I woke to the feeling of the burning spurs of a cattle prod in my side, the electricity shaking me in my chair and restraints. No sooner was my mind awake did my body began to pull and attack the restraints that hold me to the chair in a moldy room. Again I felt the spurs of the prod jam into my side, convulsing my muscles and making me growl with anger. As I swung my blindfolded eyes towards whoever was jabbing me, the sound of a crashing metal door slamming shut was followed by the footfalls of heavily booted feet. The blindfold was pulled off my head and my eyes were exposed to the one overly bright light hanging from the metal ceiling, swinging to its internal rhythm. Once my eyes adjusted, I could see that I was surrounded by half a dozen soldiers with thick black robes over their shoulders as is their trademark. A muzzle still sat tight against my jaw, as the door opened once more as another silhouette stepped through towards the only window of the room that overlooked the city’s capitol. The figure stepped forward into the light, metal, and ballistic fiber mask covering their face, chair in hand, they then spun the chair and sat in front of me with a large handgun in one hand and a metallic object in the other. They tried to speak but their voice seemed to screech and stutter, after a moment the figure pulled at some pieces on the inside of their mask, adjusting them, and began speaking again, this time their voice distorted which is what I imagined was their intent. ‘What is your intent?’ ‘What purpose do you wish to serve?’ ‘What were you doing in that complex?’ ‘Who were you looking for?’ The figure continued to drill me with questions, with no answers coming from me as I stared into the darkened orbits of the person who sat in front of me. The figure motioned towards me with their head as a man stepped forward and jabbed me in the ribs with their cattle prod, causing me to grunt in pain and the figure to chuckle for a moment. The questions continued for what felt like hours, the soldiers changing out and rotating with others outside of the room, the figure had become impatient. Their actions slowly became driven by anger and frustration more than their original logical approach, finally, a distorted and mechanical sigh came through their mask, and sat back into the chair and gazed in my direction. ‘Oh Jack, you can be so defiant! I guess that is what all that training was for, watching the walls and whatever it was we did.’ The figure stood up, its hands waving about as he showed an emphasis on his statements. Their hands reached towards the back of their mask, as you heard clasps and straps loosen and the figure pulled the mask off its face after a moment the figure turned back towards me from the window’s view. Their voice was no longer distorted, and the truth began to dawn on me, all the actions and events that have occurred. Their voice echoed through me, reaching into my mind and pulling forth memories and thoughts, long forgotten or buried. As the figure lifted its head, and their face met the light of the swinging lamp, a jolt ran down my spine, as the brief revealing flashes of the face racked my head and mind with doubts and spoken half-truths. The known shown man smiled, scars stretching and binding in the skin they are buried in. ‘What’s the matter Jack, you look like you have seen a ghost!’ The man stepped towards me, retrieving his pistol and the other metallic object from his cloaked jacket, and took his seat in front of my muzzled face. The face of the man who sat in front of me was supposed to be dead for three years now, I saw his corpse in his room, a classic suicide, but now he sits in front of me with a goddamn grin on his face, Sergeant Benjamin Grimly.

