Among the shock troopers of Task Force North, there was one Amadeus Io. The shock troopers were drawn from the elite of the Bio-Police, but shoulder-to-shoulder with them, he didn't stand out. Not that this bothered him. The pay was good no matter the rank.

His commander had ordered his squad to lay a trap on a designated rooftop. "You'll only have a split second to acquire the target and open fire," was what they were briefed. It wasn't a difficult assignment, but the margins were still quite narrow. They would have to rely almost purely on reflexes.

Shoot first, verify the target later.

They only had to wait a tense four minutes after they'd arrived at their target location. There were four of them, hiding behind transformer boxes, lying prone beside low ventilation ducts, and waiting to sprint from the roof access shed. Amadeus was in the roof access.

The other members of the task force, scattered throughout the city block, continuously fed reports through their comms channel. Each soldier had a small AI program in their receivers that filtered out reports that they didn't need to hear.

"Sierra 1, eyes on target, lasing."

"Sierra 2, eyes on target, lasing."

At that moment, their visors' heads-up displays showed a moving green square, following the motion of their target. The square, smaller when the marked target was farther away, was hopping up and down and quickly getting larger.

"Engage, engage!"

Several seconds of gunfire echoed from the outside.

"...to shock element, be advised, target is four seconds away."

Amadeus, together with his squadmate beside him, readied to sprint.

"Now!"

All four of them dashed out into the open. Each person had a clear line of fire to each person just in case any of them were targeted. The target hadn't arrived, and yet they trained their guns on a single spot as if it was already there.

Then a woman landed there.

'Huh? This is a Gamma?' --- was surely what they were all thinking. This was not the rabid creature that they had expected to find. On top of that, there was a man slung over her shoulder. If they were to fire, if the man were alive, then he would surely die.

"Open fire!"

Nevertheless, their mission's parameters didn't allow for hesitation. Had they been afforded more than just a split second, they could have made a better-informed judgement. So... oh well!

That's what three of them thought. Amadeus, however, panicked at the fact that the woman had thrown the man towards him. His trigger finger had already tensed. The best he could do was to jerk his whole body to some direction --- any direction --- to try to avoid killing the guy in one shot.

The recoil of the shotgun slammed against his shoulder. After that shot, his heart earned its rest. Dust kicked up from below the flying man's body, indicating that what he had shot was hard ground. Those pellets might have even ricocheted towards the target, but anyway, as long as he's not hitting the guy, it was fine.

He stopped firing before the man impacted him. The force was greater than he expected, and he fell on his back. By the time he sat up, his squadmates had stopped firing. The man, lying across his body, groaned. Huh, he's alive...

"Io? Explain."

Amadeus roused to his feet, carefully laying the man on the ground.

"Sir, the target tossed this civilian towards me before I could fire, sir."

If they weren't wearing such heavy armor, the squad leader would be scratching his head. A minigun ripped through the air of the street below.

"Birdseye to shock elements 1 and 2, requesting SITREP."

"Birdseye, this is shock lead, mission was carried out successfully and without casualty. We've..."

The squad leader glanced at the man on the ground.

"...recovered a civilian from the target. He seems to be alive with only minor injuries."

Right now, the squad leader's camera was streaming footage of Tristan, who looked as if little stars were flying around him. The area task force commander, Lt. Cain, saw these images in realtime and with playback. Incidentally, this engagement with the shock squad also gave him the clearest image of the Gamma they have had so far.

"Cain?"

Beside him, Coronel noticed their esteemed commander resting his hand on the gun on his hip, a telltale sign that he was having troubled thoughts. Cain merely spared a glance at his friend before he gave the order.

"All units, the mission is shifting from kill to capture. I'm transmitting the clearest image we have of the target. I hope you'll understand."

For Amadeus and the shock squad, it was a matter of course. This "Gamma" was nothing like one. There was no degradation of human features, no degradation of motor control, and above all, a demonstration of intelligence. The fact that it tossed a live human being at Amadeus, no matter if it was to stop him from shooting or to prevent the man from being caught up in the bulletstorm, showed that it was capable of weighing the consequences of its decisions.

