When I arrived, what I found wasn’t quite the warzone I expected. Unlike the rest of The Cain’s territory, Browning Street only had minor activity – and by minor I meant an active shootout between non-powered grunts from both The Cains and Pandora. The chances it would stay that way were slim, Pandora was on a warpath and one of their supers would find their way here eventually.
All the roof-hopping had left me winded so I decided to take a moment to catch my breath. The arm that housed my grapple was starting to ache a little from pulling myself around the city and I wanted to be in good shape before I jumped in to fight.
Note to self: Install a harness to help reduce the strain on my body.
I tore my eyes away from the skirmish below and took stock of everything else. After a few moments, I spotted Anomaly and Alice.
They were perched on a roof across from me, leaning over the edge and watching the fight below. Neither of them seemed particularly interested with Alice's gaze fixated on The Cains. A number of them were already injured and taking cover while others were just trying to look for a way out. If something didn’t change soon, they’d lose the fight.
I found my attention drifting to the Pandora attackers and wondered why they fought at all. With the way Pandora was rumored to treat those without powers, there had to be some reason. Threats? Promises of benefits? There had to be some incentive otherwise they wouldn’t fight at all.
Ultimately, their reasons were irrelevant. They were here now taking part in the chaos – chaos that I had started.
I dialed Alice and watched as she picked up immediately.
“Everything okay?”
“Yeah, I made it. I’m on the roof across from you,” I said. She looked over and I waved to confirm. “So what’re we doing here?”
“Browning street is one of the locations I wanted to search. This whole block received reinforcements soon after the fighting started and all their regular joes are armed with Mechatech. The same stuff we saw at the meatworks,” Alice explained. “If Gold’s hunch is correct, there’s something valuable around here, maybe even a secondary lab. The only issue is that all these buildings are either residences, or legit active business so we can’t go around destroying the place willy-nilly.”
“So they’re hiding in plain sight,” I reasoned. “Any idea which building?”
“I have Mia searching as we speak, her power makes covering a lot of ground quickly very easy. Speaking of, how’s that coming along?”
There was a crackle of static as another voice sounded.
“Um, nothing so far, I think,” Mia said. “It would help if I knew what I was looking for. There’s nothing that screams ‘secret lair’ or anything.”
“I suppose they can’t all have a big metal door like the last one,” I replied with a drawl. “Has there been any sighting of Grim yet? All this chaos has got to have him rattled.”
“Nothing yet, which is very concerning. This is already much bigger than any skirmish the Cains have had before. Him not showing up means he’s waiting for something. Gold thinks Splicer is his ace in the hole, so if we find him first, we can hopefully stop half the city from burning down,” Alice explained. “The only issue is finding—.”
A piercing siren, coupled with the sound of grinding metal echoed throughout the city.
The ground shook beneath my feet I turned to the source of the disturbance. The ECU’s citadel lit up with flashing red lights that illuminated the sky. Panels on the side began to open and a stream of moving lights burst from the steel monolith.
There were so many I gave up counting after I got to twenty.
“A full deployment,” I said in disbelief. It wasn’t because I didn’t think the situation didn’t warrant it. I had just never seen something like this before. The siren was to signal everyone to stay indoors and hunker down. It also served as a proclamation – they were coming, and they weren’t taking prisoners. “Maybe we should go back?”
“No!” Alice said a little too quickly. “We’re fine. Just listen to my instructions and we will be fine. We need to end this fight now so there’s no reason for the ECU to show up. Anomaly and I will try to redirect Pandora somewhere else. Mia, keep looking for whatever they’re protecting and keep me updated. Upgrade, subdue the remaining Cains.”
I stepped forward and mounted my sniper rifle on the ledge. Given my proximity, I disabled the kinetic amplifier. Then, I let loose.
With a dozen well-placed tranquilizer shots, I had dropped around half of the non-injured Cains gunmen. It didn’t take long for the remaining few to switch their attention to me and with Alice and Anomaly harassing the Pandora attackers, it left the remaining Cains to oppose me.
I was pelted with a storm of gunfire that tore apart the parapet my rifle was resting on. The added power of their Mechatech weaponry forced me to keep moving, but it didn’t seem to matter because every spot I tried to take ended up destroyed within seconds.
Alright, Max. Time to put your shit to the test.
Collapsing my sniper rifle and holstering it, I let out a slow breath before lining myself up. Content with my current course of action, I broke into a sprint toward the destroyed ledge. I heard more gunfire and I felt the projectiles uselessly pinging off my armor as I leaped off. I still felt the kinetic force behind every shot – but it wasn’t much different from being flicked.
