Kayden gasped for breath as he stared at the exposed metal skeleton of his left forearm, both from the pain from his plasma-shot wound and from the fact of true form of his body now having finally dawned on him.

New flesh had already started to grow from the charred edges of the wound. New muscle tissue could be seen extending from the wound edges and growing along the length of the exposed metal bones, covering the bones and continuing onwards to connect with the opposite edge of the wound.

‘It looks like it won’t take too long for the wound to heal up.’ Kayden thought. ‘But… argh… this plasma-shot injury is so painful. I don’t think I can endure any more hits like this one.’

Kayden glanced at the exposed metal bones, watching the faint red glow on them, the result of intense heat of the plasma shot, slowly and gradually fade away.

Seeing this, Kayden felt a bit more relieved because it looked like his metal endoskeleton seemed to be durable enough and should still be able to handle a few more plasma-rifle shots before sustaining any significant damage.

But he still had another worry.

‘If I receive some direct shots to the head, how long will it take before the burning heat from those plasma shots directly cooks my brain to death. Do these plasma-rifle-wielding Terminators really need to destroy my metal skull before they can kill me?’ Kayden wondered, a little frightened by his thought.

Even in the split second while Kayden had been thinking and reflecting, the T-800 Terminator, who had shot and wounded him, fired at him again. But this time, Kayden was ready for it. He had enough time to take act. He dodged to the side and managed to successfully avoid his getting wounded a second time.

Crouching at the side of the walkway, Kayden shot back at the T-800. Unfortunately for him, all that pain he was suffering was affecting his aiming accuracy. So, unlike his previous inhumanly accurate headshots, his shot barely managed to hit the right side of T-800’s metal chest. Kayden’s plasma shot struck the right side of T-800’s chest at a position close to the T-800’s right shoulder, piercing through it and burning out a concave depression with red-hot edges in the right side of T-800’s chest below the ‘armpit’ area.

The damage from Kayden’s shot did not seem to affect the T-800 in any significant way; it only looked like it had caused some minor damage to the internal structures and mechanisms in the T-800’s chest. Kayden guessed this after he noticed a little added jerkiness and inaccuracies when the T-800 moved or aimed with its right-arm, and due to his seeing some sparks that appeared from its chest from time to time.

Right about then, the other three T-800 Terminators had managed to clear away some of the obstruction in the walkway between them and Kayden. The three Terminators all raised their plasma rifles and began to shoot at Kayden.

All of a sudden, Kayden now had to dodge the plasma shots of all four T-800 Terminators if he did not want to experience the previous traumatically-painful plasma shot wound again.

Kayden performed many evasive maneuvers in order to dodge the T-800’s plasma shots including: ducking down, rolling around on the floor, jumping up, backwards or to the side, or sometimes even lunging forwards towards the T-800s.

The continuous shooting of the four T-800s and the promise of extreme if he got hit by even one of their plasma shots forced Kayden to unleash most of the hidden acrobatic potential of his enhanced body, and he fully displayed his senses and reaction which had all been enhanced to superhuman levels.

All these evasive maneuvers that Kayden was currently performing allowed him to evade most of the plasma shots that manage to past through the remaining obstructing obstacles in the walkway, and barely gave him the chance to return a few plasma shots — which unfortunately did not manage to cause any significant damage — to the T-800s.

Meanwhile, the pain from his plasma shot wound had reduced to a bearable level. So, Kayden could now think more clearly because of the lessened distraction from all that pain. So, even while he was dodging the four T-800s plasma shots, he had managed to get lock on one of the four T-800s. The T-800 he marked for destruction was the one that had shot and wounded him — yeah, he was that vengeful.

And so, after performing a particularly skillful sideways roll to dodge a plasma shot, Kayden crouched down, and then kneeling on a one knee, Kayden took a deep breath before he aimed and fired a plasma shot at the T-800 that he had a lock on.

Headshot!

But the four — sorry, now three — T-800 Terminators did not give Kayden any time to be satisfied with his successful killing of their colleague. Like all of Skynet’s machine fighters that Kayden had encountered until, the three remaining T-800 Terminators completely ignored their downed colleague and brother-in-arms and continued to shoot at Kayden.

