Three days earlier

Blackjack stands inside one of the simulation stages that is used to train any new operators, regardless of experience or background. The weapons that were given to him as a request he made were both a metal machete and two throwing knives. As the company doesn't have direct access to the ammunition for firearms, specifically the custom assault rifle Blackjack brought with him, it's best that the new operator should use some other weapons Rhodes Island does have in storage. The reason many armies and paramilitaries still use bows, crossbows, and even Arts is because the Originium was reserved mainly for maintaining power or electricity. The different firearms were essentially byproducts for now and are extremely rare in most places that aren't Laterno or Columbia. And now Dobermann, who's in a control room that oversees much of the whole stage, walks over to a microphone and her voice gets channeled through wide speakers from the ceiling.

"Welcome to Rhodes Island Blackjack. I understand that you have military experience from your six years of experience as a part of the imperial army, but I used to serve the Bolívarian army much longer than you did. I've seen a lot more, so you need to be more prepared in case we encounter stronger enemies," the Perro says directly to Blackjack. "Yes Instructor. I'm now ready to engage. Deploy the targets," the Sarkaz says. Then, multiple rows of dummies made to look like soldiers of Reunion transitioned in, taking positions that surrounded the operator in training. "I expect big things from you, starting right now," Dobermann stated right before slamming down a button which in turn causes a large set of screens above the arena to start counting up like a stopwatch. The goal of this training is for Blackjack to take down as many Reunion soldiers as he can while getting to the end of the course as fast as possible. A few crossbowmen hide behind a low brick wall, then mount their weapons on the cover, aiming on Blackjack. "Swordsmen taking defensive positions, a mortar crew is on the field," the Sarkaz thoroughly thought to himself while at a tall structure made to resemble a small office building, three Reunion dummies board up the front and rightside window frames save for just one middle spot at the frontside. "That place seems to be a sort of command base, a crude ballista pointed at my face ready to fire, daring me to make a move. Hmph, I got it," the operator finished planning. He took out a smoke grenade, rubbed it along his two hands, and then took off the pin. Blackjack's first move, throwing it down so as to temporarily confuse the enemies. And then he starts taking the left flank, running at about 19.167 mph, the RI operator slides under a pile of crates, vaults right over a low wall, and slices a enemy through the neck, then afterwards whips out a throwing knife and it lands right on the forehead of another. "Over there!" one of the dummies shouted in a Leithanien accent as he readjusts his crossbow. Right after bashing the heads of two Reunion, the Sarkaz operator swiftly moves right up to the crossbowmen and brings them down one by one. The bolt of the Ballista launches and it lands next to the left leg of Blackjack since he dodged it in time. "Should have stayed underground," he taunted viciously as he took out his second throwing knife out and twirls it around briefly before flinging it. It landed square on one of the crew men's chest. "Ahh, ahhhh!" he cried out in agony before his head was diced in half by the machete. The other crewman met a gruesome fate as Blackjack threw it to the right shin. The dummy overheats before falling down, just as the blade within it then gets extracted. "Which one of you is next, huh? Who dares to challenge me now?" the armored Sarkaz boasted right before he noticed a mortal shell falling onto him and what came out of it was smoke. Blackjack coughed a couple times and then he heard a few voices. "He's around here, keep your eyes peeled," a Ursus voice spoke as three dummies entered the area. "Well shit," Blackjack told himself quietly as he crouched and slowly reached for his machete and throwing knife. One of the Reunion imitates with, "We still got the numbers," while the other two try to flank the Sarkaz. It's now or never, the mind speaks within as the latter drops his knife and slides it in front of one of the enemies. "Go check it out." "Roger," two Reunion soldiers exchanged words with each other as the second one followed the orders of the first. He bent over and picked up the knife, wondering to himself until he got ambushed by Blackjack. "Ah shit, he's down!" one of the Ursus voices shouted. The masked operator then kicks the dead body off his blade and faces the two scared dummies. "So, you're now going to pay the price, with your blood!" Blackjack maniacally shouts as he then goes into a bloodbath, destroying the two before rushing upstairs into the command center and wiping out everyone inside. Their screams fill the arena until after just 2 whole minutes the amount declines in intensity and number. Fifteen minutes later the Sarkaz sits at a bench outside the arena, his body all sweaty, and his equipment covered in oil.

Back at the present, one day after they arrived in Lungmen, Blackjack and Doctor's teams were ordered to locate and identify four Infected, presumed to be from Chernobog. This is to help with the LGD's Infected control operations in the future, and to break up certain amounts of potential Reunion members. For this operation, Blackjack is assigned with Melantha's squad since there aren't any real operators left to assist in the mission. "It's been even said that two members from Blacksteel Worldwide are also with us," Adnachiel says to his team as they all sit at the back of a grey van. "What about Vanilla Jessica however? They're also from Blacksteel you know," Steward reminds his Sankta friend. As the two make banter, Blackjack checks the magazine for a bullpup assault rifle loaned to him by a Lungmen officer as well as the machete from before. Once the two boys are wrapping up their conversation, Blackjack makes eye contact with Melantha through his mask and tells her, "We're almost here. Gotta keep up your guard just in case someone jumps on any of us." The feline nods slowly until the van stops and the driver, Ansel, gets out and goes to the back to open the doors. "Now remember, we can't disturb the locals here for too long. Refer to the pictures that Blackjack is carrying and we should only talk to the people in them," Ansel says before Melantha tries to reach for her longsword until Blackjack shoves it gently into both her hands. "I..I was fine. I didn't need assistance Mr. Blackjack," she objected to Blackjack as he then hops out. "Alright, let's do this. Time to explore!" Cardigan says with joyous merit as her friends move down the street on foot. "Right on time," Willows secretly says from behind an alleyway. He then picks up his two-way radio and informs Koshka, "Target is with a Rhodes Island group of operators, over. These operators are young however. This will be a piece of cake, over." Koshka sits behind a console in an apartment room they rented since it's not too far away from where A4's van needed to stop at. When the Liberi's voice finished coming out of his radio, the grey cat then said back to him, "Good, now remember to keep observing until he is all alone and in our trap, over." "Roger," the archer says before putting his device away and climbing up the building to his right to get a literal bird's-eye view of Blackjack.