I landed hard and there was a hiss as compressed air burst out of compartments around my legs, distributing the force of the landing. Despite that, I had to roll to stop myself from ending up flat on my face.
With my pistol in my hand, I unleashed a stream of lasers into The Cain's crumbling defense.
I dropped one after another as I tried to target non-lethal parts of their bodies. I didn’t succeed as much as I would have liked, but shooting on the move while your enemies returned fire was far harder than the movies made it out to be. Regardless, I dealt with the remaining thugs.
As I moved forward to confirm that the fight had ended, a message flashed across my visor.
“Suit integrity at 89%.”
That wasn’t a bad outcome all things considered. I had gotten hit more times than I could count and they were using Mechatech. All that time invested in my suit had been well spent.
After a quick look to confirm that I had dealt with all the Cain thugs, I turned to see how Alice and Anomaly were going with the Pandora attackers. To my surprise, they had subdued the majority of them but were now fighting two Supers. Whether or not they were part of the Cains, Pandora, or some other third party didn’t matter.
I needed to get over there and help them out but the sound of screeching tires behind me put that idea to rest.
I turned to see a van barreling down the street toward me at full speed. I didn’t bother moving since there were several parked cars between us. It wasn’t until I saw how heavily armored it was that I decided it was best to get out of the road.
The van narrowly missed some of the thugs I had downed before skidding to a stop. The side doors opened and I didn’t hesitate to lift my pistol and fire at the stream of reinforcements.
Cain members stumbled out, almost tripping over themselves as they hurried to find cover. I picked them apart easily, even scoring a couple of lucky shots by hitting the weapons out of the hands of two unfortunate thugs. Once most of the group was down, the few left turned tail and sprinted into the nearest alley. I had thought that to be the end of it until the backdoors of the van were kicked open.
A titan of a man stepped out onto the road, covered from head to toe in thick white mechanical armor. His helmet had no mouthpiece and two distinct glowing blue eyes. I had thought for a moment that this was just another decked-out Cain member until I noted the black stripes across the front of the helmet. He heaved a large piece of metal with two hands – something that looked vaguely like a grenade launcher – before turning to me.
It was obvious the moment I put all the pieces together. He was too well-equipped to be another regular Joe.
This guy is part of Masquerade's crew.
“Fucking idiots,” the man’s voice came out as a synthesized garble. “I told them to wait.”
I felt my lip twitch as I tried to think of something to lighten the mood but my eyes were glued to the weapon in his hands. I knew my armor was good – good enough to protect me from damn near anything mundane – but I couldn’t be sure if it would protect me from a direct hit courtesy of a high-end Mechatech grenade launcher.
The moment he moved to line me up, I aimed and fired. It took me four shots to realize my non-lethal laser setting was doing absolutely nothing. I needed to find cover and fast!
I heard the click and a displacement of air before an explosion erupted behind me, throwing me off my feet. Shrapnel from the explosive disintegrated against my armor, but I found myself landing in a painful heap behind one of the many damaged cars.
“Suit integrity at 61%.”
I scrambled to my knees and pushed my back against the side of a wrecked car. With my heart racing, I flicked my pistol to lethal and moved. There was a pop and another explosion where I had just been. The car lurched onto its side before falling over completely. I was already long gone, moving from cover to cover. I jumped over an unconscious body before vaulting over the trunk of another car.
Another click.
Another explosion.
Whatever Cain thug I had jumped over was now likely in pieces.
I spotted the armored goliath out of the corner of my eye. I spun around to face him as he tracked my movements. I fired another three shots. I missed the first but nailed the other two. This time, my shots had an effect. The first one hit his shoulder, knocking his aim off and the second hit his chest and forced him to take a half step backwards. The impacts left scorch marks on his armor.
I dropped to the ground as the next projectile sailed over my head. I felt the force, heat, and shrapnel wash over me.
I couldn’t linger.
I took off as he fired again.
The shockwave forced me into a roll. My body hit the curb and I had my breath taken from me.
“Warning: Suit integrity at 48%.”
I pushed myself back to my feet, my head throbbing and my chest booming. Adrenaline surged as I mounted up next to the nearest car and fired again.
I missed two shots and landed three.
My aim was getting worse. Maybe it was because I was dazed and I could barely hold my hands still to aim properly.
I hit his helmet, leg, and elbow. Each shot staggered him but he still stood tall.
