MCB were bailing out, taking cover, and pouring fire into the tower, until the Mk19 belt-fed 40mm mounted on their command truck pulverized the building into splinters and fire. He caught a glimpse of one of the Nemesis soldiers still inside the collapsing structure before losing sight of it in an expanding cloud of dust and smoke.

Franks reloaded, stood up, and holstered the Glock. His new leg was shaky, but it would do. One of the agents came around the side of the Suburban and tossed Franks an FN SCAR. He might not be wearing proper armor, but he’d buckled multiple pistol belts together and put them over his shoulders like a makeshift bandoleer, so he was covered in pouches, mags, grenades, and knives.

“Secure the buildings now!” They were all on the same radio frequency, but Franks bellowed the command with so much volume that everybody, including their sniper overwatch and the Catholics on the approaching bus, heard him. Franks ran toward where he’d seen the soldier go down.

He had to duck as the demon came out of the wreckage and hurled a large beam at him. The soldier was so shredded that he couldn’t tell if it had been a male or female body, but it didn’t matter for long, because Cueto dropped a 40mm grenade at the thing’s feet. Franks was just outside the blast radius, but he was still pelted with red rain. He saw where the biggest chunk of body landed, then gave some quick hand signals for some of his men to finish it off.

There was movement in his peripheral vision as the other Nemesis soldier from the tower rushed into the nearest hangar. Surprisingly, the demon he’d thought had been finished by the 40mm had gotten up, grabbed its guts, and with an awkward limping run, made it to that hangar as well. That was an impressive level of resilience. Franks shouldered the FN, guessed where the demon would be through the wall, and started putting rounds through the tin. Most of the other agents couldn’t see what he was shooting at, but they followed his example and within seconds that building was absolutely riddled with bullet holes.

The MCB tasked with taking that building were on it moments later, tossing bangs through the windows and doors before sweeping inside. Franks followed them. He was almost there when an MCB agent’s body crashed through the wall to fly far out into the field. That was immediately followed by the sounds of screaming and gunfire.

The door was too far, so Franks crashed through the wall.