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The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/PepperAntique on 2025-12-09 22:33:26+00:00.
Writer's Note: Yep. This is still going on. Barcadi might birth a new god of rage. Enjoy.
If Murphy, or any of the officers around him, had expected gunfire as they approached Minara Choi and her party, then they were quite incorrect about what Captain Demarco had meant by "Handling them".
Instead of gunfire or spells, the two QZ-Sec cyborgs approached the crime lord in an almost casual manner. To her credit, she approached them with equal casualness.
Chills ran down Murphy's spine. In equal parts from the cutting cold of the mountainside wind, which was still being whipped against them by their transport, and from the seemingly lessening time stops.
Minara Choi slid down the side of the gargantuan black drake as if he was a ramp, and landed in a thud as her armored form nodded at Demarco.
She peered at him for a moment before grinning.
"Captain?" She greeted. "Long time no see. I assume you want to be the first ones through the breach?"
"Miss Choi." Demarco replied with a similar nod. "I'm afraid I'll have to insist that that's the case. Your people are civilians and shouldn't even be here." He made a show of turning his helmet to look in the direction of the QZ miles away. "To say nothing of the show you've just put on."
She nodded again.
"As a member of the extended Royal Family of Petravius I gained knowledge that a member of the main branch of the family was in danger and had even used a charge of a high level familial survival relic. Meaning they'd been killed, albeit temporarily." She said as she held up a hand and showed him the ring there. "As such I'm bound by blood to assist their recovery."
If Demarco's mechanical body could sigh it would have.
"That's paperwork that is... FORTUNATELY... above my pay grade ma'am." He said, sounding tired. "Regardless. I must insist that you step aside once you've managed a breach and allow us first entry. I can't let a member of the royal family." He glanced at the people still working behind her. "Or a bunch of civilians, to be in the line of fire before our law enforcement officers. Legal standing aside."
She gestured for the officers to proceed even as she said. "That'll only be a matter of moments." Then she clambered back up the side of her familial drake and began riding back toward the widening hole. "We're still going in."
Demarco's helmet drooped before he looked back up and nodded. Then he turned back to the strike force.
"Weapons up and on highest settings." He said. "A.R. eyewear on. Miss Choi's people have been kind enough to forward us detailed layouts for the facility below." If he was questioning how she’d gotten said layouts, it was staying inside his helmet.
Murphy put the ballistic glasses on, pulling them from his jacket pocket, and was surprised to see a remarkably in-depth set of 3D skeletal lines displaying the myriad of halls and rooms set into the mountain below their feet.
Interestingly, he also saw a small window pop up in the corner that gave a readout of his new prosthetic arm's status.
And while the officers around him were grumbling and whining about the cold, and their seeming partnership with a wanted criminal, Murphy knew better than to bite the hand that was feeding them.
A minute later he was staging just behind Demarco’s fellow Muck Marchers as one of Choi's people announced that they'd be going in in mere seconds.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The monster lashed out almost chaotically as Eli, the Arch mage, and the other Petravians fought it.
The stutters in time seemed to have lessened, both in frequency and in how intense they were. But that didn't change much about what was happening.
Most of the cyber golems had fallen, either dismantled by the concerted efforts of the Petravians, or by the disruptions to time and magic caused by the monster Eli was fighting. Now only R.T.I. ground forces were remaining, and they were mostly holding the area behind the massive wolf monster and preventing the royal army from getting to the doors that their comrades had fled through with the contraband relics.
Speaking of the relics, Eli and the prince had failed.
Those relics were gone now. So was the Ancient leader of the Agency.
Having gone through the doors, several of which had already deactivated and fallen to the floor, they could be anywhere. Maybe not even on Earth now.
Their efforts to stop the grand theft of desecrated holy artifacts was now firmly on the back foot.
He was sliding across the floor on his back, having just been thrown back by one of his own spell explosions, when something above them made a loud WHUMPF! Noise.
He wanted to look up, especially since the sound seemed to accompany an immediate drop in temperature, when he heard a slightly more curious noise.
