring the strangled gargle coming from the monster and the fountain of dark blood that spurted up all over them from its severed neck.

Alexis grinned, aware that there would have been no piecing-back-up this time, and she balanced on the hand gripping the handle of the Katana to push her body up in a graceful, deadly roundhouse kick, powerful enough to send the werewolf's head flying off like a cork as a geyser of blood sprayed high up into the air, and the immense body, nearly 90-foot tall already, finally stopped growing and swayed back and forth a bit before falling down flat.

Killer, Alexis and Siegfried ripped their swords free of the corpse, and coldly walked down its chest before it started to vanish in a black cloud that wasn't water but wasn't gas either... And as the Crack closed back on itself, it finally was over.

A scarred, astonished Dacca covered in ruins and littered with corpses stared with amazement to the light a new dawn they had ceased to hope for, after the most traumatic and endless of nights.

Mriya and Anubis hadn't even had their first birthday yet, but already they were speaking fluently, they were mostly independent and attending school... And after the school, attending additional lessons from Serene, Seth and others: they were prince and princess, after all... And just like their mother and father before them, they had to quickly learn about the sick game of politics, the history of their bloodline and of the other royal families of the Northlands as well, plus strategy, fighting, swordsmanship and acquire all sorts of other knowledge.

And this not because they were two phenomenon of Nature, no... Abet uncommonly smart and very receptive, - Surely thanks to Alexis's side of genetics, not because of me... - even if bigger than average and far more fit and powerful that any other cub of their age, Anubis and Mriya were normal tiger cubs.

Most races, in their evolution, had changed to a far longer childhood... so much so, that their children could not be considered adults until 16 years of age at the very least. Tigers hadn't.

Killer suspected it was a reaction of Nature to the fact that tigers were warlike, and had never ceased to be warlike. Wars were so common and frequent between tigers, that there was always the need for more tigers, better genetics, more soldiers and more mothers. Tigers still developed as fast as when they had walked the earth on four paws: at four, five years of age, a tiger was adult and ready... And thus, a cub evolved extremely rapidly. Tiger cubs grew and learned at amazing rates... And while it had its advantages, Killer often regretted things being this way, because he could be a father always for so short time.

He liked cubs. He liked being their daddy... and it almost hurt him the sheer rapidity with which Anubis and Mriya, as all his uncountable other children, were growing up fast. Not without giving him pride, happiness and affection, of course... But it all happened so damn fast!

And he and Alexis had missed so much of the first childhood of their two loved children, to be sincere... Athena, Joy and Nike and Serene and many other of the girls had literally taken care of the cubs for more time than their true parents had.

Even in the last month, after killing the Werewolf in Dacca, Killer and Alexis had never been able to spend more than two days in a row at home before having to urgently head out to some devastated corner of the planet to take on demons of some kind.

Killer sighed and looked up tiredly from the maps piled up on his massive desk of oak, and pushed absently aside a horribly thick fascicle of documents and requests and reports from the borders of the Empire. He knew already what most of them were about... People from all over the plagued, devastated world were starting to migrate north to find refuge under his reign, where his presence was said to be enough to keep the kingdom safe.

Bullshit... we've had attacks all over our territory as well...

It was true, obviously... demons had been rampaging in several areas of the empire as well. The empire, to say it all, had been the first area plagued by the demonic attacks. But what Killer tried to overlook was that Kesteven indeed was the safest place on Earth, and by far. Killer would never admit it openly, but he knew well that his and Alexis's presence were invaluable... Not because it deterred the demons from popping up, no, quite the opposite indeed, since they came almost daily to try and assassinate both ligers in some way... But because Killer and Alexis were the only beings powerful enough to stand up to the demons and take over them, something that the mortal armies were unable to do instead.

And besides, the Empire had the Predators. They were unable to take care of the truly powerful demons, but they could tackle efficiently the assaults of minions of all sorts, and they would still hold their own even against demons as huge and powerful as Gigataurs.

The truth is that people are perfectly right in coming here to find a safe haven... But the fact is that we can't take them all under our protection.

