Dan limped his way through the dark alleyway. He couldn’t put any pressure on his right ankle. Whether it was sprained or broken, his speed was now pathetic. His chances of surviving this whole mess had just dramatically gone down.

Congratulations.

You are now Tier…

Dan continued to limp desperately. He didn’t have time to celebrate another increase in rank. If he didn’t come up with his next move, he would be dead. He was separated from his team without any firepower, on an injured ankle and in enemy-controlled territory.

He reached the end of the alleyway and limped out. Dan stopped and looked around. It was yet another dark street with shit-looking buildings and a single glowing sign. Dan was getting sick of the same drab scenery. He limped farther across the road. Dan’s foot crushed a can and the metallic crunch made him cringe in the eerie silence of the dark street.

“Holy shit, you’re alive,” a familiar voice said.

Dan grabbed his only remaining pistol and spun around on his good foot. He aimed his pistol at Ben, the team medic.

“What the hell? Is that you, Ben?”

“It is, Dan.” The medic looked at him, scanning him up and own. “Wow. You’ve been leveling up. You’re almost a first tier. But that ankle of yours.”

“Yeah yeah, I know,” Dan said. “How the hell did you get here anyway? I was riding on a jeep traveling at high speed.”

“All of us got separated from that ambush,” Ben said. “Jane and Allen are still alive and Hailey is somewhere out there as well. I’ll be honest, I didn’t expect you to still be alive.”

“Look, I hate to spoil this reunion, but Kate is fucking pissed at me,” Dan said. “She’ll be coming for me after that stunt I pulled.”

“Wait a second, you survived an encounter with Kate? Is that why your ankle is messed up?”

“I tricked her. She wanted me to give up peacefully. I ripped an earring off and triggered a smoke grenade in front of her,” Dan said with glee.

“How did she let herself get caught in a smoke grenade? I thought she was more competent than that,” Ben said, scratching his head.

“It’s one of the grenades I spray painted black. I think she assumed it was a different grenade and thought I was gonna try to blow us both up. That gave me the escape route I needed.”

“Not bad, Dan. Not bad at all.”

The affirmation was short-lived as Dan was reminded of his ankle. “Could you take a look at my leg? I can’t move around like this.”

“Already have. A quick jab from a healing stim will do the trick.”

Dan looked at him and blinked twice. “What do you mean you already have? You haven’t even checked my ankle.”

“I did,” Ben said. He pointed his finger at both his eyes. “X-ray vision. All medical agents have them. Your ankle isn’t too bad, but it’ll need a stim.”

Ben reached for his backpack and grabbed two syringes. He handed one over to Dan. “I’ll use one to heal you up and you keep the other for yourself.”

Dan grabbed the stim and shoved it into one of his inner pockets. Ben crouched in front of him and jammed the healing stim right into his ankle through the armor. Dan felt an icy cold completely envelop his entire ankle before it slowly faded. All the pain had rapidly disappeared within just a few seconds.

“Give it another five seconds and it’ll be like nothing happened,” Ben said.

“That’s it?”

“Yes. Simply inject the stim to the affected area. All of our armor has minor self-sealing capabilities, so the hole in the suit should close up. The only thing it can’t do is regrow lost limbs.”

Dan tried putting his weight on his right leg and could finally do so again without any pain. Ben was right. The injury had completely gone away in just ten seconds.

“Thank you, Ben. I don’t know how to repay you,” Dan said.

“Don’t mention it. We’re a team,” the medic said.

The two moved into another alleyway and kept themselves hidden. They found their way to a dumpster and crouched beside it.

The silence that hung in the air was much needed after the chaos Dan had just survived. He looked up at the crack between the two buildings and could only see overcast darkness and allowed himself to take a breather. Since getting separated from the team, his mind had had no opportunity to rest. Survival dominated every bit of his thought process, always thinking of what his next move would be.

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Ben turned to look at him. “Seriously, Dan, how are you even alive?”

“What?”

“I’m not saying I don’t have high hopes for you, but from how messy this situation turned out to be, I didn’t think you would survive the first few minutes after Kate’s betrayal.”

“I was brought over from the States,” Dan said. “Fighting for my life was always a constant struggle. You wouldn’t believe the type of shit I’d seen before I turned fourteen. I wouldn’t be alive today if I didn’t know how to fight and survive.”

“I could tell,” Ben said, patting him on the shoulder. “You’re certainly doing better than any other new recruit could hope. Now let’s get back into it. We can still salvage this mission.”

“Still no word from anyone else?” Dan asked.

“No. I can assume either they're dead or too busy trying to evade our enemies. But for now, you and I need to continue the mission.”

“Alright then,” Dan said. The idea that Jane, Allen and Hailey were possibly dead had been at the back of his mind for his entire run from Kodak forces. Having Ben say they could assume the worst wasn’t the hopeful reassurance Dan wanted. “Lead the way. Where to next?”

