Allen

Allen Draco spun the barrels of his minigun and blasted the wet street. More resistance soldiers and lower-ranked Kodak agents fell and more dived for cover as Allen rained down a hellfire on them.

The twenty-millimeter Nova-class plasma pellets were lethal against armor and flesh alike. Allen’s minigun shredded through the armor of the Kodak agents and inflicted severe burns. Allen’s enhanced perception allowed him to peek at the charred corpses briefly in between mowing down more agents.

Bodies lay on the wet pavement with armor blown apart and blackened flesh still emitting smoke even in the rain. To this day, a chill still ran up Allen’s spine at how damaging extreme temperature plasma could be towards the body.

He released the trigger of his minigun and gave the poor weaklings a brief respite. He put the minigun on his back and swapped to his shotgun, a twenty round full-auto treat for his enemies. Even as the heavy weapons specialist, Allen still moved at superhuman speed with all the extra weight. He hopped on top of the truck next to him and began vehicle hopping until he reached the enemy position.

Allen raised his shotgun and blasted away numerous rebels and Kodak agents. A brave agent tried to grapple with him. Allen awarded such an action by grabbing the Kodak agent’s neck and squeezing. The crunching in his fist ended the struggle, and he threw the corpse aside.

Three Kodak agents were still alive and huddled around a bus. Allen knew those agents weren’t any higher than first tier. But even with their low rank, none of them would ever back down from a fight. Kodak agents were both stubborn and more fearful of their bosses than their enemies. They would either return home with results or die.

Rushing the Kodak agents head-on proved to be easy. Allen tanked bursts of assault rifle fire from all three agents and shoulder-checked one of them into the side of the bus, killing him instantly.

He grabbed the next by the throat, lifted him up and then slammed him back on the ground. The Kodak agent didn’t stand back up after that.

The last agent attempted to stab Allen in the back. But he grabbed the agent’s arm, spun him around and wrapped his arm around his neck. Allen squeezed and cut off the man’s air supply. The agent flailed about before he fell unconscious. Allen walked past the sleeping agent and blasted his head off with his shotgun.

Allen saw a building that appeared to be a warehouse with a relatively empty parking lot.

Maybe I’ll take a nap and then call Jane to see if she’s alright, he thought.

He picked up the pace and ran at full speed towards the lot. After all the noise he’d made, he was bound to have more rebels and agents coming after him.

As he reached the lot, bullets peppered and cratered the ground beside him, confirming his instincts. He increased to his fastest speed possible, not bothering to look back since that would only slow him down.

He felt a series of bullet impact against his back, but his minigun protected him and took the full brunt of the bullets’ kinetic energy.

“Oh, that’s not good,” he said to himself.

He reached the front entrance of the warehouse and kicked the locked door down without any trouble. Allen stepped inside, entering a small hallway, and immediately took the minigun off his back and inspected it. He frowned underneath his mask. The trigger had snapped in half. On the surface, the barrel had a few nicks and dents from the gunfire. Allen closely examined the inside of the barrel and found damage that rendered the weapon useless.

He dropped the minigun on the floor and double-checked his other weapons. His rocket launcher had no problems, and neither did his shotgun. He loaded a new magazine into his shotgun and prepared for his enemies to enter the warehouse.

He ran farther down the hallway and turned the corner, waiting for his enemies to enter the same way he had. He held up his shotgun and got ready to blast anyone who turned the corner.

His ears picked up footsteps as they entered past the open door frame, where their movements slowed down.

“Hurry your fucking ass up,” a husky voice said. “He couldn’t have made it far. I want that fucker alive.”

Allen couldn’t tell whether it was rebels or Kodak agents. All he knew was that they were after him and wanted to take him prisoner. The moment Allen saw a leg stick out from the corner, he fired a shell at the limb and blew it clean off.

He ignored the scream as he turned the corner and blasted away with his shotgun. The heavy and bombastic blasts echoed and reverberated throughout the hallway as Allen mowed down numerous Kodak agents. It was ridiculously sloppy. It seemed the agents had traveled down the hallway in single file rather than attempting to space themselves out. Only Kodak could allow such a lack of discipline in their lower ranks.