However, they also realized that they were in the middle of cornering a frightened beast. Even if tossing Tristan at them were to be interpreted as an act of intelligence, such an intelligence would never reply to "Hey, we made a mistake, let's talk" with an "Oh, okay" when the earlier party's already dumped several kilos of lead into the latter. Rather, there would be concerns as to whether such an intelligence were intelligent at all.

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"Shock elements 1 and 2, the target has reentered the building. Descend and tie it down until the capture team arrives."

Soon after, the comms channel became inundated with reports of multiple units securing the buildings and streets in the surroundings. They would prevent the target from escaping through bulldozing through to another building. Combat engineers were setting up traps and sentry turrets, while fireteams and sniper teams created a web of kill corridors. Drones circled around the area, triangulating the unmistakable signature emitted by Gamma hosts.

That said, this one wasn't a normal Gamma host. There was no telling when she would finally decide to start inflicting casualties on the task force, but, that was precisely why the shock troopers existed.

Their combat shotguns were not just simple leadspitters.

Several resupply drones swooped down and dropped a cache of special ammunition and four metallic cylinders, one for each of them. They carried those cylinders behind them like backpacks. They plugged the cables that dangled from them into their shotguns.

Like that, they started up the mini-generators for their electrified shotguns.

For all intents and purposes, most weapons were considered "nonlethal" in front of a Gamma, and thus, something like piling up "nonlethal" electric stun effects on top of "nonlethal" physical damage to make a "considerably nonlethal fully-automatic weapon" made sense. Somehow.

"Sir, what about..."

"Bring the princess and stay at the rear."

"Yes, sir."

Like that, after confirming that the civilian's bones were still intact, Amadeus hoisted him over his shoulder. His combat shotgun was slung across his shoulder. He would aim by swinging his whole body around, and his free hand's only function was to adjust his aim up and down, and of course, to pull the trigger.

In a way, he moved somehow like a t*rminator.

He closely followed his squadmates as they trooped down the stairs from the roof. Voluminous gunfire reverberated up the stairwell. There was glass shattering, and then concrete breaking, as if the walls were being torn down. No doubt, their comrades were pushing the Gamma up from the ground floor, while the drones were shooting through the windows on the office levels on the second and third floors to keep the Gamma from the streetside.

As far as they knew, though, they had nothing that could bulldoze walls without using explosives.

It was obviously the Gamma, but for what?

"Birdseye to shock element, the target is confirmed stopped at the fourth floor, but no further information. Capture team ETA 2 minutes. Good luck."

Their pointman kicked the emergency door open. The door that was supposed to open into the stairs was somehow now burst open the opposite way. They trooped right through into the tight corridor. At that time, the sounds of walls being torn down continued. It was almost like several breaching charges going off in succession. Such a thing reflected the might of the Gamma that they were about to face.

The corridor was just a straight shot. Its floor was carpeted, and the walls were a dirty white. On the left and right were doors at regular intervals. All these indicated that this was a residential floor populated by condominium units on the left and right. The only windows were on the ends of the corridor, but they opened only to the walls of the neighboring buildings. If there were any windows opening streetside, they'd be along one row of the condo units.

Because of that, the corridor was dark. Deathly dark.

They turned on their flashlights. Immediately, the squad's tension heightened. Some doors were already opened --- or rather, completely destroyed --- and there was dust and rubble on the floor, scattered beside holes in the walls and ceiling. These created three or even four-way junctions, some of which were vulnerable from holes in the ceiling. If they were to turn the wrong way, they could be attacked from a different direction.

It was a three-dimensional battlefield.

As if the Gamma was mocking them, "Come catch me if you can!"

"Io, put the civilian down by the window and stand by in this corridor. The rest of you, we're sweeping this floor. Keep close and check your corners."

"""Yes, sir."""

The stairs happened to open up near one end of the corridor, so his squad leader ordered Amadeus to keep the "princess" safe here, where he had a straightforward line of fire down the only approach to his position.

While Amadeus secured his position, the other three troopers advanced down the corridor.

As they did, they noticed streaks and spatters of blood here and there --- on the walls, the floor, and the ceiling. The Gamma must have been somewhat self-destructing in the process of breaking down the walls. One of the soldiers spotted a vaguely human-shaped hole. He shook his head, thinking 'No, no, it must be a coincidence'.

