Location: Nox City

Date: Year 2127 Month 12 Day 11

I was on a roof with Kenzo, the older sniper also used a cyclone. I don’t know if he’s as good as he claims, but at least he knows his rifles. We both had mounted suppressors on the barrels, while they wouldn’t last long on a cyclone, we only needed to do one shot. In our sights were two armored corpo sec guards that were sitting inside a guardhouse. The windows were technically bulletproof, just not 6 Mach tungsten round bulletproof. The two guards weren’t wearing their helmets, not that they’d help them.

We were waiting for a signal from Jun. He was on comms with both the main assault group and us. Alex had hacked the cameras, looping them all. She was also keeping overwatch with the drone, watching out for any patrols.

Eventually, Jun spoke in the comms. “We are cleared to act, on my mark fire, confirm, out.”

Kenzo spoke, sounding slightly annoyed. “We are both ready, spare me the military jargon.”

Jun sighed. “Fine, then at my mark.”

“3, 2, 1, mark!”

Two headshots, two more dead.

As soon as we took our shots, Batou and Vera entered the building through the now unguarded rear entrance. They ran to the security room where two more guards were taken care of.

Shortly after four gangsters looking uninjured rushed out, among them I spotted Jun’s father. They were carrying a human-sized bag with what looked like a jamming device on top of it. They entered the car that had been waiting for them and sped off. Going towards a safe house that had a jamming room. Where they will extract any digital data and interrogate the exec, in what I am sure will be a civil discussion.

We only needed to return to our safe house and lay low. Our job had been done. Jun will receive any intel the gangsters will get from the exec.

I was in the living room, sitting on a chair by the table while reading a novel on my interface, when Jun sent an encrypted group call to the five of us.

Jun spoke, “We know where the sites are.”

Well, that was easy.

Before anyone could ask, he continued, “Does anybody feel like taking a swim in the Pacific?”

“Wait, “ Alex began, “do you mean-“

A booming sound from afar interrupted her. The ground quaked and the skyscraper trembled. An unnatural stillness followed. I looked out of the windows, we were on the edge of the city and did not have a view towards the center. Nothing looked amiss from here.

The others entered the living room.

“What the fuck was that?” Revy shouted.

“Ok, ev-“

A blinding light enveloped us.

All sounds were gone.

The sky fell.

Darkness took over me.

Distant screams and gunfire pulled me back into consciousness.

I stirred, only to realize that I couldn’t move most of my body. I was under a large pile of rubble. Being able to feel all my limbs told me I got pretty lucky, all things considered. The detritus was sparse enough that I could make out the entrance, someone was there. I cleared some of the stones in front of me to get a better look.

Three armored individuals were rummaging through the place. They had assault rifles slung over their shoulders. Their space suit armor had a gray color. On the shoulder, there was a symbol of a dark green triangle with a blue circle inside it.

Paragon International. Great, what were the soldiers of that superpower doing here, didn’t they have a war to fight on the other side of the globe?

One of them spoke in their comms, despite the armor my enhanced ears could pick up the voice.

“Ve l’ho detto che non c’è nulla di valore in questa zona, proviamo ad andare verso il centro.”

They were speaking some foreign language, it sounded like Italian. I downloaded a translator for all languages that were spoken in Paragon’s territory to be on the safe side.

Another one turned to look at the guy that spoke.

A woman’s angry voice projected from behind the helmet. “Are you stupid? Did you see the bloodbath that is going on there? Let’s loot a little less and stay alive for god’s sake.”

The third one pointed towards a point I could not see. “Hey, she’s pretty.”

He made one step forward before the woman, who I know noticed had a sergeant insignia, snapped at him. “Think with your fucking head! The people here are rich, she’s probably chromed out. Why do you think the captain told us to shoot on sight? Shoot her first, approach later.”

I tried to grab my handgun, but I couldn’t reach it.

The man who had walked one step unslung his rifle.