It was like a cross between a wolf’s howl and a war cry. He recognized it. He’d heard were-folk charge into battle before, albeit not to the scale that the Petravians likely had.
But the voice was too high pitched to be coming from the malformed Champion they were fighting. It also seemed to be coming from beyond the monster and near the doors.
As Eli kipped up and back into the fight, he spared the slightest moment to look past the melee and saw a bloodbath unfolding on the other side of the room.
**“I WILL KILL YOOOOOUUUUU!!!!”** A strange, naked and blood soaked, werewolf was screaming as they tore through the rear ranks of R.T.I. henchmen.
He only had the split second to look at the new development before the Prince went flying past him in a blur of flame.
Someone up above, from where the loud noise a moment ago had been, yelled out in an artificially amplified voice.
**“THIS IS ACTING Q.Z. SECURITY CHIEF DEMARCO! ALL R.T.I. PERSONELL STAND DOWN! FAILURE TO FOLLOW THESE INSTRUCTIONS WILL RES-”**
Eli wanted to see what THAT was about too.
But there was no time.
He was in a fight and had no time for confusion about anything other than his next move.
He charged back into the chaos of thrashing limbs and vanishing matter.
Barcadi could see her torturer.
Or at least the thing her nose told her was her torturer.
He’d undergone some kind of transformation and was now several dozen feet tall and…. Oddly difficult to look at in places.
He was also fighting a wild scrum of Petravian soldier, the Arch Mage, and one of the Detectives. Simmons-Dayari to be precise.
But she had, for the moment at least, more pressing issues.
When she’d charged through the door, she’d bowled over several people in black and green tactical gear that had R.T.I. on it. There’d been a moment of confusion before one of them had asked a question.
“Are you with the champi-“ They’d begun.
Barcadi’s claws had slashed his throat before he’d been able to finish.
The others she’d knocked over, and a few beside, had begun to raise their weapons.
As clumsy as she was, she’d begun tearing into them with zeal. She had a lot of pain, anger, and confusion to get out. And they were great practice for her new body.
Most of them were focused on firing at a line of Petravian soldiers who were shielding themselves while firing their bolt action rifles in return.
It was a bit of a stalemate, but the Petravians WERE making very slow progress against them while also lending aid to their prince.
And why wouldn’t the R.T.I. forces want a stalemate? All they had to do was hold the doors for a while until they got the order to withdraw. They could stay here as long as ammo held out. Or until reinforcements arrived.
She changed that quickly.
The first handful of them fell like she was cutting weeds. He claws parting flesh like paper. Even when they broke on armor or weapons, they regrew in less than a minute. She broke bones like dry pasta. And when she had to, she bit and tore great chunks of flesh off of torsos and necks like the animal she resembled.
They shot her.
They beat her.
They tore at her with their own lesser claws when they panicked.
They hit her with whatever magic they could summon.
But after having been tortured for... who knew how long. They could cause no pain that would slow her. And their weapons were foolishly NOT made of silver.
Always, even when they hurt her, she ensured that the attacks were lethal.
She didn’t approve of this new body or how it had been forced upon her. But she would, as always, respect the laws that came with it. She would NOT have her teeth capped in silver.
In her newfound form and long-lasting rage, Chief Barcadi ravaged the R.T.I. force that was near the doors.
There were thirty or so of them in total. And several minutes later, as she clambered on hands and knees through the gore, she turned her attention back to her real goal.
She was oblivious to the stunned looks of the Petravians on the other side of the wall. She didn’t even notice the arrival of her Muck Marcher cousins. Not that she was one of them any more.
She only had eyes for the monster in the center of the chaos.
The one who had tortured her. Turned her. Tortured her some more, and worse. And then tried to kill her and failed.
She breathed deeply as she stood on shaking legs, blood and viscera dripping from every inch of her.
The Petravians who saw her couldn’t even tell what color her fur was for all the bits of… people… that dripped from her.
And ...
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