Shootout at Red Square
Anna pulled up outside Red Square, the club which was named after the same location in Moscow of Old Russia back on Earth. Through the visor of her motorcycle helmet, she observed the bouncers standing at the front entrance and the queue standing outside. A blonde woman dressed in a fox fur coat walked up the sidewalk, followed by a retinue of Verenkov gangers, skipping the line. The bouncer stepped aside as they approached, permitting them entry into the club.
There she is, Anna thought, watching Svetlana like a hawk. Now, to get inside.
She didn't really have a plan for putting Svetlana out of commission, but then again, Anna didn't always think ahead like that. Mostly, she had managed so far throughout her life by relying on her survival skills she honed on the street, intuition and deductive reasoning fine-tuned over her career as a private detective, and lastly, her killer instinct she had been perhaps unfortunately ingrained with.
Luckily, Red Square was in the sub-city, which meant that law enforcement responses would be severely delayed, if they chose to respond at all. This meant that things could get as messy if need be, and wherever gangers were involved, they often tended to be messy. Just earlier in the day, Anna and Elsa were dealing with the Crimson Corsairs. Now, they were dealing the Verenkovs.
Revving the engine of her motorcycle, Anna drove around the corner of the club and went down an alley. There, she parked and removed her helmet. A side entrance opened up and a staff member walked out, reaching for a pack of cigarettes. The door closed behind him and locked, controlled by a biometric scanner.
Anna crept up behind him and placed her hand cannon against his neck. "Open the door. I need to get inside."
"Woah, woah, okay!" the staff member raised his hands. "Look, I- I- I don't want no trouble, alright?"
"Good. Then open the door."
"Yeah, sure- sure thing."
He placed his hand against the biometric lock and the door opened, permitting entry.
"Why don't you take the rest of the night off?" Anna pushed him away. "Go on. Get out of here."
"Okay, okay!" the staff member scampered off.
With him gone, Anna slipped inside, making sure to close the door behind her. From there, she passed down a series of service halls towards the club interior. Along the way, the pulsing music and the heavy beats grew louder and louder.
After exiting out onto a second story that overlooked the main dance floor, Anna put away her hand cannon to blend in. She leaned on a railing, scanning the dense crowds. She didn't see Svetlana, but what she did see was a group of Verenkov gangers heading towards a private changing room. Anna decided she would talk to one of them to find out where Svetlana was.
She descended a staircase, then hugged the perimeters of the dance floor to skirt around it, passing by booths and drunk patrons. When she arrived at the changing room, she took a careful look around, then made her way in. The dim lighting and the loud noises of the club allowed Anna to move silently like a shadow.
Ahead of her, at least two Verenkov gangers were conversing between themselves in Russian. One was at the sink, washing his hands, while another was opening a locker to store his belongings inside.
"Hey, Vadim, did you see those girls at the bar?"
"Haha, you mean the ones with the giant tits? How could I not?"
"End of the night, I swear, I'm going to titty fuck them."
"Tsk, blyat, Boris. Good luck with that. I'm going to hit the shower."
Anna unsheathed her katana, heading after Vadim first. In the steam of the shower room, he did not notice her approach as he began to sing to himself. His singing was ended when a sword was thrust through the back of his skull, protruding out his gaping mouth.
Back in the changing room, Boris leaned over the sink to wash his face. When he looked up into the mirror, Anna was standing behind him.
"What the- who the hell are you?" Boris demanded as he spun around.
"Where's Svetlana?" Anna asked.
"Fuck you, cyka!" Boris swung his fist out.
Anna blocked his attack with her cybernetic arm, then kicked him in the groin, causing him to groan and keel over. Next, she grabbed his head and slammed it into the marble countertop, bloodying his nose.
"One more time," Anna said. "Where is Svetlana?"
Boris swung at Anna again, who easily sidestepped the attack. She followed up by reaching over her left forearm and pulling out a length of cable for her grappling hook, wrapping it around his throat. Then, the ends were twisted over behind his neck and pulled tight.
"Bathhouse!" Boris wheezed as he clutched the cable, his face turning red. "Downstairs!"
Anna made note of that then finished Boris off by pulling even tighter on the cable, garroting him. She kicked his legs out from behind, dropping him to the floor, all while he choked and gasped and thrashed. The cable was wound so tightly around his neck that it began to cut into the flesh, slicing through his jugular veins and carotid arteries at the same time as he was being suffocated. He died shortly after.
