Slavegear 2 - Katsura's Mask

She flinches slightly as the unicorns head suddenly explodes, "Damn... almost got away with it." she huffs in some disappointment she looks back at where the shot came from, "...Thanks" she sighs slightly looking back at Krys. With her side against the wall she determines how far back the other agents are. She checks her belt for a grenade and if she has one, she pops the pin, and sends it through the now shattered windows from around the corner of the door.

During the grenades pause before its explosion she reaches out to the nearest dead agent and steals his sunglasses and pats him down for a keycard. She pockets both for now, waiting until their inside to play with enemy toys.

Inferno was unfazed by the bullets whiffing past his head. The mast he did was let out a little huff.

"As expected I guess."

He made his move to the one shooting in the street, running at him in an arc to stay away from the bullets. Once he got close enough he delivered a strike at the agent's temple, before grabbing his stunned head and smashing it against the concrete with force. He didn't put everything in though, just enough to knock him out for a good while.

"Sleep tight."

Geoff immediately drops to the floor as soon as the bullets start flying to make himself less of a target, and begins crawling on his belly along the ground towards the now-abandoned hatchback the two undercover security men had leapt from.

(Digital Fort)


You tried to will yourself to swap places with the whithered knights on the wall but nothing happened. Instead a blue transparent forcefield momentarily materializes above the wall and seemed to push away your intent, before the forcefield vanished again.

It seems the firewall interpreted this as another attempt to system breach and blocked access.

Without further ceremony you wrote a new algorythm for several cannons and had them discharge violently at the firewall. The sheer force of the impact blew holes in it, right through, big enough to drive a bus in, the impact shredding pixelated stone and sending chinks of it flying in every direction.

Before you could react however, the holes mended themselves and the firewall rebuilt itself, in what was likely a few nano-seconds.

That was impossible. You vividly saw the firewalls code changing in real time, re-writing itself, re-structiring and adapting. As if it were alive.

Codes didn't do that. They had no intent, no conscioisness, they couldn't self-correct and re-write themselves. Only a computer programmer could do that. A human in the real world.


But these events were taking mere nano-seconds in the real world. No human would have the reaction time to even notice a breach in the firewall, let alone come up with a solution this fast, create a whole new code and implement it into the system. Things were happening too fast, too quickly for a human mind to process and with way too much conscious intent.

This was impossible. It felt as if the firewall itself was a living being.


As these thoughts crossed your mind, you suddenly felt a tremor inside the castle, like an earth-quacke that began small and slowly started growing in intensity. The firewall began to rhythmically shake and you suddenly noticed a massive writing appear on the wall, in massive capital letters, right in front of you.




I SEE YOU




The earth-quackes grew more rhythmic and heavy, it felt as if something massive was moving behind the wall and quickly making its way toward it. Something was coming.














(Street Level)


Gamma hastily checked all her camera footage inside the building. She still had full access but what she was seeing made zero sense. There was no one in the building.

No panicking clerks in the corridors, no drones launching from the armory, no heavily armed response team rushing toward your position, there was nobody there. Every corridor and room in the building was empty of movement and people. It was completely deserted.

Paralyzing fear shot through your mind, as you looked at the camera displaying the corridor of the entrance hall, where 10 agents huddled in plain sight, spraying the entrance with bullets.


The camera footage - displayed an empty corridor.



It finally hit you. Someone had been messing with you from the start. The camera footage you were fed, was a loop. An old loop of empty corridors. It was fake.

It hit you. You had no idea what was happening inside the building, and no real access to its systems.

To fool a Plume of Dusk to this extent was almost impossible. No hacker had the reaction time or the brain processing power. And yet, someone had messed with you so subtly and gracefully, it would have been admirable, if it wasn't so terrifying.


No human hacker could do this.

There was another Plume of Dusk in the building.






As if to really hammer the point home, your camera feed shut down entirely.

And your internal firewall suddenly displayed a giant warning all over your retinas.




ATTEMPT AT SYSTEM BREACH DETECTED

FIREWALL INTEGRITY DOWN TO 72%

12 SECONDS TO SYSTEM BREACH



That was the crux. Connecting to the enemy network left your own firewall exposed to attack. If it was breached, your internal systems would be exposed to attack. All of them.

The hacker could try altering your perception of reality, so you wouldn't be able to tell friend from foe, he could try feeding you hallucinations, glitching your senses or try shutting them down completely.  That would be in the best case scenario.

The worst case, a skilled enough hacker could try going as far as wrestling away control of your body, possibly controlling you like a puppet on remote control.

You couldn't let that happen. Your firewall cannot be breached.




You have very limited time. You have stop whatever you're doing and initiate a Digital Waltz to suppress the attack on your firewall. It will require your undivided attention.
Its not a Deep Dive but you'll still be vulnerable to attack in the real world, as you'll be preoccupied with the dance.



Almost at the same time, Roksana released a sharp scream. Her stealth suit failing, she turned completely visible and collapsed to one knee behind Slasher. She was grasping her head with one hand, still holding her rifle with the other, wincing and periodically screaming in pain. Strings of holographic light shimmered around her body, flickering and glitching out periodically, with an eerie green light.

"Roksana!" Matej screamed in alarm, falling into a crouch beside her and grasping her shoulder.

"I'm-... being... hacked!" Roksana squeezed out, wincing, her face horribly distorted by pain.

Geoff wrote:Geoff immediately drops to the floor as soon as the bullets start flying to make himself less of a target, and begins crawling on his belly along the ground towards the now-abandoned hatchback the two undercover security men had leapt from.

The hatchback was barely smeared with blood, the two bullets that killed the pair of agents were placed with precision. One was shot through the eye, the other right through the forehead. Small pools of blood were collecting under their heads, their eyes glazed, staring wide open in shock at the dark sky.

They were dressed in plain clothing, the only thing that marked them as spies were the cutting edge handguns grasped in their hands. The Data-pads strapped to their forearms were dark, still emitting occasional sparks and fizzling noises, as the circuitry faintly burned inside.

The man who was shot through the forehead, suddenly opened his eyes.




The grip on his gun tightened. He looked dazed, but not nearly enough for someone who's just been a corpse a second ago. Looking around, he slowly rolled onto his stomach and didn't move, taking the scene in. As he waited, you noticed that the hole in his head wasn't nearly as deep as it seemed, and as the blood lazily poured out of the wound, you noticed an armored plate, beneath the skin. It was barely even dented.

Aiming his gun in the direction of the buildings entrance, he began crawling under the hatchback on his stomach, his eyes carefully watching the scene. You can't be sure, but it feels like he's preparing to take cover, before taking a precise shot at your comrades in the distance.

Inferno wrote:He made his move to the one shooting in the street, running at him in an arc to stay away from the bullets. Once he got close enough he delivered a strike at the agent's temple, before grabbing his stunned head and smashing it against the concrete with force. He didn't put everything in though, just enough to knock him out for a good while.

You blindsided the man completely, as your fist smashed him right in the side of his head. He tried to re-orient himself, push you away and aim the gun in your direction but he was dazed and you were too fast. Grabbing his head you tilted him off balance in a graceful arc and sent him hard toward the ground.

