OMGOMGOMGOMG I'M SORRY GUYS!
It was never my intention to leave you guys hanging on Chapter Six like that. Life literally smited me with job opportunities and finals! I tried to write wherever I could but time was something I just didn't have! Over the last three days I've been rushing to get this chapter out! Literally 8k words in three days. Crazy. The end result is a chapter over 13k words long, including the long awaited matchup that you guys have been excited for. So yeah, I guess I won't even promise a chapter in two weeks, but one "soon."
No reviews. Huh. Guess I did a cruddy job on chapter six. Makes sense. Enjoy seven guys!
Chapter Seven: Black and White
Day 2
Date: Saturday, January 22nd 2015
Location: Thilan Factory Zana
Time: Roughly 8:37pm P.E.T. (Pacific Earth Time)
White yawned and stretched his arms before leaning back against the outer wall of the empty building. Their wait had been long and painful, without any way to do something else on their computers in the real world they had been playing games on their smart phones for the last three hours. White, Rose, and DJ had rotated every forty five minutes to keep an eye out for any Thilan forces that may have discovered them, but it had been all quiet.
The awkward part about this entertainment, as the whole squad had quickly figured out, is that their Guardians copied their movements in the real world. Meaning everyone was sitting looking down at an invisible handheld device. White was now glad those soldiers hadn't stuck around. He really hated looking like an idiot.
Winston hadn't been there for the discovery though. They had a while ago that it would be silly to try and attack the factory complex without any kind of information, and Winston had been the obvious choice to go. He always had played assassins for the group, scouting ahead and picking off key targets while the others took on armies head on. BRSO may be more high risk, but it was no reason to deviate from the strategy that had made them kings and queen of other MMORPG's.
An alarm went off on White's smart phone in the real world, his Guardian looking down and grabbing at air as his body in the real world disabled the alarm. Eight thirty-seven. White sighed inwardly. Winston should have been back by now. We needed to have finished putting the plan together ten minutes ago. White pulled up the message app on his phone, sending a text to Winston.
Where r u?
Taking the long way b, didn't want the Thilans getting suspicious. B there in 5.
White pushed himself to his feet, stretching his Guardians body. To White, this attack marked the first battle of BRSO, but at the same time it didn't feel like anything special. He had played so many online games that the first of anything was more of a learning experience than something to be proud of. In fact most of his first battles in online games ended up being something he's look back on later and laugh at because of his failure.
BRSO wasn't one of those games though, and it made him nervous. There was no training period where he and his friends could make mistakes. One slip is all it would take to get them kicked out of the game indefinitely, and this wasn't exactly an easy mission. Taking out a Thilan factory that produced heavy tanks was almost a death sentence. If they were to get caught at any point during the mission they would be dead instantly.
White walked inside the abandoned two story structure to find Rose and DJ sitting cross legged on the ground, still playing on their smart phones considering how their hands looked like they were grabbing at nothing. It was interesting, the headset that they wore while playing BRSO that increased the response time in BRSO didn't appear to have the ability to distinguish if an action was meant for BRSO and the real world. White's best guess is that it copied whatever move that the player was thinking at the time and translated it into the game, while at the same time not copying the sitting posture that the player was in while playing.
"Dammit Rose, how are you so good at this!" DJ exclaimed, slamming a fist into the ground in frustration. "Alright, another round, best of eleven!"
Rose looked at White and rolled her eyes. Only one game outside of PC games could get DJ this fired up, the online chess app the whole group had installed a year ago when the online game they had been playing had a major server crash. They had played chess with each other for nearly four hours until the servers had come back. DJ hadn't won a single game during that whole time. White believed it to be because of his friend's personality. DJ was an act first and ask questions later kind of guy, making him terrible at most strategy games.
White nonetheless gave the Trooper a sympathetic smile. "Sorry DJ, we don't have time for you guys to play a best of twenty-one. Winston will be back soon." DJ threw his hands into the air in mock frustration.
"Well dammit! Looks like we're gonna have to settle this one later Rose."
Rose rolled her eyes again. "In your dreams tough guy. You know how it goes, all brawns no brains." DJ gave Rose a good humored light smack in the arm which she returned with a wide grin. There was a brief moment of silence, during which White looked out the open door, waiting patiently for Winston.
