The entire alleyway is quiet, no one moving a single muscle. Both Lera and the man in the business suit stare into each other's eyes….
The man in the business suit falls down with a large exit wound from a rifle bullet coming out of his forehead. Lera follows his flight to the floor before looking up in the direction from where the shot had come from.
A brown-cloaked individual, her face completely obscured by the shadow from her hood, smirks at the dead man from on top of a neighboring rooftop. Smoke is streaming out of her M177 sniper rifle, her scope aimed at where the man had been standing moments ago.
Lera's eyes light up when she sees the person, believing that she is the same person that she had met the other day. “Guardian!” she excitedly says before the men surrounding her aim their guns towards the cloaked individual on the rooftop above.
When the cloaked girl sees the enemies gun's aimed towards her, she quickly ducks behind her cover, avoiding a stream of gun fire that follows moments later.
While the gangsters are firing at the cloaked girl's location, another figure appears from over top of the building's that they are in between, flying down from the rooftop into the alleyway.
He lands straight in the center of the group, wearing the same cloak that the other girl is wearing. “Wait, there's two Guardians?” Lera thinks while staring at this new addition into the day's madness.
After landing on his feet, he grabs a hold of two P90s underneath of his cloak and says in a stern voice “I won't let you hurt her!” before throwing up his hands, both of them wielding two HLT16 sub-machine guns, and spinning in a circle, firing at and killing all the criminals in the circle.
Halfway through his spin he stops and grabs Lera by her shoulders. Another gangster runs up behind him and fires three shells into his back as he whispers “run....” into Lera's ear. Raphael's nanobots take the brunt of the impact, healing him immediately after the bullets hit.
As Lera escapes his grasp and runs out of the alleyway, Raphael brings up his right HLT16 and fires a few rounds into the gangster, but not before the thug fires off a final shot at Raphael.
The shot misses him, going through his cloak and hitting Lera in her left foreleg, making her drop to the ground from the injury, and forcing her to let out a yelp of pain as she falls.
Raphael hears her yelp of pain and goes into a frenzy. His eyes go wide, his mind now blank. He points his right HLT16 towards the man and fires every single bullet in his firearm at his corpse, unloading it completely.
He regains control of himself after his firearm is completely emptied, only to realize that he has been shot a few more times during his frenzy. He throws his right sub-machine gun to the ground and finds cover behind a dumpster to his left.
While blind-firing at a few criminals further down the alleyway who are taking cover, Raphael calls out to June, who he knows it still up on the rooftops. “June!” he says, hoping that his voice will reach her “I need you to get Lera away from the fight! Take her to the safe point!”
Raphael looks up to the rooftops, waiting for June to pop up and give some sign of recognition. She appears moments after the call and gives Raphael a salute before disappearing again.
She then appears on the streets outside of the alleyway, having jumped down from the rooftops. She runs over to Lera, scoops her up into her arms, and sprints down the street to a run-down, blue building. She lifts up her right leg and kicks in the door, then proceeds inside.
June takes a few seconds to examine the building she is now in. It's an extremely dusty and deserted area that seems to have been abandoned in a haste. There's cobwebs and rundown furniture all over the room in front of her. “Hmm, not a good place to do medical work....” June thinks, walking a few feet into the building.
She hears a window near the entrance of the house shatter from a stray bullet, forcing her to move more quickly. She finds cover behind a wall in the living room that arcs in front of the entrance room.
She kneels down and places Lera against the wall before examining the wound that she had taken earlier. Just as she begins to tear away Lera's pants leg, Lera regains consciousness. She grunts as she opens her eye “Ugh, where am I?” she asks randomly, not realizing that there is another person in the room.
Seconds later her eyes re-focus and she sees June in front of her cutting off her pants leg, her face hidden behind her cloak hood. Before she can ask where she was or who this person is in front of her, the pain of the bullet wound she had taken earlier becomes apparent in her mind. Along with the pain also comes the memory of exactly what had happened in the last few minutes.
While holding her leg in pain, Lera is able to yelp out her confusion. “Who are you and why did you save me, and why do you look like that Guardian guy that I met yesterday?”
June contemplates her answer as she examines Lera's leg. She's already told Carie everything she knows, so is it really safe to tell everything to someone else.... “I would like to answer your question, but I can't tell you everything. What I can tell you is that there is only one Guardian, and that the rest of us are just his friends. The Guardian asked me to get you away from the fight and to run some medical work on you while he dealt with the other criminals. And don't worry, we have two fighters over there right now and a third is coming in with your friend Boz, so it shouldn't take long before-”
“Oh god, Boz....!” Lera screams in pain from both her wound and what she had done to the best friend she has ever had. “I've put him through so much pain today, please don't bring him into this! He can't die, please!”