It was rapidly becoming a serious problems: people already came in hundreds and hundreds daily, pressing at the checkpoints along the borders and asking to get in, pleading to be protected... and hundreds of them were rejected, not because Killer was cold hearted, but because of needs.

The Northern Empire had an economy strictly based on self-sufficiency, also because, even before the demonic invasions increased dramatically the mistrust and hate between the nations, Kesteven had been treated like a rough nation or an enemy, and many foreign regions had never wanted to commerce with the "primitive" and "wild" northlands. The empire lived of what it produced. And it ate what it could produce inside its borders, and this meant that the new hordes of people coming in couldn't be feed. There was simply not enough food for everyone, and thus, need for survival and generosity immediately clashed one against the other.

Killer had been forced to waste some troops to create a security cordon along the borders to restrain the immigration... And it had been a horrible decision to take, because who was rejected was almost certainly condemned. It was a tremendous strain on the soldiers at the checkpoints too, since they had obviously understood that they truly held a life-or-death power over all those people that came crying at the borders of the Empire... And there were several cases of abuses of such power: no female in the world would ever shy away from offering the wonders of her body to a soldier in exchange for her life and perhaps the life of her loved ones, and it is very rare the young soldier capable to resist the allure and the sexual smartness of females determined and desperate, especially if these girls are young and beautiful.

And it had soon been evident the increase in the number of nubile females of all species in the towns of the Empire, and Killer had, again, had to take countermeasures to at least reduce the problem to acceptable levels.

The young men that reached the checkpoints would be allowed in, in certain numbers, only after a severe evaluation: they were chosen either because they were valuable engineers, scientists, experienced workforce or on the base of their fitness to combat duty. And from the very start, only the fittest and strongest had been chosen for this career, because Killer had foreseen, correctly, that they would have had plenty of people to choose from.

Killer and Alexis were making sure to try and increase the surface of the empire that would be worked to produce food, and were encouraging all sorts of emergency measures, all the way up to genetic science, to try and rapidly increase the availability of food. They had also been buying food from whatever nation that had something to offer... But this last measure, had been realized, was probably only going to starve another region soon, and the plan of stealing food from nearby kingdoms had been dropped without even being considered.

Killer turned the armchair and looked out of the tall, arched window behind the desk, sighing a bit as he looked thoughtfully over the horizon, the black clouds covering it all but remembering him of the grief times ahead, and of the challenges he had to face. Included, of course, his convocation to Heaven, which could have come at any day, by now, for what Diana had said... After all, considering the time difference, in Heaven many years had already passed by from when she came to warn him, and although "a short time" had a whole different measure in paradise, he knew it was soon going to happen.

And he was worried, admittedly... First, he did not know how it was going to happen. How would he accede to Heaven...? Diana had not explained it, and Killer in those moments had been overwhelmed by all her revelations, and he hadn't even thought about this "particular"... But it was pretty important a thing. After all, to enter Heaven, you were normally supposed to be dead. And Killer was a bit worried about the implications of this. How was Diana going to overcome that "little" problem...? How long was he going to stay in Heaven...? And especially, how could he leave his daughter and son and the whole mortal plane in the current, frightening level of danger to stay away... And how was he going to justify his absence from the world...? And what about the Gods that hated him so much, and all the people that wanted him dead...?

_Ugh. Too many questions. Too many possible nasty answers.

But I trust Diana. She certainly is making her best to find the best compromise... it only comes down to the freedom of maneuver she'll be able to get, with all the people that opposes my simple existence, let alone my entrance in Heaven..._

He looked down into the park that surrounded the palace, and smiled slightly as he saw a few females walking down one of the shady paths as young tigers played around... And someone knocked quietly twice at the massive oak double doors of the king's office.

"Come in, Serene." Killer said absently, recognizing the way she almost hesitatingly beat her fist on the door... And he turned back to look at the panther from over his desk as she smiled and walked quietly up to him.

"What kind of disaster requires my attention, this time...?" Killer asked tiredly, but giving her a playful grin that she graced with one of her bright smiles as she came up to his enormous desk, clad in a modest, long white dress and looking at him with affection from over the rectangular glasses she wore.

"An urgent call from Dacca. They have not wanted to talk to me, they wish to speak directly with your highness..."

