The ground near a light post exploded, throwing people on the sidewalk aside and causing some of them to slip down the cracks, grabbing desperately for the edges. A figure in black and crimson power armor jumped from the crack, landing at the light post with one leg and holding another leg in the air.
"No more talk!" The terrorist shouted. Several police officers nearby took their aim at him before bending over and vomiting into their helmets, "No change ever comes without death! Your lives are the coin that we gladly pay for our freedom!" The familiar figure raised his hands, pointing palms at the people who came to support the safety measures. A flame appeared in the palms…
A car collapsed into the man standing at the light post, a car thrown by Sonya. The car rammed the terrorist into a wall behind him, leaving a dent in the wall. Both the man and the car began to fall to the ground, and Sonya jumped at him, covering the entire distance from the middle of the street to him in a single leap. With a hit of her right elbow, the scout sent the car away from falling on the people below, instead making it land on top of another car on the road. With her left paw, Sonya made a thrust at the terrorist’s chest, aiming to pierce his solar plexus. The armor cracked, but once again her claws failed to reach the flesh beneath.
Flame exploded from his palms, aiming to devour her, making Sonya push away from her foe and land on the road at the same time that the maniac fell, narrowly missing one of the citizens.
"Reject. You look even uglier than before." The man stood up, backing to the side of the building while Sonya’s claws left a scratch against his chest. Sonya ducked low, evading the fire that flowed over her and followed up with a cut against his knees, tearing off metal, "Consider yourself lucky. This time I don’t have time to toy with you! I am here to kill these traitors, Redeemer and Artificer, so piss off!"
The terrorist’s left hand stopped pointing at Sonya, turning to face an unconscious woman near the building. Sonya kicked his arm, forcing the fire to come upward and melt the side of the building instead.
"I need to work out my frustrations," Sonya told him, evading a punch to the face and kicking him in the chest, splattering him against the side of the building and raising paws over her head, "And you are a chew toy."
Her paws came down, releasing the claws and piercing the steel of his armor. This time she could feel the flesh beneath her claws and the blood splattering against them. Leering fiercely at the mask of his helmet, Sonya headbutted the terrorist, leaving another crack on the wall with his head and pushing her claws even deeper while starting a kick against his stomach.
The terrorist blocked her kick with his own leg, stopping her attack. His hands moved, aiming to clap against her ears, and Sonya followed her instincts, pushing herself away from him and feeling how his hands moved above her own shoulder, causing pain and a wet sensation. His hands clammed in place where her head used to be, producing the sound of gunfire.
The scout landed two steps away from him, noticing that her suit’s cloth disappeared around the upper end of her shoulder along with a solid slice of skin. How?! I dodged it… Sonya’s thoughts were interrupted after receiving a hit against her left jaw, sending her spinning to the side and shattering her glasses. The terrorist once again fooled her with his deceptively slow movement, charging at the last moment and using both clenched hands for an even stronger hit.
Sonya made a circle in the air, landing on her legs in a crouching position. Panic reigned all around the street. Some people were unconscious, some leaned against the stone, vomiting and violently shaking, while the police officers, faring little better, tried to get civilians out. And the scout could see a large crowd of people running from the crossing, all seemingly healthy, along with police officers who formed a line, stopping anyone from risking their lives in trying to drag away the lying people. A few people pushed on anyway, all their differences forgotten, but upon coming closer to the bodies, they experienced first violent coughing and then trembling.
The scout was sure that there was a reason for this, but when the man before her made a thrust with his right arm, she threw all thoughts from her mind. Her own body was shaking, the dizziness messed up with her sense of direction, but all the years of her training paid off. Sonya faced the charge of her foe head on, leaning beneath his strike, feeling a searing pain across her left arm, despite the fact that his palm went a few centimeters from her suit. The terrorist’s image blurred before her eyes when the scout made her attack, hitting him with the elbow of her left arm and sending the man flying away from her a good four steps.
Sonya charged after him, looking briefly at her left arm. In her childhood, she was often tasked with watching over cusack herds. There she saw how cusacks would lick the bodies of insectoids that she killed, licking away whole swats of flesh with their rough tongues. Something like this happened to her arm, the skin was missing all the way from the outer part of her wrist to her elbow.
