【Time Crisis: Retribution】
Author's Note:
- The world needs more TC fics :D
- This fic was co-written with Striga.
- As of the time of this fic's publication, the TC4 character profiles in the TC wikia are either somewhat mistranslated or missing pieces of information D:! For those of you who understand Japanese, I strongly recommend reading the profiles from the game's official site instead. Someone should do a proper translation for the wikia... T-T (Or I dunno, PM me if you have an account there and I'd be more than happy to supply you with a full translation that you can simply Copy-Paste.)
- For the purpose of this fic, a little info on Giorgio's background:
According to the game's official site, when Giorgio was 10, the Bruno Family was wiped out due to infighting (NOT because the Italian Authorities wiped it out as the wikia says). He was then adopted by a police officer, leading to him becoming a police officer himself.
For those interested in Giorgio's full bio, here's a full translation by Striga:
striga-memo. tumblr.
com/private/174532929459/tumblr_p9r6u2wVvL1xvd6vz
(^remove the spaces. I can't seem to post links)
- I'm a language and culture freak, so bear with/have fun with me xD. Italian and Sicilian were researched from online language sites and YouTube (Thank you language channels! You're awesome!). As for French, I'm still a beginner, but I'm totally hoping to become fluent in it in future! If I still manage to somehow butcher the languages despite my research, feel free to point it out.
- All OCs were made for the purposes of the plot. Enjoy! ^^
*Thanks to June Ellie for grammar checking!
Disclaimer:
This is a work of fiction and has no connection to any military or law enforcement agencies. Names, characters, business, events and incidents are the products of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or deceased, or actual events is purely coincidental. Any trademarks appearing in this work are the property of their respective owners.
【 Chapter 1: Salutamu】
Unknown building, Palermo, Sicily 03:18
The room, dark and wide, was cluttered with a maze of cables and devices, all set up to fulfill one single purpose.
A well-dressed man sat alone before a computer at the desk, the tapping of his fingers hitting the keys the only sound in the otherwise quiet room. The monitor's cool electronic light glowed softly against the lines on his aging skin as he worked, but sharply against the steel of the prosthetic right arm hidden under the sleeve of his expensive tailored suit. His fingers typed away tirelessly, no matter how heavy his eyelids felt, no matter how much his wrists hurt from overworking.
Behind him, crates sat stacked from the floor to the ceiling, the cold metal of the weapons in them mirroring the emotion in the man's old but sharp eyes.
The VSSE had done him a great injustice, and they were going to pay for it. He would see to it that they did.
Behind him, a young man stood watching at the room's doorway, his fair complexion shadowed by the hallway's backlight. He worried for the older man's health, but he too knew that this must be done.
Banishing every last shadow of hesitation from his mind, he tightened his grip on the gun in his hand.
Unidentified enemy warehouse, Milan, Italy 13:36
A succession of shots rang out through the air, joining the cacophony of other gunshots ricocheting around the concrete walls of the warehouse. As the magazine clicked empty in his hand, VSSE agent Giorgio Bruno took cover behind a row of crates and reloaded the gun with swift, automated movements, unperturbed by the bullets whizzing by just above his head. While he worked on the cartridge, he took the opportunity to review the situation.
There were three armed men across the room; one by a couple of drums, another by a metal beam, and a third one on the second floor. He glanced across the aisle. Evan was taking fire as well, but seemed to be holding out well otherwise.
A shot, a scream, a rattling crash on steel—his partner had taken down their upstairs attacker. Seizing his chance, Giorgio darted over to a different spot behind cover, stood up and fired at the remaining two.
His aim, honed by a decade's worth of training, didn't fail him. One, two shots, and the last assailants before them fell one after another, but the battle wasn't over yet. As if falling into the steps of a well-rehearsed dance, he whirled around to face his partner, sighted his last target and pulled the trigger.
Evan gasped as the bullet from Giorgio's gun grazed his cheek, before effectively burying itself in an enemy sniper hiding on the scaffolds far behind him, sparing the younger man a brand-new bullet hole in his back. Giorgio watched the sniper crash onto the crates underneath the platform, standing deathly still as the residual echoes of the gunshot faded into nothingness. As a dense silence descended upon the warehouse, he lowered his gun.
"That should be the last of them," Giorgio said coolly. After giving his surroundings one last scan, he re-engaged his gun's safety catch and reached for his earpiece.
"Agent Martin, this is Agent Bruno reporting. All enemies here have been dispatched, and the warehouse containing the illegal weapons is secured." He paused. "Like the two previous warehouses, the enemy leader doesn't seem to be here. We'll be waiting for further instructions."
