An explosion. Immediately following that was some rumbling. Then, a loud siren cried out from beyond the window, howling throughout the cityscape outside.
"What in the hell?!" asked Faker, already up and battle-ready, glaring out the open window. "Smoke in the distance. No. Scratch that! A huge section of the city's in flames!"
True to her word, multiple pillars of smoke climbed high from the distance. Another, and another! Armed with Servant-class parameters, she could even spy more fires erupting beyond the horizon. But her Master didn't need to be told, using only his ears to discern the gravity of the threat.
"This is on a scale far larger than a mere diversion." Heartless moved to the window and, like his Servant, was surveying the ground level below. Civilians all around gawked and stared at the sky in a panic. Some were already evacuating to the shelters, being ushered by law enforcement. "These air sirens… They're not your average evacuation alerts. These ones were prepared for the potential notable crisis during the Cold War."
Considering the Clock Tower hadn't put a stop to it when they ruled this area with a subtle iron fist, this means whoever triggered the system was either allowed to or… was able to bypass the Clock Tower's safeguards against the potential sabotage for a panic.
Heatless didn't like this one bit and Faker could tell just from the air around him. She wasn't going to stand around and wait for orders.
"Collect your stuff, academic. We're leaving. Now!"
Despite being the Master of their dynamic, Heartless wasn't about to question an ancient warrior's instinct. He rushed to his desk, grabbing the most important papers and stuffing them into the nearest envelope. The rest, he gathered together in a single pile. He would need to get rid of them in one go to avoid missing anything.
All the while as he cleaned his desk, his mind raced. They would need to make a run for it, Mage Association catching sight of him be damned. Whoever started the diversionary attacks were doing so whilst intentionally antagonizing the organization by invading their territory. This was most definitely not the Church for theirs were as subtle as the Mage Associations—!
CRASH BOOM
It all became more evident when the ceiling came crashing down from above, followed by another, louder explosion that rocked the building and his eardrums.
"Master!"
'Dematerialize and await my orders, Faker!'
The mental order was acknowledged and followed through. Faker vanished into whisps of smoke, mixing in with the dust and debris that crashed in the centre of the office room. Taking shelter from the sudden collapse behind his desk, Heartless sealed the envelope before surveying the area with his own magi senses.
Almost all of the barriers he'd prepared were down. Those closest to their position, especially the ones in the floor down beneath theirs, had either been tampered with or destroyed entirely. What's more, none of the sensory fields he set up was picking up any unwanted intruders or changes. It was like they'd been hijacked and modified to not respond at all to his call!
'Well… whoever they are, they're thorough. That's for sure…' he sighed, opting to use his human senses to survey the damage.
What was splayed out for him was the disaster that was his office. The floor above was a goner. As for the building itself, it still stood, with a couple of fires now eating away at the walls. Paper and books were strewn about, shattered wood and concrete littered everywhere. Bodies, too, were covered by the wreckage. Seeing the ring on one of them, Heartless could only sigh.
An unfortunate casualty, Mr Sullivan and his portly wife, lay side by side. No doubt they were enjoying a simple afternoon tea before their home suddenly caved in on itself. Strangely, the fires that were burning away at the old couple's furniture as well as his office's bookshelves weren't being affected by the light rain that was now pouring in from above the hole in the pair's destroyed apartment.
'Fires fueled by magecraft… And too large of an explosion to be made by a gas canister going off. Heh… My office now resembles the site of a potential terrorist attack, but the tools they implored are most definitely of the mystical arts. No doubt, NOT of the Mage Association. They prefer to keep destruction and public disruption to a minimum. Which leaves… them. Intriguing.'
'I doubt this is the time to be impressed, Master!' Faker's sarcasm was absent now, replaced by immediate concern when she directed him to the shaking door to his office. 'We have incoming!'
'Very well. Stay hidden.' While the invisible of an apparition would've made to interject, the magus sternly refuted, already in the process of hiding himself amidst the rubble. 'While I appreciate your concern, there are more ways to get out of a bind.'
Not a moment later, the door burst open after a large explosion blasted the good oak off its hinges. Armed soldiers began pouring in, weapons ready and trained everywhere except from the hallway they came in.
The new arrivals, numbering ten, certainly didn't betray anything. Masked and silent, they moved with military levels of precision and caution. They fanned out the room, eyeing every corner of the destroyed furniture, machine guns trained on any potential cover from the couch to the writing desk with papers left strewn about.