"So our first target should be a short, brown-haired, freckled Ursus boy, age 15. And he should be wearing worn-out jeans and a shirt made out of rags stitched together," Blackjack calls out to his team while reading off the description of the file right before Cardigan successfully catches the exact same person from the image. "Got him. He tried to run, but he couldn't outrun me at all," the Perro girl said as she then sat on the back of the Infected. "Ouch, get off of me!" The boy pleaded for forgiveness just as the rest of A4 came over to tag him for the LGD. "We can check him off," the Sarkaz operator informs as he takes out a red marker, pulls the cap off, and checks off the first empty box on the top of the file with text stating that this is for having identified the target. After capping the marker, Blackjack flips over to the next file which shows the second refugee as a tall man with Ursus ears. "This guy is said to be with Reunion, so we should definitely question this man when we catch him," Blackjack said right as he heard a group of footsteps not from any Rhodes Island operators, but from that of a Reunion patrol group. He turns around and tells his teammates, "Stay quiet everyone, I hear trouble." "I'm sorry, what did you say?" Melantha asked Blackjack as she walks over to his location. "The enemy is within these slums. There's Reunion members roaming around here," the Sarkaz clarifies his words. "Oh, right." Blackjack turns on his radio and contacts the other RI operator group. "Amiya, I spotted a hostile patrol group and so I'm requesting permission to engage, over." "Try to find out their motives first. I'm sending operators Liskarm Franka to your coordinates," the Cactus girl then says before turning off her radio. "Let's go, I even think I see the local Reunion HQ over there," Blackjack tells the rest of his team as he points to a tall building with a large banner with the Reunion logo.

Having made their way there through crowded alleyways and tight corridors, Team A4 and Blackjack stood right at the front door of the four-story building. Melantha knocks on the door twice gently before moving onto one side of the doorway. Blackjack takes the opposite side while Cardigan ducks behind her shield, Adnachiel and Steward prepare their crossbow and wand respectfully, and Ansel grabs two packs of bandages. Finally after some heavy walking, a male rebel walks downstairs and asks, "Who's there?" But when he opened the door to see a shield with the Rhodes Island logo on it, he got grabbed by Blackjack and Melantha upholstered her sword. She then slices the man's chest diagonally and the Sarkaz drops the dead body. "Throwing a flashbang," the Sarkaz operator shouts as he chucks it into a room full of Reunion. They all got blinded and Cardigan swiftly moves indoors while Adna pierces an enemy's mask and Steward pummels another with Arts. Blackjack runs straight into the kitchen and kicks one tango off his feet and throws a kitchen knife right onto another's neck. The Sarkaz stomps on the downed rebel's head and notices a special looking crate and he opens it with a curious manner. Within that crate is a very odd looking shotgun. The barrel seems detachable, the stock is folded, and there's a Leithanien-style charging handle that looks like it came right out of a grandfather clock. When Blackjack racks it back the shotgun gets cocked, but it doesn't look like a shell actually came out. After some thorough investigation, it turns out the shotgun is a modified MAUL prototype shotgun so that means the ammunition is proprietary. The original company that was making them got told by Columbia to stop producing and distributing these so it's very rare. "Hey, I found a brand new toy, and I'm going to keep it," Blackjack shouts to the other room where his cooperatives are as unfolds the stock. "Check upstairs, maybe the second target is there since I can't identify anyone in here that looks like him," Ansel calls back. "Aye," the former says back before taking the staircase and then finding three Reunion soldiers escorting said person to the rooftops. "Stop!" Blackjack shouts before one of the soldiers rushes to get his sword. He gets obliterated just by one shot. "He's got a shotgun, run!" One of the other soldiers cried out as they scrambled up. Blackjack does the same as he pulls the second one to the ground and shoots him to death.

During the race to the rooftops, he notices a couple drones flying up. "You already acquired drones?! How did you steal our technology? How?!" Blackjack shouts at the two stowaways. "Shut up you oppressor!" The masked rebel intimidated. "Grrr," the former growls as he goes off into the hallway of the fourth floor to jump out the window, roll onto a metal sheet roof, and take a makeshift ladder to get up. "Good, we lost him," the second target tells his friend until Blackjack kicks him and shoots the Reunion soldier with the shotgun. He then points the firearm at the defenseless man and coldly shouts, "Start talking, now!" Strangely but surely, he obeyed by getting onto his knees and raised both his hands up. "W-where should I start sir?" He asked frantically. Blackjack radios his team leader Melantha and says, "I got him over." "Good, we'll get up there. Just sit tight and don't make him run away," the feline says back. "Wait, you're a soldier from Ursus, correct? If so, why are you fighting with the Infected?" The man with the bear ears asks, suspicious of his captor's newfound ideology. "I'm not trying to be with them; I just want to destroy Reunion. I could kill you if I want, but you'd be best handled by the LGD since they can do the talking better than I can," Blackjack says before urging him to shut his mouth. The latter conforms albeit unwillingly. "Attention all Rhodes Island operators, we have a new assignment from the LGD," Amiya then radios to all operators working with them in the slums. "Oh now what is it?" Blackjack wonders to himself.