A sigh of relief could be heard from the other side of the communication device as Agent Sarah Martin, the intelligence operative usually in charge of providing support for the pair of agents, replied.
"Agent Bruno, Agent Bernard! First of all, good work once again. It's good to see that your teamwork has been improving."
Her voice was slightly fuzzy through the speaker, but the jubilation in it was apparent. Missions handled by the VSSE, a special international intelligence agency tirelessly combatting terrorism across the globe, were always highly risky. Even if they only allowed the best, most skilled personnel of various other security organizations to join them, there was never a guarantee of survival in their line of work, and the completion of any mission was a good reason to celebrate.
"It's a shame that it seems to be another dead end. Nevertheless, we'll send our team there to investigate and hopefully find some clues about the perpetrators behind this weapons trade," she continued, the tense voice which she had been speaking with throughout the mission ebbing away into a gentler, more comforting one.
"We'll take care of matters from here. A helicopter will be sent to pick you up, so stay put."
"Roger that," Giorgio replied, ending the call and finally turning his attention back to Evan.
"Merde! Giorgio, how did you do that!?" Evan exclaimed as he shoved his gun into its holster and walked over to him, having reluctantly bottled up his surprise to refrain from interrupting Giorgio's conversation. "You don't just shoot a nearly invisible target from that far away and manage to hit it!"
Evan didn't try to hide the awe in his voice. He was a relatively new addition to the VSSE—he had joined them last year, to be exact—and had been assigned as Giorgio's partner from the get-go. While he had grown into his current job, making it a point to keep his cool at all times just like his senior, he still tended to loosen up when something particularly exciting came his way. Perhaps it was due to his relative youth, but his playful side would sometimes get the better of him and bubble up, the brightness in his eyes not unlike that of an overenthusiastic child's. The number of times Giorgio had saved his life in unbelievable ways boggled him.
"It's what all our training's for. It's a long road, but your diligence should get you there someday," Giorgio replied nonchalantly, swiftly placing his gun back into its holster in one effortless motion.
"At least I certainly hope you will. Or I'll have to look for someone else who can keep up with me," he smirked.
"Is keeping up with you even possible?" Evan rolled his eyes. "You're practically a tractor!"
Upon being paired up with Giorgio for the first time last year, Evan, young and cocky and proud as he was, had believed that he would eventually catch up and surpass the veteran. But the more he worked with Giorgio and saw what he could do, the more it seemed like an absurd idea. Sure, he was the better swimmer between the two of them, owing to the amount of time he had spent near—or in—the water since childhood, and was arguably more of a people person than the senior agent, but Giorgio could beat him at virtually everything else.
He remembered the time he had challenged the 'old man' ("I'm not even 30 yet", Giorgio had grumbled) to a simple race around the HQ training grounds, confident that victory was easily within his reach. Instead, what he'd found at the end of the race was Giorgio watching him struggle from the finish line, a smug look on his face. It hadn't stopped Evan from challenging him again, much to the detriment of their early days working together, but a lot had happened since then, and their history had seen rivalry turn into grudging respect, and then into mutual cooperation and one-sided admiration.
"You know, sometimes I think I don't even deserve you as a partner!" Evan blurted out, meaning it as a self-deprecatory joke. But then it struck him that it might be true, objectively speaking, and the junior agent fell silent and looked away. It didn't go unnoticed by his partner, though.
"Evan, look here."
Evan glanced up at the call, and felt silk against his cheek as Giorgio gently wiped away the blood from his grazed skin with a handkerchief.
"Ah, of course you'd have that with you—what a gentleman," he laughed, pushing his hand away playfully. Giorgio's forehead creased at the interruption, but considering his job done, he tucked the cloth away and stepped back.
"You're not alone in this, alright? Provided that you do your best, I'm always willing to help you as your partner. And so far, I think you're doing quite well… Certainly much, much better than when we first met."
Evan was taken aback. Was Giorgio praising him? That certainly didn't happen very often, and he would be lying if he said that he wasn't moved by the encouragement.
"…Whatever, tonton (uncle)," he said after a pause, pulling away and turning his back on Giorgio. He paused nervously before continuing, lightly fiddling with one of his necklaces.
"Eh bien (Well)… I don't know how much I can do for you, but just know that you can ask me for help with anything anytime too, alright? I'll do what I can."
Giorgio smiled. Shortly after, the familiar whirring of rotor blades was heard outside the warehouse.
