The usually silent city of Pripyat now echoed with gunshots. Usually, these barks of weapons would be accompanied by the rhytmic battle chants of Monolith, but not today. Monolith main force had pushed hard towards the Radar as Freedom and Duty forces agreed on a ceasefire while demolition teams would destroy the antennas once and for all. As such, what little forces of the Wish Granter remained in the city, they held on to the strongholds and ventured no further. This in part allowed the spectacle of battle going on in the city to unfold, as Redemption clashed with many of its adversaries.

By the monolithic form of the Pripyat hospital, Dimuha and Sanyok fought for their lives as Griffin's mercenary squad suppressed them with superior firepower. Near the school, Dimka and Sevka ran for their lives as roughly dozen UNISG and unknown troopers blasted the foliage, concrete and asphalt around them. Thankfully the distance between the ex-UNISG duo and actual UNISG troops was a bit too long for accurate fire. While the two Redemption patrols clashed with their adversaries, Boris, Dima and Rogue had heard the sound of fighting and were rapidly moving towards the two large apartment complexes in the northern Pripyat.

"We have received no message from the others, so keep your eyes peeled. Chances are they're in so great a trouble that they had no time to send one.", Dima ordered, and both Boris and Rogue nodded.

They arrived to the corner of the school, emerging from the overgrown vegetation all around the former education centre. Blooming muzzle flashes periodically appeared from the direction of the north, and the sharp crescendo of gunfire followed them. As they could now see the source of the ruckus, Dima slowed them down with a raised fist and diverted them to spread out. Rogue with his PKM would cover the other two as they moved closer. Dima would approach behind the greenhouse and take a firing position there, while Boris used the safety of his main battle tank armour in the Absolver to move closer by the street.

Boris spotted his first enemy through a gap in the bushes. Seeing the midnight-black combat armour, he grinned slightly while pressing the trigger. His bullets delivered vengeance for Felka as the man slumped down with a hole in his chest. The soft chunky sounds of Dima's Val reported to Boris that his companion had acquired targets as well. For a blink of a second, Boris saw the red and green of Redemption armour flash in between the bushes and trees. He flipped on the radio inside his MASKA helmet, preset to Redemption's channel and spoke:

"Dimka and Sevka, you by the school? We are engaging UNISG troops and those dark-suit bastards here, over."

"Si, we're trying not to get killed here!", Sevka replied hastily.

"Bait them towards the school! We have a whole firing line ready!", Dima ordered.

"Alright, but remember that friendly fire is not particularly friendly! I don't want to cuddle your bullets!", came a reply from Dimka, followed by more gunshots from the front.

Boris chuckled and turned off the radio, focusing on the scope on his rifle. Aiming down into the bushes, he could only hear the breathing of his lungs and pounding of his heart. Combat was a second nature to him at this point, and his body worked in a rhythm of self-preservation. His mind muttered a silent prayer for Dimka and Sevka to make it out alive, and as if through some divine intervention, the pair bursted out of the vegetation wall mere seconds later. Bullets followed around them like a swarm of angry wasps, but none hit the lucky stalkers. Dima waved at them to jump inside the greenhouse, and the two lunged into it.

Not a minute later, the first enemies appeared. Clad in heavy UNISG tactical vests and strong bulletproof armour, or in the mysterious all-black Twilight type suits, their fierce firepower was mainly focused on the greenhouse. This gave Dima, Boris and Rogue a precious couple seconds of advantage, as they sprung their ambush. Rogue's heavy weapon opened into a long burst, cutting down startled enemies like a Reaper's scythe. Boris took aim at the helmet of one of the, for a lack of a better name, dark stalkers, and was rewarded with a crack of a visor and death scream. Dima had used his superior knowledge of stealth to wait for just the right second, and his Val shortly emptied its entire magazine to enemy flanks. This happened in the exact moment they had assembled to fight Boris and Rogue head-on, and the lighter armour on their sides and backs could not hope to stop the heavy 9 millimetre rifle rounds.

