Slavegear 2 - Katsura's Mask

"Ack..." she glances up at the celing before taking off down the hall towards the armory.

She bursts through the armory gate and with a quick glance around begins rounding up C4, "Shupport beamsh! Wall cornerzsh, shtructually important targetsh! We will bring sha building down on zshem." She grabs an assault rifle off the wall and tosses the vector aside. She quickly turns ignoring barker and his cybernetic hording for now, "Loot is great! Being alive is better barker!" She rushes back out of the armory, "I dont care what shi-tong is doing. I'll presh the goddamn slavegear button myshelf sheerly because I feel like it."

Gamma opens up a command box on the computer and enters in a few lines of code. At the press of Enter all of the computers will format.

"Shi-Tong is just the next person in line who wants control. Nothing old and nothing new. He either succeeds or those Heroes of Adelheid will show up and stop him, like they always do. And between us all I'd like to see Shi-Tong succeed. Maybe even kill the Heroes ourselves. If he's doing what the Digital Waltz is with a new coat of paint then, our, mine and Epsilon's loyalty is 100%"

Gamma listens for the sounds of the enemy and as soon as she hears them on them enters the large room up ahead where the turrets almost killed the lot of them she disconnects the hard drive and then and hits Enter.

Slasher wrote:"Loot is great! Being alive is better barker!" She rushes back out of the armory, "I dont care what shi-tong is doing. I'll presh the goddamn slavegear button myshelf sheerly because I feel like it."

"Mmmm!- MMMmmmmMM!!" Barker mumbled incoherently, as he shoved the last silver pack in his mouth and bolted right toward the sewer hatch.

"Right, that's enough of that," Matej jumped off his chair and waved Krys along, before bolting out of the server room. Grabbing their own share of C-4, the two began planting it on columns across the floor, although you weren't quite sure if Krys was paying attention to the buildings schematics on his Data-pad when he was slapped C-4 packs all over the place.

After running out of remote detonated explosives, Matej doubled back and started packing proximity activated claymore mines:
"Hey, Slasher! Help me set this up, we can booby trap our escape route in the sewers after we leave, so they won't be in a hurry to follow."

Gamma wrote:"Shi-Tong is just the next person in line who wants control. Nothing old and nothing new. He either succeeds or those Heroes of Adelheid will show up and stop him, like they always do.

"Idolization of individuals makes them seem stronger than they actually are. It is a dangerous practice." Roksana's quiet voice cut through "Heroes of Adelheid are human, they make mistakes just like everyone else. And if you find their weak point-" her calm voice echoed frostily in your ear, as you briefly noticed a black mail dossier on most of them "-they will crumble, just like everyone else. You just need to know where to insert the knife."

Gamma wrote:Gamma listens for the sounds of the enemy and as soon as she hears them on them enters the large room up ahead where the turrets almost killed the lot of them she disconnects the hard drive and then and hits Enter.

Switching to the camera feed inside the building, you noticed Roksana patiently walking down the hall, her stealth-suit camo deactivated, the hood pulled down, her dark hair falling on her shoulders and hands raised. She walked with a slight excitement in her step, skipping a step every so often, as if she was a child on a playground. Her were closed, a subtle, eerie smile playing on her lips.

Matej clicked something on his Data-pad and began streaming the camera feed into a small square to the top left of everyones retina's, so it wouldn't block your view, but you could still keep an eye on the enemy army's location.

The building's external camera's showed heavy cargo helicopters landing in the square around the office building, dozens of soldiers rushing out from the back of their cargo bays. Fifty, a hundred, a hundred and fifty soldiers. They planned to stupidly mow you down with brute force and numbers alone.

As if they needed that advantage. Each soldier here was equipped far better than you've seen before. These weren't the intelligence agents with subtle cybernetics and bullet proof skin or vests. These soldiers were equipped for war. Their armor pads on their legs, arms and torso's was so thick, they thumped down the street like walking tanks. No average assault rifle or standard ammunition would put a dent in it.

Their cybernetics weren't subtle in the least, miniguns and missile launchers built into their robot arms, their skin was literally made of metal in several cases, foregoing any subtlety, they resembled robots now, more than men, their cybernetic eyes glowing eerily in the night.

Throwing in four flashbangs at once, followed quickly by frag grenades, they stormed the building, 50 of them at once, sprinting inside in two rows with their high-caliber rifles raised. As they sprinted down the entrance corridor and effortlessly crossed the ravaged lobby, you unceremoniously unplugged the external hard-drive and hit 'Enter'

The progress bar immediately appeared on the terminal, showing how every last peace of intelligence data was systematically wiped out from the ministry's hidden network. Making you, the sole holder of Opera Football, even if, you only copied some 73% of it. That was still close to 17 Terra-bites worth of data.



20 soldiers managed to exit the lobby, and funnel into the subsequent corridor, when they all suddenly froze and the two at front crouched down to one knee, allowing maximum potential fire coverage, as they aimed their rifles at the lone figure, standing on the other end of the hall, her hands raised.


At the same time, a heavy rumble echoed across the building, as both blast doors fell down, sealing the lobby once more, just like what happened to you. Only this time, 20 soldiers were sealed in the corridor with Roksana, with no way back, 50 more were completely trapped in the lobby, and 130 were stuck outside of the building.


Swearing loudly, with their exit cut off, the 20 soldiers aimed their guns at Roksana, who peacefully smiled, keeping her hands up and in plain sight.


"DROP YOUR WEAPONS!"
"ON THE GROUND!"
"DO IT! DO IT NOW!"
"ON YOUR KNEES!"

The soldiers' deafening barks echoed across the hallway, they tried shouting in Soren, but their Sakamundu accent was extremely thick, sometimes difficult to comprehend what they were saying.


Roksana smiled faintly, and opened her eyes.





They were cybernetic eyes, as you expected, glowing red and piercing and intense, carrying the burden of a soldier, who knew death. Her irises had a strange shape, but otherwise, you couldn't spot anything special about them.

And nothing special happened. The soldiers in the corridor continued to bark incessantly at her, as their comrades were pulling our thermite explosives on the other size and starting to fix them onto the blast doors to eat through the reinforced metal.


