Yanny squeezed her eyes shut for a moment as the bullets pierced her thigh and tore through her human tissue. She had already lowered her pain threshold to 50 percent before the fight, but now she decided to lower it to the minimum she could manage, just 10 percent. There was a simple reason why she had hesitated for so long: her body simply felt numb as a result of the reduction in sensation. It showed her, quite openly and bluntly, what she was really made of: machine parts covered by an artificial organism grown from human DNA. That numbness, that dulled sensibility, was something that frightened her more than the prospect of pain. But by now she had no choice, as she noticed another bullet hit her leg and shoot out the other side, taking pieces of her flesh with it. She jumped forward again, deftly dodging the next volley. Lazarus had emptied another clip and had to reload. That gave her a chance to retaliate. The Russian cyborg stomped in her direction, but avoided the stairs that would have led him up to her ledge. She knew that he didn't have the same processing power as her, and his only partially intact organic brain was another bottleneck when it came to making quick decisions. However, she would have expected him to at least try to compensate for the difference in height between them. It had been known since the early history of warfare that a higher position gave an advantage in battle, and this Artyom Gromov had been a soldier in his previous life. He had to know. Instead, he just stayed down and reloaded, unimpressed. So there was hope that she could hold him off long enough for her comrades to reach his controls at the base. A glimmer of hope that all would be well. She jumped up and landed both feet directly on the railing of the ledge. Her balance sensor compensated for the momentum and kept her upright without any effort. If she had tumbled forward now, she would have fallen a good ten meters. As it was, she held her position and aimed her rifle. She had to make an impact shot, right now! It was useless to just shoot at his insensitive skeleton. Her crosshairs targeted his left upper jawbone.

"Let's see if you are that well armored everywhere," she whispered and pulled the trigger. The volley thundered out of her weapon with a mighty muzzle flash, and with her enormous physical strength, she didn't allow a millimeter of deviation despite the heavy recoil. The bullets found their targets and almost all of them hit the same spot. The jaw joint could not withstand the impact and shattered, tearing nearly a third of the rubber skin from her opponent's head, leaving the lower jaw attached only on the right side. The jaw hung at an angle and Lazarus was unable to close it. If he had looked frightening enough before, the damage to his face made him look like something out of a cabinet of horrors.

It took him a few moments to realize what had just happened, after the visual disturbance in his eyes caused by the hit had returned to normal. He took aim and fired, striking back immediately. His opponent had once again anticipated this and jumped to the side, again to the right. It wasn't working, he had to think of something to slow her down. While still firing, he didn't pay attention to Yanny this time, but scanned the ledge she was standing on. It was made of simple iron bars, but they were no longer in the best condition. The waste recycling facility was a state-owned enterprise and not well funded; parts of the complex were in need of maintenance. He discovered several weaknesses in the construction, recognizable by the fact that the individual slabs were no longer level with each other. Lazarus fired, pushing his opponent further to the right, then removed the magazine from his rifle, dropped it demonstratively to the ground, and pulled another from his belt to reload. She would not change her tactics as long as she was convinced they would lead to success. It happened just as she expected. She opened fire on him again and the bullets rained down on his body. But this time, unlike before, he had closed the distance to her. Instead of finishing reloading the rifle, he raised his right arm in a flash, opening his bare palm and pointing it toward the iron bars Yanny was standing on. There was a dull crack as a projectile shot out of his palm, pulling a thin steel cable behind it. It unwound forward from his forearm like bait on a fishing line. These grappling hooks had been built into his arms so that he could extricate himself from dangerous situations if necessary, if there was no other way out. Although the steel cable was very thin, it had an enormous breaking strength. It was currently the best of its kind on this planet, developed in a research laboratory in the northern cities. But now was not the time to use it to pull himself out of some pit, now Lazarus used the grappling hook directly as a weapon. The projectile smashed through the iron grate Yanny was standing on, bursting open and breaking off three barbs that wedged directly into the holes as it retracted. Lazarus yanked on the grappling hook with all his might, and the grate broke at one point. Yanny lost her balance and fell, her right foot caught in the opening. She had too much weight on it, and her leg slid further down into the gap before she could support herself with her hands. She tried desperately to pull herself up, but the grappling hook was already retracted and whizzed back into Lazaru's hand. The iron bar snapped back into its original position, crushing her thigh. As if that wasn't bad enough, she felt a sharp pain in her knee a moment later. Lazarus had fired a second grappling hook from his other hand while still retracting the first, now cutting through her knee and spreading three barbs. She screamed as he began to tear at her leg from below with the steel cable, the barbs digging deep into her flesh. Her control panel reported that the knee joint had been destroyed, her blood dripping in a trickle down her pant leg. She clawed at the floor with her fingers, desperately trying to hold on, but the pull from below was getting stronger. She watched as her rifle, which had slipped from her hands during the fall, dropped out of reach. Yanny had to get rid of that rope, somehow, quickly! Meanwhile, Lazarus had fully retracted the first grappling hook and switched to his assault rifle with his right hand while holding his struggling opponent between the wedged floor bars with his left. This time she couldn't dodge, so he pulled the trigger and fired the entire magazine at her. Some of the bullets were deflected by the bars, but most of them hit her, piercing her like a helpless dummy used for target practice. Then he dropped the gun, no longer able to reload with one hand. Instead, he increased the tug on the steel cable until the first loud snap was heard. It was the rest of the knee joint that broke. Now he had her right where he wanted her.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

