_ _ _Hiiro

Today was the day. Celio's final campaign ploy to claim another chunk of the world, financed with blood money, war profiteering and generational exploitation of the unlucky bastards born anywhere near him. I knew that he'd done some good amidst all that bad, but the sight of the cheering crowd sprawled across the plaza below me was sickening. They were worshiping a man who was using them as human shields so he could overthrow their government. Maybe it deserved to be toppled, maybe it didn't. All I knew was that Celio wasn't going to be any less of a plutocratic prick when he came into power.

"Do you think they'll show?" Rock asked, lazily aiming his sniper at the stony stage Celio was summiting.

"Who knows." Lacy answered from a perch much the same. "Too scared to take the shot if they don't?"

Both snipers were buried in blankets of garbage atop raised tables so their weapons could be level with the arrow slit windows facing out into the plaza. It seemed odd that they weren't just sticking their rifles out the windows but I didn't care enough to question it. The three of us were hiding in the attic of an old townhouse squatting on the plaza's southwestern-most corner. The view was pretty good but it would have been better from the church roof next door. Again, it struck me as odd but I didn't question it. I wasn't here to plan or think or understand the bigger picture. I'd been stuck with the sniper team to keep me out of the way. I was almost grateful that Leeroy had been so considerate. Almost.

"I don't really care for G-PLiD rounds." Rock said. "And no, not scared, I'm more bored than anything. It's not very sporting to hunt a man who's in on it."

"I can take the shot and you can do counter-sniper." Lacy offered, shifting her aim slightly.

"You don't trust me to take out Cee, but you want me watching your back? That's some backwards logic."

"Alright, fine. Just don't miiissss." Lacy teased, adjusting her aim elsewhere.

"Static target at nineteen hundred meters, wind just under five meters per second. I could hit that without a brace from sitting without breaking a sweat. Locked on from prone on a nice comfy firing mat? That's almost too easy."

"I could do from standing." Lacy countered.

"I could do it shooting left-handed on the move." Rock boasted.

"I could make that shot with my big toe lying on my back." Lacy bragged.

"Botshit."

"Yeah… probably. Wanna put some money on it though?"

"Maybe later, if we don't get any company."

While the two snipers bantered, I kept an eye on the crowd below. The plaza was massive, utterly packed with people coming from kilometers around for a glimpse of 'the savior' with more spectators pouring in every minute. Something about the general mood reminded me more of a concert about to take place than a political rally. Everyone down there was excited, they all thought they were about to witness history in the making. They might be, but I knew it was all a sham. Things wouldn't get better, they were all fools for thinking that Celio would be any different from whatever petty dictator he was replacing.

I kept scanning the crowd and like a magnet turning south I always found my attention drawn to her. I never wanted to see her again, but I couldn't stop myself from stealing glances at her from a distance. Bim was barely a speck a kilometer and a half across the plaza and somehow I always picked her out of those crowding the aid station. Impossible as it was to see, I knew she kept looking across the plaza to me too.

A fresh wave of vindictive hatred crashed over me. What right did she have to act like this wasn't all her fault?! I'd poured my heart out for her and she'd crushed it out of hand while saying she still cared about me. It made no sense! I couldn't even wrap my head around how completely insane it was.

She'd acted like this was the better option. Like being alone was somehow better than being loved. Being miserable was better in the long run than being truly happy. Like knowing where we stood was worse than being stuck with all these unanswered questions. She'd said she knew more about people know and somehow that was what she'd taken away? That somehow ripping my heart out was for my own good.

That fucking bitch didn't know the first thing about being human.

So why couldn't I get her out of my head? Why couldn't I stop seeing her and her alone every time I searched a crowd of tens of thousands? There had to be millions of good decent women out there, so why was she the only one who stirred something in me? Why did it feel like she was twisting a knife in my soul every time I thought about what we could have had together? It made no sense!

The crowd cheered when Celio started speaking. I couldn't make out a single word he said over the drowning roar of those idolizing him. It was probably some lie about how he and only he could make things better for everything, if only they all gave him enough blind devotion. Thousands of people enraptured by the words of one man while I was sinking in misery. It made no sense, I couldn't understand the first thing about this alien world I'd found myself dropped on. Why should anyone be happy? It was like everyone else was in a joke that no one would repeat for me.

"All units, prepare to bug out. We've got massive enemy movement inbound on our location. ETA two-zero mikes." Leeroy said over the general radio before switching over to his private line to the sniper team. "Rock, take your shot in sixty seconds. Sign from Client is both fists raised overhead."

"Good copy, ready and waiting." Rock answered dispassionately.

"No change in MET. Conditions negligible. Fire as planned." Lacy reported.

"Yeah yeah… Not very sporting at all. Just bad manners really."