"It is always Killer." The huge male reminded quietly, and the female panther smiled and bowed her head quietly before handing him one of the uncountable satellite-mobile phones that he used for running relations with the world.

"The number to call is already composed, Killer." Serene said softly, and the huge male looked at the screen, nodding calmly.

"I see. Well, I'll call them immediately then. Thank you."

"My pleasure to serve you, Killer." Serene answered, smiling as she tilted her head to the side in amusement. "I'll be leaving you now, if you don't need me."

"See you later, Serene." The huge male said with a little nod, and he looked after her as she gracefully walked back down the long office and headed out, closing the massive door silently behind her back.

The liger sighed a bit, looking idly to the number on screen before bringing the phone up to his ear... And suddenly stopping.

Serene should be teaching to Mriya and Anubis, now...

It meant nothing, apparently... It had already happened that even during the time she spent teaching the prince and princess something important popped up and she came to him to warn him about it. And it was normal for him to use different mobile phones for the most different tasks and calls. There really was nothing strange about what had just happened... Yet, something felt wrong, and Killer did not touch the call button, putting down the mobile phone in front of himself instead.

I've killed people before with traps like this. The liger thought quietly, and he grinned slightly despite himself, remembering that operation. Surgically accurate, and deadly effective, it had ruined the NWOA plans so much that for three straight months there had not been a single attack coming from them.

And back then, in the years of the major NWOA crisis, Kesteven experienced almost daily attacks of some kind.

The most wanted member of the NWOA in Kesteven back then was a mysterious and cold assassin specialized in explosive attacks: its plans were always mortally smart, and every time they were successful. He would always find a way to slip explosives past surveillance thought insurmountable... And he constantly changed style. One day it could be a small bomb exploding on a bus, one day it would be a massive train loaded with fuel for frontline armored forces blown up in the middle of a large train station in the rush hour, under the eyes of a stunned, thick and powerless security force.

As the list of the deaths caused by the bomber specialist grew longer and longer, Killer had doubled his efforts to find where he was hiding... without success. But the cold, elusive terrorist had, luckily, comrades less expert and smart than he was, and one of the under-cover non-tiger agents of the Predator Special Reconnaissance Squadron, infiltrated in one of the many NWOA cellules spread on Kesteven's territory, had been able to learn that the bomber-specialist talked with the leaders of the organization only on mobile phones, and never used the same one for more than a full day.

And when, finally, a month later circumstances required the cellule that he had infiltrated to communicate with the bomber, the Predator agent had been able to execute the agreed Killer's plan and insert a small charge of explosive in the mobile phone before it was handed to the terrorist by a trusted member of the NWOA local cell.

The bomber had merely had to push the call button, since the number was already saved on the phone.

But when the terrorist had spoken its first word, the ears on the other side of the line were Killer's ones... and the liger, once absolutely sure that he was hearing the correct target, had merely had to push a button on a satellite-remote control.

The explosive charge hidden in the mobile phone was extremely small, but more than sufficient for its purpose: the mobile device had exploded straight against the terrorist's ear, and blown his head clean off, splattering red gore all over the wall nearby.

The corpse was found a few days later, betrayed by the horrible smell coming out from the small terraced house in the periphery of Kesteven were he had been living, respected as an hard-working, expert electronic engineer working in a civilian company.

No one had ever suspected of him.

Why do I get the feeling that they are trying to do the same to me...?

Killer thought idly, and he used a finger to lazily push the mobile phone in a circle on the desk for a moment as he leaned backwards, the chair in precarious balance over its back legs.

Because you have an excellent instinct. There's explosive in that phone. And don't open it! There's a strap that will make it explode if you do!

Killer winced and flailed as he almost fell backwards with chair and everything as his eyes bulged in surprise. It was no joke, Alexis's voice came into his mind with deadly serious tone, and she soon added: I'm on chase.

"Shapeshifter..." Killer grumbled, realizing what had happened, and he leapt up and ran to the doors, slamming both open wide and almost knocking the immense, heavy portal out of its hinges as he stormed down the corridor.