To the atypical magus caught off guard by a home invasion, it would be infuriating for the common folk to intrude a workspace, but for the good Doctor, the professional vigilance was worrying.
Noting the accessory on the barrel and the equipment they wore, Heartless confirmed from his hiding spot that these men weren't simple law enforcers. Not when they were outfitted on the same level as the British S.A.S. yet moved like a modern defense contractor out on a sting operation. If the silencers and military-grade hardware were any clues, they were possibly a merc outfit out on a manhunt.
"Command, this is Tango-One. The fourth floor, was cleared. Potential eye-witnesses from the floor above were found. Two middle aged adults. One male, the second is female." One of the men stood behind the squad and went to slowly approach the unmoving bodies of the Sullivan couple.
He must've gotten a response for he didn't even bother to check for their pulses, only putting a hand in his pocket and pulling a pin off a strangely shaped grenade. As soon as he tossed it over to the corpses, another fire erupted from the epicenter of the detonating grenade.
"Both corpses have been torched. No one else in sight." Spoke the man who threw the grenade into his radio. All the while keeping an eye on the dead smothered by blue flames. It was odd too, as they not only quickly ate away at the deceased and left the rubble fairly untouched, but it also seared lightly at the surface of the glowing barriers enveloping the nearby soldiers.
'Barriers?' Eyeing the phenomenon sharply, he sensed the energies mixed in with them akin to his own. 'It seems they have people on the same level as Enforcers…'
The revelation was astounding. Magecraft mixed with non-magi military implements. Heartless stilled his breathing and activated a smaller, cognition-blocking barrier on his immediate position, as well as activating dummy barriers on the floors above and below to help mask his presence further.
While it was impressive that someone was progressive enough to mix and match aspects of the modern world to that of the moonlit one, he had no intentions of getting caught so soon.
Movement from the apparent squad leader sharply called Heartless' attention. "Copy that. Tango-One, out. Alright, men! You heard the lady. Tango Squad is to sweep and clear! There's possibly a couple more skulking around. Tear this place down and recover anything listed as 'intel relevant'. Smoke out any more survivors and burn whatever we can't take back to base. Copy?!"
""Sir!""
And with that, the rest of the soldiers began to break off in pairs. That they knew something was up meant they could sense his activation of magecraft. Good thing he had decoys.
Two went to the window to secure the vantage point and check behind the couch. Another pair broke off to the other side of said couch to check on the mostly-undamaged bookshelf. Another pair clambered up the caved-in floor above by hopping higher than any normal man should—Heartless noted the glowing lines representative of reinforcement magecraft on their legs—while the four, including their apparent squad leader, approached his desk to check on the scattered sheets.
They hadn't cottoned on yet to his existence, likely not being able to sense the magecraft themselves. Which means their sensor-capable magus isn't among them and they're just the brawns.
'Faker, find their sensor and take them out of the picture.' Sensing his Servant's hesitance, he added. 'We can't let them know who we are. It's likely they're not aware of our presence here and this is one of many simultaneous attacks on any bounded-field-protected area.'
It'd explain the sporadic fires burning beyond the horizon. Multiple attacks against the Mage Association is an effective disruption strategy especially in emergencies or ambushes. The whole group functioned less as a collective or organized force and more a mass of individuals cooperating due to coinciding ambitions rendering them vulnerable to coordinated attacks.
What's more, if it wasn't against the Association and just an attack on them specifically, then it would still fit given that they had more than a couple of safehouses in the same direction as of the fires earlier.
At them or the association, either way, this concerted attack was an attempt to mask their real intentions. As someone on the run, the only logical resolution would be to vanish as seamlessly as possible.
"Grab an envelope." One of the soldiers said, snatching up some of the scattered papers. "This looks like magus research. Boss Lady's gonna wanna see them. Hurry. We're bringing it back to base."
But Heartless couldn't very well leave evidence of what he'd been investigating all this time. So, as soon as Faker's presence vanished from this floor, and as soon as he made sure his own package was secure, he broke out of his hiding spot to grab the squad leader by the shoulder—
"You do know it's rude to touch other people's work, yes?"
—and greet him with a warning partnered with a smile.
The soldier, to his credit, didn't flinch so much as draw a combat knife and tried to stab his eyes out. Unluckily for him, what he struck instead was the gasmask eye socket of one of his own men.
"GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" "Captain?!" "What the hell—?!"
