Battle of New Cádiz

The was a brutal nine-way battle between the shadowy cabal known as the Demiurge, the Office of Naval Intelligence, the Sangheili Republic's Justiciars, the Crusaders, the Syndicate and their Knights, the reformed Black Lance, The Assembly and the Devas freedom fighters. During the course of the frantic battle, the city of New Cádiz was laid to waste. The entire battle was triggered by a single assassin, whose trail of destruction had gathered the attention of some of the most dangerous individuals in the galaxy. 
==Participants==
===The Demiurge===
The Demiurge are a shadowy cabal of powerful and influential individuals, devoted to building a power bloc in ex-Covenant space. Using economic power and a powerful spy network, they've attempted to keep themselves ahead of their enemies through clandestine actions. Their field agents, referred to as operants, conduct espionage and assassinations on their behalf. 
What triggered this entire battle was the actions of a single agent, Ryuko Kawada. Former gladiator, bounty hunter, smuggler and freedom fighter, Ryuko Kawada had long been a thorn in the side of the Demiurge, but once captured by them, she was subjected to intense brainwashing to mold her into one of their most lethal agents. Packed with cybernetic implants and physical enhancements, she was shaped into a deadly and emotionless assassin. Such was her lethality that she came under personal command of the Demiurge's leader, the Archon, to conduct various lethal operations. During the course of these operations, she assassinated leaders from the Sangheili Republic, members of the Crusader and Reliquary Sentinel orders, several ONI officers, Syndicate bosses, members of the Jiralhanae Alliance and Kig-Yar Union and several member of the Devas freedom fighters. This brought her to the center of all but one of these factions' attentions.
Ryuko was ultimately tracked by each group to New Cádiz. She, however, was not alone. She was moving to meet up with a squad of operants and their support specialists to move out. Aside from Ryuko, there were twenty other operants and upwards of thirty support staff in the form of expanded spies and the like.
===Office of Naval Intelligence===
For one of the first times since its inception, the Office of Naval Intelligence fought against an intelligence agency with powers of espionage equal to their own. ONI was fighting a bitter shadow war with the Demiurge, each attempting to infiltrate and undermine the other. The result was casualties on both sides. Ryuko was called into rile up the Office, assassinating several field agents and the head of the Demiurge investigation. She then killed several ONI double agents who had infiltrated the Demiurge, during a routine clean up operation. 
While ONI did not know her identity, they did have access to some internal encrypted data, and knew the operative 'Crimson Serpent' was responsible for killing their field and undercover agents. They also had come to the determination that she was augmented. ONI intended to kill her and recover her corpse for inspection. Because of numerous leaks and suspected double agents, ONI Section 0 took over the operation to bring this assassin to justice. 
To this end, ONI dispatched Ronin Team. Ronin Team was a specialist group who were experts in tracking and killing rogue Spartans and augmented terrorists. Lethal hunters, they were remorseless and deadly in their hunt. Supporting them were three ONI Clandestine Activities Group teams and a Prowler, along with two MD-78A1 Osprey stealth gunships.
===The Justiciars===
The Justiciars are the severe intelligence arm of the Sangheili Republic, and like ONI, they had dedicated themselves to hunting the Demiurge. After several councilors on worlds close to Demiurge space were assassinated, and a local Justiciar commander executed by them, the Justiciars turned their attention to the Demiurge. The single individual who had perpetrated all of these attacks was a human female, who the Justiciars had traced through their extended contacts to Fell Justice. 
To put an end to this villain, the Justiciars pulled no punches and dispatched a squad of Assassins to terminate her. Activating an entire cell of Assassins in an unprecedented action, they dispatched them, giving them support in the form of two Spec Ops squads. They, in turn, were supported by a Vigilant-class Stealth Corvette and a pair of Type-54 Phantom Assault Ship, specialist stealth craft for infiltration.
===The Syndicate===
The Syndicate had come under brutal attack by a single assassin, and those inside the organization suspected the same woman had been responsible for the killing of upwards of eight bosses, though the number could be higher. Using extortion, bribery and good old fashioned torture, they learned the code name of the assassin, and her next location: their own backyard of Fell Justice, New Cádiz to be exact. 
To terminate her, the Syndicate dispatched one of their top enforcers, Gore Kaspersky, leading a squad of twenty Knight Operatives, and choosing to take a large supporting force of non-augmented assassins and enforcers as a back up. The Syndicate would furnish them with several armed star ships and VTOL air craft for combat. 
Left oblivious to this was the local boss of New Cádiz, Victor Sosel, who found his city turned into a warzone, and his own army of thugs caught in the middle.
===The Crusaders===
The Crusaders had suffered grievously at the hands of a single assassin, who had not only killed one of their Crusaders, but had killed a Chapter Master who established a Chapter close to the Demiurge border to combat their influence, and then killed the Crusader-Saint sent to kill her. The Crusaders would not tolerate such actions against them, and tasked a Crusader with her destruction. 
Their foe had presented themselves as intimately familiar with not only the order, but with their fighting style and combat tactics. To counter this, the response would be led by one of their more unconventional warriors. Crusader-Saint Kambei 'Nerevar was tasked with assembling a team to hunt this enemy down and bring them to justice. This team featured another Crusader-Saint, five Arch-Crusaders and Kambei's own Neophyte, Hakke 'Esokol. For supporting them, they had a single Templar-class Corvette with another twenty Crusaders, hidden behind the first moon of Fell Justice.
Shortly after forming his team, he picked up the trail of the assassin were his fellow Saint had left off after being assassinated, and followed the trail from world to world, before the last breadcrumb lead him to New Cádiz. Kambei however, became more convinced as he went that this assassin was his friend Ryuko, who he had trained as a bounty hunter years later. While the rest of his Crusade wanted to terminate their foe, Kambei wanted answers.
===The Black Lance===
Tal 'Zerex was Ryuko's close friend, and once upon a time her mentor in the bloody arenas of gladiatorial fighting. Ryuko was kidnapped by the Demiurge after a job they were both on went sour, or so he thought. After the job went south, she never made it back to the rendezvous point. The third member of their team, the mercenary known as Stray, had sold her out, expecting Ryuko to slip the trap easily. Ryuko had failed and was captured, and while they waited for her, she was carted off-world. Tal had grown suspicious of the events surrounding her disappearance, and began investigating not only the circumstances of her disappearance, but what Stray had to do with it.
===The Assembly===
The Assembly, a collection of A.I.s devoted to the continued survival and prosperity of mankind, had long pined for information on the Demiurge. Given how secretive they were, it was near impossible to gather substantial intelligence on them. A single one of their agents, identified only as Crimson Serpent, had conducted a number of operations to destabilize humanity and their allies. Now the Assembly wanted information, and had decided to dispatch an agent to perform close observation. Once they had more information on their enemy, and the capabilities of the Demiurge, they hoped they could come up with a course of action. 
The agent sent was Gavin Dunn, former insurrectionist fighter and smuggler. Unknown to both Dunn and the Assembly, the assassin was a former member of his crew. While he would go in almost comically outgunned, the Assembly subsumed control of the control systems of New Cádiz, turning the city itself into a weapon to facilitate their own aims.
===The Devas===
Of highest priority for the Demiurge was the removal of the Devas. The Devas were a freelance army of freedom fighters, who had singularly dedicated themselves to the destruction of slavers. Their operations struck at slavers across known space, the Demiurge and their extended contacts being a frequent target. While incapable of striking directly at the Devas, the Demiurge instead took to assassinating several of their officers with the aim of attempting to curb their influence. Ryuko performed these duties without hesitation, killing two of their foremost agents. Knowing they were under attack, Devas commander, and once upon a time Ryuko's partner in the arena, Sabine, dispatched her second in command, Aikaras 'Tyron, to investigate this threat, where he had a close call with the assassin on the colony of Kulda. Alerting his leader to the assassin's identity, she personally came to combat the threat, her own friend.