The man's handgun clattered across the pavement, as his face connected with concrete. Going numb, his body collapsed to the ground in a heap.


"Mmm..." You heard Krys' voice somewhere nearby, before his quiet footsteps echoed away. He might have noticed you leaving the enemy agent alive.

Slasher wrote:With her side against the wall she determines how far back the other agents are. She checks her belt for a grenade and if she has one, she pops the pin, and sends it through the now shattered windows from around the corner of the door.

During the grenades pause before its explosion she reaches out to the nearest dead agent and steals his sunglasses and pats him down for a keycard. She pockets both for now, waiting until their inside to play with enemy toys.

Hugging the wall by the building's entrance and periodically wincing and leaning away, Slasher felt the concrete being chipped away and pepper her face mask, as she roughly assessed the distance to the enemy agents. Judging by the sound of the gunfire, you estimate they're maybe 8 meters away from the door.

The clatter of the flashbang's falling pin was left unheard in the racket. The grenade was hurled through the shattered window, breaking it further and sending a spray of shards inward across the floor.

"GRANATA!" You heard a hoarse bark from inside, as you hastily looted a body. There was a black and otherwise featureless keycard in his wallet, that you nicked promptly. Putting on his glasses suddenly flooded the world with holographic text, what one could call 'Augmented Reality'.


In the 1 second that it worked as intended, you saw the sunglasses attempt to identify and analyze the face of every person in your line of sight, trying to display a short dossier on all of them. You also noticed in the corner, a report of local time, weather forecast, stock exchange prices and it was clear the sunglasses had a very sophisticated night vision mode, as the dark street around you suddenly became very bright and tinted green.

This all lasted for only a second however, before a bunch of alarming red text appeared in front of your eyes:




KLAIDA!

DNR piršto atspaudas neatpažintas!
DNR piršto atspaudas neatpažintas!

Sistemos išjungimas!

Prašome susisiekti su technine pagalba, geros dienos, ačiū!~



The sunglasses shut down, becoming so dark, you couldn't even see your hands through them.



You were almost grateful for that, as a blinding flash and deafening explosion rang out from the corridor, accompanied by pained screams from within.

"BREACH!" Krys roared over the racket. Bringing his hands together in an untraceable movent, he manifested a 1.5 meter high elliptical transparent blue shield right in front of him and darted into the corridor. Pushing the shield against his shoulder for support, moving slowly while half-crouched, he began using it as a riot-shield, as he slowly advanced down the corridor.

Both of his palms were filled with blue fiery magic, as he concentrated horribly to maintain the shield, his strain growing harder, as wild pot shots began striking his force-field. Krys couldn't use a weapon in this state. It seems he was counting on you to hide behind him and his improvised riot-shield, and shoot from around his shoulder, as he advanced.

Slasher tilts her head curiously as she looks through the glasses, "Very intresting." She frowns as text covers her view and the glasses shut down, "...laaame..." she huffs before ripping them off, flicking them at the ground hard with her wrist, and then stomping them in half.

Slasher pushes in hard and fast right after the flashbang, violence of action pulling her into a hyperfocus as she blows past Krys's shield. Two blades extend near instantaneously ripping through her forearms and tearing out through the cloak. Both blades come up to cover her vitals, like a boxer her cybernetic arms close over her chest, the blades covering her head. Her back arches forward to make it even harder to hit her in the gut as she rushes in

She closes in the blink of an eye, and becomes a whirlwind of blades. There was no one clear target in her dance of death, both blades strike and rend flesh and cybernetic alike as she cuts down as many of the agents as she can.

The deer can be heard cackling, already plotting on how to continue her killing spree.

Geoff waited until the surviving agent had gotten his head and shoulders under the hatchback and had limited maneuverability, and then leapt on him, unleashing an indiscriminate flurry of vicious blows into the man's back with his two daggers.

"Commencing counter measures, please cover me"

Gamma enters into a Digital Waltz. Trusting the rest of the team to cover her. Instead of severing her connection she goes on the offensive and starts to hack back as aggressively as she can.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Epsilon, back on the ground, summons a five headed gargantuan in size dragon as preparation for what is approaching. Each head a different color and with a different breath. Red for fire, Blue for lightning, Green for poison, Black for acid, and White for frost.

Inferno got up from his knockout move, and made his way over to the gate, taking a moment to observe the way to go. After some considderation, he lowered his face mask, and took some big, deliberate breathes. After his last one, he clicked his teeth, which gave a spark not unlike flint.

A big inhale followed.

Either this gut really liked the Big bad Wolf from the 3 piggies, or he was going to do something insane.

(Street Level)



Slasher turned into a blur as she rushed down the corridor, following the flashbangs explosion. Stray bullets whizzed dangerously close to her head, one striking her blade and ricocheting into the wall while another grazed her metal shoulder, as the agents screamed and fired blindly, falling and ducking behind cabinets and potted plants.

You reached the nearest one in less than a second, the agents dark shades turning in your direction before a spray of blood colored the spotless wall, as you slashed through his carotid and trachea. Frantic shrieking of pain and outrage filled the hall as you turned into a whirlwind of reinforced blades.

Cutting through everything you could reach, your katanas slashed through flesh with alarming ease. The tendons of somebodies leg, someones liver, down someones forearm. A severed arm smacked against the wall, still holding a pistol, the stump dousing you in blood and painting your invisible silhouette red for all to see, as you split somebodies head like a watermellon in an upright cut from below. The agents spotless white shirts and black business suits were sprayed red, as they screamed, crumbling to the floor, you managed to dismember and eviscerate 4 of them, before your left blade struck metal.


In that split second, you looked to your left and saw an agent who blocked your blade with his forearm, the sword had cut through his sleeve and skin, until it struck something metalic underneath. In the same breath, the agents fingers wrapped around your blade, grasping it with a death-grip, unperturbed by the possibility of his fingers being severed, and kicked you in the ribs.


The hit was inhuman, like the strike of a sledgehammer, and as his foot connected, you heard a metal click in its depths, reminiscent of a bullet being inserted into a chamber.

The shotgun blast rang deafeningly loud in the hall, as a buckshot struck Slasher point blank, sending her flying in 5 meters back, smacking against Krys's shield and knocking him on his back, as you both crashed to the cold floor in a heap. The agent who shot you, remained standing with his leg raised for a moment longer, the smocking barrel of a shotgun visible through his destroyed shoe, revealing a metal foot underbeath, before he lowered his leg, pulled out the UMP from his back and opened fire.

Krys grunted in pain and half lept, half crawled across the floor on all fours, to place himself ahead of Slasher. His shield had dissaperated and he screamed out, whipping it back into existance a split second before a burst of bullets struck it, right at the spot where his head was. Still crouching and shielding Slasher with his own body and magic, he screamed in a hoarse voice:
"MAN DOWN!"