The roar of a minigun can be heard further away, bringing another ally's presence onto the battlefield and into June's ears. “It looks like it's already too late for that....”
“Shit! Boz, you need to stay behind! It's too damn dangerous!”
Despite how strong Miyra's leg strength may be, Boz's love for Lera and his want to keep her safe has pushed him to run at incredible speed and length right past Miyra. Miyra is running as fast as she can after him, but he stays about ten feet ahead of her the entire time.
The battle between the criminals and the JB squad has already erupted. Civilians are taking cover and cars have been stopped in the middle of the street, their occupants having fleed from the gunfire. Boz finds this of no hindrance, however, and simply runs around them or at some points over top of them.
He arrives at the side of the alleyway opposite of where Raphael is at and sees thugs crouching behind some trash cans. “You bastards!” he yells at them while readying his katana. “Stay away from my Lera!”
The gangster's turn to see Boz facing them with an unsheathed katana. They raise their pistols to kill him, only to see him fly to the ground from a push by a cloaked female. “Stand back!” she yells before raising a minigun from her cloak.
The criminals are only able to fire off a shell each at Miyra before her minigun is fully revved up. One bullet misses her, but the other hits the top of her cloak hood, knocking it back off her head.
She fires full auto at the gangsters while Boz stares at her in disbelief. He knew that he recognized this girl's voice from somewhere earlier, but once her hood came off of her head, he recognized her immediately. “Wait, you’re that girl! Miyra! But why are you-?”
After pelting a barrage of rounds into the gang members, Miyra puts her minigun, barrel first, onto the ground and offers Boz a hand to get up. “I'll explain later, but for now you just need to stay behind me, okay?”
Although Boz is relatively confused at this point, he still understands that Lera is in trouble and that Miyra is his best bet at saving her. He grabs a hold of her hand and she lifts him up. After which, he files in behind her before she brings up her minigun and starts advancing down the alleyway.
Miyra advances through the alleyway, taking out any gangster she can see along the way. Boz stays behind her the entire time, taking cover behind her nanobot-infused body. After going a building's length down the alleyway and reaching a three-way intersection, Raphael and Miyra meet up. They are all crouched behind the buildings next to the intersection in between them.
Raphael notices Boz crouching behind Miyra and says past the gunfire “I see you couldn't convince him to go back, huh? Whatever....” Raphael reaches into his cloak and pulls out a 9mm pistol and slides it along the floor over to Miyra's position. “Stay behind Miyra and only fire if you need too, got it!?”
Miyra picks the pistol up off of the ground and passes it to Boz. Boz grabs it and holds it awkwardly in his hands, never having used a firearm before in his life. Just judging by documentaries into firearms he has seen on T.V. in the past, he gauges back the pistol and supposes that it is ready for use.
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“Alright, let's move!” Raphael screams before getting up and firing down the alleyway to his left. He hits a gangster in his chest and head a few yards away.
“Come on Boz, let's go!” says Miyra before getting up and advancing next to Raphael. Her minigun is revved in a second and unloads down the alleyway, taking out two more gangsters down it's right side.
Boz follows behind Miyra as quickly as he can after she starts sprinting down the alleyway firing full-auto. He couldn't believe her strength and agility. A little teenage girl, wielding a minigun and firing while sprinting and still hitting her targets... he can't believe his eyes.
Shortly after the group begins running down the alleyway, the remaining gangsters give up on their mission and make a full retreat, with only a few of them staying behind in an attempt to hold off the advancing threat.
Those who stay behind are felled almost immediately as the group stampedes past them. Raphael screams into the air after lowering his HLT16 for a moment and speaks “Listen, all of you bastards! Lera Fuin is now under our protection! If you EVER try to kill her again, or threaten her in the slightest, we will personally take down every-single-one of you. Everyone from the grunts to the kingpins, you will all die! Tell your bosses that, and never show yourselves to me again!” After the speech, Raphael raises his HLT16 and continues down the alleyway after Miyra and Boz, who have now gotten ahead of him.
As the remaining enemies flood out of the alleyway, three of them stay at the end of the alleyway behind a black, four seated car and fire their weapons at Raphael and Miyra.