The Devas brought with them a detachment of the elite First Shock Force. Disciplined, and well equipped, this squadron was only numbered thirty, but it was more than enough. Lead personally by Sabine during the conflict, they were supported by the Devas flagship, the Freedom, an extensively modified ORS-class Heavy Cruiser, parked at the edge of the system to avoid drawing attention.
===Bounty Hunters===
In her brutal attacks upon Jiralhanae and Kig-Yar leadership, Ryuko had garnered an incredibly high bounty on her head. The result was she was being tracked by dozens of bounty hunters at any one time. At least seventy tracked her to Fell Justice, but once war broke out, that numbered increased to over 400 bounty hunters, all tearing apart New Cádiz to find her and claim the bounty. 
There were at least seventy distinct bounty hunting outfits attempting to apprehend Ryuko during the battle, none working together, and none of them uniform in number, skill or equipment.
==Prelude==
Ryuko Kawada, codenamed Crimson Serpent, had just conducted an extensive in-house cleaning operation for the Demiurge, purging the organization of traitors and those disloyal to the Archon. With substantial heat on her in Demiurge space, she was ordered to Fell Justice, where she'd be heading up a major offensive against the Syndicate to seize their criminal assets for the Demiurge's own use. Ryuko would be at the head of this offensive, conducting random assassinations and terror attacks. 
Her current safe house had come under observation by ONI, with two spec ops teams waiting for the go to attack. With Ronin Team three days out, they were preparing to take them out in one fell swoop. Unknown to both, a contingent of Knight operatives and Syndicate enforcers were readying up to hit the Demiurge safe house. 
Independently, the Justiciars, Black Lance and Crusaders all arrived on the same day, spreading out to find their foe. The Devas, meanwhile, had been acting on Fell Justice a month prior, and had captured a pair of Demiurge agents. The first activated his killswitch, detonating a tiny explosive charge in his head to end his own life. The charge in the second agent failed to detonate, and after he expired during interrogation, they were afforded the opportunity to perform and autopsy and learn about Demiurge cybernetics, lessons they would put to use later.
Gavin Dunn arrived on behalf of the Assembly, in a purely investigative manner, though the all consuming conflict would quickly drag him in. 
Despite numerous warnings that they risked becoming exposed, Ryuko's handler, Kingslayer, refused to withdraw, believing the threat to be minuscule.
==Battle==
===The First Day===
====Opening Salvo: The Syndicate Strikes====
At 12:57, the opening salvo of the battle was fired. Gore Kaspersky was sent by the Syndicate with the mission of terminating every Demiurge agent in their safe house in the Victor South district of New Cádiz. The Demiurge safe house consisted of a compound just inside a residential zone, looking like an industrial estate to most. Kaspersky blockaded the main roads going north and south with trucks, then rolled up on the complex in a convoy of nine modified SUVs, each with armour and bulletproof windows, and a few carrying a heavy machine gun. Surrounding the building, they opened fire, pouring machine gun rounds and rockets into the compound with no particular care for accuracy or collateral. Circling the building were two G-65 VTOLs, repurposed by the Syndicate as makeshift gunships, and firing more rockets down on the compound. After ten minutes of pouring fire onto the compound, Kaspersky deployed his forces, having a squad of enforcers stack up around the main entrance to breach it, while his prized Knight operatives stacked up on the side doors, ready to breach. 
Despite the savagery of the opening salvo, the Demiurge within remained unflappable. While one Demiurge Operant had been killed, and six of their support staff, the rest were fine, and still operable. In contact with their mission handler, Kingslayer, his orders were to break out of the Syndicate encirclement and link up with another Demiurge safe house in the Old district. Put in tactical command of the situation was Arn 'Shem, better known by his codename of Vanguard. Arming up, Vanguard had his Operants secure their perimeter, with the intent of weathering the Syndicate's first strike, then breaking out during the lull in combat that would follow. Ryuko was tasked with holding the rest entrance with the aid of four Operants. 
Breaching the main gate with a armour truck, the Syndicate's enforcers flooded in, only for their first wave to be flattened by a fuel rod cannon shot, wrecking the truck and killing several thugs around it. The rest were immediately pinned by a hail of precise plasma fire. The closest gunship was struck by a munition through a plasma launcher, sending it into a spin before it crashed into the west road, meters from ONI's hiding place. 
At the west entrance, ten Knight operatives breached the door and flooded in. Assuming at first it was abandoned, the clone-soldiers fanned out, straight into the Demiurge trap. Kawada's cybernetic implants drove her into a berserker rage, pseudo-rumble drugs flooding her system, followed by other Operants. In the bloody melee that followed, the Knights were forced to withdraw, two of their number torn limb from limb by Ryuko, with another three were killed in the bloody melee, killing two Operants in return. While she attempted to pursue, Vanguard ordered her to shore up defences on the East entrance, where the Knights had breached, and killed the Operants holding it, and secured the east building. 
At the main entrance, the Syndicate pinned the defenders with concentrated machine gun fire, and now had a foothold, several of their enforcers breaching the front entrance. Ryuko accidentally walked into the foyer where they were in the process of breaching, and forced the attacks into a rout by gutting five immediately, and chasing the rest off. Refusing to back down, she instead took up a discarded fuel rod cannon and fired on the east building, without care for collateral. The Knights withdrew, rather than hold out in the path of unstoppable fire. 
Vanguard, meanwhile, had underestimated the numbers and determination of the Syndicate forces, and elected to withdraw. Ordering five Operants to hold their rear as a rear guard, he took the rest to the west entrance and broke out, making it across the street to the Argo residential complex. Behind them, he detonated charges in their safe house, bringing it down on top of the Syndicate and his rear guard. 
====Running Battle: Ronin Arrives====
Inside the Argo residential complex, they began a series of skirmishes as they attempted to make it to their rendezvous point. The Argo residential complex was a warren of apartment complexes, connected by makeshift platforms and walkways. Inside here, the Demiurge forces continually set up ambushes and boobytraps, fighting from point to point in a desperate struggle to out wit and out run their opponent. 
Ryuko acted as their pointman leading Vanguard directly and smashing through several Syndicate barricades, and terminating two Knight operatives as she went. The battle quickly turned into a bloodied close range brawl. This was fine by Kawada, who enjoyed the massacre, his cybernetic implants conditioning her for the conflict. 
Trailing the Syndicate was two ONI spec-ops teams, shadowing them through the apartment complex using active-camo to evade attention. Ronin Team, their Spartan hunters, deployed straight from orbit, falling to the ground in a Osprey stealth gunship. Rather that jump straight into an engagement, they decided to lay a trap, catching them in a bottleneck at the exit from the Argo residential complex. Quietlky taking their position, they exterminated the Syndicate enforcers already holding the position, and established a trap, utilising their combat A.I. to track their opponents throguh the building's spotty surveillance network. 