"ON YOUR KNEES!
"GET ON YOUR KNEES!
"DO IT NOW OR WE'LL OPEN FIRE!"
"DO IT!!!"


Roksana didn't move. Keeping perfectly still like a statue, she stood with hands raised, as a hungry smile began slowly coloring her face. The security camera didn't give you a clear view of the soldiers, they were just outside its visual angle, all you could see was Roksana, standing perfectly still and watching them, with those red piercing eyes of her.


"DROP YOUR WEAPONS!"
"Drop!-..." the soldier's voices began growing quieter, less determined, unsure. Roksana's smile grew wider, red eyes watching them closely.

"On your knees..." the soldiers grew deathly quiet, one by one, until a near perfect silence filled the corridor. Only the muffled screams of their comrades on the other side of the blast doors were heard. Roksana's eyes continued to glow a faint red in the corridor.


A small, unsure scream echoed over the speakers. Then another, sharp one, and another.

And then the corridor erupted in frantic shrieking. 20 voices rose to the ceiling at once, and screamed so loud, you'd thought their skin was on fire. As if every bone in their body was broken, as if they were being flayed alive. As if they were being devoured, dismembered and torn apart, limb from limb. You could not imagine, what else could cause a man to scream like that.

You weren't sure you wanted to.


And then, the sounds of came. The characteristic chaff of someone's skull imploding, crushing the sensitive tissue inside, the sounds of small intestines spilling out on the floor, the sounds of rending flesh and skin, the sounds of bones chopped up and limbs falling onto the floor. Your imagination filled the gaps, you could not see, what was happening to the soldiers, but you could hear it, all of it.

Their gut-wrenching shrieks, the sounds of them being torn to shreds. A spray of arterial blood shot into the frame, splashing a line across Roksana's cheek. The woman didn't move, her red eyes staring hungrily at the carnage, her smile unhinged.

A wild spray of bullets shot in her direction, Roksana just barely tilted her head, making the high-caliber rounds miss her by inches, as the struck the wall behind her. Her piercing red eyes remained wide open, she didn't even blink.


The last few stray rounds shot out of the corridor, hitting the ceiling, before the gunfire ceased, and so did the screams.

You couldn't see the bodies of the soldiers, you couldn't see what happened to them or how they died. All you could see was a growing puddle of blood that slowly made its way toward Roksana's reinforced boots.


"Advance team, what's your status!?" You heard a faint call from the dead soldiers radio.

"Advance team, report!"



No one answered. The corridor remained completely silent and still, as Roksana smirked in satisfaction and finally closed, her scarlet eyes, turned on her heels and skipped down the hall, heading back down to the basement.

"We need those eyes" Gamma has a sinister grin on her face as she see's the aftermath "Oh, the carnage I could create with them"

Gamma secures the hard drive under her full remaining arm and heads after Roksana as fast as she can without hurting her injured side even more.

Geoff cautiously advances a little further into the sewer, not straying to far from the hatch. He knees down to inspect the ash from the explosion, hoping to find some clue as to what it might have been.

Slasher plants her explosives in corners and what she might judge to be structually important walls.

She was honestly kind of tired of talking at this point. Her jaw now throbbing and their mission coming to a close she gives Matej a firm nod, "Mmm-hmm!" She takes a few of the claymores and begins rushing back to the sewer grate.

Inferno went along and was setting up the charges, giving them slight nudges to give the most showmanship when the fireworks would go off. He ignored the battles on the screens for the most part, seeing it wasn't his problem and from the looks of them, the style of fighting wasn't his cup of tea.


When the bleeding began to affect too much, Inferno let out a sigh. He clicked his teeth together to create a spark, made his finger go past it to be heated. Then he gripped a pipe with his left hand and bit down on the grip of his shotgun. Then he jammed his superheated finger into his bleeding wound, tightly squeezing the pipe and biting down on the gun to make as little noise as possible. After the wound was sufficiently seared shut, he let go and continued, looking worse then before.

Geoff wrote:Geoff cautiously advances a little further into the sewer, not straying to far from the hatch. He knees down to inspect the ash from the explosion, hoping to find some clue as to what it might have been.

Crouching down you examined the ash more closely, specifically the shallow crater in the middle of the tunnel, which seemed to be the epicenter of the explosion. The lighting was very poor here and you had to turn on the tiny but piercing flashlight that was woven into the temple area of your balaclava stealth mask.

Upon closer inspection of the scene, you noticed tiny pieces of metal strewn about everywhere, each one no larger than a coin. There was a lot of small metal debris here, charred and dissolved, as if eaten away by a thermite charge.

One of the pieces caught your attention, because it glittered in the dark. A subtle blue hue that that only seemed to shine from certain angles. You examined the piece more closely until you recognized the glow - it was a trace of Tilerium, the stuff that advanced cybernetics were run on.

You pieced together what you knew.


Epsilon was down in this tunnel solo, trying to hack her way into the building, when the enemy programmer shut down her prosthetic body. Fearful of capture, Shi-Tong must have activated some sort of fail-safe, a likely a thermite charge inside Epsilons body to blow her up and her Plume of Dusk, making sure whatever data was stored in her memory, would never reach the enemy's hands.

But the enemy agents were faster. It seems they managed to pry the Plume of Dusk out of her disabled carcass and escaped, before her chassis detonated, morphing into a million molten pieces. That must have been the distant explosion you heard earlier, some 15 minutes ago.

Epsilon's Plume of Dusk - the chip that housed her consciousness - was intact, and now safely in Gamma's hands, but Epsilon's body was gone now. It seems she'll need a new chassis to store her consciousness in.

Slasher wrote:She was honestly kind of tired of talking at this point. Her jaw now throbbing and their mission coming to a close she gives Matej a firm nod, "Mmm-hmm!" She takes a few of the claymores and begins rushing back to the sewer grate.

Gamma wrote:"We need those eyes" Gamma has a sinister grin on her face as she see's the aftermath "Oh, the carnage I could create with them"

The minus two basement floor seemed deathly silent. No one else spoke. Not even Krys had a quirky quip, as he slowly peeled off the wall and followed you in the direction of the sewer hatch. Barker looked unnerved. Matej was pale as a sheet, as he finished setting up a claymore and removed the firing pin, before hurrying back after you:

"...what the hell was that cybernetic..." he said, beads of sweat appeared over his forehead "I've never heard of a mod like that before."

