[center][b][u]Lost Haven
The Chinatown Bridge[/u][/b][/center]

As alien dropships, strike-craft, and bombers streaked through the atmosphere, the city of Lost Haven began to empty like a swarm abandoning an ant-hill. Untold millions of souls packing whatever belongings they deemed essential into bagages, cases, trunks, cars, and trunks and pouring outwards in droves. All of them sought to escape to the relatively safer obscurity of the surburban sprawls in the mainland, utterly convinced that the world - or at least the part of it in Lost Haven - was about to end.

It was afternoon, and the five bridges leading out of the city were all jammed packed, not only with uneven lines of countless multicolored vehicles, but also with the turbulent, clamoring streams of panicked civilians who had abandoned their vehicles in the middle of traffic in order to continue fleeing across the bridge on foot. Others, more concerned with momentary opportunity rather than the prospect of survival, had begun turning to looting whatever was left behind in the abandoned conveyances - shattered glass and even several car fires served as milestones for the path across the river.

With the evacuation proceeding so haphazardly, emergency services and the national guard had moved in to try to organize the flow of traffic and bring a semblence of order to the churning masses. Though they had been largely ineffective in that task thus far they had at least been able to protect the vulnerable, thronging masses from several alien ground assaults - though they in turn had little with which to defy the airborne attack craft periodically screaming across the sky.

Down in the waters below, a throng of ships skittered across the water, trade halted to try and get away from the city to protect the cargo and people on board. For some of the vessels, the selfless captains deemed it necessary to start ferrying the scared people off of the island Lost Haven was founded on to get them to safety. Yet despite all of the selfless people, there were a few who would be in the waters protecting the interests of others.

Several small boats moved through the waters, their origins being a few key warehouses that were located waterside. While a few of the men were busy steering the small boats to their intended locations, others were checking their assortment of assault rifles, pistols and a few of the mounted mobile turrets that they deemed to be needed at a time like this. Wearing black tactical armour, their objectives were unknown but their intent was well defined underneath concealed goggles.

[color=733d04]"I want these waters secured!"[/color] barked Anhur, his hand clenching a walkie talkie that was on the dashboard of his boat. [color=733d04]"The last thing we need is some assholes trying to take ground we gained from the Hounds of Humanity! And I want those bridges secured! Our interests are too important and I'll put any asshole who failed to secure those bridges in front of Dullahan himself for his foothold in the city being damaged!"[/color]

The skull-faced man rehooked the device back onto the console as he looked over the waters around the city. For him, there was only one place his boat was going. Over the past couple of weeks, the failings of not being able to locate one Kayla Mason was putting him in a bad light in Dullahan's books. While the meeting with Richard Midas came with some positive results, it wasn't enough to offset the deficit. Not while his boss's plans were still in motion. So, the next best thing was to secure the best logistical route between the docks of the city to one of the hubs of their North American operations in Crown Ridge, which was the westernmost bridge in the city.

He turns to Dirk, his second-in-command of his Lost Haven operations and leader of the Penose, [color=733d04]"I want all of our men to secure the bridge at all cost. No asshole is to get through you or anyone here. Otherwise, I'll see to it that I beat the living shit out of you before you face the leader." [/color]While the words were harsh, the Penose leader understood the pressure Anhur was facing over the past number of weeks. He turned and began relaying the orders to his men.

Before he had finished his first sentence, he heard the tell-tale, otherworldly whine of one a nearby alien craft - looking up, he saw what appeared to be an insect-like alien gunship settle into a drift, with a large, evident weapon protruded from a hardpoint on its hull and began to blaze with incandescent light, aimed at an emergency search and rescue helicopter that had been buzzing about near the top of one of the bridge's arched support struts.

But before Anhur could even order the boat's turret gunners to take the gunship down, the tables unexpectedly flipped entirely on their own. The search and rescue helicopter swerved to angle its side towards the alien craft, and its left door retracted to reveal a tripound-mounted, heavy anti-materiel machine gun with three men crewing it. Less than a second later, the blazing alien weapon mounted beneath the gunship was showered in a deluge of exploding rounds, and the foreign craft jerked back erratically in the air as the wave machine-gun fire crashed over its hull. The craft was simply too big and too well armored for the helicopter to actually take out, but it had evidently received a nasty sting and was already pulling back up and swerving, as if to disengage even as the light surrounding its weapon fluttered and abated, shortly before going up in flames.