I started to yell, and scream, throwing myself against the chair and restraints trying to reach the dead man in front of me. I attended his funeral, I helped bury his body, and I was accused of killing this man and that is what threw me into helping a megalomaniac throw the city into chaos. My mind was ablaze, thoughts and reasoning both trying to make sense of my situation, Ben just laughed at my struggles and probably thought of how pathetic I looked. Immediately the large metallic door swung open, grinding against the floor and letting large amounts of synthetic light into the dark room, showing the faces of the men around me. Their faces told me that something was worse than what I had thought of already, I looked at them closely and the sudden realization surged through my brain like a screaming train, the men standing around me were my old soldiers, men I commanded and got housing and lives on the inside of the city for. As I sat in my restraints dumbfounded by the facts that have now fallen into place, one more figure stepped into the lamp’s light, I immediately recognized him as my employer, Al. Standing there in a starched black suit, he wrenched his hands together in a menacing fashion as he smiled and gently shook his head. ‘Jack, Jack, Jack, you had to go and leave the nice small box I had put you in so effortlessly.’ His voice seemed to take on a slight British accent, trying to mask the anger in his voice being traced by his hatred of this loathsome city. ‘I gave you a purpose, money, shelter, and all you had to do was follow the missions that were given to you and let sleeping dogs lie. But you couldn’t you; you had to go poking around in business that never concerned you. Thankfully your part has already been played, the cards have been placed on the table and I have the final ace up my sleeve, no watch what happens to your precious city because of your actions over the past three years.’ Grim held up a metallic object in his hand, his face still sticking to his arrogant smirk, Al yanked it from his hand and walked towards the window manipulating the device as lights began to turn on and flicker to life. ‘See your actions Briar, the reclamation of the city from the accursed hierarchy, let fire rain from the heavens and burn the leeches from the steel skin of the land!’ A small cover flipped up on the device, exposing a bright orange button that Al then pushed flush into the device. The air stood still for that moment, everyone in the room stared through the window towards the skyscraper that stood in the center of the city, as the seconds ticked by I finally realized what the current group was staring at. Orange blossoms appeared on the tower in scattered areas, the blossoms grew in size and started to evaporate chunks out of the tower that we could see from our current positions. This went on for what felt like hours, but happened in seconds, the fire creeping through the floors and levels, lighting the internals and personnel of the tower for moments before they were evaporated into vapor. I sat awestruck, watching the collapsing monstrosity fall into the capital, flames, and wreckage streaking the darkened sky as the heart of corruption fell with it. The corruption I have spent years trying to fight now fell from its throne head first into the cement it was built upon, but with this feeling of relief came another following realization and dread. That with this vacuum of power, this absence of oppressors we may live in peace but this would mean that everyone would live their version; all I could see is chaos. Al must have been watching my face and chuckled as I struggled in my restraints, not quite sure how to interpret the events unfolding in front of me. ‘You see Briar, because of your group causing havoc in different parts of the city and causing the localization of law enforcement to change, it allowed my friends here,’ Al motioned towards Grim and the soldiers near him ‘this “House of Devils” has established connections within the city’s infrastructure allowing us to substitute the capitol in full.’ Al turned back towards the window, motioning towards the pillars of smoke and fire, ‘Thus why we had them plant bombs in the Tower and bring the heart of corruption to the flames of vengeance.’ Grim stood, replacing his mask and motioning for the soldiers to leave the room ‘I am the Kell of the House and I will reclaim this city…’ As the metal door closed again and I was left with a sneering Al, ‘what am I going to do with you know Jack? I can’t have you meddling with my plans or causing any resurgence of morality.’ He walked towards my chair with a newly drawn pistol in hand; he racked the slide and leveled the barrel with my forehead as defeat fell into my mind and acceptance of my death fell over my face. I heard the safety flick off and the spring starts to tension in the trigger, as I awaited the shock of the round the building suddenly shook violently sending Al to the floor and my chair on its side. I tried to right myself as I watched Al struggle to get in contact with any of his ‘Devils’, light suddenly started to pour through the window as a large VTOL gunship came to level its guns with the window a voice came over the speakers. The speakers screamed over the consuming gunfire that erupted throughout the building’s floors, that they have come to retrieve their captain and level this building if necessary. As I struggled to see Al past the spotlights, I found that one of my restraints had come loose and the pistol had slid towards my chair. I started working with my other restraints and grabbed the pistol as I struggled to my feet in the shaking building, I leveled the pistol at Al and fired four rounds in his direction, none of them landed as Al ran quickly towards the door as tracers from the gunship followed him. I pulled myself towards the wall, holding my side that now was covered in blood and burn marks, and shuffled towards the window, as I got closer soldiers would enter the room and were dispatched by a combination of gunship and pistol fire. As I waited for the VTOL to swing its gate back towards me, I saw that those that operated the sponson weapons and support ramp were my squad that I left for my vengeance. Finally, the gunship had pulled around and I started to get myself ready to climb aboard when a loud volley of gunfire came from behind me and began to ricochet inside the gunship causing it to sway and move on its own accord, one of the squad mates ran to the end of the ramp and yelled over the chaos ‘jump for it!’ I looked down into the smoke and darkness below me and summoned the last of my strength and jumped for the ramp, as I flew through the air, rounds whizzing by me, I felt one of them bite into my side as I flopped onto the ramp and was grasped by the soldiers inside and pulled inside as the ramp closed behind us and the gunship took off towards the base. They sat me in one of the seats, tending to my wounds and trying to keep me awake as the gunship jumped and shifted as the engines kept us aloft. Now I knew who my true enemies are, that those who were in power are no longer there and the city has fallen into utter chaos. All I know is that after this collapse, the world these people knew is no longer there, a dark time is coming over the city and I hope that those that have sown their seeds are ready to reap the future that follows.

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By the time the VTOL touched down, the city was already a different beast. It floated through the air like a dense musk, filling your head with a dreary stench of filth and soot. From here I knew life was going to be different, it was going to shift as the upper citizens tried to fill the power vacuums left by Al’s controlled demolition. Corporations and military contractors are going to take over what was left of the enforcers as the laws will be grayed out and purges will happen across the districts. Citizens will become villains and vigilantes, as fear and panic spread like wildfire among those that were hearty enough to stand. Those that fall into the flowing tide will stand out due to the events that will follow them, as the ripples of action and inaction rip through the underbelly of the city, dragging the world within these walls into the undertow it created.

Years would pass as the city would grow and shed its masses many times over, and our group would eventually fall back into mercenary work to get enough credits for materials and supplies, such as food and water. Our morality would darken as the city corrupted us, slowly choking off any innocence or true moral clarity that was left in those that wanted to protect what was still standing in the city. Eventually, our group would become desperate, continually losing members and territory would cause the mercenaries to take jobs that they wouldn’t have before, going from enforcer work to kidnappings and murders. The streets would soon stop being filled with people eager to earn honest pay through contract work and full of people in dirty armor plates, eager to kill for their meals, and those that hired them knew what they were baiting these men with. As the poor districts grew, credits would stop flowing and different mercenary companies would become desperate for money and power. One such company would emerge from the wreckage of the capitol, Demon Security, with access to the capitol’s labs their gear was far superior and held a hold on the credit flow for decades until the last of our group was approached by a robed man, to take a contract we couldn’t refuse. To kidnap and kill a list of specialized agents from the security company for enough credits that would allow us to continue working in our sector for at least another year. Unfortunately, higher-end contracts lead to more attention, and if I had known what that contract would have brought to my homestead, I would have rather slammed the door on my benefactor. I would come face to face with one of these agents, dead to rights and at his mercy, the only reason I would survive is that at that time we would find that we have a common enemy. Being spared would open my eyes to the stories that would circulate the streets, and after this event I would no longer be in the mercenary business so I will record the stories I hear, to share my tale as well as others with those who wish to know. These Chronicles will be recorded as I find their conclusions, whether they are for better or worse, to show the underbelly of the city to the world and those around it.

Dear reader, I hereby end the tale of Jack Briar, for he no longer lives among those that matter, and I welcome you to the New Gettysburg. Where hell has inhabited the souls of man, and through their actions the world will be shaped as they see fit.