Siegfried emerged from the corner, cheerful and holding a small wooden box in his hands, and he had a second to wince ridiculously before the larger, enormous frame of his bigger brother ran into him like a warship ramming its bow into a boat, the smaller tiger bouncing back and slamming into the wall with a grunt.

"Pirate!" Siegfried exclaimed angrily, wailing a fist towards the back of the older, bigger liger. "What the hell is going on?"

"There's a phone-bomb on my desk." Killer shouted over his shoulder, and Siegfried made a bit of a face, wincing as he looked stupidly through the open door.

"Now that's a good reason to run..."

"Get the EOD team looking at it, I've got a shapeshifter to catch!" Killer added before vanishing as he curved towards the monumental stairs that leaded down the tower, leaping forth and overcoming entirely a whole flight of stairs before landing with a little grunt, his weight and momentum shaking the whole marble stair a bit.

Several of the females walking around the hall looked up at this curiously, and bowed deeply nonetheless as he stomped down the last steps without saying a word... He looked over them all quickly, but saw nothing wrong... Yet, he knew well that the shapeshifter may have already taken the aspect of someone else and hide between them.

He saw Electra and Nike between the group, walking towards him with a question and an offer of help in their eyes... But then he saw a glimpse of golden hair, and he sprinted forth to reach Alexis as she called him for the chase.

The two ligers ran out of the main doors of the palace as the Shapeshifter alarm was launched at full scale... But there was no real way to recognize a shapeshifter. The only thing that could see past the fake appearance of the demonic creature was Alexis's power.

And that did not miss, as she seeked the demon, still with Serene's look, walking down the path to the park gates with apparent quiet and peacefulness, so to go completely unnoticed by the soldiers and females that crowded the gardens.

Alexis drew out her Desert Storm handgun and fired on the run: her aim was perfect, but the head of the fake Serene was saved by the sudden circle of flames that erupted from the ground and shielded the demon entirely, stopping the bullet...

Killer and Alexis could merely sprint forwards even faster, but they both snarled as "Serene" gave them a wicked grin from over her shoulder and deployed black, leathery wings from her shoulders, shooting up in the sky and flaking towards the gates of the park between shrieks of terror and surprise and useless bursts of bullets for the guard's rifles.

The palace and the park were protected against portaling by the spells that Diana and a couple of mages had imposed on the area: such spells were still in place thanks to a Crystal imbued with the magic of Heaven, that Diana had hidden in Killer's bedroom so that it would give energy to the invisible runes drawn in circles around the palace. But protect such a massive area had already been an incredible feat, and just outside the park gates, such protection would abruptly end... and the demon knew it: it was fleeing to create a portal as soon as it got past the spells.

Alexis was faster than lightning, and she shot forwards with a roar of rage, running almost faster than the unknown demon could fly in her bloodthirsty attempt to get to it... But as the femme fatale leapt forwards with a snarl to grab the fleeing creature, it exited the gates and created a portal in front of itself, vanishing through it quickly.

Alexis saw the wound in the reality swirling closed in front of her, and she could merely snarl as she landed on her feet, skidding to a stop with her combat boots digging trenches in the gravel, hands closing into angry, devastating fists.

"I'll find you, one day!" Alexis snarled, and Killer could only stare to her powerful muscles as she slammed a fist into the palm of her other hand. He knew the force of those blows.

I'm glad I'm not that demon. She's gonna punch it to a pulp when she gets her hand on it.

And Alexis confirmed his vision as she turned on her heels and walked back, angrily lashing a fist out into a lamppost as she passed by, breaking the metallic shaft in half and sending the top half crashing into the street as the lower, torn stub was uprooted from the curb, leaving the people all around staring at the femme fatale in shock as she walked away with a grumbled curse, stomping her way towards the palace with a murderous light in her eyes.

A good few minutes later, Alexis and Killer were in his office, Alexis sitting on the desk with her long legs proudly crossed, still with a blood-craving gleam in her eyes, but calm and professional as always, and Siegfried was in front of them to show what he had been carrying in the small box of wood. The young male knew what had happened, but he was smart enough to avoid going over the event with the two rather pissed ligers, much as the pieces of the mobile phone still lay on the desk: the Explosive Ordnance Disposal team had had no difficulties in defusing the bomb. To make it fast, they had frozen it with a jet of icy liquid nitrogen and then broken it down.