Funnelling them into the trap, Ronin sprang it and immediately opened fire on the Demiurge, pinning them down in a square between apartment blocks. Their sniper, Jan, kept them pinned at range, while their assault team pressed the attack, lead by the former Sangheili Zealot, Naga 'Ulnach. Ryuko went toe to toe with the Zealot, proving a match for his Sangheili strength. Their commanding officer, Jason Worth, commanded him to disengage and dived into the conflict himself. His heavily augmented senses, and unique cybernetic implants proved surprisingly effective against Kawada, who easily become flustered when her opponent not only evaded her attacks, but returned her attacks in kind. The melee was quickly going in Ronin's favour, when the Syndicate interrupted the firefight with a air raid by their gunship, firing rockets and machine gun rounds down on the square. Ronin's Osprey decloaked behind it and fired on their gunship, and the burning wreck crashed into the square, disrupting their battle. In the chaos, the Demiurge slipped away, evading Ronin's blockade. Both the Syndicate and ONI gave chase, with Ronin climbing back into their gunship to give chase. 
====Centurion Square: Assassins Unleashed====
Recognising that not only the Syndicate but also ONI were after them, Vanguard requested immediate military extraction. Kingslayer complied, dispatching a stealth corvette to Fell Justice to retrieve them. Now on the run from Spartans and Syndicate, they elected to find a holding point to wait for reinforcements from their other cells to arrive. Using breaching charges they blew their way out of the Argo complex and made their way across several blocks to Centurion Square, a large shopping mall. Making their intentions immediately clear, they fired rounds into the air to force the civilians from the area and secured the mall's security centre, bringing down the shutters to slow their opponents. Ronin team gave little care for these obstacles, and instead used rockets on their Osprey to open it up. Preparing to land and take the fight to the Demiurge, they instead received a single, terse radio call in Sangheili. This was no longer their operation. Three Phantoms swooped in, and black armoured Sangheili descended from them, and stormed in.
The assassins moved like shadows, fading in and out of active camouflage, and struck with speed and fury. The Demiurge hadn't anticipated such a response, and were now on the backfoot, their Operants slaughtered by assassins they couldn't even see. Calling an all out rout, they broke into a run to the opposite side of Centurion Square, where they were due to meet their exfiltration unit. Ryuko wouldn't run from a fight so easily, and engaged two of the Assassins, succeeding in slaying one, and wounding the other. In the air above Centurion Square, Ronin broke into a verbal argument with the Sangheili commanded over jurisdiction and right, both thinking themselves in the right. This little spat was interrupted by the arrival of the Demiurge's escort, with three Phantoms opening up on them, while a convoy of ground vehicles made it to the exit of Centurion Square to evacuate their fellows. 
Forced to temporarily withdraw in the face of superior enemy numbers and fire power, both Ronin and the assassins elected to take and orbiting position high above the city, to await their next opportunity to strike. With a safe distance between them and their enemy, Ronin bartered with the Assassins for a temporary alliance. They both had the same enemy and the same goals. They would be better pooling their resources. 
====Road War====
Now the conflict went motorised, as a convoy of Demiurge armoured vehicles attempted to make it from Victor South to the Old District, by way of the west highway. With Kaspersky's manpower depleted during the first battle, he used his authority to seize the authority of New Cádiz reigning boss, Victor Sosel, using his men as his own. Mobilising every thug, enforcer, fixer and assassin he could, he dispatched them to stop the convoy in a haphazard manner, with mobsters throwing their vehicles and men at the convoy, attempting to blockade it several times. The result was a heavy toll on both sides, with vehicles destroyed, wrecked and otherwise driven off the road. An aerial conflict resulted in one of the Phantoms being downed, crashing right into the street, and forcing the Demiurge convoy off the highway and onto smaller roads, slowing their progress. 
The Assembly, watching with great interest through the city's traffic cameras, began a closer analysis of their enemy. Their agent, Gavin Dunn, had touched down on Fell Justice and was already dispatched to the Demiurge's path to follow and observe. Using the traffic cameras, they finally got their first picture of the assassin they were so interested it, and upon cross-referencing discovered it was a former member of Dunn's crew. Helpfully 'leaking' this to Dunn, they asked that he use his knowledge of this person to trail her more closely. Dunn was more than a little perturbed that a former member of his crew, who had been missing for several years, had now turned up as a frenzied assassin. He instead decided his best course of action would be to try and talk her down. 
He'd get his opportunity to do so when a Syndicate muscle car collided with the armoured van Ryuko was riding in, sending both through the wall of a multi-story parking lot. Ryuko stumbled from the wreck in a daze, but quickly gained her bearings and executed the surviving driver of the Syndicate car. Getting back into communication with her handler, she was ordered to lie low and and make her way to the Old District using the metro system. Obliging, she headed a major metro stop just a few blocks from her current position. Trailed by Dunn, she was confronted on the platform of the station. Calling out to his former crew mate, she only responded with fire from her plasma pistol. Against the advice of his Assembly handlers, he threw his gun away and raised his arms. He simply asked Ryuko to hold her fire. In her head, Kingslayer flooded her system with combat stimulants and ordered her to fire. While she hesitated she came to the realization that somebody on the Chancer had betrayed her, and it could well have been Dunn. Fostering this ill feeling, Kingslayer told her to terminate him now. Opening fire on Dunn, he was shielding by the body of Tal 'Zerex, his friend and crew mate of the Chancer. Absorbing her shots into his shielding, he too tried to talk Ryuko down. She responded with more fire, coming to the conclusion they were all behind her twisted fate. 
During the confusion she made ran into the metro tunnels, disappearing from sight. Meanwhile, Dunn and Tal had some explaining to do to each other. Tal had come here to track Ryuko, in an attempt to save her, but it was becoming clear she may be too far gone. His last encounter with her had fared worse, with Tal almost being killed. The two agreed to work together to help Ryuko, but Tal was slowly beginning to be consumed by the thought that his friend may simply be too far gone, and a quick death would be more merciful than the tortured existence she currently lived in. 
====Black Out====
Navigating her way through the metro tunnels, she made it to her next port of call. There she planned on getting a metro to the old district and linking up with her allies. Patching back into communication with Kingslayer, she learned how dire their situation was. While Vanguard and his men made it to the Old District, they were again under siege. Kingslayer initiated one final contingency, and broadcast a ready code over open channels, to activate every Demiurge cell available to take the fight back to their enemy. Now the city erupted into an all out street war, Demiurge and Syndicate enforcers battling it out in open warfare. In their first strike, Kaspersky was wounded, and Sosel was finally made aware of the massive street war occurring in his city. 
To make matters worse, bounty hunters, attracted by the scent of blood, had hacked the city's network and patched into the surveillance systems. One group found their prey, Ryuko, on the O-line of the metro system, and went to pursue. Soon this leaked to the Net, and hundreds of bounty hunters flocked to the city in an attempt to claim the bounty, dead or alive. 
Now in an all out war, the Assembly initiated a fail safe. They cut the city off from the outside, putting their substantial processing power to use in hacking the city's communication grids to cut it off. Co-opting the city infrastructure, they took control of the metro system, the traffic network, the security systems and every camera in the city. As a final effort to take control, they hacked the Demiurge communication satellite Kingslayer used to direct the battle and forced it into a degrading orbit, where it broke apart and burned up on reentry. Now the Demiurge, Syndicate and bounty hunters were cut off, while the UNSC and Republic assassins were forced to use tight-beam communications between them and their ships to maintain communication.
====War On The Streets====
New Cádiz was now an open battleground, as bounty hunters, mercenaries, Syndicate enforcers and Demiurge operants battled on every street corner, turning the city into a war zone. Down Town Central in particular became a hive of activity as Demiurge clashed against the Syndicate right on the Syndicate's own turf, attempting to knock out their command structure. The resulting battle collapsed a central motorway and brought down two construction cranes, resulting in significant damage to several of the skyscrapers in the vicinity. The Old District turned into a siege as the Syndicate attempted to corner Vanguard and his unit near the Demiurge headquarters, and crush the opposition, destroying many of the historically significant buildings in this area, and bringing down the Ruyanna building, an old Covenant tower that in turn destroyed two smaller buildings, resulting in significant civilian casualties. Police forces were utterly overwhelmed by this, and could do little outside of set up pickets to secure certain areas. All sides, cut off from each other, rampaged without care or orders. 