From the changing room, there was a staircase that led further into the bathhouse. Anna crept down, keeping her katana at the ready and opting for stealthy close-quarters takedowns until she had to use her firearms. At the far end of the bathhouse was Svetlana. She was dressed in a bikini, lounging in a hot tub with several others, and sipping on expensive champagne.
To get to her, Anna would have to cross the bathhouse which was crawling with Verenkov gangers. So, she started taking them out one by one. She slit one ganger's throat, spilling his blood all over a glass partition. She cut out another ganger's legs, dropping him to his knees, then rammed the full length of her katana down the nape of his neck and along his spine to rearrange it. She slashed an X into the back of yet another ganger, kicking him over as he died.
By now, Anna was about halfway to Svetlana's position. She went up to a shelf of rolled-up towels and looked through the gap. Svetlana was in the process of being fondled by both a man and woman, completely unaware that her men were being cut down. Anna decided it was time to ruin her fun.
However, just off to the side, a patrolling ganger stumbled across Anna. He shouted in alarm and reached for his pistol. Before he could get his hands on it, Anna rushed at him, intending to carve him open. He ducked beneath the attack and tackled into Anna's midsection, sending them both crashing through the shelf of towels.
Other patrons of the bathhouse began to panic while gangers reached for their weapons, springing into action.
In the meantime, Anna struggled against the ganger on top of her. She kicked him in the chest, opening up some room, then she sliced his legs with her katana. As the ganger fell back, screaming in pain, Anna came up behind him, rolled him over, and pinned his head to the floor. She then reached for her hand cannon and blasted apart two gangers who popped out of cover.
Svetlana looked over at the commotion and finally realized who had come for her, her eyes widening with surprise. She tried to reach a nearby pistol outside of the hot tub but stopped when Anna aimed at her.
Anna could have shot her then and there, but instead of doing that, she placed her hand cannon against the ganger's head. She wanted Svetlana to know exactly who had come for her. Without breaking eye contact, Anna pulled the trigger, spilling blood, brains, and skull fragments all over the tile flooring. She then rose to her feet, emptying the rest of her hand cannon in Svetlana's direction, who managed to evade the bullets by diving beneath the water.
Having lost sight of her, Anna rushed forward, crossing by another hot tub. A massive ganger emerged from the water, his body bulging with synthetic muscles. He grabbed Anna by the throat with one hand and lifted her off her feet and into the air, sneering in her face. Anna tried to raise her hand cannon to fire but it clicked empty.
Instead, she raised her cybernetic arm, made a fist, and blasted the ganger right in the face with a concentrated jet of flame. He cried out in terror and shock, which quickly turned to sputtering gurgles as his face was literally melted. After he let go of Anna, he fell back into the hot tub, dead.
Now free, Anna sheathed her katana and quickly reloaded her hand cannon. She had lost sight of Svetlana, so she scanned her surroundings. Svetlana was running out of the bathhouse, wrapping her fox fur coat around herself as she shouted desperate orders to her men.
Anna reloaded her hand cannon and opted for a gun with a higher bullet capacity, so she switched to Alyosha's gold-plated pistol. Then, she squeezed a few shots at Svetlana, who was running past a glass partition. The bullets smacked into the glass, cracking it, but she managed to escape, heading up a staircase into the club above.
Elsewhere, extra gangers were swarming into the bathhouse.
Anna's adrenaline was pumping overtime, so she took off at a sprint, double-tapping two gangers along the way. After ascending the staircase, she caught sight of Svetlana just as she rounded a corner. Her voice was heard shouting more orders.
"She's there! There! Kill her!"
Anna ran forward, sliding into a crouch as she shot another ganger dead in front of her. Then, she quickly spun around and placed another shot between the eyes of a ganger that had been coming up the stairs behind her. She continued ahead, sprinting in hot pursuit of Svetlana.
After rounding the same corner, Anna passed through a few hallways that led into a backstage area. There, the music became deafening. Svetlana was ahead, shoving aside confused workers and club patrons alike as Anna followed close behind, gaining on her.
Once they cleared the backstage area, Svetlana rushed out onto a show stage at the head of the main dance floor. A live band was performing against a backdrop of glowing LED lights. The crowd was swelling, the lights were flashing, and the beat was booming.
Anna emerged onto the stage, walking at a leisurely pace, gun in her hand. Her silhouette was lit up against the backdrop of flashing lights. Svetlana was ahead of her, already shoving her way through the crowd. When she turned around and saw Anna pursuing her like a relentless boogeyman, her eyes flickered ever so slightly with fear. Anna's own gaze was hard and unflinching, cold and determined.
