Kane thought this was going to be easy, that no matter how many tricks she had under her sleeve, she wouldn’t have a chance against so many people in such a tight location, once he found himself hiding behind a table in the comms room, listening to the sound of his mercenaries being gunned down one by one, and even multiple at the same time, he realized that Alicia the Butcher was simply out of his league. Damn, she even was confident enough to take up a phone call while people were shooting at her.
He could still feel it, the powerlessness and panic as he watched through the cameras how out of nowhere his men just stopped shooting and even reported that they had taken out the target while he could see her clearly, waltzing around them to the tune of an imaginary waltz, mocking him.
The sudden silence behind the door could only mean one thing at this point: She was done killing the three squads waiting on the back line and would bring down the door at any moment.
The leader of alpha team and his personal entourage were readying up their guns and grenades. Of course, they weren’t about to bring down the entire plane with them just to kill her, these grenades were special, and under these circumstances they would be of great help to immobilize her enough time to give her the killing shot.
“Please, you are the only ones left, you have to-” -Kane begged to the leader, and he punched him in the nose as a response.
“If I had known what we were dealing with, I would have taken the money and then shot you in the face.” -He said as he pulled down a gas mask to his face, his men did the same. – “After we put her down, you are next.”
Kane’s wrath surged up once again from the deep corners of his cowardly heart. – “You treacherous snak-!” -The mercenary kicked him in the balls, sending him to the ground once again.
They got into position behind the door. Out of all the mercenaries that had boarded that plane, these six men were the most skilled out of them, not because they had been in more firefights than the others, but because they had been trained to deal with targets such as Alicia.
“(There’s no mistaking it.)” -Though the leader. – “(She must be like that freak we encountered in Prypiat.)” - He gave a quick glance to his men who were waiting for his orders. – “(Not a problem, if we could take that motherfucker down, this bitch shouldn’t be harder to deal with.)” -He raised up his hand. – “3…2…1…breach in!”
Meanwhile, Ten was on the other side of the door, checking the rifle she had picked up and its ammo.
“He’s the last one left, I suppose.” -She said. – “I don’t think he’ll provide much of a challenge, but let’s kill him…for completion’s sake.”
“(You are the boss…at least until we hop out of this plane.)” -Said Alicia.
“It was fun while it lasted.”
She approached the door to the comms room, only for it to be blasted open.
A grenade came out flying from the dark. Ten looked at it while it was in the air, she had seen many grenades before, but none had a shape like that one. It was not a frag, or a gas grenade, nor even a flashbang. You could call it a very harmful toy under the right circumstances.
The grenade exploded, releasing a cloud of stingballs at high speed, bouncing all around the room, hitting her in the arms, legs and face.
“What the hell!?” – She was expecting anything except for that. Right after the final squad moved in, opening fire with extreme prejudice.
Ten used up all her will to fall backwards and take cover behind the seats.
In response to that, three of the mercenaries threw tear gas grenades to her position, to force her to come out.
“Goddamn!” -She quickly covered her face with a piece of cloth and rushed out of her cover, spraying lead to her enemies, but they had already anticipated this and were covering behind two squad members with riot shields. – “Nice!”
Before they could open fire, Ten jumped towards them, dropkicking the defender at the front, making them fall backwards. The one who received the impact quickly got back up and bashed her with the shield, giving him room to pull out his pistol in an attempt to execute her.
Ten kicked the gun out of his hand, but he didn’t waste time and pulled out a taser, sending an electric shock from her abdomen to her entire body.
Ten groaned in pain as her will struggled against the flow of electricity to regain control of her body. Meanwhile, another merc got back up and was ready to blast her head out with his combat shotgun. Ten grabbed the soldier’s arm and pulled him towards her, using him as a shield from the incoming blast.
The pellets impacted the soldier on the back of his body armor, forcing him to fall to the ground. Ten took that chance to snatch the gas mask out of his face before the shotgunner had a clear shot on her.
Ten ran away while a lead storm flew above her head, into the cloud of tear gas, trying to find a place to regain her breath.
She crouched behind another row of seats. Ten panted heavily, clutching at the gas mask on her face, feeling her burning throat and her eyes being flooded with tears because of the gas.
“(It hurts, doesn’t it?)” -Said Alicia. – “(The reason I seldom give you control is because I’m used to shit like this, you don’t have the same pain tolerance I do, even if you are nimble enough to dodge bullets. I never wanted you to feel anything like this.)”
