Yello! Welcome to the torture, actually not really is more of a small bit a training as well as some exploration of character.
Not much to say really, Fever do you have anything to add here?
FEN: Nothing really comes to mind. I like how it plays out, so that's one thing added.
Chapter 4 Training and reflection
The next day
"So not only do we have a guy who apparently can't fight but we have two months to train him, get our identities, compile some background data, get transcripts all before the initiation." Deimos counted off all the current problems with his fingers.
"Lets not forget our financial woes, I'm pretty sure we can make your weapons last, but after a while you're going to be running out of ammo and then you guys will have a problem alongside maintenance." Xero casually added.
"Speaking of weapons for the four of us, we will need to transfer over to Remnant style weapons," I said, leaning back against a wall with my arms folded. "We need something we can use in front of everyone, but we'll keep these weapons just for agency or any more threatening groups."
"I can get behind that, but we at least keep a knife or pistol on us just in case." Deimos spoke, none of us disagreed. "Good, dips on the deagle."
"Ah fuck." I immediately bit out while Wank who was looking at a random magazine slapped it closed, Deimos in the meantime just let out a loud laugh as he had called dips on arguably the most powerful pistol we had in our current arsonal.
"Hey you two don't hate the player, hate the game." Deimos said while I quietly grumbled about how much of a prick Deimos was.
"Well about pistols I think I have something that could help in the power department." Xero suddenly said he got both mine and Wank's attention.
"Ok after looking through my own neural network, specifically my weapons I found another server, my… old teammates server." Xero spoke as all four of us stood in another apartment a level under our current housing, which was fine considering it's an abandoned building after all.
But here we all stood in an old kitchen where Xero stood in front of us and explained what happened.
"I was confused but after confirming something I can say for certain that I can use his weapons and I'm about to offer you guys just a couple of these weapons." Xero said as he held out his hands and slowly weapons started to appear in his hands before he placed them on the kitchen counter.
"These are Joy or two variations of Joy." Xero said before holding up a very large Revolver.
"This is Joy Colt, this is a double barrel revolver that holds twelve fifty millimeter rounds and let me tell you this baby can kill." Xero said before flipping it around in his finger and held it out towards us.
Wank quickly moved and grasped the handle of the large revolver and with absolutely no problem started to spin the gun around in her hand before stopping quickly to check the revolving chamber before snapping it back into place.
"Next is the older version Joy V2." Xero said holding up a large black and red pistol that looked as long as my forearm and just as big. "The V2 is because unlike the previous version this one was designed to be used as a pair of tonfas for close combat, it fires a sixty five millimeter rounds and the mags hold up to 16 rounds, the reason why they switched to fifty is to compensate for the double barrel function in colt." Xero quickly explained to Wank who just shrugged her shoulders as she continued to stare at her new gun.
"Guess I'll take it." I said holding my hand up, Xero smirked as another Joy V2 appeared in his other hand and held both guns out to me.
"Wha, why did he get two?" Deimos asked in confusion.
"Joy V2 is actually two guns and also balances out because of the tonfa functions." Xero explained while I held both guns in my hands.
Unexpectedly I didn't feel any weight to them but I figured the reason why I couldn't feel the weight was because of the my cyborg arms, but god damn these were fucking cool.
"Ok sweet what do I get?" Deimos suddenly asked as my head moved over to the hacker.
"What do you mean what do you get, you got the deagle remember?" With that Xero casually walked away leaving Deimos to just stare at him with a look of complete disbelief and I just couldn't help but let out a loud laugh as he just got squat.
"That's what you get bitch." I joked while Deimos's head immediately dropped down in depression.
"Now that's out the way," Xero suddenly caught all of our attention as we looked over to the ninja, he stood at the other end of the apartment where a bunch of bottles and cans sat on an old bookshelf. "Let's get to training."
As soon as he said that I immediately felt a chill go down my back as I looked around and saw everyone just stared at me with varying degrees of mirth.
"Ah ball sacks." I muttered aloud.
Gun training
"Just because you can carry Joy with no problems doesn't mean you can out right aim with them!." Xero yelled out from one end of the apartment while I stood on the other holding one of Joy in one hand. "I'm not a gun person so that's why I have Wank looking over you."
Said girl stood right next to me with her arms folded and her eyes looking at me.
"Anyway, from what I saw of our time you're actually quite good with that glock back there but unlike that nine millimeter glock Joy has more of a kick." Xero explained.