On the edges of the dance floor, gangers were pushing their way through, trying to reach Anna and cut her off. As dense as the crowd was, they could not risk shooting blindly. That meant they would have to close the distance.
The club music was building up in tempo, escalating to a breakneck rhythm before the next beat drop. Guns were drawn in the shadows, clutched tight. Bodies were moving and writhing and bumping and grinding.
Anna was now wading through the crowd. Her singular focus was on Svetlana and nothing else.
As soon as the beat dropped, a ganger intercepted Anna's path, trying to get close enough to shoot her in the face. Before that happened, Anna grabbed his wrist and twisted it over, at the same time placing her pistol right against his chest and firing twice, pushing him down. Another ganger grabbed Anna's shoulder from behind, so she spun around, punched him in the face, threw him to the floor, then shot him through the back of his head.
The crowd continued to dance, heedless of the hyper-stylized ultraviolence going on around them.
To try and intercept Svetlana, Anna cut to the side and passed by a bar counter. There, she was grabbed from behind by a ganger and trapped into a headlock. At the same time, a second ganger in front of her brandished a knife and closed in.
Before she was gutted, Anna jumped and extended both of her feet outwards, kicking the knife-wielding ganger in the face. He was knocked flat on his back. Next, Anna landed on her feet, rammed her elbows into the sides of the ganger who had her in a headlock, then she threw her head back, striking him in the nose.
As he released his grip, Anna attempted to raise her pistol, but she was punched across the face and knocked back into the bar counter. The ganger rushed in and pinned her hand, keeping her from shooting. She couldn't draw her katana in such a tight space so instead, she grabbed a pen off the counter. Two quick stabs to the throat and one more to the eye finished off her attacker.
The second ganger recovered and got to his feet but before he could get back in the fight, a pen was shoved straight into one of his ear canals. As he screamed in anguish, Anna grabbed his head and slammed it into the counter, forcing the pen all the way in. A wet and crunchy squelch was heard as his body became limp and slid off the counter.
Svetlana passed through a set of double doors, gesturing frantically to her henchmen.
Anna continued to chase her down, heading through the same double doors after crossing the dance floor. She went down a narrow corridor and due to the tighter space, she held her pistol close to her chest at a slight angle; a position known as the center axis relock stance, best suited for precision shooting in close quarters. With a moment to breathe, she performed a tactical reload and switched out the partially spent magazine of her pistol for one that was full.
When she rounded another corner and passed through a curtain of beads, two gangers came rushing at Anna, each of them armed with knives. Reacting quickly, Anna shot the first ganger in front of her twice in his chest to kill him. Then, she turned to her left and blocked an incoming knife with her cybernetic arm, following up by pistol-whipping the ganger across the face which spun him around. With his back to Anna, she grabbed his collar and pulled him down so his head was turned upwards. In that same movement, she placed her pistol against the back of his head and fired, sending a bullet flying through one of his eyes and into the ceiling.
Immediately afterward, Anna sought cover behind a column where another ganger was hiding just on the other side. She peeked around the corner, saw his exposed foot, then put a bullet in it. As he stumbled out and took aim at Anna, she grabbed the offending weapon and pointed it away from her body. At the same time, she plugged him with three more bullets; two in his chest and one in his head.
At a certain point, Anna's gunshots fell in sync with the beat, adding lethal flair and deadly cadence to her onslaught. Two more gangers came at her and she shot the first one dead. When her pistol clicked empty, she used it to jab the other ganger in the throat. His windpipe was crushed and he stumbled back, gasping. While he clutched at his neck, Anna flicked out the empty magazine of her pistol, inserted a new one, racked the slide, and jabbed the ganger in his throat again when he swung his arm at her.
He was then killed by a single headshot, after which Anna continued ahead. She entered a lounge area, filled with booths and pole dancers, clearing it with little issue. From there, she went through an emergency exit left wide open. When Anna went through, checking her corners and her surroundings, she caught three rounds in the back.
The breath was knocked from her lungs and she fell on her knees. Thankfully, the ballistic lining of her long coat was able to stop the small arms fire from penetrating. However, two gangers were now assaulting her. One was hitting her with a baseball bat, which she blocked using her cybernetic arm, while another kicked her in the sides.
"Get off!" Anna rolled onto her back and in the same movement, she swept her cybernetic arm around, blasting the gangers with a gust of flame.