Heartless tutted, drawing all of the remaining soldier's presence to himself as he snapped a finger. A blue flame akin to their incendiary corpse cleaner signed the papers they were stealing. This included the envelope one of the men already sealed and hid in his pack, burning the pack itself and sending the poor sap it was stuck to rolling on the floor. A shame though, he wouldn't be able to put this one out now that the flames had breached his flimsy barrier.
"Honestly, despite not having been a professor for a while, I still can't bring myself to forgive plagiarists."
"Magus! Fire! Kill him!" The squad's leader was quick to shout, pulling himself and his other member out of the way.
Six rifles rang out as the others opened fire on his position. Bullets rained down and tore the bookshelf behind the desk to shreds. It was only after realizing he wasn't even there anymore that the captain shouted at them to all stop.
"AAAAAAAAAGH!"
It was only due to the silence that they caught sight of Heartless standing behind the guy farthest back in the room. How he seemingly vanished and crossed that distance without breaking a sweat, they had no clue. But if the dead man impaled on his hand could speak, he would've remarked that it was done near-instantaneously.
"S-spatial move—HYEK!" His partner fared no better, a basic Gandr spell blasting his neck off his shoulders. But the rest of their outfit were no slackers.
"Deploy anti-magecraft fields!"
""Roger!"" "R-Roger!"
Only one of them stuttered as they complied with their leader's command. Said stutterer was delayed by fear, hence, he was the last one to die from suddenly being impaled through the heart from behind. Heartless noted the new bounded fields held up with each of the armed men as their centre.
"My, oh my. You all bear quite dangerous tools." He flicked his wrist, trying and failing to get blood off his hands. Yet it was his crimson hair flying in the wind that instilled more fear in the soldiers as he ran straight into one of the barriers, shattered it with just a touch of his pointer finger, before levelling with the squad leader's face, a polite, yet bloodstained smile on hand. "Not quite sufficient to counter someone of my calibre. But then again, I'm the exception, not the norm."
"Shit—!" A bloody palm clawed down on the captain's gas mask. Glass and plastics shattered under his grip, as did the man's skull. Not even Reinforcement Magic employed by the man to protect himself could stop it.
"I do apologize for this, but, like you, I can't leave witnesses behind." Electricity sparked from the Doctor's position. It fried the electronics on his captive's person as well as shocking the devices of those on the same floor. "I bid you all a peaceful trip to the world beyond."
Then, a bloodcurdling scream escaped his victim as the man's head exploded in Heartless' abruptly tightened grasp. More such screams followed as did gunfire from the deceased's fellows. But they too fell one by one. Even the pair upstairs that opted to throw explosives before trying to gun their assailant down were no match for the swift ever-smiling reaper.
By the time Faker returned, it was to find her Master kneeling down one of the corpses, taking off a gas mask from one of the more intact victims. "Asian descent. And none of their accents hinted European origins at all."
"It was the same for their sensor and their guards." Faker supplied with a huff. Cross-armed, the sword in her hand dripped blood on the ruined carpets. "I'm assuming this is enough of a clue to hightail it out of here?"
"Enough, yes. Satisfactory, no."
Heartless picked up the dead soldier's weapon and examined it curiously. He hadn't destroyed the devices of the last two as they were out of range. But more than that, he allotted not just to study what he was up against, testing his anxious Servant's patience.
"This machinery was not made to fire normal ammunition." Unclipping a magazine, he analyzed the rifle rounds with a curious stare. "This has enhanced firepower. Enough to clip through most unprepared barriers with ease. If it had been a normal magus, they'd have been caught off-guard and killed on the spot."
"Is this really time for a mental exercise or lesson on modern machinery, Master? For all we know, there could be more of these bastards!"
"Perhaps." He calmly stood but also picked up a discarded radio. "I may not be well-versed in modern tech, but we may yet be able to get the upper hand on our attackers." He waved the device as he met Faker's incredulous side glance.
"If you wish to eavesdrop on our assailants, fine. But know that we must leave now, lest we be surrounded. While they're easy enough to deal with, letting them get away after seeing us is less than ideal. As you keep emphasizing."
"I wholeheartedly agree," he said without even a hint of sarcasm. He pocketed the device before feeling the envelope he'd hidden on his person. The man looked to the direction of the Clock Tower and his employer. "Although, I think it'd be best if we can offload our findings onto Marisbury as soon as possible. While I may not have compiled all of it, I can still pass it on to him in person—"
"Then we'd best be off. Now!"