Out of the ten initial attackers, only three managed to make a hasty withdrawal by deploying smoke grenades. Boris used his Absolver to boost himself into a fearsome charge, and through the smoke he managed to catch the last retreating enemy. He had been slightly lagging behind due to a leg wound, but a kukri sliding through his armour in the cloud sealed the man's fate. Boris burst out the other side, barely breaking his stride despite his victim having not even crumpled down yet. The two other runners had retreated all the way to the apartment blocks. Boris was soon joined by the rest of his squad, having seen their leader charge and followed in.

"Let's keep up the push, we are winning!", Boris shouted.

"Is this wise, Boris? We don't know how many are there!", Rogue chimed in, still confused as to who they were fighting despite getting a quick lesson earlier.

"They only just got reinforcements and we wiped most of them out. Let's keep going, these fucks killed a guy we had just saved!", Dimka replied.

The others nodded, and Rogue, still hesitant, simply shrugged and followed suit. They met sporadic return fire from the windows as the defenders of the apartment block sought to slow them down, but Rogue's PKM kept them down. For a brief moment his suppression allowed, the Redeemed advanced weapons raised, and soon made it to the lowest level door. There, an UNISG trooper pulled a ladder up the stairs just in time for Boris to see him, and before the SIG rifle bid him a fairwell, the man was gone. The staircase had collapsed, too high for one to climb to alone.

"Dead end?", Sevka asked.

"Nope. Cover me, I'll take position below it. Dimka, you're lightest of us, climb on top of my armour and jump up there.", Boris ordered, measuring the short Bulgarian with his eyes.

"I am not the lig-", Dimka began to protest.

"Yes you are. A twig. Now go, little guy.", Dima scoffed.

"Not everyone is made into a colossus by radiation like Boris, and you're not one to talk, Dima.", Dimka growled.

"I'll toss both of you up there if you don't stop squibbling. Now, Pathfinder, clear the path.", Boris roared, and reluctantly, Dimka climbed on the Absolver and up to the ledge.

"Wasn't so bad, was it, shortie?", Sevka smirked and Dimka scowled at him.

"Can we go back to making fun of the Spanish now?", Dimka asked, getting a grunt of approval from Dima and a shake of the head from Sevka.

The others followed suit, being raised by Absolver's enhanced strength. Once the staircase was secure, the others dragged Boris up, struggling considerably to lift the armour and the man up. After a long period of time, Boris was finally up, encircled by four men panting and groaning from exhaustion.

"Gotta ask Polymer to install a jetpack into this suit.", Boris commented.

"Or you could lose some weight. Ask Vityukha to do a brain removal surgery, yours is just dead weight.", Dima laughed, the others chuckling at the notion as well.

"Guys, I know banter is important part of Redemption battle structure, but can we please finish these guys off?", Rogue chimed in, and everyone got their act together once more.

They slowly creeped up the dusty stairway, its steps worn by time and thousands of shoes. Cobwebs had gathered in parts of it, yet due to the collapse, it was likely that not many mutants nor Monolith had made their way here in the many years since the First and Second Disasters. Boris led the way with his carbine held ready, cursing the loss of his RPD in these cramped spaces. The new SIG 553 was a good gun, but it did not have the hundred round magazine of his RPD. Boris' musings were cut short by the sound of helicopter engines powering on overhead. Boris shot a glance at the others, and Dimka urged everyone on faster. They rushed up now, the sound of the boots smacking into the old concrete echoing in the stairway like thunder closing in. Boris made it to the top first, finding a large apartment. One of the UNISG troops was waiting for them, submachine gun held ready. It spurt out a burst, smashing heavy on Boris' armour but dulling their noses on it before getting through.

