WARNING: there is some graphic violence in this chapter.
"Dammit!" Emma swore under her breath after realizing she was running for the third time through the same street. The Turk was forced to admit to admit she had lost her targets. Maybe one of her partners had more luck, but it was doubtful: the slums were an urban mess of colossal proportions. More used to navigating the neatly organized upper-plate, Emma made a mental note to suggest Reeve have that place rebuilt, from scratch if necessary. Or at least paint it some other color.
In the distance, a gunshot was heard. Despite their reputation, gun crime was relatively low in the slums. Most people knew that mugging someone with a gun was not worth the risk: threatening someone with a knife would suffice. Besides, nobody had anything worth mugging. That meant…
"Dante…!" She began a mad sprint back to the bar, hoping the sound came from some other place. Meters away from the door, two more gunshots thundered. One had been so low and had happened so near the other that someone without experience would've said there had been only one. Ignoring the 'closed' sign, Emma pushed the door open and ran towards the backroom only to almost trip with something: Dante lay in the floor, a gunshot to his liver and a pool of blood forming under his body.
The day before
Dante fired repeatedly at the new targets in the shooting range. So far he had been using standard target circles, but now, at Freyra's suggestion, he was using one that showed a human silhouette. The following day Dante would most likely be required to execute someone and he was using whatever help he could take.
The plan had suffered a few modifications along the line but in essence, it remained the same: instead of posing as private bodyguards for the heads of the gangs, they were going to pose as clients and service for a bar in the slums below Sector 3 where the heads had decided to meet. Apparently, in a sign of good faith between the gang leaders, they opted to meet with as little members as possible to ensure the safety of everyone involved. How exactly the Turks knew that there was going to be few people and the exact location was unknown to Dante, but the thing was that so far everything was going according to plan. And that was the thing that bothered Dante the most. Unlike the other missions there was no setback, no detail that had been left for itself too long and gone badly nor any unforeseen situation had arisen. It was almost unnerving to have a plan going smoothly, because it meant that whatever was going to go bad was going to happen during the execution of the plan itself.
Dante inserted a new magazine on his handgun and allowed the slide to put a new bullet in the chamber. The handgun he was practicing with was the same as the ones issued for this mission: smaller than his standard-issue gun and with a suppressor integrated to the lower part of the frame, so he was also getting used to the change in weight and handling.
"In the end, all the training just helps you pull the trigger. It will not prepare you for what comes after that," Rude said from the door of the shooting range. He walked towards Dante and looked at the rookie's handiwork: seven empty boxes of ammo lay on the table along with some magazines, both full and empty.
"If you really want to practice…" Rude pressed the control of the rails that held the targets: it came closer and closer "…try at this distance."
Dante need not to extend his arm for the barrel of the handgun to touch the paper target.
"You make it sound too easy."
"It is never easy."
"I guess that's the problem, then."
"It never should be easy." Rude removed his glasses and stared into Dante's eyes. "When it becomes easy, is when you really have a problem."
Dante turned his gaze away from Rude. Speaking seriously with him was rather unnerving.
"We have changed part of the plan." Rude extended Dante a red folder and continued, "our intel says that they will not meet in the main area of the bar, but in a small private backroom…"
"…and I'm supposed to go first!?" Dante was reading the modified step-by-step guide.
"Yes. You will enter first and then signal us to enter and finish the work." Rude said without a change in his tone. "Get some rest. You will need all your energy tomorrow."
Dante saw his superior walk out of the shooting range. He turned to the dark silhouette and after raising his arm almost lazily, fired a point-blank shot at it.
"Are you OK?" Erick asked.
"Uh? Yeah. I'm fine," Dante answered a bit more dryly than intended.
"You've barely touched your food."
"I'm…" Dante was going to say he wasn't hungry, but decided against it. "It's just… I have a mission tomorrow and… I have to… Go first." That wasn't a lie.
"Oh. Nervous?"
That was an understatement.
"Yeah. For the mission to go smoothly I have to do my part rigth."
"Well, then I'm sure everything will go smoothly!" Erick said reassuringly. "They would've not picked you for the mission if you were incapable of doing it."
"I-I guess that's right."
"'course it is! You should have more faith in your skills!"
Dante didn't push the subject any further and Erick didn't ask more, either. It was a small reassurance to hear what he did, but unfortunately, it was not about the real issue.