Meanwhile, bounty hunters turned up around the Victor South district, clashing with Syndicate, Police, Demiurge forces, and each other, in their search for Ryuko. Indiscriminate fire and brutal infighting resulted in high casualties for civilians, and bounty hunters attempting to track her into the metro system ended up derailing one of the metro trains, causing a disasterous crash that took out the Jurra Street T-Line station and took the entire T-Line out of commission. Ryuko constantly clashed with these bounty hunters in running battles up and down the metro line, jumping from train, to station to service tunnels and back again, wrecking the metro system in the process. In an effort to evade her enemies, she made her way back up to the surface streets, and battled them through the affluent Victor North district. This series of running battles went disastrously badly for the Bounty Hunters again, with the hunters regularly tripping over one another, and failing to keep up with Kawada who took an unconventional pathway through the malls, hanging gardens and galleries that dotted this district. The Bounty Hunters, despite an obvious advantage in numbers, failed to even land a blow on Kawada. The culmination of this battle occurred when one crew managed to pin her in the Sampada Banking building, chasing her up several floors of the office tower, before she escaped by leaping onto a crane constructing the adjacent building, leaving the Sampada building as it went up in flames caused by the battle. Initially dislocating her arm, she recovered quickly and made her way back to the ground, before proceeding on foot to the Old District.
Kingslayer, cut off from his agents, dispatched a cruiser to aide them, intending to evacuate as many of his best agents as he could.
====The Crusader's Advance====
With the chaos below, the Crusaders, who had previously waited in orbit, elected to strike. Kambei 'Nerevar, commander of the force, had decided upon the action of waiting for their enemy to expose themselves before striking, hoping to hit them at their weakest. Now with an all out war on the streets, they could not hope to wait, and instead struck a hammer blow. Taking their heavy corvette into orbit, they established a blockade, while sending down their fully compliment of twenty-seven Crusaders, with Kambei's team of seven heading to the heart of the battle, and the twenty others establishing a 'safe zone' in Torra District, a large civilian area. 
Kambei's team had received tips that a killer matching their fugitive in size and skill was currently rampaging through the Victor North district. Descending in a dropship, Kambei observed the destruction in the streets and couldn't comprehend that this was the work of a single person. Reaching the ground, the team spread out in a loose hunting platform, quietly moving through abandoned streets to find their prey, terminating any bounty hunters or Syndicate enforcers who crossed their path. At the far left of their flank, Kambei's disciple, 'Esokol, encountered the running battle between a team of bounty hunters and Kawada, though she wasn't able to ascertain her identity. Alerting her fellows to this, they closed the net, using their dropship to attempt to funnel their enemy into a court to surround them. Recognising that she was gradually being trapped, she attempted to break out of the net, and in her furious attacks she wounded two of the Crusaders quite grievously, but failed to escape. Now trapped, she was confronted by her former mentor. Kambei, realising exactly who their foe was, hesitated at first. The young woman he'd guided and tutored was incapable of being the cold blooded killer responsible for the murder of his comrades. He held this thought all the way until she lunged, severely wounding him. Now on the back foot against her, and Ryuko's system flooded with combat stimulants, he was sent reeling under a flurry of blows. Kambei was so shocked that 'Esokol stepped in to aide him, leaping into the fray to attempt to even the odds. The three fought but failed to find an advantage over the other. 
The battle was interrupted by the arrival of the Republic assassins. Initially mistaking the Crusaders for another group of bounty hunters, they descended into battle without warning, engaging the Crusaders. In the confusion of the brawl, Ryuko stole an explosive charge from one assassin and made an escape route for herself. The assassins, quickly realising who they were battling, disengaged, rather than assault a revered Military Order. Apologising for the debacle, the Assassins left without saying another word, leaving the Crusaders without their prey, and now battered.
====The Devas Appear====
Having slipped both the Crusaders and Assassins, Ryuko disappeared into the maze of abandoned buildings, squats and vagrant villages at the edges of Victor North and escaped everybody's attention. Due to the spottiness of surveillance coverage in this area, the Assembly and bounty hunters were unable to track her, and she escaped them, at least temporarily. The Crusaders, Assassins and Ronin Team were forced back to their ships to lick their wounds and to regroup. 
However, another group now entered the fray. Coming in from the edge of the system in a group of three assault shuttles, Sabine and her Devas insurgents came down to bring their own forces to bear for the conflict. Not knowing the position of Ryuko, and unable to access city security system, she instead sought out her handler, Vanguard. Vanguard was squawking over short-band radio in an attempt to rally local forces, which in turn lead Sabine right to him. Descending on jump packs right onto the Demiurge's position in the Old District, they engaged in violent close quarters assault, not only gaining the advantage but quickly purging Demiurge resistance with the intent of securing Vanguard. Quickly capturing the Demiurge officer, they left with their prize, almost as soon as they had arrived. Having cut the heart from the Demiurge forces, they left them in an even worse state, the Demiurge defence of the Old District faltered.
Taking Vanguard back to orbit, he was brusquely interrogated, with the Devas utilising their knowledge of Demiurge implants to prevent him from killing himself. Under torture, Vanguard broke, and began answering Sabine's questions. He revealed the exact nature of her unwilling service to the Demiurge, and her extensive augmentations, but revealed there was no means to track her in the field. Done with Vanguard, Sabine vented him into the cold vacuum of space. With communications poor at best, thanks to the Assembly, the Devas would maintain a vigil, await for an opportunity to strike. 
====Night Descends====
As the sun set, the battle of New Cádiz raged. Bounty hunters, Syndicate and Demiurge forces battled through the city streets, city blocks turning into killing grounds. A war waged up and down the streets, as both sides advanced and retreated, attempting to find some kind of advantage. As the night got later, the Syndicate and Demiurge withdrew, intending to lick their wounds. Other forces too, pulled back to regroup, with the wounded Crusaders pulling back, and Ronin Team reassessing their enemy and the situation. Tal 'Zerex and the Black Lance withdrew to an uncontested warehouse with Gavin Dunn, to discuss what the other knew. Dunn wanted to confront Ryuko again, to try and talk her down, and while Tal agreed with this course of action, he made provisions to for the worst case scenario, the scenario where he would have to put Ryuko down. 
However, Ryuko's night wasn't over yet. Attempting to reach a safe house in the Jarra district, she was caught in a battle between the disparate police forces and bounty hunters tailing her. In the resulting battle, she killed two officers, and one of the bounty hunters, and hijacked a police cruiser to make an escape. However, one of the bounty hunters hit a wheel, blowing out the tire and sending her car careening through a wall and into a concrete river channel, smashing the car in the process. She wrecked her arm, and cracked a rib, but ignored the pain while escaping the wreck. Bounty hunters on her tail fired off a few shots, one landing in her shoulder and another landing a glancing blow on her side. Escaping into the sewer system, she knew she could easily be tracked by the blood she was losing, and turned it on her enemies, ambushing them as they entered the sewers, and killing them ruthlessly. Now free of her trail, she stumbled into the abandoned warehouses in the Jarra district, and found a place to barricade herself in overnight. Treating herself with some battlefield surgery, and painfully removing the bullet embedded in her shoulder, she patched herself up as best she could, resetting a broken finger and popping her arm back into her socket. Finally satisfied with her treatment, she attempted to get some rest, piling up cushions in an office and locking the door from the inside. She slept poorly, still being able to hear gunfire in the distance, and worried about being ambushed in her sleep.
