The lead Arbiter thrashed in the mud, muffled curses spitting from behind his golden mask as the shadow-weaves wrapped tighter around his throat, cutting off his pompous booming voice into pathetic wet gasps.
“You... you cannot defy the Reclamation protocol!” another Arbiter shrieked from the dais, his hands shaking as he desperately channeled a bolt of crackling violet plasma. “We are the system! We are the law!”
“And we’re the union mandated to shut you down,” Kyle called out cheerfully. He raised his mag-rifle and squeezed the trigger, sending a three-round burst of armor-piercing kinetic fire straight through the charging Arbiter’s robes. The man slammed backward against the obsidian altar like a ragdoll, sliding down into a very permanent, very quiet heap.
Before the spellcaster could even collapse, Kevin surged past Kyle like an armored war wall. He didn't waste time on witty banter—he lined up his heavy mag-cannon and let loose a brutal, two-round burst that shattered the Arbiter's kinetic barrier into blinding shards. "Keep talking, bureaucrat," Kevin growled, racking another round into the chamber and leveling it at the next robed figure with icy focus. "It gives me something to target."
Beside us, Lyra was turning the remaining guards into abstract art. She vaulted over a low stone barricade, slamming her combat boot into an Arbiter's chest with enough concussive force to crack the ancient cavern floor. Before the guy could even register that his ribs were now occupying the same space as his lungs, Lyra wrenched his ceremonial staff away and used it to vault herself toward the next target, laughing like a maniac.
The other Tiara didn’t bother with finesse either. She casually pumped her shotgun and blew the glowing runic focus right out of another Arbiter’s hands, showering the cavern in sparkling debris. “You know, for an all-knowing board of directors, you guys have terrible hazard insurance,” she drawled, stepping over a trembling, robed coward and driving the butt of her rifle straight into his golden mask with a satisfying CRACK.
I knelt down beside the lead Arbiter thrashing at my feet. The oppressive weight of my sovereign spiritual aura pressed down on him like a physical mountain, forcing his face deeper into the damp earth. With a flick of my wrist, I used a fraction of my spatial manipulation to peel his golden mask away, revealing a sweating, middle-aged bureaucrat with wide, terrified eyes who suddenly looked a lot less intimidating without his cosplay.
“Please,” the man sobbed, trembling violently as my thermal-chilled breath frosted the air right above his nose. “The Grand Director... he’ll come for you. You can’t stop the purge!”
I tilted my head, letting out a soft, mocking laugh. My biological hyper-regeneration thrummed under my skin, making me feel invincible, untouchable, and completely unbound by their petty rules.
“Let him come,” I whispered, my voice dripping with lethal promise. “We’ve been looking for a reason to expand our territory.”
With a casual flick of spatial distortion, I knocked him out cold, letting his head drop back into the dirt with a dull thud.
Kevin walked up, stepping over the unconscious leader and tapping the hot barrel of his mag-cannon against his shoulder. He took a long drag from his fresh synth-cigar, blowing a ring of smoke toward the vaulted ceiling. "Clean work, boss," he grunted with a dry, approving smirk. "Not bad for a bunch of anomalies."
The vault fell suddenly silent, save for the crackle of fading magic and the heavy, ragged breathing of the surviving bureaucrats cowering in the corners. Our squad stood shoulder-to-shoulder amidst the smoke and shattered stone, looking entirely too good for a group of people who had just committed casual corporate sabotage.
Kyle sauntered over, stepping smoothly over a groaning Arbiter. He offered me a crooked, devastating grin, wiping a speck of dust off his jacket. “Well,” he murmured, leaning in close enough that I could feel the heat radiating off his chest, “that’s middle management dealt with. What’s next on the itinerary, boss?”
Lyra jogged up, resting her heavy weapon across her shoulders with an easy, lethal grace, her golden eyes locking onto mine with fierce approval. “I vote we find the main server room, delete their entire filing system, and see what kind of snacks they have in the executive lounge.”
"If there's an executive lounge, they better have high-grade rations and bourbon," Kevin chimed in, checking his ammo drum with a satisfying metallic click. "Otherwise, I'm billing extra."
The other Tiara smirked, tossing a set of master keys she’d looted from the lead Arbiter into the air and catching them with a sharp click. “Seconded. Lead the way, honey. Let’s go find out who’s really signing the checks.”