"What's so urgent, bro...?" Killer asked tiredly, leaning on his huge arms on the desk and looking at the small casket with mild curiosity.

"I've been working with Roger to create a couple of new fancy little things." Siegfried stated proudly, grinning a bit. "Remember our little angry friend in Dacca...?"

"Very well." Killer answered calmly, but giving him a bit of an urging glare that Siegfried did not miss. He opened the small box, and pulled out a huge but apparently normal rifle bullet: it was one of the destructive rounds of Alexis's sniper-cannon, and Siegfried held it by the base, showing them the tip of the round, the femme fatale looking down at it intently.

"You'll certainly remember that silver, in the end, DID affect the monster. So, I thought that a sort of "silver bullet" could greatly help our soldiers in the future engagements with the "werewolves"."

Killer rolled his eyes a bit at this, but he had to awkwardly swallow his skeptical sigh, since Siegfried had been right about the silver in the same place... the wounds caused by his special Katana swords had been the only one that the creature hadn't been able to heal.

"I modified one of our "squashing head" rounds, making it a capsule for a large dose of silver sulfate." Siegfried stated proudly, and Alexis nodded with a grin that was darkly entertained, just like the evil little grin she sported when sniping heads into pulp.

"At the impact, the solid sulfate will turn into a liquid and spread rapidly into the wound and in the blood of the creature. In no time, it'll be infecting its whole system." Alexis completed with a smirk, and Siegfried nodded.

"Interesting." Killer admitted, smiling a bit in true admiration for the work that Siegfried had carried out. Of course, the bullet itself had been probably pieced together by Roger Nellis, but Killer could say the same about his own projects and devices and weapons: he had designed them up to where he could reach without being a proper engineer, but Roger had brought the specifications back down into reality where needed, and physically build up the prototypes which by now were fully worked weapons serving with the Predators with great success. "And that other one...?"

Siegfried smiled happily, and pulled out the second enormous bullet, apparently identical, but different because of a different color of the circle of paint that ran around the diameter of the round: gold instead of silver.

"Exactly the same concept, but different filling." The younger male explained calmly. "This round is for a different target: remember those vampiric creatures that have been popping up here and there...?"

Killer nodded silently, his lips cresting in a bit of a grimace. He couldn't exactly forget it, with all the people that had been lately found drained of all their blood, dead and dry, sucked into dusty mummies. The true vampires could be of any look, shape and race, and they definitely did not fear to strike in daylight. They did not fear mirrors, nor were they impressed by sharp wooden poles. They were, just like the werewolves, demonic mutations that had insane strength and resistance, and they could walk into incoming rifle fire without problems.

However, it had been noticed that, once a vampiric monster was wounded, the solar light would penetrate from the wound and cause the creature horrific sufferance. It had been understood that the vampires were tremendously vulnerable to UV rays, but they had developed a protection in their bullet-proof skin.

"What, did you manage to trap solar light into a bullet...?" Killer asked with a slight grin, and Siegfried nodded, tilting his head to the side with an amused smirk.

"Pretty much." He stated calmly, and he touched the tip of the enormous bullet with a finger. "We just replaced the silver sulfate with another chemical payload. A fluid that has an incredible level of phosphorescence, and generates a tremendously high quantity of UV rays. Liquid solar light, if you want to call it that way."

"Awesome." Alexis observed, taking both bullets from Siegfried's hands and staring at them with a grin before arching an eyebrow at him. "I'm guessing you have others...?"

"Several." Siegfried nodded. "Included the prototypes."

"Excellent. These are mine, then." Alexis cheerfully stated, fitting the two bullets in rings of her leather belt that were made exactly for that purpose: several other massive rounds were already in place all around her belt. She liked to have special-purpose rounds at hand, on top of the many accurately filled magazines of general-purpose bullets she carried around when sniping.

The sight of those absurdly-huge rounds at her belt scared the hell out of people: they were almost as big as the shells of small-caliber anti-tank guns, and they immediately gave an idea of the monstrous sizes and power of her special rifle.

