"On it!"
The drone icons in Fii's HUD glowed more prominently among the topographic layout of the slums.
With a flex of will, she inverted her gravitational pull, turning the world topsy-turvy, and 'fell' towards adjacent buildings as if tossed around by unseen hands. The world tilted spectacularly, turning the dizzying fall into a controlled glide that sent her soaring through the air. She twisted in mid-descent, her roller skates carving arcs of silver streaks in the dark as she alternated her trajectory.
While the monotonous sprawl of shanty structures made navigation easier at her height, the relatively dim lighting on the streets below forced her to slow her approach and read the outlines and shapes in order to differentiate her position. Even the night vision afforded by her helmet proved insufficient at making out fine details at long distance. She wasn't going to take a chance in running blind.
Fii swooped down several blocks before the drone icons zoomed in to take a front-and-center view of her visor. At that point she veered slightly south and descended closer to the road.
A sudden burst of gunfire splintered the air near her head. Reacting instantly, Fii altered her gravitational field, propelling herself sideways with a violent jerk that left her assailants shooting at shadows. She twisted in the air, the slums spinning wildly around her as she sought refuge in the vertical maze.
Bullets pinged off the brick walls and balconies around her, raising sprays of dust and spark. A few well-placed strikes into a corroded exhaust duct put a few layers of metal between her and the gunfire.
Landing with a thud on a narrow ledge, she barely paused, her skates propelling her forward again. Within seconds she'd looped around the corner and snatched an attack vector at her shooters' six o'clock. She only spared them a passing glance. She wasn't interested in playing their game.
Bits of debris scattered and swirled around her as she altered her gravity field to deflect the incoming rounds. In return, she rocketed a slab of concrete in the general direction of her shooters. It blew them apart and off their feet. The splash of red on the building behind them painted an appropriately grisly mural.
She kept flying. A flare of pain flickered to life on the outside of her calf. A trickle of blood slid down the synthetic material of her suit. Did she get nicked or was it a ricochet?
No time to look now. Pain can wait.
"I don't know what that is. Explain!"
"Great..." she muttered.
A faraway rumbling disturbed the street, getting progressively louder by the second. Seconds later a clamoring tank-like vehicle emerged from the dust, flanked by several Adrenomancers on foot.
Fii angled toward a building ahead and altered the vector of her gravitational field once again, managing an impromptu somersault and kicking off the opposite wall. After repeating this twice, she landed lightly on top of an adjacent rooftop and kicked off a water tower in an arcing leap toward her enemies.
She zeroed in on the Bradley vehicle and inverted the gravity around it—magnifying the forces tenfold. It rocketed skyward as if shot from a catapult, soaring well beyond her power's effective range.
Meanwhile, she pinned the Adrenomancers left on the ground to each other in a physical clutch of coiled and splayed limbs. Her focus didn't allow for gentle treatment and each shared a bone-snapping collision with one another.
Gazing upward at the rapidly descending vehicle, she jerked the pile of bodies directly below its plummet. The ensuing impact flattened and obliterated everyone underneath. An explosive eruption of wreckage and shrapnel burst in every direction.
When the cloud of dust and smoke settled, Fii didn't even pause to glance at the heap. She landed briefly and cleared the rest of the street in two wide leaps and was airborne again.
Flying felt easier with each repetition. Controlling the forces in her immediate vicinity didn't fatigue her nearly as much as it did before. Even her TFSI value had stabilized and remained constant throughout her excursion.
Instead, focusing her full attention on extending her range further and further became a mental chore.
"Helix, status on Virgil's commlink," she requested between huffing breaths. She dropped between rooftops and skated to a quick stop to recalibrate her bearing. A rickety walkway shuddered in the gust generated from her landing. A nearby billboard swayed.
Fii frowned.
That can't be good.
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Virgil tromped forward in a dead sprint, his coat billowing behind him as his boots slapped against the uneven pavement. A constant barrage of bullets from both sides snarled and raked the ground around him, scarring the shanty houses with pockmarks and plumes of splinters and debris.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
In a series of twists and flips, Virgil slalomed between the crossfire and managed to duck into the relative safety of a small cul-de-sac. Before his boots had a chance to touch the ground, he stopped on a dime and fanned the hammer of his revolver to fire off four quick rounds.
Each shot had a brief ghostly afterglow of flickering ethereal plasma as it trailed the rounds, phasing through the concrete and metal hiding their targets. They had no need to peek or even raise their heads from cover. Virgil's bullets found them regardless.
Two Adrenomancers crouched behind a stone retaining wall shuddered and died without ever leaving their positions. A third ducked behind the shell of an old bus. The phantom bullets found him anyway.
Virgil rushed past them without so much as a passing glance.
He spotted people scurrying for safety behind the corner of the buildings ahead. A scattering of confused faces glanced in his direction. Several attempted to approach him. They stopped at the sight of his revolver aimed their way.
"Go the other way," Virgil growled. "Now!"
He didn't have to say anymore. They obeyed and scattered away.
The chaotic echoes of firefighting closed in around him. Farther in, Virgil identified a quartet of civilians clustering for safety behind the barricades.
