Arrival - Chapter 6

The Shinigami dragged his claws along the wall, electing an ear-piercing screech.

“Kalaraja, stop it.”

Kalaraja looked at Kavachin, shrugged his shoulders, and then scrapped along the wall again, but with both sets of his claws this time.

This time, Sangili gave him a hard stare and Kalaraja stopped, moving his claws away from the wall. Bored, Kalaraja let out a heavy sigh and hit his skull against the wall, staring up vacantly at the night sky.

“God, Russia is so dull,” Kalaraja mumbled. “When’s Michael getting here?”

“Soon, so be quiet,” Kavachin spat.

“Oh. And if I’m not?”

Kavachin didn’t hesitate to throw his metallic fist at Kalaraja, but Kalaraja was fast enough to evade it. He flew into the air on pitch black wings and smiled, his hands crackling with black lightning.

Kalaraja was about to shoot at Kavachin when a white knight landed in the alley between them, right next to Sangili. Kavachin lowered his fist and Kalaraja dispelled his magic, lowering himself back onto the ground.

Michael glanced at both of them, confirming that they had stopped, before looking towards a skyscraper behind him.

“How’s the security?”

“Weaker than we expected, but much heavier than a regular office building should at night,” Kavachin answered.

“Hmm, that’s unusual,” Kalaraja hummed. “If they had the Stone, surely they would protect it better than that.”

Another dead end then.

The ADAM corporation’s, the Advancement and Development of Automated Men, headquarters was right before them, located in one of the tallest skyscrapers in Moscow.

While it was highly unlikely, Michael’s agents had heard rumours that the Death Stone was being temporarily housed in the building’s vault on the top floor before it would be transported to a more secure location.

After the unfruitful attack on the Cube weeks ago, Michael and Phantom had waited for any new intel to emerge on the Stone’s location and this was all that they had heard.

He had considered it to be a trap set by the Guardians at first.

However, the lax security suggested otherwise.

Regardless, Michael had brought with him his strongest warriors, not wanting to take any chances.

Kavachin was wearing a mech suit that looked like a steam-punk iron golem which was ten feet tall and incredibly bulky, containing within an arsenal of weaponry. Kalaraja was a being one could only describe as a Shinigami, a God of Death: a thin, pale white demon with black wings, his face plastered with a seemingly constant and terrifying grin. Sangili was draped in his usual cloak and his eyes were focused solely on Michael.

After what Sangili did at the Cube, Michael knew he would, in the end, only have needed to bring one of them with him. But, if they were all here anyway, then he might as well use them all.

“How do we do this?” Kavachin inquired.

“Sangili, clear the ground floor. Kavachin, take the stairs and slaughter everyone you see.”

Kavachin answered with an “Understood”, whereas Sangili simply began to slowly walk out of the alley towards the building.

“Kalaraja, cause a big scene somewhere else.”

“Gladly!”

***

Sangili moved to the front of the building.

Two long chains slowly fell from his cloak’s sleeves, emitting a blood red aura. He threw them out to the side and cracked them like a whip towards the building. The chains extended for hundreds of metres and cut through the walls of the ground floor, slicing everything in their path in two.

The building dropped down a floor and threatened to collapse, but that was irrelevant to Sangili, even with hundreds of glass shards raining down on him.

“My turn,” Kavachin said, marching past Sangili.

He smashed through the rubble of the ground floor and ran into the staircase, his arm transforming into a Gatling gun.

Dozens of heavily armed guards were defending the staircase and opened fired upon seeing Kavachin. Their bullets crumpled like paper against his armour. He laughed and opened fire with his gun, tearing them to shreds in seconds.

Kavachin ran up the stairs, constantly firing and constantly killing everyone that he saw, leaving a river of blood pouring down the stairs. He charged through the door to the top floor and, much to his surprise, didn’t find anyone lying in wait for him.

The corridors on the top floor were littered with bodies, a red ocean seeping into the carpet.

“As expected of the boss,” Kavachin said, stepping through the army of corpses.

***

Kalaraja practically skipped through the Kremlin’s pathways.

Bodies littered the pavement around him and he cackled gleefully even as the sirens drew closer. He spotted a lone survivor amongst an ocean of corpses, desperately crawling away through a river of blood. Kalaraja walked up to the soldier and stepped on his back, digging his razor-sharp toenails into the man’s flesh.

“Why bother struggling?”

Kalaraja ripped his nails out of the man’s body, killing him instantly.

Seconds later, cars and armoured vehicles swarmed into the Kremlin, deploying more than a hundred police, heavily armed soldiers and ten Superhumans, all pointing their weapons at Kalaraja. Some began to take in the full effect of the destruction around them as the stench of blood and bodies created a suffocating air around them. Kalaraja titled his head back over his shoulder, snapping it around nearly 180 degrees, baring his teeth in a devilish grin.

“Fire!” A captain screamed in Russian.

Kalaraja cackled as bullets and magic hit his skin so softly that he didn’t even feel the attacks. He threw his arms out to either side and all of the buildings in the Kremlin exploded in a terrifying display of black smoke and lightning. Piles of debris soared through the sky, smashing into buildings in the city, cars and the soldiers gathered in the Kremlin.

“What have you done?” Someone cried out.

“What I’ve done is kill everyone in the Kremlin!” Kalaraja proudly shouted with a bow. He glanced up at the soldiers and smiled sadistically. “You’re next.”

***

Michael sliced his sword through the vault door and found the inside to be exactly as he had expected.

Filled with money and priceless artefacts and paintings, and not a single trace of the Stone.

It didn’t look like it had even been here to begin with.

Angered, Michael fired a blue beam from his palm at a stack of gold bars, destroying several of them.

“What a waste of time,” he growled.

Phantom had been able to remain as a low-level threat in the world’s eyes because they had been quiet for many years but, after two large scale terror attacks like this, it was likely that they would be considered more dangerous and attract unwanted attention.

Had either of the attacks proven fruitful and given Michael the Stone, then he wouldn’t have cared but neither of them had done anything, except paint a gigantic target on his back.

“Lord Michael, it appears that a large Guardian force has arrived in the city,” Kavachin said, walking into the room. “Should we-?”

“No, we’re done here.”

Kavachin nodded and left the room.

Where are you hiding it, Kasmine? Michael thought, already knowing the answer.

Where else but under her own roof?