===The Second Day===
====Dawn Breaks====
Dawn broke after a long night in New Cádiz. The battle had gone on in ongoing skirmishes across the souther districts of the city, and gradually spread to the more affluent northern districts. Lines between the Syndicate, Demiurge, and the hopelessly out-gunned police department shifted continually, but ended up as this come the morning; the Demiurge held the commercial Spaceport at Portend, and the orbital elevator, and had successfully hemmed the Police in around the Aigaon District, while the Syndicate held the civilian space ports at Akule and Benoa, city hall, and the majority of the city. The Assembly maintained an iron grip on the City's cyber systems, subverting security systems, traffic networks, and lines of communication, allowing them to control the airwaves and monitor their enemies. The Black Lance remained in a temporary safe house in the Victor North district, while the Assassins, Ronin team and the Crusaders had withdrawn to reassess their situation. 
====Raid on the Demiurge HQ====
As dawn broke, the first side to make a move were the Crusaders. Descending back to New Cádiz, they changed their focus. chasing a ghost like Ryuko would get them no where, nad instead they intended to entrap her, to at least subdue and interrogate her. Kambei had no intention of killing his friend, but others amongst his party began to feel his conflict of interest interrupted their mission, and there was no need for a prisoner. However, they would not go against their leader, at least not yet. The Crusader's new plan was to strike the Demiurge, in an effort to draw out their foe and attain information. To do this, they planned to strike the current Demiurge headquarters, a skyscraper belonging to a shell organisation that functioned as a front for Demiurge operations. They would use a Phantom to descend onto the roof and sweep through the building. 
Unknown to them, the Black Lance and Gavin Dunn had decided upon a similar course of action. Dunn had convinced Tal they could find out Ryuko's location if they had access to the Demiurge's systems, but in truth he needed to connect the Assembly to the Demiurge's remote servers. In the Black Lance's typical fashion, this was conducted through a frontal assault on the building, the heavily armoured mercenaries smashing straight through the Demiurge's defences.
The two marauding forces met in the middle, on the tower's floors containing the server room. Running into each other, each side become aware the other side were not Demiurge. This brief moment of peace turned into an intense fire fight. During the confusion, Tal and Dunn slipped into the server room, giving Dunn a chance to rig a remote back door so the Assembly could access the enemy's systems. 'Nerevar broke in himself, cutting his way through the wall to confront his enemy. Pausing, he recognised both Dunn and Tal from the events on the colony of Demeter and paused, the second time his hesitation got the better of him on this world. Tal dived for him, pulling his energy sword free. The two battled, a tremendous fight tearing its way through the tower, sword and armour and flesh and bone clashing in clash that left whole segments of the floor destroyed. Despite the catastrophic battle, neither could find an advantage over the other, and the battle came to an end when Dunn threw himself between the two. Forced to break for a moment, Dunn asked Kambei why he was here. He answered curtly that they were tracking a murderer, and the evidence pointed to Ryuko. He wished to subdue and question her. Dunn informed him that their goals aligned, and the two forces should join forces, albeit temporarily. Especially since a Demiurge company was coming into the area to retake the tower. Coming to an uneasy alliance, the group evacuated, the renegade penal squad and the law bringers escaping hand in hand. 
====Brokering Alliances====
The Crusaders and the Black Lance departed, now with more information on their target, and more information on their enemy. Dunn, Kambei and Tal were able to access the files to see exactly what had happened to Ryuko during her years missing. They learned of the brainwashing, the torturous augmentations, and the brutal conditioning that shaped her into the instrument she had now become. Horrified at this affront, Kambei didn't hold her responsible, but still needed to bring her to justice, to at least save her. Dunn agreed, but Tal saw the monster she'd become, and while he didn't share his thoughts, he was determined to end her torment, one way or another. However, the two sides were more than a little uneasy with one another. After all, the Crusaders were unflinching law bringers, while the Black Lance were escaped convicts from a penal unit. The two sides could not be more opposed to one another. A brawl immediately broke out on the Phantom ride back, forcing their leaders to separate them. 
They were not the only force make an alliance. Upon retreating to their stealth corvette to regroup, the cadre of assassins received a communique over an encoded channel. Their opposites in ONI knew they were out there, and were extending a hand of friendship. Their goals were mutually beneficial, and thus far their numbers had been insubstantial. The assassins, though proud, were not averse to such a course of action. The two sides met in a neutral area to discuss their plans. Both side simply wanted their enemy dead, no questions asked, and the Demiurge and Syndicate were too numerous to face by themselves. The two cemented an alliance, and returned to New Cádiz to find their prey.
====The Battle Rages====
While the two alliances sat back to observe, the Demiurge and Syndicate battled on, their territory constantly shifting. Reinforcements from neighboring cities arrived, to bolster each side. As the battle escalated, more and more of the city infrastructure was damaged, reducing the Assembly's ability to exert control over the city. The Assembly, with tens of thousands of eyes peering on the city, were unable to pick up Ryuko, leading to frustration. 
Ryuko had elected to utilise the substantial system of storm drains under the city to evade detection. Her new priority was to get off world and back to Demiurge territory, to do that, she would need to get to a space port or orbital elevator. The orbital elevator was closer to her, so she made her way there. 
The orbital elevator however, was about to become the most ferocious battleground yet. For reasons known only to her, Sabine elected to establish her base of operations there, and lead a flying formation of five Phantoms there. Landing on the outskirts of the elevator building, she lead a company from her First Shock Force, with light vehicles and exoskeletons, and attacked the Demiurge holding the elevator. It was a brutal rout, with the advanced armour and tactics of the FSF pushing the Demiurge out, and securing it. As Ryuko surfaced, she saw Devas warriors, and elected to slink back into the sewer system, and head for her next closest exit, the Portend commercial space port. She again avoided detection, making her way there with little to no incident.
====Battle for Portend Space Port====
High above, the Justiciars and ONI worked together to make a best guess of where their enemy would appear next. Ruling out Syndicate controlled territory, and the now contested orbital elevator, they guessed Portend Space Port. Descending in their dropships, and emitting a wide-band jamming field, they landed covertly at the edge of the Space Port and advanced, with Ronin team and the Assassin cadre at the head of this small force. Terminating the sentries, they breached the outer perimeter and slowly but surely overran and quietly executed every Demiurge agent in the vicinity. Once they were dealt with, they waited, hoping for their prey to arrive. 
Ryuko came out of the Storm Drains close to the left airstrip and ascended up the draining ditch running along the strip to get to the main building. Finding no sentries, she was alerted immediately to something wrong. Cautiously scanning through the building, she was ambushed by two of the assassins, their energy swords swinging with intent to decapitate their enemy. Barely evading them, she used her augmented strength to leap to the next floor and then escaped to the maze of service corridors. Interrupting their pursuit was the arrival of the Syndicate forces sent to seize the space port, turning it into a brutal warzone as Spartans and Assassins fended off waves of Syndicate enforcers. Escaping to the rooftops, Ryuko was pursued by Ronin's leader, Jason Worth. Clad in MJOLNIR, and heavily cyberised, Worth was every bit a match for Ryuko, and managed to keep her on the defensive through the fight. However, a Syndicate helicopter, brought down by the fight, crashed straight into the rooftop, interrupting the battle and giving Ryuko an opportunity to escape. Making it across the rooftop and back to the tarmac, she managed to load up into a small VTOL and made for the air, intending to fly out of the city limits and drop off their radar. Gaining just enough altitude to escape, her VTOL was hit by precision fire from the ground, sending it into a disastrous spin. Unable to recover it, she was forced to crash the aircraft, smashing the aircraft through a building and landing on the road. The VTOL was totalled, and Ryuko was badly injured in the crash. With the leaking jet fuel igniting around her. Kicking her way free of the cabin, she escaped as the vehicle went up in a fireball.