And Kayden, even after pushing himself close to the current limits of his dodging abilities, a plasma shot from one of the three T-800s grazed his left flank of his abdomen, burning off from that area both the skin and an inch depth of flesh, and causing a new burst of pain to fill up his mind.

“Argh!” Kayden grunted in pain, covering the new burn wound with his free hand.

Another three plasma shots forced him to dodge away again even as he endured the pain from his new wound.

Kayden realized that he could not keep this fight going. If he continued fighting with the T-800s on his own, the pain from new plasma-shot wounds would soon incapacitate his shooting and retaliating ability, and that would put him in real and serious danger.

While considering his options, Kayden remembered something that he seemed to have ignored while he was having a shootout with the machines.

“Fuck! I really forgot about the other machines who are on their way here!”

Kayden immediately looked around the area. He immediately noticed that the machines — which should most likely have HKs among them — that he had previously seen moving towards his location from other parts of the factory area — and mostly likely, other areas in the facility complex — had covered a lot of distance and had gotten much closer to his current location. They should reach his location in about five to ten minutes.

“Fuck! Why are they all here? Why aren’t they outside fighting the Resistance like all the other machines? Are there slackers even among the machines? Fuck!!” Kayden cursed.

‘Okay… breathe… keep your calm, Kayden. Time to run!’ Kayden thought. But the thought did not sound right to him, so he quickly added, ‘Fuck no! I’m not running away. I’m just retreating. Yes! It’s just a strategic retreat.’

As soon as he had finished consoling himself, Kayden turned around and ran away. He bolted out of the walkway, turning around the corner before running in the direction that Serena and the rest of the group had left.

As soon as Kayden took off running, the three T-800 Terminators stopped the relaxed walking pace which they had been using to approach him. Instead, they too began to run after him in pursuit while also still shooting at him using their plasma rifles.

While running away, Kayden also had to dodge the plasma shots coming at him from behind. Right now, due to the Terminators having to shoot while running, their aim and shooting accuracy had been adversely affected, so most of their shots missed their target. In addition to that, Kayden would use the many obstacles along the way as cover to block some of the plasma shots. Despite all that, Kayden still suffered a few near-misses, and his skin was grazed by a few plasma-shot beams which added a few more burn wounds to his body.

“Fuck! This shit hurts!” Kayden shouted as he finally ran out of the walkway. He took a turn and followed the path that Serena and the prisoner group had taken.

Kayden had been following some marks that Serena had thoughtfully left for him along the way. She had probably done it because she was worried that Kayden would not know which path the group had taken, and therefore he might not be able to find and rejoin the group, so she had left scratched-out arrow signs along the way to show him the path that she and the rest of group had taken.

But although these marks that Serena had left were very thoughtful and had made it convenient and easy for Kayden to find out which path the group had taken, the following the marks was not actually the only method he could use to figure that out. He had another way to find the group. This was the reason why Kayden had not bother to get a very detailed explanation from Serena about which paths they would follow.

Kayden’s method was actually a simple one, and it was based on a simple fact.

With the exception of Serena and Kayden himself, the former prisoners in the group were filthy.

It seems like Skynet did not care much about the personal hygiene of its human prisoners except when it was required for the prisoners tasks, so the prisoners most likely did not have many opportunities to take of their personal hygiene. Therefore, the prisoners smelled bad — yes, they stank — and they wore dirty clothes and shoes. The clothes that had been ‘gifted’ to Kayden were also stinky and dirty, but his nose seemed to have quickly adapted to the smell and had suppressed his sense of smell to a level which he could mostly ignore the smell and not be too bothered by it anymore.

So, as the group walked, they would always leave some faint shoe prints wherever they passed. These shoe prints were very obvious to both Kayden’s eyes and his HUD — which even highlighted them for him. This was why Kayden was sure that he could easily track them down.

And most likely, so could the Terminators who were now chasing after him!

*****

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