Reaper Posse gangsters were actually risking their own skins and daring the streets in order to escort them to safety. They even opened fire at an armored fighting vehicle as it pulled into view, failing to register any effect from their bullets.
Their panic became palpable as the vehicle's chain gun spat and stuttered fire at them. Several spun and writhed under the onslaught while the rest got separated by the sudden influx of lead. Only a few managed to find shelter.
The armored vehicle stopped at the center of the intersection and discharged a squad of Adrenomancers into the fray. These ones didn't waste any time firing their own weapons. They used their enhanced strength instead and smashed straight into the barricades like living battering rams.
Metal buckled and flew, taking the barricades with them. Barbed wire and wooden planks scattered uselessly into the air. The people in hiding shrank back or cowered, trying to shield themselves with their hands. Many failed.
Virgil roared and sprinted toward the carnage. The gangsters managed to recover in time and began laying fire upon the soldiers. Some took the brunt and raised their weapons to fire at them.
He wasted no time plugging their skulls with a bullet each. Once close enough, he concentrated a charged-up shot and blasted the nearest soldier away. The bolt punched a hole clean through the torso.
His fingers locked in a rapid staccato as he fanned the hammer, each squeeze spitting out a few more ethereal bullets. Five shots were enough to send three soldiers crumpling lifelessly. A sixth shot rotated the chamber and let him loose one final round to detonate a grenade in an enemy's belt. The man fell, a smoking cavity in his side.
"Backfire!" shouted one of the Reaper Posse goons.
He snapped a warning glare at them and noted their shock and surprise.
"I ain't here for you. If you're going to fire, make sure you're pointing at the enemy. If you even try and get me in your line of fire..." Virgil cracked the hammer of his gun back and waited. He didn't finish his threat. He didn't have to. His point was made.
He ignored them and pushed his way past a wrecked bus blocking the street. On the other side, the BFV idled at the center. The barrel of its gun was pointed in his direction.
Virgil quickly fired a temporal round to halt the vehicle's passage of time before dashing aside. With the seconds suspended, he maneuvered past and combined his phantom and searing brands into one ethereal bullet.
As soon as the seconds resumed their flow, he released his shot and struck the fuel tank within. The resulting explosion warped the vehicle into a melting lump of smoldering slag. A burning haze replaced the hull's silhouette. Scraps of blackened metal littered the roads.
A burning soldier staggered away, flailing and screeching in agony.
Virgil finished him off with a single shot to the head and sprinted off.
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The increasing amounts of urban warfare spread across the area. While Fii managed to intervene several times to steer people away from harm or hold enemy fire at bay, she worried that she couldn't reach everyone in time. She started to miss a few people hiding away in corners, behind trash bins or under makeshift covers. People on the streets ducked and dove at the sounds of bullets and screams, unsure of where the next explosion might originate.
Another unit of Adrenomancers dropped from a Humvee and chased after a band of people from the Dusk Tillers gang. Some ran, and the ones that didn't get caught quickly. They never had a chance to lay down cover fire.
A tall gangster with dreadlocks barked an order and the runners abruptly changed directions, peeling off away from their pursuers.
Fii sailed over them and delivered a salvo of concrete fragments into the backs of the unsuspecting soldiers. The projectiles lanced into them, ripping through clothing and body armor to emerge through the other side. Bodies folded under the blow.
Her momentum carried her ahead into a graceful aerial pirouette. Once steady, Fii pivoted her body to land and skid along the side of a building, her roller skates scraping as she regained her balance.
Dreadlocks nodded, grabbed an SMG and raced ahead. "This way! Everyone follow me!"
The mob followed and trailed after the gang members. Fii headed in a separate direction.
She leapt from a balcony to glide between two adjacent buildings and descend smoothly into the street beyond. Her wheels caught her landing and turned her into a fast-moving blur, curving and skating nimbly between abandoned cars and past panicked stragglers.
Not a minute into her dash, her commlink activated. Virgil's voice rang sharply in her ear.
"Where the heck are you?" She tumbled across the hoods and trunks of a scattering of parked cars as she surged ahead. "I lost track of you for almost thirty minutes!"
"Sorry, I'll be right there."
His sarcastic response comforted her a bit. It was the kind of remark Virgil would normally make. He was all right.
"I'm on it. Just get them safe!" Fii weaved across the street and vaulted onto a leaning bus sign, deftly springing between buildings and bounding in a diagonal ascent to get an elevated angle. From there, she made a beeline toward his position.
A monstrous whump followed by an expanding plume of heat and dust at her nine o'clock heralded the destruction of yet another fighting vehicle. For a second she thought Virgil had dealt with the new threat, until she saw Kenzo's silhouette advancing a short distance from the debris.
"Kenzo!"
Her voice seemed to freeze him for a split-second before his gaze swung up.
"You good?" she called.
"Yeah." His answer was crisp and swift. "I got this area handled. You got your hands full elsewhere. Go!"
Fii nodded and launched away. Kenzo was strong. She was confident he'd be fine.