Editing Bound Fate (Warhammer High) (section)

===Injury Report===
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"OhmygodDoug!" Violet's eyes were unbelievably wide, and her hands darted over her face, failing to obscure that her normally tanned complexion had flushed to a deep red. Janus' reaction was very nearly identical, only with a barely controlled snicker.

"Oh-oh-oh-oh my go-o-od, ''du-ude''!" Ev's face was bright red as well, but only from the rush of uncontainable laughter. Chucho was blushing just slightly, an indication of the most extreme embarrassment of all.

''And, of course, Callie is the worst.''

She was flushed deeply as well, and abruptly energetic, almost frantic with sudden restlessness. But, as she looked more pointedly than the others at the unhindered-in-the-least-by-the-plaskin-at-ALL swelling of Doug's groin, Callie's face bore an expression of admiration, perhaps even gratitude.

Of course the solution was now simple, obvious, almost... ''No, not almost, Doug.''

''The answer is damningly.''

''Obviously.''

''Simple.''

''Include a cup with the standard assortment of undergear.'' Doug sighed and shook his head.

''Still, not a single one bears any lingering signs of personal embarrassment or trepidation.'' Doug recomposed himself, marking the incident down as an overall positive event, then drew himself up and clasped his hands behind his back. Very slowly he closed his eyes and gave a short, regal nod. Doug then stretched an arm towards the van and strode unabashedly to the driver's seat. As expected, Callie was in the passenger's seat with virtual instancy.

"''Sure'' you don't want me to finish you off, Doug?" Callie's expression was giddy, her voice now carrying the champagne quality unique to Sarai, enthusiastic and bubbly. Before a response could possibly be formulated her hand moved down to his thigh.

Fortunately Doug did not need to respond, and he thought back to a lesson he taught Janus months ago. 

:''"Response should be seen as a failure of planning, Janus, not as an end unto itself. Action supersedes''
:''reaction in every instance."''

Callie's hand instead slipped perfectly into his, positioned precisely for an awkward but serviceable thumblock even she couldn't escape from. Her faced meshed momentarily between bewilderment, arousal and the anticipation of two separate or even simultaneous outcomes.

"Perhaps another time, Caroline."

Doug kicked on the repulsors, the grounded vector wells pushing aside dust and dirt. He took a low, slow pass around the building, agitating the dust as Janus stirred the eddies of the warp before they finally peeled away. Ev knocked free the support holding the loading door open with a well thrown piece of masonry and every last remnant of their confirmable presence was erased.

Violet clicked off the wide-band aura-scrye. "Other than a lingering, uh... excitement?" She hunched her small shoulders and squinted lopsidedly. "We're good."

"Very good, Violet, thank you." Doug activated his comm-link while catching and returning the slightest of apologetic nods from Chucho in the rear view mirror. "Vin?"

"Target under observation, moving to hive-underhive border area." Vin's voice was somehow even shorter, more clipped. It carried just a hint of relish; Vin had truly exceptional senses and was an avid tracker.

"Confirming." Doug looked over the auspex currently occupying Callie's attention. ''Or rather seems to be.'' From the movement of her fingers on the grip he could tell she was thinking of another object entirely. 

"Callie." Doug said the word quietly, in order to avoid drawing the attention of the others.

"Doug." Callie's reply was breathless, distracted, but otherwise completely and utterly normal.

''Her normal voice, damn.''

"''Cal-lie.''"

"Huh? Oh, yeah, yeah. What?"

"Confirm that the target is moving towards the hive-underhive confluence, please." Doug's voice was cool, his eyes and motions so casual an onlooker would assume they were taking a long-planned trip to the holotheater.

"Ye-yeah. Doug." Callie blushed deeply, and Doug considered sitting her down for another talk. "Confirmed." 

"Confirmed, Vin. Altering route and velocity to compensate for unexpected delay in preparation."

''Or perhaps I should have a talk with Janus. It could do the both of them some good.''

"Was that Callie?" Vin's voice was the same as before, with a pinch of amusement. "Cup?"

"Yes, Vin, and yes. Commencing combat protocols, including burst communication and thermal vision preparation." The well-practiced response was played out perfectly as they broached the true darkness of the near-underhive.



The operation was planned to perfection, every possibility considered and dealt with redundantly. The actual combat should have taken no more than three minutes from start to finish, with a 77% chance of necessary pursuit of the leader, Klotch, when his gang was reduced to 40% strength, assuming zero friendly losses. They took their places; Ev and Violet were hidden at medium distance. Janus met up with Vin in the sniper roost, now on a standard rope ladder, purchased from the same store as the athletic gear and expertly knotted.