"Hey. Can I borrow one of your materia?"
"Sure. Just don't lose it or Kunsel will be at my throat!" Erick said gleefully.
The following afternoon, Rude's selected team arrived separately at the bar to avoid suspicion. When Dante arrived at his designated hour, he saw Emma making him a sign from behind the bar counter. She directed him towards a small kitchen in the back, where Reno and Rude were waiting.
"Everything's set, yo," Reno said. "All you have to do is wait for the targets to arrive and then we can begin phase two."
"The owner lent us the bar for the night so there should not be any by-standers. You two begin your part now," Rude said as he handled Dante and Emma their designated costumes: staff uniforms. After changing, they began tending to the few patrons in the place. The evening went on pretty fast. Emma and he would chit-chat about anything to maintain a semblance of authenticity, after all, they were supposed to be co-workers. Sometime before the mission hour, Freyra entered the bar, dressed in civilian clothes and carrying a violin case that Dante was sure, contained no musical instrument. She sat on an empty table and Emma went to take her order. Both played their part perfectly, acting as if they were complete strangers to each other.
Then their targets began arriving. A short middle-aged man escorted by five men entered like they owned the place and walked towards Dante.
"Where's Andre?"
"The boss is out for the moment. Said he'd return in a few hours," Dante said in his best impression of himself back in the days when he actually served drinks at his family's Inn.
"Tsk. We have business with him, call him immediately," the man said dismissively.
"Are you here for the private room?"
"Correct."
"He said you'd come tonight. And ordered to give you our best service. This way please," Dante said with a smile.
The men followed Dante to the back, where after a twisting hallway, a door could be seen. The man instructed one of his men to remain guarding the door and another to wait on the front.
"Should I bring you anything to drink?" Dante asked after leading the men into the trap.
"Not yet. We are waiting for others."
"Very well, let me know if you need anything," Dante left the room and went back to the counter. When he arrived, he noticed that at some point during his absence, Balto had arrived and taken a seat across the room and that Emma was already taking his order. The grunt that had been ordered back had taken a seat right in front of Freyra. The Turks were sitting strategically, were it was impossible to keep them both perfectly in sight, not to mention the other two Turks in the back and Emma in disguise.
Dante went to the kitchen, were Reno was standing against a wall adjacent to the room were their targets were. He was holding a glowing yellow materia in one hand and channeling its magic to the other, that was slowly sliding across the tiles of the wall.
"The old man is unarmed. All the others are packing a gun, yo. The one on his left and the one on the door both carry a Fire materia on their second growth phase," Reno transmitted the information given by the Sense materia.
"Tell Emma to cast Sleep on the man in front," Rude said.
"Roger," Dante said as he collected Freyra's order and walked out of the kitchen. In the front, he delivered a plate with a croissant to Emma and whispered: "snooze table six." Emma acknowledged with a discreet complicit grin.
Behind Dante, a bell ring announced another plate was placed on the service window. The Turk took it and delivered it to Balto, who was now reading from a small book. Behind his chair, an abnormally large poster tube rested against a wall. Dante was just putting two-and-two together regarding the contents of the tube, when their second target entered the place: just like his predecessor, the oldest man was walking in a prideful manner, closely followed by five men of his own.
"You are being expected," Dante said while guiding with his arm towards the back of the bar. As they followed, one of the men occupied a table across his counterpart from the other group, he however, made the fatal mistake of sitting where Balto was in a blind spot. Dante guided their new patron towards the back. A man was also left to wait outside the door while the boss and the other three men entered to the meeting room. After a short series of greetings, more out of duty than of actual courtesy, Dante took their order: a sealed bottle of the best whiskey, glasses and ice.
When Dante returned to the kitchen, Reno was already finishing the Sense spell: "all of them are packing heat, too. One Lightning materia in the room and someone has another one I can't identify, yo."
"What do you mean you can't identify it?" Rude asked as he filled a bucket with ice.
"I mean that he has it with him, but I can't identify it because it is not slotted in anything nor in use, yo."
"Could be anything," Dante said.
"Not quite: it ain't a basic element or a summon, yo. It doesn't appear to be particularly powerful either."