Next, while on her back, she shot the first ganger in his knees, then finished him off with a headshot. The second ganger ripped Anna's pistol from her hands and tossed it far away. As he was about to pull the trigger of his own pistol, Anna placed her metal hand over the end of the barrel, blocking the bullet with her palm.
"Argh!" Anna grunted from the impact as she shifted her body around and kicked out the ganger's legs, knocking him to the floor.
Both grounded, she scrambled over him until she was perpendicular to his body and applied an armbar by grabbing the hand that held his pistol and trapping the limb between her legs. Next, she put on painful tension by bending it backward, at the same time keeping the ganger's head pinned to the floor beneath her feet. Then, with her two hands, she wrenched the pistol out of his grip then leaned back, shooting another ganger that appeared at the end of the hallway.
Afterward, with the remaining ganger still trapped in her armbar, Anna tensed her legs and her body until she heard his shoulder pop out of its socket. Next, she gritted her teeth and arched her back upwards, snapping the ganger's arm in half completely. He screamed in pain and struggled to free himself, but he was finished off when Anna placed his pistol against his head and fired.
Anna extricated herself from his dead body and got back to her feet, leaning against the wall as she hacked and coughed until she caught her breath. Her lungs were burning from exertion, more so than was usual. She couldn't afford to wait around for long, so after another second, she shook herself off and went down the hallway. At the far end was a stairwell that led further down.
Without stopping, Anna shot out her grappling hook and attached it to a set of pipes that protruded from the ceiling above the stairwell. Next, she hopped over the railing and dropped down, unspooling additional cable from her cybernetic arm to control her descent. Along the way down, Anna shot two more gangers that were charging up the stairwell. When she reached the bottom, she retracted the cable into her arm and pressed forward.
Svetlana was just ahead, throwing a look over her shoulder as she climbed into the back of a car. Seconds later, they peeled out, leaving behind a trail of burning rubber.
"Shit!" Anna started sprinting, summoning her motorcycle on her omni-pad as she gave chase. "Can't let her get away!"
The car was already a decent way ahead of her, but they were turning around a bend. Anna went across and cut them off, using her grappling hook to latch onto the rear bumper of the car. Immediately, she was yanked off her feet as she was dragged along.
Svetlana appeared in the rear window, staring at Anna with bafflement. Their car went up a ramp and then burst out onto the streets of the sub-city, all the while dragging Anna behind. Her long coat shielded her from much of the road rash, but getting tossed around so violently was still painful.
Eventually, two gangers inside the car took notice of Anna, so they leaned out their windows and started shooting at her with submachine guns.
"Are you shitting me?!" Anna rolled side to side to dodge their gunfire. "Don't shoot at me!" she attempted to return fire with her own pistol, all while tumbling and sliding along the street.
When shooting the gangers proved fruitless due to how bouncy her aim was at the moment, she instead shot at the tires. That was also fruitless because they were bulletproof. Left with few other options, Anna started retracting the cable of her grappling hook into her arm, steadily closing the distance on the car.
However, before she could reach them, the car made a sharp turn down a corner, whipping her right along.
Anna looked up in time to see that her arc was taking her right towards a brick wall. Before she smacked into it, she cut the cable and covered her head with her arms to shield it. She bounced along the pavement and dropped her pistol. Soon after, her momentum slowed down and she was able to avoid being turned into a pancake. Still, she was already bruised all over.
"Ugh, okay," Anna groaned as she limped to her feet. "That hurt," she coughed.
The familiar roar of her motorcycle's engines caught her attention and she turned in time to see it come to a stop by her side. Fighting through the pain, Anna climbed on and sped off after Svetlana, not wanting to lose her quarry.
It didn't take long to regain the ground she lost and catch up to the car. When she did, Anna pulled up alongside them and gestured for them to roll the window down.
"Hey, we didn't exchange insurance information!" Anna yelled.
A barrage of gunfire was her answer, so she decelerated, letting the car blow past before throwing on the throttle again. At the same time, another car loaded with gangers burst out from around the corner of another street, nearly running Anna off the road. Forced to deal with the reinforcements, she swerved side to side in an erratic pattern to throw off their aim until she could close the distance.
Once Anna was coming up on their rear, the driver of the second car braked hard. Anna braked just a second too late and crashed into the back, sending her flying over where she landed on the top. Behind, her motorcycle was jostled and it wobbled heavily from the impact, but it remained upright and sped up alongside the car.
"What the fuck!" Anna yelled, punching a hole through the car's sunroof window and grabbing onto the ledge, holding on for dear life.