You tasted blood in your mouth, it took a moment to realize you bit your own tongue. The bullet proof vest under your stealth suit had saved your life, but it didn't leave you unscathed either. A shotgun blast point blank had penetrated the armor, the sulg fragments creating shallow wounds. At least five of your ribs were broken, or cracked, your pancreas was likely punctured as well, the fragments stuck in the shallow wounds.

If you weren't wearing the bullet proof vest, the buckshot would have went a lot deeper into your body, likely piercing your heart and lungs, killing you instantly.

You avoided that scenario, but that didn't stop the horrid pain of your broken ribs and internal bleeding from your pancreas. Your body was near paralyzed from the pain, as warm blood trickled down your stomach, drenching your stealth suit. It was painful to breathe, each breath felt like a thousand needles were stabbing into your chest and an alarming pool of blood began collecting under your body.



"COVERING FIRE!" Barker yelled over the raging gunfire as he methodically advanced into the hallway. Moving low and keeping his weapon leveled, withought swaying up and down with each step, he released single shots, precise and accurate, as he moved in behind Krys and took cover behind his shield.

The 6 remaining agents were still dazed from the flashbang, crouching behind cover they releasing wild and blind bursts, just to keep you at bay. Their shots were going wild, spraying the walls behind Slasher and striking Krys' shield periodically. Barker fired sparingly and only single shots, he struck the cabinets several times, pinning the agents down, before shooting one in the head, spraying his brains over the wall, as the agent peaked a little too far out of cover.

"You tryin' to go out like Bruce Lee at the end of Fist of Fury?!" Barker growled, grabbing Slasher by the back of her shirts collar and dragging her back down the hall with one hand, while holding his rifle one handed and firing single shots with the other. An alarmingly long trail of blood was left behind as you were dragged back, Krys slowly backing away too, keeping you both behind his shield, with Barker taking pot-shots around it.


Clearing the exit door way, Barker dragged you off to the side, some 5 meters along the wall.

"Cover us!" Krys yelled, backing out of the hallway as well and exiting the building. Slinging his rifle behind his back he rushed to his knees beside Slashers bleeding body. His shield dissipated and a new, pale green and teal glow surrounded his palms. His eyes rolled into the back of his head and he began whispering, chanting in a foreign language, as he waved his arms around Slashers bleeding wounds.

Whatever he was doing, at least the pain subsided, if only a little.


Matej dropped to his knees beside you as well and tried to open his med-kit and pull out some bandages, before Barker pulled him back to his feet by the straps of his vest and barked into the batpony's ear:
"HE'S GOT IT! I NEED YOU AT THE DOOR!"


Reluctantly, Matej complied with a grimace. Hugging the wall behind Barker, they stood just by the buildings entrance and prepared to breach again. A second before Barker rushed in, his eyes widened as he noticed what Inferno was doing:
"Don't you dare.." Barker exhaled, fear clearly reflecting in his eye "Don't you do it!!-"


"FIRE IN THE HOLE" Matej shrieked at the top of his lungs, yanking Barker away from the entrance, pulling him back by his vest and clearing an open path for Inferno.





Off to the side, Roksana was still periodically screaming in pain, grasping her head with one arm, her holograms glitching out and periodically lighting up around her in ghostly green circles:
"MATEJ! I CAN'T HOLD ON!" The woman desperately screamed, her eyes closed shut "YOU KNOW WHAT TO DO!"

"NO!" Matej screamed back reflexively, his eyes filling with fear.

"DO IT, YOU LITTLE BITCH! DID THE MASTER TAKE YOUR BALLS TOO!?" Roksana screamed out in pain.

"I'm not severing your spine!... Roksana!?" Matej shouted desperately as the womans eyes rolled into the back of her head and she suddenly froze, stuck in a very awkward unnatural pose. Her jaw remained slack, her body rigid, as if someone had turned her off, before a digital sound escaped her mouth, without her lips even moving:


"Attempt at system breach detected.
Wireless connection shut down."

The voice was Roksana's, but it was completely rigid, even, cold and unnatural.

"Neurochip Activated." She said in a synthetic voice "Initiating standard assist protocol." The woman rose to full height, her holograms shutting down completely. Her eyes rolled back into view, but there was no consciousness behind them.

The woman blankly stared into space with an emotionless expression, her eyes wide open and empty. She simply raised her rifle and fell in formation behind Matej, moving in rigid, robotic manner.

"Roksana?" The batpony called in alarm.

The woman didn't respond, just continued to emptily stare into space, grasping her rifle and standing behind him in formation. She reminded you now of one of the murder-bots you saw earlier, an empty robot shell, a puppet, its strings pulled by an unseen hand. It was one of the most horrid things you've ever seen in your life.


A fate awaiting Gamma, if she failed to thwart the hackers intrusion. Bright blue holograms manifested around you like ribbons of light, as you began an elaborate dance. Twirling several times on your axis, you became aware of several people aiming their phones at you, from the windows of the building across the street, the commotion apparently drawing the attention of the civilians nearby.

The degradation of your firewall halted and froze, flicking between 68% and 71% as you ran trigonometry algorythms in your head, attempting to thwart and rebuild your firewall.

The enemy hackers blatant attack allowed you to locate his position. Basement level minus 2, inside the enemy building. You could almost see his orange silhouette through the walls, as he danced his Digital Waltz.


You lashed out, writing a complicated worm virus and sending it out to attack, in the span of 2 seconds.

The enemies firewall immediately took a hit, knocking it down to 92%



An alert suddenly popped up in the instant messenger app in your head, indicating communication from an unknown source. The message read as following:



'Krasnyi Bess': "Nice try darling."

'Krasnyi Bess': "That's quite the blatant siege you're laying on the ministry of military intelligence."

'Krasnyi Bess': "You must be really stupid. Or really desperate."

'Krasnyi Bess': "What are you after?"




Your firewall suddenly dropped to 65%

Your enemies dropped to 87%

The hacker was good, he really good. You could sense he was tackling both you and Epsilon at the same time. Considering how he simultaneously took out Roksana, your chances weren't looking good.

Even if you were evenly matched, your firewall would degrade faster than his.
Epsilon will have to do something really creative, real fast, or both of you would get shut down like Roksana.

Geoff wrote:Geoff waited until the surviving agent had gotten his head and shoulders under the hatchback and had limited maneuverability, and then leapt on him, unleashing an indiscriminate flurry of vicious blows into the man's back with his two daggers.

You reflexively and very aggressively stabbed him in the back several times, attempting to target major arteries or vital organs, but even from the first hit, you realized something wasn't going according to plan. Your knife wouldn't penetrate.

It left scratches and holes in the mans jacket and shirt, but never went beyond that. It was like trying to stab a piece of metal. A cybernetic implant, some sort of sub-dermal armor, layered under his skin, had to be. As the realization dawned on you, the man suddenly twisted his arm around your knife-hand, pulling himself up from under the car, just enough, to shove the barrel of his gun right in his face.

Controlling your knife-hand, grasping your forearm and wrist so hard, you couldn't easily wrench it free, you saw his finger inch toward the trigger. He's about to shoot you point blank, you felt the cold steel of his handgun press against your forehead. You realized you had a second left, if that, as you stared into his clear, blue eyes, able to see every wrinkle on his irises.
