The terrorist rolled to the side, standing up and breathing heavily. While turning to face Sonya, he held his throat with his left hand. This time he won’t have time to dodge. Sonya made a thrust with her right arm, aiming for the blurred image of his body…
And felt how her thrust missed the mark, scratching and tearing off the metal from the helmet. My eyes. Sonya cursed, failing to jump back and receiving a full blow of the enemy kick into her abdomen.
****
"I will rip out her eyes and replace them with optics!" Alpha roared, seeing the fight come to life thanks to the drones of the news agencies.
"It’s not just her eyes," Zero quietly said, putting her helmet back on, "Hekanta, these symptoms…"
"Dizziness, shivers, vomiting, loss of conscience… The air!" Hekanta gasped.
"Tsk. So, this is how it is," Alpha grasped her elbows, drawing blood to calm herself. Hate was the one emotion she always understood. Right now she hated the fact that one of her kins was backing down, enduring a flurry of enemy blows, and she couldn’t even help Sonya in any way, "Sonya, drop the reliance on your eyes already and gore this bitch with your claws. Hekanta! Dial the Iterna intelligence number, we need to share our discovery."
****
Sonya backed down, enduring hit after hit. The terrorist’s armored fist collided with her wrists, tearing off parts of the skin and making her grit her fangs in pain. In an attempt to slow him down, the scout bit his wrist, and the maniac twisted his arm, shattering a few of her fangs, before landing a kick against her belly, sending her five steps back.
The man in crimson power armor was making a step toward Sonya, raising his hands to bathe her in flames, when electricity hit him, throwing the man back into the side of his body and making him twitch uncontrollably, while more and more arcs of energy were licking his body.
"Sonya!" The scout heard Surano’s voice, and by straining her eyes managed to focus briefly on him. The young man extended his right arm toward the foe while energy was coming from a bracelet on his wrist, "You need to get away from here!"
"You get away from here!" Sonya yelled at him as she stood up, "There's something strange around here," She regurgitated on the ground, "Ran, before the poison gets to you."
"Don’t worry! Barjoni's is not afraid of any poison!" The insufferable idiot smirked to her.
Then how come your mother fell unconscious? Sonya thought.
"Maybe you don’t, but you will care about this!" The terrorist howled, regaining control over his movements and walking toward the teen. The familiar automatic arm slid from behind his back, sending a blade into the young man’s face.
Sonya was faster, appearing before Surano and slapping the blade aside, feeling sweat running down her spine. It was strange, she should not have been so tired.
"Surano, thank you. I got a moment to recover. Get whoever you can off here, I will dance with the bastard till help arrives."
"But I must…"
"Not now, Surano!" The scout pushed him back, evading a slap from her foe. The moment his palm connected to the ground, it exploded. But this time, the scout knew what to expect, she dodged way further than she needed to, before charging in and landing a kick against the man’s arm, "I am starting to figure you out, boy."
Sonya coughed, grabbing her chest and falling to one knee. She breathed and breathed, but no relief came. The whole world spun around her while the terrorist pointed a palm at her.
"Much good did it do to you, eh, reject?" He chuckled, "Now where were we? Ah, yes, indiscriminate slaughter."
"Hope you choke on this." Sonya gasped, trying to stand up. The flame burned in his palm, leaving him to strike at her. The world spun, but this time it was Sonya who shifted places. Strong arms grabbed her, dragging the wolfkin away from the battle, while two more forms made of metal assaulted the terrorist, throwing him off his feet.
"Miss Sonya, are you alright?" Jehu’s face appeared above her, and the scout looked at him in surprise. He was missing both his wings and the golden star.
The wolfkin wanted to say that everything was fine when the sound of tearing metal made both of them look at the terrorist. He touched one of the archangels who collapsed into him, and the metal exploded, splitting the female-looking form in two. The next one released twin stun batons from his wrists, striking at the man. The terrorist caught both weapons, crashing them into his armored fists. At that moment, Jehu was on him, landing a low kick, while his partner landed an elbow kick, sending the terrorist back into the side of a building.
Two archangels stared at the terrorist. No words had been said, but the one with wings nodded, grabbing the torso of the third and then Surano with two more civilians whom the teen was helping, flying away from the battle. Jehu turned to face the terrorist.
