The buzz around site-51 is higher than average. Crow can hear it through the walls, feel it vibrate through the polished white floors, as rushed steps echo down crowding halls.

  Vanguard however move in perfect silence, while James and Doctor Yiva add to the growing cacophony as they mutter back and forth about logistical details.

  Snippets make their way to Crow—casualty counts. Another vanguard unit sent it, no response. Director Williams is angry, someone gets fired on the spot, another gets promoted in his place.

  Crow steals a glance back down the line towards Falcon, who only offers a shrug in reply.

  “Too dangerous, we need to infill with Starling.” James groans, and ignores Doctor Yiva’s protesting side eye.

  “I strongly disagree. The unit has entrenched itself and will be ready for it. There are plenty of other options—”

  “Not with our timeframe. Star can handle it.”

  Doctor Yiva catches Crow's gaze as she tries to assess the team. She clicks her tongue, clenches her jaw, and readies another response. James doesn’t give her the time. With a tap of his tablet, the war rooms blast doors open to release the flood of noise from within.

  Dozens of screens saturate the space in flickering blue, while a sea of bodies type and tap away at their workstations. A central table houses a holographic projection of Vanguard's newest mission—an emergency clean up, courtesy of another site’s failure.

  Director Williams sighs from the far end of the table, one hand resting on his forehead while he eyes up the woman next to him. If he’s aware of James and Vanguard's approach, he doesn’t make it known. The woman next to him seems equally unaware, though the sharp focus set in her angular features gives Crow the impression she simply doesn’t care.

  Director Williams pinches closed his floating tablet. “And our alternatives?”

  “Its arrogance is easy to exploit.” The woman's voice is sharp and cold, like ice. “I only need another month before moving on to the next phase.”

  “That’s excellent news” Director Williams smiles, and offers a very brief dismissing glance to Vanguard before continuing. “You never cease to amaze me Catherine.”

  “You never cease to push the line, Director.”

  “Science calls for a firm hand on the boundary.”

  “Your wife will serve your balls on a silver platter if your hand pushes anywhere other than scientific limits.”

  “I assure you our union is purely for scientific boundary pushing...”

  Director Catherine finally acknowledges James, but not before producing a cigarette from her suit jacket pocket. “The cavalry has arrived, several minutes too late.”

  James gives zero indication that he is intimidated physically, but Crow can hear his heartbeat. “We came as soon as we received the order ma’am.”

  Director Catherine picks Director WIlliams apart out of the corner of her eyes, but he doesn’t seem to mind much. In fact, he doesn’t mind at all, about any of this really.

  Crow can hear his heartbeat as well, the flow of blood through his body, the micro expressions on his face—but where Crow expects to see even a hint of some worry, he instead finds an apathy almost as profound as Starlings.

  Sparrow must be picking up on it as well. He can hear the smaller boy shift slightly under Director Williams' gaze.

  Tools, that's all they are, tools for site-51. So why—

  “James! Let's see if you can salvage this disaster.” Director Williams smiles, his focus unshifting from the handler's own attention on the holographic map.

  “Of course.” James works his jaw as drags his hand through the hologram, creating markers as he goes.

  The hologram itself is easy to read, clear in its visuals aided by James’s intent as he interacts with it. Vanguard only needs to know what James deems essential, and as of this moment in time James is clearly aware that Vanguard is capable of making their own deductions from the context clues around them.

  An entrenched position deep within the mountains of northeastern Russia. Disguised watch towers built inside the peaks that look down towards a fortified valley. Central structures with high walls, razor wire, and a multitude of energy relays. It's an anomaly prison.

  James scrubs through the replay, courtesy of archived satellite footage of the location.

  Hundreds of men, dozens of which wear heavy armor. Their weapons fire energy beams at near light speeds, impossible to dodge. A Vanguard unit is turned to dust within the first minute of their teleportation. A second unit is sent in and captured in less than two minutes.

  Why didn’t site-51 send Crow and his team in first? The logic doesn’t track as he watches the replay a second time along with James and the others. James catches it as well, but doesn’t say anything.

  “Vanguard, let's run a modified Shattered Lance on this one.” James says coolly. “Ears open as well. Standby after phase one for modifiers.”

  Vanguard says nothing, and in the brief silence, James nods.