The two got up and slowly made their way out of the alley. Ben slammed his back against the wall while Dan stood against the opposite wall. Both leaned out to check their surroundings. “I have the coordinates leading to the hideout where the rebel leaders are. Not sure about how much resistance we’ll encounter, but be ready.”

Ben was the first to step out, and he gestured Dan to follow. They moved swiftly along the sidewalk, keeping their heads low. Dan almost forgot that Ben was a tier two in rank, except that the medic’s movement speed quickly outpaced Dan even during this trot along the street.

“Sorry, that’s my bad,” Ben said, slowing down.

“So how far is place?”

“It’s quite the long walk on foot. I’ll send you the coordinates and—”

Both agents flinched at the loud crash beside them. Ben and Dan backed away from the sedan beside them and saw a figure standing on top of the roof of the vehicle.

“Uh oh,” Ben whispered.

Dan couldn’t think of anything else to say. Right in front of them, standing on the car and staring at them was none other than Kate Razor. Kate’s ear had stopped bleeding, but Dan could still see the rip where he had yanked her earring out.

“Ben, I have no patience left,” Kate stated coldly. “Hand the brat over to me and I’ll take you in as a prisoner instead of a corpse.”

Kate clearly no longer had intentions of keeping Dan alive. But maybe it was better that way, as Dan could only imagine what the Kodak would do to him as their prisoner. Still, while he was still breathing, there was no way he would allow himself to go down without a fight. Dan’s hand hovered over his last remaining firearm stuck on his long coat.

“That’s a bad deal, Kate,” Ben said. “I’m not handing the kid over. Besides, I thought the Alpha Corporation taught you better on the value of teamwork and camaraderie.”

Kate stared at Ben for what felt like thirty seconds. Dan felt every second pass by. Her gaze was intense and deadly serious. Dan knew that sort of look. Numerous gangsters had given him those same hateful eyes when he pissed them off enough.

The medic stood his ground and gave a similar stare back at the traitor.

The silence finally broke when Kate let out a sigh. “Then you can both die together,” she said in a low voice.

Dan’s eyes could barely follow Ben’s movements as the medic threw was appeared to be sharpened needles at Kate. The traitor ducked but one needle had penetrated her upper torso and she fell off the roof of the car.

“Kid, run. I’ll catch up with you. Go!”

Dan followed Ben’s instructions without hesitation. If he were honest with himself, Dan wasn’t too eager for a rematch with Kate, especially now that she was in a bad mood and wouldn’t show him any mercy.

His HUD notified him of an incoming call from Ben.

“Threw some of my signature posion needles at her. Her speed is impressive, but one managed to get through,” Ben said.

“Excuse me? Did you say poison needles?”

“Yeah. They’re originally needles for acupuncture, but I’ve repurposed them for combat and applied poison nano-coating on them.”

“Remind me not to piss you off,” Dan said.

“Don’t worry. You’re a good guy Dan. Let me handle Kate and you wait it out for me. This won’t take—”

Ben was abruptly cut off and the channel went dead. Dan looked back and wondered what the hell happened. His eyes adjusted and saw two colored outlines in the darkness throwing punches at each other.

Ben and Kate moved faster than Dan’s eyes could follow. One second Ben was in front of Kate and the next he had somehow managed to get behind her. Somehow, Kate had survived the initial barrage of Ben’s poison needles.

Kate’s movement were noticeably slowing down, possibly because of the poison from getting hit one of the needles. She managed to shove her elbow in Ben’s face and got around behind him. She quickly wrapped her arms around the medic’s neck and Dan watched with horrified intensity as Kate, with all of her remaining strength, twisted and broke Ben’s neck.

Dan winced as he knew what had just happened. Ben collapsed to his knees, and before he could watch one of his teammates fall to the ground, Dan bolted for his life. He had just witnessed a fight between two tier two agents and witnessed Kate disposing of Ben.

He had no chance.

Dan had no clue where to run, as Ben was in the middle of transferring coordinates of the rebel hideout. Nothing was going according to plan.

Dan ran, pushing his legs as hard as he could and accelerating himself down the street.

New record! Fastest personal running speed: 30 kilometers per hour.

Bonus experience rewarded.

The hairs on the back of Dan’s neck stood up and he felt a strange build up of pressure in his eyes. His gut was telling him something. In response, Dan ducked his head and his heartrate spiked as he narrowly avoiding getting his head blown off by a burst of gunfire.

Dan barely had time to glance to his left to see another group of Kodak agents running toward him from the other street. He sprinted and pushed his legs to the point of burning fatigue and dove through the window of the building in front of him.

He forced himself back up and continued running through the building until he could find the staircase. The building began getting rocked by explosions that shook the whole structure.

“Oh what the hell is that,” Dan said.