Now badly wounded, she orientated herself and stole a car. Driving into the poor district of Tonam-Shem, she attempted to locate one of the free clinics in the area, but blood loss caused her to black out temporarily and crash the car. Forced to continue on foot, she finally made it to the clinic. Forcing her way in at gun point, she went into one of the medical rooms and barricaded it while she treated herself. She was forced to pull shrapnel from her arm and treat the severe burns on her left arm and leg. Treating the injuries as best she could, she pushed her way back out and disappeared again. 
====The Hunted====
During her escapade at the clinic, her face was caught on a networked security camera, and facial recognition brought her to the attention of the Assembly, who alerted their agent, Gavin Dunn. This brought the alliance of the Crusaders and Black Lance down on Ryuko's head. Coming down in the Crusader's Phantom, they spread out across a wide area they suspected her to be in. Fanning out, the force swept the area, attempting to find Ryuko. First found by two of the Black Lance, they pursued her, chasing her right into the closing net of Crusaders. Even in her wounded state, she proved to be fast and wily, outrunning them in the densely packed back alleys. Cutting through a warehouse to get to the main road, she was confronted by Dunn at gunpoint. Dunn told her he could help her, and he just wanted to get her to safety. 
Ryuko, staying silent during this, waited until his guard dropped and sprang, somersaulting over him and grabbing his arm in a knee lock in the process, and dislocating it, then delivering a round house kick to the head, dislocating his jaw and concussing him. Escaping to the rooftop, with the intent of getting across the rooftops, she made it to two, before Kambei confronted her. Kambei too, made the mistake of attempting to talk her down, deactivating his sword, as a show of peace.
Ryuko, unsure of what to do, backed away from her, and for the first time in years, her programming faltered. As he came close to talking her down, Tal burst through the roof access door, taking Kambei by surprise. Tal immediately threw him from the rooftop, into the alley below. Tal would not talk it over with her, and instead he intended to put her down like a rabid beast. Drawing his sword, he plunged into a bloody melee with her, attempting to go for a quick and decisive blow to kill her instantly. Ryuko didn't make it easy, parrying and evading his attacks, until he landed a skilful blow and disarmed her, sending her sprawling onto the floor. Tal raised his sword to deliver the killing blow, and looked upon his enemy. In that moment, he saw the young girl he tutored on fighting, and his mercenary partner in many misadventures. Shutting down his sword, he could not bring himself to kill her. Ryuko responded by deploying a hidden wrist blade and stabbing him in the knee, then trapping his arm in a lock and using Tal's own weight to snap it, before finally delivering a brutal elbow strike to the head, intended to stun him. With her enemy knocked down, she made good on her escape, clearing the road, then making it to the Abanarth river and leaping in, disappearing beneath the surface. 
Kambei, furious with 'Zerex's actions, withdrew with the Crusaders. Dunn departed too, leaving Tal and the Black Lance to continue a fruitless search.
====Blackout====
Now the battle reach its zenith, as reinforcements from both sides poured in to New Cádiz. Most alarming for the Assembly, was the fact somebody was close to subverting their control of the network. Hackers for both the Demiurge and Syndicate had began wrestling portions of the city's networks from Assembly control, and their tenuous grasp on it was weakening, forcing the Assembly to do something drastic. Using their remote access, they forced the two power plants fuelling the city to go into overdrive, shorting transformer boxes across the city, and blowing the city power grid, triggering a city wide blackout. With the ongoing battle, it was impossible to get in and repair the damage. 
Now the city was blacked out, and close to dusk. During the second night of conflict, Demiurge and Syndicate forces battled each other blindly, with many cases of friendly fire occurring during the night. Ryuko meanwhile had slipped the net again, and tried to find an overnight holt, managing to sneak into a condemned apartment complex and pass out in a gap between the walls.
===The Third Day===
====By Dawn's Pale Light====
Dawn broke with a city in turmoil. Intense fighting over the last two days left widespread destruction and damage in the city, and only parts of the city power grid had been restored, with large parts of it still blacked out. Demiurge and Syndicate casualties during the night had been exceptionally heavy, as both sides fought blindly in the darkness, and killed as many of their own men as they did each other. The Black Lance, lead by Tal, had rampaged across the souther districts, attempting to pick up Ryuko's trail, while the Crusaders had pulled back to their Heavy Corvette to decide upon an extreme course of action to end this battle. Ronin Team and the Justiciar Assassins were hunting themselves, switching to the Syndicate and Demiurge to weaken their chain of command and give themselves more room to operate. Bounty Hunters had torn the city apart in a frantic search for their prey, to no avail. The Devas held their own position resolutely, weathering numerous attacks with no casualties. Gavin Dunn meanwhile, was forced out of communication with his Assembly handlers and instead turned to tracking Ryuko, trying to predict where she'd go next. 
Ryuko, meanwhile, was woken up to the sound of gunfire, and went outside to investigate the commotion. A pair of Demiurge agents and Syndicate enforcers were battle outside. Rather than aide either side, she waited for them to wear each other down, terminated the Syndicate agents and seized the Demiurge car to make good on her escape. Driving down into the Forsnel District, where power had bee restored, she was finally able to regain contact with Kingslayer, her handler. Kingslayer gave her coordinates to rendezvous with allied forces and prepare for evacuation. Ryuko obliged, heading towards the coordinates, but went into a district with operational camera networks. The Syndicate, Bounty Hunters and the Assembly all picked it up, with the Syndicate dispatching a squadron of Knight operatives to terminate her and the bounty hunters descending on her like locusts. The Assembly leaked her location across public networks, making sure the allied UNSC/Republic forces, and the Black Lance both saw it. They intended for their target to die, and for as many of their enemies to die in the process. This open communique was intercepted by the Crusaders, who took extreme action to intervene. Dunn too was alerted to this, and tried to persuade his handlers to let him bring Ryuko in for interrogation, since she had vital information on the Demiurge. They rejected this, and bluntly ordered him to observe her death to make sure she was terminated once and for all. 
====The Desperate Battle====
In orbit, on the Crusaders ship, Kambei faced sedition. Many of his fellows felt his attachment to their prey compromised him, and he was unfit to lead this expedition. While furious at the accusations, he knew them to be true. He gave an impassioned speech that Kawada was a pawn in this, and like many other unfortunates, she needed protection. If they could secure her, they could also discover more about their illusive foe. Begrudgingly, his fellow Crusaders accepted this, and swore to follow him. Once their loyalty was ensured, Kambei told them of his new plan. The city was caught in a war between two reprehensible enemies, and the Crusaders could not simply allow this to happen. Kambei put forth that extreme action was necessary. They would take their Heavy Corvette into orbit and hold the city itself hostage, utilising its guns to bombard their enemies into dust. His fellow Crusaders agreed, as such extreme times demanded action as extreme. 