Yanny's control panel was constantly reporting back, trying to analyze the damage as accurately as possible. Pain everywhere. The little finger on her previously repaired hand was missing; it must have been shot off in the last volley. She didn't want to think about what it must have felt like if her body hadn't been numb. That damn rope, she had to get it off her knee. Or rather, from what had once been her knee. She drew one of the two large caliber colts, stuck the barrel through one of the holes in the bars and took aim. Aimed at her own knee, squeezed the trigger. More pain, but it was done. The powerful bullet had severed the steel cable, it snapped, and the pull subsided instantly. Lightning flashed repeatedly across her field of vision. Her body was approaching overload. She pushed herself up with all her strength to free her leg from the gap, tearing her tissue even more against the jammed metal. She had to be brave now, stay brave. For the others, for the whole city, she couldn't give up. When she had pulled her leg back up to almost her ankle, there was a loud crack and the other connecting pieces of the grate she was standing on snapped off. A moment later, the grate fell with her, the whole ten meters. During the fall, her sense of balance went crazy and caused a malfunction, which in turn meant that she had no chance to control her fall in any way. She hit the ground feet first, her destroyed right knee giving way completely and breaking off on impact. From the joint down, the rest of her was held up only by human tissue, the lower leg sticking out at a grotesque angle as she slumped and lay face down, a pool of blood slowly forming around her body. Her metal skeleton naturally made her much heavier than a human, which had caused her tissues to tear in many places. Her body's monitoring system spoke again. System check:

"Central processing unit overload, permanent chip damage imminent, emergency shutdown initiated."

"Stop!" Yanny replied. "No... no emergency shutdown. I can't sleep now, I can't sleep, I have to stay awake..."

"Please repeat the input. Chance of permanent damage is 89%. Cancel emergency shutdown yes/no"

"Yes" It was a single input that prevented her body from going into standby mode. Her head had also been damaged in the fall. She could feel the generator in her chest continuing to malfunction, extremely strong energy discharges running through the chip in her head. Her body twitched uncontrollably.

"I have to stay awake...be brave..." she whispered, and began to crawl forward across the floor, unable to stand, as Lazarus' heavy footsteps grew louder behind her.

The Meteor Drinker leapt forward and threw a right hook. Harry ducked, turned and used the momentum of the turn to counter with a kick to the head. The Russian fighter had been too focused on Harry's sword to anticipate the kick, which hit him squarely in the unprotected face. He staggered back, but had the presence of mind to block the next kick with his left forearm. A moment later, Harry's blade whizzed towards him and the Russian dodged, taking a step back, then another. Harry continued, catching his opponent in the upper left arm, leaving a gaping gash. The blow had no real effect, however, and the torn flesh began to heal a moment later. Harry increased the speed of his attacks, driving Tichon in front of him, hitting his target again and again, covering the meteor-drinker's torso with cuts and stabs that were almost invisible a short time later. Blood splattered on the walls and floor, dripping from the blade of his sword. The agent was breathing heavily, the rapid attacks sapping his strength. The course of this battle caused him to have his first doubts. Never before had he fought someone whose wounds healed instantly. Of course, he had no idea how that was possible. Three shots to the chest had not been able to kill this man. Was this man the only one of his kind? It had to have something to do with the crystal and its glowing liquid, but he suspected that he would never get an explanation for this *magic*. How would he be able to stop his opponent in the long run, the one who never seemed to tire? As the Russian noticed Harry slowly running out of breath, he grinned broadly and then stepped forward in his turn. The street samurai immediately struck again with his sword, but this time Tichon was quicker, catching the blade with his bare right hand and holding it firmly. His physical strength seemed to grow as well. He laughed out loud when Harry tugged at the hilt and tried to free the weapon. He did not succeed. Tichon held the blade in front of his chest. Harry knew he had to risk it all. Once again, he pulled on the hilt as hard as he could and Tichon held against him. When Harry felt the counterattack, he jumped forward with his whole body and threw himself against the hilt of his weapon. It worked, he took advantage of the counterattack and the blade penetrated Tichon's chest to the hilt and pierced his heart. Harry had to release his grip as his opponent staggered backwards, gasping for breath. Blood spurted from his mouth and he gasped for air, his knees going weak as he stumbled and hit the wall, desperately trying to stay on his feet. Harry took a moment to catch his breath, took a few steps back and leaned against the treadmill. The gym looked more like a slaughterhouse now. Had it been enough to pierce his opponent's heart? Tichon sank to his knees and was on the verge of collapsing for good when something held him upright, as if some alien force had taken possession of him. Harry watched in horror as the Russian's eyes slowly began to glow blue. Tichon's right hand went to the hilt of the short sword and pulled it from his chest. When he had pulled it out completely, he looked at the bloody weapon for a moment before dropping it to the ground. Finally, he straightened up and fixed Harry with a look that seemed out of this world.

"You can't beat me," he spoke slowly in American, with a heavy accent. Harry just nodded, pulled the two brass knuckles from his diving belt and slipped them over his fists. Yes, it was probably true, he would not be able to defeat this man. So now it was just a matter of buying his comrades enough time to complete this mission successfully. He hoped that Yuri and Abigail would be able to escape afterwards.

"I know nothing about overcoming others. I only know how to overcome myself," Harry said calmly, clenching his brass knuckles. Then the two of them marched towards each other.