>> Trouble

My insides go cold as the tiny drones fizzle. "Zip...." I turn on the spot. Taking in the crowds. The mad chaos. The ships over head. "What the Hell...." I breathe. "He's just.... Just gone.... Hey! Zip! Polybius....? You guys alright?"

What the heck is happening over there?

"Calling Overwatch. Come in, Overwatch...." Kami taps her gauntlet, under the cloak. Her eyes widening. "Shit. He better not be bloody screwing with us....."

"No. He bloody loves those drones." I growl. "He’d never smash em for a prank. Which means...."

We both feel it. The tang in the air. The shiver up the spine.

Something’s going on….

My eyes narrow as we glance around. Trying for casual.

We got the two guys still arguing over that broken mek robot. A kid trying to nick our drones, even as Demon fends em off. And….

That fox...

....that fox at the Ramen Bar.....

.....is staring at us.

Left heel hooked up on his stool. Claws tapping counter. Tail swishing. I swallow, not letting my eyes fix on him - but noting the other Pirates nearby. The armoured stalls, loaded with 'fresh' booster parts. The jacked up bouncers watching the mek. Cyborgs, GMOs, and Gone Wrongs with cockroach bodies and too many legs....

Any could be an ambush. Any-

Snap.

One instant, the square is bright with rigs and lamps and blazing signs that paint the night. The next? Everything flickers, and the whole thing goes dark. I jump as a sign goes bang! Erupting in a massive fountain of sparks that rush and skitter. Holos go dead. Neon LEDs stuttering to nothing as DIY junction boxes self-destruct in spectacular style.

Every machine. Every bike. Every light. Everything that ain't shielded or attached to us dying with the force of some unseen attack. Ships and jetBikes juttering in mid-air as power fails - dropping em onto buildings, burger-carts, and each-other. Barely slowed by the dregs of emergency power, as everything goes dark.

Leaving only the faint glow of originTek, colouring the windows.

Before the first spark hits the ground, I'm in behind a parked truck that's dying where it stands. Demon flickers off to the side. Kami ripping away her cloak - glassy ‘eyes’, with golden hearts, glimmering against blue-black armour. Slick against her skin. Ripping pistol after pistol from her belt and bandoleer.

As the final light dies, my implants slowly stop jittering. Bionic eyes clicking as they adjust to the dark.

Beside me, The GMO fox slips off his stool - into a liquid crouch over clawed feet. Sniffing the air. Tail flicking.

Is he the ambush….?

We lock eyes - and his flicker. Bright with vivid orange light.

My hand slips behind me - bladed fingers tightening on the thing that’s been butting my back all night.

For a second, we’re still. Me and Mr Fox. Staring each-other down. Him crouched - head tilted, ears sharp.

Me, much the same….

And then the guy blurs, and so do I. Hardened plastic gleaming as I swing up the modified SMG into play - quad barrels, ready to rock. Ready to shred.

He’s in mid-air when the tiny threads of wiring activate in my palm - connecting the gun to my implant. Instantly, an ammo readout unfolds in mid-air. Virtual crosshairs swinging across the street, targeting-

The guy grabs the shutters of his noodle bar with brassy red claws, and hammers them down.

Locking off the darkened shop.

Like that’s the cue - every other Pirate slams their doors, bolts shutters, or scrams. Shutting us out in the dark.

Mere seconds later, we’re all alone on the rain-streaked street - with even the eternal hum of the City’s machines shut off.

Rain. That's all I hear. Rain, and wind, and the beating of my heart. My breath. And Demon - a low, predatory, shape prowling across the square.

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My ears flick flat back against my helmet, and I turn a circle. Tail bristled. Pulse racing as I feel the shadows begin to slither and churn in every alley….. Imagination? Madness? A whisper of movement behind me, and I swing at empty air.

“It’s me, you fuzzy idiot.” Kami hisses as invisible hands knock aside my gun. “Didn’t you hear my comms?”

“Shit, no.” I growl. “Can’t see ya, neither.” I tap my implant. "Shit! You ain't showin' up. Comms are dead. Everyone's offline..... Even Pol." Not that the Machine Mind would do us much good....

Air warps as light itself unbends, and Kami’s image erupts from nothing. For a split second, golden rings of light orbit the strange ‘eyes’ embedded in her armour - and then they burst. Flickering dark. “Or hear me.” She hisses, gaunt-faced and grinning. “Not even when I was right bloody behind you.”

“Yeah, I did. Hence the turn.” I smirk, but it doesn’t last. Not with our signals blocked. Not as the winds roar up behind us, funnelled by the shops. Hemming me in to the back of that van - which doesn’t feel safe at all.

Kami’s stealth-cells burn bright gold - rupturing into dots of brilliance that blur into rings. She vanishes, suddenly - shrinking to a vertical line, and winking out. But no signal means no handy blue outline to mark her out. No dots on the map for my team….

I feel very alone.

And, from every corner, the shadows push inward, real or not. Boiling across the square. Pouring toward the centre.

And me.