"I did use a deagle yesterday and it wasn't that bad." I pointed out casually as I held Joy up and aimed down the sights.
"Yeah well for now I want to see how you do with just taking the recoil so fire when you feel ready." Xero exclaimed, his arms were folded while he stared at me with a blank expression.
Taking a deep breath I ignored aiming and just pulled the trigger, with an explosion going off in my hand I felt the gun kick itself back and I flinched a step back in both surprise and shock from the guns recoil.
"Yeah took you by surprise didn't it, unlike a 50. Cal which you were using before Joy focuses itself to be able to hit targets and obliterate them at the same time and from what you told us about Remnant's BS we are going to need all the firepower we can get if we have to fight back people with their own mystical energy shields." Xero lectured while Wank casually walked up to me and started to move my arms out until I was holding Joy with one hand under my other.
"Now let's continue, you will be shooting all of these within a minute." Xero exclaimed gesturing to the bottles on the shelf. "And we will keep repeating this until I say otherwise."
"Welcome to Bolverk squad's impromptu training program bitch." Xero finished with a large sadistic grin plastered onto his face.
Hand to hand training.
"Fucking crack headed mother f-Ack!"
"Less swearing and more defending!" Xero yelled out as I found myself having my ass absolutely kicked to hell via Xero and his cervical armour. "Your cybernetic limbs give you super strength and speed but your perception is making you incapable of using that speed to its fullest." Xero lectured as he kicked me in the gut and sent me flying through an old wall, damn if it wasn't for the weak walls I think I might have broken my back by now.
"This training is not only a way to teach you how to fight but also to train your perception." Xero continued to lecture while I slowly pushed myself out of the rubble I was kicked through, I felt like I was being trained by my mate all over again in tekken.
"Now let's kick it up a notch." Xero spoke as he suddenly turned into a blur and I barely had enough time to quickly lunge myself out the way of a punch. "Good now you just need to keep that up for another hour and we will be done." Xero said as I felt something smack into the left side of my midsection, quickly looking down I found Xero's out stretched leg slowly pulling itself back before he turned into another blur.
"Ah shit." I breathed out as I could just see a metal fist coming right to my face, this was going to hurt.
My eyes flew open and my body quickly moved so I sat straight up, looking around I found myself in a room with concrete walls, floor and ceiling, on one of the walls sat what looked like a half open metal prison door.
Quietly I got off the rusty bed and moved to the door.
Walking out of the cell I immediately started to fall, the landscape changed drastically as I figured there was a hallway of prison doors not an ever expanding black and red void. I flail my arms and legs around as I tried to move my body or at least twisted it around so I could see or know what was going to-
"GASP! Fuck!" I yelled out as my eyes flew open and I suddenly found myself staring up at a dirty old ceiling, I could feel my heart was beating at an incredible pace.
Slowly sitting up I felt my body tell me to stop with a sharp pain in my torso, quickly giving up on moving to sit up. I just laid back down with my eyes staring up at the yellow stained ceiling of one of the old apartments.
What on earth was that? Were those some kind of memories or some other shit?
Damn it whatever is it probably has some kind of deeper meaning that I'm overlooking or I'm probably deciding to ignore for my own current sanity.
What am I even really doing? Why did I stay here with everyone? It's not like we actually trust each other or anything, I mean pretty damn sure Xero is just doing whatever the hell he wants. Deimos is probably just waiting for Sanford or that Doctor guy to come find his ass and Wank… well I don't know what the hell is going through her head now.
It hasn't even been a week and already I'm tired of this.
Taking a deep breath I ignored the pain that shot through my body and slowly pushed myself on to my feet. Looking around I found that I was in the same Apartment we had designated as the gun range, I must have been placed on this couch after something happened. Everything was a blur but I think the pain in my body told me enough to know that I didn't exactly survive that hand to hand training.
Walking over to the nearby window I was nonplussed to see how it was night time, geez i must have been out for ages.
"I need to go for a walk or something." I suddenly expressed before moving to exit the apartment but stopped when I saw something that caught my eye.
Walking to the nearby kitchen I flicked the light switch causing the area to light up revealing Joy V2 sitting on the counter with a pair of magazines sitting on either side of the large handguns.
"Must've left them here for me or something." I muttered staring at the guns sadly, the owner was someone that was rather close to Xero so I was rather shocked to see him hand over such weapons with no second thought.
