Explosions rang out across the dance hall, shattering windows, creating openings through study marble walls where there previously was none. Through each entrance, armed attackers in black military outfits with kevlar vests and full face-covering helmets flooded through. They marched through the main doors. They repelled from the roof. They jumped through windows. Each and every one armed with a fully automatic rifle, which fired into the fleeing crowd of aristocrats indiscriminately.

  The commander sprinted in. His uniform was accented with red stripes in several places. On his shoulder pads were dark skulls. He motioned more soldiers in while shouting commands.

  “GO, GO, GO, GO. ”

  When they were hired weeks ago, the commander was warned the target would prepare her own countermeasures, and to not pull any punches. The commander had a hard time believing a bunch of rich snobs could put up a real fight, but the client was paying for the big guns, and so the big guns he would get.

  What little remained of the grand entrance doors was once again laid to waste as three tanks, each larger than the last rolled into the building. The first two had a single main turret, along with two manned machine guns and a flamethrower that all could be targeted independently. The last tank was the size of the first two combined. It expanded the doorway on either side as it drove through. This tank had 2 main turrets, each stacked on top of each other. The bottom turret with 4 barrels sticking out of it, each making a 90 degree angle to the last, resulting in a cross pattern. The top turret had only 1 barrel, the base of which was enhanced with magnetic accelerators, traditionally used in railgun production. The main tank was also armed with 12 machine guns and 4 flamethrowers all sticking out at odd angles from the main body.

  The railgun on the main tank fired, exploding the leftmost dolphin in the ice sculpture. This was echoed by the panicked screams of the upper crust as they desperately tried to find cover from the attacks.

  All except for one woman. While everyone else was panicking she remained static, thinking about events that almost transpired. ‘I was so close to kissing Kevin’ The bullets did not concern her, they merely shredded her dress, and the skin underneath. In a classic case of monkey see monkey do, the more soldiers concentrated their fire on the woman in the middle of the dance floor, the more other soldiers did the same.

  The dust in the middle of the floor kicked up such that nothing could be seen. The soldiers all had to stop to reload, some had dumped their entire mag into the woman in the blue dress. Slowly, the smoke dissipated as a dark red glow emitted from the center of the cloud.

  The woman was no more, replaced by a machine of curving dark steel. Her eyes were covered by a strange mask which resembled the compound eyes on an insect and emitted the red light. In each hand she held a katana which vibrated with energy. As an announcer specialized in enforcement, she gained RAD whenever someone broke the rules. Breaking the law was a hell of a rule break.

  Noting how evil and twisted the machine looked, a grunt spoke up. “Is that one of ours?”

  In response, the machine, which was known by some to be Annie, jumped to the grunt and decapitated him as well as two of his squad mates.

  “All units target the machine. Anyone not in the ballroom search through the mansion. The other mercs will be here soon.” The commander’s voice was garbled, speaking through both a voice changer and amplifier.

  Bullets hailed on Annie, which was enough of a distraction that one of the smaller tanks managed to land a shell on her. She blasted backwards from the impact, skipping across the marble walls until she hit the back wall.

  While Annie was fighting, the group of her friends were hiding. In the opening seconds of the assault, they managed to flip over a marble buffet table and hid behind it. Many other members of the upper crust also hid here.

  “Kevin go out and do something.” commanded Brenna.

  “What could I possibly do? I don’t have access to any RAD. I’m not an announcer. You do something.” he fired back

  ‘Its not like Kevin has much RAD during a race either.’ Thought Oswin.

  Brenna placed a hand on Kevin’s shoulder. She spoke, “Then I’ll give you what RAD I have, I can’t fight with it.” She observed that Kevin’s shoulder was as firm as the marble table she hid behind.

  Despite Keivn not appearing to change physically, he seemed more confident knowing he had RAD. Several mercenaries approached the marble table, looking to take out whoever hid behind it. Kevin leapt over the table to intercept. Before any of them could react, Kevin delivered a crushing uppercut to the nearest mercenary.

  The soldiers fired at Kevin, who found himself to be more bullet resistant then he originally thought. The bullets stung, and he doubted he could shug off a tank shell like Annie could, but at least small arms fire would take a long time to incapacitate him. The next nearest mercenary fell to Kevin’s punches.

  When the immediate vicinity was deemed safe enough, Oswin called Tana on his phone. “Yo, where are you?”

  Tana responded, “Noah locked me in a closet when the gunfire started. I haven't been able to get out yet. Has someone managed to blow your head off yet?”

  “No, I’m fine for the moment.”

  “Ah, a girl can hope.”

  “Do you think you can get Noah to call them off? Then kick him in the balls and break off contact.”

  “Nope! Noah is dead set on this. I also have no plan to stop flirting with him.”

  “Tana, he’s trying to kill me.”

  “I know, that's kinda hot right?”

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  With a grunt of frustration, Oswin ended the call. He informed Brenna of their situation. “From what I can understand, Ruth’s brother is behind this assault. I think it’s the project Ruth was hinting about. She probably has a plan for this. I’ll try to contact her.”

  He called Ruth. No answer. He called again, leaving a message. In response, he got a single text: ‘stay in the ballroom, help is on the way’ Oswin frowned. For all of Ruth’s shortcomings she caught on rather fast that Oswin can’t read into a text message much more than anyone else can.

  “What do you make of this?” He asked Brenna.

  “I think I should not have had so much to drink,” she complained.

  “I’ll be doing the planning then. I am sure no help is on the way, I don’t know what Ruth’s goals are in getting us to stay.” Oswin poked his head over the marble table to observe the fight. One of the smaller tanks was cut to pieces, but the other two were operational. Kevin and Annie emerged from a crater, gunfire pouring on to them from all directions. Annie still looked invincible. Kevin was battered, with a black eye and a gash across the right side of his head. All his limbs were covered in bruises.

