Well At Least They Can Get Treated

The hospital was a warzone. The imperial military was attempting to fight back, but the gun thugs that the bomber had hired were of sufficiently good quality and they had hit fairly fast leaving the men guarding Barker unprepared to say the least. There were only two of them left now, and they were calling for help for anyone who could listen. Rolando arrived just as another squad got there, the cab driver he had called up took off immediately, Rolando couldn't blame him.

"What's the situation here?" The sergeant in charge looked visibly relieved when Rolando showed up, he was surprised no one else from command was there, or even contacting this squad they were in the middle of the freaking city.

"No clue sir, something's jamming coms and our transport station was attacked earlier all but one shuttle was blown up." It was shocking to Rolando how brazen Lyn was being, then again the man did try and kill the emperor.

"Well I'm here now, how many men do you have?"

"Six sir, but two are hurt, we have reports of at least ten men inside the hospital, and supposedly two of barkers men are pinned down, but holding, we have no confirmation of that." Rolando was so angry at how things had turned out, he could feel it boiling up in his blood. This brazen attempt on an imperial officer was going to be put down, and hard, Rolando would see to that personally.

"Pull back your men, make sure no one gets out."

"Yes sir, do you need a weapon?" The sergeant seemed even more relieved.

"Nah shifting tends to break anything that's more modern than what I carry, thanks for the suggestion." Rolando had a twelve round pistol and knife, both were owned by his mother and she used them effectively. He'd tried to use more modern weaponry, but they never survived past a couple shifts and an unreliable weapon was dangerous in a combat zone. Rolando snagged a loud speaker the sergeant had been using to order his men, and walked toward where the gun thugs had taken up in front of the hospital.

"You have five seconds to turn down your arms and turn yourself in the Imperial military can promise favorable sentencing for anyone who gives up now?" The laughter followed by gun fire was everything Rolando expected. He shifted behind the men at the counter, they never even noticed he was there until he fired the first shot. There were three of them there, wearing modified body armor, Rolando shot the man to his immediate right through the back of his head the bullet exiting out his jaw. He shifted again to another man and slit his throat, and fired another fatal shot at the surviving member, this one hit the man below his eye. He heard more fun fire up the hall way and moved up the stairs, There was a weird sense for Rolando, he didn't feel the corruption, even though with three rapid fire shifts he should have been feeling a bit more pressure, instead he felt better than he had in a while, even the bruises from the explosion earlier which had been bothering him weren't anymore. He tried not to concern himself with what was going on though he had to save barker.

Up the stairs was four more men, they had pinned down Barkers group and were about to advance when he showed up. He didn't even have to shift, the gun thugs had their backs to him and so he just them all like his old target back with Trezlan. When the last man fell he felt a zing of power through his hand and it terrified him, something was wrong, Trezlan had done something to him, he knew it now, and whatever it was, was bad.

"Weapon down!" It was order from the shorter Sergeant Kyriac.

"It's me you're safe." Kyriac visibly breathed a sigh of relief at seeing it was in fact Lorentino.

"Thank the gods, I was shocked as anyone when these assholes showed up, where is support?"

"Blown up at the transport field, I don't know where the bomber is though, how's Barker?"

"Isn't he with you?"

"No? He was supposed to be at the hospital?"

"No we were guarding a young lieutenant who was near the shuttle when it blew up." Rolando was confused, he didn't recall another man on the shuttlepad other than Barker and himself, the pilots were dead on explosion. He rushed to the door just in time to see the very large bomb in the bed, grabbing Kyriac and the other mans hand's he shifted again, this time back to the office just in time for the hospital and the grounds around it to be annihilated.