Frustration burned. I wasn’t getting anywhere, even with the lethal setting. I needed something stronger – and while I did have my sniper rifle, we were too close for me to set up a clean shot.
It wouldn’t be useful here.
I spat out a curse as I tried to reposition. It occurred to me to grapple to the nearest roof, but the moment I tried, he blew up the wall it was attached to. That led me to spend one of my charges to repair the obliterated grapple. He was quick on the uptake and if I didn’t take him down soon, he was going to win this encounter.
A few options were laid before me.
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I could outlast him until Alice and Anomaly could get here to take him out, but given how things were shaping up on their end, that wasn’t going to be for another few minutes at least.
The second tied into the first, waiting until he ran out of ammo. He had to run out of grenades eventually, but I had to wonder if I’d run out of cover before then. Many of the cars around me were in pieces and there weren’t many left to hide behind.
I considered hacking his suit, but a quick look at my software showed that there wasn’t anything I could connect to. His suit was probably a closed system then and I’d need to plug into it directly to do something. I spared a look at the hulking white behemoth and understood that I would be folded like a lawn chair if I tried.
So that was out.
I could attempt another retreat again with the grapple. It was fast but I would need to get in a good shot to daze him before doing that. If I could make it to the roof, I’d have the high ground and more than enough space to use my sniper rifle.
As I considered my options, he forced me to maneuver to another car by blowing up the one I was crouched behind.
I risked another shot and hit his hand.
The impact made him briefly lose his grip on his weapon, but he was quick to recover.
An idea sprung to mind.
I launched out from behind my cover and ran across from him. I watched him track my movements, trying to predict where I was going to end up. I stopped the moment I heard the click and ducked. He had led his shot in an attempt to hit me dead-on, so it missed by a decent margin. He tried to readjust but I was already firing.
I aimed at his hands and weapon.
It took a few shots but I managed to disarm him, and the weapon fell to the floor. I fired the grapple at the gun and pulled it toward me. It skidded across the ground before ending up at my feet. I reached down and placed my hand on the weapon.
[Charges: 19/25]
[Type]
* Fireiron Industries Grade 4 Automatic Grenade Launcher
[Durability 87/100 - Repair Available - Cost: 1]
[Integration Status: Available - Cost 12]
There was no hesitation on my part. I selected integration and paid the twelve charges. The weapon lost its physical form, becoming a familiar liquid as it streamed into my suit. I felt a compartment form on my right shoulder and down my back as the upgrade was configured and finalized.
“New component detected.”
I barely had any time to register my new addition before I noticed the armored behemoth barreling toward me.
I holstered my pistol and with the press of a button, the extendable blade shrieked out of its sheath just in time for him to reach me. He had to be around seven feet or more, completely towering over me. Coupled with his muscular build, I had no doubt a single hit from his guy could break several bones in my body.
I rolled with his first swing and countered by slashing out with my blade. It reached him but it only sparked against his singed armor. Once he saw I couldn’t pierce his defenses, the man had very little reason to defend. He was relentless, giving me almost no space to breathe. All I could do was dodge backward and try to put space between the two of us. He was trained, and his experience far outweighed mine.
I wasn’t his equal and he made me see that when his fist collided with the side of my helmet. I heard a crack and I completely lost my balance.
He followed it up with a kick to my chest that put me into the side of one of the only good cars left.
I tried to fight back, aiming my laser pistol at him but he closed the distance and snatched it out of my hand. He turned it on me and tried to fire it but the device refused to work. The goliath tossed it away before pulling me up and punching me square in the head.
My visor cracked as my head hit the back of the car.
I lashed out with the blade again, stabbing instead of slashing. It found its mark between the plating on his shoulder. There was a sickening sound of tearing flesh as the man howled, stepping away to remove the steel. A good inch of the weapon from the tip was drenched crimson as he recovered.
Something flashed across my visor and targeted the injured super soldier. It blinked green and I confirmed it in a heartbeat. There was a whirling on my shoulder as a compartment opened and extended. There was a click and something shot out of it at blinding speed.
It impacted the super soldier directly and exploded.
I raised my arms over my face as fire and shrapnel washed over me. As quickly as it came, it was gone.
Waving away the smoke, I saw the super soldier lying motionless, his form smoking and his armor ruined beyond all recognition. There were pieces of it scattered all over the road and the bits of his skin that were exposed were covered in burns. I wasn’t sure if he was dead but I didn’t care.