"Enough of this," He roared, raising his arm and pointing at the people on the road near Sonya, "Bring me Eugenia and Artificer now, you cursed regurgitation of the Old World."
Sonya stood up faster than the fire could leave his arm. She stomped on the ground, breaking concrete and raising a slab of stone to block the flame, before punching it with both paws and throwing it at the terrorist. The man simply took the stone on his palm, and it shattered in an instant.
"Sonya!" While she tried to see the next movement of her foe, Jehu jumped close to her. Falling stone, screams of people, so many different smells all around, all of this was throwing her off balance, "I figured it out, he is…"
"Manipulate the air, yes," Sonya rasped, "Took me a while, but finally it clicked for me. He somehow lowered the percentage of oxygen in the air, causing everyone around him to fall unconscious. And when someone flies at him, he vibrates the air in his palms, creating a cutter."
"I was actually going to say that he is one of the Numbers," Jehu said, producing shock batons from his wrists, "His screams about rejects, his insistence on seeing Eugenia and dad when they are on the mission today…"
"Figured it out, huh?" The terrorist laughed, "Feel honored then, for today you will be removed by Seven! My current host leaves a bit to be desired, but this flesh bag will suffice to eliminate you!"
"What are you planning to gain?" Jehu demanded to know, "There is no way for you to escape now!"
"Survival was never my priority," Seven gleefully replied, "I am of far more exquisite stock compared to you lot. Death is a mere setback for me, in time a new Seven will be produced," The terrorist pointed one finger up, "See, normally humans breathe air with twenty-one percent of oxygen in it. I however, dropped this proportion to a mere sixteen percent and look around," He spread his arms, "Iternians may be tough as cockroaches when it comes to killing them, but even they will croak eventually. I know this. I tried my power on stone," He lowered himself, touching the ground and exploding it. He kicked one shard at Sonya, forcing Jehu to block it. The terrorist leaped forward, reaching for the archangel’s wrists, "On metal," Sonya pushed Jehu aside and only stun batons exploded, "And on people, of course. On so many people. By the way, do you know what will happen if I lower the percentage to seven or six percent?"
Sonya stood up against the pain, thanking this idiot for keeping on blabbering. She was trembling, her vision was blurry, but she was alive. The wolfkins were tougher than most humans and more resistant to poisons.
"Jehu," She said quietly, "My vision is shit. Grab whoever you can and…"
"Vision?" His blue lenses changed color, turning green for a moment, and then his lips spread in a wide smile, "Thanks for permission. Sonya, your hand now!"
The scout gave her paw more out of confusion than out of trust. Her head hurt, her body trembled, and for a moment she thought herself delirious, seeing how Jehu came apart. Like snakes, his wires slithered around her body, like giant insects, his metal plates grew legs, running across her form, positioning themselves and locking her in a steel coffin. The scout felt the movement of servo motors over her body, jumping away to dodge the grab of Seven.
Her snout became covered in metal, leaving her in utter darkness. All she could hear were the movements of wire and machinery. This didn’t last for long. With a flash of light, a HUD came online. And with it, a perfect vision. And sound. At the edge of the HUD, the inscription appeared: Archangel-class power armor activated. Currently in custom mode, we recommend a visit to the nearest technical bay to adjust the armor properly to your size.
"Sonya?" Jehu’s voice came into her ear, "Is this better?"
The wolfkin moved her arm, feeling the same pain in her lungs as before. But now her body was supported by the power armor, making it possible to fight even in this condition. Air or not, she was ready to go. Her lips spread in a smile: "Superb. Hold on tight, Jehu, we are ending it."
"Wait!" She felt how the power armor stopped her from making another step, "The person within the armor is not involved…"
"Are you seriously doing it now?"
"Sonya, we have to take this person alive. Seven uses the host as a slave…"
"Fine, you have my word that I will try," She found herself able to move again, "Steel yourself, Jehu. We are going to stress test you." Sonya charged forward.
She appeared before Seven, punching at his wrists and throwing his arms backward, not allowing his palms to touch her. Making a spin, Sonya landed an elbow hit against the damaged part of his chest’s armor, shattering steek and exposing the solar plexus area. The skin beneath the armor looked dirty and smelled of stench and sweat. Sonya understood that their hit failed to reach the mark, but it was fine. Jehu shouted, demanding to know if she was sane, after Sonya kicked with both legs, landing both kicks on Seven’s arms and sending the Number upward across the wall of the office building.