The crowd kept on cheering. They were blind. All they saw was the smokescreen thrown up in front of them as the seconds counted down. Tens of thousands of people would be convinced they had a choice and it was all an illusion. That they had witnessed history when all they'd seen were lies.

My eyes wandered across the crowd back to the aid station— back to Bim. What was she seeing right now? Hundreds of people who received little more than token assistance that would inevitably get blown out of proportion. They would say Celio had healed the sick and made the blind see, all because he'd bought a few tons of antibiotics and glasses and had someone else administer them.

Impossible though it was, I knew Bim was looking up at me and probably wondering something similar. How differently did we view the world? What had we each meant behind all those words? What had been lost in translation to make things go so wrong? I couldn't bear to look at the tiny speck of her across the plaza.

I tore my eyes away just in time to see a cartoonish spray of ruby explode from Celio's chest. Even at this distance I could see it for the sham it was, too much blood blooming out in all the wrong ways. Celio toppled onto his ass, knocked over by the shot's impact instead of toppled over on limp dead legs. My painter's eye was repulsed. It was all wrong.

The massed crowd evidently had less discerning eyes. There was a stunned pause as thousands of cheers fell silent as one. The mercs closest to Celio rushed to 'rescue' him and return fire on an empty building much closer to their stage. Then people started screaming.

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All cohesion left the crowd in a instant. At this distance, any details were more like suggestions. Even the mercs in their hulking armored warsuits were no bigger than ants fending off the fleas surrounding them. People fled in blind animal panic. Some rushed the stage, maybe to go and help their fallen savior or perhaps just looking to collect some relics from their new martyr. It was like watching sand slide from an hourglass in a dozen different directions.

All those human lives could have been grains of sand slipping through the cracks of Celio's grasping fist. They were nothing to him, inconsequential so long as they put him on the throne.

"All teams," Leeroy announced. "We have the Client in tow and are moving for ground extraction now. Give us five minutes, then proceed as planned."

Leeroy and all his damned plans. When the mercs finally pulled their number and went to hell, I knew there'd be a plan drawn for every step of the way. The plan called for the sniper team, and by extension me, to lie low for a few minutes and wait for an opportune moment to exfiltrate on foot. It was a damned wordy way to say shoot, hide, run away.

I kept watch, my eyes drawn towards the aid station across the way. The crowd was crashing into mercs providing security there. It reminded me of the way the ocean waves crashed against the rocky crags near Celio's late home, each flooding wave breaking on the implacable stone.

I spotted Bim walking away with an escort. Even at this distance, there was no mistaking Treu for any other person in the crowd of seething thousands. Bim was leaving? That wasn't the plan, she was supposed to stay with the rest of humanitarian team until they all pulled out.

"Leeroy, please advise on your status. We've got dismounted infantry coming in from the east."

"Supplement to last. I'm seeing incoming ground forces from the north too."

"All Shadow, hold fast." Leeroy ordered. "VIP extraction is blocked to the west. Proceeding to secondary route."

"The entire damned army is coming." "They're closing in from all sides. We're encircled!" "It's worse than that, their already here! Contact! East side." "Shit! How big an envelope did they start with?"

I could see more than most from my vantage point. I could follow the comm chatter by the sounds of distant gunfire and the reactions of fleeing civilians. A branch of the crowd would try to escape down a wide street, hundreds or even thousands pressing into the bottleneck only to be pushed back into the plaza by a brick of police marching in lockstep. The enemy was done playing around. They would have Celio or his corpse, whatever the cost.

"Ghost, get me tactical!" "We need to get off the street. Move it!" "Doesn't matter, find a gap and punch through." "There's too many, it's like a wall of assholes!" "Bastion! Bastion! Bastion! Fall back now!" "Ordinance pod Terminus to my location."

Treu had called in that last one. I peered around where I'd seen him and Bim last but couldn't find either.

The mercs were busting out heavy weapons, I saw armored demigods appearing on the plaza's edges scurrying to prepare what defenses they could. A knot of steel was pushing south through the panicked crowd trying to get Celio clear of the closing noose. Rock and Lacy both abandoned their garbage shrouds and started blasting at targets I couldn't see with slow methodical precision.

"Uzux, we need Steel Rain, NOW!" "Dammit! Those are Dante's Own down there!" "Eyes up! Night Witches flanking left. Brace for chemical warfare!" "I've got a battalion of infantry supported by Steelheart Irregulars coming in. Bearing one-niner-fife-zero." "This is a real who's who of Mercs, ain't it?" "Hold fast lads! They're saying the same things about us!"

Leeroy would have planned for this. One gun wouldn't make a difference, not that I was planning on fighting for him anyway. I had no stakes in this game other than getting out alive, but Bim was out there, alone with Treu of all people in what was about to be a bloodbath. I shouldn't care. She'd made her choices. The pending battle probably didn't even pose any real danger to her. She wasn't human… but if she was backed into a corner? If someone thought the torc around her throat would make a nice piece of loot? If she slipped the leash again?

