The Dark Edge Chronicles - Clan War

Legionnaires

As expected, the White Flames' armor was more than sufficient to blunt the counterattack. Of the ordinary assault weapons; against the Shiva's, they had no answer. And, with short, tight bursts, Narcist, Truk and Ballan began cutting individuals out of the formation with frightening speed and regularity.

After watching the first exchange, Lash turned back to the puzzle door. First glyph down, down, and, with a soft 'snik', it hit its trigger point. The big vampire then began the search for the next glyph even as several rounds smacked into his side. Momentum robbed by his reinforced kevlar, the slugs dropped to the ground with metallic 'pings'.

Ignoring them, Lash located the second glyph and quickly slid it along its track and into place to release the third glyph. Before he could locate it, however, the door abruptly appeared, a rectangle that, with a fine cloud of dust, appeared right in front of him.

Brow raised, he stepped back. Just in time for the door to swing outward to disgorge a good dozen heavily armored individuals in black tactical gear and advanced body armor of their own. As they poured past him, Lash heard Fiadh suddenly call out:

"Lash!"

Snapping his eyes towards where the two liliths were sheltering close to the wall, he was in time to see a good dozen more of the black armored soldiers bodily take hold of them and pull them into the open door despite both struggling wildly against the soldiers' hands. It then slammed close behind them.

Oddly enough seeing the two liliths pulled into the Night Market without them sent a wave of relief through the big vampire. Then he was twisting around as, with the hum of powerful, supercooled magnets coming to full power, the newcomers opened up on the White Flame formation, their gauss rifles almost soundlessly spitting out high velocity bursts of ordnance. A blink later the front line of the White Flame formation was falling into pieces, their enhanced armor no match for the newcomers' weapons fire.

The newcomers had caught the White Flames unprepared and the enhanced humans paid the price. But they didn't stay surprised for long. Even as Lash reached out to pull one of the Ventru nestari's handguns free so he could contribute to the defense, he watched as previously hidden riot-style shields were swung around and lifted into place just in time to deflect the majority of the newcomers' fire.

"Legionnaires," he barked because who else could they be with their gear and tactics coming from inside the Night Market but Silver Legion m'tada?

"The enemy utilizes irradiated sundog rounds. Any contact with your skin will begin an ash-out cascade. If any lodges in your armor, dislodge immediately!"

"Copy that," one of the newcomers smartly replied, her gauss rifle humming as she pounded at the newly-raised shields. Then a number of them were grunting from the impacts as the White Flames renewed their assault. Now aware of how deadly those rounds were, a handful of them paused long enough to pull free combat knives before using the tips to dig the embedded rounds out of their armor and send them to the courtyard floor with firm flicks.

Intending on targeting helmets that poked out from behind the shields to aim in the hopes of disrupting them enough to get them to drop their shields, Lash hesitated. He knew those helmets were just as stout as their body armor. His handgun, a 10mm Glock 20, while powerful, didn't have the penetrating power needed to punch through those helmets at this range. He would just be wasting his ammo.

They did, however, have enough power to punch through the reinforced leather covering the White Flames' boots. Dropping his line of sight, he quickly traversed the line, targeting any visible feet he could see.

The effect was immediate: as soon as a White Flame trooper got shot in the foot, they collapsed to their knees with a muffled yell of pain. And with the rapidity that Lash targeted them, several went to their knees at the same time. Which, in turn, crumpled the shield line. Seeing the humans abruptly vulnerable, the Silver Legion m'tada renewed their gauss rifle fire, chopping a good dozen humans down in a single volley. Added to the tight fire from the three Shiva's, and the vampires were making good progress at breaking the White Flame company down.