A/N-Sorry for taking so long on this one, but any excuse I may offer will be something you’ve heard from my last 5 authors notes…well at any rate enjoy this, hopefully more to come, give some feedback.

Memories came flooding back to Tyoma, and the phantom limb effect made him rub his metallic appendage unconsciously. Twelve years ago, he thought he destroyed the last of these despicable monsters. It dawned on him that he was a fool to think something like that could be stopped.

“If you’re looking for a name, they are called Countrasites.” Webster supplied. Countrasites. Tyoma nodded. Somehow it fit. “As you well know, they absorb your bullets. What do you have as far as explosives?”

Tyoma walked to the far side of the room and tapped a painting. It shimmered out to be replaced by a glowing blue panel with touch-screen buttons on it. He tapped one, and a section of wall raised to reveal a fearsome armory, more tailored to heavy damage than the assortment sitting upon the shelf. Scores of grenades, several RPG tubes, grenade launchers, mines, and two rocket launchers were within. “Help yourself.” He said, removing several concussion grenades. “What about your men?”

Webster shook his head. “Don’t worry. They’re trained for these guys. My guard and I are the only ones carrying projectile weapons other than the sidearm.” Tyoma nodded, satisfied. He crossed back over to the shelf and removed a combat vest. Heavy Kevlar, with clips onto which he inserted the grenades. A grenade launcher sat in his hands. “Let’s go.”

The door to the study opened and the trio were met with another, three Iron Wolf soldiers. To Tyoma’s amusement, they offered salutes to Webster and himself. They began down the hall again. As they walked towards C Wing, Tyoma pressed Webster.

“The project was called Artisan, for that was what it was formed to create; A race of perfection. Not to alter human beings; the results of such human testing speak for themselves, but to create a race of artisans, servants to our whims. Farmers, laborers, technicians, drivers, pilots, anything you can imagine. It was something humans didn’t have the right to do.”

“And our friends are Artisan soldiers.” Finished Tyoma.

“Tip of the iceberg. There are policemen, agents, bodyguards, assassins, hunters, every violent job our society has ever required. The natural instinct of any of these jobs is self preservation. The Artisan Project was based off of strands of human DNA, and human nature is to preserve oneself when a threat is perceived. Now imagine that profession is your life.”

Tyoma had little trouble. Webster caught the expression.

“I mean you eat, breathe, live combat and instinct. The effect was essentially paranoia, but much cleaner. The Artisan Combat Units, or ACUs, which is to say every Artisan designated for combat, perceived everything as a potential hazard. True, when you think about it. But the ACUs flaw was that it held no degree of threat. Therefore, even a pin which would barely penetrate the skin was considered as imminently life-threatening as a cruise missile headed for it. They went mad.”

“Then just why is a squad of them laying siege to my home?”

Before Webster could answer, Tyoma held up a finger. Silence. He mouthed. Webster nodded and flattened himself against the wall, also hearing the noises from around the corner. It was a T-junction, Tyoma’s squad on the right, the Artisans at the bottom.

A hail of bullets punched holes in the wall, wooden paneling splitting open beneath the metal kiss. “Go!” Tyoma yelled above the gunfire. He lifted the grenade launcher and fired, the grenade rebounding against the wall. An explosion shook the walls, and a picture crashed to the floor, but he dared to look.

They were garbed all black, but a crimson red orb glowed out from beneath the clothes, differing from the one that the dog-creature from 12 years prior sported. They each had weapons, and one was distinctive with an entirely metallic arm. Tyoma noted the fallen Artisan on the ground, and watched in disgust as one of them placed its hand upon its comrade’s forehead.

Its eye glowed blue as the fallen Artisan rapidly decomposed, and the blue-eyed one began to visibly grow in height and mass. Muscles rippled beneath the black garb, and it stood a full 7 feet by the time it stood, its late companion a pile of dust at its feet.