Allen admitted that he wasn’t the brightest of the team and usually let Jane do all the planning and thinking. His job was to either blow something up or mow something down with his heavy weapons. But even he admitted it was too easy to funnel these agents down this hallway. The smarter move would have been to split the group up to enter the warehouse through multiple points and attempt to intercept him while shooting at him from multiple angles.

But these were small fry who weren’t led by a competent leader. The real threat was who Kodak would send after these first tiers to deal with Allen. He had already lost one of his weapons and was compromised on firepower that could keep targets pinned.

Allen turned and continued down the hallway. Reaching the door at the end of it, he put his hand on the handle and it wouldn’t budge. A locked door. He applied a bit more force to break the handle before opening the door.

Walking in, Allen saw an inactive factory. Numerous heavy machinery along with conveyer belts filled the cavernous room beneath the high ceiling. He walked towards the nearest machine, which had a slender body with two mechanical arms. While attempting to reach Jane through a private channel, he leaned against the inactive machine.

“Jane, are you alright?” Allen said.

Jane immediately responded, but Allen only heard a few ragged and shallow breaths at the other end.

“Is that a yes or no?”

“You should worry about yourself, big man,” Jane said weakly.

Allen’s pulse increased. If Jane was injured, who could have done it? Who was strong enough to take her on and leave her in such a state?

“You don’t sound too good. Have you encountered any resistance?”

“You could say that.” Allen could hear his squad leader try to cover up her cough. “I was cutting some grass and a giant weed showed up and ruined my day.”

Allen immediately stood up from the machine. Jane’s definition of cutting grass was mowing down a bunch of low-ranked agents from an enemy shard. The giant weed referred to an enemy that was enough of a threat to wound Jane.

“How bad is it?” Allen asked.

“Diagnostics are going crazy. Both my arms are broken in several places. Ruptured spleen, excessive bleeding from my orifices and I think my lung has been punctured.”

Allen accessed his map in his HUD. Jane was two hundred fifty meters away. “I got your location. I’ll come and get you.”

“Negative. I appreciate your concern, Allen, but you need to look after yourself. Kodak has plans for us, and they’re not throwing us a party. Apparently Kodak is choosing to take prisoners this time around.”

“You have two broken arms. That alone means you can’t wield any weapons,” Allen said.

“I am the weapon, Allen. Besides, I jabbed myself with two healing stims Ben passed around to the group. It’s a shame that I can’t thank him.”

Allen couldn’t comprehend what he’d just heard.

“First of all, how you managed to inject yourself with two broken arms is beyond me. And second, the fuck do you mean ‘it’s a shame?’ Is Ben dead?”

“Willpower gives you the strength to do the impossible. Believe me, when your arm can’t bend or stretch properly from broken bones and torn muscle, you feel every inch.” Jane’s monotone delivery was unsurprising to Allen, even with her various injuries. Allen wanted her to get on with it and explain how Ben was killed.

“I’m afraid we’ve lost Ben. I pulled up my squad menu and saw his status. Hailey’s gone as well. That same Kodak bitch that kicked my ass was responsible.”

In just one mission, Kate had betrayed them and two squadmates had been killed. The only other member who remained was the rookie.

“Do not tell me that kid is dead, Jane. I was warming up to him,” Allen said.

“Against all odds, Dan is still alive. I don’t know how, but the kid is surviving. For now.”

He breathed a sigh and began pacing around the warehouse, contemplating his next move.

“So what’s the plan here, boss? We’re at less than half strength. Your ass is soaked in blood, I lost my minigun and who knows what the kid is up against right now. The mission looks like a write-off at this rate.”

Allen was no stranger to mission failure. Unlike the other shards, the Alpha Corp at least had the sense to know when to cut their losses and would encourage their agents to make the appropriate call. Still, it wouldn’t look good on them to abandon the mission. Jane’s squad had one of the highest reputations within the shard.

“Regroup with Dan and continue without me. I’ll find a way to reach you on my own. Kodak has installed jammers in the area so calling for backup is out of the question.”

“And your injuries?” Allen asked.

“Already healing. My healing factor and the two stims are working their magic,” she said.