Doug and Callie were up close, to her exultation, at ground level. Chucho was hiding above, waiting for his cue. Doug palmed the LT smoke grenade he'd borrowed from Violet, then thought better of it, passing the heavy spheroid to Callie. She nodded, cheeks tinged faintly with received approval. Doug nodded to each of them in turn, taking special care to check on Violet, ready to cut the main power supply on his mark. Now that visual affirmation had been established, the secondary cycle began.

"Callsign Vindicare, affirming." Vin started the final ready cycle. He would be responsible for staining the leader, named Klotch according to Janus, with tracking dust.

"Callsign Venenum, affirming." Violet was next: step two was cutting the power. The change in light level, minor though it was, would still disorient the scavvies long enough for step three to commence.

"Callsign Callidus, affirming." Callie would lob the LT smoke grenade, allowing the perceptual advantage to remain theirs even with scavvie nightsight.

"Callsign Culexus, affirming." Chucho's voice rattled and ground, frighteningly resonant as it always was on missions. He would lead the attack after the lights and smoke dropped, completing the sensory assault.

"Callsign Eversor, affirming." Ev would attack the group from the outside, cutting off fields of escape. Between death and terror, Ev and Chucho would drive them through the cramped room into Callie and Doug's Calpurnia-pattern autogun kill pocket. Janus was next, but he waited. The plan required precise timing, of course, but the inception of their strategy would be most effective after a certain emotional effect had been produced by their accommodating hostage, Glemish. They waited as he finally approached his king.

"You may SPEAK, Glemish." King Klotch nodded slowly.

"Thenk you, yer rotundness." Klotch blinked his working eye at the compliment. He was, after all, The Tetra Scavvie, the king of scavvies. Glemish coughed, an unexpectedly smooth, expectedly thick sound. "I was captored, my leege, but I have escaped to bring you news of our enemees."

"CON-tinue." Klotch rolled his bulging eye, drawing laughs from his attendants. Glemish was well known for his fanciful stories and was only allowed to speak due to the richness of the humor that inevitably followed.

"They.. they want..." Glemish started breathing heavily, sweating again. This agitated the court: he often held his composure until they'd had a good ten minutes of mocking him. "THEY WANT THUH SLLY-EEDE, MY KING!" The words came out thick, thicker and globbier than the sweat plopping down his face and neck.

"CALM yourself, GLEM-ish. WHO wants MY ssslide?" Klotch was not as upset as the others, not visibly.

But Janus could see it through the warp. ''He's believing every malformed word.''

Glemish whispered, so low only Doug without his earplugs and Vin heard it. They both let grim smiles appear, and Doug checked his armband.

''They were well-worth learning the basics of jeweling and sewing.''

"SPEAK louder GLEM-ish. or I shall MAKE you do so." Klotch now appeared angry, frustrated and more than a little afraid. Doug could see Chucho edging closer and closer to him along the rafters, expertly utilizing his terrible presence as he had done earlier.

"Bluh... Blacksnakes! BLACKSNAKES!" Glemish was quivering now as the terror crept closer, superliterally, his various sores, warts and deformations wobbling and leaking madly.

"Callsign Partium, affirmed." Janus was beaming, feeling the terror swim through the drug dealers, murderers, thieves and rapists.

King Klotch's swollen eye went wide, so wide it began to roll out of its fractured socket. "AND ''YOU'' CAME BACK ''HERE''? I SHOULD ''KILL'' YOU ''WHERE'' YOU ''QHUAIL''!" The room went silent at this.

"Callsign Atrisanguis, affirmed." Doug smiled. He spoke aloud, shouting the low, menacing whisper, the sibilance cutting across the silent room like a knife. "''Indeed.''"

Glemish convulsed and bleated in terror, screaming and squealing apologies, sobbing.

"Commence strike." The specially prepared tracker bullet exited the barrel, the almost inaudible whine of the smart suppressor on Vin's big stubber drowned in the frightened murmur. It was halfway to its target when the lights cut out. The pop of the perfectly arced LT smoke grenade drowned out the sound of the bullet's impact to all but Klotch himself. He could only let out a confused squeak before realizing he still lived.

