Ghoul’s men quickly descended down the steel steps to the ground floor of the building in search of Ace. The ones he’d brought with him today were not personally familiar with the GLYPH agent (except for the one whom Gisela had put a bullet into the brain of), but they’d heard stories from their colleagues’ past experiences with him.
They’d heard he favored going in for the kill from the shadows, appropriately for his profession, especially considering he was frequently outnumbered in combat situations. They also knew him to prefer gunplay than up-close-and-personal fighting. For those reasons, when the mercenaries began spreading around the building to search for him, they kept their eyes on every little nook and cranny they could conceive to be large enough for a man to hide within – between pallets, underneath the racks, up in the ceiling – they searched high and low, though they found nothing for the first few moments of searching.
One of the mercenaries quickly swept around the corner to search a ground-level office area tucked away at the south wall. It was a tight, narrow space – barely enough room to walk through with the workbench on one end, and a rack on the other. On the workbench was a computer, along with all sorts of files that didn’t look like they’d had any care put into their organization.
He didn’t think the agent could be in there with how small a space it was, but it was better to risk feeling silly checking if someone was hiding under a tiny little desk than assuming it was empty, and taking a bullet to the back when passing by it, right?
The merc knelt down, aiming his rifle at the space beneath the workbench, ready to start firing if he saw anything at all.
But, as he’d expected, it was empty. He stood up and turned around to leave. One of his allies was there, and he made sure to signal with a flick of his hand across his throat that Ace had not been spotted there.
But he paused as he picked up on something peculiar. His ally was not carrying the assault rifles they’d all brought into the Diabolus base with them. Rather, he only carried a simple little handgun?
Before he could ask what that was about, his ally raised that handgun, and put a bullet in his brain.
As the mercenary’s body collapsed, Ace, disguised as one of Ghoul’s men, snatched the dropped assault rifle, then rushed back out to the main bulk of the floor, pretending as though he were searching for the source of the gunshot.
Another merc arrived from down the way, and Ace made a show of following him, as though he were all set to provide him with back-up. And the second that unlucky bastard found the fresh corpse of his ally, Ace killed him too, trying hard not to give himself away by laughing or making a corny comment about it.
As the disguised Ace once again hurried away from the narrow little office space, he felt a bullet whiz by his head, nearly taking his life. It had come in through one of the windows up high, which meant it had almost certainly been Gisela mistaking him for an enemy.
Mentally cursing the girl for nearly killing him, he hustled to take cover out of her line of sight. That ended up being a blessing in disguise, as another of Ghoul’s men had seen the missed shot, and had no reason not to believe he was one of theirs because of it. They barked amongst themselves about an enemy sniper outside, and a collection of them raced outside to deal with them.
Ace considered chasing after them to take them out from behind, as he was worried they might overwhelm Gisela and Annabelle outside, but before he could even take a step forward, the pallets to his right exploded in a burst of bullets, and he caught a few grazes along his arm as he stumbled backward.
“Ahhh, tricky as always, assassin!” came Ghoul’s voice as the masked mercenary kicked away the remaining debris and stomped out into the same aisle Ace had been occupying. A trail of smoke coursed up from the tip of the gatling gun barrel his left arm had transformed into. “When’d you manage to nab that disguise?”
“Well I’ve only gotten to hang out with you guys a handful of times, so probably during one of those sessions,” Ace replied, seeing no reason to keep the jig up. He’d been hoping he could use it to get the drop on Ghoul, but he should have known it wouldn’t have fooled him. He looked down at the dull gray military uniform his disguise had him clad in. “Think this guy was one of the grunts you had tryna break into the GLYPH office way back.”
“Heh. A rare mistake on my part,” Ghoul replied. “I oughta have done that job myself. Would’ve ended up with far more dead GLYPH dogs.”
Ace chuckled. “Ya know, I actually do wish you’d have swapped places with your goons that day. You might’ve killed more staff at HQ, but the boss would’ve squashed you like the fucking bug you are.”
The merc’s wicked smile widened. “Oh? You’d trade all those lives just for mine?”
Ace held his arms out. “Yeah, I guess I would. I’m a bad person, what can I say?”
“I think your little what-if fantasy is more about wishing I’d sent my men to that island in my place, because you think your little girlfriend would have had a better chance at surviving against them, isn’t it?”