Inferno wrote:When the bleeding began to affect too much, Inferno let out a sigh. He clicked his teeth together to create a spark, made his finger go past it to be heated. Then he gripped a pipe with his left hand and bit down on the grip of his shotgun. Then he jammed his superheated finger into his bleeding wound, tightly squeezing the pipe and biting down on the gun to make as little noise as possible. After the wound was sufficiently seared shut, he let go and continued, looking worse then before.

The pain was excruciating but at least the bleeding had stopped. The lightheartedness and dark spots in your eyes didn't quite fade however and you continued down toward the sewer hatch, stumbling and almost tripping over your own legs at one point.

Your injured arm was starting to feel funny too. It didn't bleed anymore but you felt an uncomfortable tingle at the tips of your fingers there, as if they were pricked by needles. The whole palm felt a little numb and you thought you were loosing a little of your feeling there.







As the whole team reached the sewer hatch and slid down the drain, emerging down in the sewer, you finally spotted Roksana, as the last one out. The woman walked with a jolly step in her gait, smirking with satisfaction and 'watching' your expressions with her eyelids closed. Her 'gaze' lingered on Barker the longest and she finally called with a shit-eating grin:

"What's wrong Barker?... You're staring at me like you're seeing death..." she cocked her head slightly "I thought you wanted to see my beautiful eyes, back in the VTOL... don't you want to see them anymore?"

"Get away from me." Barker flinched back, scowling, raising his fists subconsciously as beads of sweat appeared on his forehead.


Roksana grinned smugly and brushed past. Out of the back pocket on her belt, she produced a remote controlled detonator and waved it slightly in the air, as you all began a light jog down the sewer tunnel:

"...we should be out of range of the blast now... and enough time past that most of those soldiers had thoroughly flooded that death-trap of an intelligence office by now. High-time we leave a memorable impression..."

She waved the detonator around in her open palm, with a dark smirk "Who wants to do the honors?" she offered the device.

Slasher glares down the halls, wishing for some kind of distraction from her fracture. The show Roksana put on was entertaining, the sounds beautiful and like music to her ears, but the lack of visuals on the soldiers left her wanting.

Slahers grin widens as Roksana rounds the corner "Flay me alive sh'ister. I didn't know you had sh'uch a keen eye for murder." An ominous giggle escapes her as she holds her hand out for the detonator ,"Meeee~"

"But I haven't even done anything.." Roksana said with an innocent smirk "I didn't even move..." She said, placing the detonator in your hand, as the team continued to sprint down the snaking maze of the tunnels, increasing pace now that everyone knew what was coming.

"HehehehehehahahahahaHA!, Yeeeaah right!" She slams her palm down on the button with a malicious cackle.

"Isn't everyone here supposed to be some life in prison bad ass criminal? Yet you're being a scaredy bitch about one us having something that is clearly nothing but a boon for the team. Though I'd like that to be three on the team because I really want one"

Gamma braces for the explosion.

Geoff ignores the pointless chit chat behind him and continues down the sewer line, his steps silent and calculating, checking every shadow for an ambush as he goes.

"Bah!" Barker grumbled unintelligibly as his boots thumped heavily over the drenched sewer floor "...-I don't like shit I don't understand." his mumbling slowly turned coherent "She can just casually blink in my direction and my fucking guts spill out?" He wearily scowled in her direction "What the hell even was that."


"Yes, I wonder what it was." Roksana continued to frolic down the tunnel beside you, skipping from one foot to another every few steps with a jolly beat in her step.


The sewer echoes brought with them distant sounds of breaking doors, flashbang explosions and angry shouts from somewhere very far away. Then the sound of detonating claymore mines. It wasn't the explosion you were waiting for, not yet. Beads of sweat rolled down your forehead, soaking your stealth-laced balaclava, your breath echoed over the tunnel, as you printed ahead, your finger touching the surface of the button, feeling its texture, testing its rigidity, before you pressed it down and heard the satisfying electrical chime.


A series of muffled explosions rang in the distance, obliterating concrete support columns and soldiers unfortunate enough to be nearby. But those were nothing, dull pops somewhere dozens of meters away. The real explosion came once the support columns gave in, and the entire 10 story building started collapsing in on itself and crumbling like a stack of dominos. Giant, concerete and steel dominos.

A massive earthquake rocked the tunnels, making the walls shake and almost knocking you off your feet. Dust and miniature debris fell from the ceiling in droves as the entirely of the building shattered, crumbled and collapsed in on itself, crushing the enemy soldiers inside. Floor and floor blew out and fell down to the basement levels and then into the sewer behind you, before something in the enemy armory detonated, and that's when the real explosion came.



It felt as if a tactical bunker buster bomb was dropped on the building behind you. The explosion was so devastating, the shockwave spread out above ground for what must have been a hundred meters in every direction, spewing giant chunks of debris everywhere that sailed slowly through the sky and collided heavily with the pavement, each strike echoing wildly down in the sewer. The sounds of the fires behind you were so deafening you almost lost hearing. Then, the sewers structure became to fail and you heard the tunnel start caving in behind you.


You saw distant clouds and the ceiling collapsing like a domino in your wake and you increased pace. Hundreds of tons of debris were collapsing behind, burying the tunnel and creating a tomb that no one would escape from.


You ran as fast as your tired legs carried you, you felt your muscles burning and your breath catching, as dust went in your lungs and the echoes of the explosion deafened your hearing. Each footstep sent waves of sewage water spraying in every direction and looking over your shoulder, you saw the sewer tunnel cave-in progressing horrifyingly faster than you could run. It another 5 seconds, what would be left of you could fit inside a cigarette box.

You screamed and didn't hear your own voice, over the racket of collapsing debris. The rocks were falling closer and closer, nipping at your heels. You heard a massive boulder land just a meter away, dousing you in sewage and you leapt forward, sliding a few meters on and waited for the ceiling to burry you.



But it never did.
Looking back you saw the chain reaction of the cave in finally stop, revealing only a pile of collapsed concrete and running water behind you, as the rain from the street seeped in through the cracks and ran down the mess of debris in the tunnel behind you.