The Crusader ship, The Resolute Hero, departed from its hiding place and sped to Fell Justice, burning through the orbit. Soon a crimson shadow was caste over the city, as Resolute Hero steadied itself into the best position over the city, and waited a moment. They took a moment to collate targets, and pick out the most intense areas of battle between their foes, where civilian casualties and collateral would be at their least, then fired. Plasma bolts rained down onto the city, incinerating buildings and leaving craters in road. Seizing control of the city airwaves, they made their mandate clear. Syndicate and Demiurge forces were to surrender, or face oblivion. The first barrage did little to halt their rampage, but the second made them pause, as the Resolute Hero bombarded the hotly contested Victor North district, bringing down skyscrapers under its bombardment, and sending clouds of smoke and debris spreading across the city. While the ship continued to pummel the city, Kambei descended in his dropship, intent on finding and stopping Ryuko. 
====Fighting On the Run====
Ryuko was no in the drive of her life. Syndicate and bounty hunters were pursuing her through the street, in a dramatic car chase as she desperately fought them off, ramming cars off the road, and shooting out the drivers where possible. The Assembly fought against her too, flexing their cybernetic capabilities to cause overloads in the underground steam pipes, causing violent explosions on the street. Ryuko narrowly dodged a few of these attacks. However, enemy numbers grew, and it quickly turned into a one sided battle, as even the armoured Demiurge car began to come apart under the intense fire. 
Almost as if on cue, the Crusader's Phantom dropped down above her on the street and used its nose gun to tear apart her pursuers. The plasma cannon shredded cars, exploding and burning hulks left in their wake. The Phantom banked hard, following Ryuko around a corner, allowing the door gunners to shred another car. The dropship then dropped a pair of Crusaders on Ghosts, who immediately began to escort Ryuko, against her will. Kambei asked for Ryuko to pull over, and they'd take her into protective custody. This was interrupted by a truck slamming across the intersection, smashing one of the Ghosts aside, and knocking Ryuko's car off the road. Tal and the Black Lance leapt from the truck, firing on the Crusaders to ward them off while Tal gave chase. Ryuko kicked the door of her wrecked car off and crawled from the wreck before limping to the industrial train stop behind the warehouses and climbed onto a train as it pulled out. Tal leapt on, several cars behind her, intending to catch and terminate her. Determined to stop Tal and save Ryuko, Kambei had the Phantom pull above the train, allowing him to jump onto the roof. 
Ryuko tried to make her way to the front of the train, cutting through the cargo pods as she did. Behind her, Tal was pursuing her, in the process of injecting himself with syringe after syringe of combat drugs, flooding his system with chemical enhancers to turn him into a raging berserker. Pursuing him in turn was Kambei, running along the rooftop. Although wounded after his previous engagement, Tal quickly caught to Ryuko, and drew his sword, lunging at her. Kambei swung through the window, kicking Tal aside, and shouted for Ryuko to run. Ryuko didn't hesitate, scrabbling to her feet and climbing into the next car. 
Now Kambei and Tal faced off against one another, with one hopped up on enough combat stimulants to ignore any pain or injury, while the other was armed with only his nerves and experience. The two clashed, in a tumultuous clash, swords cracking on impact, fists impacting on armour and flesh. Kambei was certainly at a disadvantage in strength and endurance, but still had all his wits, and this would be the only advantage he would have. Kambei landed a blow on his shoulder, which tapped a nerve that should have debilitated any warrior in pain. Tal just bellowed in rage and through Kambei to the wall, the train's hull buckling under impact. Kambei rolled to evade the next blow, a sword strike that cut straight through the hull and shuffled back, attempting to get distance. He threw a plasma grenade into the carriage at the fuel cells it was transporting and run to the next car, an open flatbed. Behind him, the car exploded, a ball of flame erupting. Looking back with a sigh of relief, it was cut short as Tal leapt from the car, his blackened and scorched armour wreathed in flames. Slamming into the Crusader, he knocked him back into a box and began to rain brutal blows upon him, attempting to crush him with his bare hands. Dropping his sword, he fought, but struggled under the immense warrior's strength. Tal wrapped his hands around Kambei's throat and began to choke the life from him. Kambei desperately punched at Tal's head, but failed to stop him, or even making him flinch. In desperation, he drew his curve blade and slashed at his arm, weakening his grasp for just a moment and allowing Kambei to get his leg up and kick him in the chest, pushing Tal off himself. 
Picking his blade up from the ground, he charged back against the warrior, swinging his sword. Tal brought his sword back on, and parried the blow again. The two clashed in a sword duel once again, but on the open flatbed, Kambei held the advantage, using the space to navigate around his foe and infuriate him. Meanwhile, Ryuko got to the front of the train, and broke into the automated control cabin, and took control of the train. As she tried to divert the cause, the battle behind her barrelled into the next car, and only one car behind her. The two warriors fought, and as they did, they attempted to fire on one another. One stray plasma bolt missed its target and hit the automated controls in front of Ryuko and destroyed it in a shower of sparks. The train's automated control went haywire and the train began to accelerate, and the brakes grew unresponsive. Ryuko desperately tried to slow the train, but it wouldn't respond, and was now accelerating to disaster, as part of the track ahead had been destroyed during the earlier bombardment. 
Kambei and Tal battled in the motor car, each delivering a score of wounds upon the other. One wrong blow through Tal sliced into the coolant pump of the train's right engine, which soon overloaded and exploded, taking the other motor with it. Both Kambei and Tal were wounded, their armour just barely saving them from being killed outright. The explosion kick started a chain reaction, that caused in-hub motors on cars further down the train to explode, racking the whole train with explosions. Despite the injuries, the fire and the choking smoke, Kambei and Tal fought on, battle one another. Tal managed to grab Kambei's sword hand during a blow, and crush his hand, forcing him to drop his sword, then slammed him to the ground. Tal fell upon him, holding Kambei's head over the side of the train, and trying to force his head to the ground, with the intent of driving his head into the quickly passing ground beneath him. Kambei's head came into conflict with the ground, sparks flying from his helmet, and flesh tearing from his cheek. Summoning the last of his strength, Kambei took hold of Tal's shoulders, and placed his boot to his gut, then quickly shifting his weight, he threw himself and Tal over the side of the car. At the last possible moment, Kambei took hold of the lip of the train, hanging on, while Tal was thrown from the train, bellowing in rage. Tal smashed through the concrete wall of a building, then two more walls before coming to a stop, his body smashed and broken, but still alive. 
Kambei clawed his way back up to the train, and limped to Ryuko in the lead car. She bluntly told him she lost control of the train, and they would need to leave. Kambei nodded in agreement, and radioed for his ship to come pick him up. The Phantom swung in above the train, having kept a safe distance, and hovered above it, gravity lift awaiting their arrival. At the last moment, their pilot reported a break in the track ahead. It was too late. The train hit the break, derailing. The already damaged train was torn asunder, coming apart and flying off the tracks, smashing through a tower block beside the tracks. The train at last came to a stop, smashed through the building and utterly destroyed. The Crusaders descended on the wreckage, and found their leader, his broken and battered body buried beneath the rubble, but Ryuko was absent. Recovering him, they withdrew, too battered to continue the fight.
====The Demiurge's Final Gambit====
Ryuko walked away from the wreck, miraculously unharmed despite the cataclysmic crash. She made her way to the rendezvous on foot, avoiding engagement where possible. She thought she had evaded attention, when Dunn stopped in front of her atop a stolen motorcycle. Dismounting, and with a gun pointed right at her, he had her dead to rights. Closing her eyes for the kill, she waited for the shot to come. Instead she heard the clattering of the gun at her feet. Dunn voluntarily disarmed himself, as a show that he was on her side. Taking the pistol, she was initially wary, but slowly accepted that Dunn didn't sell her out. Ryuko tucked the weapon into her waistband and accepted Dunn's offer of a ride to reach her meeting point, and he continued trying to sway her as they went.