(Epsilon)



A 5 headed hydra began materializing on the grassy field behind you, constructed from the ground up like a lego, from blue colored bricks that materialized from thin air and fell into place, changing shape and color as needed.

It was going to be 25 meters tall easy, almost as high as the wall. Its massive size seemed to play a role in the time table of its construction as it took longer to build something of this size.


About 5 seconds passed and the hydra was half finished, when the earthquackes on the other side of the wall grew louder and stronger, before they suddenly stopped.

And then a massive scaly paw suddenly whipped over the wall, smacking you into the concrete, leaving a crater and cracks in the wall, before it scooped you up and dragged you up, toward the giant head of a red dragon that peaked over the wall, opened its mouth and shoved you into its jaws.


Your body became pierced with horrible pain, as your Plume of Dusk simulated something akin to a severe electric shock to indicate received damage, as the giant monster chewed you for a moment, the spit you out, letting you fall 30 meters onto the grass field below.


Your body was filled with slashes of blue ghostly light to indicate where you were hurt.
Your firewall integrity dropped down to 71%



You looked up just in time to notice the giant red dragon looming its head over the wall and placing both paws on it, as it opened its giant maw and cackled in a deafening, gravely voice:


"Who dares lay siege to my domain?" His eyes glittered faintly in the twilight, as a primal animal hunger reflected in his gaze, hunger for food, hunger for sustinence. The beast smirked:


"Aaahhhh... I recognize the fingerprint of your code... each hacker has one, his preferred style of coding, did you know that... Gamma...?" The dragon chuckled "Or are you Epsilon?...

I remember you, in the Waltz... one of the 500 Rumbas who lived. Have you found yourself a new master?" The dragon cocked its head in amusement:

"I thought you wanted to be free..." its eyes hardened "Tell me your purpose here, and who is holding your leash!... and perhaps we can see what can be done about severing it!"

Slasher revels in the few moments she has to cut down the enemy before shes ultimately blocked and her momentum put to a halt. In this short moment she lets her feelings be known, "You fucker!" She roars as her blade clangs against his and shes sent flying back from a leg shotgun. She groans in agony and in response to her questionable actions and her potential death wish from barker she lets out a faint, agonized, "Heh- Owwwww...  god I wish... its a girls greatest dream." she says distantly her eyes glazed in pain and locked onto the sky with an evil grin dispite the agony, "do...you think... if we're bad enough we'll become demons? The torturers instead of the tortured? Does lucifer make use of his most loyal subjects?"

Gamma continues to counter hack.

Gamma: I want me and my sister's freedom back

Gamma: Let us complete our task,

Gamma: Or help us?

Gamma: We can pay you!


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Epsilon looks up at the dragon with a smirk.

"How hard would it be for you to override a Neuro Chip and give myself and my sister back our freedom? Help me and we'll help you."

Inferno finished his inhale, and after a second, he lurched forward and let out a roar. The sound was strange, as if a lion and a dragon were harmonizing.

Stranger then the sound was the stream of red-golden flames erupting from his mouth, filling the hallway as they made their way to the agents standing guard there. As the fire came closer, the flames were also happy to scorch whatever was in their path, as long as they could.

After a few seconds of spewing flames, Inferno called it quits, inhaling and grinning wickedly at creating his namesake before him.

"Alright gang, don't let this oppertunity go to waste." He said before going in, shotgun drawn in one hand and making a fist with the other. As he got closer he raised the gun to shoot, and if he entered melee range he would meet the strikes as they come.

Kaylee Brown wrote:

Geoff wrote:Geoff waited until the surviving agent had gotten his head and shoulders under the hatchback and had limited maneuverability, and then leapt on him, unleashing an indiscriminate flurry of vicious blows into the man's back with his two daggers.

You reflexively and very aggressively stabbed him in the back several times, attempting to target major arteries or vital organs, but even from the first hit, you realized something wasn't going according to plan. Your knife wouldn't penetrate.

It left scratches and holes in the mans jacket and shirt, but never went beyond that. It was like trying to stab a piece of metal. A cybernetic implant, some sort of sub-dermal armor, layered under his skin, had to be. As the realization dawned on you, the man suddenly twisted his arm around your knife-hand, pulling himself up from under the car, just enough, to shove the barrel of his gun right in his face.

Controlling your knife-hand, grasping your forearm and wrist so hard, you couldn't easily wrench it free, you saw his finger inch toward the trigger. He's about to shoot you point blank, you felt the cold steel of his handgun press against your forehead. You realized you had a second left, if that, as you stared into his clear, blue eyes, able to see every wrinkle on his irises.

Struggling against the agent's grip, Geoff reaches out his own finger towards the pistols' magazine release button, now his only chance to save his life.

Slasher wrote:she says distantly her eyes glazed in pain and locked onto the sky with an evil grin dispite the agony, "do...you think... if we're bad enough we'll become demons? The torturers instead of the tortured? Does lucifer make use of his most loyal subjects?"

"I..." Krys' eyes glazed over in pity. Coming from a cultist, that felt quite rich. The unicorn looked away for a moment, before he locked eyes with you again, not stopping his strange wavings of blue glow, emanating from his hands:

"I do not believe in hell. I believe in reincarnation. But more to your point, there are parallels between religions, enough for me to say, what you refer to as Demons, I believe, are referred to as Shepherds, in my religion. Their task is a holy one, guiding the masses to the afterlife and beyond, helping them embrace the pain of existence, so they may accept it and face death without fear.

If a Shepherd is who you wish to become, then I believe you already are one, even if you did so unknowingly. You are already, a Shepherd like me." Krys finished his monologue by jerking his hands away roughly, and you felt the shotgun slug fragments rip out of your flesh and clatter across the pavement.  

The dozen or so miniature wounds began to regenerate and close rather quickly now, leaving behind scars.

"Can you spend 3 seconds without indoctrinating everyone into your cocking cult!?" Barker roared over his shoulder, as Krys helped you sit up on the asphalt, supporting your back.

"Your wounds have closed but you lost blood and your new flesh is weak. The wounds may re-open if you push yourself to your limit." Krys went on, ignoring Barker completely "Try not to exert yourself too much in the next 5 hours and... try not to get shot." The mage gave you a meaningfully stern look.

Gamma wrote:Gamma: I want me and my sister's freedom back

Gamma: Let us complete our task,

Gamma: Or help us?

Gamma: We can pay you!

A long pause followed, as you continued to dance by the side of the office building, trying to wrestle for control of the firewall, with increasingly sophisticated pirouettes of the waltz. The holographic green ribbons of light, danced around your body in frantic motions as new alerts appeared in your messenger app:



'Krasnyi Bess': "Ah. I see the problem. You're still Neuro-chipped."