However, as Klotch began to rally his troops Chucho dropped into their midst, knife and powerful legs flashing. The milling throng turned into a chaotic riot, screaming and fleeing. Ev could see perfectly through the darkness and smoke, the malformed, distended bodies giving off extra heat due to metabolic inefficiency and physiological misconstruction. The great swarm, at least forty scavvies and almost all mutants, poured towards him. He thought briefly of them getting their hands on Violet and became a battle all his own, limbs seeming to fight each other for the privilege of killing them. Legs, knife and stubpistol put down mutants in short, brutal strokes and snapshots. Ev heard a few rounds crack out from behind him and smiled as Violet kept them off his flank. The horde fled with fresh abject terror the other direction. Few noticed as Vin's heavy stub rounds fell from the not-sky, bursting eyes and tearing apart misshapen skulls. Janus himself fired at the fringes of the crowd, his own shots slower and less sure than Vin's, but more than enough to kill his targets.

Doug smiled in bleak satisfaction at the carnage and could see Callie perk up just slightly out of the corner of his eye. In the few seconds since they'd started already a dozen scavvies were dead, a dozen more butchers and defilers removed from the hive.

''Some will survive, escape, of course, it is a matter of design rather than percentages.'' The message they carried would be clear and last for decades in the underhive: Hive Tetra belongs to the Blacksnakes.

The crush poured in Doug and Callie's direction, and the pair unloaded in perfect unison. Doug thought back to his first weeks with the group, before they had a designation or operation, when the indoctrinated kids had only just received their new, real names. He'd thought, hoped, wanted Callie to be something more than she was, but she'd disappointed him. Try as he might, Doug couldn't get her to see why and how easy it would be. It was more than likely the indoctrination, but, knowing Vin, Doug thought Callie could be more, they all could be more, than simply a weapon to be directed and loosed.

The Calpurnia IIIs opened up and in seconds another dozen scavvies lay dead. No suppressors or flashstoppers on these, the weapons lit Doug and Callie up, their bodies black and all but featureless bar the armbands they wore. The gold gleamed fiercely in the muzzle flash, revealing the blackaquila in a strobing radiance that would be burned into the minds of the survivors. Everything was going to plan, and that was what worried Doug. ''Nothing ever goes to plan, not completely.''





He saw something big, then, big and undeniably feminine, a monstrous parody of a human being, somehow both less and more inhuman than the other mutants. She knocked Chucho out with a single powerful blow, and Doug saw the problem. ''We're still outnumbered nearly three-to-one by the scavvies.''

Ev moved towards the big woman, tried to get past her to the king. If Klotch fell their problems would cease, all semblance of morale forever banished from their foes. The immense woman, at two meters, one-hundred and forty kilos of deformed muscle, smashed Ev back with the flat of her enormous axe. He rolled out of it and took to the fight with relish. Violet tried to keep a bead on the monster-woman, but had to keep her shots at Ev's flank, give him the room he needed to avoid her powerful blows.

"Vin." Doug could almost hear the man concentrate his laser-like intensity on the task.

"Affirmative." The first shot rang out, but the axe moved in a flash, blocking the bullet with ease and Klotch began to rally his scavvies.

"Callie." Doug moved in fast, slinging his extra magazines into her pouch.

"I got it Doug, go."

They both nodded, all awkwardness and tension evaporating in the face of possible loss, of damage to their family. Doug pulled his knife and pistol, then waded through the crowd. Expertly placed shots and stabs disabled but didn't kill the scavvies. The carpet of writhing, contorted bodies, hamstringed and gutshot, formed a nearly impassable barrier for the less nimble between he and Callie. Ev dodged another tremendous blow and Doug fired, catching the woman in the shoulder as she blocked another sniper round with impossible speed.

"Vin, the King." Doug fired another shot, but the small caliber stubs seemed to soak harmlessly into the woman-thing's thick skin and corded muscle.

"Affirmative." Vin fired another shot, but the woman's phenomenal reach brought the axe into place again, and Klotch disappeared underneath his massive throne. Doug checked Chucho: weak, but alive. The syn'd thermal hood would keep his blood loss in check and hopefully mitigate the worst of the concussion. Ev fired his pistol, but the rounds seemed to do nothing, so he pocketed it and pulled his other knife.

Ev circled like a predatory animal, but not something noble or regal like a wolf or tiger. He was a badger, small, horrendously overmatched and loving every minute of it. The woman started to take cuts, nicks really, bleeding and slowing incrementally. She continued with her powerful blows, knocking Ev off his feet several times. Still, the boy's reflexes, sheer muscle mass, light armor and implants were equal to the task.

Doug joined in, baiting the woman, striking at where he guessed sensitive areas and important nerve bundles were located. Soon the rest of the scavvies scattered, fearing their champion's failure and more than willing to be gone before it happened. An unexpected, tremendous blow knocked Ev out cold and Doug took the defensive, utilizing agility and angles, dancing back over the carpet of bodies he'd woven moments ago. The woman-thing smiled brutishly and changed its movement, a clumsy imitation of his own capering. She lashed out with sudden speed and Doug barely managed to avoid the axe, taking a scrape on his chest. Her powerful fist impacted next and he was suddenly thankful he'd fought Furia last week, for before her he had no reference for this kind of punishment.