Ryuko continued, with Dunn still trying to get her to come with him, when an ear-piercing shriek tore through the air. A rupture in the fabric of reality opened up above the city as a Demiurge cruiser pulled its way into real space, followed by two more. From their bellies descended dozens of dropships, screaming to the ground with the intent of evacuating the Demiurge agents still on the ground. One of the cruisers engaged the Crusader ship, the Resolute Hero, while the two others began glassing the city, planning to erase the evidence of the battle. 
On the Resolute Hero, the badly-wounded Kambei stormed to the bridge. Despite his life threatening injuries, he refused to sit this out. Being appraised of the situation, he gave one single command, to beat back the Cruisers, at least long enough to allow the citizens of the city to evacuate. It was guaranteed suicide, but the Crusaders would not back down from such an affront to law. They engaged a vessel almost twice their length, attempting to use their superior agility to offset their smaller armament and weaker shielding. 
All across the city, Demiurge forces touched down, evacuating who they could, and massacring the out-gunned Syndicate in the process. Ronin Team withdrew, knowing it would be suicide to stay, their Assassin allies withdrawing too. The Black Lance recovered Tal's broken body and evacuated too, seizing a shuttle and withdrawing the battle. The Syndicate was forced into a full rout, abandoning the city en-masse. Ryuko didn't care, as she and Dunn had finally reached her evacuation point. Reaching the compound, she saw the slaughtered corpses of the Demiurge soldiers, placed on display. However, she didn't have the time to pull back, and cautiously entered the compound. Once she was in the open, she was ambushed and surrounded by Devas shock troopers. Sabine revealed herself to her old friend, and curtly asked Ryuko to surrender and come with her. Ryuko responded by opening fire on Sabine's troops, prompting her to dive on her and draw her sword. 
Around them, Demiurge dropships began to descend, spewing forth elite Demiurge warriors, who fell upon the Devas positions. All around them, a tumultuous battle erupted, but the two didn't care. Despite Ryuko's injuries, she was greatly enhanced by her augments, while Sabine was fitted with an energy shield to ward off harm. The two clashed, blades cutting into one another, raining blows on one another and brawling. However, Ryuko held the edge, and the balance tipped in her favour, with Ryuko gaining an edge over her opponent, then exploiting it.
Above them the aerial battle grew in ferocity, as the Resolute Hero took an ever increasing pounding. With her shields failing, and her weapon systems disabled, she began to lose altitude. The Demiurge began boarding her, with the Crusaders fighting them off in close-quarters fighting, brutal corridor to corridor fighting. Despite his injuries, Kambei lead his Crusaders in a fight against their enemies, desperately holding the line while the Demiurge attacked. Meanwhile, the two other Demiurge cruisers began glassing the city, beginning at the southern most point and working their way north, leaving smouldering wrecks in their wake. 
When the battle seemed lost, another slipspace rupture tore itself open above the city. The Devas flagship, the ORS-class cruiser Freedom, tore its way into real space, ramming one of the Demiurge cruisers as it did. Cutting its way throguh the vessel like it wasn't even there, it swung heavily and cut straight across the bow of the second cruiser, its energy projector slicing it at an angle across the main hull, crippling it. The third cruiser began to enact evasive manoeuvres, bringing it into close quarters with the Freedom. This gave the Resolute Hero an opening to pull back, allowing the ship to get distance. 
Ryuko was now out numbered, and her window for escape was closing. Charging into battle with Sabine, she fought like an animal, her body flooded with drugs that allowed her to ignore pain and injuries. The two brawled, their blades clashing, ringing even above the battle raging above them. Sabine managed to off balance her, and even when Ryuko was vulnerable to a finishing blow she failed to kill her. Ryuko responded by taking Sabine's sword arm into a lock, forcing her arm to straighten out, and delivering a thunderous blow to her solar plexus, cracking her ribs, then head butted her, cutting her across the forehead. With blood gushing into her eyes, blinding her, Sabine was in a poor shape to fight. Blindly stumbling back, with no idea of where her for was at, she was deftly disarmed and knocked down. At Ryuko's mercy, she just gave her friend an indignant smile. Her second in command, Aikaras, tossed a small sphere to her feet. The EMP charge held within detonated, shorting out her cybernetic implants. Three of her elite soldiers stepped up behind Ryuko and fired on her with stun devices, firing continuously until she was on the ground motionless.
Above a them, the Freedom continued to pound the last cruiser, volleys of plasma torpedoes incinerating entire decks in conflagrations of fire. The ship burned, five and smoke billowing from its hull. As the damage increased, it began to list, it's engines failing. Finally, it's reactor failed, shutting down, and it's reserves of plasma detonated, exploding. The ship plummeted to the ground, crashing into one of the evacuated districts and breaking apart. The Freedom hung above the city clearing the last few remnants of the Demiurge strike force. With their prey subdued, the Devas set up a wide area jammer, to prevent orders being transmitted to Ryuko, and spirited her away to a specially constructed cell, a faraday cage to keep her isolated from electronic signal, keeping her sedated the whole time. 
With their goal completed, the Devas returned to their ship and departed the system, heading back into deep space, leaving in their wake in numerous questions and vast swathes of devastation.
==Aftermath==
The Devas departed, as if they'd never been there at all, leaving behind vast swathes of destruction. The battle left thousands dead, and large portions of New Cadiz damaged. The city infrastructure was severely damaged, with large portions of the city electric grid and network knocked off line, and transportation hubs destroyed. A portion of the Victor North district was laid to waste by bombardment from the Crusaders, and portions of the southern end of the city had been glassed, with twenty blocks gone, and replaced with columns of fire. Additionally, three ships had been destroyed over the city, and fallen into it, debris littering the city. 
The Syndicate, for all intents and purposes, pulled out of the city. Their holdings and their bases were destroyed, and most of their local members dead. Similarly, the Demiurge was totally wiped out in the city, and were forced to abandon neighbouring operations. Several of the Demiurge's best operants were killed too. 
The UNSC and Republic both conducted independent reviews of the situation to untangle the mess that had happened. Both concluded that in the hectic battle That ensued, their mutual prey had been killed, and ended the pursuit. Both groups concluded that further action was required against the Demiurge. 
The Crusaders limped home, to present their own report. They had been unsuccessful in bringing their prey to justice, but did discover those who orchestrated this behind the scenes. While Kambei was reprimanded for failing to bring their prey to justice, and for the damage incurred during the battle, the Crusaders agreed the Demiurge were a bigger threat than ever, and only dedicated action would halt their advance. 
The Black Lance retreated with their fallen leader, to seek medical attention for his numerous wounds. Once awakening from unconsciousness Tal finally realised just how far he'd gone to save his friend and that in doing so he'd lost control of himself, putting the lives of those he held most dear in danger. Unable to believe that he would be accepted back to his old home again Tal instead opted to take his ship and the Black Lance to finally seek help for what now was his rapidly deteriorating mental state. Before leaving Tal beamed a message to the Chancer, explaining his remorse at his actions and the hope that Gavin and Zoey might be able to forgive him. Turning the shuttle toward the edge of the frontier Tal and his Black Lance disappeared into space.
The Devas pulled out with their prize, and information on their enemy. Sabine had her prize, her old friend, now contained. First order of business was hours of tedious surgery to remove the explosive implant in her head, and the implants for remote control. Ryuko was left physically and mentally broken by her service to the Demiurge, and Sabine would work to bring back her friend, as she had done for her years earlier.