Boris' rifle replied back, and had no such issues piercing the man's armour. He screamed in pain and managed to crawl back into a small room, out of sight. Dima and Dimka made it into the apartment next, and with someone watching his back, Boris pushed on. They followed the wounded man into the room, where he was struggling to make it out of a window. To Boris' surprise, he was trying to climb onto the large, sprawling Vine anomaly growing between the two buildings. Boris fired after him, but the bullets only blew apart concrete around the man. He managed to once more slip out of view.

"The heli is on the roof! I'll go after it, you catch that fucker!", Dimka shouted and disappeared.

"Don't go alone, you idiot!", Dima protested and followed him, but almost smacked into Sevka and Rogue who had finally made it up.

"Rogue, on me, follow me down. Sevka, follow Dimka!", Boris ordered and ran towards the window as a weird realization was hitting him.

The place was empty. UNISG had abandoned everything, bar for a small stash of papers burning on the ground. There was even an SSP style suit hanging from the wall. If they weren't here, they were either in the helicopter or had also used the Vine as a improvised escape route. Boris made it to the window, and the situation dawned on him as he saw roughly a squad's worth of UNISG troops down on the ground. The wounded man had made it roughly half-way down the grapevine-like anomalous growth. Boris did not think, only acted, and raised his gun to shoot the man. First burst sailed past him harmlessly, and the men on the ground fired back. Rogue pushed Boris aside, having probably surmised what was going on, and propped his PKM on the windowsill. Letting loose, the UNISG squad retreated almost immediately upon seeing the long bursts. They zigzagged towards the wooded area nearby, and left their wounded man to fend for himself.

The man had turned to shoot at Rogue, and his gun kept the free stalker's head down once it managed to fire uncomfortably close. This turned out to be his biggest folly, however, as he had stayed put for too long. Forgetting the Comet-like anomaly made up of noxious gas, he was soon struck by anomalous chemical energy of immense lethality, and his limp body barreled downwards from the vine even before Rogue or Boris had noticed his demise.

"Blyat. They fooled us into following them up.", Boris growled.

"What about the heli?", Rogue asked.

His question was answered when a distinct whirring sound began overhead. Boris and Rogue looked at each other questioningly, when a rain of gunfire fell on the building. The two stalkers threw themselves on the floor as it felt like thousand jackhammers had simultaneously been placed all over the building and turned on. This barrage continued for two minutes, and then, despite the ringing in his ears and the shaking of his entire body, Boris heard the helicopter engines fade away. Rising to his feet slowly, Boris tried to make sense of what had just happened. Realizing that it had to have been some type of a weapon, Boris sprinted towards the roof, worried of his friends' well-being. Rogue was hot on his heels when they made it up the stairway leading to the roof. There, they found Dima, crouching down, holding his head.

"It's over, finally. Dimka and Sevka are up ahead, we made it into this staircase just in time. The helicopter... I think Serbin was on it, based on your description. Dimka tried to rush it, when they turned a fucking minigun towards us. In the few seconds before we would've been finely minced meat, Sevka grabbed him and tossed him down here.", Dima explained, and soon Dimka and Sevka joined the others.

"I stayed a bit further up so I could see where the heli was heading once the firing ended.", Sevka explained.

"And? Where did it go?", Dima asked.

"Uh. I don't know, I've been here a couple months.", Sevka replied.

"No, debil, which direction?", Dima cursed.

"Uh... North, I guess.", Sevka said, shrugging.

"Damn. We saw the UNISG squad leave using the Vine anomaly to lower down. They somehow avoided the comet thing. What now, Boris?", Rogue asked.

"What now? We can't follow a helicopter, we just need to hope it never returns. Now, we hunt down UNISG once and for all. No failures this time.", Boris replied defiantly.

The other had seemed quite hopeless before, but a sliver of Boris' determination seemed to sink into them too. They rose up, and prepared to leave while the international infiltrators trail was still fresh. As Boris prepared his gear once more, his PDA beeped. Checking it, all confidence and defiance seemed to leave him immediately. Watching the sender's name on the screen, Boris realized that the this failure had been a crucial one. And now, the final participant in this silent war had arrived.