The gangers inside the car started shooting through the roof, forcing Anna to roll over side to side. One poked his head up through a window, aiming directly at her. Acting quickly, Anna kicked the gun out of his hands, then kicked him in the face a few times. Next, the driver started steering harshly side to side in an attempt to throw Anna off.
Still, she managed to find her footing and she pushed herself up so she could reach her cybernetic arm all the way in. Then, with her flamethrower, she filled the interior of the car with a long burst of fire. The gangers cried out in shock and horror as they were engulfed in the heat.
Before they crashed into an oncoming barrier, Anna looked off to the side, spotted her motorcycle, jumped off, and landed in an upright position. Meanwhile, a few flaming gangers rolled out of their car just as it careened into the barrier, coming to a halt.
With the reinforcements dealt with, Svetlana had no further support as she tried to make her escape. Her car was just a bit further ahead, heading down a long straightaway. Putting on as much throttle as her motorcycle had, Anna sped up and closed the distance on Svetlana's car. There, she blasted it with her flamethrower until it sputtered and ran out of fuel.
When the passenger side window opened and a ganger leaned out with his gun, Anna swerved in before he could shoot and grabbed him by the arm. Then, she swerved away, dragging him out of the car and dropping him on the road. She then took aim with her hand cannon and squeezed off a few rounds into the interior of the car, aiming at Svetlana.
One of her henchmen covered her with his body, taking the bullets and dying on top of her. As Anna reloaded, the driver swerved into her, nearly running her off the road. There was no way she'd survive if the driver tried to crush her again, so she decelerated once more and came up on the driver's side. Bullets weren't working, but perhaps ripping hot steel could.
Anna put away her hand cannon and unsheathed her katana, activating the thermal edge. Before the driver could try and sandwich her between an upcoming barrier, she plunged the full length of the red-hot blade into the engine block of the car. From there, she braked hard, letting the forward movement of the car rip the blade of the katana down the side, opening it up.
The driver was halved at the waist and lost control of the vehicle as he slumped over the steering wheel. At the speed they were going, they turned over side to side and careened into the barrier, flying right over it with a massive crash. The car continued to tumble over and over until it came to a rest against a dumpster upside down.
"Jesus, finally," Anna climbed off her motorcycle, walking casually towards the wreck with her katana at her side.
The last remaining ganger stumbled out of the wreck, bloodied and disoriented. He spotted Anna and feebly raised his gun to shoot her, but she swiftly removed both of his hands with a swipe of her sword. As he stared at his stumps in shock, Anna flourished her katana in her grip and then promptly removed his head from his body.
"You... you bitch," Svetlana crawled out of the wreck, struggling to her feet. "I knew we should have killed you."
"Yeah, I'm all kinds of stubborn," Anna replied.
Svetlana growled hatefully and thrust her arms out to the sides, extending raptor blades from her own cybernetic limbs. The serrated edges caught the light, shining with deadly intention.
"Oh, no," Anna sighed heavily. "Not this again. I'm not doing this again."
She had seen blades like that before. Two years ago, when she stormed the VanirCorp building and encountered a particularly bothersome ArmaRex security liaison.
"You like to play with knives?" Svetlana started advancing forward, murderous glee in her expression. "I'll show you to play with-"
A single bullet struck her in the bare torso, causing her to stumble back and crumple to the ground.
Anna started walking forward, smoke rising from the end of her hand cannon. She swung out the cylinder and ejected the empty rounds. The brass shell casings clinked and rolled along the pavement. Six fresh bullets were inserted and the cylinder was snapped shut with a flick of Anna's wrist.
Svetlana clutched her gunshot wound, staring up at Anna with hatred in her eyes. "She was just a fucking andro-"
She didn't get to finish when a final bullet passed through her head, putting her down for good.
Anna nudged Svetlana's body with her foot, making sure she was dead. When she was satisfied, she put away her hand cannon and sheathed her katana, limping back to her motorcycle all the while grunting and groaning from the pain she was in. Halfway there, she had to stop and lean over as she started coughing horribly, hacking up some phlegm and spitting it out. She coughed until her throat was raw and her lungs were aching. That pain, stacked on top of the bruises and scratches she had already suffered, hurt more by comparison.
Despite it all and despite the chaos she had wrought, Anna had been successful in her mission. Svetlana was now dead, and the deaths she had caused had been avenged. Now, all that was left was Alexei, but Anna had full confidence that Elsa could take care of him.
"Ooh, boy," Anna groaned as she climbed onto her motorcycle, letting the autodrive take her back to the safehouse. "I'm gonna need to take a bath in medi-gel after this."