One thing was for sure, no one would be following you. And in this maze of the sewers, they wouldn't know where you'd emerge either. You have completely evaded your pursuit.






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The rain thudded peacefully across the roof of the skeletal building, as you saw by its edge and stared at the landscape. This was a construction site, where a new structure was being built, slowly and steadily. The building had no outer walls yet, only its base skeletal frame. It towered some 30 stories high, still going, and stood only a half kilometer away from the Sakamundu Intelligence office, which made it a prime candidate to establish your vantage point.

Sitting by the very edge of the 28th floor and contemplating on letting your feet hang down from the edge, and letting the rain gently pepper your stealth-suit, you observed your handiwork from a half kilometer away - a giant crater, right in the middle of the city, filled with smoldering chunks of debris.


Whatever had detonated in the armory, had covered the crater in streaks of viscous blue goo. It ran like tiny undergrounds rivers and saturated the debris in the crater, glowing a faint blue in the darkness. The forensics team rummaging through the crater, all wore full-body biohazard suits. They looked like astronauts to you, bulky and cumbersome and barely able to crouch down or move their limbs, as they tried to make sense of what happened here and salvage anything out of the crater.

At the rate they were going, it's going to take them months to sift through this hole of glowing debris.




Looks like Phase One of your operation was over. You were now the sole holder of the Opera Football, the infamous black-mail library that once belonged to the Digital Waltz. With what you had stored in your external hard drive, you could potentially force anyone important, to do pretty much anything. It some sense, this data was much more dangerous than a Nuclear Bomb, if such a device even existed.

You now had time to think about such things, as you observed the crater from the safety of your vantage nest. Phase Two of the operation had now begun.



The absolute spectacle of damage and humiliation you had inflicted upon Sakamundu's ministry of intelligence had surpassed even Shi-Tong's requirements. As such, it was bound to draw out your real target. Major Adrian Keener. A senior officer in Sakamundu's Intelligence Office.

Ex-military, black ops operative. His file was as eerie as it was thin. Keener was a ghost. No one knew who he was, his full background or how he operated. He simply appeared in sensitive locations around the globe, caused havoc and disappeared. And his presence was often discovered only after he was long gone, and only by circumstantial forensic evidence.

Assassination, sabotage, espionage, military coups, Keener's 'finger prints' could be traced across all of them, but he could never be directly tied to any of them. The most recent example was the assassination of the of the Masters on Nyx, during the countries liberation wars three years ago. A very wealthy politician of Artemis who managed to flee Nyx, before the axe came down and set himself up in a skyscraper, surrounded by an army of lawyers, private security and automated drones. The best the money could buy.


His own security guards found him slumped dead in his shower. His heart had stopped. They couldn't even establish a cause of death. That was Keener's finger print and one of the more mild of operations that was linked to him. In his more active days, he was speculated to have been involved in instigating military coups and political assassinations to topple governments that didn't suit Themis' politics or ambitions on the world stage.

Keener would do his work and disappear. His presence would be discovered days later, if at all.
He had become a thorn in Shi-Tong's side and so had to be eliminated. But how does one kill a ghost, who cannot be found?



According to Shin-Tong, you blow up an intelligence office in his back yard.

Adrian Keener was supposed to show up to inspect this giant fiasco in person, as he was a top ranking intelligence official in this region, and he was rumored to be in the city tonight. For now, according to Shi-Tong's instructions, you had to set up a vantage point to observe the crater, wait for Keener to show, identify him and trail him until you found an opportunity to kill him, without the entirety of Sakamundu's military descending on you.

And Sakamundu's military was plentiful around the crater. A gunship helicopter loaded with miniguns and missiles, patrolled the sky. Hundreds of heavily armed soldiers lined a wide perimeter of the crater. Armored Personnel Carriers with mounted turrets blocked the streets and you're pretty sure you saw a tank somewhere.

That's in addition to hundreds of cops that combed the streets in search for you, and the giant TV screens that hung from the nearby skyscrapers, took the time to stop displaying their shampoo adds and instead portrayed some of your likenesses for the general public to see and identify.







The rain continued to gently pepper the side of the 28th floor were you sat, its peaceful staccato threatening to lull you into a sense of security. Roksana laid on her belly, just on the very edge of the floor, completely cloaked from view and observing the crater through a pair of binoculars. Only the rain that occasionally fell on her prone form hinted at her location.

Matej sat further inside the floor, away from the rain and away from the visual angle of the streets below. He had a small laptop open and the external hard drive hooked up, he was methodically sifting through the data you stole, the light of the screen illuminating his concerned features.


Barker was disassembling his assault rifle and cleaning the firing mechanism from raw sewage and dust.
Krys sat nearby, casually leaning on the featureless wall of the staircase, munching on some chocolate bar and throwing the wrapping onto the floor beside him. Finishing his meal, he immediately pulled another one and bit in.


"...dude," Barker paused his cleaning, unable to watch anymore "That's your 3rd Mars bar in a row."

"I don't care." Krys said, shoving the thing in his mouth.

"You're going to get diabetes dude." Barker grimaced.

"Fuck off." Krys replied casually, munching in concentration.



Barker rubbed the side of his temple with a firing pin, then looked toward the edge of the floor. The lack of any outer walls made the wind rush in pretty easily and he squinted slightly, as his eyes watered:

"Any sign of Keener yet?"

"Yes." Roksana quietly said, still laying flat on her stomach motionless and watching the crater through her binoculars.

"Really??" Barker excitedly straightened up.

"No." Roksana shortly replied.

"Damn it woman, you will not stop screwing with me!" Barker curled his upper lip in frustration.

"Don't talk smack to me in the VTOL next time." Roksana muttered with an audible smirk.

Barker scowled, curled his palm into a shape of a gun and pretended to shoot Roksana in the back with vigor.

"...I can see through the back of my head, you know." Roksana casually said "Just like I can see with my eyelids closed."

Barker froze up in alarm, his palm still shaped like a gun "...r-really?" he mumbled.

"Who knows?" Roksana smirked "Hey Barker. If you ever doze off... I may just accidentally open one eye and blink in your direction. You'll never even know..."

"God... damn you." Barker gritted his teeth in frustration, then turned his gaze toward Matej "Found anything interesting yet?"

