Six cars. Twenty-four Reyes heavies. They surrounded the front of the building. Poly-carbonate armour here. Combat grade surgical upgrades there. Each gangster armed and loaded with a murderous set to their eyes. Connor stood in the shadows of the building, hyperventilating and quaking in turns. Allan fumbled with the stolen gear behind him, opening boxes and loading empty magazines with ammunition.

“Fuck. Fuck,” muttered the vet, voice and hands shaking. “We’re dead. We’re bloody dead.”

“Quiet,” hissed Conor. “I’ll deal with them. Just get ready to support me if things go down.”

Allan groaned. “Fancy abilities or not, Boy, you’re going to die, too. We should never have taken these fucking guns…. I should never have let you convince me this was a good idea. Your ego and arrogance are going to get me killed…”

“Focus!” snapped Connor. “It’s done. These are the consequences. How long do you need?”

“A couple of minutes. Stay alive for a couple of minutes.”

Connor turned back to the Reyes. “Okay.” He gripped his hands together, willing them to not betray his rattled nerves. “I can do this,” he told himself.

A scarred, bald headed man strode to the front of the pack. Tattoos covered his face, neck and hands. He had the look of a career criminal – a man who had long been tempered by the violent acts he had seen and committed. He gave his stolen truck a glance before addressing the area. “We have you rat-fucks surrounded. Come out quietly and you’ll be given a quick death. Fuck us around and we’ll torture everyone you’ve ever cared about. You have three seconds.”

Connor sighed out the breath he had been unconsciously holding.

“I’m coming! Don’t shoot!”

He raised his hands and walked out from the shadows of the entrance. The gangsters murmured and adjusted their aim to cover him. Were they surprised to see him?

The leader looked Connor up and down, nodding his head. “They was right… What the fuck are you?”

“I’m a… Paladin. I’m Paladin,” said Conor, unsure of what to say.

The leader’s eyes narrowed sceptically. “Paladin… You with someone Paladin? Who else is back there?”

“I’m alone,” replied Connor.

“Bullshit!” snapped the Reye. “Who do you work for? What clique do you represent?”

Connor shook his head. “I told you, I’m alone. I don’t work for anyone.”

The leader sneered back at him. He didn’t believe Connor for a second. “Okay. Okay. How’d you find out about our shipment?”

“I can’t say” said Connor. He glanced over his shoulder. Was Allan ready yet? He felt like his time was almost up.

“I can’t say,” echoed the gangster. “Do you want to die, motherfucker?!” he shouted, his composure cracking. “Because I will put a bullet through that ugly head of yours if you don’t talk right fucking now!”

“You’ve already threatened me with death…” Connor stretched and coiled the tendrils, ready to strike. “I’ve got a question, too. How’d you find me so quick?”

The Reye pointed to the truck. “G.P.S, you fucking idiot. It’s our truck. You didn’t think we’d check as soon as we knew it was stolen? We knew where to find you as soon as you stopped!”

“Oh…” replied Connor. It was a relief to know that hiding the truck wouldn’t have helped. “Damn.”

Some of the younger Reyes laughed. The rest kept him in their sights, a complete lack of human emotion in their killer’s eyes.

Connor slowly shifted his stance, preparing to launch himself into the fray. He had one last question. “And the A.R.C? You guys buddies, or what?”

The leader laughed and rubbed his jaw. “You’re a funny guy. Asking questions to me like you’re in control. You almost look like one of them spooks, too.”

Flashes of skeletal faces swam into his mind, mingled with feelings of terror and pain. “So, you work for them? Yes or no?” asked Connor, his anger rising.

“It’s a mutually beneficial partnership,” said the Reye with a smile. “They give us drugs and guns. We destabilize the local government. Not that it will be any use to you when you’re dead…”

“Yo! He’s shaking!” laughed a gangster from the fringe.

Connor was. A red rage was boiling within. His fingers curled into claws.

“He’s going to piss himself!”

More laughter. The rage flashed hotter.

Connor pulled himself up to his full height. The tendrils in his arms trembled as he coiled them ready to fire, rattling the bone tips against the ports of his armour. His hand inched for the sword at his back, eager for bloodshed. Connor paused, forcing himself to stop before his anger took over completely. “You’ve got three seconds to get back in your cars and fuck off!” he growled through his clenched jaw.

The leader looked back. “We got a real badass here!”

The Reyes broke into raucous laughter.

“Motherfucker with a sword is threatening us!”

“It’s Ghetto Zoro!”

Connor shook his head, unsettled that they found him so unthreatening.