With a groan, I pulled myself to my feet. There was a dull ache throughout my body and my neck felt like it needed a chiropractor after that beating I took. Regardless, I dusted myself off and looked around for my pistol.
“Warning: Suit integrity at 32%.”
“Yeah…” I muttered aloud, trying to steady my breathing. “That sounds… about right.”
After stumbling around, I found my pistol. It had taken a bit of a beating having been thrown away like that but the damage was only cosmetic, I could fix it up later. Besides it still had over forty percent of its battery remaining so it wasn’t completely useless yet.
With my trusty weapon retrieved, I took stock of my surroundings.
Multiple Cain thugs were dead and in pieces – which wasn’t my fault. Grim could take that up with Masquerade for all I cared. As for the super soldier that had done said damage, I could slightly make out his chest rising and falling. Just to make sure, I switched on some analytics and examined him.
It picked up a heartbeat, which was all I needed to know.
I turned my attention away and back toward the other end of the street where Alice and Anomaly were. A Super had joined the commotion and was currently trading blows with Anomaly. Alice was absent, but it only took a few more seconds to locate her. She was going head to head with yet another Super on top of a building. It looked like her opponent could conjure some kind of force field. It reminded me of the energy shield the ECU soldiers had used to briefly stall Grim.
This Super was using it both offensively and defensively, hurling energy projections at Alice. From the looks of it, she was constantly switching between Pink and Red to try and land attacks and was getting frustrated that it wasn’t working.
Anomaly was fairing about the same. His opponent could clone themselves, which led to him constantly getting dogpiled. Neither side seemed to be making any sort of progress.
I grumbled and looked for an opportunity to end the battle before it could go on any longer.
Alice’s opponent was standing close to the edge, which I could take advantage of. Their shields could defend against Red’s strength and they could surround themselves to negate Pink’s speed —albeit the shields appeared weaker when they did so. Anomaly was just getting overwhelmed and was struggling to take out the correct super, assuming he didn’t have to take them all out that is.
Regardless, I could solve their problems without moving.
I looked up at Alice’s enemy and targeted her. I realized that the grenade launcher I had integrated had come with a targeting software upgrade that synced with my visor. Probably why the integration was so costly now that I thought about it.
Seeing as the software automatically targeted the Super, I had to manually adjust it so it would hit the roof instead. Once set, I fired.
The grenade soared through the air and blew the roof out from under Alice’s opponent. A shrill scream of terror filled the air as they tumbled off the building to the ground. They impacted hard and, from the looks of it, had broken something important. They screamed, which fortunately meant they were still alive.
Good enough.
I turned my attention to Anomaly and targeted all the clones. Without really thinking about the consequences, I fired three grenades into the thick of the action. The clones were blown away along with Anomaly – but he’d be fine. He’d put himself back together from worse. The clones, however, didn’t fare so well. Most of them disappeared when they landed while the ones that were spared turned to run away.
The fighting ended, save for the screaming Super.
Exhausted, I ambled down the road toward Alice’s opponent. Pink had since blitzed down and was standing over them arms crossed and looking smug.
“Aw, look. Uppies brought you Downies,” Pink cackled gleefully. “That’s whatcha get for tryna mess with us!” To add insult to injury, Pink kicked the down Super in the ribs. They cried out in agony and spat a string of curses at her. “Don’t get upset now! You’re the one that tried to start shit when we have a cease-fire. Didn’t ya boss or somethin’ tell you idiots that we’re all working together?”
“I was wondering why you were fighting them,” I grumbled, coming to a stop in front of the Super. From the body type, they looked male and a bit older than us. “Who’s this supposed to be?”
“My name is Radiance!” He hissed angrily. “You piece of shit, look what you did! MY FUCKING LEGS ARE BROKEN!”
“More of ya is gonna go snappy-snappy if ya don’t pipe down,” Pink warned. “Besides, all we were tryna do was get you and your little minions to go somewhere else but nooooo, they just had to shoot us. Then your dumbass had to show up and make everythin’ worse! If you ask me, you got what ya deserve.”
“You’ll pay for this you obnoxious little–”
Pink silenced him with a kick to the side of the face. I briefly saw her eyes flash Red as she angled her foot over his face. I reached out to stop her, but thankfully, she managed to stop herself before she turned the guy’s face into mush. Her eyes flashed back to Pink and she skipped backward, wiping her forehead in relief.
“Phew, that was a close one. Red, what the heck? You know turning heads into tomato soup will just make things worse!”
I grunted, trying to ignore the throbbing pain.