"Well... a lot." Matej shrugged and looked at you "I mean there's 17 Terra-bites here. I guess the most curious things I found was files on Twilight Sparkle, Councilor Mercer and Logan Krauss? I can't imagine what black mail material there could exist on them, they're pure as the driven snow. But for some reason, all three are linked with Audrey Swan somehow, and it directly ties to their black mail material."


"The Prophet! AHGHJK!" Krys jolted and almost chocked on his Mars bar "I must see!-"

"Good job Matej, good job." Barker rubbed with face with a sigh "Bring up alcohol next to an alcoholic."

"Video! COUGHGHG!-... Must see!" Krys tried to crawl toward the laptop.

Geoff had split off from the rest of the group to conduct a patrol of the building, to make sure they were alone and undisturbed.

After all was said and done, Inferno seemed to be in a bad mood.

He was sitting with the group, minding his own business, trying to get the bullets in his body in the least troublesome spot and eating a chicken breast. For some reason, probably his body temperatures, he opted not to carry candy around to replenish his glucose. Though, when did he cook this, and how? Better not ask.

Once finished with his food, he just leans back, until Krys began about his prophet. Then he glared at him. "Calm your tits man, she isn't interested in you or your nihilistic cult."

He then looked at the remains of the building they blew up, unsatisfied. "Really wish we had an actual fight in that place. Not just winning with cowardly methods and weapons. Although, I suppose it's on me for hoping otherwise."
He may have glanced around the group as he said that.

Gamma is sorting through the wallets, cards, and everything she's looted since the start of the mission.

"The mission was screwed from the get go. Send in a bunch of criminals with varying levels of ego and give them the bare bones resources and intel. It's pure luck that we've even made it this far."

"you were lash'd insh'ide to most the fightsh metal man." she raises an eyebrow at inferno "ash long ash it was fun! Thatsh the important part, and it was fun! alot of fun!"

She looks back at the crater before moving to join Matej and take a gander at what all this nonsense was about, "Blackmail shmackmail theres gotta be far better goodiesh then that in there." her eyes flick to Krys, "What makes her sh'o important to you kry'sh? Like, Thish doesn't sheem like a woman who....eeeuuuhhh.... cullsh the weak... Murders innocents to take them to their nexshd life." She glances at Barker, then to Krys, Then back to barker, "You view this religion negatively. I want to hear what you have to say." Then her eyes flick to Krys, "After barker then you tell me. Whatever barker is about to say do not interrupt him, I want to hear it."

At the mention of the term luck, Inferno looked at Gamma. Then he looked at Roksana. "I wouldn't count this all on luck though."

His eyes narrowed, there were thoughts in his head, but nothing made completely sure from the given information and time to think. But something was set in his mind.

Roksana was not who she claimed she was.

Geoff wrote:Geoff had split off from the rest of the group to conduct a patrol of the building, to make sure they were alone and undisturbed.

Wandering across the 30 floors of the skeletal structure felt eerie. It was around 6:14 in the morning, according to your Data-pads clock, but you couldn't tell the difference from watching the sky. It was still pitch dark outside, the heavy storm clouds so thick, they let no light thought. You couldn't even tell if the sun has risen yet.

Only a thick layer of black clouds covered the city, shrouding it in a long night, as showers of rain peppered the concrete around you.

The construction site was sealed off by a 3 meter tall chain-link fence, not easy to get through, unless you're a trained specialist. So the cops on the street have chalked it up as secure for now. But the longer their search continues, the more chance they'll eventually try to enter the building.

Judging by their methodology of combing the streets below, you estimate you have at least half an hour, before they come snooping by. And much longer, for them to methodically clear every floor until they reach the 28th one, where the teams stayed.

The construction site itself was deserted for now, only the howling wind and stray rats were keeping you company. You heard their squeaking in the dark, periodically finding their beady yellow eyes, staring back at you from the dark corners, before they scurried away.

Inferno wrote:"Calm your tits man, she isn't interested in you or your nihilistic cult.

"Bah! Shows what you know." Krys defensively crossed his arms "The prophet worked closely with her disciples. In spite of her holy position, she never looked down on us. She always treated us as equal!

And I do not seek her affection, or attention. I simply wish to further her goals. For God speaks through her, and so her words I will obey. And her wishes, I will accomplish. That is all." The cultist eyed you suspiciously:

"I know who I am, and I am content with my life. Can you say the same, duelist?"

Inferno wrote:"Really wish we had an actual fight in that place. Not just winning with cowardly methods and weapons. Although, I suppose it's on me for hoping otherwise."

"Complete your objective by any means necessary and with minimal effort spent." Roksana replied "Everything else is a distraction."

"I don't know, I wouldn't mind throwing down with a good enemy." Barker shrugged "Wonna test my limits sometimes, you know?"

"Ugh." Roksana groaned slightly.

Gamma wrote:Gamma is sorting through the wallets, cards, and everything she's looted since the start of the mission.

Examining your inventory, it seems you have looted some loose change, culminating to about 143 New-Litas, the name of the local currency and a few of those featureless black key-cards the intelligence office used.

Examining Barker's looted Cybernetic stash showed some very interesting results. You found the alloys and circuits for installing sub-dermal kevlar armor. An actual layer of armor woven under a persons skin, that could stop most conventional fire-arm ammunition, if it wasn't armor piercing that is. A significant improvement on survival.

You also saw chemicals that could be injected into the bone marrow, making your skeleton virtually indestructible, preventing fractures.

Various metal arms with concealed weapon and eye cybernetics, no mod that mimiked Roksana's ability thought.

But what took the cake was several Tail cybernetics. A few packaged new ones, and one salvaged from the corpse of the fox man. An actual puffy robot tail that had some sort of blue plasma cannon on its end, apparently able to spew scorching blobs of plasma at short range that could melt pretty much anything, as you have experienced first hand.


Without a proper cybernetics lab, it would be impossible to install this stuff in the field, but maybe later down the line, this was definitely a possibility.

Gamma wrote:"The mission was screwed from the get go. Send in a bunch of criminals with varying levels of ego and give them the bare bones resources and intel.

"Bare bones? What are you smoking, darling?" Roksana bristled, eyes still glued to her binoculars "Seen a lot of soldiers running around in experimental invisibility suits, have you. I've never even heard of stealth-tech like this, until I boarded the VTOL.

