The few guards that confusedly rushed down the main stairs into the foyer were easily dispatched by Blue's coatborne arsenal. Half a dozen bodies littered the stairs, pools of blood soaking into the already red carpet.
"We'll hold the entrance," Blue barked as he turned toward the destroyed doors, readying his weaponry for the inevitable onrush of hired security. "Go do what you've gotta do."
Olivia nodded as she reloaded her sidearm.
"Don't forget-," she started.
"Yeah, yeah," Beige interjected, kicking a body to make sure it was dead, "we'll let Pedro through." He turned and grinned a malicious grin. Self-righteous murder was what he felt most comfortable with.
With bounding steps, Olivia leapt up the stairs to the second floor and turned left down a long hallway, remembering the blueprint she had obtained from a black market informant on Leon Station.
Behind her she could hear the stomping of heavy boots. Instinctively, she dropped to the floor. A volley of energy bolts shot through the space her torso had occupied a split second earlier, impacting a marble wall at the far end of the corridor. Molten rock showered the floor. Olivia jumped back to her feet, turning to face her assailants. Three armed men charged at her, mere meters separating them.
Two raised their blasters, ready to burn her to a crisp. But they were too slow. A spray of bullets tore into their bodies, sending them sprawling onto their backs, their lives leaking out of them onto the parquet. The third one, however, was unfazed and leapt at Olivia. She attempted to spin to the side, only for the guard's shoulder to crash into her abdomen, sending them both to the ground.
Pain shot through Olivia's stomach as she scrambled to her feet, spinning to face her opponent. He was already up, reaching out for her gun and getting a hold of the barrel, yanking it out of her hand.
"Shit," Olivia spat and reached for the knife on her left thigh.
Too slow.
The Cretan trained the pistol on her head and smiled. Olivia closed her eyes as his finger tightened around the trigger, but there was no deafening discharge. No pain. And most certainly no death. Instead, there was only a wet gurgling and the splatter of liquid onto polished stone. Cautiously, Olivia opened her eyes again. The man still stood before her, his gun-arm now dangling limply at his side. Blood ran down the front of his body from where a blade protruded from his throat. It retracted with a sickening slurp and the now lifeless body collapsed to the side, revealing a shorter, black-clad man with blood-red hair standing behind.
Maroon whipped his short sword at the floor, flinging blood and viscera off the blade.
"That was close," he said matter-of-factly. Olivia exhaled slowly, relieved.
"Yeah, sure was."
She knelt beside the corpse and collected her sidearm.
"Thanks," she muttered, glancing up. But Maroon was already gone.