“Cut me some slack, you idiot!” -Answered Ten, surprising Alicia a bit. – “Don’t assume I can’t take this…If I didn’t get hurt, it wouldn’t be as exciting, you know!?” – Ten opened her eyes, they were bloodshot and the right one was partially blinded. – “I love this difficulty spike! It makes it all worth it!”
“(Just don’t get yourself killed, otherwise I’m going to kick your ass on our way to the far beyond.)”
“Don’t worry about that.” – Ten adjusted the gas mask to her face, tossed the assault rifle away, knowing it would be useless to what she aimed to achieve. Afterwards, she pulled Alicia’s combat knife out of its sheathe. – “I’m going to step up my game now.”
The mercenary she took the gas mask from took a spare from the comms room and returned to the formation. They split up in two groups of three, the ones holding the shields ahead of the others, and they walked through the corridors, a simple strategy that would inevitably corner her.
The leader walked down the left corridor behind the shield, aiming over his teammate’s shoulder, they had managed to rough her up and even wound her more than all the corpses that laid at their wake.
He had been through a similar scenario before, many years before, in the zone of exclusion, a foiled arms deal. They were once a bigger mercenary company, but the man they faced in that place trimmed down their numbers quite significantly.
If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
A man of great skill and willpower, they were almost tricked into thinking he was a god on earth, but in the end, he too was human. A lucky shot was all they needed to put an end to the nightmare. He never learned who hired that man or how he was capable of causing so much damage, not like it mattered much to him anymore.
Every kill teaches you something, and his fight against that monster prepared him to encounter any more freaks like him in the future, and now it was time to put his skills to the test against another monster.
They marched through the cloud of tear gas, and when they were halfway through, the unexpected happened.
An explosion coming from above, wires and bolts fell on them as a giant hole appeared on the ceiling, and from it Ten descended, plunging the knife into the leading merc’s head. The descent didn’t make her lose her impulse, so she pulled the knife back out and slashed through the shotgunner’s neck while shooting at the merc to her left in his head point blank. She was now mere two steps apart from the leader.
The second squad turned, but the cloud was impeding their vision, they wouldn’t be able to interfere on time.
Just then, the leader saw him through her, that man too managed to get that close to him, he had also used a similar tactic, how could he have forgotten about it?
What was his name again? He called himself the interloper, because he was always there where he wasn’t welcomed. The leader was in no position to argue against that.
When the interloper had gotten this close, he wasn’t prepared to take him head on so he managed to wound him severely, though if it wasn’t because of his men, he would’ve have died right there and then.
But this time he was ready.
He could read Ten’s next move, he took a step back, evading her slash, grabbed her by the collar and tossed her away with a swift judo throw.
She bounced off the ground, a gasp came out of her mouth with some spit and blood, it was like she had fallen from a fifth floor.
The leader raised up his rifle and opened fire, but Ten got herself together and rolled into cover. Right there, she heard the second squad approaching, that was a good chance as any to dispose of them.
One with an SMG was approaching her position, she used her legs to propel herself upwards and headbutted him, destroying his gas mask. The man went down grasping at his face, feeling the itch in his eyes.
She landed on her feet and shot the two men a row away from her before they could react and crouched again when the second protector sent a burst of lead her way with his Glock 18.
Ten applied pressure shooting at him, knowing perfectly well he would protect himself behind that shield, she rushed forward to try and catch his back while he responded with fire as well.
The soldier heard the click of his pistol, then he breathed out like a geyser, focusing in his next move. He ran forward to meet up with Ten on her trajectory, clenched his muscles and bashed her in the chest with the shield at full speed, sending her flying away.
Even if she was stunned, Ten was still smiling. While she was in the air, she dropped a flashbang without its pin, catching the merc off guard and blinding him.
Once she hit the ground, she recomposed herself and gunned him down, spending the last mag she had on her for the pistols. But fortunately, at least for her, the fun was not over yet, the leader was still alive and kicking.
He shot through the cloud of gas, managing to graze Ten’s left arm as she was trying to get up. She took the shield and used it to resist the bursts. Suddenly she heard the heavy steps of that man rush towards her before he kicked her down to the ground once again.
He snatched the shield from her hand and threw it away, he was about to execute her right there and then, but the sour click coming from the AR made his heart drop down to his stomach.
Ten kicked his legs, making him fall to her level, there she performed a leglock on him and twisted as far as she could. The leader tried to fight back before it was too late, grabbing his taser and shocking Ten, but she endured the pain extending through her body and kept twisting his leg until it finally snapped out of his knee. the leader screamed in agony, but he wouldn’t be a mercenary if this was enough to stop him.
