The squad left the orphanage and arrived at a secluded, private airport a bit away from the city, near the highway. When they arrived there, they instantly went to the landing zone to board a jet that had been prepared for them.
When Arimane saw the interior, he sighed in admiration. The inside of the jet simply looked like a luxurious hotel room with a bar and couches. Most of the squad went to sit at the bar and ordered drinks to the bartender.
He sat down on a couch and looked outside from the window. Jin, Tieria, Tiria, and Erin also rested around him, patiently waiting for the take-off.
The plane finally moved and started making its reactors work. But the strange thing was how a silent they were. Arimane watched through the window and spotted a cyan hue under the plane's wings. He snickered and leaned back on the seat.
The jet took off without any disturbance or shaking, even the bottles of the bar didn't even shake a bit. It seemed that this plane also was equipped with a low-end gravity manipulation system.
Arimane ended up ignoring all of the other features of this plane since there were too many then he looked toward Moria who was coming back from the pilot cabin.
"Where are we going?" He asked.
Moria sat down and sighed like an old man. "In the middle of Russia. Terrorist groups like to hide there," he answered. "There's a lot of space after all and since the latest jamming devices arrived, it became the best kind of hiding spot."
"Russia, huh?" Arimane muttered then thought of the world's map. "It would take around an hour with this Eion plane, right?"
"Yeah, you can take a nap if you want to," Moria nodded. He then stood up and headed toward the rear of the plane. "I'll go sleep as well," he waved his hand and said before opening a door leading to a corridor, with small four bedrooms available.
"Arimane~" Tiria hugged him. "Do you want to sleep with me?"
Arimane pushed her back. "No. Could you stop that borderline sexual harassment on a minor now?" He bluntly rejected and Tiria sulked for a bit but then tried to drag Tieria inside one of the rooms.
"Are you drunk?" Tieria asked when she saw Tiria's red face. She looked at the guys sitting at the bar. "Did you actually give her something to drink?"
The squad members at the bar all looked away and refused to respond. They all knew Tiria was weak to alcohol but they still didn't stop her from drinking. Tieria sighed and she was the one who ultimately dragged her friend inside a room.
Arimane looked at the scene and shrugged. He closed his eyes, ready to take a nap.
He quickly fell asleep and the plane arrived at its destination fifty minutes later. When it landed, Arimane stepped down whilst yawning. Tiria got out just after him with a sour expression and a big headache. She took a medicine that Tiera gave her to recover.
The place they had landed in was a sort of military base and an officer there led the squad to one of the hangars of the facility. When they entered the hangar, the members of the squad admired what they had in front of them.
Two big dark blue choppers equipped with heavy weaponry and multiple Eion systems. "You will go to the objective with these. But you won't be able to use them for the operation. We'll let the pilots in your care," the officer who brought them here explained.
Moria snorted at his words. He knew that they weren't going to give them those choppers since it would be too simple. They would just have to bombard the enemy base and then leave. Clearly, the higher-ups really wanted them to prove themselves.
They departed a few hours after and reached their destination after an additional hour. The choppers were then covered with an optical bash and the pilots stayed inside.
The squad held a meeting inside of a forest. Moria glance at the sun over the trees.
"The sun will set in a few hours. We should get to the objective before then and act during the night. The basic stuff. Let's get this done by tomorrow," Moria stated and started running in a certain direction.
The squad followed him and Arimane looked at the hidden choppers for a second before catching up with everyone. Their speed was definitely not as high as a car or anything else, but with their enhanced body, they could still run steadily at around twenty miles per hour. Maybe their sprinting speed could reach thirty.
In fact, Arimane could even raise up to at least forty per hour if he wanted to. After thirty minutes of dashing through the forest, they stopped beside a small hill and observed the 'town' that was a few miles away from them.
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They set up a small camp there and hid their presence as much as they could. They also started equipping themselves. Arimane assembled the rifle and wore his coat. Then, together with some others, he started looking at the terrorist base with his binoculars.
"It seems that they are already rotating for the night shift," Tieria said as she spotted some armed men patrolling and others on watchtowers.
"You're right," Erin nodded and looked at Arimane. "Those guys in the towers, do you think you can take them out from here?"
Arimane nodded while looking through his binoculars. "I think so. Between here and there, maybe there are around three miles. With the Eion rifle, I can take all of them out. But I would need at least thirty seconds between each shot. I can't say that I won't miss but there's only a 20% chance that it would happen."
"Scary kid," Gano remarked and smirked. Erin smiled and nodded.
"Thirty seconds should be okay. During the night, no matter who it is, people tend to get sleepy when they have nothing to do but watch an empty land. Some of them will likely really leave their post, even if it's only for a few minutes. Additionally, the area around the watchtowers are not really patrolled anyway and there's only one person at the top. I don't think we will take too much risk," Erin said and everyone agreed.
Four hours later, the night had fallen and the squad had actually waited two additional hours to make sure most of them were sleeping or snoozing away.
Arimane climbed to the top of the hill and lied down there with his rifle. As expected, Tieria was beside him to act as his spotter. Meanwhile, the rest of the squad sneakily advanced toward the enemy base.
"First one; 30° to the north, 3450 meters," Tieria informed Arimane and he pointed his rifle at the target. He had also put a huge silencer on the muzzle. "Wind speed: 7 mph. Target's elevation: Nil, you are at the same level."
