Today was a significant day in Ballistic’s timeline, because it was the first Raid they’d completed in a City. Jenny had scoured the auctions tirelessly, making every effort possible to secure a Gate of their own. It took more than a hundred attempts, and a tight bidding war with another guild called Ransack, but they eventually secured their prize.
It was worth the wait.
The publicity alone would make the low profit margin on the day’s Raid almost redundant. It wasn’t often that a guild broke onto the big-city stage, garnering a decent crowd outside the Gate. Chase kept his pistol holstered under his hoodie, but he had to get Mia to conceal the MP7 in a small case hidden beneath her shield. Herb pulled multiple all-nighters at the lab, converting the five-hundred armour-piercing bullets into their magical counterpart.
Their debut was made in Two City, not far from the evacuation shelter where Chase, Gramps and the other victims of the Eight Town Break had gathered what seemed like a lifetime ago. It was a small park populated by sparse, crooked trees and neatly clipped grass. A bronze statue stood only a matter of metres from the Gate, honouring a long-dead adventurer. Given the public space, Embassy employees had cordoned off an area behind the Gate, making sure all the traffic was funnelled to the side where the members of Ballistic were entering the Dungeon.
As if to commemorate the occasion, whatever deity controlled the generation of Dungeons — whether it be luck, fate, or some other fickle invention — had decided to provide some artistic flare to the scenery. Rather than drab, claustrophobic caverns, they were jettisoned onto a grassy hilltop overlooking wide-open, rolling hills that festooned with monsters. It was a sniper’s dream, if only Chase owned such a weapon.
Still, the first time he shot the MP7, he fell in love.
With only five hundred rounds available to him, he had to resist the all-consuming urge to spray down every monster they came across. Instead, he reluctantly let Jamie and the others take the frontlines while he watched their backs for any deviants crawling up behind them.
The sticky grass squelched under their boots as Ballistic’s five Hunters fell into a disciplined formation born from dozens of Gates worth of practice. What was at first a dysfunctional, action-hungry team had become a well-oiled machine of death. They traversed the Dungeon in a tight unit, taking advantage of the high ground and good visibility to clear any monsters within thirty or so metres of them. David had nearly perfected his single-target restriction, having learnt to target each monster’s specific weaknesses. Jamie’s palette of spells had burgeoned throughout his insane hours of dedication to the craft, and he wove them through the air like it was second nature. Only Mia and Marcus were yet to show off their progress, purely because nothing got close enough for them to exert their influence.
It was one of the biggest Raids they’d done yet, a behemoth nearly twelve metres in diameter, but they were trouncing it as if it were a Sweep Team Raid.
“Eyes on boss!” Marcus called. “Three o’clock. Looks like a…a really fucked up Marshguts?”
Chase shifted his focus, eyeing down their prey. It was still a couple hundred metres away, but it seemed to home in on them through force of bloodlust alone. At the rate they were decimating its minions, he wasn’t surprised.
“Let’s take it slow ‘til we’re there, okay? At this speed, we come out of this with no injuries and the reporters’ll flash us blind with their cameras.”
David pumped his fist in the air, simultaneously celebrating while he bound a monster at the knees with his Talent. The monster, a strange ball of red, amalgamated flesh and thin limbs, simply folded under its own weight, making it an easy target for one of Chase’s rounds. The armour-piercing bullet tore a hole in its soft flesh as if a tennis ball had shot through it at Mach five.
The only downside of such an enjoyable Dungeon was how messy it would be to get the Haulers through. Close-quarters skirmishes had the benefit of leaving all monster remains in a relatively small area, meaning there was less time spent heaving parts to the nearest bin, or waiting for a Monster Retriever to amble around the place. With the sticky grass included, the Retrievers would eat up extra fuel trying to fight their way through the muck.
Even so, it was worth the pain. They’d have Haulers and Hunters flocking to their ranks after such a coup.
After only a few minutes, the boss was within reach of Jamie’s longest-range skills. Chase could’ve shot at the beast from back when they first saw it, but his aim was admittedly still somewhat lacklustre. He needed to spend more time at the range, perhaps with Darryl around to give him some pointers, but the constant bombardment of other issues made it so that his only practice-time was on the job.
They went closer, until the distance was more palatable. As soon as Jamie began his bombardment, using a skill the A-Rank defined as ‘complete and utter fuckery’, Chase peppered the boss with armour-piercing rounds. He could shoot bursts in reasonably tight groups, though the trepidation of pulling the trigger and feeling the immediate thump into his shoulder and chest always made him flinch. If Jenny allowed it, he was keen to purchase some armour that helped with his Total Strength, hopefully turning the recoil into a negligible whisper.
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“Here she comes!” Jamie yelled. Their efforts had slowed the monster as well as sheering a massive chunk of meat from its right side. Such damage would fell most monsters almost instantly, but this was a boss in a twelve-meter-wide Gate.
It wouldn’t go gently.
“Shields forward!” Chase ordered, though Marcus and Mia were already springing into action. They assembled before the group, both of them prepared to dash forward at the last moment to absorb some of the boss’s lumbering weight. It crashed into Mia first, her shield reacting with a bright burst of yellow energy. The blast knocked the monster clear of both Tanks, sending it sprawling to the earth.
Right where they wanted it.