Stealth-field. Gotta be. Or is it?

I back away fast.

Nanotek cloud or or originTek? Or monster spores….?

Whatever it is, I ain’t dying to find out. So as it’s pouring together, I slip my way out. Edging for one of the less-dark alleys, and poking my gun round the corner to see by its inbuilt camera….

But the dark rises. Shining, and evil, and almost happy to see me….

Writhing and gnashing its teeth with glee.

Claw meets trigger, and my gun explodes with fury. With daggers of flame that roar from vents along the sides of the barrel. Spitting out swarms of rocket-powered death that whistle and shriek down the alley.

The bullets are tiny. Only 22 calibre.

But they arrive as a freaking wall - smashing the bins apart. Crates rupture or crack. Brick flayed from walls as the doors at the end dent inward - tiny craters blooming in their surface. In 2.75 seconds, I hose the entire alley from side to side. Dumping twenty bullets per second, per barrel. The ticker slamming from 220 to absolute zero in three panicked breaths, or less. The magazine clicks, shunting outward - then dropping. I slam in a second, and the gears grab it. Locking all four outputs to the staggered intakes of the gun.

And silence.

Shadowed fronds of Dark twist through twisted trails of smoke. The stink of burnt propellent heavy on the air. Thick as silk. Rocket-holes sizzling as they sputter out. Suspicious - I grab the breather from my belt, and shove it on. Locking it in place, under my visor.

Now all I smell is rubber.

I take a slight step on my pad - claws ticking brick. So loud in the sudden silence. I step again. Slick light gleaming on slick armour as I hunt for my foe - trusting Kami to stick on m back. Nothing moves. Nothing but dark. I lick my fangs, tasting the breather. A hesitant moment, and I slot a second - fat - stick of bullets onto the butt of the first. It locks in place, with a whir - doubling my ammo count to 440. Makes my aim a little heavy, but first thing I see is getting-

The dark wells, and I blur backward.

But a foul and slippery laugh twists up on the wind. A laugh I remember - barking and harsh. From before we escaped. A laugh that ends lives. A laugh that haunted my dreams, on a cold concrete floor. In a 'bed' marked out by thick painted lines…..

“You.” I hiss. And a thing of darkness, cut from neon shadow, rises across the shuttered grill of a shop. Deathly tall. Spindly as bone. Eerily familiar - but utterly faceless. Just a grin like a circular saw, as it whispers back into nothingness.

I run.

But the monster - the memory - is everywhere, and ever-laughing.

In every window. Under every door.

Hideously tall, and wickedly thin in that long brown coat - bloodied inside, and shot full of holes. A snap of long fingers, and Kami flashes back into sight. Haunted in eye, and stilling of heart. My mind flicking back. Right back. Right to girl who hides her face with too many hands....

Together, we back down the street. "Which way?" She breathes. "Back-?"

My mind flashes with images of falling. "No."

"Forward? Toward the core?"

We turn that way - but, somehow, the monster is there as well. Propped against a lamppost. Smoke spilling from every fold of that leather-lined coat. Long fingers click, and the light flickers on. Dim, and yellow. Illuminating nothing. But it carves that figure deeper into the world, as if every second burns a hole through reality. Into the void. Into endless, primordial, unbreakable ink. Deeper than any dark around it.....

It bows, swooping a shadow of a feathered hat from its head head. Wide brimmed, Gothic. Set with a flare of tiny brass roses - transfixing a skull. Like some prop from a carnival of the dead.

There is no face beneath it. No head.

Demon leaps high and fast - from nowhere at all. Blond hair flying free of his hood to whip and snap in the wind. Golden claws glimmering - little points of light on hands and toes. He strikes with all at once. A snarl saws his throat, like chains crushing bone. And I scream - silently, and deep inside - because I know.

It's a suicide mission. He's throwing himself forward in the hope we escape.

But The Nightmare is gone, just as quick.

Just dark on the wind, and laughter. Raw, and wild....

"What the Hell is going on!?" I hiss as Demon lands in a feral crouch beside us - guttural and furious. That kitsune mask flicking around - and up - as he hunts for a target. I step toward the Hub, and there it is. So casual. So sudden. So thin it's unreal. Just stood in our way, gloves in pockets, like it's waiting....

Demon steps forward - less certain. But Kami grabs him, and drags him away.

But that wide brim tilts toward us, and from the depths of ink beneath.... slips a grin like a circular saw. A smile built of knives. Literal knives. Splitting the right side of that eyeless nothingness it calls a face - far too wide to be real.

Then, out of the other….

Floating up, like corpses from water….

Comes a darkly burnished gleam. A shining crescent of silver skull that locks to the left side of its face - like the stolen death-mask of a storybook moon.

Grinning with cold, black, amusement.

“Well, hello again, boys and girls…..” It whispers in a voice of sweetened, silky, poison.

Demon grabs my arm in a maddened panic, dragging me into a run. Hurling me directly toward that hideous - gaping - maw in the side of the megaTower. That hole were all the ships come in.

The brink.

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