In Germany

Michael sat himself up. He tried looking around, feeling straps across his chest. As he sat up, he reached across himself and yanked the strap. It broke as he pulled it, with what didn't feel like a lot of force. As he sat up, a door opened. A doctor and two men walked in, looking at him as they moved slowly around the edges of the room.

“Michael,” the gray haired doctor with the thin beard said softly, “I need you to relax a bit, I’m here to tell you what’s going on.”

“Pripyat,” Michael said with a strange growl to his voice that he barely recognized, “how far are we from it?”

“We’re in Germany bud,” one of the men said with a smirk, “you got pretty fucked up, they flew you outta there quick-fast and in a hurry.”

“Fly me back,” he said with a glare, “I need-” he began doubling over in pain. “What the fuck is wrong with me?”

The doctor waved his arm at the men. “Shut up,” he said sternly to the men, “unless you were part of his reconstruction you be silent!” He took a breath and turned to Michael. “Your bones have been either replaced or encased,” he said slowly, “your body has a high concentration of mends and synthesization replacement parts. I’m afraid your manhood was the only thing that didn’t get mangled or ruined when they dropped a wall and a ceiling on you.”

Michael stared the doctor down for a moment, not in anger at his words but because while he was listening intently to what he had to say, his face was not quite there with emotional expression. “Doc,” he said softly, “can I still kill people?”

The Doctor chuckled. “Oh Michael,” he said with a grin, “you’re more than able to kill. You’re more capable than you likely were, though I have no idea how capable you were since I haven’t seen your performance in the field.” The doctor opened a folder and flipped to a list. He began reading it. “I’ll try my best to say this in people terms, not that you’re dumb, but most doctors get confused by the fancy medical terms we went to school to learn how to say, just to spend more time rewording it than to use the fancy words.” he cleared his throat. “Your legs were the most destroyed, so your muscle structure is synthetic and your knees and joints are olympic prototypes that an unenhanced person who had this was able to leap three meters up. You might be able to make larger jumps because in addition to already having been enhanced, we have added more things at the same time than we’ve ever done with other people.” he paused and let Michael take in the information.

“Can I kick a door?” Michael asked plainly. “Can I kick a guy in the face before he realizes that a metal foot is about to crush him?”

“You’ll be able to kick reinforced armored doors down,” the Doctor said with a smile. “Your arms, while one was shattered, the other had hairline fractures and wasn’t far behind. We gave similar upgrades to your arms, while installing kinetic force drives and a shield generator in your arms.”

“This sounds like a lot of work,” Michael said softly.

“There’s more,” the Doctor continued, “Your spine, it was pretty ruined as well so we replaced that. It needed to be replaced anyway to withstand all the extra things we’ve added to your body. Now you can lift an armored vehicle without risk of injury.”

“What about my eyes,” Michael asked, “the lights in this room are fucking with me.”

“Your brain will get used to your optical implant,” the Doctor explained, “once you learn to tap into it, there’s an interface and multiple types of vision. You’ll be able to see in multiple spectrums, I’ve been told you will see heat, the light spectrum and even occasionally sound and vibration, even when there is a hard surface in front of you.”

“I have fucking X-Ray vision,” Michael repeated back to the Doctor, making sure he understood what was being said.

One of the men in the room walked out with a clipboard, turning out the lights in the room until it was pitch black. He stood on the other side of a wall in front of Michael and began banging the edge of the clipboard against the wall. As Michael listened, he saw his vision adjusting. He could see ripples outlining the shape of a hallway, and as he focused his eyes, he could see the body heat of the doctor in front of him.

“What the fuck drugs am I on?” Michael mumbled in confusion.

“The rest of the upgrades,” the Doctor said as he folded his papers, “your ribs and skull are plated in a fancy titanium and such, you won’t magnetize or set off metal detectors and you’re virtually unbreakable.” the Doctor paused before continuing. “You are not immortal, but you’re way more durable than before.”