They entered the first room, confirmed that it was empty, and stacked up on the second room. That, too, was empty. It was nerve-wracking to pass under the holes in the ceiling. It was dark up there, and each time any of them shone their flashlights through it, a small part of them imagined seeing a face looking back at them.

'AAAAAAAAHHHHH!'

Accompanied by the scream was two seconds of fully-automatic fire. This happened as they were leaving the second room. There was a hole in the ceiling, and the last person to come out, who helpfully took care to keep his weapon trained at the hole in the ceiling, suddenly opened fire just like that. The offending trooper was shooting with retreating steps, and almost had his back against the wall. With the little amount of rational thought he had left, he rejoined his comrades.

"Oi, rookie! What happened?"

"Contact! Another Gamma! It's not the target!"

"What?!"

"SIR!"

The second soldier took no time to dump his rounds down the corridor behind his squad leader, who had turned to face the rookie. There was a pained shriek. The squad leader finally turned to support his fire, and his flashlight caught a clear glimpse of the Gamma.

In a word, it looked like a demon.

Its skin was peeling off, and pieces of bloodied rebar were sticking out of its gut and back like a demon's war horns. The squad leader wasted no time to dump rounds into it. The thing was clearly struck by at least a few pellets, but it was skillfully evading in this cramped corridor. The rookie shot at it, too. The second soldier was in the middle of reloading when he spotted a black projectile heading towards him. He raised his shotgun by reflex, and it received the blow, knocking him to his back.

His gun had deflected the projectile, which lightly tapped against the wall and landed beside him. Against the shine of his headlight, he identified the projectile: a piece of rebar.

"This much power?!"

"Get up and reload, corporal!"

By the time he had gotten up, the Gamma was in their faces.

"Wha-" "Shit!"

The rookie was already sent flying. The squad leader dumped rounds into it again. At such a close range, he managed to score several consecutive hits. The electrified pellets blasted away the Gamma's arm and paralyzed a huge swathe of its upper torso. However, this wasn't before a piece of rebar had already been sent flying towards the squad leader.

Thanks to the shock trooper's armor, as long as an attack wasn't focused on penetration, the worst they'd get was a few fractured ribs. However, those were still fractured ribs, and the power necessary to do that would also knock them down, at least.

Like that, the squad leader found himself looking at the ceiling.

For the corporal who had just stood up and hadn't reloaded, he found himself face-to-face against the Gamma. With no time to reload, he unsheathed an electrified machete, the general principle of which was "Look, we can't comply with 'Explosive-tipped melee weapons' at all, okay, Lieutenant? Can't we make a compromise here?", thus marginally increasing the survival rate of a shock trooper.

The fighting style was "Trust in the armor (give up) and try to hack off something with the one swing you have (hope for the best)".

He unsheathed the machete and cut the demon in front of him in the same motion. The demon, too, removed a piece of rebar that was stabbed in its back and met the corporal's attack. Sparks flew as electric arcs jumped from the machete to the rebar. With a tactical twist of the wrist, the machete slid off the rebar and finally met flesh.

The corporal left the demon behind him. He sheathed his machete.

"That was a good match," he said.

He coughed out blood and collapsed. Although he had managed to deliver a paralyzing cut to the Gamma, it was to the arm. The Gamma, however, delivered a knee into his gut. The corporal somehow ignored this internal damage for just long enough to deliver a weebish scene.

The Gamma stood over him, about to deliver the final blow. Of course, it was a monster in the first place. It would completely ensure the deaths of these three defeated opponents in front of it.

As if the squad's effort were all just for side entertainment, Amadeus completely gunned down the Gamma from head to toe. With each shot, it fidgeted from the electric shocks sent straight through its spine. It collapsed to its knees and plopped down.

"Took you long enough," the squad leader said. His voice croaked as he spoke, but nevertheless, he still managed to transmit an air of disappointment and this anticlimactic scene.

In truth, Amadeus was in range the whole time. He just couldn't get a clean shot while all of his squadmates were in the midst of the Gamma. As soon as the machete-wielding corporal sheathed his blade and collapsed, however, the Gamma stuck out like a sore thumb, and he didn't hesitate to dump his entire magazine into it.