But now I just see it as Xero's way of somewhat giving up on his friend and partner, it was depressing to think like this and honestly I felt a little guilty to even decide to pick these guns up in the first place.
"You know most people wouldn't spend their nights staring longingly at a pair of hand cannons." not bothering to move as I heard the voice I let out a tired sigh. "Unless of course you're thinking about something rather thought provoking." I continued to stand in silence before I slowly looked up and turned my head to look directly at Xero leaning against a door frame, his arms folded while he looked at me with blank emotionless eyes or so I assume.
"How long was I out?" I asked, I was curious as to how long I was unconscious for.
"About ten hours, I thought you needed the sleep ." Xero spoke like it was nothing new. "Also you seem rather tired and looked like you needed to talk to someone about it." Xero further explained as he scratched his chin.
"Talk about what exactly?" I asked, unsure of what he meant specifically.
"I don't fucking know… tell me about your life before this shit." Xero suggested and I slowly looked down at the old tiled floor.
"Yeah nah I'm good." I said as I waved my hand to indicate that I was not interested in talking about my life.
Slowly I moved away from the Kitchen only to stop when I heard a loud conceited sigh causing me to pause mid step and look over my shoulder to Xero, he put his hand on his head and looked rather annoyed.
"Fine, how about this I tell you something about my life and you tell me something about yours, I'll go first I am an Assassin that was trained to kill any and all who stand in front of me when I was a kid." Xero said, I blinked in surprise as I didn't expect him to say anything like that.
And like that I let out a groan as I realized that Xero had me.
"Alright fine, I'm a Twenty two year old unemployed guy who lived with his grandmother." I said turning back to look at Xero, on his face he had a small smile.
"I was kidnapped and had my mind completely wiped of my old memories and was recruited to Bolverk Squad, I was the guy that took the more active portions of the missions." Xero continued and I further found myself surprised to hear him casually admit this.
"Sigh I was, no I still am a depressed guy trying to figure out his goals in life while also actively wasting his youth, or so I figure what my grandmother believes." I said moving to sit on the counter of the kitchen in order to get somewhat more comfortable while we shared.
"I used to be a hardcore gamer on the side when I wasn't out killing people on missions, I found the action to be more calming and unlike being on the field I didn't always feel the need to kill."
…
…
…
"What?"
"Nothing, it-well that was just rather deep I mean I don't think I can say anything that could be on the same level other than I read and wrote fanfiction, to be more specific SI fanfiction as a way of escapism." I said as I scratched the back of my head, honestly I really didn't expect Xero to tell me his reasoning behind why he loved to game.
"Sigh alright fine last one… when I died I told my student I had no regrets but I lied as I had one regret and that was I am unable to continue guiding my student alongside her on her journey." Xero sounded like he had aged considerably when he said that.
"Well if it's the final one, I am unsure as to where all this trust came from or why you decided to hand over what I can only assume is a dear friend's stuff over to well Wank makes sense but why me? Fuck I don't even know why your so interested in teaching me." I blurted out my current feelings about today's matter. "I just… Why do you think I'm worth this much?" I finally asked, my eyes looking directly at Omega's guns as I couldn't help but feel like I was kind of tarnishing his property with my own… well everything.
"Hmmm well I guess you just looked like you could handle it."
"Handle it?" I muttered out in confusion as I spun my head around to look at a deep thinking Xero.
"My friend Omega was my leader and after he died I never thought I would see anyone like him ever again, that was until I met Enid and after my death I didn't think I would meet someone who reminded me of Omega… until now of course." Xero quietly stood up and faced me directly. "The way you walk at times reminds me of how Omega liked to walk, uncaring, purposeful and more importantly unhindered by the current bullshit."
"How the fuck can you walk with purpose but do so uncaringly?" I suddenly asked, I was unsure if Xero was using the right words or not there.
"Honestly I don't know how either one of you do it, you just do." Xero said with a smirk on his face, he looked rather amused by the question if anything else.
"That is… screw it I'm not going to even fucking bother." I said waving my hand at the idea of saying anything more. "So what now? I'm kinda hungry and I'm not up for more petrol station sandwiches again"
"I saw a Diner that is a block or so away, we can go there and I'm hungry myself." Xero said casually as I jumped off the counter.
But stopped to look at the pair of guns, taking one of the guns I casually slid in one of the mag's before flipping the safety on, I may as well take one just in case after all this city isn't exactly the safest.
Chapter 4 end