"The people are supposed to be in the bunker by now, right?"
"They were all evacuated beforehand, but…"
"Super." Sonya cut him off, using the momentum of her kick to make a spin and land on her arm.
Using the stone as a springboard, she pushed her body upward, kicking Seven between the legs and sending the number even further. She turned in the air, releasing her claws through the steel gauntlets and making Jehu say "Ouch". The claws pierced the stone wall, and Sonya used this surface to propel herself even further upward, making another spin in the air and scissoring her legs around the number’s waist. Seven’s palms touched their thighs, and both Jehu and Sonya groaned from pain, sending Seven to the roof.
Sonya grabbed the edge of the roof, climbing up and looking at the street beneath. Here and there, some people were waking up, proving that her theory was correct. The steel on the outside side of her thighs exploded, revealing ugly torn wounds beneath, but the wolfkin could not contain the smile.
"Your blabbering about being able to kill the whole district and Jehu’s information helped me solve the final part of a puzzle, kiddo. You're a liar, ain't you?" She asked with a sneer, "Your power has an eight-meter radius, ain’t that so?" Seven stood up, making a step back in uncertainty, and Sonya opened her mouth, showing fangs, "Your kin killed some of the people I know back in Belaz. Now, on this twelve-meter tall building, I will take you apart for this."
"Sonya, we must take the host alive," Jehu whispered, "The host is just another hostage in need of help…"
"Trust me." Sonya whispered back, feeling herself ready to lose her conscience at any moment. Despite all her boasts, darkness was clouding her vision, and she inhaled one last time, hoping that she had baited Seven into making the mistake she wanted him to make.
Seven’s armor was filled with cracks, blood leaking from a few broken parts of his power armor, mixing with the hissing sound of electricity in his damaged servo motors. The Y-shaped helmet looked around for a way out before all its lenses turned to look at Sonya.
"Think you’ve won?" He spoke slowly, almost arguing with himself and trying to keep his voice even, "Think I care for this flesh suit? I’ve been afraid of dying at first, true, but now… All iternians could hold their breath for around ten minutes. After I had made the modifications to this body, it could hold breath for twenty! How long can you hold your breath, huh? This is it, I should have done it from the start, die and be nothing! This whinny flesh bag, this cursed city... I will kill and kill until they show up. Six percent."
Sonya pushed herself ahead, holding on against her own body that wanted to black out. Her lungs were on fire, but the scout knew that if she just give it, it will mean death. Seven was even slower now, the power armor that supported him for so long was turning into a prison, slowly but surely, because of all broken systems within it. Fire appeared in his palms, and Seven made an attempt to burn her sides to the crisp, uncaring for defense. Sonya grabbed the stupid appendages of his helmet, pushing his face against her knee and shattering the faceplate with a single kick. The force behind the blow was enough to send him back, leaving her with appendages that held his lens, while fire unleashed by his palms harmlessly fired to his left and right.
The broken helmet revealed a small head, covered by countless barely healed scars. The nose was almost missing, replaced by tubes that ran into the collar of the suit. The bored-looking eyes of a young teen stared at Sonya while her lips were tightly shut. The edges of the scars were swollen, with pus and blood coming from a few cracks in the skin, while the skin itself was sickly grey and covered by dirt.
A woman? No matter. Sonya punched at the exposed solar plexus, forcing her foe to accidently breathe in air. Both woman and Seven fell first on their knees, before falling face down on the roof.
"Jehu, the needle that you used against me…" Sonya whispered, too afraid to inhale. Jehu made the needle jump from the chest of the armor into her paw along with a few pills, "See, Janine once told me. If there is around six percent or less oxygen in the air, then if a normal person breathes it in, it is a total shutdown for them, unless their brain is slightly different, like ours. I made my bet…" Sonya forced the unconscious woman to swallow the pill and injected the sedatives, "… After I remembered how Aranea told me that the Numbers could kill their hosts at will. And…" Sonya trailed off, falling face down, while darkness took hold of her.
Her snout never connected with the woman’s body. Jehu took control of the armor, preventing the wolfkin from taking a full fall.