Jamie closed his eyes and began chanting. A silvery sword dripping blue aura slowly came into existence before him, its tip pointing down into the earth like it might split the world in two. It grew in size with each passing second, quickly surpassing two metres in length.
Suddenly, Mia cried out. “Chase! Seven o’clock! We’ve got company!”
Oh shit.
With Jamie out of action while he prepared the kill-shot, defending their group was up to Chase. He turned, squatting down into a kneeling position with one elbow resting on his raised knee. They’d been swarmed while they were engaging the boss, allowing nearly a dozen monsters to get behind them.
He stumbled for a moment as he considered which enemy to shoot at. A few ideas clashed in his mind over the course of a single second, battling between an all-out spray, picking them off from left to right, or going for whichever monster was closest.
“David, you hold back the fastest! I’ll go for the frontrunners!”
The C-Rank crouched behind him, casting over his shoulder and watching which enemy Chase was aiming at. The two-man unit was doing its best to hold back the wave, but the enemies were creeping closer. Soon, one of the Tanks would have to switch from watching the boss to come help them. They’d be fighting the battle on two fronts.
With a forlorn clicking sound, the MP7 ran out of bullets. He’d exhausted the 40-round magazine by taking shots at monsters earlier that he should’ve used the Beretta for. Now, he was forced to let the submachine gun dangle from its strap as he drew the pistol from his waist. He didn’t waste much time making the switch, but every second was precious and the monsters were so close that Marcus had crept up next to Chase, ready to charge into the fray once the air cleared of bullets.
Then Jamie’s spell finished, and the air seemed to warp around them as the ethereal sword unleashed its devastation. Chase and David were thrown forward by the shockwave, falling flat on their faces. The Beretta dug into the ground, nose-first, and the MP7 smacked him on the back of the head as the strap held it close. Somehow, Marcus stayed on his feet, doggedly bashing back the encroaching beasts.
But with their A-Rank back in the fight, it was game over. Ballistic’s five Hunters fell back into position and minced the weak remainder of their first City Raid.
When silence returned to the open fields, Chase slumped to the ground, not caring that his hair was sticking to the grass.
“That was insane,” he breathed. “That sword…”
Jamie sat down, puffing hard. “Sorry I didn’t warn you guys about the shockwave. I’ve been cooking that one up for a while. Pretty nice, eh?”
“Fucking mental,” Mia agreed. “How’d you even practice that? I swear I’ve never seen you do that before.”
The A-Rank grinned and climbed to his feet. Gone were the days when he’d disappear for a few moments before a Sweep Team Raid to go and vomit in the bushes. That former nervousness was completely eradicated, replaced by a Hunter whose only goal was to push the bounds of his power
To advance, just like Chase.
“I’ve been going to Sweep Team Raids each night,” he admitted. “If there’s no one around, I just clear the first few rooms and then sit near the Gate, practicing. If I learn something new, I usually go and clear the boss with it.”
They all stared at him, mouths agape.
“We sometimes do three Raids in a day,” Chase said, “and then you go out again a few hours later?”
“Sometimes, yeah.”
Chase just shook his head. He felt like he was a pretty motivated person, but even that would be stretching the bounds of his willpower. Sure, he’d done a few late nights and early mornings whilst testing out the Luger and scraping together some extra Credits, but Jamie was doing it on the regular, and acting like it was light work.
“Well don’t do too many of those Sweep Raids, or else the Embassy might offer you a job.” He sat up to address the whole group. “In fact, if any of you guys get an offer from another guild, please, please let me counter it before you up and leave. It’s been phenomenal having you guys around to save my ass.”
Marcus laughed, pulling Chase to his feet. “Hell nah, bro. I think we all know we picked the winning horse by joining you. Someday we’ll all be famous purely because we were founding members of Ballistic. And that’s all you.”
Their group hustled back to the Gate, nearly forgetting that they were supposed to impress the reporters by blitzing through the Raid as quickly as possible. Luckily, they hadn’t rested for too long after the final battle, meaning they were back at the Gate in no time. Before they exited, Mia marched in front of their small group, turned around, and held out a hand to stop them.
“Wait a sec, you lot. When we walk through, there’s going to be flashing cameras, microphones shoved in our mouths, and people scrambling to poke us with questions. We at least have to look the part, right?”
Chase looked at the other Hunters. Jamie’s hair looked like he’d jammed a fork in a toaster, whilst David had his shirt on backwards and a big clump of green-brown mud stuck to one cheek. Marcus’s chestplate was off, revealing a long, ragged slash down his sweat-stained white shirt. It showed his abs, which would at least earn him some paparazzi.
“Fix yourselves up,” Mia demanded. “Chase, I don’t know how, but there’s a monster’s eyeball mushed up on your knee, and the back of your hoodie is literally covered in goo. You’re Guild Leader, so you’re the shining example.”
“Goddammit,” he whined. “Jenny’s more Leader than I am — can’t she face the cameras?”
“She already does, thankfully,” Mia said.
They each went to work cleaning themselves up and arranging their hair in acceptable styles. Marcus found a long, flat stick and scraped swathes of sticky grass-goo off Chase’s back. Once they were all presentable, they stepped through the Gate, flashing prepared smiles.
Only there were no cameras or paparazzi waiting for them.
Only smoke, and blood, and screams.