Even if she wasn't my Bim I never wanted to see that again. Even if it was stupid to try, I had to protect her from herself. Bim had made her choice and damn it if I wasn't making mine.

Both snipers were too busy to notice me slip away, not that either of them were liable to care. Chances were better than fair they'd be glad to have me gone. I descended to ground level, leaving the relative safety of our building for the utter pandemonium of the plaza. Things had seemed a lot different when viewed from above but I was committed. No backing out now.

The fighting wasn't anywhere near this area yet. The panicked crowd hadn't noticed that. Likely wouldn't notice it until they'd rushed from the plaza into the congested streets and straight into clashing forces. I was fighting against them, moving across the plaza instead of towards the edges. It was like climbing up a waterfall, if I lost my footing for a second they'd drag me down, trample me to a pulp, break my bones and keep on moving without a second's thought. Humans in a panicked mass were no different than any other stupid animal. If I'd been a little taller I might have been able to steer myself towards the ebbs in the tide of humanity. As it was, everyone seemed like they were a half a head taller than me. I was lost in the rush, pressing forward blindly. All I had to guide me through the chaos was the tear in my heart always pointing towards the woman I'd thought was my answer.

A manic elbow connected with my jaw. Stampeding sandals found my feet. The press of writhing flesh jostled my half-healed arm until I thought the splint would snap in two. None of that mattered. I kept pressing forward.

"Where the hell is Sturgeon and his wing?" "Pull those battle maids back, they'll get slaughtered!" "All Shadow, All Shadow! Birds are inbound now. Find a clearing and regroup of aerial extraction." "We can't hold the North perimeter, they're breaking through!" "Buy some time Mercs. Help's almost here!"

I didn't see the stone crag until I'd been shoved into it. It was a little nothing rise of smooth rock, maybe two meters tall. I climbed up and it felt like I was in a whole other place.

It hadn't been that long. I'd left the snipers at most ten minutes ago but my mental map was all wrong. The aid station was gone, mobbed and picked clean. I saw a whole fleet of helicopters flying in from off to the right— I think that was northeast but I'd lost my bearings. I couldn't recognize the plaza. Smoke was already curling from two of the strongpoints and I could tell there wouldn't be any lengthy sieges today. Collateral damage and civilian casualties were just words. A knot of warsuits were suddenly hunkering down at the base of my pulpit.

"Hiiro?" One asked.

"We don't have time for you." Another growled.

"Havoc's right." Leeroy said gruffly. "Hiiro, keep up or get left behind."

"What about Bim?" I asked but the armored warriors were already moving, keeping a crimson dyed Celio sandwiched between them all.

"Treu is taking care of her." Leeroy answered.

Then they were gone, headed towards the plaza's open edge overlooking the sea somewhere behind where I needed to go. Treu was taking care of Bim. Had it been anyone but Leeroy to say those words they might have sounded innocent.

Leeroy and all his damned plans.

I heard thunder in the distance over the white noise of terrorized humanity. I dropped from the rise and kept moving towards Bim. The thunder was a roar now, screaming engines burning hot and wet for seconds of insane power. Somehow, over the deafening engines burning, I heard the shrieks of men and women burning alive in the backwash.

The crowd parted for a split-second and I saw it. The mercs had two shuttles, poised like rockets about to take off, their braking burns incinerating two straight swaths through the crowd. Both shuttles were under fire, bullets splattering off their glowing hulls in little spits of sparks and shards of red-hot metal. All the while, armored demigods where making the five-story jump out the back of both, landing like meteors in the charred grisly lanes cleared for them.

I wanted to shut my eyes and never open them again. To lose myself in the fleeing masses and let animal panic take over. So much pointless death and destruction. All of the innovation and toil that had gone into make those shuttles and armored killers. It was insanity!

It was pure insanity and Treu was going to take care of Bim.

I didn't shut my eyes, didn't run away, didn't let fear command my legs. I ran towards the fire. This was all nothing compared to what Bim would do if she was uncollared in the middle of this warzone. She'd lose herself and lash out, just like last time except there wouldn't be a mountain between me and her. Except this time, Treu would be taking care of her.

Street level was alive with gunfire now. Warriors clashing on both sides and a whole mess of innocent people caught in the middle of it. The sky was roaring, aircraft exploding or shooting or crashing into both sides of the conflict. There was nothing but overwhelming sensation. Stimulus beyond rationale. Violence beyond comprehension.

Reality shuddered in savage delight and the heavens wept in crimson ecstasy. The tearing sensation in my chest exploded into a fatal undertow that would not be denied. I was blacking out… except I could still see. I saw a gash torn from reality a kilometer in the air and something was coming through.

Then I heard Bim scream in a million places at once.