We've been given high-end firearms with as much ammo as we could carry. Military-grade cybernetics, bullet proof vests, encrypted communications, grenades, and lets not even talk about the Digital Waltz module.

You know its illegal, right? Every cyborg was stripped of his hacking module, as soon as the Waltz fiasco was over, because it can hack every system on the planet. The only thing that can stop a Waltz module, is another Waltz module. The only ones who might have one now, are black-ops teams like ours and governments who managed to nick one somehow.

If anything, we've been OVER-equipped for this mission. Don't blame it on the crooked floor, if you don't know how to dance."


She moved her invisible finger slightly, making the very visible binoculars adjust magnification slightly:

"Bare bones is when you end up in the middle of a Nyx tundra, with nothing but your underwear, your knife and an M9 with half a clip. That's bare bones."


Matej awkwardly scratched his nose "That was an oddly specific example."

Roksana grumbled something unintelligible in Verrian. Your auto-translate software tried to amplify the sound and interpret it, but only got disjointed bits and pieces.


"Okay, well, I'm actually glad you brought this up." Matej appeasingly brought his fingers together: "See, I was thinking..." he bit his lower lip and looked at everyone, tapping his finger tips against each other:
"You know, like, regular militaries, they like to do something called an 'After Action Report'.

Its when everyone gathers around and analyzes the past mission. To see which tactics worked and which didn't. To analyze mistakes and why they happened. Not to single out or prosecute anyone, not to blame anyone, but to understand why a certain mistake happened, so that the same mistake won't happen again.

That way we can self-correct constantly, until we maximize our combat effectiveness." Matej awkwardly tapped his finger tips again "So I was.. hoping.. we could.. you know.. go over the mission, step by step and analyze how it went down. Sooo... we can spot where things went south, and how we can respond to similar situations better... What do you think?"

Slasher wrote:"What makes her sh'o important to you kry'sh? Like, Thish doesn't sheem like a woman who....eeeuuuhhh.... cullsh the weak... Murders innocents to take them to their nexshd life." She glances at Barker, then to Krys, Then back to barker, "You view this religion negatively. I want to hear what you have to say." Then her eyes flick to Krys, "After barker then you tell me. Whatever barker is about to say do not interrupt him, I want to hear it."

As you spoke, Krys checked his glucose counter on his Data-pad, emitted a muffled crack and got up with a grunt. Slowly making his way over to you, he sat down nearby and raised both hands in ritualistic fashion, closing his eyes as he mumbled an incantation.

A blue glow coated his palms, then spread to your face. You felt a light tingling in your broken jaw and heard a faint pop, as it snapped back into place and the crack in the bone mended itself. Even the massive bruise on your lower jaw seemed to disperse back into your body. When Krys lowered his hands again, your bone was fully mended and you found you could speak clearly again.

"Be at peace, child," Krys solemnly nodded to you "We only wish to easy the suffering of others."


"Of my fucking god..." Barker exhaled loudly and cynically, covering his face, before bursting out "They're not a religion!! They're just a bunch of genocidal psychopaths, bent on ending the world and killing everyone in it! That's it!" He viciously articulated in Krys' direction, as the cultist watched him with a slight frown and surprisingly tranquil expression.

"They found a Satanic book! Dating to before the Great Impact-" Barker vigorously continued, with spit almost flying out of his mouth "and figured they could destroy the world with it! But Oh! We don't have enough recruits for our cult! What do we DOOOO???" The merc tapped his chin in frustration:

"Gee, I don't know, I don't know... OH! Look! Over there! Lets... give our Satanic book, to this suicidal pretty girl here! And have her be the face of our cult! THAT will surely drive new recruits in!"



"You really do have a one-track-mind." Krys sighed in disappointment "Its sad, really."

"Oh yeah?" Barker sneered "Why didn't you pick a 90 year old wrinkly, pimply grandma as your prophet then?"

"Because Audrey Swan spoke with wisdom and compassion that few others possess, even before she came about our... religious texts." Krys curtly replied "She saw this world for what it truly was. A sad and savage place, full of suffering. Of pain. A place where children are kidnapped and shoved in robot bodies, to dance as puppets for amusement. Does such a world even deserve to exist?"

The mage sighed deeply "That was the question she posed. And our religious texts, provided the answer. You see, she already prophesied the end of the world. For a world, so twisted, so morally bankrupt, can only end it its own self-destruction. Like a rotting apple is fated to turn into ash. She knew it in her bones, she just couldn't articulate it.

But then, she came to possess our texts and she interpreted them for us. For you see, the end of the world is a natural cycle. Just like an apple is fated to rot, the world is fated to turn decadent, twisted and cruel, until it too, self destructs.

But it is from that rot and destruction, the SEED of the apple can bloom! A new world, rising from the ash of the old. A pure, innocent world. A new Garden of Eden. It is a cycle.

And I believe it happened before. I believe the last cycle ended, with the Great Impact."


Krys peacefully smiled "There is no need to fear the end of the world. It is a natural process. People will turn cruel, they will inflict unspeakable torture on their fellow man, until the whole world will be consumed by fires of death.

And when everything is truly gone, only then, will the pure and the innocent be reborn. A true reincarnation. For our souls are immortal. And all those who died, shall be reborn again.

The Uroburos is simply speeding things along, giving them a little push, to lessen their suffering and quickening the coming, of the next Garden of Eden."




You caught sight of Barker in your peripheral vision. He looked so absolutely dumb struck, he looked like he was about to start drooling from his mouth, just from the sheer vacancy of thought, before he exclaimed "....WWOOOOOWWWWww!!!.... You know? I think you're right!" He smiled joyfully "Deep down, I DO want to cause Armageddon and kill EVERYONE so we can all be reborn as fluffy bunnies! Frolicking about a magical garden- Oh! Oh wait...

Oh wait, reincarnation of souls has never been proven and you just basically decided to end the entire human race, because assholes exist? Good job! Good job! Ten out of ten! Not nihilistic or psychopathic at all! Burn the whole world down, because someone peed in your tea! Keep going Krys! Keep going!"


"Would you two shut the fuck up!?" Roksana snapped "I don't care what god you pray to, I don't wonna hear your gonk indoctrination speech!"