"Deliver these. We'll figure something out," Rude instructed while handling Dante the order. Dante took the tray and walked back to the room. He recorded everyone's position in his mind while showing the bottle's factory seal and pouring the drinks. After excusing himself, he walked out of the room. Dante passed the guards and returned to the front of the bar right in time to see Emma cast a sleep spell on the guard in front of Freyra while Balto knocked the other man out with a swift strike of the oversized poster tube. The Turks quickly dragged the unconscious men behind the bar as Emma flipped the bar's front sign to 'closed' and locked the door.
"All right then, you know what to do, Rude said as he delivered everyone's handgun and Dante's materia bracer. "Cast Stop from inside the room and sustain it while we finish the mission."
The false waiter took a plate filled with canapés and walked back to the room while the other Turks awaited the signal. Dante was breathing heavily at this point, feeling the unnatural heavy weight of his handgun hidden behind his apron. After being granted access to the room, Dante began readying a spell: he focused with all his strength on the All-paired Time materia, preparing to cast like never before.
"Look, we have both lost many men in this situation, but if we continue to call attention to ourselves we are gonna have to deal with SOLDIERs or worse, the Turks!" One of the bosses said to the other. Just as Dante set the plate down on the table, he cast the Stop spell.
All the men in the room stood completely frozen in time, their last expression fixed to their face. As Dante maintained concentration to sustain the spell, Emma entered the room. She poked a couple of men with the tip of her handgun's barrel to see if the spell had affected everyone: there was no response.
"Nice!" She said, admiring her partner's handiwork. After that, she poked her face out of the room and yelled at the others: "all clear, begin phase three!"
"All right, yo!" Came distantly from Reno. There was a short shuffle of feet as the Turks assumed their positions.
Then the gunshots began.
They were to a large degree quieted by the suppressors. Masked to a pneumatic-like sound by the combination of silencers and sub-sonic ammunition. To Dante, the sound was still unmistakable.
The first two, Dante supposed, were for the men that had been unconscious at the front. A set of steps announced the approach of at least two of his partners. The next two gunshots were much closer and were followed by the heavy thud of the door guard's bodies hitting the wooden floor. Dante's breathing became erratic.
"All right then, let's finish this, yo."
"Take the ones on the right," Freyra said as she began walking around the table.
Reno's gloved hand entered Dante's peripheral vision aiming a gun at one of the defenseless men. After a smoke discharge and muted sound, the man fell backwards from the chair with a bloody wound on his heart. Dante inhaled sharply at the sight and the little grip he had on the Stop spell slipped.
"I under-"one of the bosses began, unaware of the time that had passed. He then noticed the unmistakable uniform Reno and Rude had, the two dead men on the ground behind them and then his own man bleeding to death on the floor next to him. "Turks!"
"Yo, what the hell!?" Reno exclaimed. Dante would never be able to tell exactly what happened next. Every detail was blurred and overlapped with each other to the point he wasn't even sure in what order they happened.
One of the remaining guards grabbed hold of the meeting table and threw it up in the air with amazing speed, pushing Dante against the wall and throwing Reno's gun out of his hand. As Balto and Rude's heavy steps ran towards them, the two bodyguards pulled their own weapons. One of them managed to yell something incomprehensible before using his own body as a shield to cover for his boss. Emma was quick to cast a Lightning spell at one of the men, making him contort in pain as the electricity coursed through his body, making his muscles contract and spasm uncontrollably.
Before another other guard managed to raise his weapon, Reno had extended his EMR and zapped the man's arm so that he let go of his handgun. Freyra was wrestling control of her sawed-off shotgun with another one of the guards. Rude and Balto entered the chaotic scene and dashed to assist their partners.
"Dante!" Rude yelled at the rookie as he engaged in a fistfight with one of the guards.
Snapping out of his initial shock, Dante reached for his handgun and aimed at the first boss, who was curled up near one of the corners. He released the gun's safety and cocked the hammer. As if on cue, the man raised his gaze and stared directly into the Turk's eyes, a paralyzing fear in his face.
For what seemed like an eternity, Dante aimed without bringing himself to fire. He was finally brought back to his senses when Balto finished his target with a clean cut of his katana. The man bled to death in mere seconds.
"Dammit! Two got away!" Emma exclaimed. "Shit! Freyra!"
"Fuck! How did they even pass us, yo!?"