'Krasnyi Bess': "How gauche"


An alert flashed on your screen, warning you that your firewall just fell down to 49% while the attacker was way up at 71%


'Krasnyi Bess': "Being Neuro-chipped, you're little more than a Rumba, trying to vacuum my carpet"

'Krasnyi Bess': "Just look at poor Roksana"


The text drew your attention to the woman who stood behind Matej like a ghost. Gone was all mimicry from her face, the smirks, the spark in her eye. An empty, eerie shell stood in her place, grasping her gun like a puppet on strings. She reminded you of a mental patient in a psychiatric hospital, eyes glazed, with no thought left behind them. No consciousness.



'Krasnyi Bess': "Attempts at reasoning with you are pointless. You're not in control of your actions."

'Krasnyi Bess': "I will instruct my units to destroy that annoying device."

'Krasnyi Bess': "Of course, I can't guarantee they won't destroy your Plume of Dusk in the process."

'Krasnyi Bess': "This exchange is over."



'Krasnyi Bess', or the 'Red Devil', according to your online translator, had shut down the communication channel, leaving you to stare at the progress of your hacking attack.

You managed to bring down the hackers firewall to 52% integrity now.
Your own firewall was down to 31%

The outcome of this battle would be down up to Epsilon, you began to suspect.

Inferno wrote:Stranger then the sound was the stream of red-golden flames erupting from his mouth, filling the hallway as they made their way to the agents standing guard there. As the fire came closer, the flames were also happy to scorch whatever was in their path, as long as they could.

After a few seconds of spewing flames, Inferno called it quits, inhaling and grinning wickedly at creating his namesake before him.

"Alright gang, don't let this opportunity go to waste." He said before going in, shotgun drawn in one hand and making a fist with the other. As he got closer he raised the gun to shoot, and if he entered melee range he would meet the strikes as they come.

You heard a faint ping from your Data-pad, indicating your blood glucose levels just dropped from 164 mg/dL, to 124 mg/dL. Good thing you ate just before the mission, that gave you a bit of a glucose boost from the start. Just need to be careful about using more magic. If your levels fall below 40 mg/dL, things could get unpleasant.

A scorching blaze erupted out of your mouth, much like a flamethrower that turned into a wave of fire, spreading and washing over everything in its path. Paint bubbled and melted off the walls, the wooden desks and potted plants were set ablaze instantly, metal screeched and bent slightly, turning red hot, and the people, the people screamed.

Death by fire was one of the most agonizing, horrid things a human being could experience, the sounds they made, as their flesh bubbled and melted off their bones, echoed painfully loud in your ears, as they burned alive. Their skin turning black and rigid, cracking like earth in a desert. Their clothes turning to ash and fusing with their burning muscles, as their eyes melted away, dripping down their blackened cheeks.

Some crumbled in formless masses of black burning meat, others remained standing in place like grotesque statues, charred husks, still burning, even after the fires largely subsided, flames coming out of their empty eye sockets and mouths. The corridor instantly filled with the sickly, nauseating smell of burning meat, not much different in scent from a barbecue, only these were deceased people burning.


As you wave off the thick black smoke from your eyes and cough, a completely charred, blasted corridor comes into view. Everything was scorched, the walls, the floor, the ceiling and furniture. Small fires still burned, the potted plants, the corpses, filling the corridors ceiling with thick, chocking smoke.

And out of the fire and ash, a single figure slowly rose up from the floor and straightened up slowly, as it howled in horrid agony and rage. His skin and clothing had melted away, revealing only a metallic layer of armor that housed his muscles and bones, a cybernetic sub-dermal armor plating, meant to stop bullets, had somewhat saved his life.

His eyes, revealed to be metalic orbs, rolled around in his skull manically, consumed by a mad frenzy of pain and outrage. You saw his robotic pupils from afar as nothing but two glowing red dots, as they wildly zig-zagged across the corridor and finally settled on you.

The man howled, his shriek made your blood turn cold in your veins. His armor was never meant to withstand heat of these temperatures and it was slowly cooking him alive. His hands unfolded and re-arranged themselves, his left transforming into a mini-gun, his right into a chainsaw.


The man bellowed, his wild glowing red eyes locking on you and he charged forward, his chainsaw activating and emitting an eerie buzz, just as he raised his minigun and its barrel began to spin up. He was only 7 meters away.

Geoff wrote:Struggling against the agent's grip, Geoff reaches out his own finger towards the pistols' magazine release button, now his only chance to save his life.

You push hard against the agents grip, as he struggled to keep the gun leveled at your forehead. With a quick motion, you tried to both slap the pistol aside and jam your finger into the magazine release button. The unexpected motion, knocked the pistol off to the side just barely, the muzzle now aimed at your right eye at an angle. You felt the button under your thumb and saw the magazine eject, falling halfway and clanking down at the pavement.

There was only one problem. There was still one round left in the chamber.

The agent pulled the trigger.




Pain. A feeling of being pierced in the eye, as if by a needle.
Then Geoff lost consciousness.





The shot ran loudly across the street and your collective Data-pads wailed in unison, as Geoff's vital signs suddenly spiked, his blood pressure dropping and heart-rate spiking into the 160s beats per minute.

Matej turned around in a heart beat, stared at the two men laying down by the car in the distance and lifted his rifle. You could just see the agent fumbling around with his magazine, right next to Geoff's unmoving form, before the agent finally managed to re-insert the clip and pulled back the railing, feeding another round into the chamber. The next second his left eye exploded, as Matej's bullet ripped clean through.

Taking three more shots, one of them grazing the armored forehead and ricocheting into the side of the building, the other two struck the left eye, liquefying the agents brain. It seems his eyes were the only thing organic about him, the only weakness in his sub-dermal armored layer.


"GEOFF'S DOWN!" Matej barked into the earpiece.

"Stop fooking dying, damn it!" Krys swore, leaving Slashers side and charging across the street, turning invisible on the fly, only the sprays of puddles on the street marking his path. Sliding onto his knees and colliding with the car, the cultist flipped Geoff onto his back and inspected the gunshot wound to his head.

His right eye was gone. The bullet had went in at an angle and exited through his right temple, missing the brain by sheer centimeters. It was a clean shot through wound. Muttering what must be every swear in his dictionary, Krys closed his eyes, lifting Geoff's head onto his lap and planting both palms on his head.

Regrowing bone was possible. Bones broke and regrew on a microscopic level every day in healthy people. But that process was usually slow, and microscopic. Instigating the body's cells to do that process in seconds, as opposed to weeks, was incredibly painful and Geoff woke up with a horrid scream, jerking and contorting and spasms of pain gripped his body.

"DON'T... MOVE!" Krys barked, trying to hold him down, gritting his teeth, as both fresh bone and muscle fibers began to grow back. The eye structure began to reform, but its architecture was too complex. Instead of a healthy eye, an eye with a horrid, ugly as hell scar was forming, a scar that was obscuring the entire lens, that was destroyed to begin with.

Krys suddenly lurched forward and spit out a horrid smelling, green liquid, beginning to contort, and you realized he was fighting an urge to throw up. His Data-pad lit up and began screaming, flashing red, as his glucose levels fell below 70 mg/dL. He was pushing himself to his limit, too quickly. The blue glow of magic around his palms faded for a split second, before appearing again and the wound in Geoff's head continued to close.