"I guess our ride's here. Let's get going," he told Evan as he made his way to the exit. Evan grinned cheekily and followed closely behind.
"You know, you should really tell me more about yourself sometime. Like, from before you joined the VSSE," Evan mused playfully. Then, with a snicker, he added, "I'd love to hear about all you had to go through to get to this point!"
"Maybe some other time," Giorgio replied dryly as he kept on walking.
"Allez~ (Come on~) Please? That's the fifth time you've said that. Are you ever going to tell me?" Evan insisted. He caught up with Giorgio and stuck out in front of him, grinning playfully.
"No secrets between partners, right?"
And so Evan continued to prod him on various topics throughout the ride back to the VSSE HQ. What he failed to notice was Giorgio's slightly darkening expression every time the subject of his past came up.
That night, residential area, Milan 02:34
The mission's report had been compiled and submitted, all post-mission formalities had been handled, and a rewarding, well-deserved dinner had been eaten. The long, busy day was finally done.
Giorgio walked down the deserted streets of the residential area, its emptiness a far cry from its daytime bustle. The shops lining the ground floor of the buildings along the street were all closed, their windows turning into pitch-black mirrors in the darkness—much like most, if not all the rooms overhead. Only the streetlights hummed quietly in the night, the flicker of moths dancing by their glow the only movement. The district was asleep.
Giorgio walked along the pavement briskly. The exhaustion from the day's mission had caught up to him, and he was more than ready to crash onto his bed the moment he arrived at his apartment.
As he made his way home, he thought back on recent events.
It hadn't even been two weeks since he and Evan had returned from their mission in the US. They had worked together with the US military to eliminate the Terror Bites, a secret biological weapon that had fallen into the hands of 'terrorists'. The mastermind of the attack turned out to be traitors from the US army itself; the truth could be shocking at times.
Almost immediately after the completion of that mission, he had suddenly been informed that there were suspicious activities and illegal weapon trades by an unidentified organization taking place around Milan, the city he was living in, which naturally also happened to be the city whose safety was under his surveillance as an agent. The VSSE analysts feared that the weapons trade might be another possible terrorist threat, and had thus advised taking immediate action.
The regional HQ had then decided that they might as well send him, and therefore Evan as well, simply by virtue of him being Giorgio's partner. He felt a little bad for the Frenchman, being assigned somewhere else right after he'd returned to his home country.
Well, he supposed that a company-paid trip to beautiful Italy, with a reservation at a five-star hotel and access to all the delicious pizza and pasta he could ever want, had more than made up for the trouble. He scoffed to himself, mildly amused. The smug brat must be enjoying himself.
Speaking of Evan, his question in the afternoon made its way back into Giorgio's mind.
His past… Coated in fire and blood. It wasn't something that he was very proud of, or even wanted to recall at all.
His mind went back to 19 years ago, and he remembered. Flashes of burning, crashing timber and gunfire that always sounded far too close, punctuated by screams of terror and raging grief, all wrapped up in a chaotic mess of shadows, blending into thick, black smoke, its darkened breath powdering soot into bloodstained walls…
No, he thought to himself as he shoved the memories away. The day that he left his hometown, he had made a promise to himself to leave everything behind and start anew. The unpleasant past was, after all, something to be brushed under the rug, something to be forgotten. He had even made sure to request that his employers keep any information regarding his childhood classified as private information unless it was absolutely necessary to disclose it. He certainly hoped that Evan would lose interest and stop pryiー
"…?"
Giorgio's thoughts were interrupted as he arrived at his apartment and was about to reach for the doorknob.
The door was slightly ajar.
His fitful mood drained out of him immediately as he instinctively switched back to high alert, backing away from the room's entrance.
Giorgio always double-checked his door's lock whenever he left his room. If there was a burglar, he could still be in there. But considering he worked for the VSSE, the possibility that the room currently housed a much more dangerous enemy wasn't that far-fetched either.
His hand reflexively slid towards the grip of his gun, hidden carefully in his red coat. But thinking that it wouldn't be effective to start a gunfight in his apartment room with all the indoor obstacles, as well as to avoid alerting his neighbors, he allowed his fingers to slip past his gun to the folding knife he had in his back pocket.
With great caution, Giorgio quietly opened the door and slipped inside, making sure to enter soundlessly. As he proceeded into the dark room, however, he was surprised that whoever had broken in had no intention of hiding.
The silhouette of a man in a suit stood in front of the living room window, looking out at the lonely streets. The moonlight lit a silvery contour around him, glinting on his metallic right hand—but regardless of the apparent disability, he stood with the dignity and composure of a man of great stature. He didn't seem to be carrying any weapon, but Giorgio didn't let his guard down.