"You won't understand, until you hear her speak." Krys sighed slowly after a long pause "She never wasted a word. She saw this world for what it truly was, and tore off its mask, for all to see. That's why I want to see that video so badly." He looked at the laptop "I want to know what else she had to-"

Without thinking, Matej shrugged and clicked the play button.




On the video, you were seeing Audrey's playful, smiling face, as she moved something and adjusted the camera. She was standing inside an old, crumbling warehouse. Shelves upon shelves of useless junk lined the walls. A fine layer of dust covered their surface.

Her attire seemed so out of place here, her magical blue dress too beautiful for this dust bin, and yet, her demeanor made her fit in this warehouse completely. She didn't shy away from the cobwebs or dirt, as if she was used to them.

She was smiling right at you, and yet, her eyes were not. There was a lot of hidden pain in her eyes, cynical bitterness and resentment. Despair. She made an effort to hide those emotions and adjusted the camera, to make sure it captured the figure behind her, that stood by the door.



"I trust you have everything you need?" A rough voice called from the door. A male voice you knew well, from the hundreds of press conferences you've seen over the past two decades.

The lighting in the warehouse was poor, and the man by the door wore plain, featureless clothing, but there was no mistaking the rough patch of beard, the scars and the blue piercing eyes. Matej's mouth fell open, in absolute shock.


General Logan Krauss, the hero of the Architect Wars, the former military leader of Soren, and later, the founder and Director of the Union, stood in the same room as Audrey Swan, the girl who led of the Uroburos Cult.


"...what the fuck?" Matej leaned closer to the screen in abject disbelief "...w-wh... why are they talking so peacefully? They're mortal enemies. Logan made it his life's work to obliterate the Cult of Uroburos! He formed the Union SPECIFICALLY to quash global threats like her! Why are they peacefully chatting in the same room!?"

Audrey's cynical smirk grew wider, she was clearly mugging for the camera. A camera that Logan Krauss didn't seem to notice. It must have been hidden somehow, inside an unassuming object perhaps.

"Your funds have cleared and our shell company received the precious metals necessary to manufacture the Pheles Device. That's not the issue," Audrey said, finally shifted her gaze and turned toward Logan "We require substantially more volunteers to test the device. Highly trained volunteers.
Random subjects won't do, they'll lack the experience to control it."

"We've discussed this. Subject procurement is your organizations' responsibility." Logan frowned. "And not my concern."


"..are you saying I can take people against their will?" Audrey spoke very clearly, the camera's mic catching every word "I can take whoever I want?"


"Not my concern." Logan quietly growled "Just get it done. You're on a time table. The device must be ready before November."


"What did you want my organization to do in November again?" Audrey innocently tilted her head.

Logan frowned, clearly growing impatient "I want you to spark a war between the countries of Lumina and Demeter. Shouldn't be too hard. They have a century old history of armed conflict." he shifted his weight "Keep provoking both sides until the conflict spirals out of control. Use the Pheles Device to mask your involvement. Just make sure the war begins by November."


"And then the Union will step in to intervene?" Audrey cocked her head to the other side.

"Correct." Logan furrowed his brow.

"I thought you created the Union, to end conflicts on Kepler. Not start them." Audrey asked innocently.

"The Union only composes 5 countries out of 23!" Logan bared his teeth in frustration "In its current state, its useless and impotent. It needs to encompass the entire globe, or all point of it will be lost! And as far as Demeter and Lumina's conflict, they're already in a state close to war, its just a matter of time before hostilities break. I'm only speeding along the inevitable.

Its a necessary evil. It will bring war and innocent people will die! But it will be the last war on Kepler! Because once the Union is formed, there won't BE any wars. No one to fight.

We will be one country, one nation, one vision.

Intertwined and spread across every square inch of this world. One nation won't rise against another, because it will have its own citizens living on the other side of the border! It is the perfect vision for peace!"


"And how many small, insignificant, innocent people have to die for that peace?" Audrey asked, the frost in her voice coming through for a moment, before she took control of her emotions again.

"However many die, that number will be statistically insignificant, in the grand scheme of world peace." Logan spat harshly and sharply "If I have to sacrifice a few hundred, to save a few billion, I WILL. My wife and daughter Died in a useless war born of decadence and selfish ambition! And I will not allow, another fucking global conflict, to destroy the lives of billions!"

Logan growled "...do what I say, or I will find another organization that will." his fists clenched so hard, his knuckles turned white "The world will see... the necessity of the Union... I'll make them see..." he turned on his heels and left the warehouse.


Audrey watched him for a long moment, before turning back to the camera, smiling bitterly and stopping the recording.




Matej was staring at the screen with his mouth open, he couldn't speak.

Roksana turned and rose up from her spot, forgetting about the mission entirely "...What the fuck did he just say?!"


"Its a con..." Matej mumbled, voice barely audible "A giant con.
The Union was formed on a lie.

Logan Krauss funded the Uroburos cult, made them seed terror across the region. And then used their terror activity as the justification for forming the Union! He artificially manufactured a conflict! And then formed the Union to quash that same conflict!

The Union was formed on a lie! The super-country that was supposed to end all wars, came into being by manufacturing a war on its own! And then covered it up!"



"...this one video is more damaging than the entire Opera Football." Roksana quietly said "If this ever gets leaked to the public... it will destroy the Union overnight."


"And they all knew..." Matej bit his lower lip in frustration "They all fucking knew, and they covered it up... Councilor Mercer, Twilight Sparkle, Captain Brown, Agent Wyvern... they all discovered what Logan did, and they covered it up... to preserve the Union.

Logan didn't retire. They quietly tried him and put him in a padded cell somewhere, where he now rots! While the public still thinks he's a war hero, sipping pina coladas on a beach somewhere!"

"...this will end their careers. They're done." Roksana muttered, her synthetic skin turning pale, somehow:
"...and so are we."


"What-" Matej began but she cut him off, her gaze growing icy and venomous.

"I told you... I told you not to look through those fucking files. But you just couldn't help yourself. You think Shi-Tong is gonna let us live, after seeing THAT?" She pointed at the screen "It wasn't enough that our faces are now plastered across every TV screen... now we've seen the face of the devil. And it wasn't for our eyes to see!" She swore "...well done... I hope you enjoy the last hour of your life.
Because after this mission, Shi-Tong will have us commit suicide."