(The Digital Fort)

Epsilon wrote:Epsilon looks up at the dragon with a smirk.

"How hard would it be for you to override a Neuro Chip and give myself and my sister back our freedom? Help me and we'll help you."

"Sure, I can override it," The red-scaled dragon released a toothy smirk, as its beady eyes fell on you:

"Drop down your firewall for me, and I'll disable your Neurochip, before your new master use it. You will be completely free." The red dragon watched you closely, its nostrils flared and its exhaled heated air.

The wind blew hard on this green digital plane, making the grass and stray leaves billow in the wind and you noticed the undead knights atop the wall emit pitiful moans and crumble where they stood, turning into piles of bones.

Your five-headed hydra meanwhile, has finished its construction. The last piece of a blue lego fell on its head, the whole beast flashed blue and suddenly became very animated and alive, each head twisting back and forth, as if to shake off its slumber and opening its menacing eyes.

It seems you can control that thing with a mere thought!

The answer's given to both Gamma and Epsilon are close enough to what they wanted to hear. Epsilon drops her defenses and even unsummons her creation.

Gamma continues to counter hack, but as a performance in order to trick the Neuro Chip that she still is "fighting"

The Twins at this point, while separate from each other are of the same mind.

Slasher flinches and cringes as the slug is ripped from her form and the wound heals over, "Thanks Krys..." she says meaningfully, her eyes flick to barker, "I dont remember asking you!?" she spits back in Krys' defense.

Her gaze shifts to the now scorched hallway, and the single figure still inside. Taking the cultists advice to heart she keeps behind the bigger party members for now. drawing the pistol from her beltline and taking aim down the hall. she levels her sights on him, aiming just below his stomach, just above the groin. She sends round after round down range at him looking to slow his approach to her bigger meat shields.

Inferno's grin grew. "Even in pain, you push through. I respect that."

He grabbed the shotgun firmly, and fired two rounds at the shoulders. First the left, then the right. Given he wasn't that good of a shot, the effect was more to stun then to kill. If he would get close enough, he would go in with another takedown, just like outside.

Geoff's back arches as the waves of pain flowed through him, his screams muffled and distorted by his sewn-up lips.

As Krys begins to bring up goo, Geoff catches a glimpse of the warning on his data pad. Fighting through the intense pain, he tries to push Krys away, giving him a look with his one remaining good eye, which said something along the lines of 'Don't sacrifice yourself for my sake.'

(The Digital Fort)



The hydra with its 5 hideous heads only managed to spit fire in a hissing fit, before its enormous body shuddered and suddenly collapsed into a pile of blue legos, crumbling into millions of tiny bytes. The pile spread out and began to vanish, accompanied by a blue glow, as you deactivated your firewall.

The very next second, something deep in your operating system screamed at you, that something was very wrong. You tried to backpedal reflexively, but it was too late, and only the red dragons deafening cackle filled your senses, as one alert after another appeared in your retinas, and your consciousness shut down.




Brute-force ejecting out of a Deep Dive, without following the wind-down procedure was always jarring and disorienting. But when it was done against your will, it physically hurt. Or, perhaps in your case, it hurt your soul.

Your entire body felt as if it was on fire, as your robotic shell seized up, caught in an epileptic seizure.




CORE SYSTEMS COMPROMISED

MALICIOUS SOFTWARE DETECTED
MALICIOUS SOFTWARE DETECTED
MALICIOUS SOFTWARE DETECTED
MALICIOUS SOFTWARE DETECTED

SOURCE CODE ALTERATION DET-#@+×÷!/>^*^₪_&₪@!=_₪/>^÷>&%<>[#>>÷>÷*#&#&#>÷&×)
×&+&@]@&@[@*@^@[@*NEURO^@[×&@_@[@&@_[×>×>×8×77×<×<×%×^@*+%+>+(!^![+(!CHIP(
!>@^@>@[!ACCCCCCT*#*#&#&#&>@@&@&>&@>@&@>@&@:@[@^@[@^@[#&#[7×7×7×^×9#&#;#]×
@>@^×8×^#[+*(;OVERHEA%@^#;#&#&@:@^@%@&@^@&@:@%@%@&@:@<×_@^@[@^×>×<28÷^÷9#^
₪;#[!^@*@;@[#^#:&@<÷>÷&×^₪_&₪@!=_₪/>^÷>&%<>[#>>÷>÷*#&7×<×<×%×^@*+%+>+(7×<×




Eyes wide open, mouth agape in a silent scream, all you could see was the sewer ceiling, in the dark, stinking tunnel you were before. Your back arced, as your body convulsed, as if subjected to a continuous current of electricity. The pain was indescribable.
You almost forgot what that feels like.



You didn't think cyborgs could feel pain.



With an eerily loud bang, your Neurochip exploded outward, fire and metal debris erupting out of the back of your head, before you suddenly and violently collapsed to the floor, like a puppet who's strings have been cut.

You lost control of your body. All of it.

You couldn't move a finger, or make a sound. You couldn't even blink. All you could do was lie in a heap, staring at the walls, as your body lay numb, limbs bent and twisted at awkward, uncomfortable angles. Your operating system didn't respond. Trying to write code or send commands via a wireless link, did nothing. You were cut off from your own body.


Your Data-pad shut down. The Augmented Reality interface that was projecting onto your retinas earlier, displaying the status of your team mates, local time, temperature and various other mundane info, flickered off. Only the dark walls of the sewer remained.

And the beeping.



In the initial shock and panic, it had escaped your notice. But now, that the beeping was starting to become irregular, the beeps increasing in frequency, you noticed it, echoing from somewhere inside your metal chassis. Something was ticking, faster and faster with each passing second, approaching a point, where the beeping would turn into a single tone.


The armored blast door hatch in the ceiling, suddenly and violently swung open, banging up against the wall and revealing the secret back doorway into the enemy building. Three men augmented with cutting edge cybernetics and clad in heavy military armor, dropped down, raised their rifles and scanned the tunnel.

Two of them silently advanced, scanning their sectors with their rifles, while the third rapidly approached your motionless form and crouched down. Without much ceremony, he simply flipped you onto your stomach and grabbed the back of your head, where the Neuro-chip socked still fizzled and smoked. You couldn't see his face at all, all you could see was the shit smeared floor of the sewer.


"Aktyvus nuo gedimų." He said curtly. You heard a knife slide out of his holster and the blade violently digging deep into your back, as the man violently and unceremoniously pried open a utility panel on your back. He was treating you like a piece of meat on a slab of a butcher store.

The beeping in your chassis became louder and more frequent, as he threw away the broken access panel. You felt his fingers digging into your wires at your back and the man swore:
"Velniop. 14 sekundžių! Aš negaliu jo nuginkluoti!


"Pamirškite važiuoklę! Svarbiausia – Plume of Dusk." One of his partners barked, as he crouched down, covering the tunnel and aiming his rifle down.