A familiar voice cut through the laughter. “Hey! Hey! I know this guy!” A tall, dark skinned man pushed to the front of the group. “I went to school with him back in the day. He was a real pussy back then. He’s totally full of shit. He was a dork who loved to play video games. Looks like he hasn’t changed.”

Connor felt as though he had been slapped. He was taller and had filled out a lot, losing the boyish looks Connor remembered. “Joshua? What are you doing with these assholes?”

Joshua ignored him. Instead he lowered his weapon and slouched against a car, unperturbed by their unexpected reunion.

The Reye leader gave Joshua a quizzical glance. “You and me need to talk later. This going to bother you?”

Joshua shook his head. “Smoke him. He was dead to me years ago…”

The Reye turned back to Connor. “Alright.” He raised a hand.

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Adrenaline surged through his blood, heightening his response time and super charging his adapted muscles. He leapt forward, flying into the air with a single bound. Thunder boomed behind him as Allan unleashed a barrage of mini-ex. The tableau seemed frozen in time in that split second before the min-ex discharged, the gangster’s cold determination replaced with surprise. Then there was carnage, as steel tore and bodies exploded in a bloody mess. Connor dropped his shoulder and checked the leader into a spinning tangle of limp limbs, his broken body coming to a stop against the side of an idling sedan. Connor’s feet touched the ground and he pounced toward the centre of the group, his hand unsheathing the sword in a single motion.

He struck with his tendrils in mid-air, piercing two men with the sharpened bone tips and injecting them with a paralysing agent. Connor hit the ground and swatted at another’s gun, smashing the weapon from his grip and followed up with a backstroke with the blunt edge to his jaw.

An augmented brute charged at Connor, striking at his head and chest with arms of modified steel. He stumbled backwards, dropping his sword, his armour cracked and bleeding. The thug caught Connor around the waist and tackled him to the ground, crushing his chest with a vice-like grip. Gasping and struggling to breath, Connor wrestled an arm free and struck at the gangsters back repeatedly with the sharp point of his stinger. The Reye convulsed as the toxins spread, his augmented arms spasming through the confusing signals. Connor heaved the twitching gangster off him and wiped the blood from his visor.

Bullets flew from Allan’s defensive position within the building, forcing the Reyes to fall back and splitting their focus. Connor got to his feet and sought his weapon. He lassoed it with a tendril and leapt into action, hacking at weapons as his armoured fists struck and tendrils darted to and fro, piercing armoured flesh or wrapping bodies. Seething anger guided him, propelling him through the growing list of unconscious bodies toward his target. His armour leaked blood from dozens of rents and shattered sections. Connor pushed aside the pain; pushed aside his emotions and rational thoughts. He howled. He screamed. A burning desire to live took him from enemy to enemy, allowing him to hurt these people without little thought or regret.

Connor ripped his sword from the arm of a hulking, augmented thug, spilling hydraulic fluid and machine parts across the broken concrete. He planted a kick in the Reye’s thick belly. The man dropped, sucking short bursts of air through a bleeding mouth. A bullet ricocheted off Connor’s head, rattling his brain. He crouched and sought the attacker. Joshua stood several metres away, his hands clutching a smoking gun. Their eyes met.

“You…”

He charged, blade whirling overhead. Joshua cried out in fear and squeezed the trigger, unleashing a volley of rounds, slowing Connor’s mad assault. Connor batted Joshua’s compact aside and hefted back a fist to strike. He caught the glint of a triumphant smile on Joshua’s face.

He woke moments later, face to the sky, his body in massive shock and unable to move. From his position he could see he was behind a car. The firefight wore on as explosions boomed and machine guns roared to his right. With a mental examination he discovered he had been shot in the back. His bone armour had been rent apart and the muscle beneath shredded. Connor felt like nodding.

“Mini-ex. I knew I couldn’t last…” he said, dribbling blood into his helmet.

He heard footsteps.

“Motherfucker is still alive. I hear him talking,” said a kid.

“I’ve got this,” he heard Joshua say. “You alright with that thing?”

“Yeah… Damn near broke my wrist. I’m good though, bro.”

Joshua came into his field of vision. He lent over Connor; his face lined with disgust. He held a combat knife in one hand, poised to strike at a crack in Connor’s chest. His eyes roamed up and down the alien body before him. “What the fuck man? Is that really you, Hill?”

“Yep,” wheezed Connor.

Joshua nodded. “They told us you died. When I heard you speaking…? It took me a second, you know?”

“No. I don’t.”