The skull-faced man, seemingly unfazed by the appearance of the alien craft, looked on. Dirk already began to order his men to fire at the lone ship. As the men fired, the rounds from the rifles seemed to only put dents into the hull of the craft. It was when the turret began to whir to life and fire that the rounds punched through whatever metal the ship was made of, thanks to the weaponry used to damage any bullet-resistant meta that came to the warehouses The Eye owned. The short burst of fire from the turret was enough to cause smoke, though the initial burst from the helicopter had probably weakened the armor enough for the rounds to penetrate.

While the men of the Penose concentrated on the alien craft that was at hand, Anhur's gaze remained trained on the helicopter that was in the area. While seeing emergency helicopters wasn't a new sight for him, especially in this city, one search and rescue with some heavy firepower was new. With his time in the underworld being extensive enough, he knew something was up. He reached for one of the spare rifles on the boat, but remained unresponsive as he waited to see what was to happen next.

Watching carefully, he noted as the helicopter completely ignored the alien craft as it started to careen towards the water-line - another irregularity given standard airspace regulations and practices - and instead pulled in close to the top of the bridge's suspension arch. Men from within the helicopter jumped out - bearing small, bundled packages of some kind, their exact details hard to make out until Anhur brought up the rifle to get a better look at them through its scope.

He realized what the packages were at the same exact moment the radio cracked to life and a nearly panicked report from one of the other boats came through.

"Boss! We found something really bad at the base of one of the support columns for the bridge! Bundle of plastic explosives, has a fail-deadly detonation mechanism-"

Through the scope, Anhur could clearly see the tell-tale coloration and irregular moulding of packed plastic explosives - and that some of the men were also carrying and preparing modern arming pins. From street-level, their activity probably looked completely innocuous - not even the national guard had probably realized anything was amiss yet. But he did.

[color=733d04]"Target the helicopter!"[/color] he roared, pulling the trigger to let off a burst of  bullets towards the men at the base of the columns. [color=733d04]"Don't let them get away!"[/color]

On the sound of the orders, just as one of the men on the bridge fell to the ground dead and another clutching his leg, the men on the boat began to fire at the remaining men on the top of the arch. The turret moved its machine gun towards the helicopter and began to rain bullets at it with deadly precision. Any men that managed to escape the helicopter before it went down, he was certain to get answers from them. Not on his watch that they were going to pull this shit on him and get away with it.

"-looks like some kind of secure receiver. Hardware isn't signal compatible. There's gonna be somebody nearby with a detonator for this boss - and maybe other explosives if they want to bring the whole bridge down." The voice over the radio finished. Through the scope of his rifle, Anhur watched as four survivors from the helicopter on top of the arch pulled out of view from sea level and retreated towards the median of the structure. The wreckage of the helicopter - riddled with massive, jagged holes, engulfed in flames and disintegrating into pieces - fell towards the water below.

As soon as the boat reached the base of the column, Anhur stormed over to where the bomb was placed. Looking at where the helicopter was with a few of the remaining survivors jumped out of, he turned to the explosives. The plastic that lined the explosives did, indeed, have a mechanism that could set them off. Over the sound of the screams, alien craft and nearby shots, the bomb would probably be difficult to deactivate without any time.

"We're gonna need to call in pros to dismantle these things boss. Think we either need to get our hands on the detonator or start pulling everything we've got away from the bridge. No telling how many more of these things are lying around." The radio-caller growled with resentment, hands clenched into tightly bound fists from pent up, impotent rage.

Anhur wasted no time in beginning to scale the bridge to where the survivors were. He was already at the top by the time a few of the Penose realized he was not with them and began to follow. Once on the walkway of the bridge, his eyes scanned for any unusual activity, ready to take pursuit of the men who left the helicopter.

He was not left waiting long. The top of the bridge was a traditional box-capped arch, with a roofed maintenance hall in the middle and several meter-boxes for emergency and night lights interpersing the surface - abundant cover. Not even a few moments after he pulled himself up onto the top, two of the survivors from the helicopter rose from behind two power junction boxes, armed with SMGs, and started to throw a hailstorm of bullets in his direction.