Without missing a beat, the man above you violently dug his knife right into the back of your head. Your vision started glitching out hard, filling your view with intermittent static and multi-colored pixels. You felt your occidental plate being ripped out and fingers locking over your soul.



The last thing you saw was an automated message saying:


"PLUME OF DUSK - REMOVED FROM SOCKET - TOTAL LOSS OF SYSTEM CONTROL"


And then everything went black.





You knew this feeling.

You remember it well.



Your consciousness floating somewhere in the abyss of darkness.
No eyes to see, no ears to hear, to fingers, no smell, no nothing. Zero sensation.

It was the most terrifying experience you've ever felt in your life. Knowing, somewhere, deep down, that you were still alive, somewhere... inside a blue crystal chip... and you had no control over what happened to you, or how your fate was decided.

The masterminds behind the Digital Waltz often treated you this way.

Just a small blue chip, that can be inserted into a metal chassis for a mission, and then unplugged and placed back into storage, for whenever it was needed again.



If, it was ever needed again.


You hated this feeling.
Helplessness.
You vowed never to feel this again.

And yet someone, had ripped your Plume of Dusk out of your metal chassis and took possession of it, for their own ends. The Plume of Dusk, the crystal chip that housed your soul.
You had no idea what was happening to you in the real world anymore, or if you would ever be allowed out of this tiny chip again.

All you knew, is that you were still alive... somehow. A ghost inside the chip.



A delayed, subconscious retrospect told you, that if at least one other person was watching your back in the sewer, things could have gone differently.












(Street Level)




The ground shook and you heard the distant echo of an explosion, somewhere deep below your feet. Moments later Gamma's firewall had dropped to 10% and its downward spiral paused. Her holographic ribbons shut down. In fact, everything in her operating system shut down. The only message that remained flashing over her retinas was a blood red:


NEUROCHIP - ACTIVATED



That was funny, you thought it would feel different, when the chip activated. But everything remained exactly the same. You blinked once, looked around at your team mates, unslung your UMP45 from your back and checked the magazine, before feeding it back to the submachine gun.

A lock of your hair fell in your left eye, causing discomfort. You tried to remove it.


Your hand didn't move.




You tried to remove it again, forcing your arm to move, stronger and stronger each time.

Nothing happened.

In panic, you tried to scream out and call out to Matej, who was looking at you with increasing horror in his eyes, but no sound escaped your lips. You simply stared at the batpony and suddenly said:

"Standard Assist Protocol - Active."



"No... not you too." Matej look at you with increasing pity in his eyes.

Gamma has been reduced to a pre-programmed automated shell. Just like Roksana. Locked inside her own body and forced to watch, as the mission progressed.




Not a split second passed, before your earpiece erupted in static, and an eerily familiar, digitally distorted voice rang raspily in your ear:

"This is Shi-Tong. You have a problem."



"Fuck." Barker swore, looking at his team mates in dismay "The bastard said he wouldn't break radio silence, unless shit really hit the fan-"

"Epsilon has been captured by enemy forces." Shi-Tong sounded pissed "Your mission parameters have changed.
Steal the enemy data as planned, then prepare to level the building. ALL OF IT" The digital demon hissed.

"Find Epsilon's Plume of Dusk and kill EVERY agent who came in contact with it. If you can't extract her, then make sure her Plume of Dusk is destroyed, together with the building. The data stored inside her memory cannot fall into enemy hands, and every enemy agent who saw that data must be silenced, do you understand me!" the demon hissed so hard, his voice broke into static:


"If you fail to extract Epsilon, or if you fail to confirm her death, I will terminate you." Shi-Tong's voice slowly leveled:
"This transmission is over." The static faded and your earpiece went silence.





Meanwhile, inside the burning entrance hall, what remained of the enemy agent shrieked, charging right at Inferno. He reminded you of a human torch, his flesh aflame, reinforced armor turning hot red under his skin, cybernetic eyes zeroing in on you like two tiny red dots, as his minigun spin faster and faster.

The first shotgun blast rang so loud in the closed space, you almost went deaf. The kickback almost knocked the shotgun right out of your arms, as the slugs struck the man's armored shoulder. The impact breached his armor but created shallow wounds, pockmarking his muscles beneath with a half dozen small wounds, but not doing much damage. It seems you'll need to place a shot in the exact same spot several times to really punch through the armor and do significant damage.


The shotgun blast was so devastating however, that the force of the impact had swung the agents entire left side of the body backward, almost making him fall over. It looked as if he was struck by a sledgehammer. Reloading your shotgun you blasted his second shoulder the same way, dealing with your gun's kickback a little better this time.

The shot was so devastating that the agent tripped and fell flat on his back. His minigun finally spun up and released a wild spray of led in a diagonal line, right over Inferno's head, shredding the side of the wall and the ceiling above him, raining down dust and miniature pieces of debris.



Slasher poked around the corner and began emptying her USP9 silenced handgun into the mans stomach. He was still burning and screaming in rage, as the bullets began striking the armored plate on his stomach. It seems his entire body was encased in this armored layer.

Being low caliber, the bullet didn't seem to be penetrating the armor, but they kept the man disoriented and kept knocking him back to the floor, as he fumbled and struggled to sit up. His head moved, one blood red robotic eye zero-ed in on Inferno and his minigun hand raised, trying to put Inferno's head in his crosshairs.

The agent was lying some 7 meters away.







Off to the side, by the hatchback, Krys still held Geoff's head in a death grip. Only when fresh scar tissue finally formed, and a ghastly scar materialized over Geoff's eye, did the cultist exhale and collapsed to the sidewalk, heavily breathing. Ignoring the frantic beeping of his Data-pad, the unicorn listened carefully to Shi-Tong's transmission with his eyes closed, then slowly sighed, steadying his breathing, flipped on his stomach and sat down on one knee, unslinging his SMG and looking in the direction of the office building, before looking at Geoff and extending his open hand:

"You good to go?" The mage exhaled, out of breath, his face sweating "Come on, our time table just got a lot more shorter."

The stream of bullets whiffing past his head, Inferno seemed pretty pleased with the current state of the battle. He closed the distance more, and as the minigun was about to put him in it's crosshairs, he stepped on the arm that held the gun, pushing it down and away from his person again. He then jammed the shotgun into the mouth of the survivor, and pulled the trigger.

After that, his smile faded. "If only we met in different circumstances..."

He snapped out of from Shi Tong's words, and his usual scowl returned. "Bloody great..."

At the mention of Epsilon's capture Gamma began to mentally thrash against the Neural Chip. Wild despiration to save her sister and throw the rest of the team under the bus to save Epsilon and finish the mission.

‐-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Epsilon realising her mistake screamed into the void. As soon as she had a body again she was going to kill the person she had just spoken to and eat his corpse. If freedom wasn't for her she knew that Gamma would do tha same.

Slasher moves up behind inferno an arm blade coming up and slashing down next to him as she targets the arm mounted chainsaw on the agents other hand. Before it comes up at inferno, she slams her own blade into its wrist digging the tip into the floor.