  Oswin continued. “What I know for sure is that Kevin needs our help.--”

  “And Annie.” added Brenna.

  “Yes and Annie. Let's head to the floor above and take out any snipers. They have their hands full dealing with the tanks.”

  The nearest staircase upwards was only a few feet away, leading to the middle of the mezzanine above. Oswin and Brenna proceeded up towards it.

  At the top of the staircase was a merc, sliced into perfect pieces like salami. Just beyond him was another with the same physical predicament. In fact, most of the floor was covered in slices of mercenary. The culprit was nearby: a gluttonous stomach jutted out from behind a nearby pillar. Oswin desperately tried to remember his name.

  “Main, is that you? Did you do this?” called out Oswin.

  “I’m surprised you remember my name.” responded Main. He poked his head out from behind the pillar.

  ‘That makes two of us’ Oswin thought. He pointed at the corpses all around. “Is this you?”

  “Yes it brings shame to the family name of–”

  “I don’t care who it brings shame to, we have more of a chance now.”

  Another mercenary burst through a nearby window. Upon landing, he fell into 20 slices. There was no cutting. No struggle from the mercenary.

  “How does your power work?” asked Oswin, with a hint of fear.

  “Spatial and temporal anomalies. I specialize in Spatial. My sister and father specialize in temporal. I’m not cutting them, I’m cutting the space that their bodies are in.”

  “Ok, you can take the part of the mezzanine near the front entrance. Brenna and I will clear this mezzanine near the rear.” explained Oswin.

  Main raised an eyebrow. “Heh,” he started. “Why would I lend my help?”

  The railgun cannon on the main tank fired. The sound it made contained an electric reverberation that kept it distinct from the other cannons. Its target was Annie once again. She blasted through a pillar, causing a section of roof to collapse, before hitting the ground herself. Her right eye blinked, shutting off and turning back on again several times. Even Annie had a limit.

  ‘I’ll give it 10 seconds of thought’ concluded Oswin. His brain kicked into overdrive. Main was thrust onto Oswins mental petri dish, analyzed by the microscopes of his gray matter. ‘Hes already rich, he doesnt need connections. He cares for biking yet doesnt try. If I knew what he and Kevin discussed I–’’

  “I’ll give you a kiss.” Brenna blurted.

  A light shown in Main’s brown eyes.

  ‘Yes Brenna! You got it. I should have thought about it myself, but it's not a tool I usually have access to. Not that I could have even asked you to offer such a thing.’ Thought Oswin. There was hope again. The door was open, just a little. ‘With a few choice words I can hammer out this deal’.

  Brenna finished her thought. “Just kidding, its not worth it.” She smiled at Owin impishly.

  Main clearly took offense to the joke, if anyone could call it that.

  ‘WHYYYY,’ Oswin screamed internally. ‘This is not recoverable,’ he gave a parting statement to Main. “Fine, This world moves without you.” He turned to Brenna. “Let’s go, we can work from the back of the ballroom to the front. Hopefully no more mercs come through the windows.”

  They ran off, leaving Main insulted and alone.

  Using the baseline RAD in his body, Oswin summoned his trusty weapon: none other than the quarter sock. A stumbling Brenna summoned her weapon as well. It was a polearm, consisting of two kitchen knives bolted to the end of a wooden pole, called the knife-spear. Brenna used this weapon with a shocking lack of familiarity and grace.

  The first batch of mercenaries encountered were still fixated on Annie. They fired over the ornate stone guardrail without realizing Oswin was approaching. He hit the first mercenary with his weapon, denting the helmet and knocking the guard unconscious. The second mercenary fell just the same. By the third, the group turned their sights to Oswin, but not before his quarter sock hit one of them in the arm, shattering his shoulder.

  They opened fire on Oswin, no less than 5 automatic rifles dumping lead into his body. He took the blows head on, thinking of how easy Kevin made it look. It was not easy. The bullets ripped his suit in several places and drew blood in others. Thankfully none of the projectiles pierced all the way through him.

  “How does Kevin do this?” Oswin cried out.

  Brenna’s knife-spear ripped through kevlar to pierce the abdomen of another rifleman. The guns all turned on her, and she screamed as she was brought under fire. Oswin took his chance to knock another man over the railing, then shoulder checked the next. He stumbled into the waist of another enemy, wrapping his arms around him for a desperate tackle. As Oswin struggled on the ground, wrestling someone with far more experience and energy, a spear protruded between the eyes of his opponent. He pushed the corpse off him as he came to his feet. Brenna had already taken care of the final two in this group.

  Further down the mezzanine, there were 3 groups of a similar size, each still focusing on targets far away from them. The fights to come would only be more arduous. Oswin was already bleeding in more areas than he could count, while Brenna’s red dress was looking darker than it should have. They were not warriors, not like Kevin and Annie.

  “Yeap, maybe shoulda the fat guy that kiss,” Brenna conceded.

  Oswin chuckled. “Maybe, Maybe.” He repeated. “Maybe if I didn’t let Ruth run off for ‘undefined business’ I would have a bargaining chip I could use to get us all out of here.”

  The railgun fired again. This time sending a figure skidding across the debris-covered ground until he came to a rest at the foot of the central ice sculpture. He pulled himself to his feet and slowly limped back towards the tank. Even with a broken arm that hung limply at his side, Kevin’s fight was not over yet.

  As Oswin witnessed this, a seed of unease planted itself in his head. Infectious, it rapidly took over his mind. “I’m not stopping until I’m at least as injured as Kevin is.” he declared. “You think one of those guys will be nice enough to give me a broken arm?”