Miyra sees them and unloads her minigun at the black car, penetrating it's chassis and killing the three thugs while also making the car they were behind completely useless.
Raphael, Boz, and Miyra sprint out of the alleyway to see that the remaining enemy forces have all piled into three cars and are hastily trying to make a retreat. Raphael takes the route to the right of the dismantled car that Miyra had taken out earlier, while Miyra takes the left and Boz stays behind the vehicles carcass, using it for cover.
Miyra sees two black cars on the other side of the street taking off as the gangsters attempt to make an escape. She runs into the middle of the street while revving her minigun and aims it down the road at the fleeing vehicles. She hits the one in the rear, tearing apart it's bumper, back window and everything in-between, killing all of the inhabitants inside. The car verges to the right and crashes into a fire hydrant, now completely useless.
Raphael runs out into the middle of the street as the remaining car closest to the alleyway begins to turn to life. The gang member behind the wheel has Raphael in his sights and his car positioned, hoping to run him over and kill this new threat. Raphael sees the vehicle coming towards him, but does not move out of the way or raise his weapon. He stays completely still, his mouth moving in rapid succession as the car drives towards him.
Raphael breathes a single last word loudly when the vehicle is only mere inches from him. “Soto!” passes through his lips, and his body becomes completely still. The vehicle hits him directly, but he is not injured by the impact. The opposite happens that the criminal's expected, as the vehicle's front end crumples around Raphael, like as if his body had suddenly become an immovable object. The impact sends the engine of the car straight through the dashboard, crushing the thugs in the driver and passenger seats.
After the car crash, Raphael jumps backwards away from the vehicle into the air and pulls out a .50 magnum with UMA-grade explosive rounds from his cloak. As he descends, he fires three shells at the car, aiming for the vehicle's fuel supply. The first two shots hit exactly two inches from the fuel supply in different directions, but the explosive devices within the bullets brake apart the vehicle slightly. The third round hits perfectly, blowing apart the vehicle in a shower of flames.
After Raphael lands on his hands and feet, he gets back up and sees Miyra firing down the street before her ammo pack runs dry. She mutters “Damn....” before placing her minigun back around her shoulder underneath of her cloak and putting her hood back over her head.
“Leave them, Miyra.... They will tell their bosses our message and Lera will be safe from then on.” Raphael says coldly while fixing his magnum back into it's holster underneath of his cloak.
Once the bullets have stopped flying, Boz jumps up from his cover, throws his pistol to the ground and rushes at Raphael. He only notices his footsteps moments before Boz has his hands around his cloak collar.
Boz lifts Raphael into the air and yells at him. Miyra advances towards Boz in fear of Raphael being harmed, but Raphael raises his palm towards her, signaling for her to hold back. “I did everything your friend here asked.” Boz says in anger. “I followed her to the scene of this damned fight and I participated in this battle because you told me that Lera was in danger, but is she here, I don't think so! Now you better tell me where she is before I beat the crap out of both of you!”
Raphael stares down at Boz from underneath his cloak hood. He can see the anger and desperation in Boz's eyes. He takes a deep breathe through his nostrils and then speaks. “... Lera was injured during the fight. She took a bullet to the leg and one of my friend's took her into a blue house down the street to your left. These men were not here for me or my friends and we didn't attack them without warning. They were here for Lera, they were a hit squad hired by the organized crime syndicate of this country and attempted to take her life. If we hadn't stepped in, she would be dead right now. You are free to see her, she should be okay.... Are you going to let go of me now?”
A single tear drips down Boz's left eye as he hears that the only woman he will ever love is alive and well. He weakens his grasp on Raphael's cloak until he eventually releases him.
Boz turns away from Miyra and Raphael, and then immediately sprints down the street towards the building Raphael had explained.
Raphael turns to Miyra and whispers “be right back” before activating his flight ability and launching into the air. He soars past Boz at remarkable speed and uses his wall phase ability to phase through and into the blue house's living room before Boz has even made the turn onto the block where the building is located.
“June,” he says after landing and patting her on the shoulder. “we need to go. Boz is on the way and these two need some privacy.”
Past June, Lera is sulking loudly. There is a bandage around her leg from where the bullet had hit, but there isn't much blood seeping through the wound. She looks up when she hears Boz's name and when she hears Raphael's voice. “Wait!” she yells through her tears. “You’re the guy from earlier! Who are you and why did you lead Boz here! Didn't you tell me not to fall in love with him!”