  When Crow blinks next, Vanguard is pressed into the snow covered roof of their target. The shift in air pressure and temperature smack him in the face so hard he has to bring his hand to his mask to ensure it’s still firmly set against him.

  His eyes adjust quickly to the changed scenery. Small pillars of sunlight break through the dark grey clouds overhead to catch the freshly falling snow like a spotlight. The air outside is numb with silence, interrupted by soldiers muttering curses in Russian as they scan the valley for Vanguard's arrival.

  Crow can hear the sound of movement through the snow and concrete to the space below them. Sparrow holds up his hand five times to indicate 15 hostiles, three more than Crow could hear. He then taps the back of his head, and flashes three fingers, indicating three of the 15 hostiles were anomalous or important in some way. With his three fingers still held up, he points to three locations as if able to peer through the concrete into the space below.

  With a nod, Crow pairs off with Falcon, Starling pairs with Sparrow, and Vulture pairs off with Condor.

  Condor grunts, dissatisfied with the pair. Vulture rolls his eyes and flips off the larger boy, who in turn stops in his tracks on the way to his intended location.

  Falcon sighs and turns as well, leaving Crow isolated on the roof. Falcon gestures for Vulture and Condor to move, but Condor shows no sign of doing what Vulture wants.

  “Bicker later, now isn’t the time to embarrass me.” James’s voice cuts in over their communication line. And Condor finally relents, but not without making a show of displeasure with his eyes.

  “So damn stubborn.” Falcon murmurs, rejoining Crow as they slither along the rooftops.

  “Could always switch.”

  “Id rather not go with Vulture, if it’s all the same to you.” Crow can’t see it, by he can hear Falcon raise and eyebrow under his mask.

  “Can’t blame you.”

  Crow taps his hand to Falcon’s and the ground falls out from under them for only a fraction of a second before it’s just as quickly replaced with the floor inside the building. Fresh snow showers from their clothes as they teleport inside, only to just as quickly become suspended in space as time slows to its familiar crawl.

  A prison, long halls of armored doors guarded with sandbags and barbed wire. Lights flicker overhead, reinforced holding cells, a labyrinth of guarded entryways, all painfully familiar in its own way.

  The men at the end of the halls don’t have time to react, Crow watches as their eyes focus, pupils dilate, as the muscles in their arms twitch to begin to send the signal down to their fingers to pull their triggers—so slow.

  Crow kicks off the ground towards one man, and summons his sword as he passes him by. It’s no different than bringing his blade through open air, bisecting the man so quickly his leg continues to finish their first step, before the last signal from his spinal column fails to reach his brain. Blood erupts from the still standing corpse, struggling to reach the ground in glass time.

  Spinning, Crow extends his wings from his back to stops his acceleration in the middle of two more guards at the end of the first hallway, the razor thin edge of his feathers carving them into segments without any resistance.

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  Falcon chops at a man's neck, turning off the brain before pain can even be processed. He grabs the still standing corpse and throws it at a man who barely has enough time to raise his rifle.

  Crow closes the distance, and cuts the firearm in half, grabs the barrel in the air and throws it through the hall. It sings as it tears through the air, punches a hole through the turret the man hides behind and pins him against the back wall, sending a spiderweb of concrete cracking behind him.

  By the time the five men are dead, the drops of snow from their arrival splash into the cold concrete ground, followed by the sound of crumpling corpses elsewhere in the central complex as the others kill their targets just as quickly.

  Crow lets out a steady breath, eyes flicking to the next targets, the three anomalies, those with the special armor and weapons he saw turn the other vanguard units to dust. Sparrow indicated their positions against the south exit, with the other two flanking the main doors at the entrance to the complex.

  His feet dig into the ground, cracking it. He sucks in another breath of air, and watches as time slows once again. The details of the prison blur past him, the far end of the wall meeting him in only a moment before he smashes through the front blast doors doors and out into the open air of the valley

  Snowflakes sit frozen mid-fall, Crow’s sword extends down to the man in armor directly in front of him, only to realize his rifle is inexplicably raised to meet the approach.

  Light expands down the barrel, something charging, the man's finger is only halfway pressed on the trigger and Crow can already tell the damage about to be done will kill him.

  He teleports the short distance to get at the soldiers back with a fraction of a second to spare as the Russian’s finger depresses the trigger and sends a wave of red light carving through the building like Crow’s blade carved through the men inside.