"One of them used an Escape materia. It teleported them away," Balto said while whipping the blood from his blade.
Dante's handgun was pried out of his hand by Rude effortlessly and tossed to the floor. The taller man then grabbed a fistful of his partner's shirt and without breaking a sweat, pulled him up so that their eyes were at the same level.
"What happened?" He was speaking in his usual speaking voice, but it didn't take a genius to see he was furious.
"I…I-!" Dante stuttered.
"Kid! One of us could've been killed! Freyra was shot!"
"Rude! I'm fine, it was just a graze," she said while Emma casted a healing spell on her arm.
"It was a graze this time," Rude said without taking his eyes off Dante's. "Two inches to the side and she could've bled to death here!" Rude spat. "Find the other two! They couldn't go too far. You wait here for us!" He dropped his partner, who just then realized was a good four inches above the ground.
Focused entirely on their mission, and not giving their shaking partner as much as a glance, the Turks left Dante breathing shallowly on the backroom's floor.
"Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! FUCK!" Dante yelled, combing his hair with his shaky fingers. He had messed up spectacularly. His partners relied on him to do his part and he had not only failed, but also put their lives at risk.
"They would've not picked you for the mission if you were incapable of doing it." Erick's voice talked to him from somewhere in the back of his head.
"No!" Dante said, covering his eyes with both hands.
"You should have more faith in your skills!"
"Fuck!" Dante exclaimed, trying to force out of his mind the memory that had managed to keep him sharp throughout the mission. The one he didn't want to taint with the idea that cold-blooded murder was one of his skills.
Dante began breathing slowly, trying to regain some composure when he heard a noise. He inhaled sharply and stood up quietly. He reached for his discarded handgun and took cover behind the door left open by his partners. A door opened on the hallway, followed by the grunts of two men.
"Those motherfuckers! Look what they did to my men!"
"Sir, please! We have to go!" One panting man said.
"No! I'm not running away!"
"Sir, you are hurt! Please!" A heavy thud could be heard on the outside as both men collapsed on the ground.
"Call the others! We are gonna get'em all here! All them Turks!"
"Sir! I need you to walk!" The guard said in a pleading tone. "I can't cast Escape for both of us again! Hell, I barely managed to get us to the basement the first time!"
"Don't tell me what to do brat! Call the other men and-hey! Sharpe!" The boss snapped his fingers in front of his subordinate's face. He then noticed an eerie green glow in his eyes. "Sharpe?"
The waiter that had been attending them came out of the room where mere minutes before he had almost died.
"You!" The man reached for the inside of his jacket.
"Take his weapon." Dante commanded and his Manipulated target forced the revolver out of his boss' hand. The older man dragged his body backwards. A wound could be seen near his left knee.
Dante sustained the Manipulation spell for dear life, but knew it to be pointless: he had spent a lot of mana casting a ten people-wide Time spell. Without Ether he had only a few minutes before he ran out of energy. His partners were going to take some time before returning and he could not dial his PHS without losing his paper-thin grip on the spell.
There was only one thing to do. The one thing a Turk always had to do: fulfill his mission. Dante took a deep breath and commanded: "kill him."
"You coward! Do it yourself!" The man challenged while watching his man raise the gun.
The revolver's shot was like a thunder compared to the suppressed shots of their handguns. The higher-caliber of the revolver killed the man on the spot with a clean headshot, leaving a bright red stain of the wall and floor behind. Dante began breathing again, feeling the pressure of his elevated pulse in the inside of his neck arteries and all the way into his head.
"Wha-!?" The man said, regaining consciousness. He saw the still-smoking revolver in his hand and his boss dead on in front of him. He dropped the murder weapon and let out a despair-filled whimper. Finally, the man turned around. "You!"
He dashed towards Dante and pinned him to the wall behind, pressing his arm against his throat.
"You fucking Turk!" He spat. Sharpe held Dante and then punched him on the cheek, tossing him to the side. "Just what else do you want from me!?"
"What?" Dante asked, attempting to sit up.
"Don't play games, Turk! You know damn well!"
"I don't-" He was cut with a kick to the face.
"You die. Now." Sharpe turned around to pick up the revolver and aimed only to find the Turk also had a gun. They both fired at almost the same time: Dante dropped his handgun as he felt a sharp pain on his side. At the same time, a red stain appeared on the left side of Sharpe's chest. The man, however, merely lift the revolver again, set the hammer and pulled the trigger: it clicked empty.