"That wasn't very nice of you to enter without knocking. Who are you?" He spoke with a steady voice, making his presence known to the stranger standing in his apartment.
The unknown man noticed his presence, and turned to face him. To Giorgio's surprise, the voice that addressed him was disturbingly familiar.
"Salutamu (Hello), Giorgio. It's been a long time."
Giorgio frowned deeply, tightening his grip on his knife.
Sicilian? He hadn't known anyone who spoke that language for a while, and certainly not in a voice that stirred up almost forgotten memories in the corner of his mind.
As the man turned around, he revealed not only a prosthetic right arm, but also burns and scars that crept out of his neatly buttoned collar, spreading across the right half of his face. His right eye and the area around it had also been replaced by cold steel, inspiring both awe and fear. He had definitely not seen anyone with such an unusual appearance in recent times.
Still, Giorgio felt as though he knew the man. His mind grasped frantically for the wisp of recognition that the stranger's voice had triggered in him, searching his almost inhuman face for any clue to his identity. Then it struck him, and his tense expression melted into astonishment when he finally recognized the man under all the scarring and age. His grip on his knife loosened.
"Zu (Uncle) Salvatore…?" He asked, hesitation creeping into his voice.
The stranger smiled at him, and all at once Giorgio felt a wave of relief wash over him like a great flood, taking away all of his uncertainty. The man was old, and heavily disfigured, but underneath all the wrinkles and the steel, he could tell from that posture and that comforting fatherly tone, everything that he was all too familiar with, that it was his very own uncle.
The man who stood before him was none other than Salvatore Bruno, his father's younger brother. The man who had always stood by his father's side, whose hand was on his shoulder when he came home trying not to cry from a grazed knee, whose voice placated his mother when she caught him trying to sneak a couple of cannoli from the kitchen with his little cousin Tonio. And most of all, he was a man whom Giorgio thought had gone down with the flames nearly two decades ago, on the night he lost every last shred of his old life.
None of Giorgio's acquaintances would say that he was an emotional man, but even so, the rush of fond memories and unresolved loss knocked him off-balance, and his emotions threatened to overflow. He held them back. His uncle spoke.
"It certainly took me a while to find you, and all of my faith to even believe that you were still alive after that chaotic incident at the Bruno mansion. And yet here you are." Salvatore smiled with genuine contentment. He seemed truly happy to be reunited with his nephew. "I'm pleased to see that you have grown into a fine young man."
Giorgio couldn't argue with his uncle's statement. Glimpses of that fateful night 19 years ago flashed through his mind again. A night of fire and blood. It was the night that the entire Bruno Family, one of the oldest and most influential mafia family based in Palermo, Sicily, had collapsed in on itself.
People who had considered each other brothers shot at one another, turning the entire turf around the boss' mansion into a war zone. The fire that broke out at some point of the districtwide gunfight raged on for the whole night, feeding off the scattered corpses on the streets, while the phantoms of its reflection danced upon endless pools of blood staining the shot-up concrete. In the morning, when the fight had died down, the news spread across town in a frenzy. They had killed all the men, women, and children. There were no survivors.
Or, well, there shouldn't have been. But the truth was that, at the time, the authorities had found one living body in the field of cadavers—the boss' 10-year-old son, Giorgio Bruno, dragged out half-dead from the charred ruins.
Yes, little Giorgio was the heir to a mafia bossーsomething he certainly didn't want to flaunt considering his current line of work.
He looked up at Salvatore again, who still stood there, smiling. At this point, he was reasonably sure that he was not seeing a ghost, nor was he hallucinating from fatigue. It seemed that he wasn't the only survivor of that incident after all.
Knowing that his uncle had no intention to fight, Giorgio folded his knife and returned it to his pocket.
"Zu Salvatore, I thought I was the only survivor!" he started, his voice trembling more than he had expected it to.
He didn't want to accept it, but he was probably more shaken up than he'd care to admit. A part of him, perhaps a memory of his younger self, wanted him to throw himself straight into his beloved uncle's arms, like he had always used to when he needed some comfort. But he had to keep himself together for now.
"Are there… Is there anyone else…?"
"…"
Salvatore was quiet for a moment, before looking away sadly.
"It's unfortunate, but no. I've looked everywhere, but it seems that only you, me, and quite luckily enough, little Tonioーyour cousin, if you remember him, survived. I myself was in a coma for 15 years and almost didn't make it."
"…"
Giorgio looked away, his mind scrambling to process the information.