She turned on her heels and walked off toward the edge of the roof, letting Matej still pale by the laptop. He looked scared, shaken. So did Barker.

Only Krys seemed mesmerized by the video, stretching his hand slowly toward the screen and gently stroking its surface:
"...The Prophet... she wanted us to know..." he whispered "...she wanted us to share it with the world..."

The kirin first seemed uncaring about the video. But then, when the subject came up, he slowly began paying more attention, raising an eyebrow in tandem with the turn of his head.

Once it was finished, he started with a chuckle, before giving a roaring laughter. "OH, THAT IS RICH! HAHAHAHAHAHA! Fucking hilarious!" He wipes the mirth from his eyes and turns to Krys. "Hey man, you want to set the world on fire? Post this video on the internet, then the "rotten world" will do it for you, HA!"

His laughter slowly died, still snickering. "Heh, watch some people trying to blame it on A.I. voices and deep fake imagery, see how that conflict goes."

However, that did stop his laughter and he thought out loud. "Wait, this video is almost too perfectly set up. Logan Kraus, trained soldier, not noticing the way she moves? What words she chose? In fact, Kraus also sounds weird, like it's the pitch for his ideas, rather then a brief reminder to jog the memory." His brow now furrowed. "Crap, now I sound like a conspiracy theorist."

Inferno wrote:"OH, THAT IS RICH! HAHAHAHAHAHA! Fucking hilarious!" He wipes the mirth from his eyes and turns to Krys. "Hey man, you want to set the world on fire? Post this video on the internet, then the "rotten world" will do it for you, HA!"

"...Yes." Krys nodded slowly "Yes, I think I will-" his hand stretched toward the keyboard, then suddenly jolted as if zapped by electricity and his fingers began twitching, palm frozen in place.

"What's wrong with you." Matej looked the unicorn in the eye.

Krys was violently scowling, gritting his teeth. The muscles on his arm were visibly flexing as his palm remained frozen in place, fingers violently twitching. His second arm subconsciously drifted toward the fresh scar on the back of his head:
"Get... out of my head.... DEMON!" The mage spat through gritted teeth "The Prophets will!-... MUST BE.. OBEYED!!!"


"Now now, my overly eager friends..." Shi-Tong's digitally distorted voice rang in your earpiece "Never play your cards, unless you can maximize the profits... why don't you let me worry about when, and how, this file is used... you just focus on finding Keener..." his voice actually came out soothing, as if he was savoring the moment. It sounded like he was actually in a very good mood.

Inferno wrote:"Wait, this video is almost too perfectly set up. Logan Kraus, trained soldier, not noticing the way she moves? What words she chose? In fact, Kraus also sounds weird, like it's the pitch for his ideas, rather then a brief reminder to jog the memory." His brow now furrowed. "Crap, now I sound like a conspiracy theorist."

"According to the time-frame they referenced, this video was shot somewhere in the Autumn of 2065," Roksana quietly said "That's only a few years after Logan's wife and daughter were killed. He wasn't exactly in his right frame of mind.

Grief can be worse than any poison. Just as feelings of vengeance, and attempts to find twisted meanings in the deaths of loved ones."

Slasher raises a curious eye at barker as he answers her question, giving a soft smile to Krys as he places a healing hand on her, "Thanks." She mutters running her fingers over where the deep throbbing pain once was and letting out a relieved sigh through persed lips.

Letting the two hash it out for the moment. She listens to Krys' explaination, and then barkers.... 'rebuttle'. She gives barker a tilt of her head, "Thank you for your uh.... well thought out argument, and uhh... yeah. Thanks."

She looks to Matej and conciders his suggestion to admit where things went wrong, "I tripped that agent that shot his buddy." She holds back a giggle, "It might have blown our cover but the look on his and friends face was priceless." She silently laughs whiping a small tear from her eye.

Her eyes cant help but drift to the video she watches with intrest but when it dawns on whats really happening a small smile spreads over her face. She crosses her arms and leans back against a support beam as the video plays.

As it ends and inferno busts into riotus laughter, Slasher snickers alongside him, "So many men and woman dead, on another side of the world all set to a single mans schemes." She lets out a humming chuckle, "Its said snipers disconnect themselfs from their kills being human at all because their so far away... It must be easy to say what he is when you dont know, nor care, for whos on the reciving end." She shakes her head, a smile still plastered on her face, "Its a good plan it is." She nods.

Once Roksan brings up shi-tong Slasher shrugs, "I dont see any reason why he would do that. Unless any of you plan on turning on the dude putting us to work at some point. All we gotta do is prove we can actually do good work and then have job security." Her eyes flick to Krys trying to reach for the enter button, and she looks away only to do a double take, "Krys! We cant-!" She sighs as Shi-tongs voice butts in, "It is not your duty Krys. Shi-Tong has a plan. If your prophet didn't release this initially, why didn't she, hm?" She kneels down next to him, "A diffrent destiny awaits us and there is still much work to do on our end. Release this now without removing some of the more problematic persons who can rally people together for the betterment of everyone, the flame will be stomped out and we'll return to the status qoe. We need to remove heros of order to create chaos."

Having returned from his patrol, Geoff sits in the corner by himself, uninterested in politics as he is.

"When I'm being equipped for a mission like this I want more than invisibility, a hacking module, and a limit of only arm based cybernetics. We expect our body to have enough tech that if I was flesh my essence would be in the negatives. Anyways, can't expect someone who's used to driving a sports car to be happy in a rental SUV. Just my two New-Litas"

She looks to Mataj at his suggestion

"Just tell us what we did wrong and we'll do better. I was taught to think yourself perfect and let someone else tell you your flaws. "

Gamma watches the video with keen interest.

"Oh No! The Union is on Secret World Controlling Bingo! What a shocker! If we're not involved with some kind of global coup d'état by the time this ends I'm going to be kind of sad"

At Rokasana's comment she adds in as well

"If Shi-Tong didn't want us to see the footage then he would have said so in the briefing. Besides, if he just kills his Schwarzesmarken after each mission, expendable is going to become expensive and as much as I don't think he cares on the money side, the principle of the fact would piss him off"