"So, why was our glorious bookworm taking so long to start coming back?" DJ asked with his arms folded over his chest.
White turned to DJ with a confused expression and a shrug. "He said he was trying to avoid the Thilan from getting suspicious, whatever that means."
"Maybe he found something important and had to be careful he wasn't caught." Rose reasoned. White's mouth twitched as he considered the possibility. "There really isn't any way to tell until he gets back though." Everyone remained silent while they waited for Winston. The air was thick with anticipation. Everyone was ready to get out there and actually start shooting something rather than just seeing the sights of the game itself.
After what felt like an eternity, Winston stepped through the front entrance. "Apologies everyone," Winston waved, "it took me longer to get back than expected."
DJ's left eyebrow twitched, a signal that he wasn't too happy about having to wait around. "What was so important to take up nearly two and a half hours!?" Winston replied by giving DJ a flat stare.
"I found a backdoor into the factory complex." Winston explained. "It gets us very close to a massive cylinder tower that's filled with some kind of fuel."
"What, like gasoline?" Rose asked. Winston shrugged.
"Likely, from what I saw on the tower it looks like it's fairly explosive. If we detonate the bomb by the tower it might destroy the whole complex. There's just one small issue. The whole area around the tower is crawling with Thilan guards. It's a miracle I wasn't caught." White frowned. Winston's observations provided an easy weak point for blowing up the factory, but there was no way they could take on an army by themselves.
"Did you see what the Thilan looked like?" Rose asked Winston.
"They looked human enough, red body armor with weapons that looked like they were more advanced than standard Sanctuary soldiers, but not as advanced as Guardian class tech. The guide we were given on the first night confirms the theory as well."
"Is that it?" DJ asked, sounding surprised. "Because if that's all we can just storm the place." Rose reached over and smacked the back of DJ's head.
"Idiot, the place is a tank factory. I'm sure that they have at least a few operational tanks on hand."
"I also didn't see very much." Winston pointed out. "There were so many Thilan mechanics running around it wasn't safe to go very far. MMO experience dictates that we should expect the unexpected."
"So what do we do?" Rose asked, and everyone fell silent, trying to think of a plan.
To White, two things were clear. First, the factory was too well fortified to sneak inside and then start shooting everything up. They would be quickly surrounded and killed, and there was no way Guardian bodies were durable enough to survive that kind of fire. Second, the fuel tower was in the middle of the open, meaning that the base either had a shield or very advanced anti-aircraft fire protecting it from air strikes.
But what about a frontal attack? No that's no good. White sighed inwardly. We'd be outgunned because of the tanks. This isn't one of those old FPS games where a sniper rifle can take down a heavy tank in two shots, and even if that WERE to happen, the entire defenses of the base would be on top of us in seconds if we tried that. White stopped. There was his answer, and it was so simple he wanted to slap himself. At the same time however, it was risky.
"Alright I have a plan." Everyone's gaze turned to White.
"Ok then White Mastermind," DJ said with a grin, using the nickname that White gad been given in their last MMORPG by the community. "What is it?"
"We split into two groups." White explained quickly. "Since DJ is the only one who can carry the bomb, he and Winston will use the backdoor to sneak inside the base. At the same time Rose and I will hit the front of the base, pulling away the defenders."
"I hate to break this to you Sherlock, but even with me sniping in the background, you can't hope to take on the entire complex's defenses by yourself." Rose said with narrowed eyes.
"Believe me, I know. But I'm not banking on a simple distraction plan." Rose raised an eyebrow, and White continued. "Once inside the base, Winston and DJ aren't going directly to the fuel tower. They're going to search the base for an operational tank for Winston to hijack. Once he has one, he's going to destroy the front gates, and remove the defenders. We're going to make it look like the three of us are trying to retake the complex on our own, and while that's all happening, DJ will arm the bomb to blow this place sky high.
"So basically you want to not only destroy the base, but steal one of their tanks as well." Rose sighed and shook her head. "White you are by far the craziest person I've ever met."
"This is probably our best option." Winston replied while rubbing his ring finger against his thumb, a sign that he was thinking about this plan carefully. "It has the highest chance of success."