Antonio Bruno, Salvatore's son. He had been a dear childhood friend and Giorgio's self-proclaimed 'escort' back then. He couldn't help feeling a little happy at the news. But other questions needed answering, so he turned back to his uncle.
"Well, Zu, what are you planning to do now? If you and Tonio would like to start a new life, I'll do everything Iー"
Salvatore raised a hand to interrupt his offer. "Thank you for the kind offer, Giorgio, but I'll have to decline. I only came to inform you that we have some…unfinished business."
"…...?"
Giorgio studied his uncle cautiously. Salvatore moved towards the table by the windowsill, where a half-filled glass of wine sat undisturbed. He raised his right hand and ran it along the edge of the glass contemplatively, as if engrossed in carefully choosing his next words. His finger made a metallic clink as it touched the surface of the fragile receptacle.
"Say, Giorgio. They said our family was torn apart by infighting," he said slowly, deliberately, his finger absently tapping away at the rim of the glass. The easy smile had completely faded from his visage. "By a kind of civil war, between our family's rightful leaders and the power-hungry wolves hiding within our own circle." The clinking stopped, and Salvatore turned to look straight into Giorgio's eyes.
"Now what if I told you that that was not the truth?"
Salvatore's hand returned to his side, hidden in his coat. He seemed to have anticipated the confusion forming on his nephew's face. He continued.
"What if I told you that, instead, an outside force had been pulling the strings, aiming for our Family's downfall?"
Giorgio's eyes narrowed. He didn't know what his uncle was talking about. The events of that night had always been too traumatizing, too painful for him to recollect and carefully think over. He had been content to leave it as a dusty memory, to shove it in the furthest, deepest corner of his mind like old things meant to be forgotten. He found himself hesitating, unsure if he wanted to open that box of thorns which he had painstakingly buried.
Salvatore didn't give him the chance to back down.
"It was none other than the organization you're currently working for, Giorgio. It was the VSSE, and I know the exact man who did it."
Giorgio snapped out of his deliberation, doubting his ears. Did his uncle just say "VSSE"?
"Zu, that's… It can't be true! That night everyone shot at each other on their own volition. I saw it with my own eyes!" He retorted, his shock more evident than he'd have liked.
He had seen it himself. People he knew worked for his father, eyes cold as steel as they pointed their guns at his mother screaming at him to run, at his sister, his little brother. The sound of gunfire rang in his head like he had heard them in the suffocating flames just yesterday, and Giorgio felt sick to his stomach. Salvatore looked at his nephew with sympathy, and shook his head sadly.
"Oh, càru (dear) Giorgio. Do you seriously think that a bout of infighting would end with the entire family so cleanly wiped out? Moreover, do you think that our brothers," he said, a slight fluctuation in his steady voice, "Known through the city, the countryside, as the most fiercely loyal among all, could even start an internal dispute in the first place?" Salvatore swept an arm across the room, as if gesturing towards their entire Family like they were present before the two of them. "They could not. You know your own people."
"…"
"Ever since I awoke from my coma 4 years ago, I have been gathering information. All those years ago, someone had been there to deliberately destroy the Bruno Family, starting from the spreading of false rumors to rile up the brothers, to mingling in during that night's shootout to ensure that no one survived," Salvatore said, a quiet but rising anger vibrating through his words.
"And let me tell you, I have finally uncovered the identity of the man responsible for our Family's downfall."
Giorgio couldn't contain his confusion. In fact, he didn't know what to think of Salvatore's words. He looked away and remained silent, stunned by the mental storm that was going on in his mind as he struggled to piece all the new information together. Not waiting for his response, Salvatore continued.
"I came here today because I feel obliged to inform you that we're planning a reprisal. I won't stop until the Family is rightfully avenged—I owe that much to your father when I could save neither him nor your mother and siblings that night," Salvatore said, walking to the living room's coat stand to gather his hat and scarf.
"From the look of things, it seems that I have successfully earned the VSSE's attention with the recent weapon trades, so things are proceeding smoothly. I understand that it has been 20 long years, Giorgio, and that you might no longer think much of the Family anymore, so I'm not going to force you to do anything for us." He paused, turning to shoot his nephew a serious look.
"But if you want to avenge your parents and our brothers, come home to Palermo. You know where to go. Otherwise, just know that the next time we meet, we'll meet as enemies."
Having said all that he wanted to say, Salvatore promptly put on his hat and wrapped his scarf around his neck, getting ready to leave.
"Bonanotti (Good night), càru Giorgio. Ni videmu (I will see you)."