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Allen allowed himself to relax. “That’s fucking scary. I wish I had a healing factor.”

“You can buy the upgrade once you reach tier three. Jane out,” she said.

Jane was at least surviving. But Allen was still unsettled. If Kodak had forces here that could kill Hailey and best Jane in combat, he had to be ready. He grabbed the shotgun off his back and pulled up the map in his HUD.

The kid was inching his way in the opposite direction of the rebel’s main building. This only further complicated their plans. Either Dan didn’t know about the map and in the rush to recruit him the Alpha Corp forgot to teach him how to access it, or he was simply on the run from rebels and Kodak agents chasing him.

Allen’s map suddenly disappeared into nothing but static.

Enemy jamming equipment detected. You must destroy enemy jammers to regain access to your map.

Wonderful, Allen thought. Before he could find the kid, he would have to seek out what was jamming his map. He tried reaching Dan through the private channel, but that was getting jammed as well.

The sound of a glass window breaking reached Allen’s ears, and he spun around and pointed his shotgun towards the source. The warehouse was dimly lit, and his vision didn’t pick anything up. Then he heard machinery being wrenched and pulled apart and saw something flying at him. Allen stood his ground and as the object came at him. He positioned himself so that his shoulder would be the first to meet it.

One of the warehouse’s machines hit him, but Allen remained on his feet as it bounced off him and smashed into the floor. The machine had clearly been ripped off its mountings.

“Okay, who the hell threw that?” Allen shouted, pointing his shotgun around in the dimly lit room. Whoever it was, they were beyond just a first tier.

“I’ll flush you out,” Allen muttered. He grabbed a block of explosive and tossed it in the middle of the room into the mess of conveyer belts and machines. He already had the detonator wrapped in his hand inside his pocket.

Allen stepped back a few paces before pressing the button with his thumb. The entire room erupted in an explosion. Debris and torn up parts flew in various directions, and the center of the room was now a fiery pit.

He knew it wasn’t subtle, but the kick across the back of his head was the immediate response he was waiting for.

Allen quickly recovered and rebalanced his stance. He raised his shotgun and blasted the hell out of the other side of the room. Something blurred in the dimness and grabbed his shotgun, raising its barrel at the ceiling. Allen saw a familiar beautiful yet deceitful face in front of him. The fair skin and blonde hair he had seen every day for years, now grappling with him.

Kate was just as strong as he was, surprising Allen. He also noticed that she was missing one of her earrings and the earlobe was red and swollen. Knowing that continuing the stalemate was pointless, he loosened his grip on the shotgun, only to backhand the weapon away from Kate’s grip. The weapon clattered to the floor while Allen threw a series of punches at the traitor.

Allen wasn’t surprised that Kate ducked and swerved out of the path of his fists. The traitor put her superior speed to use and invaded past Allen’s guard and brought two rapid punches straight to his abdomen. The hits weren’t enough to hurt him, but they knocked him off balance and made him stumble backward.

The traitor used this opportunity to dash past Allen and come up from behind. She grabbed Allen’s left arm and held it behind his back, twisting it. Then she planted her foot onto his back, putting him in a lock. The two stood in awkward silence.

“Gee, why am I not surprised,” Allen said.

“Quiet. Unless you want to lose this arm,” Kate spat.

“I’ve never been afraid of you, Kate. You think working with Kodak will make you any more intimidating? And why work those assholes anyway?”

“Regardless of your opinion of me, I’m taking you in alive. Don’t make this any harder on yourself. I’d rather limit whatever pain I need to dish out to my enemies,” Kate said. Her voice was a contrast to her usual bubbly and upbeat personality. Or front, in wake of her betrayal.

“Don’t make this any harder on yourself,” Allen mocked. Deep down, Allen was pissed Kate would so easily severe the bond she had with her fellow Alpha agents. Still, this was the time to coax whatever information he could out of her. “You do realize we’re the same rank, right?”

When Kate didn’t respond, Allen glanced at her damaged ear and got another idea to get her to talk.

“You always prided yourself on your fashion sense. So what happened to your ear? Don’t tell me you had a friendly fire incident with your new Kodak pals,” Allen taunted.