"Yeah but so many things could go wrong with it! Are we sure that there isn't a better plan!" Rose asked desperately, looking directly at White.
"Any other plan would lead to our deaths with even the tiniest of mistakes." White said while shaking his head.
"Besides, if we pull this off we don't just get medals, we get a fricking tank!" DJ pumped his fist in his excitement.
Rose let out a sigh of defeat. "Alright fine, since we don't have any other options. But we have to move fast, otherwise White and I won't last long out there."
White quickly moved himself over to the open door and spun around to face the rest of his team, crossing his arms as he did so. "Alright, let's go then. No point in sitting around after we've waited all day to start shooting things! Winston will take DJ and the bomb to the secret backdoor while Rose and I start blowing things apart!"
"How are we going to stay in contact with one another?" Rose asked, interrupting White's speech. "We didn't get radios when we got the rest of our equipment."
"That's not entirely true." The group turned to face Winston.
"Explain." White said with curiosity.
"In the hour before I scouted the factory, I decided to read up on the manual the clerks at the Guardian Tower gave to us in our bags."
"Dude, you were reading a manual? Lame." DJ sighed with while shaking his head in disappointment. Winston responded to the terrible joke by giving the muscular Guardian a glare.
"Considering what I found in there was very valuable, I'd say it was worth it. As it turns out being an official squad also gives us our own private communications channel. All you have to do is hit CNTL SHIFT C and it will open up a window that will ask for your squad name. Just put in Keeper and you're in." White did as Winston instructed, hitting the three buttons at the same time. A slightly transparent blue window with a single line of text and a blank box under it appeared in the center of his screen. Squad Name? It asked. White typed in Keeper and his enter. The box moved to the upper left corner of White's screen, at the top of the window in all caps was SQUAD KEEPER. Just under that was his username – Whitestar – and the names of the other three squad mates. Green circles were to the left of their names.
"So we just talk and it works?" DJ asked. Winston shook his head.
"Not quite. You have to hold down the F1 key to talk."
"Like this?" DJ's voice was echoed by the com channel, and the dark green circle next to DJ's name lit up. "Oh, okay now I get it."
"Good, now that that's settled grab the bomb and get in position." White grinned. "Let's go get 'em."
Nearly forty minutes later White sat waiting under a window of a torn-up house that stood on the other side of a large four lane road that separated him from the front entrance of the Zana factory complex. Curtains that had been ripped and torn fluttered in the breeze that came in through the shattered window. The room filled with scattered papers, broken floorboards, and furniture broken and torn. Couches, chairs, and even what looked like a baby crib. The last one had White turning away from the scene. Even if it's a virtual reality that's painful, especially since the detail in this game is so good.
Holding White Rock Cannon in his right arm, White was watching the opening of the complex through the corner of the window. He was waiting for one of two things, the first was for DJ and Winston to tell him that they were in position at the backdoor and that White and Rose could start shooting at any time. The second was for Rose to sneak a shot through the open doors and hit a high ranking officer or an engineer.
It wasn't possible for White to start a fight by blasting open the doors. DJ was the one with the explosives and there was no way his cannon was going to be able to punch through the thick outer walls of the complex. However White guessed that shooting them would give the desired effect nonetheless, an endless wave of Thilan troops sent out to kill White and eventually Rose. They just needed to wait for DJ's signal. WHAT THE HELL IS TAKING THEM SO LONG?
The wait was agonizing. The longer White sat there, the more his fingers itched to start the fight. Although White was a patient gamer, he wasn't used to spending all day on a game and not shoot anything. He had kept himself occupied by checking out the scenery and playing around with the freedom the headset had given him, but now that he was actually about to start ripping Thilan soldiers apart, his bones were eager for battle. It wasn't like White was battle hungry or suicidal; it was just the part of the game that White enjoyed the most. Action and adventure games were his favorite, and the more there was to explore, the more he loved the game. BRSO was bound to be a top five.
"Alright good buddy we're ready, go ahead and start the fun." White nearly jumped at the sudden appearance of DJ's voice over the com-line. White had been so lost in his daydream that the sound of his friend's voice had nearly caused him to jump out of his chair in the real world. After a couple of deep breaths to calm him, White grinned evilly and rested his cannon on the broken window, hitting a button above the trigger inside the cannon. A humming noise began to emit from the cannon, a sign that the safety was off and the cannon armed. Taking a moment to aim at the front gates, he pulled the trigger of his cannon for the first time.