  Falcon appears a split second later underneath the soldier's gun, grabbing the man's wrist and pulling him forward while his palm strike rips the soldier's armored arm off at the elbow.

  Crow is moving too quickly for words, but he knows his eyes communicate the thanks, and Falcons narrow, telling him to focus.

  Crow spins his blade, and plunges it into the soldier's back, carving apart the armor with no more effort than flesh, cutting the snipe and sending him collapsing to the ground like a bag of sand.

  Beside him, Starling tears both arms off of the soldier in front of her, while Sparrow plunges his polearm down through the top of the Russian’s helmet, causing the tinted glass to sputter and fill with blood before it leaks from the bottom.

  Another ray of light cuts through the air, reflecting off the snow around them from somewhere in the distance. Crow’s eyes shift, just a little too slow. The Russians aim was off but not by much, as Crow notices just a little too late as the beam of red vibrating light begins grazing his hair.

  Crow is fast, but not faster than light. The Russian firing the weapon needs to only twitch a fraction of an inch to the left to send a beam into Crow’s head. He has enough time to move, but before he makes the decisions he traces the line of the energy weapon through the space.

  Starling’s back is turned as she fires a barrage into the hallway they emerged from. She won't notice in time. He needs to get her out of the line of fire before the Soldier's twitched movement finishes.

  He teleports again, this time aimed directly at Starling, catching her and teleporting with her into the air as the weapon's rays make contact with his hair.

  Starling and Crow both land on the roof of the building. Crow drops his head as kinetic rounds fly over them, and in one smooth motion cuts the hair from his head to stop the energy weapons atomic decay from spreading to his skin.

  “A shame, I liked your hair.” Starling says coolly, unflinching as rifle rounds shatter against her still extended wings.

  “A little off the top never hurt.”

  Starling teleports them both inside one of the mountainside watch posts, and he barely notices the curse leave the Russian soldiers mouth before Starling's blades make contact with his head, shaving everything above the mouth off. The top of his head rolls free of his helmet, blood quickly soaking into the stone floor.

  “He would disagree.” she notes, watching his corpse collapse to the ground.

  Crow shakes his head, lips unsure whether to commit to a smile or frown.

  The gunfire in the valley below pauses as men reload, reassess, and try to find where Vanguard went.

  “How are we doing, everyone getting along?” James echoes over the coms line.

  “Just peachy.” Vultures voice answers, the sounds of a man gargling and screaming barely audible in the background.

  “Vulture…” Falcons grumble breaks through next, but James cuts back in before the situation can escalate.

  “New development, they are readying air, looks like modified Williams tech, save your teleports for extract. We need you to collapse in and deal with the heavy units so we can drop in the aux units. After collapsing I want to see a tight hole punch through to target Alpha. Be advised you have some friendlies in the AO so Vulture, keep it in your pants alright?”

  “I’ll try my best.” Vulture coo’s.

  “Do your best, or I’m putting you on cleanup for the next two months.”

  Condor chuckles over the coms, which seemingly straightens Vulture out a bit.

  Shadows dance across the rooftops, as nearly silent aircraft launch from their air platforms and take to the skies low in the valley. The natural spotlights of sunlight merge with the beams projected out from the Modified Williams Specters.

  Sparrow clears his voice over coms. “More of those energy weapons are mounted to door-guns of the aircraft.”

  “Several energy weapons mounted to the armored vehicles down below,” Condor relays, almost happy about it. “They are collapsing to the access elevator.”

  “You heard James, let's punch a hole.” Crow confirms, offering a nod to Starling. “We will clear the sky for you.”

  Starling dashes through the observation post with Crow hot on her heels. The force of their launch blows away the entire wall, sending a shower of concrete through the air as they tear through the sky. The Williams Specter rushes into Crow’s field of view in less than a second. Starling punches a hole through the cockpit, tears one of the men out of the seat while the other tries desperately to eject. Warning lights flash, the glass cockpit explodes upward and the seat rockets up quickly after

  Starling grabs the chair before it can make it even a foot out of the aircraft. The man screams as the jet propulsion in his seat roars.

  Crow drives his sword through the chest of the first man, kicks backwards and sends the second one falling to the ground, and in one smooth motion grabs the third by the head and throws him into the still active ejection seat rockets.

