The table rattled from Ames’ slap. Amid her rant of how Moroso should always be careful with the doll--the bastard had chipped it in the middle of a job--she noticed Talori enter through the back.

“Just fix it, okay?” Ames shook her head and approached her Right Hand, out of instinct, walking the first few steps warily.

Not long ago, the hideout had been a dark abandoned building with a table in the middle. Now, spray painted banners hung on the walls that contained a highly efficient bandit organization with a cumulative bounty of over 10,000C$. Ames had garnered countless level ups in the few months since they were struggling, and poured the boosts into mental skills -- she had enough bandits to never have to be a human decoy ever again.

Noticing Ames, Talori saluted. She responded with the same and a wide grin.

“What you got?”

“A lot,” Talori said. “Learned that the slums are a no-go -- slum gangs will annihilate us before we steal a single contract from them. Centercity job version one-hundred-something will work even though we’ve been ravaging it non stop.”

“That’s great--”

“And there’s the last thing I’ve gotta tell you. It’s urgent. It’s the risk of a lifetime. But I think it’s worth it.”

“You wanna steal from the Hunters Behind the Mask, or what?” Ames said, squinting at the serious look on Talori’s face. He’d sucked almost all of the lightheartedness out of her day in an instant, but he was a required counterbalance to Ames’ amazedness to what she’d built in a few months. “I guessed it, didn’t I?”

“I used my free time today to talk to our Barhoppers. Some had broken noses and beat up ribs, like expected, but many had overheard the same thing: HBM are going for the you-know-which Ultimate. “

Ames took a deep breath, put her hands on her knees and slammed her back against a wall, shaking her head. This was too much -- she had to divide it down into parts. First, perhaps the Barhoppers were wrong. She could believe it. But the Barhoppers the gang had picked were no ordinary, mishearing drunks -- they were the best alcoholics of the best. And Ames had chosen them herself.

That’s not just one -- many reported the same thing.

Second, if Hunters Behind the Mask went for that Ultimate, Ames would still need her whole gang to defeat them. If they were fools and stored their fortune in creditcoins, she and maybe Talori could sneak in. Though after they’d escape, the Hunters would return and see all their money gone or scanned away.

Third -- would she accept this or not?

The money will be incredible… We’ll become street legends. We’ll get out of this realm, she thought, starry eyed. All of her dreams could come true in a moment if she risked the lives of her gang. In the end, it was not a reasonable risk: at this point, the gang would make the same amount in a year without risking extinction--

“When?” Ames asked before more thoughts could come to her. “When are they going for Temple?”

Talori looked away. “I don’t know exactly. Every ‘hopper said that... tomorrow is the day.”

“Then we gotta get ready now.”

Ames got the gang together in the hideout and laid out her plans. She found it satisfying to give orders then getting actual reactions. The bandits attentively listened, even offering their own takes. Somehow, the people who’d never seen past their own noses and only joined for the free stuff got Ames’ point of view. The promise of mountains of creds, legend status and banditing around other realms surely helped.

The Hunters Behind the Mask hideout located itself on the verge between the slums and The Sparks. That district made Ames shiver. Yet the gang eased her. Fifteen people following you was quite the assurance.

Arriving, nor Ames nor Talori noticed anyone in front of the lowkey building. The quietness was there for a reason. The Hunters tried to be as professional as they could. Professionals remain in the shadows. Then when someone approaches their darkness, they lash out.

Ames walked up to the entrance carefully, yet confident in her years of practice as a human decoy. Leader of a huge gang, but still taking up the dumbest position. She knocked on the hideout’s metal door. The knocks echoed inside the cold building and faded into silence.

Ames walked away, putting on a disappointed face, snapping twice with her left and once with her right. Three bandits poked out from the sheds surrounding the hideout. They stopped in front of its door, aimed and fired their laserpistols.

No point in going in quiet, Ames had thought. They'll know that something’s up and it doesn’t take long to figure who did said upping.

Half of Realm 224 must’ve been filled with laserpistol screeches. In fact, the red flashes almost blinded Ames. Talori had recommended hiding behind a hut, but she had to assure her bandits. It takes something bold to get them on your side. You’d be a fool to think any less is required to keep them on.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

So she stood, like the massive Electrical Tower behind Centercity and near The Sparks. As her eyes teared up, her hand rose to dry them.

The screeches stopped. A huge, at least half-meter wide hole had opened in the hideout’s entrance. It smoked while red metal dripped from the door. That’s two minutes and fifteen seconds of pure laserpistol fire. Ames thought, marching to the door. If you don’t notice something like this, you are either blind and deaf or dead.

The heat, resonating a meter from the door, stopped Ames in her track. Goosebumps covered her skin. If you touch something like this, you might as well feed that body part to a parasite. Though that’s a fair risk considering the atrocious ways of dying you’ll experience if you face the Hunters Behind the Mask -- Ames leaned in and squeezed through.

Three times, she thought she’d surely touched the metal, but always, it had been the heat in the air, trying a spot on her skin that made her think it was melting.