“Fuck you!” Ace yelled, unloading shot after shot from the assault rifle into Ghoul’s head and chest. He knew it wasn’t going to do anything – the bastard’s armor was top-notch shit, and the mask on his face was somehow even tougher than that. He just needed to do it just to do it, for himself.
Predictably, Ghoul was almost completely untouched by the barrage of bullets, save for taking one to the side of the cheek, though he didn’t even seem to register the bloody hole in his face as he lifted his gatling gun and cackled, “Let’s go then, assassin! Let’s see if you’re good enough to get your revenge!”
Picking off targets inside the building with her sniper rifle was simple enough for Gisela, but when the Diabolus soldiers, as well as Ghoul’s mercenaries elected to send a few of their men out to confront her, her job quickly became a lot tougher.
She managed to take down one Diabolus grunt before Ghoul’s soldiers caught sight of the roof she was occupying, and began bombarding her with shots of their own. After shooting down another, she cursed under her breath upon realizing she was down to one single bullet, and that definitely wasn’t going to be enough to deal with the remaining enemies…
She leaped off of the roof and kicked out with her grapple-greave, which pulled her to a different rooftop, but one that didn’t have the best sightlines to the ground outside of the Diabolus base. In the meantime, Ghoul’s men, equipped with their own grappling hooks, began ascending to the rooftops to battle her directly.
Annabelle was still on the rooftop directly behind the Diabolus base, and caught a stray bullet to the shoulder, sending her collapsing onto her back. “Annabelle!” Gisela gasped, having momentarily forgotten about her fellow GLYPH agent in the midst of her sniping. She quickly unhooked the grenade she wore as an earring and tossed it directly into the middle of the Diabolus troops down below, managing to capture all of them in one blast.
She zoomed over to the roof to check on the android girl. A bullet hole had been torn into her left shoulder, and a glowing blue liquid that matched her eyes leaked out from the wound.
Annabelle did not seem especially phased, looking up at Gisela and saluting her with the same goofy smile she always wore. “Ouch!” Were they not about to be swarmed by Ghoul’s men, that would have managed to get a laugh from Gisela.
She spun around and raised her rifle, watching for the two Ghoul mercenaries still remaining. She only had one bullet left on her, and had to make it count. She felt fairly confident in her ability to take one of them out with it, but didn’t have a clue as to what to do about the second, and there wasn’t much time for thinking.
As the two Ghoul soldiers leaped onto the roof, one on either side of the building, Gisela suddenly felt Annabelle’s hands smack her square on the butt, blurting out, “Agility Amp, activate!”
A rush of pressure hit Gisela hard, but she didn’t have time to react to it. Besides, it wasn’t difficult for her to process the gist of what had happened. Time seemed to slow to a crawl around her, while she herself moved quickly. She’d played countless games with a feature like this, and instinct took over.
She raised her rifle and fired, easily landing a perfect headshot on the soldier to her left. No longer having any use for her bracelet gun, she retracted it back into its chamber, and instead kicked out towards the falling mercenary with her grapple-greave.
The hook clamped tight around his machine gun, and she yanked it towards herself. Taking it into her grip, she spun around to face the remaining mercenary, and fired a mere fraction of a second before he pulled his own trigger.
Gisela’s bullets lit up his head and chest, and blood sprayed in all directions from each puncture wound. She herself took a few grazes to the arms and thighs, but fortunately nothing serious.
As the final Ghoul soldier collapsed, and the outdoor battle came to an end, Gisela fell to her knees, releasing her hold on the machine gun so she could clench at the stinging spots on her arms and legs.
Annabelle pushed herself up to a sitting position and saluted, awkwardly swinging her leg out in the same motion. “Amazing aiming, ambassador!”
Gisela cracked a tiny little smile. “Thanks.Goodcallonthatbullettimething,too.” She blinked in surprise at hearing her sped-up voice, and burst out giggling.
Luke strolled out from his warehouse, not even bothering to lock it up. He definitely didn’t want anybody snooping around in there, but if someone did snoop around while he was gone, that would just give him a reason to go and kill them, so it’d be worth it, in a way.
He made his way to one of the cars parked outside, slipping into the backseat and slamming the door shut. “The other car already at Seth’s place, or what?”
The Diabolus man at the wheel checked his phone, then shook his head. “They’re probably still a few minutes out. Traffic’s pretty bad right now.”