Joshua grunted. “I genuinely mourned you. Back in high school. First Henk. And then you…”

“You going to kill him or what?” asked the kid. “Shit is still going down.”

“Give me a second. I need to say a few words,” snapped Joshua. He turned back to Connor. “Why’d you come back? Why do this to me, man? These people are my family.”

His healing ability had done enough for him to shake his head a fraction. “I had no idea…”

Joshua lunged, scrapping the knife along Connor’s chest. “I had nowhere else to turn to! I couldn’t cope after you guys died within a week of each other. My grades dropped. Drugs and alcohol seemed like the only answer…” He looked away as the memories of his past haunted him. “There’s fuck all out there for kids with no degree or high school diploma. These boys… My boys,” he said pointing at the fallen gangsters. “They gave me a job. They gave me security. And you’ve fucked it up for me! Again!”

Connor wiggled his fingers as the feeling returned to his hands. “What do you want me to say? I had no idea you were involved with this crowd.”

Joshua leaned closer. “You’ve ruined my life. Twice. You’ve killed my friends. My real friends. I regret ever knowing you.”

Connor nodded, unable to say anything. The Reye who had shot him stood by his feet aiming a large, Pro-Human sized hand-cannon at him. “Is that new?” he blurted.

“Yeah. Got it from one of our suppliers for cheap. Came with a clip of mini-ex already loaded,” crowed the kid, turning the gun sideways to show it off. “It’s the real deal.”

“How much did you pay?” asked Connor sitting up slightly.

“Three grand.”

“Fucking bitch,” muttered Connor, taking a deep breath.

“Wha…”

He hit the kid with a poison dart to the neck. The boy stumbled backwards, eyes rolling up into his skull. Joshua drove the combat knife at Connor’s chest. He parried the tip of the blade with his forearm then swung an uppercut at his former friend’s jaw. Joshua’s head snapped back. Connor rolled to his feet, cautiously testing his back. Though his armour was broken and missing whole segments, his body had healed enough to continue the fight. Connor scooped up the fallen .50 and his sword. Joshua twitched and groaned at his feet, still dazed from the punch.

“Wait here.”

Half a dozen Reyes remained, pinned behind their vehicles from Allan’s slow yet deliberate fire from the building. Connor strode behind them, his heavy boots crunching on the uneven concrete and bullet casings. He aimed the gun at the back of one man crouching behind the wreckage of a bullet-soaked car, the Reye’s attention drawn to the muzzle flashes within the building across the lot. Connor’s hand seemed to weigh a tonne, each finger a slab of rigid stone.

“This isn’t me…” he sighed.

Connor tossed the weapon at his feet and sheathed the sword on his back. Enough people had died today. He took a deep breath and pointed both wrists at the men in front of him. He dropped the first two with a laced dart to the back. Connor hopped on top of the car and dove at the others, lashing out with his tendrils. They fell, choked, paralysed or stunned by his fists. The gunfire fell silent across the lot, broken by the rasped breathing and groans of the injured.

Allan emerged from a window, auto-cannon in hand. Blood and grime caked his face and chest. Connor waved. The vet nodded back.

“Cops will be on the way!” he shouted.

“Yeah…”

“We better haul ass.”

Connor looked to the sky, imagining a gunship to be overhead at any moment. “Yeah.”

Allan’s smile slipped. He raised his auto-cannon and sighted down the barrel. Connor turned to see Joshua running away.

“No!”

The crack of a 50 and Joshua’s upper body disappeared in a red cloud.

Connor faced Allan. The anger he had fostered melted away into shame. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“He was getting away,” said the vet.

Connor shook his head. “He was my friend.”

Allan grunted. “Some fucking friend.”

It was too much. He was responsible for the death of both of his friends. And now his actions had delivered a stack of weapons into Boise. Who else would die from his actions?

“I’m done with this.”

“What?” asked Allan.

Connor swept his hands around him. “I thought it was a good idea to help you out. I felt obliged after all. You had helped me survive. But what have we done? What good can come from this?”

“Dead gangsters, that’s what. Less drugs on the street. Less fear. More law,” replied Allan. “It’s time these foreigners learnt to respect us.”

Connor felt a shiver of disgust roll through him. “Consider my debt paid.” He had to leave before he throttled the vet’s neck. Connor stalked away.

“Where are you going?” asked Allan.

“To find my family.”

“I need your help! We’ve got guns to move! The cops…”

Connor ignored Allan. He jumped in an idling car with only a broken side window and a minor smattering of blood, threw it in reverse, pulled a swinging turn and slammed it into gear, leaving the warzone behind him.