Rifle. Cannon is a better word for it. Its development had been originally stopped when it became clear that no one would have been able to carry it around, or survive the kick of the recoil...

She had casually found the half-built prototype, forgotten in a corner of Roger's laboratory, and she had immediately loved it. Bullpup-design, massive 10 rounds clip, 60 mm of caliber, a barrel made of titanium, thick and square-shaped, built in bipod and rear monopod, capable to fire in semi-auto or bolt-action mode, and designed to fire either under-calibrated, fins-stabilized, discarding-sabot darts capable to smash holes into battle tanks or full-caliber High Explosive Airburst rounds that could be programmed to explode in midair above a target, at impact or even with delay, so to explode once deeply pierced into the target.

At four kilometers of distance, the monstrous weapon's rounds would still have a stopping power of 25 tons for square centimeter: enough to throw a car up clear into the air and flip it over like an angry giant had slapped it. Useless to think about the damage done to a person: it went far past the devastation that even a mine would cause, and it was enough to horrify even the hardest. Had the World Council known about that rifle, it would have banned it as "crime against life."

In fact, it never killed just ONE target. It was meant to be a mass-destruction weapon capable to take off whole groups at once.

She had worked on it day and night to finish it, improve it, test-prove it, and Killer had helped her however he could: in the end, the swirling little laser-designation turret integrated in the telescopic scope, once meant to guide a new generation of maneuverable rounds to their moving target, had proved overkill. Alexis's powers were far more effective for that role... But she had kept the laser anyway. It was awesome to measure distances, accurately detonate the rounds in midair over the entrenched targets and it worked perfectly to gather up images and intelligence at long range.

"Weight - she had cheerfully said - isn't a problem."

And Killer, who had personally tried the rifle, had winced and asked himself once more how frigging strong she truly was. She wouldn't lose any of her astonishing speed and agility with that monster of steel and titanium on her shoulder... and she could empty magazine after magazine without a twitch, even as the angry rifle kicked into her shoulder like a big, furious stallion.

She fondly called it "the Terminator", and hell, was it a good name for it! In her hands, it was the deadliest weapon Killer had ever seen. She was worth a whole regiment of heavy artillery on her own.

"Gonna love trying these out." Alexis cheerfully observed, grinning widely, and Killer looked up to Siegfried with a small nod.

"You did a good work. You can order series production to start for both new rounds at the Arkstone facility. If we see that they work and are needed in large amounts, we'll have other production lines switching to these new heads."

"Perfect." Siegfried exclaimed, gathering the small wooden box and turning to leave, undoubtedly to contact the small factory of ammo in the remote Arkstone base and order the work to start immediately.

Killer and Alexis, instead, walked down the corridors of the palace to reach Serene's apartments. They reached her door just in time to see Serene walking out of it, and she smiled, bowing her head slightly as she crossed Killer's gaze.

"So...?" The huge male quietly asked, smiling a bit, and Serene nodded with a quiet, gentle smile of her own.

"The prince and princess do not love politics, but they are excellent pupils anyway. Anubis resembles his father. He's bored like Hell after the first 30 minutes of lesson." Serene explained, giving him a teasing grin, and he smiled amusedly, waving a hand lightly.

"Then he's better than his father. Daddy hadn't 30 minutes of patience, back then. He got bored even more rapidly."

"He still gets bored fast." Alexis added, grinning teasingly up at him, and he nodded, rubbing a hand slowly into his mane as he half-looked away.

"Bored or not, they'll be excellent sovereigns, just as they are wonderful kids. They have hearts made of gold, and they always seem to know what's best." Serene added quietly, and Anubis, Mriya and Ewan ran out of the door, laughing, before Mriya reached the two males and tackled both down to the floor with a very Alexis-like grin.

The young tigress lost quickly interest for both males as she saw Killer towering in the corridor, however, and she smiled brightly when she saw him opening his arms welcomingly, bending down towards her with a smile.

"Daddy!" Mriya exclaimed simply, scrambling back to her feet and leaping towards him, throwing herself in his arms and wrapping her arms around as much of his thick, muscular chest as she could manage, leaning her head against his form to listen for a moment to his heartbeat.