While I tried to warn everyone in comms with subvocalization, I noticed that unseen to the armored soldiers Vera was hiding behind a pile of rubble to their left. She held a gas mask with a small gas bottle attached to it. Pressing the mask on her face she inhaled.

The next moment she was jumping high over the rubble and on top of the man with the unslung rifle, she snapped his armored neck with force.

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“Fuck!” The other two reached for their weapons.

Vera charged at the closer one, only now did I notice that she was laughing, hysterically.

The soldier managed to shoot her exactly once, hitting her chest, before a very fast flying kick launched him against the wall, the impact making a sickening crunch.

The armored woman fired, aiming at Vera’s legs.

Some of the bullets found their mark, but the gangster didn’t slow down. Before she could finish closing the distance the sergeant dropped her gun and raised her guard.

Vera landed a powerful punch on the armored abs of her opponent. The armored woman only staggered back, likely being heavily chromed herself. The gangster kept up her assault in a frenzy, throwing both kicks and punches at frightening speeds, all the while she laughed. The Paragon sergeant backed away and kept her guard up during the flurry of blows.

Vera was starting to slow down, the blood loss from the gunshot wounds taking its toll. Her footwork went from a lethal dance to a sluggish shifting. The armored woman shifted to the offensive, she landed a quick jab and followed with a straight, forcing Vera back for the first time.

During the fight, I moved the debris so that I could reach my handgun. Not that it was likely to be of much use, but the threat of a bullet through the visor would still force some caution.

Right now, I didn’t have a clear shot with Vera in the way, so I waited for my chance.

Vera dodged the next two punches and managed to grab her opponent’s arm, she yanked the armored woman towards her and followed up with a fast low sweeping kick that had the sergeant fall on the ground.

The gangster straddled her opponent and started savagely beating her helmet, her knuckles were soaked in blood, likely broken, but she did not waver in her hits, nor did her laugh ever stop. Despite that, the Paragon sergeant eventually managed to put a leg under her and pushed her off with a powerful kick. Sending Vera flying towards me.

With my line of sight finally clear I waited for the armored woman to stand up, I was only going to get one shot. If I failed, all she had to do was raise an arm in front of her visor and I’d be helpless.

She stood up, once she turned to face the lying form of Vera, I took aim and steadied my breath. After squeezing the trigger, a single ambitious bullet found its mark and pierced the right side of her visor, the right cyber eye, and finally landed in her cerebrum. Killing her instantly. She died standing.

Vera had landed almost in front of me, she tried getting up, but her legs gave in, and she landed on her knees.

While kneeling in a pool of her blood she kept releasing a weak laugh.

The laughter died out.

Her lips began to tremble.

Tears began to fall silently.

She hugged herself while her shoulders shook.

A sound of agony escaped her lips as she began to weep.

She looked at me, and through sobs breathed out, “Don’t you dare hate me. I didn’t choose to be this way.”

I didn’t like vamps, but I didn’t hate them either. While I did like to occasionally blame them for the doc’s death, I knew the truth.

It was me who killed the doc.

I took as deep a breath as I could with the weight of the rubble on my back, and asked the question that was on my mind.

“Why are you normally so expressive if you don’t feel any emotions?”

“I may not feel them, but I can still remember.”

She smiled the saddest smile I’ve ever seen.

It was too wide.

Her smiles were always too wide. Too forced.

She coughed a mouthful of blood. The loss of blood would soon take her. It would be so easy to keep her talking now that she was vulnerable and let nature take its course.

“Vera, you need to inject some nanites or you’re going to die of blood loss. There’s a bag in the bathroom with them. Go, now.”

She was startled at my words, likely not fully realizing her condition yet. She started crawling towards the bathroom. Gasps of pain escaped her now that the high was near its end.

I surprised myself by hoping that she’d make it.

In the next ten minutes I had managed to dig myself out, the fact that nobody answered my calls in the comms had me a little worried.