Kate’s eye twitched. “I underestimated our rookie. I offered Dan the chance to surrender peacefully, and that brat reached for my hand then ripped my earring off. I’ll fucking kill him the next time I find him.”

Hearing this, Allen grinned beneath his mask. Actually, he found no reason to hold back a snicker. Dan had been full of surprises since his recruitment. He was a true fighter. If there was anyone Allen hoped could make it out of this shit show, it was Dan.

“Well that’s what you get when you underestimate your enemy,” Allen said with pride. “Or did you forget that lesson like you forgot your bonds and friendships with your team? Would you feel anything if I told you Ben and Hailey are dead? Or was it you who saw to that?”

Kate stared at him and didn’t change her expression. “I killed Ben myself. It wasn’t easy, but I did what I had to do.”

The lack of emotion from his former teammate wasn’t surprising to him. He knew that Kate was fully invested in whatever cause she pledged herself to, even if it meant defecting from the Alpha Corp.

“Like you care. I shouldn’t believe a word you say. I don’t know what your reasons are for joining up with Kodak, but your life expectancy has gone down the shitter with this sudden career change of yours. I can’t wait to see you get what’s coming. Maybe Dan can rip the other earring off before you leave.”

Kate twisted Allen’s arm further. As a trained agent, he wasn’t squeamish to pain. Still, getting his arm broken would make his mission more difficult.

“If you’re taking me in, could you at least tell me something? Why did you do it?” Allen asked, knowing it was a Hail Mary.

When Kate didn’t respond, Allen pressed further. “If you had any sort of care for us as your former comrades, could you at least give me something? Even a white lie would give me an excuse to go rogue just so that I can find you and pummel you.”

Kate stopped making eye contact with him. The traitor stared down at the floor for a moment before looking back up with her serious expression. Allen didn’t know what to make of that brief break in her stoic attitude. Regret? Indecision? Cowardice?

Allen knew he wasn’t about to make Kate see the error of her ways. His other hand was still free, so he slowly reached for his combat knife.

“Doesn’t matter,” she said, clearly lying through her teeth. “I’ll make sure you’re treated as humanely as possible.”

“Aw, so you do care about us, in some twisted way,” Allen said half-heartedly. “I’ll be sure to tell that to Ben and Hailey’s gravestones, you bitch.”

Allen didn’t bother to glance at Kate’s reaction to that dig. The only path left was to get rid of her and progress onward to meet up with Dan. He kept the movement of his other arm slow and gradual enough to grab his combat knife without her noticing.

In one swift move, Allen suddenly jabbed over his shoulder. While he was superhuman, Allen’s bones and joints still had the same limited range of motion as any other person. His over-the-shoulder knife strike didn’t hit his enemy, but it was enough to get her to flinch and back away, letting go of his other arm.

Allen wasted no time. He spun and slammed his shoulder into her body. Kate may have been comparable to him in stats, but it didn’t negate the size advantage Allen had. The traitor was knocked down and Allen stomped his foot right onto her torso.

Kate let out a soft grunt, and Allen brought his knife down at her neck. At the last possible second, she swerved her neck out of the way, and the knife cracked the floor instead.

“Good, but not good enough, Kate,” Allen said. “Whatever plans you had with Kodak die today.”

Allen raised his hand and prepared for another stab. Something grabbed his wrist and yanked his entire body off Kate. He tumbled across the floor before slamming into a conveyer belt. He quickly recovered and got back on his feet.

In front of him, Kate was still on the floor and another agent had entered the fight. With body weight and all of his armor and gear, Allen knew he weighed somewhere above seven hundred pounds. For someone to grab him by the wrist and fling him with that kind of force meant it was another higher-ranked agent.

“Well, that’s just great,” Allen muttered.

He watched the other female Kodak agent. Her long flowing dark hair and the spikes on her shoulder and torso made it obvious who she was with. But the agent was breathing heavily for some reason.

She threw me like trash while tired. Fucking perfect, Allen thought.

Kate got back on her feet and glanced over at the Kodak agent. “What the fuck took you so long?”

“I didn’t come here to help you,” the agent said. “I had to recover from my fight with Alpha’s golden girl and I heard some action in here. Thought I would step in and check it out.”