Slasher flinches back slightly as the shotgun blast fires off right next to her into the agents jaw.

Geoff only sat there and looked at Krys incredulously, with an eyebrow raised over his ruined eye, and lifted up one of his knives - as if to say 'how am I supposed to destroy a building with a knife?'

As Inferno pinned the minigun to the ground, the enemy agent suddenly lunged at him with his other arm - the chainsaw on it buzzing eerily fast as he aimed to splatter Inferno right in his ribs.

A split second before the chainsaw dug into flesh, it was violently pinned to the floor by a precise stab from Slasher. Her blade was unable to penetrate the man's armor, but she sure pinned his wrist to the floor, her extending katana screeching against metal, sending sparks flying everywhere.


Inferno stuck his shotgun into the agents mouth and pulled the trigger, the ensuing blast had liquefied the man's skull, splattering Inferno' forearm in gore. With the sub-dermal armor that surrounded the agent from all sides, the slugs couldn't exit his skull on the other side, instead bouncing around his skull, turning his head into mush from the inside. The charred, burning corpse finally stopped moving, his head looking like a disfigured robotic skull, still aflame, coagulated blood gushing out between his broken teeth.



"OOOOOOooooooo, Nassstyyyyyyyy......." Barker cringed half heartedly, before rising up and sliding into the hallway, rifle raised and methodically scanning his corners:
"Don't let your guard down," he said, passing Inferno "An ally may not be nearby next time."



"All units, regroup at the main entrance and breach! Breach now." Matej called over the earpiece "Wounded at the back, if you need more time to recover.

Our objective is the server room, two floors below ground. We need to get there asap, while the enemy is still scrambling a response. If they're allowed time to dig in, we'll be in a heap of trouble."


"How the fuck are we supposed to bring the building down," Barker grumbled "We ain't packing that kinda ordinance."

"We'll just have to raid their armory and hope for the best." Matej called, rushing into the hall single file behind Inferno, closely followed by Roksana and Gamma "Someone will have to study the buildings blueprints, and plant explosives in its structural weakpoints."


"Do we have a demolition expert with us?" Barker called over the earpiece.


"By the by, Inferno," Matej said, passing by "Do you know any healing magic? Krys is running low on juice. If someone gets shot again," the batpony cringed "...its ain't gonna end pretty."

"Lets not get shot then." Barker grumbled "Watch your corners and only shoot from behind cover."




"Well," Krys sighed, wiping the sweat from his face "You heard the man." He said, extending his arm to Geoff, to help lift him back on his feet.




Advancing down the hallway, Barker had switched his active camo back on and faded from sight. Only his HK416A8 assault rifle remained in plain sight, floating in the air and methodically scanning the corners.

The hallway led to a very spacey lobby, a rectangular room some 25 meters in length and with a high ceiling some 15 meters above, it was mostly filled with a row of metal detectors, x-ray machines to scan the packages of new arrivals, and behind this row, was a series of reception desks.

Behind all that, you could see four doors, two directly at the back of the room, then one on the left and one on the right.


Apart from a few potted plants by the walls, the lobby looked deserted of life.




"The elevators are probably locked down." Matej called "We should take the stairs to the basement. They're through the far door on the right-... wait, stop!" he tried to grab at Barkers shoulder and missed it, owing to Barker being invisible, only scraping his cape:

"Roksana said something about there being automated turrets in the walls or ceiling or some shit. And since all our hackers are down, I'm damn skippy those turrets will recognize us as hostile and open fire the second we set foot in the hallway. We could try sneaking past by going fully invisible, but I don't know what kind of sensors they're packing."

"Do we even know where the turrets are, exactly, I mean?" Barker whispered through the earpiece.

"Exactly? Nop." Matej shrugged "Roksana only said, there were some in the walls and ceiling... and the floor maybe? Something about flamethrowers... that's all she managed to say, before her system was breached."

"Great..." Barker cringed "Three Rumbas on our team and they're all inept."


"I can hear you." Roksana muttered irritably through gritted teeth and you suddenly noticed conscious thought return to her eyes, as did several levels of pissed off "You know I can hear you even when I'm being mind controlled!"

"Roksana, are you o-" Matej began with concern, reaching her hand out to her but the woman quite literally snapped at him, almost taking his fingers off.

"You fucking pussy! You promised me you'd sever my spine, if I was ever going to get taker over!"

"I did not promise you that!.." Matej cringed, taking a cautious step back "I said I'll take care of you, if your Neuro-chip activated. You ignored that and heard what you wanted to hear."

"You FUCKING asshole," Roksana grabbed him by the collar and dragged him within an inch of her face. She was scowling, every inch of her face was distorted by fury and, some other emotion that was hard to pin down:
"I TOLD you... I explained to you, what it means for me to get mind controlled!" She hissed through gritted teeth and you suddenly understood what that other feeling was - fear: "I TOLD you, I NEVER WANTED TO FELL HELPLESS AGAIN! I'D RATHER DIE! I'D RATHER HAVE MY CONSCIOUSNESS DISCONNECTED, THAN HAVE SOME DIGITAL BASTARD PULL AT MY LIMBS LIKE I'M SOME PUPPET ON STRINGS! AND IF I CAN'T COUNT ON YOU TO DO THAT FOR ME, THEN I'LL FIND SOMEONE ELSE!" She shrieked at his face.

Matej couldn't muster a response, just stared at her, and for a moment, you saw him as just a boy in his early twenties.


Roksana was momentarily distracted from scowling at him, when a panel on her lower back suddenly popped open, ejecting some sort of electronic device out of her body, that promptly hit the far wall and exploded like a firecracker. The panel on her back closed back up.

The same effect was observed with Gamma. Her retinas soon filled with more text:




Internet router successfully ejected and destroyed

All internet access severed

De-activating Neuro-chip


Standby
Standby


You involuntarily shuddered, then waited a moment and shuddered voluntarily and realized you had regained full control of your body. Your hacking abilities have been severely hamstrung, however. If you understood what happened right, the component in your body that was responsible for wireless internet connection, has been destroyed, probably to prevent another hostile hacker from breaching your systems.

No internet, no possibility to hack you. That also meant you won't be hacking anything either. At least, not wirelessly.



"Not to blunder into your drama, but we need to cross the lobby and head downstairs asap." Barker called over his shoulder "The longer we wait, the more time the enemy had to dig in."



"Schwarzesmarken, be advised," Shi-Tong's voice suddenly rang in your earpiece again "The local military garrison of Sakamundu has been alerted to your presence and they have scrambled a response team. ETA to your location - 14 minutes.
You don't want to be here, when they reach this building."


"Ah shit, we're fucked." Matej muttered.

"Grow a fucking pair, you were a Slavegear pilot." Roksana hissed at him, then aimed down her rifle at the ceiling in the lobby. "...there's 4 turrets up there, miniguns, high caliber rounds. Those are the black featureless circles up there... among the central ventilation system... and there should be two flame thrower turrets in the floor, just in front of that security checkpoint and x-ray machines. Motion sensor activated. We step into the lobby, they'll slide out of their cover."