Tyoma yanked his head back as a series of titanium skewers hurtled past him, embedding themselves in the wall behind. The metallic armed one lowered the differing appendage and raised the gun, attempting the more conventional approach.

He reloaded, even as one of Webster’s men made it across the junction, lobbing a grenade as he leaped. A bullet bit the soldier in his thigh, but fortunately Tyoma’s Iron Wolf’s famous mettle survived under Webster’s control. Pride surged through Tyoma’s heart as the soldier dipped once then regained his composure, pulling out his own grenade launcher.

Thanks to the soldier’s grenade, another one made it across unscathed. They kept these positions, daring the Artisans to come any closer. They did.

The seven-foot Artisan charged them down, and Webster’s guard removed the RPG tube from his back, putting his eye into the scope. He closed the other one and took a breath, then pulled the trigger. What happened next, Tyoma would have trouble accepting for years to come.

The rocket streaked across down the long hall, straight towards the rampaging monster. It caught it square in the gut, and the monsters fingers wrapped around the projectile, but no explosion came. The eye turned blue again, and the rocket instantly lost thrust. Tyoma’s jaw dropped as the RPG began to disintegrate. In seconds, the remains of the rocket fell to the ground in pieces, and the monster continued its charge, at walking pace this time.

A flashbang landed at its feet, blinding and deafening it momentarily. On instinct, the ACU leaped backwards as a grenade landed at its feet. It escaped the blast and, with vision back, it resumed.

Before he could run, a soldier was snatched into the air by an enormous hand, and the man was held aloft. The monsters eye closed, and a blinding light began to grow in its hand. Tyoma realized what was happening and stumbled backwards, urging the rest to do the same.

The light disappeared with an almighty bang! And the man dropped to the ground. More accurately, some of him dropped to the ground, while a piece of his arm exited through the window. Much smaller pieces rained down thereafter. Tyoma’s stomach lurched, but he unpinned a grenade and dropped it at the monsters feet.

The Artisan fell to its knees, but pulled itself back up and retreated quickly, at the sight of three more. Another RPG tube streaked past it, and the less powerful Artisan it impacted could not cope as well as its ally. That made two remaining, not including the muscle-bound one. An unaltered and the metal-armed.

The metal armed one fell back, even as Tyoma’s grenade caught it in the chest. The impact detonated it, and despite the raw energy of the blast, the Artisan stayed alive, albeit wounded. The unaltered moved in front to protect it, and paid with its head.

“Forward!” called Webster, leading the advance as he ducked away from the titanium skewers. A well placed grenade blew the muscular one back, into a corner. Two soldiers hurled grenades to its feet and moved back, as they detonated. A large cloud of flame revealed them to be incendiary grenades, and the flaming mass of tissue that was left revealed them to be effective.

The metal one raised its hand at them, and simultaneously put its hand against the door behind him. It slowly absorbed, but the speed was no hindrance to the Artisan. As a grenade soared towards him, a thin, razor sharp titanium ribbon shot towards it, and diced it in half with unerring accuracy. More soon spawned.

Inspiration came to Tyoma, and he raised his own metal hand. The fingernail on his human hand slid under a nearly invisible seam and removed it, revealing a jack underneath. He pulled the wire from it and plugged it in to a nearby outlet. He then pressed several buttons upon the back hand, and held it out, relying on his reflexes from then out.

A tendril shot forward, and his hand reacted in split-second timing. The appendage gripped the ribbon, and he tapped it with his rewired index finger.

The raw energy of one of the most powerful civilian generators in North America coursed through the hand, and into the Artisan through its metallic tendrils. Smoke billowed from it madly, and the smell of burnt flesh filled the air. Tyoma finally yanked the hand out, and admired his work. The Artisan was stir-fried.

The older mercenary turned to his successor. “It seems I have no choice. Where does my return to Iron Wolf begin?”

Webster returned with a satisfied grin. “The den.”