If that agent was talking about Jane, that explained why she was exhausted. If she took on Jane and left her in that injured state, she had to be tier three at least. In other words, Allen would stand no chance against a force like that. But since she was exhausted, Allen might have a chance to take both her and Kate down.

“Lola, I was doing fine before you stepped in,” Kate said. “You have some nerve speaking to me like that after you failed to apprehend Jane.”

Lola spat bloodied saliva onto Kate’s boot. Allen grinned at the petty gesture.

“I left Jane a mess back there. I’ll pick her up once I’m done recovering. If you were in my shoes, you would have gotten buried, you shrimp. If I wasn’t in this state, I would kill you right now.”

The two continued bickering. This type of childish back and forth always seemed to happen between female agent, regardless of shard. Allen reached for the rocket launcher on his back and fired a rocket right in the space between the two.

His entire vision was overwhelmed by the explosion, and for a moment, he thought he had killed both in just one shot.

A purple flash in dark caught him by surprise, and his rocket launcher fell to the ground in two halves. Allen was on his knees in the next second, barely moving from the waves of pain in his abdomen. He glanced to the side and saw a pair of armored legs standing beside him along with a glowing purple blade.

The purple blade disappeared, and Allen was left paralyzed and in pain from that sudden gut punch.

“Now that’s how you get the job done, Kate,” Lola said. The Kodak agent bent down and Allen got a good look at her.

Lola had pale skin along with completely bloodshot eyes. Both her irises and sclera were a dark, unsettling red. In the dim lighting, anyone could easily mistake her eyes for being completely black. Her raven hair was down and untied, similar to Jane and Kate’s.

If she didn’t look like a goth wannabe, Allen might have found her attractive.

Lola grabbed him by the arm and hoisted him up. “I’m dying to know the excuse for your incompetence. Go on, I’m waiting.”

Allen turned to look at the Kodak agent, but noticed she wasn’t talking to him. Lola was staring at Kate, who limped her way through the smoke and fire from his rocket.

“Go fuck yourself, bitch,” Kate said.

“Still not an excuse. I bet I if we fought, I could be taking a nap and you would still lose.”

Allen would have called out that burn if it weren’t for his guts feeling like they were set on fire from that attack. He could still barely move.

Lola chuckled. “Your life is mine to take whenever I please, Kate. If it weren’t for my sister’s orders, I would rip your spine out right now for how you performed today.”

Allen finally found the strength to speak through the pain. “She let our rookie slip through her fingers earlier today. That’s how she lost an earring.”

Lola looked at him and smirked. “Wow, I thought she was incompetent. Now she’s an embarrassment too?” She laughed cruelly while Kate could only stare at her with seething rage.

“Even your own former squadmate is dragging you,” Lola said between laughs. “This is too much.”

Kate crossed her arms and redirected her glare to the side. Allen smiled, knowing that Kate’s pride at least took a hit. He would take any small victory at this stage.

When Lola finally calmed down, she said, “Pick yourself up, Kate. Our work here isn’t done. I’m intercepting a lot of chatter on our lines. A bunch of our first tiers are getting their asses fucked.”

“Excuse me?” Kate said.

Lola cleared her throat. “Our first tier Kodak agents are taking massive losses. Not just from Jane and this bundle of sunshine in my arms, but apparently your former team’s newbie is racking up a kill count of his own.”

Kate rolled her eyes. “Well, he was progressing faster than usual during training. He’s at least a cut above the typical recruits the Alpha Corp gets.”

“Well then, we need to end his little power trip,” Lola said. She pushed Allen into Kate’s arms. “Get him out of here. I need to go back and grab Jane.”

“And Dan Orion? The rookie?” Kate said.

“Adam Torrent can handle him. Make sure Allen gets back to our hideout.” Lola walked up to Kate and pointed her finger at her. “And no screw ups, got it?”

Kate replied with a scowl before Lola walked past her.

“What’s the matter, Kate?” Allen said mockingly. “I kind of like her. Isn’t it important to get along with your teammates?”

Kate stared at him before she spun him around and forced both his arms behind his back. “I’m getting you out of here. Once we reach Kodak, you won’t be making any more jokes.”