  Starling drags the chair down through the air and plunges her other blade through the man's chest, then releases her hand, allowing the ejection seat up into the air, vivisecting the man as his corpse is launched into the sky.

  A flash of light ignites the sky around them as Falcon and Sparrow rip apart the other Specter and send it careening towards Starling and Crow, who drop from the sky and fly down to watch Condor and Vulture clear the path to the elevator.

  The sound of automatic gunfire tears through the air like rolling thunder below them. The ground churns, sending up sprays of mud and snow as someone in the back of an armored vehicle opens fire on Condor’s rapid approach.

  He dodges the bullets as he closes the distance, and allows several to punch through his body, only for him to heal just as quickly as the damage is done. Condor drops his shoulder down and smashes into one of the armored vehicles in the circle guarding the elevator. The twisting metal cries out in protest, screeching louder than the man who struggles to leave his turret.

  Condor drives his legs down, lifts the entire machine up until it is totally vertical and then kicks its armored undercarriage. The blast resistant underplate serves only to sign their deaths away, as instead of Condor's foot going through the metal, the whole thing buckles and then flies away from him, spinning over and over until it crunches through two more armored vehicles in the arc.

  Three more armored vehicles in the line reposition their weapons, some of them energy based, all aimed at Condor. Crow and Starling reach the ground nearby, but not nearly fast enough.

  A wave of terror ripples through the space, sending Crow almost to the ground as Vulture releases his fear aura before the energy weapons can fire.

  Crow's lungs struggle for breath, the muscles in his body scream at him, though Starling remains unaffected.

  Vulture and Starling smear through the air. Starling punches a hole through the armored vehicle like it's nothing as blood splatters against the bullet proof glass inside. One turret tears upwards as the spasming corpse of a man pulls the trigger. A beam of red energy lights up the sky, only to just as quickly be cut off as Vulture rips a man's chest apart and throws fragments of metal into the weapon so hard it explodes into scrap.

  The fear aura drops just in time for the Williams Specters to crash into the earth, the sound of their rotors tearing up the earth draws Crows focus long enough for him to step to the side, allowing the still spinning blades to pass inches from his face as they carve a ravine through the ground.

  Fire clickers through the ruined cockpit, the smell of gasoline reaches his nose and with a click of his tongue he Teleports away a second before the explosion detonates in the space he was moments ago.

  “Seriously?” Crow narrows his eyes at Vulture as he tears his way through the last armored vehicle covered in blood. A smoldering fragment of Specter lands on the ground between them.

  “Nice haircut.” Vulture smiles under his mask.

  “I dislike it.” Starling echoes as she approaches the ground, wiping some blood from her mask as well.

  “I agree, it doesn’t suit him much.” Falcon chuckles and rolls out his shoulder.

  Sparrow tosses Falcon a stim.

  “Right, let me just grow it back real quick.” Crow produces his own stim and mimes injecting it into his scalp, but Vulture swipes it from his hand.

  Crow has half the mind to swipe it back, but the sound of James in his ears pulls him back. “I thought I asked you all not to embarrass me?”

  “Just some team bonding.” Falcon counters.

  Metal groans from the center of the armored carnage as the building that houses the elevator cracks under Condor's impossible strength.

  Another explosion echoes further away as the second Williams specter finally detonates on the mountainside. Small fires burn all around them, melting the snow. No more soldiers make a sound up here, the only thing Crows senses can pick up is that of the blood pumping from their quickly cooling corpses.

  A faint trace of noise rises up then, but he forces it down as he touches his mask, confirming it's still against his face.

  With a grunt, Condor tears the armored door of the elevator, builds face, and leads the charge deeper inside.

  Vanguard press into the building, a large industrial sized cargo elevator housed inside. In one quick movement Condor tears the doors open, letting the air from deep within to rush upwards. It whistles, dropping deep below the earth. It reminds Crow of the containment silo back in site-51, but far less protected.

  “Sparrow.” Crow ushers the smaller boy over, and he obeys, approaching the edge of the elevator shaft.

  “The surviving unit is there…I can hear them.”

  “Let's go rescue our cousins then.” Vulture half laughs.

  Crow takes a single step forward, but a small shock of the noise prevents him from feeling what he should about this. Jame’s voice and orders echo in the back of his mind, Director Williams gaze lingers in his memory, as a faint tapping makes its way up from the bottom of the elevator shaft.