On first sight of them, Anhur began towards them, only taking cover once the bullets started to fly towards him. Using the rifle he brought with him, he began to fire back between the break of the bullets. While the weapon was good enough to scare most people, he knew he was more effective if he was up close and personal. Using the rifle in short bursts, he started to move closer towards his targets.

Hearing one of the gunmen swear at his steady and efficient advancements, he saw the two unfortunately wise up and start exchanging rudimentary hand signals - they went from firing at him in tandem and began to alternate bursts. That was not optimal - but they were falling for a predictable blunder. Having already vented at him the moment he had appeared, they had forgotten to conserve their ammunition. At least one of them would be running out of ammo, right about...

He heard one of them audibly swear again in tandem with the sound of an empty magazine clattering to the roof of the bridge.

Smiling at their unfortunate precidament, it was at this moment that he struck. Leaping out of cover, it didn't take long for him to close the gap to the men. He slid low towards the nearest man. Using the heel of his hand, he drove it straight into his stomach. Using the momentum of his burst of speed, he launched himself towards the other. His other hand curled into a fist and rammed towards the other's neck.

His knuckles glanced off the raised edge of the gunman's weapon as they sprung backwards on the spot - though thankfully, their weapon's magazine was empty too. Even as his accomplice collapsed into a writhing ball of terrified anguish and left gasping for breath on the roof of the bridge, the second thug dropped their emptied weapon onto the ground and pull what looked to be a surplus army knife from a holster at his belt. Getting his first good look at both of the men, Anhur could immediately tell they were both amateurs - the one presently pulling a knife on him even looked a little familiar. Both of them were local muscle or mercenaries of some kind, and while some of their gear was evidently on loan - like the machine gun from the helicopter and the SMGs they had been using - everything else about them was shoddy and simply boring.

Anhur let out a sigh of disappointment. [color=733d04]"And I thought you guys were going to be a serious threat to my men down below."[/color] Shaking his head, he raised the rifle in his possession and shot the knife-wielding mercenary. With the other one incapacitated, he turned to look for the other two men as the Penose started to reach the area.

[color=733d04]"Secure him. I want to interrogate him later."[/color] As the men followed his orders, he began walking in the direction that he thought the other two were heading. S s

He ducked briefly into the roofed corridor - no sign of them, but - there. At the other end there was a rapelling line tied to the end of a catwalk. Looking down, he could barely see the form of somebody making their descent on it through the obstruction of the catwalk and various criss-crossing girders. To get a decent shot he would have to stand right where the line was tied-

A glint in the dark was his only warning, but just enough of one, as the sniper's bullet whizzed past his head and buried itself in the corridor wall. Hunched in the dark at the opposite end of the corridor was the third survivor, armed with a high-powered rifle and crouching behind an overturned steel locker.

As soon as the shot echoed in the corridor, Anhur ducked behind one of the upright girders. He growled at the predicament, but the person who was on the rapel line was his main target. No doubt the men before and the sniper were there to slow them down so the figure could escape far enough to detonate the explosives.

After a moment passed, the skull-faced man turned the corner, rifle raised. Firing a couple of shots at the steel locker, he began to advance. If the other men were anything to go by, the sniper should also be an amateur mercenary. As he closed the gap to where he got a glimpse of the line, the rifle clicked once to indicate the empty clip. While still out of range for him to hit him with his fists, he was close enough for one thing. Unclipping the rifle, he threw the weapon at the sniper like a hatchet - the mercenary was too distant to really be able to hurt them with it, but Anhur had closed the distance enough that his opponent was forced to raise his rifle to deflect the thrown weapon, momentarily distracting them and putting them off balance - leaving them exposed.

Another opportunity came as Anhur had planned. Grabbing a knife from his belt, he flipped it and threw it towards the sniper as they were exposed. he instantly ran and vaulted over the railing, grabbing the rope as he quickly descended down the rope to catch with the runaway. Said party was close to the ground, but evidently judged that falling would be too debilitating to let them fight back if Anhur followed suit - the mercenary below unsheathed a combat knife from a belt-holster, clamped it between their teeth, and started climbing back up towards Anhur. The skull-faced man saw this and carried on sliding down, feet falling first to hit the mercenary when the gap closed. His target shifted precariously on the line, taking the blow to the chest rather than their head - and immediately let go with one hand to snatch at the knife again and slash at Anhur's leg. He gritted his teeth as the knife bit into his leg, but he closed the distance to get into contact as his free hand palmed the mercenary's head. The mercenary reflexively lashed out to stab directly at Anhur's arm as he did so, but was too late to actually impede contact. Seizing the opportunity of being in close contact, Anhur looked down to see the detonator. With a devilish look in his eyes, he moved his arm out of the way of the incoming knife and ripped the detonator off of the mercenary's belt. With the threat now secured, he looked at the scared mercenary.

