The site of conflict between Chosen and Coalition was easily found. Drones sped around towers and gunfire echoed off the stonework.

Nicolai led the others to a vantage point from where they looked out upon a large courtyard. On one side, Chosen hunkered in their cover and buildings, shooting at the Coalition who were likeways arrayed on the other side.

The Coalition looked to be retreating, and it was a fairly orderly retreat. This was all as planned; he, Maxine and the others had worked out measures to take in the event of a Chosen attack, and had prepared the ground accordingly. As he watched, a group of Chosen who'd dashed out to rush towards the large fountain in the centre of the courtyard—a great thing of stone and rusted, stopped up pipework which would provide good cover—arrived at the fountain only for the stone around them to erupt in an explosion.

The dank water in the fountain received a rain of gore. Nicolai smiled at the sight.

There came an eruption of suppressive fire from the Chosen as three figures burst out from cover, dashing across the space at great speed. Recognisable figures. One a hulking metal figure; Borg, by all accounts Vikrum's second in command, wielding a pair of assault rifles. One he recognised from personal experience came next; Gilvine. She had herself a replacement arm. Then Vikrum himself, a being of perfect symmetry and artificial beauty. Nicolai's eyes lingered on the man as the three of them disappeared into the Coalition's side. Vikrum hadn't been so pretty after their encounter.

He understood. Vikrum had become a Cultivator. With his artificial body infused with Soul and Oma, the Rejuvenating Orbs now worked on the Cyborg, allowing for true recovery.

'Shit,' murmured Cait. 'Those are the heavy hitters. Coalition gonna be in trouble. Should we go help them?'

Nicolai considered, his eyes turning to the Chosen in their positions on the other side. Don't strike where your enemy is strong; strike where he is weak. 'We go the other way.' He paused. 'But not all of us. Just me, Jo and Beth.' He glanced over at the others, his gaze skating over Perro and Azure. He felt nothing but relief from the majority of them, and saw John nodding.

'Where shall we go?' asked the big man.

'Go wide around, avoid combat and link up with the main bulk of the Coalition.'

With the less capable ones sent off, he screwed a silencer onto his assault rifle. Once Jo and Beth had done the same he led them creeping through the castle, approaching the Chosen from the side. Cyberwarfare was quick to work—with Vikrum and the other Cyborgs out of the picture, the Chosen were a soft target for its skills, and the drones that passed by ignored them.

Aiming was already ready for action, working with Threat Analysis to scan any places an enemy might appear, calculating the movements necessary for Nicolai to instantly fire on those places. Simulations would take a little longer to get up to speed—it was still reformatting the Data Block it'd been placed into.

With their inroads into the enemies communications via Cyberwarfare, he easily located a group of Chosen.

He approached a corner. Once he would have been able to peer around that corner from quite a distance, but since the Soul Rot had been gradually weakening his Soul, he was forced to creep to within a few metres of the corner so his Soul Sense could peek around. He peered into a room where Chosen were arrayed at windows, more than a dozen of them. Busy shooting, no sentries. They felt secure because this building was full of their comrades.

He and the other two crept into the room, the sounds of their movement hidden by the Chosen's busy gunfire. They took up positions and aimed at the unaware Chosen.

'Engage targets,' he commanded, and squeezed the trigger of his assault rifle. Silenced gunfire erupted as they all fired at once at the unaware Chosen. Now he and the other two all wielded assault rifles they were able to output a significant volume of high calibre bullets. The Chosen fell almost as one. He'd made sure to give each of the others a different target zone, so no one shot at the same Chosen.

'1-2 reload cycle.'

He kept his eyes away from the corpses, which were stirring in a way he knew was not real. The shadows and the blood were mingling oddly. Snakes of red and black. Meanwhile first he reloaded while the other two kept watch, then Jo, then Beth. As they reloaded he listened, but heard no changes in the gunfire from all around. Their silenced shots had been completely buried amidst the sounds of battle.

'Killteam m—' he paused, blinking. He was speaking to Jo and Beth as though they were operators within a killteam, he the lead. He'd once served such a role. He glanced at the others two but they were keeping their own eyes on places where enemies might emerge.

They didn't look too far off from a killteam, he reflected. Already more skilled than the norm, they had continued to learn as they worked alongside him. They held to radio silence, were positioned properly, had their eyes watching different spots, and overall… were a good team. After a moment he continued. 'Move on.'

