There had been a numbness in the briefing room when he had heard the news. The others, he had noticed, seemed mostly nonplussed by it all, or even excited by the prospect. The idea of a purge of Horde in Dalaran wasn’t an unpopular opinion among the trigger pullers of the Alliance races, but Nesven could only feel the void of shock. His attention would be gathered by his captain, the man in a hasty stroll towards a podium at the head of the small room.
This one is straight from Inrith. I know a lot of it has already leaked to you guys, but we need to make sure we’ve got our game faces on here.
This one is straight from Inrith.
He is aware of the briefing, of how he’s scribbling down notes and nodding along with the room, but he never feels as if he’s actually there. The blankness holds him while he gears, and lingers still even as he’s leaning over to close the door to the crew compartment, flinching back from the sound of the spooling Gyrocopter engines. His daze doesn’t go unnoticed for long, Dommoth having watched how detached the Elf appeared as the transport neared the hovering edges of the portal that would drop them close to their LZ.
His attention was drawn by the movement of Dommoth, who had leaned forward to stretch out an arm and smack Nesven’s helmet soundly, pointing then to his own eyes in a silent demand to get his head in the game. A blink served to begin that process, a slowly drawn breath that he held while the gyro pressed beyond the portal. His head cranes back towards the window, eyes set on the burning image of the embattled Dalaran, flinching back again when fingers of flame roll against the glass from a nearby magical explosion. The entire transport is rocked by the explosion, prompting the pilot to relay a message to the back.
“We’re currently of the opinion that the fireball wasn’t meant for us, we’re going to maintain towards primary LZ.” The pilot calmly spoke. Nesven, considering it a matter out of his control, had turned his eyes back towards the floating city itself. He was struck by the image, and from the thought of how unique the next few hours would be. To fight through Dalaran, he had never figured that the opportunity or necessity would ever be there.
“Silver linings, Dom.” He offered over to the man across from him.
“Silver linings to this hooligan shit? Whatever you say, brother.” Dommoth gave back.
Ten minutes later he was sliding down the rope towards the grass underneath, fighting for visibility against the rotor wash of the hovering gyro. Sixty seconds more and the team had fully gathered and began their advance through the city. The first contact came around the first corner that fed out of the park area they had landed in, Nesven having caught sight of two mages dueling in the middle of the street. One was quite clearly human, the other resembling one of his own people, if not for the green glow to her eyes. He put two into the side of the Blood Elf and watched as the Alliance Cyromancer ran her through with hundreds of ice splinters. His hand peeled away from the trigger when the human’s head turned in the direction of the gunfire, wiggled fingers served to indicate he wasn’t hostile.
“Hope you didn’t know her.” Dommoth whispered lowly to him, Nesven having noticed the man’s head had bombed in and out of his peripheral during the tense gesture of peace.
“Not intending to stick around and find out.” Nesven whispered back, his body having been locked in tension right up until the human turned and jogged away, which allowed the team to press on across the street. Nesven fell back into his position on point against the opposing wall, the team having stacked on a door they would have to go through. With one kill already tallied, he had honed in on the job, and now he stood ready to breach a room that may contain multiple mages.
When he feels Dommoth squeeze his arm his hand shifts forward to snag the doorknob, giving it a testing turn. As soon as he feels the click that signals it is unlocked, he slowly pulls it far enough to get his barrel in the crack, his head tilting forward to focus up on his sights. The cracked door gave him vision into a sprawling room with minimal cover, a central exit point deeper in the room flanked on either side by walls that he wagered were thin. He saw two silhouettes, his stance shifting so that he could plant a shoulder against the wall. He leans into that shoulder, bringing his left arm across the cracked door to serve as a rest for the barrel of his rifle. He leans his torso back slightly to give him room to aim, and with a held breath he zeros in on the left of the two targets and pulls the trigger. His body shifts back along the wall when he sees the first form crumble to the ground, attempting to quickly acquire the second one, squeezing off two rounds just as he centers up. Both fly wide of his target, who is now aware of the attack and scrambling to get behind the cover of the wall. Nesven manages to center his aim just as the target appears behind the wall, his body sliding back further and further along the wall as he swings his aim, banging off an additional four rounds through the wall. He pushes forward when he hears the thud of the body dropping down behind the wall, allowing the rest to join him in taking the room.
“West wall, this room. Get eyes on that entrance and the door we came in through, we’re going to pop this quick and get mobile. Next room is going to be adjacent to HVT, long room with staircases central to our point of entry. On the other side of the lobby there will be a door that is going to lead you into the wing that houses the HVT. One through four will push through the lobby and locate the HVT, the rest of us are going to hold the lobby at the stairs so we don’t get caught leapfrogging out of this bitch with a non-combatant in tow. It’s going to be dark in there, get your helmet and gun lights on.” the voice of their Captain fills the room even as the men work to set up the breaching charges in the appropriate configuration that would be required to pop through the wall. Nesven settles near the door, his rifle trained on the opposing entrance.
He notices that, strangely, everyone seems to have fallen totally still. His head tilts towards Dommoth, who stands against the wall that Nesven had shot through, his rifle up and trained on the door at Nesven’s side. He notices that he’s got his finger on the trigger, and that everyone appears to be staring at the same point - the door beside him. He slowly rotates his head to get eyes on the door and sees a young Human mage peering into the room, her eyes wide, the girl apparently frozen by what she had just stumbled on. He looks back towards Dommoth to catch sight of the man shaking his head slowly in a clear ‘no’ gesture towards the woman, and when he looks back towards the door the girl has already fled. There’s a visible sigh of relief from the room, and the men get back to work.
It is little more than half a minute before they are ready to detonate. “Alright, form up.” Cappy calls out, prompting Nesven to slowly lift himself from his crouched firing position, keeping his rifle trained on the area he had selected to cover while he moves into spot for the breach. Dommoth crosses to his side and lowers to his knees, his gun trained on his door. “Execute.”