He soon lifted her all the way up so she could sit on his shoulders, however, the young girl happily resting on top of her father's potent body.

Mriya was still a child, but already she was beautiful, and she promised to grow up just like her mother, something that Killer had no difficulties in defining a true blessing. Mriya had the same astonishing blue eyes of her parents, but it was Alexis's sensual and predatory gaze that looked at Killer with the most boundless of love: the huge male could already see it, mixed with the wonderful, happy innocence of her age. She was as smart and teasing as her mother... and as strong, too. Proof it was how she easily took on even her brother and half-brother, how when playing she always aimed for the top.

Physically, she was also so incredibly similar to her mother... Even if she still lacked the curves that would come with the maturity of her body, she was a solid promise of fascination and beauty. And already her body was toned and athletic, with fair muscle developed in the training sessions she had with mom and dad, but preferably with her beloved daddy.

Of her father, she had the stripes: her fur was black striped, save for her face, completely white... the stripes converged towards her front, but her chest, abdomen and inner thighs were white, and her long hair was golden just like Alexis's.

Mriya happily leaned down over Killer's head, grinning a bit in the way happy children do as she looked down at the world from the formidable height of her loved daddy, and she looked teasingly down at her brothers.

Anubis resembled Killer a lot more. But he had completely white fur like her mother, for a curious exchange, and he looked out to the world from intelligent eyes that had moved away from the ice-blue of his parents' to take on a golden shade, warm and amazing. He was just as fit and in shape as his sister, and he promised to be worth heir of Killer's physical imposingness.

Ewan was considerably smaller of both tigers. The panther male, son of Serene and Killer, conceived the same day of the royal twins, and born just a few days earlier than them, was big for panther standards, but was smaller than the two ligers all the same. He had fur black as the night, with surprising white stripes all over his form, and deep blue eyes that made him quite unique, and definitely attractive. He was considered almost the third brother, and the three cubs were inseparable.

The two males were glad to be carried up in Killer's arms, the huge liger easily letting the two kids seating on his forearms as he grinned down at Anubis a bit when the child looked at him with attention that was almost envy.

Anubis was very fond of his mother, but he looked up to Killer to take example from him and his force: he admired the way his dad seemed to always know what to do to fix any problem, and he looked up at his father's strength and courage. His greatest wish was to grow just like his father, a good, courageous warrior... But he wanted it almost too much, and Anubis at times looked a bit envious, if not scared of his dad: he wanted to be able to do what Killer did, already, even if he was just a cub.

"One day you'll be strong enough to do the same, you little rascal." Killer said softly, smiling down at his son affectively, and Anubis nodded with his own satisfied smile, looking reassured.

"No one will ever be strong like daddy!" Mriya exclaimed in a matter-of-fact voice, and Alexis and Serene traded an amused smile as Killer gave a little nod, tilting his head back to look at his daughter lovingly.

"Such a nice thing to say to your dad, sweetie." Killer said softly, winking to her. "But who knows. Anubis may beat me. One day." He added, nuzzling his son quietly before grinning teasingly. "If you try really, really hard."

"Never as strong as you, dad. It's impossible." Anubis replied quietly, and Alexis ruffled his short white hair playfully. He was showing just the littlest of signs of a mane, for the moment, but it would have undoubtedly emerged later on, as he grew.

"It sure won't be easy to level up to dad. But you'll try, won't you...?"

"Of course, mom." Anubis replied with a wide smile, and Killer winced playfully, looking at her with hurt expression.

"Don't encourage him too much about that, now!" Killer teased, and then he winked to Serene affectively before exclaiming: "Which thing comes first? Training or playing?"

"Training!" Mriya, Anubis and Ewan happily answered: they all but loved train for battle with Killer and Alexis. It was merely a more intensive and tiring game, for them. Killer and Alexis would teach them their own particular techniques, moves and tricks, and then the kids would face themselves in training duels were they could show their worth and all what they had learned.

"But playing follows suit!" Killer agreed, trading a wide smile with Alexis as they headed out for the park, were they could do their training in freedom and enjoy the time they could spend with their beloved children.

Every other issue of the world ceased to matter. It was all about daddy, mommy, and the children.