###

He slid warily through the darkness, silenced assault rifle held ready. Jo and Beth flanked him, arrowhead formation. Their steps were near as silent as his. They'd learned well.

Their Soul Senses were focused to the sides and behind, while his ranged ahead, lengthened by the Soul Snake. With that it was still longer than either of theirs, though not by all that much. Their drones weren't active, not here and now. They had to step careful. Vikrum and the other Cyborgs were still maintaining connections—distant, but closely monitored—with the larger mass of Chosen dug in here, and Cyberwarfare had to work with care.

Plus, it was now busy upkeeping the Local ghosts it had created to replace those they'd killed, which now numbered quite a few. They'd found a few more unaware groups as they crept through the area.

His Soul Sense peered out of the end of the corridor, where light shone in. He saw a great hole through the centre of the building, as though some passing God had dropped a stone on top of it, one which had punched through floor after floor on its way to the ground.

The sun peeked around the torn, leaning edges of the broken roof far above, its light filtering down through a succession of opened up layers of the building, rooms and hallway gaping open. There were bits of furniture here and there, leaning out. A broken door hung half-off a ledge, connected by one rusted hinge to the doorway it had come apart from.

The bottom of it was a mess of broken masonry and wood, a treacherous little mountain that stretched up almost three floors, and filled the ground floor.

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Nicolai, Jo and Beth slid toward the end of the hallway, peering around with Soul Senses. This was a useful place, providing access throughout the building. A good place to use to quickly move up and down as they hunted for Chosen bands. They were on the ground floor, and would have to climb from the bottom, but the collapse left some gaps large enough for them to squeeze through.

He stopped, gesturing for the other two to do the same.

'The Chosen may be watching that area. We pause here for a moment.' If he was in command of the people holding this building, he'd have at least posted some drones here to keep watch. He didn't see any.

His Soul Sense rose higher, peering around, straining as it reached the end of its length. He squinted through it, struggling to see. Its vision was increasingly grainy, these days. Turning it, he spotted movement.

It was another Soul Sense, doing its own peering over a mound of rubble on the third floor. It had already seen him, was looking right at him.

He retreated rapidly, his Soul Sense spooling back into him, and he pressed at Jo and Beth to do the same.

He heard a yell. 'Someone down there!' Faint sounds of movement, too, trickling into his ears. They were numerous. A whole group posted to watch this area. One of them a Cultivator.

Cyberwarfare dove into action. The group here had been keeping quiet on the Local, no communications. Laying in ambush for any who might come poking around. Now the Local was beginning to erupt, as they attempted to send warnings.

Cyberwarfare choked their signals with its own, emitting powerful radio waves—something the new Cyberwarfare Unit he'd gotten it some time ago was capable of, now used properly for the first time. It jammed the signals they were attempting to communicate on. Their own systems immediately started switching through signals, but they were too slow; Cyberwarfare kept a step ahead of them.

His range for jamming wasn't large. If he left, they would be free to communicate again. If one of them simply ran some distance, they'd escape the interference.

He and the others had to act fast, or the whole bunch of Chosen in this place would know about them.

When recognising danger, the adrenal glands flood the bloodstream with adrenaline to increase the heart rate, empower the muscles, and dull pain. This occurs to make the body ready for action, to give it the strength to push through the danger the human body had evolved to be ready for: hungry animals, or other people wielding clubs and sticks.

In such a battle, a vicious tangle of strength and speed, action and reaction, Nicolai would have welcomed the adrenaline. It had a direct effect on muscle action, and if he was struggling with someone for a knife that extra strength could bring him victory. He'd been in such situations before, and knew well the benefits.

But in a situation like this the adrenaline would only hinder him. Fine motor movements, such as accurately aiming a gun and precisely squeezing a trigger, degraded as the heart rate soared.

He held his breath then let it out slow, forcefully calming his body, resisting the urge to explode into action. He glanced at Jo and Beth and saw them taking slow breaths. Doing the same thing, just as he'd taught them. While he breathed, he considered how to deal with this situation. Once he knew his body was under control, he rose. The first actions were ready in his mind, swiftly communicated to Jo and Beth.

They darted down a corridor while he prepared his Symbiotes. Currently he was behind cover and hidden from the enemy, but the moment he left they would fire on him. He didn't want to them to start running off, to try and warn others. The best way to ensure none of them did, was to give them something to shoot at.

He attempted to target a solid clump of masonry some distance away and above with the Grasping Finger, but his Soul Sense struggled to reach far enough. It was too weakened. He chose a closer chunk, and activated the Grasping Finger as well as his shield.