[color=733d04]"Looks like it's a one way stop for you. But don't worry, we'll make sure that we'll find whoever hired you and -"[/color]

The mercenary, evidently uninterested in entertaining a lengthy monologue despite being evidently terrified, proceeded to throw a left hook with his free hand at Anhur's head. Recoiling at the hook, Anhur swung back and kicked out at the mercenary with both feet at their torso. This drove the air straight from the mercenary's gut, causing all four of their limbs to lose grip on the line - sending them plummeting towards the end of it, until the safety catch on their belt caught them, suspending them belly-up and spread-eagle, hanging ten meters off of the surface of the bridge, a teeming throng of civilians shouting in indifferent panic as they looked on. With nothing else left to do, the skull-faced man sighed as he began to quickly ascend to the catwalk.

Halfway back up the line, a sudden chiming sound came from the detonator - looking down to it, Anhur could see that the head of a stop-watch appeared to have been adhered to the side of the detonator, right below the safety cap - and from the look of its digital read, the countdown had just reached zero. Nothing appeared to have come of it though - so perhaps it had just been a margin timer, something there to instruct the holder [i]when[/i] they should detonate the bombs -

In the distance, to the Northeast and over the river, there was a chattering sequence of explosions across the Sicily bridge - Anhur watched, suspended from the rapelling line, as the neighboring bridge's support columns, suspension cabel anchors, and central archway were engulfed in luminous bursts of light, followed by occluding hazes of smoke. Distant, keening reverberations of shearing metal filled the air as the whole superstructure slowly collapsed in on itself. The whole process of the bridge falling to pieces and into the water - with thousands of torn up and fiery pieces of debris from vehicles and electronics caught in the blasts falling from its crumbling throughfair like ash from a pyroclastic cloud - took the better part of perhaps forty-five seconds.

Watching on in horror that his assumptions about the helicopter were right but the scale of what happened, Anhur gritted his teeth in anger and began to quickly climbed to the top. Once at the top, he quickly walked over to the dead mercenary, the knife lodged in their throat, and ripped the knife out. His knife now back in hand, he turned and walked back towards the rapelling rope and looked down to see what the man on the line was doing.

Which was evidently nothing - he appeared to be unconscious, or else too exhausted to try and recover from his predicament. Although from the looks of things, some of the bystanders below were already trying to stand on top of the parked vehicles beneath him to try and reach up towards him. Even if he did not move on his own, he would not remain there for long.

Anhur looked on. On the one hand, the bridge was secured from a potential disaster and there was already a mercenary in their possession that the fate of the mercenary down below was inconsequential. On the other hand, he remembered what he saw just a moment ago with the other bridge. Dullahan would not be happy and the people responsible for this would see this as a victory. No, Anhur knew what he needed to do.

He needed to send a message to those responsible.

Turning back to the dead mercenary, his eyes spotted the sniper rifle and ran to grab it. Grabbing another bullet from the dead man's belt, he loaded the rifle and walked back to the edge. Leaning over the edge, he aimed the rifle at the mercenary's chest and fired down below. The shot tore straight through the mercenary's armor and out the other side, losing velocity and tumbling harmlessly onto the ground thereafter - followed almost immediately by a spray of viscera and dripping blood from the dead man's torn up cavity. From street level, the sight must have been terribly poignant and ominous.

Anhur caught sight of several people raising cameras and phones to snap shots of the body where it hung suspended in the air, still dribbling guts from the wound he shot in it. He had a feeling he would be seeing it from their point of view in the next publication that got around - or at least in the next airing of the local news. Satisfied that the message would be seen by those responsible, he returned back to the catwalk and began to walk back to the Penose he left behind, shouldering the sniper rifle as he grabbed his thrown one in the process.