With the final word from Cappy the charges are blown, and the entire room shakes with the outward explosion of the shaped charges. The wall disintegrates, immediately billowing out into a blinding cloud of tiny debris. Nesven’s legs shift as he prepares to begin his movement, calling out towards the second man in with a simple bark of “Dom!”
“Go, Nessy, go.” Comes the response from Dommoth, and with that confirmation Nesven tucks his rifle in and pivots, bringing it back up into his firing stance just as he takes his first step towards the newly opened hole in the wall. He’s thankful for his glasses as he pushes through the cloud of dust, his foot planting solidly on the rubble underneath to hoist him into the next room. He pushes in a few steps, the low light proving to be terrible cover thanks to his race, and only after identifying the threats and making way for the others does he halt to engage. There’s a handful of Sin’dorei mages stumbling around in a concussed daze, a few of which are crumbled on the stairs, the closest of which catches a triple tap to the chest from the Elf. He shifts to engage another, prioritizing any targets that he doesn’t see a friendly light on. His rifle swings onto a woman that had fallen onto her knees, her hands lifted to cover her bloodied ears. He put two into her side and a final one through her head after she slumps forward onto her chest, pushing past the corpses as soon as the last mobile target falls.
He can hear Dommoth and the other duo on his heels as he breaks into a fire-ready jog towards the opposing side of the room, his head swinging back to catch sight of the others starting their ascent up the stairs. He only slows when he bounces off of the wall, slamming into place beside the door that would feed them deeper into the compound. Dommoth steps out of the stack and plants himself in front of the door, looking towards Nesven for the call.
The Edict shooter trails six rounds down the middle of the door, starting the first from average Sin’dorei height and trailing down in quick taps that left little time to react, with the second shot soliciting a grunt from the other side that is quickly followed by the hiss of rushing flame. He finishes by putting three rounds through the handle, the brass construct and wooden frame shattering and splintering, the door creaking open ever so slightly as it loses its resistance. Nesven swings it open fully from there and rounds the corner to begin their push through the narrow hallway, the other two pausing a heartbeat to allow Dommoth to fall back into his spot in the stack. He catches sight of who had grunted when he notices a slumped corpse further down the way, the robes a bloody riddled mess at the chest. The walls around the corpse are charred, and a heavy layer of dust has settled atop the carpet, suggesting there were others present that had been incinerated when the Pyromancer lost control of his spell due to the gunshot wounds.
He pauses at an elbow in the hallway, where it turns and feeds further into the compound. It would lead him to an enclosed patio, and that was where he wagered she would be. After a quick lean to check that the hallway was clear, he turns back to address the others. “We’re going to push the patio, you two check the rooms we passed. Make sure they’re not hiding her under a bed somewhere.”
The other two give nods and turn to do just that, leaving Nesven and Dommoth to turn and hustle further down the hallway. They once again slow when they approach another sharp turn, the final one that would feed them up a small flight of stairs and up to the patio. “Hold on.” Dommoth whispers forward. “Been a lot of shooting and explosions, anyone in there is going to be aware. Lets get eyes on first.” He concludes, turning to plant his back flat against the wall. Nesven pushes his rifle to his side to tug his sidearm, pressed against the wall, his pistol leveled right at the turn, ready to defend Dommoth while he scouted. The human pulls a small silver ball from his belt and flicks it into the air, his eyes unfocusing just as the ball snaps out of its fall and buzzes back into the air. Dommoth, now seeing through the perspective of the flying ball, directs it around the bend and up the stairs, and further still through the door that leads to the patio.
He catches sight of her without much of a search, the openness of the patio quickly revealing that she was standing with her back to the door, leaning against the railing with her eyes set out on the burning city beneath her. She’s flanked on either side by an Undead and another Sin’dorei, both of them outfitted with high grade military gear, both of them standing guard with their rifles held in hand.
“Shooters.” Dommoth relays, “133rd.”
“What the fuck does Kovitch want with her?” Nesven questions, his attention remaining on the bend.
“Lets go ask them.” Dommoth responds simply, guiding the silver ball into a plant where he can safely and quietly cut his link to it. “We’re going to need to push hard and pop a few rounds in the air to get them away from her, otherwise we’ll end up tagging her in the fight. Zero defilade, so we need to make sure we hit these guys hard enough in the first round. Ready?”
Nesven’s response is a nod and a breath, rounding the corner a second later with Dommoth at his heel. The push up the stairs is uneventful, but both men focus up as they plant their boots on the final few and lift up into sight. The rifle fire from the Horde shooters is immediate, rounds snapping past Nesven and Dommoth, bursts of marble peeling off of the enclosed landing as rounds impact around them. The return fire pops back just as quickly, but Nesven is soon made aware of the fact that the Sin’dorei nor the Undead seemed intent on moving. His attention, just as a bullet ricochets up into his vest, falls on Noctuah. He watches as she lazily glances behind her with a bored expression, before turning her head back out towards the city and blindly reaching back with both hands. Each palm lands on one of the two Horde shooters, both freezing instantly upon contact. They shatter a second later, leaving Dommoth and Nesven in the middle of the patio with smoking barrels and nothing to shoot at.
She turns, and when she does her expression is the perfect image of false radiance, beaming out at the two men as her hands clap together. “Nesven, is that you? I could hardly hear myself think with all of the noise.”
“Lady Dawnbreaker, we’ve got a path secured to move you through. We’re going to pull you out via gyro.” Nesven gives in response.
“Oh, wonderful. We really have so much to catch up on.”
jimmyeatworldofficial
stormborns
gummygunk
turnnoffyourmind
discoholicmusic
gracieabrams