"Doug!" Callie tried and failed to push through the last dregs of the retreating force. Her own knife appeared and began carving a slow path, too slow. The big woman hefted Doug, grinning at him luridly, then spoke in a surprisingly measured and intelligent voice.

"You're the leader, aren't you, pinkskin?"

Doug saw her features closer, and decided she had to be a mutated Ogryn. She was especially odd in that her feminine features were even more exaggerated by mutation, taking her the opposite direction of an Ogryn. Too full lips, too large eyes, too white and even teeth for such a hideous beast.

"That doesn't matter. What matters is, well..." Doug looked pointedly over her shoulder.

He let out a beaming, bloody grin as Ev flew through the air, powerful legs cinching onto her back. His twin knives worked, dragging him up the troglodytic form. The boy seemed to be satisfied when his head drew just above hers, and the knives began to piston over and over into her grossly muscled back and shoulders. He seemed to be building up to something and her crushing grip on Doug's waist was finally broken by the staggering impact of Ev's forehead to the back of hers.

Callie leapt in front of Doug, crouching like a wolverine, only slightly less rabid and feral than Ev. A heavy round impacted the massive torso from Violet's stubber and more shots rang out from Janus and Violet, occupying the axe. Chucho began to stir and the woman-thing finally relented, slowing only long enough to peel Ev from her back. As the big woman moved towards the throne Klotch crawled out from underneath, looking even more pale and sickly than before.

The beastly woman moved with surprising speed, covering the intervening distance in an instant. "Pelagia, dohn't LEAVE me!" Klotch clutched feebly at her leg, weeping and mewling.

"Don't worry, lover, I won't."

The massive axe came down, splitting his upper body vertically into loose halves, and Pelagia trundled away. A single prodigious kick ruined the bracing that held the entrance to the lower reaches of the underhive open. The last they saw as rounds scattered, and Ev's thrown knife succeeded only in scratching her face, was Pelagia's sickeningly womanish smile.

Cleanup was fast and easy after a short break. The airvan mounted pressure hose sprayed protam at the few areas where their blood had been shed. Violet produced a smaller amount of azoic acid and she worked with Ev, still reeling with adrenaline boosted to near-killing levels by implants, to drench Klotch and his throne. All in all the combat took less than five minutes, and cleanup less than three. Physically weary and mentally tired, the group piled back into the van. Doug went last of all, still feeling unsatisfied by what had happened. He was sure Pelagia was the true mastermind behind this arm of the Slide cartel: she seemed far too well equipped and spoken to be a simple thug. Even an Ogryn couldn't take that kind of punishment without subdermal armor and muscle augments.

Chucho was alive, his syn'd hood proving remarkably durable. ''But he will need serious treatment.'' The drop was arranged and he was given over to good hands. None doubted they would see him again: a simple concussion, no matter how bad, was almost nothing compared to the Officio's existing investment in the boy. Vin, of all of them, seemed the happiest, he was proud to have killed, or at least witnessed the death of his target. Violet was exhausted and soon fell out against Ev, who finally calmed down from his adrenaline high at the realization she was sleeping against him. The trip was long and complex, the van's chameleon coating changing its appearance in various subtle and blatant ways at different times throughout its roundabout path. Janus was surprisingly alert, but Callie seemed drained, yawning and barely making any innuendo about the woman and Doug or Ev.

"Yeah, that was a real-uughh-ful tower, guys."

Doug felt it too, the weariness, and inwardly groaned at going to school Monday.

''Furia''

The sudden thought brightened his outlook just enough and after Doug parked the van, escorted the group to their townhouse and made it home, he had just enough left in him to write the surprisingly dull strike report.

''Operation Arcanus Tuitio - Combat Operation #001 - After Action Report.''

Then its subreport: ''OpArTut - C-001-G - Injury Report.''

Doug knew he wouldn't be able to sleep until he finished the task. As he moved into an abbreviated set of forms, he found himself watching the door, wondering if he would hear the knock. Doug crawled into bed some time later, certain he would find the time to talk to Furia tomorrow.

Even as he did so, the thought of what came Tuesday made him shudder.

''Perhaps I should have let good lady Pelagia have her fun with my body. Crushed ribs and punctured lungs would be preferable.''

Still, despite the trepidation, Doug began to meditate and almost instantly fell into a deathlike sleep.