“How soon can you get me back to Pripyat,” Michael asked with noticeable annoyance in his voice.

Earlier, in Pripyat.

Lani had climbed the Service Center wall and made it to the roof. Her PB in hand, she thumbed the hammer back as she sighted in a sentry who sat low on the roof next to a broken air intake. Her target had an RPK-74 with a traditional PSO sight mounted to it, though he had a thirty round magazine loaded instead of the drums or long mags that most automatic riflemen typically used. She sighted in and fired a shot that struck the side of his neck. After a few seconds of choking, he slumped over and fell softly to the ground.

Though she found it odd that only one gunman stood guard on the roof without actually watching a sector from his position. Either way, she knew she had to keep going.

Making her way to a doorway, she opened the door slowly as she peered in. She heard voices of men talking, footsteps gradually getting closer. She backed away from the door and moved behind one of the other air intakes. She clutched her knife with her left hand while grasping her pistol, certain that there were at least two men headed her way.

I could just kill everyone, she thought to herself, but I can’t risk them getting bomb happy with me.

She kept her head down as one of the men stepped through the door. “Idiot left the door open,” he said as he chuckled. He began walking toward the dead sentry. Blood hadn’t pooled yet, so it was not so obvious that he had been shot through the neck. The second man walked behind him, a little more cautious than the first. “Wake the fuck up,” the first man said to his friend who still lay motionless on the ground. He kicked his shoulder, causing him to roll back and expose the hole in his neck. “Sniper?” he turned to his buddy and gestured for him to look.

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“Get the fuck down stupid!” the second man shouted as he threw himself to the ground toward the door. Lani realized that they were about to get loud. She peeked around and put two shots in the face of the man laying down as she made a mad sprint toward the one still standing. She drove her knife into his mouth at an upward angle, smashing through his teeth and into the roof of his mouth. She left the knife embedded as she snatched his rifle from his hands and yanked it away from his hands to keep him from shooting off rounds. Once the weapon was away from him, she grabbed the knife and yanked it out. She changed angles and slammed the knife straight into his mouth, cutting the back of his throat. She followed up by shoving him downward and driving her bootheel into his neck to keep him on his back. She watched him choke on his blood that ran down his airway uncontrollably.

Lani had done quite a bit of violence in the past, but a chill went through her being as she silenced these men. I’ve never been the hunter before, she realized deep down as she turned to walk into the door.

As she stepped down the stairs, she saw a young man who stopped and looked straight at her and froze with fear. Lani saw this as a ploy to cause her to hesitate. She raised her pistol and fired twice. He took off running before the first round could hit him.

He’s enhanced! Lani ran down the stairs to try and catch him before he could alert the rest of the building. When she made it into the hallway, she realized that he had gotten away completely. Instead of finding the young man, she stumbled into a group of armed men patrolling the outer hallway.

“Shoot the bitch!” one of them yelled as he raised an AKM and began spraying in her direction. Lani backed into cover as the other three men in the group followed suit. Before Lani could peer around and fire off any shots with her VSS, a round ripped through the window and punched through the shoulder of one of the shooters.

John watched through his scope as his .338 Lapua round shattered the window and tore through the chest of the shooter, bypassing his armor entirely and leaving a blood soaked impact on the wall. He cycled the next round, looking for another target.

The three remaining men ducked down below the window and fired in Lani’s direction. Lani slung her VSS and drew the 1911. She peeked it around the corner and shot twice, hitting a man in his plate with the first shot and his abdomen with the second. The man doubled over in pain. One of the other shooters tried to grab his drag handle on the back of his vest and pull him away, which proved to be a mistake as another round from Johns very well tuned rifle tore through the top half of his head. The last unwounded shooter went to reload his AKM when Lani peered around and placed a round through his forehead.