Luke rolled his eyes, ignoring the urge to punch through the headrest of the driver’s seat to blast the guy’s brains out. “Tch, what a fuckin’ excuse. Just floor it, and if anybody gets in the way, just run ‘em over. They were askin’ for it by bein’ in the way anyway, right?”
The driver gave a slow and awkward nod, and started driving away from the warehouse. While he hadn’t been working for Luke for especially long, the drastic shift in his personality from his first meeting to today was quite off putting. He couldn’t imagine the guy saying those words just a few months back, and now, that didn’t even feel especially bad for his current standards…
Luke stared out the window, watching the ocean, bored out of his mind. The image of the water becoming red with blood flashed across his imagination, and the side of his mouth twitched. It looked pretty damn cool, but you’d have to spill a fuckton of blood to make that visual happen, right?
Hm…How much blood, exactly? Maybe it was doable…?
The halls leading to the main office on the top floor had a few Diabolus guards posted within them, but thankfully no more of Ghoul’s men. That made dispatching the enemies much easier for Dahye – sprinting at full speed without stopping, deflecting their bullets with her Dragonsaber, and knocking their lights out with her deadly kicks.
Turning around the corner was the final stretch before reaching the office, and only one guard remained, though he couldn’t react in time as she sprinted along the wall and kicked off of it, slicing his shotgun into pieces with her katana and pounding his face with a half-dozen rapid-fire kicks before he collapsed.
She reached the last door of the building, knowing Seth had to be on the opposite side. But opening it wasn’t going to be quite as simple as yanking, kicking, or slicing it open – heavy metal security shutters had been activated, gating it off several times over.
One press of her fingers against the first door had her shaking her head. “We can’t cut this, can we?”
“Not in my current condition, no.”
Dahye winced, feeling ashamed at her earlier performance being the cause of draining the Blue Dragon Spirit’s power supply. “Sorry. But it shouldn’t be a problem,” she added, reaching into her jacket and retrieving the new [Drill] FORMA Malena had granted her access to. “This should work, yes?”
“I am not familiar with the concept engraved upon the FORMA, so I cannot say.”
Dahye raised a brow, and cracked a little smile. “Really? You’ve been in this world for thousands of years and don’t know what a drill is?”
“Strange. You have been alive for over twenty years and do not seem to have learned to watch your tongue around those far more powerful than you.”
“Sorry, Dhara~” she replied with a giggle before drawing her sword and holding the FORMA out before her in her opposite hand.
A bubble of energy blasted out from the card, strong enough to send the nearby unconscious Diabolus guard and his gun tumbling further down the hall, and causing Dahye’s hair and jacket to flutter.
Azure streams of light coiled around the space surrounding the Dragonsaber, until they formed the glowing silhouette of a hefty drill around the blade. Dahye then pressed the tip of the energy drill into the metal wall and pushed.
The blue lights spun, rapidly picking up speed and puncturing through the metal wall until it was cracked wide open. The walls behind them soon followed, until the way into the office was clear.
Dahye quieted the FORMA’s power, returning her sword to normal before tucking the card away into her jacket and hurrying inside.
There were two more Diabolus men posted on the walls to either side of the door, and they immediately aimed and fired upon her. But Dahye had been prepared, using the flat of her blade to deflect the gunman on her left side’s bullets into the weapon of the right-side grunt’s, disarming him.
She slashed apart the first guard’s weapon, then jumped up and spun around, striking him across the jaw with a horizontal kick. Upon landing, she dashed over to the remaining guard and threw a lightning-quick sequence of kicks to his face and chest, before finishing him off with one last hook kick to the head.
But the instant she finished taking out the two guards, three spectral chains – glowing red and orange like flames, burst from the floor. On the end of each was a shackle, with two locking themselves around Dahye’s ankles, and another on her right wrist, which held the katana.
She instinctively tossed the weapon over to her free hand and slashed at the chains, but the attempt at cutting them was useless. “These are chains forged by a FORMA,” Dhara’s voice spoke into her mind. “Even with my power you would have difficulty cutting them.”
Dahye turned her attention to the center of the office, and found Seth standing there by himself, holding a FORMA card in his hand.
He narrowed his eyes. “I take it you’re one of those GLYPH agents I’ve heard about?”
