Dan watched the burning wreck of the crashed ship that Angie had shot down with her rocket launcher. The crash landing warped the side railings of the landing platform and even ripped a few pieces of deployable cover off the platform.

The few remaining Kodak agents who were now exposed out in the open while running out of the way of the crashing aircraft were blasted apart by precise bursts to the neck and head. Knowing that level of precision, those kills were most definitely Li’s.

Somehow, Dan hadn’t been killed and had another chance to cheat death once more. As long as he still breathed, he could still do something. What he wouldn’t do is use this respite to lay on the ground and wait for Kate to recover.

He knew his body would protest. Even moving his legs so that both his knees would bend was a monumental task on its own. But he had no excuses. He was alive and he would use whatever willpower he had to get himself back up.

Dan’s muscles and bones were so strained and in much pain that every little movement felt like his body was tightly wrapped in metal chains. By some miracle, Dan just barely managed to get on his hands and knees. All of his limbs twitched and shook from the strain the berserk mode had put on him.

He slowly and gradually lifted his leg and got his foot on solid ground. Pushing against the ground with his hands as hard as he could, Dan slowly got his ass back up and could finally stand on his own two legs.

Turning himself and positioning his feet to face behind him was yet another challenge his body protested hard against, but through gritted teeth and holding back his groans, he somehow did it. What he didn’t expect was to see Kate also on her feet, staring at Dan slackjawed.

“I can’t fucking believe this,” she muttered. “Just… who or what are you? How can you still even move after all that.”

Dan knew he was well beyond his physical limits. If standing back up was that painful and difficult for him, there was no way he could throw a punch even if he wanted to. But watching the bewilderment on Kate’s face brought a smile to his face.

“It’s simple,” Dan said. “I’m an Alpha agent and I have a job to do and a duty to help my teammates out. You should learn from me Kate.”

Throwing an obvious jab referencing Kate’s betrayal, words were the only weapon Dan had at the moment. He couldn’t even lift up his arm to give Kate the middle finger. Unless…

Kate gripped her combat knife tightly. Her expression changed from shock to grim determination.

“You’re one of the most persistent enemies I’ve ever faced in my career, Dan Orion,” She began. “And so, I’ll give you a merciful death without pain. It looks like you over did it during this fight. I’ll put all of your grief over my actions to rest.”

Dan couls only think of one move he could make against Kate that didn’t involve him moving a muscle.

Summoning whatever feelings of anger he had left within him, Dan simply kept his gaze firm on Kate. She methodically stepped toward him. He could feel his eyeballs bulge and possibly pop out of his sockets from the strain. Another second passed and she still didn’t combust into flames.

Something abrupt happened and Dan’s right eye exploded with pain and more blood leaking from his right socket. A HUD message popped up in front of him.

Glare ability executed with only 10% effectiveness. Insufficient negative emotion.

Both Dan’s body and mind were far past their limits. He wasn’t surprised that his glare didn’t have the same deadly effect that it had on Adam. Though, he couldn’t help but feel disheartened.

The world to Dan’s entire right side was nothing but an intense red as his eyelids couldn’t contain the excessive bleeding of his right eye. But through his left eye, Dan saw Kate had stopped in her tracks.

She stared at him, but seemingly couldn’t move.

“W-what? I can’t…” she muttered. Her eyes were filled with a strange look of anxiety that wasn’t there before. Just a moment ago she was determineddetermine to land the finishing blow against him.

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Even now, Dan was still learning new things about his strange powers. The glare ability at significantly reduced effectiveness had the ability to paralyze a target, thoug he didn’t know how long this would last.

With a body shot to hell and only one good eye left, Dan couldn’t captialize on Kate’s paralysis. That was the very last thing he could do to her, still defiant to the bitter end. Kate stumbled and took a step away from him. She clutched her torso and her breathing became rapid and irregular, as if she was hyperventilating.

She looked up at him and held her knife up. Dan simply stared back at her, which was all he could do. At least before he died, he would see who killed him.