He displaced his weight to the right, getting on the top, then pushed himself upwards with his arms to fall down once again, smashing her stomach with his elbow. He tried to reach for her neck to strangle her, but he had forgotten she was strong, if not stronger than most of the mercenaries in that plane, so it wasn’t hard for her to grab his arms and push him backwards while she sat back up. The man responded headbutting her, breaking her gas mask, and she did the same as a response. They had no other choice but to get away from one another and run out of the cloud if they didn’t want their respiratory systems and vision to suffer because of it.
The leader limped of the gas, falling again and coughing violently, feeling as his eyes were flooded with burning tears, Ten was going through a similar situation.
“(Guess we have used all our resources)” – She opened her eyes and realized that she couldn’t see much anymore. It wouldn’t take long for her vision to return, but while being next to an enemy, it was concerning. She closed them again; the darkness was preferable than seeing a bunch of blurry images and black spots. – “(He knows how to throw hands, I’ll give him that, not bad for an old man.)”
“(Pray that my vision doesn’t resent this in the end, Ten.)”
“(I’m sure it won’t, don’t worry…)” – Ten stood back up and stretched her back. – “It’s time we wrap up this fiasco.”
She walked up to the man and stood a few steps away from him, keeping a relaxed pose. She couldn’t see anything, but she could still hear his heavy breathing. –“I don’t know who you are, ol’ man. But you certainly know how to party when you need to…it’s been such a long time ever since someone’s hurt me this way.” – Ten cracked her shoulders and stretched her neck. – “I killed all your goons so, why don’t we call it a day and you let me kill the bitch you’ve been protecting so far?”
The leader kept panting, trying to recompose himself. He sat up and using applying enough pressure in the right spot, he united the femur and shinbone once again with a loud crack, making him scream once more, but at least he could get back up again. –“Agh….ah…! you…why didn’t you break it? why didn’t you break my leg if you had the chance.”
Ten tilted her head. – “Hmm…I don’t know, maybe I’m just a bit rusty. Hadn’t had the chance to come out and play in such a long time.”
“So this is all a game for you, young lady?”
“Not any kind of game, the most dangerous game of all, and I’m…I’m an adrenaline junkie, haha!”
He looked at her with utmost disgust, but somewhere deep in his heart he wished he could be as carefree and even powerful as the girl in front of him. –“…There’s nothing more dangerous than someone like you who enjoys killing this much…who the hell created you?”
“Beats me!” – Ten shrugged. – And enjoy killing? Me? nah, it’s not like that, tell that to my sis. Killing for me it’s just like ending a race, it’s not the point even if I get there every time. You know what I mean? It’s the race, what’s in between of the start and the finish line what matters.”
“(Pff…)” -It was the complete opposite of it for Alicia.
“So you like fighting…” -He said. –“I get it. Met a lot of people like you in the past. You are a junkie alright…a pretty disastrous junkie.”
“I declare myself guilty.”
“And you say your sister is stronger…no wonder there’s such a price on her head.”– He stood back up, he still had one more ace, literally up his sleeve: a makarov he always kept for when he was cornered but close enough to kill and even survive under the right circumstances. –“…it would have set me up for my retirement.”
“Believe me, if she had bothered to come here herself, she wouldn’t have wasted so much time on you.”– She said. – “Oh well. Leaving that aside…will you let me through? Or do we continue?”
The tear gas cloud behind them dissipated slowly thanks to the vents system, that made things a little bit easier for the both of them. But only one would get to enter the comms room.
“…I’m afraid I can’t let you do that.” -He said. –“You can’t just…kill so many people and think you’ll walk away that easily.”
Ten smiled, ashamed. – “Oh…you are right…I apologize, haha.”
Ten rubbed the back of her head and snapped her fingers once again. The pistol slid down from under his sleeve, he aimed and shot her through the frown, she dropped the moment right after.
Seeing her corpse on the ground, he was ready to claim victory, but the piercing pain of his neck being torn apart like a piece of cloth snatched all his illusions away from him. He managed to close his eyes and embrace it, he knew what would come next, it was inevitable, so he just left himself go.
Blood spurted out of his neck from four wide and deep cuts. Ten was standing right behind him, her finger tips bloodied. He couldn’t help put down the defensive barriers of his mind, Ten had recovered enough will to use her trick, giving her the victory right there and then.
He had beat a man who stood above many other men, but how could a man defeat something that had skills beyond his comprehension?
“You should have given up. You were a good player, I won’t forget you.”
With that said, he dropped to the ground and Ten marched forward, having regained her vision, even if just a little bit.
Kane was completely alone now.