Michael

Energy shield strength: 43%

Warning: seek immediate shelter from razor hail.

Michael knew that the longer he remained outside in this shitty and hazardous weather, the lower the chances of him getting out of this mess alive. The barrage of razor hail only became more and more intense. He lept across another rooftop and glanced down on the street battles still raging on between the Church and Kodak.

Observing one small battle, the Church agents appeared to be unaffected by the incoming shards of hail from the skies. Michael watched as a particularly long shard he estimated to be over thirty centimeters in length descended down from the dark sky and somehow swerved away from hitting a Church agent’s head.

The other Church agents displayed a similar strange ability to redirect the raining shards away from them. Michael knew this strange technique all to well. A Church agent without an energy shield could passively generate a psychic field to increase the chances of redirecting incoming high-speed projectiles.

On the other hand, the Kodak agents didn’t have the same luxury.

Michael winced as he saw a Kodak agent keel over from a razor hail shard sticking out of the agent’s left eye socket. The rest of the team of Kodak agents were forced inside an abandoned shop while the force of Church agents hammered the place with radioactive rods through the windows and even through the concrete walls.

This new ability only began recently popping up within the younger generation of Church agents. It was a deadly new ability that Michael knew opened up new advantages for the enemy shard to exploit. He knew that Dan and other new recruits like him would soon face against such a dangerous enemy as the encounters with other rival shards such as Kodak and the Church became more frequent.

The ability to redirect incoming projectiles passively and the perfection of such a technique would prove to be near unbeatable at range of the Alpha Corp didn’t come up with a counter to such a fearsome ability.

Sneaking past the Kodak forces at the front of the hotel was trivial to Michael. Kodak’s forces outside the hotel were deadlocked in their own battles against the invading Church shard. He didn’t bother masking his approach and just simply busted through one of the glass panels and got himself inside the hotel.

Michael simply sped through the inner halls before forcing his way through the lobby. Sentry turrets that had emerged from the walls and even underneath the floor swivelled in his direction and began filling the entire lobby with crisscrossing rounds.

The shitstorm of bullets had no effect on Michael’s breach of the hotel and into the staircase. His energy shields flared up from a few glancing hits but he was fast enough to outpace the targeting systems of the hotel’s security system.

Michael assumed the elevators were either shutdown because the hotel’s lockdown and also installed jammers and other sabotage by his own team. While annoying, the stairs would be his only way up the hotel to the landing pad on the roof.

In this instance, Michael did not take his enhanced speed for granted. He had already made his way up a dozen floors in just a matter of seconds as he burned up the steps in the staircase. He paused near a window overlooking the front courtyard of the hotel, not because of exhaustion, but out of curiosity of the carnage outside.

The storm had gotten significantly worse in just a short period of time. The rain was so intense it caused flooding on the streets. He recalled landing his feet on the ground and being knee deep in flood water. The intense hail mixed in the rain began pelting and even painting hairline cracks and fractures into the window glass.

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In the sheets of the downpour, Michael could still make out the rapid green tracers and hammered Kodak’s battle lines. He was once again reminded that the use of depleted uranium by the Alpha Corp and Kodak were still inferior to the solution the Church had for armor piercing rounds against infantry and vehicles.

Squinting, her made out a distant purple glow in the shape of a line rapidly rushing down another street. That had to be one of the Odyssey twins. But only seeing one of them, the question that formed in Michael’s mind was where the other one was?

The echoing sounds of glass shattering beneath him shot up the entire staircase. The rapid footsteps along with impacts against the walls revealed the answer to that question. The twins had split up.

As if that wasn’t confirmation enough, Michael heard a familiar voice. The same voice that mocked him and his team during their escort of Alpha assets in the States.

“I’m going to rip out your spine, you Alpha trash,” Lola Odyssey said.

Michael immediately resumed his run up the stairs. His first priority was to get up this building and reach the landing pad on the roof. While he knew he was stronger than Lola, the gap between the two wasn’t so insane that she stood no chance. Plus, she had the berserk ability to further raise her level of power. If she had the viper fang sword, then that further tipped the odds against him. Taking that into consideration, he knew that fighting her in such cramped interiors would be a dice roll for him. He couldn’t guarantee a swift victory.

In scenarios such as these, the only logical move was to retreat into a position that was more advantageous for him than it would be for Lola. The repetitive scenery of dull greys and bright overhead lights finally came to a halt when he reached the end of the staircase that led into the VIP floors. Michael slammed his shoulder into the door and busted it off its hinges.

Ahead of him he saw a hallway with a beautiful red carpet along with elegantly textured walls and chandeliers hanging down the ceiling, giving warm lighting across the hall. Michael’s eyes caught these minor details even as he sped down the halls at blinding speeds.

A pair of Kodak agents ahead stopped in their tracks and slowly turned around, only for Michael to slam into them both, knocking them to the ground. One skidded so hard that he smashed his face into a wall.

“Sorry fellas,” Michael said while stumbling. “Or maybe not. We’re enemies after all.”

Michael continued speeding down the halls until he reached another staircase. Michael opened up his comms, first to his dropship pilot.

“Michael to Hawk-Seven, can you hear me?”

“Michael Cynosa this is Hawk-Seven, I hear you. You were away for a while. I assumed it was the severe storm interfering.”

“Got rid of some signal jammers on the ground and cleared up the comms. What’s your estimated time of arrival?”

“Approximately four to five minutes,” Hawk-Seven said. “If you were anyone else, we would have been forced to cancel.”

“You should also consider the stakes for this mission. If we fail to get the container back, the higher-ups at Alpha will be questioning everybody and their contributing failures. Remember that.”

“Yes sir. Hawk-Seven out.”

Michael sighed with relief. At the very least, their ride was still on their way even with the intense storm. But all of that would be moot if his team was dead. He attempted to contact Dan, but couldn’t reach him, even though enough jammers had already been destroyed.

He opened a private channel with Li and he answered. Michael exhaled, only just realizing he had been holding his breath as he ran up more stairs.

“Li, what’s your status,” Michael said.

“We’re at the rooftop on the landing pad. We’re fighting off resistance but we’re holding up. For now. Dan has it the worst.”

“I’m assuming he’s too busy to answer my attempt at contacting him?” Michael said.

“He’s battling two second tier Kodak agents on his own sir,” Li said grimly.

“Say again Li?”

“He’s holding them both off with his new powers but I don’t think he’ll last long. Angie and I are keeping the rest of the Kodak forces at bay but we can’t help him. You need to hurry sir.”

“I’m on my way Li. Just make sure everyone is alive by the time I get there.”

“Consider it done sir. Should I destroy the container if we’re down to the last man?”

Michael almost couldn’t believe such a ridiculous question. But given Li’s current circumstances, he understood that his tier ones were struggling.

“Negative. Just survive and I’ll be there. I won’t abandon any of you. Michael out.”