June looks at Raphael and speaks while getting up. “The bullet went straight through her leg and didn't hit a single artery or blood vessel, at least no major ones. It's a damned miracle that the bullet hit where it did! She's luckier than she thinks!”
Raphael whispers a few words into June's ear before she passes by him and begins walking towards the house's back door. Raphael looks down at Lera, his expression not flinching an inch. “No, Lera, I was not referring to Boz when we met yesterday. What I was referring to was the entire scene that had occurred here with those criminals.. Boz is on his way at this very moment to see you and I would suggest that you tell him how you really feel this time....”
Raphael turns away from Lera and starts making his way behind June. He turns his head as he walks and says “We will meet again....” before walking out through the doorway and out of sight, leaving Lera completely alone in the dirty, run-down room.
Boz sprints down the street to the house that the cloaked man had identified to him. He can see the blue house down the block, it is just a matter of getting there.
Before long, he is within the vicinity of the house. He arcs himself as he nears closer and collides into the door, smashing it open with his shoulder.
He stops when he enters the room and yells Lera's name. He examines the dust-covered room and sees no one, but he does hear a light whimpering from further in the house. He moves forward, following the whimpering voice.
Only needing to advance a few feet, he finds Lera laying behind a wall nearby that faces away from the doorway. “Lera....” he says after finding her. She is still whimpering over what she had done earlier, tears pelting down her cheeks. Her pants leg is torn and there is a bandage on her leg from where she was hit earlier. He kneels down next to her and looks at her with worry in his eyes. “Are you okay...?”
Although she is aware of his presence, Lera doesn't look at Boz, leaving her hands on her face as she weeps. “Boz... Boz, why did you come here? This has nothing to do with you! Those men were here for me, not you! Please, I don't want you to see me like this... please leave me alone....”
“No, Lera, I'm never going to leave you again.” Boz says, almost losing another tear. “You mean too much to me to me for me to ever leave you! I don't know why you pushed me away earlier, but I know just by the way that you were speaking that you didn't mean it. Please Lera, I don't care how you look, I'll always love you....”
Her eyes stinging from her tears, Lera cannot help but to fall in love with Boz once more. She takes a deep, shivering breathe and then wipes the tears from her eyes and looks at Boz. “You love me? I always had that kind of feeling, but I never thought that you meant it until yesterday.... I mean, I love you too, but I never thought....”
“I love you, Lera, and I'll say it to the world if that's what you want” Boz says, taking Lera's damp hand into his. “I love you Lera, and I always will!”
Combined with the stress of the earlier incident and Boz's confession, Lera breaks down and flings herself into Boz's arms, hugging him around his chest. “Boz... you're my best friend, but I think it's time we go one step further. How about we start dating, like you asked...?”
“Yeah, I think that would be for the best.” Boz says, his voice having a slight quiver in it from the feelings stirring inside of him. “Do you think you can walk?”
“I don't know, is it alright if you carried me?” Lera says while feeling the bandage on her lower leg. “We should go to my house first so I can get a change of clothes, I don't want to go to school with a torn pants and a bandage around my leg.”
“Yeah, that sounds good to me.” Boz mutters before getting to his feet and then bending down to pick Lera up into his arms. She allows him to pick her up, feeling comfort in his arms. Since she only weighs about a hundred and twenty pounds, which is roughly fifty pounds less then what he can bench press, her weight is easy for him to lift.
Boz, who is in a much calmer state then earlier, speaks with a smile on his face. “If we hurry, we can get to your house and then back to the school before homeroom starts. I don't know how likely it is that we're going to make it there on time, but we can at least try!”
Boz exits the blue house with Lera in his arms, ready to sprint down the street. As the light from the dawning sun adjusts to his eyes, Boz realizes that a red convertible is waiting for him outside of the house. Inside of the car is a black-haired, pink-skinned woman wearing sunglasses. Her hair drifts back behind her head and down her back in a shiny ponytail, and she has a tattoo of a tribal phoenix on her left cheek. She lowers her glasses to look at the two with her topaz eyes. “Hey,” she says in a cheery voice. “the name's Sherah. I'm a friend of the Guardian's and he sent me to be your driver. Hop on in and we'll be off, alright?”
Seeing as the day couldn't possibly get any odder, Boz decides to go along with this new acquaintance. He walks Lera over to the left backseat and places her in the car before getting in on the other side. Sherah then shifts gears and drives down the street to Lera's house.
Little did they know that this is just a prelude to a to-be adventure.