Nicolai flew through the air, limbs pulled in to form a ball, shield orientated.

Bullets came in a wave and in the brief moment of flight his eyes marked the enemies locations, revealed by the muzzle flashes distributed through the rubble. The wave of bullets crashed into and past him, and his shield strained but then he was through, into the next patch of cover and a floor higher.

Cyberwarfare had, in the time before the Local was jammed, worked out roughly what he was against. He'd known they didn't have quite enough firepower to destroy his shield in the short time he would be exposed.

He was now a floor higher and had a better idea of their exact locations. They were all across the gap from him. Two were on this same floor, three were on the floor above, and the last two were on the floor above that. Seven enemies in total.

Currently they were raining bullets down on where he'd dived into cover, but he floated along on his belly, getting quick away from the position and to a better one. Just in time, too, as a pair of grenades went off where he'd been.

With his Soul Sense, peering over the thick chunk of ruined stone wall he now lurked behind, he saw that there were at least two Cultivators. He could see their Soul Senses, also appearing around. By following those tendrils and seeing where they came from, he also knew where they were hidden. One on the top floor and one on the middle floor.

He wasn't the only one able to work out the obvious. Guns barked and a hail of bullets came down at his new location. He knew that grenades would soon follow.

A smile creased his face. They could send all the grenades they liked.

He readied himself, and watched with his Soul Sense. Though weakened, it was still useable and this task wouldn't be overly difficult.

A grenade arced out from the topmost floor, plummeting down towards him. His Soul Sense tendril was ready, moving into its path. The moment the grenade entered into it he used the Repulsive Finger, flicking his index.

The grenade flew back as though it'd been hit with a bat, launched towards where he knew two of them were hidden on the middle floor.

Another grenade was already coming, and then another. Nicolai batted them away too, just as easy.

That sent the enemy scrambling and their gunshots ceased as the grenades went off—he'd sent one grenade to each floor.

While they were busy with that, he launched himself a floor higher and once move dove into cover. This time his shield barely suffered any strain at all, as only one of them was able to fire at him.

Now he was on the middle floor and had a height advantage on those on the floor he'd left, while evening out the disadvantage he'd suffered against those on this floor. The two on the upper floor still held a better position than him.

He heard a distant thump from elsewhere in the building, and knew that they wouldn't hold that advantage for long. Jo and Beth were doing as he'd ordered.

He knew how to win this fight. It was becoming a little harder to so restrain himself. The Thrill had begun to tick up, eager for precise aggression. He moved to another position then rose in a rush, already aiming at the floor below.

He hadn't been able to pre-check where the enemies were with his Soul Sense, and as he'd expected, they had repositioned. He only had the barest instant to fire and duck back into cover.

That was all he needed. Simulations had created a 3d model of this entire area from glimpses of it, and thus had worked out all possible positions the enemies down on that lower floor might occupy. Aiming had prepared the movements to fire at each of those, ready to be shifted into. The moment he sprung up and took aim, all he needed was to glimpse them.

Then his arms moved and the shots were fired and he ducked back in cover, a moment before the reply came. Bullets smashed into the rubble above him, smashing and chipping at it.

He'd fired two shots and both had hit true, taking out the two Chosen on the lower floor. He would repeat this move and continue to whittle them down. The only danger was the Cultivators; he didn't know what abilities they might have.

In the moment he'd popped up he'd noted that one of the Cultivators was currently on the middle floor, but he'd been unable to see the Soul Sense tendril of the other.

That was concerning. Where was the other Cultivator? Nicolai was currently in a hallway, one side ending in a wall, the other opening with the collapse. In that collapse-exposed section he was hunkering behind several great pieces of masonry. The only other way in or out was through a doorway a few feet from him, which was where he'd come from.

He sent his Soul Sense out and peered around the doorway, wary of being flanked, but after checking the room beyond he saw no one there. He needed to move to a new position, but when his Soul Sense retracted he saw another grenade had been thrown from above, and he moved his tendril to intercept it.

A mistake on their part, one he was surprised they'd make. They should know that he could deal with grenades easily—the last ones they'd thrown had caused them much more trouble than him.

Regardless, mistakes should be capitalised on. He paused, Repulsive Finger primed, considering where he'd redirect this incoming grenade.

That was when he heard it, the faint scuff of a boot on the ground. It came from beyond the doorway his Soul Sense had just checked.

Inexplicably, impossibly, someone had crept up on him.

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