Inside, Ames carefully groped the wall. A mechanism of three interconnected levers turned on a light and shoved the mechanical locks which in turn opened the hideout’s heavy door.

The whole hideout stood on mechanisms, no holograms or scanners in sight -- you’d struggle finding things independant from a CHEK even in the slums. Always thought they were trying to keep to professional standards, whatever that means. I was right. At least a little. They really are just paranoid to death. Half of the group followed her into the hideout’s numerous basements whilst the others remained on the lookout. The first floor that met them was a ritual chapel of sorts. Eerie shit, for sure. The second was a bedroom for all of the Hunters, laden with unused masks. Ames and the bandits looted their personal possessions. Yet the prizes weren’t big. Biting her lip, she descended to the final basement floor.

It was a training range.

What… the fuck?

Quickly, her confusion turned into range. No, she hadn’t missed a floor -- her guess had been wrong. The Hunters Behind the Mask kept their creds on themselves. She’d travelled all the way down here, wasted lasergun charges and everyone’s time, for nothing.

Talking about laserguns, one fired outside the hideout. Many floors, walls and meters of ground separated Ames and the world above, but the sound was clear as ever. The nine bandits in the third level of the hideout went still. Reaching for her dagger, Ames shared glances with Talori. A hundred more lasers fired out a moment later.

“They are back,” Talori said, his voice weak as ever -- what he didn’t mention was deafeningly loud in it. They are back and those who stayed behind are dead, Ames added in her mind and turned to the bandits.

“I’ve got bad news,” she whispered. “We are going to fight the Hunters Behind the Mask to the death. Luckily, it’s a fight to the death and you won’t face consequences for fucking up. Also, we’re fortified in the best hideout--if you forget about the Castle of Hate--this realm has ever seen.”

A few smiles shone back at her. The bandits stood taller, Talori was nodding and people were plotting.

I’ve never been in a siege or a situation where I’m meant to die, Ames thought. Her reasonable voice said that everything was fucked whilst her heart screamed that this was what all the years of struggling brought -- a way to show perfect coordination and a victory of an impossible fight.

She started giving orders and pointing at positions.

***

A plain red mask, whose eye and mouth holes were dark, stared down at her. From the left, a white one’s owner shook his head. From the right, a black one’s, who also donned black gloves, crouched. In Ames’ grip, Talori laid, his brains spilling out into her fingers and blood from three shots to the abdomen dying her clothes crimson.

She wanted to scream more than the day she had to choose this life. She wanted to scream for every horrible decision she’d made, awful combat positions she picked, weapons that jammed, stairs that collapsed… Worst of all, she wanted to disappear. Or somehow, pay for her countless fuckups. Some dumbass like her wasn’t worthy of staying alive.

Her body didn’t listen to the mind’s pleas, locking everything from her chest to her tongue in place, leaving her to stare at the satisfied killers -- Hunters Behind the Mask.

“Have anything to say?” The red mask said.

Ames nodded, remembering the time she brought the now former gang potions in her mouth. Can’t speak like I couldn’t then.

The red mask laughed then leaned a few centimeters forward. “So?”

“Kill me like you killed everyone I know,” Ames spoke, struggling to get every word out. With every one, it got easier. On her jaw. Feelings still pummeled her from all directions. “Why are you waiting?”

“That’s a little dumb, don’t you--”

“I’m dumb, I’m evil, whatever -- kill me,” she snapped.

“I don’t know... Intuition says I shouldn’t.”

“I say too,” the black mask said. “Ames Cap is talented. She could be used.”

“True or she could spread our name,” the red mask spoke.

“Spreading our name is the opposite of what we need. The second she does that, I blast her brains like that brownie’s.”

“Talori’s.” Ames grunted.

“Doesn’t matter -- he’s dead.” The black mask grabbed her by the arm and dragged her towards the blood flooded hideout. The rest of the Hunters Behind the Mask followed after. “Your first job will be to clean the mess you made.”

The red mask ran up, tapping the black’s shoulder. He stuttered the first few words and continued clearly, “Look at that! Why didn’t we kill him!” He ran towards the back of the hideout. The black mask had to follow them.

For a flash, red slowed, looking back at Ames.

Adrenaline blasted out of her heart, fuelling her sore, soulless body. Bastard’s letting me escape. She became aware of all the eyes staring at her, of where she was and where she could hide. Everything was gone, but not everything was lost -- she ran.

Like the day of choosing, the realm blurred by, angry shouts and lasergun screeches nothing, but irrelevant irks compared to the cacophony inside her. From The Sparks, she ran to the Electrical Tower, hiding in the slums near it, Centercity, now surrounded by ads, always in view.

Ames started anew. In a year she found out who the Hunter Behind the Mask in black was. In fact, the whole realm and the whole world did. It didn’t matter to her, though. He’d killed the red mask in his sleep and that was what put a scowl on Ames’ face.

The amount of gangs she’d have to lead and witness slaughtered didn’t matter. Revenge was the only thing that did.