"Tsk. Stupid six-shot guns." Sharpe said before reaching for the Escape materia and, after giving his boss' corpse one last pained glance, magicked himself away.
Hurried steps preceded Emma's arrival.
"Dammit! Dante! Stay with me!"
"He esc-c-caped."
"Never mind that!" Emma said as she rolled her partner towards his side: there was an exit wound, that meant she could begin casting a healing spell without risking to trap the bullet inside. She began to close the wound with all her strength. Then and there, Dante learned that healing organs and tissue was a painful affair: a sensation that alternated between searing warm and splintering cold coursed through his damaged body for what seemed like an eternity.
As soon as her partner was stabilized, Emma sent a message to the rest of the team to call for cleanup and to begin evacuations. Mere minutes later, and just as efficiently as they did with the Air Buster, the COVER ops bagged bodies, filled bullet holes, cleared gore and mopped blood. They were so thorough even broken glasses were replaced and ice in the kitchen restocked.
Dante required crystalloid blood substitute to compensate for his hemorrhage, as magic could not restore lost fluids, but hospitalization was not deemed necessary, so he was discharged later that night. Cissnei was waiting for him in the hospital wing reception.
"Veld wants your report tomorrow evening," she said as they walked out of the room. At the elevator, she pushed the buttons to the housing floor.
"Wait? Am I not being debriefed?"
"Probably tomorrow. Depends on how Rude conveys your performance. But I think you'll have some explaining to do. Heard you lost your edge at a critical point," she stated while typing in her PHS.
Dante sighed.
"Well. No use glooming over it now." The elevator door opened at their housing floor, but only Dante stepped out.
"Aren't you coming?"
"Still got some things to do. Go get some sleep." The doors closed and the indicator light showed Cissnei returned to their office floor. Dante entered his apartment and opened a sports drink bottle. The doctor had been emphatic on drinking extra liquids for the next couple days. Dante sat on his couch and tried to clear his mind of what had happened earlier.
Less than ten minutes later someone began pounding frantically at his door. He had barely opened when Erick barged in and crushed Dante in a mako-enhanced hug.
"Gghh. I can't breathe-!"
"I don't care! I was fucking scared when I heard you were shot!"
"How did you even found out!?"
"Kunsel knows things."
"How does Kunsel know!?"
"He just does, OK?"
Erick loosened his grip but still held Dante around his arms for a solid minute.
"I brought some food."
"I'm-"
"Don't you 'I'm not hungry' me!" Erick said, pulling Dante to the kitchen counter and giving him a Styrofoam container filled with a red stew. Dante began poking at the food, taking small bites while Erick told him something he wasn't quite processing.
A small amount of food slipped from his fork downward and back into the stew, causing a few drops of red sauce to splash the white top.
For a moment, the bright red was not sauce, but blood coming from the back of someone's head.
Dante jumped up and walked backwards, his face devoid of color.
"Hey? Are you all right?" Erick asked before his partner dashed into the bedroom. The SOLDIER followed as he heard Dante dry heaving and then, vomiting in the bathroom. When he entered, the Turk was practically on top of the toilet, wheezing and spitting bile.
"I… I-!" He began before being cut short by another coughing fit.
"Dante! Hey! Calm down, you lost a lot of blood before and-!" Erick said, reaching for his partner's back.
"I… I killed someone today…!" He finally managed to say.
"Hey, hey. Calm down," Erick said.
"Wha-HOW!? How am I supposed to fucking calm down!?" He exclaimed. "I… I…!" He cut himself before breaking down in sobs that only made him confront he reality of his actions.
Erick reached from behind and embraced Dante again, waiting for him to calm down, trying to find words that could help. He too had been in this situation, albeit differently. He too had to process and assimilate the event and he knew that it was something every SOLDIER and Turk had to go through. Still, he would have traded anything away so that he could offer some comfort to his ailing partner.
What do you think? Gray or black area?
Sorry if this chapter turned out a bit too violent (I mean, compared to all previous ones)
Like I said, from this chapter onward the story goes on with the tone shift, but fear not! There will still be sprinkles of comedy here and there!
Let me know what you think and that you all for following and reading!