Dan tuned out the loud rushing sounds behind him. It was a distinct whir sound similar to an engine, but it was all just a soup of noise to Dan’s ears just like the rain and hail falling around him. He continued to keep his eyes on Kate, but then she began acting strangely. She looked up at something behind him, high up in the air.

Then she ran for it.

Whatever energy she wanted to put into finishing off Dan, she ran for her life and Dan lost sight of her through the sheets of rain and hail.

“Dan, are you alright?” Li said. His voice sounded garbled and oddly distance in his mind.

“Fuck yeah! Our ride is…” that was Angie’s voice. Dan couldn’t hear the rest of what she had to say. Dan fell backward on his back. He had no idea that one could be so unbelievably tired to feel pain. Strangely, the piercing pains in his right eye felt numb to him. Then his HUD elaborated on his current condition.

Ruptured kidneys.

Ruptured spleen.

Brain hemorrhage.

Bleeding eyes.

Numerous broken blood vessels throughout body.

Fractures and cracks in various sections of skeleton.

Bleeding inside stomach.

Torn right deltoid muscle.

…

His HUD ran down further diagnostics that Dan couldn’t keep up with. In short, he knew he was fucked.

Dan laid without moving, staring at the dark skies and the downpour of rain and hail hammering his bodyface and the ground around him. If he didn’t die from his injuries, then he might catch a shard of razer hail to the face. His ears picked up the deafening sounds of rotary cannons on the Alpha dropship that had arrived to pick them up. Now, Dan truly couldn’t move a muscle even if he tried.

Seeing the dark, almost pitch black sky with only a single eye, Dan decided to just close his good eye and go to sleep. He had no idea for how long, but he was at least assured that his team would get the container out of here and complete the mission. In this moment, Dan didn’t care what would happen to him in the next few minutes he still breathed. Her was thankful the pain throughout his body gradually flushed out of him.

Or was it just blood loss?

Dan cracked open his good only and saw a white-sleeved arm snatched something out of the air. The air held a long jagged-edged shard of razor hail and her made out a man in white blocking his view of the dark sky.

His quiet rest was interrupted by a pair of powerful arms that grabbed hold of him. The arms slid themselves underneath his lower and upper back. He could feel enough that he was off the ground and the sky appeared to be moving rapidly. He cracked open his good eye and saw a familiar face through his blurred vision.

Dan was reminded all the way back when he took a machete to the back and was left for dead by the gang that chased him. And then the same familiar face of an older, more experienced battle-hardened agent had come to his rescue and saved his life. Dan no longer saw the sky anymore and the rain and hail couldn’t reach him anymore. Heavy footsteps pounding against a metal floor let him know he wasn’t outside anymore.

The same pair of powerful arms forced him into a seat and pulled down a safety harness for him. He watched as Angie and Li carried the container behind him and set it down on the floor of the dropship. Through his vision, he saw Michael Cynosa. He finally made it to the roof and reunited with them all. Dan’s vision faded in and out and he caught numerous disjointed moments inside the dropship. The rear door of the dropship raised and closed shut and Dan felt the sudden acceleration of the aircraft. Dim ambient lighting hit Michael face as he directly stared at him, even though his visage was still half obscured by shadows.

The dropship still rocked and banked. Even Michael stumbled around trying to find proper balance in the turbulent ride through the storm.

Dan shuts his eyes, then opened them again. He was still on the same dropship, except the door to the rear opened. He watch Michael Cynosa and his white coat flapping in the intense winds as he used a grenade launcher to fire at a pursuing enemy aircraft. As Dan expected, Michael nailed the shot and blew up an engine on the aircraft, sending it spiraling into the dark clouds behind them.

He closed his eyes. He opened them up once again, not knowing how much time had passed.

Dan made out the blurry and unfocused figures standing in front of him. He assumed they were his teammates huddled around him. Dan heard muffling but couldn’t hear clearly what they said to him. His last memory of this flight was Michael forcing both of them into their seats as the dropship shook and banked from side to side.

He felt someone grab his hand before a sudden impact shook the entire dropship and he shut his eyes a final time.