“Are you alright?”
“I’m A-okay!” Pink chirped, giving me a thumbs up. “You don’t look very good though. Didja take a bit of a beating, Uppies? I saw some big booms from over there.”
I looked over my shoulder at the growing fire that was spreading through the area.
“I’ll manage.”
If I was being brutally honest, I wasn’t sure I could, but I was determined to see this night through to the end.
Anomaly landed with a wet thud next to us and reverted to his human form. Unsurprisingly, he was wearing his usual getup.
“Give a guy some warning before you decide to blow him into a million pieces,” he accused, giving me a pointed glare before sighing. “But thanks anyway. Fuckin’ guy just kept coming. Didn’t matter how many I crushed. Never thought It’d be clone powers I hate the most.”
“There’s a few of those out there,” Alice said, having switched from Pink to Blue. She looked past Anomaly to check if the other Super was still there. “It looks like Legion retreated. His clones aren’t very durable so he’ll probably hide somewhere until backup arrives.”
“If it comes,” I chimed in. “From the sounds of it, Pandora’s got their hands full already.”
“They’ll be fighting The Cains and the ECU. Gaea will honor the cease fire, even if some groups won’t. The Queen’s Court will only be attacking The Cains and fending off the ECU, but knowing them, I think their upper management will tell the Heroes to steer clear of Queen’s Court Supers,” Alice explained. “We should do the same.”
“Some fuckin cease-fire,” Anomaly glared down at the unconscious Pandora Super. “They attacked us the moment we approached.”
Alice sighed. “In their defense, we don’t look exactly welcoming. But that’s beside the point, they attacked, we retaliated. Shit happens and unfortunately, sometimes things don’t go how we want and fog of war is a bitch.”
“At least they left when Legion and this asshole showed up,” Anomaly said, turning to me. “Otherwise those explosions probably would’ve–”
“Yeah, I get it,” I cut him off. I had already killed one Pandora member today. The thought that I could’ve killed more of them hadn’t even occurred to me when I fired those grenades and that unsettled me enough to forget about the pain I was feeling. “Not exactly operating at a hundred percent right now. It’s already been a long day, and this is turning out to be an even longer night.”
Alice gave me a look of sympathy. She looked like she wanted to say something but opted to stay silent. Anomaly nodded slowly, shifting uncomfortably under what he probably saw was a blank stare. I had seen myself with my helmet on. You couldn’t see my face and unless you had a mentalist power, I bet it would be hard to tell what I was thinking.
“So uh… I don’t remember you having that before,” Anomaly said, pointing to my shoulder-mounted grenade launcher.
“It’s new,” I dismissed quickly. “Picked it up from a guy back there.”
I gestured a thumb over my shoulder at the fire that was now dying down in the street. It was a mess of metal and smoke. A couple of the downed Cain thugs had since regained consciousness and were attempting to flee.
We didn’t bother to pursue them.
“Cool,” Anomaly said awkwardly. “So, what now?”
Alice raised a hand to her ear and made a call.
“Everything good on your end, Mia?”
There was silence for a moment and I could see Anomaly get a bit antsy. Just when he was going to speak, the call crackled to life and her voice came through.
“Y-Yeah. Sorry, focusing.”
“It’s okay,” Alice replied patiently. “Do you have anything for us?”
“Yeah. I found one of those labs. It’s…” Mia’s voice trailed off as we all straightened up. I could hear the anger in her tone. “There’s some people here, that guy we’re looking for – Splicer – he isn’t here.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Alice said. “Where is it?”
“Two blocks west of Browning Street. It’s above a clothing store, Nico’s Boutique. I would’ve completely missed it if there wasn’t a hole in the wall at the back of the building.”
“A hole?” I questioned, baffled. “The lab’s exposed?”
Even Alice looked surprised.
“Not intentionally,” Mia replied. “It looks like it was made recently. There’s only four vats in here and one of them is broken. There’s just stuff all over the floor,” she explained, cringing at her words. “Fuck, is this what they kept me in? The other three vats have people in them. I’m trying to get them out.”
My gaze met Alice’s.
“Someone managed to break out.”
I had no idea if that was a good or bad thing. Mia’s reaction when she woke up had been understandable. Extreme… but warranted. I couldn’t imagine what kind of reaction someone would have waking up inside one of those fucking vats and escaping into a warzone. It would be beyond traumatic – enough for an Awakening.
Alice nodded. “Hold down the fort for us. We’ll be there in a minute.”