The wounded shooter tried to crawl away from Lani who approached him calmly and drove two more shots into his face. As the body slumped lifelessly on the ground, Lani could hear a gasp. You motherfucker, she thought as she turned around and found the young man standing right behind her. She reached out and grabbed his neck, shoving him to the ground hard as she drove her knee into his chest and rested the muzzle of her pistol against his temple.

“No!” he screamed in a high pitched voice, “I don’t wanna do this, I’m not bad like them!”

Lani pressed her gun harder against his head. “You’re Crystal Chosen,” she asked him as she kept her attention on his hands as well as the building around her for approaching people. She could hear other floors being hit with Johns high powered rounds as people spent more time aiming their weapons and attention out the windows instead of coming after her.

“I don’t want this power,” the man said with tears running down his face, “I don’t wanna be in Pripyat, I don’t wanna hurt innocent people, I didn’t know they’d hurt soldiers!”

“Assaulting a military held place usually includes violence against the holding force,” Lani said in a flat tone, “did you just wake up one day and people were dead?”

“We were supposed to sneak in,” he said trying to choke back sobs, “quietly in the night just walk in and squat here, we had no reason to kill anyone!”

“Why did you,” Lani asked as she looked up and down the hall, paranoid that someone would soon find her with him.

“They,” he said through a cracking in his voice, “My boyfriend,” he clenched his eyes tightly, “please don’t kill me!”

“You wanna live,” Lani said through her teeth, losing patience with him, “where is he?”

“Ten floors underground,” he said as his eyes went wide, “my crystal twin is in a lab, trying to find ways to empower more people like us.”

“And what’s happening at the reactor,” Lani asked as she rubbed the muzzle against his eye.

“Two guys trying to steal nuke making stuff,” he said softly, “My boyfriend let his power get to his head, but he was a good person before.”

“Your brother made his choices,” Lani said loudly, “It’s time you made yours.”

Loud footsteps came clambering up the stairs at a high rate of speed. Lani took her gun off of the boy and shot her last three shots into someone who came around the corner. Her slide locked back, and the boy used the window to throw his feet at Lani’s chest to budge her off of him. He immediately twisted his way to his feet and grabbed her wrists before she could grab another magazine or her knife. He quickly shoved her against the wall and held himself against her with his shoulder.

“Please promise me,” he screamed with fear, “don’t kill him before I try one more time to talk to him!”

Sudden panic set in, Lani remembered the feeling of having had her arms trapped before when the girl from the hell realm had subdued her. This time, she was not helpless. She twisted her arm around his head and squeezed between her torso and elbow as she worked to hit his head against the wall. Though the amount of force she hit him with would have given a normal person a grave concussion, the boy wasn’t as phased as he was expected to be. Lani managed to get her gun hand free and strike him hard in the back of the neck. This staggered him just enough for her to get her other hand free and grip his neck. Once she had him gripped, she slammed the slide of her pistol against the side of his head. As he fell down, Lani went for her knife and found that it was no longer there.

The boy rolled himself back and held the knife between two fingers, putting his other hand up to try and surrender the fight he had gotten himself into. “I could have stopped you from having kids,” he said with a heavy breath, “but I don’t wanna hurt people who don’t deserve it.” He let go of the knife and let it hit the floor as Lani had finished reloading her gun as he talked. She let the slide slam forward, seating the chambered round. “Listen to me,” he pleaded as he lowered himself to his knees, “Damien deserves to die, but I love him too much to let him be killed without talking to him.”

Lani approached him quickly, grabbing him by the collar and yanking him close. She leaned in and spoke into his ear. “Take me to him,” she said growling through her teeth, “If you fuck around I’ll kill you. You can have your little chat, but he dies.”

He nodded, standing slowly. “There’s more people headed up here,” he said softly, “I’ll hide. Go to the second floor, there’s an elevator that only goes to the sublevels.”

Lani holstered her gun and glared him down. “Remember, you fuck around and you don’t get to talk to him.” She waved him off and turned to go down the stairs. She crept around the corners of the stairs, suspicious of the sudden lack of resistance.