The sounds from outside were chilling. A symphony of gunfire, crumbling buildings, cries for help, cracking of railgun fire, and explosions was enough to shake the heart of any veteran.

Walking to the area that the late soldier pointed out before I found Revy lying down on the floor, it looked like she had a rough fall. But it was her so she would probably be fine.

Before trying to wake her up I went to check if Vera made it to the meds in time. She was lying on the bathroom floor with a trail of blood behind her. The tattoos on her back were covered by a crimson circle where the bullet had gone through her chest. An empty syringe was in her hand.

Getting closer I checked her pulse, it was light but stable.

I carried the tall woman, with some difficulty, back into what was left of the living room and put her in a sitting position against the wall.

Going back to Revy I shook her lightly at first, and then with more force, eliciting a response.

A violent one.

Her eyes snapped open, and she punched me in the face, she didn’t put any real force behind the hit, or I would have been quite possibly dead by now.

Still, it had me reeling. “Remind me to never wake you up again.”

She looked at me in confusion and then stood up looking around. “What happened?”

“I don’t know, but it sounds like a battlefield out there.” Pointing to the three bodies in the room I added, “And there’s Paragon soldiers running around by the looks of it.”

She looked at the soldiers and then at the standing sergeant before saying, “They’re dead right?”

“They’re just taking a nap.” I deadpanned.

She ignored my attempt at humor and approached one of the bodies on the ground and started stripping him of his armor. I did the same with the other one.

While we were at it, a deep voice, which I had been expecting, decided to announce its presence in the comms. “Who-“ A series of coughs stopped Batou from saying any more. After calming down he tried again. “Who’s shooting at us?”

I answered him. “Nobody, for now. But people are sure being trigger-happy with each other out there, Paragon soldiers are here too.”

Batou sighed in between coughs. “It was going too well, of course something like this would happen.”

“Where are you, anyway, and you okay with the cough?” Revy inquired while she finished wearing the airtight armor.

“I think I fell down a floor, or two. Should soon make it out of the mountain of rubble I’m under.” He coughed again, “It’s just dust.”

Armors donned, Revy and I started looking through the rubble in search of the missing members. Shortly after Batou started helping us.

He had claimed the armor of the sergeant since it was actually big enough for him.

The sergeant’s body was laid down next to the other two in a corner of the room.

After five more minutes of digging an uninjured and dusty-looking Kenzo appeared from one of the rooms.

“You okay?” I asked the middle-aged gangster.

He grumbled. “Never been better, and most certainly not worried that if the Ishikawa heir is dead his mother will have my hide.”

He kept muttering passive-aggressive statements for some time while helping us.

After some digging, we found Jun and Alex, he was unconscious, and his right leg was crushed. She was also unconscious, and her left arm was in the same predicament. After giving them some nanites and painkillers we freed them from the rubble. We then fashioned some emergency splints from what we could find to keep their limbs from moving.

“So, what’s the plan now?” Asked Revy.

I answered her. “We have no idea how long this conflict will last, and staying here is not safe. We don’t know when another bomb will land nearby. Jun has got the intel we came for. Right now, we have to prioritize getting off this floating death cage.”

Kenzo agreed, “He’s right, we are going to need to grab enough space suit armor for all of us. Though, by the sound of it, finding them won’t be too hard.”

I nodded, “We then have to get to one of the border sections of the port, cross the vacuum area and get to one of the external hangars that hold a ship.”

Batou offered to carry Jun, but Kenzo denied him, pointing towards Vera. “You carry that girl, she’s too tall, anyone else trying to move her will slow us down. I’ll carry the Ishikawa boy.”

I carried Alex, while we gave Revy a Thor. Ideally, she would use it to get rid of armored opponents without destroying the armor. The only issue would be cleaning off the interior.

The rest of us had our remaining weapons slung in front of us while we each carried our unconscious team member.

We stood in front of the skyscraper’s ruined entrance before walking out into hell.