Arimane adjusted the settings of his scope and put his hand above the barrel to move it slowly and carefully. At this distance, he couldn't afford himself to be off by even a millimeter. After ten seconds, he breathed in and out and held his breath.
He put his finger on the trigger and pressed on it ten seconds later and a blue light escaped the barrel with minimal noise. The recoil caused the biped to be buried in the ground but Arimane almost didn't make any movement.
"Next," he whispered and pulled the bolt of the rifle. When the empty cartridge touched the ground, the reinforced glass of the watchtower was pierced and the head of the man in it exploded. The glass didn't make any sound as it just melted because of the heat of the bullet.
Tieria's eyes widened as she looked through her binoculars and Jin, who had stayed behind with them, whistled. He had actually gone for the headshot.
Arimane exhaled and waited for the next instructions. He had just killed someone, and although he felt it now, the burden of having blood on your hands, he easily could endure it.
‘Should I be happy that my first target was a criminal?’ He thought and smiled wryly.
Tieria shook her head to clear her mind and looked at the next objective. "+20°, 3600 meters, same wind and elevation," she said after a few seconds.
Arimane nodded and shot a second time after twenty seconds. Meanwhile, the squad was approaching the town and only arrived when Arimane killed the last one of the three watchmen that could spot them.
Moria smiled and sneaked inside with the squad. They separated into two groups, each led by Moria and Erin respectively. Arimane looked through his scope one last time then put the rifle in the case. Since the squad had already entered, he didn't need to continue taking out the watchmen.
"Let's go then," he stood up and said. Tieria and Jin looked at each other before following him down the hill.
Arimane couldn't help his squad from where he was, he could only allow them to enter without being spotted. He needed to go there now.
As they were running to join their squad inside the town, Jin suddenly stopped and looked at a small screen on his wrist. Jin was basically the technician of the group and he was also responsible to set up the drone which would probe the enemy's position.
When that drone in question finished scanning the terrorist base, it placed itself above the area to observe the movements while sending the information to Jin. At first, he only looked through the surface data and sent it to Moria and Erin.
But he had suddenly stopped running because he saw something in the drone's feedback. Arimane and Tieria looked at him in confusion.
"Shit, that wasn't in the plan!" Jin shouted then started running again. "Quick! We need to reach that freaking settlement within five minutes!"
Arimane and Tieria didn't discuss and instantly began to run. They started sprinting and all reached thirty miles per hour.
"What is happening?" Arimane then asked.
"My drone spotted five helicopters coming toward us! They're not Eion propelled, but they're armed enough to bombard this entire place!" He explained while sending the information to the entire squad. "Furthermore, those choppers don't have any official registration number. They're most likely are on the terrorists' side."
Arimane and Tieria were stunned as they suddenly started hearing the sound of the pales. They looked behind and spotted the choppers far away.
"Tch, five minutes was too optimistic, huh?" Jin muttered. "Sir Moria should soon be sending a call for help to our pilots. But they will most likely be too late."
Aerial vehicles, especially military ones, possessed great detection systems. That's why; "They are already pointing their weapons at us!" Jin shouted.
Arimane gritted his teeth and slowed down a bit until he was behind his two comrades. They were not that far from the town's barricades. He put the rifle's case on his back and inhaled.
He kicked the ground very strongly, to the point it dug the soil under his foot. He accelerated and grabbed both Tieria and Jin when he passed by them.
He increased his speed to the maximum and started sprinting at a staggering forty-five miles per hour.
"What!?" Jin and Tieria shouted when they realized what was happening to them.
At the same time, the machine gun of one chopper fired and touched the area behind Arimane as the AI didn't expect a sudden rise in speed like this one. Even the men in the helicopters couldn't believe their eyes. On top of that, Arima seemed to be slowly getting faster, already reaching fifty miles per hour.
His muscles were actually heating up and going over their limits. Something that shouldn't be possible for a regular human.
In the end, he made it in time and threw his two companions over the wall encompassing the town before jumping as well. Just after that, the aim of the machine gun was corrected and the wall was then scribbled with bullet holes. Fortunately, it wasn't Eion but standard physical bullets.
Arima was panting violently as he pressed his hand on his chest. He sat down but it looked as if he had tripped. At the same time, an alarm resounded throughout the entire base and jolted awake everyone.
Moria clicked his tongue while he was cutting the throat of someone and warned his group to disguise and scatter. The same order was issued by Erin.
Arimane rested and listened to the choppers while Tieria and Jin stared at him with an incredulous expression. He ascertained the choppers' relative position before running toward the closest watchtower. Jin and Tieria quickly followed him.
He opened the door of the tower and started jumping to climb it instead of using the circular staircase. When he arrived at the top, he saw one of the men he had killed and his headless body. His expression twitched and he gulped. He shook his head and opened his case.
He took out his rifle but assembled it differently this time. He took out a special bullet from a pouch and loaded it in the chamber. He pointed his rifle at the helicopter that fired at him and pressed the trigger.
Without the silencer, the noise resounded strongly and the bullet left the barrel. It reached the chopper in less than a second and created a huge hole in the front glass as the pilot died. The bullet was still intact though. After going through the pilot's corpse, it dropped on the ground before making a beeping sound.
The men in the chopper were too focused on gaining back the control of the chopper that they failed to react.
Jin and Tieria arrived to the top of the tower just in time to witness one of the choppers exploding and taking two others with it to the grave. The remaining two were struck by the shockwave and flew away in panic.