Immediately, a sphere of energy erupted from the cannon and exploded into the retractable metal gates of the factory, leaving a hole the size of a basketball. White was surprised. He had braced his Guardian for the massive kick he thought would come with shooting the cannon, but there hadn't really been any kick at all. White began to rapidly pull the trigger, but quickly found that the cannon could only manage about three shots per second. Just barley, White could make out the sound of alarms over the semi-loud pwangs of the cannon.
At the very top of his vision, White could make out two cylinder like objects rise from the top of the wall. White quickly ducked behind his cover as bolts of energy sailed over his head and into the rubble of the room, one shot hitting a small table that sent it crashing to the ground. White tried to peer over the windowsill, but another round of bolts forced him back down before he could see anything. The sound of churning metal gears signaled that the front gates were opening while complex's attacker was pinned.
There a pair of distant bang sounds that resembled a sniper rifle just before both of the towers exploded in sequence. Another surprise for White, he hadn't expected Rose to be armed with explosive rounds. Especially since all of their weapons were energy based. White quickly re-placed his cannon in the window and quickly picked off three of the Thilan soldiers that were running out of the gate towards the building he was in.
White was lucky, the closest soldiers had nearly finished crossing the road and had been seconds away from reaching his position. In all, minus the three he had just shot, there were five soldiers running across the exposed road towards White's position. It was obvious that the Thilan hadn't prepared themselves for the Shooter and Sniper class combination that was being used against them. The Thilan strategy was obvious. Use automated guns or the guards on the roof to distract White while a team snuck in behind him.
Another bang rang out and a soldier who was halfway across the roadway dropped instantly. By now the Thilan soldiers began to realize that they no longer had any cover from behind them, and began to raise their weapons on White's position. It was a suicide run, but without any cover to retreat to there wasn't much choice for them. White turned shifted his cannon arm to the right slightly and picked off another soldier before ducking behind the wall again. Bang. A third sniper shot, leaving only two Thilan troops remaining. White raised himself upward and took a second to solidify his aim before bringing down the last two soldiers, one shot obliterating a man's face while the second leaving a gaping hole in his right side. It didn't seem to matter where White hit them, anywhere the spheres from the cannon touch disintegrated instantly. Any contact with flesh or armor what wasn't energy resistant left a large hole.
White stared into the factory complex through the open gates, and the sight left him wide eyed. Three massive red tanks that looked like massive giant fortresses were slowly hovering their way outside the base. From his vantage point, the tanks looked incredibly cool. Their shape was somewhat blocky. The main hull of the tank was easily sixty feet long and fifteen feet wide, and almost resembled a breadbox. The machine was colored a mix of deep red and black with a large symbol of a skull in front of a sword visible on the front. On either side of the hull were miniature versions of the hull with large fin-like wings that continued to face outward for about a foot before sharply jutting upward a few feet above the height of the blocks they were attacked to. These fins, which may have just been for looks, were located at the very rear of these miniature side-hulls. These smaller hulls also appeared to cause the ground below them to shimmer like a desert horizon on a hot day. White guessed that was how the tank was hovering above the ground, the engines of the massive tank. In a similar relative position to the fins on the engines, a flattened circular disk stood tall on a slanted tower that was without a doubt the command center for the tank, and probably shielded considering how vulnerable it was.
White didn't notice anything too special about the massive fortress other than the various turrets embedded within the hull and the massive size of the vehicle. Of course dealing with one of the monstrosities was bound to be another task altogether, and somehow While didn't think his cannon was going to have the same effect on the tanks as it did with the gates and the soldiers.
"Hey White, we have a problem." The sound of Rose's voice over the communication line drew White's attention away from the tanks.
"Other than the tanks headed our way?" White chimed with sarcastic cheerfulness.
"Yeah, other than that. Apparently a good thirty guys came out of an entrance on the west side of the factory and are about to flank you." Dammit, as if there weren't enough problems to worry about.
"Alright I'm pulling out to go deal with the soldiers, Rose I'm counting on you to help guide me here." White lifted his rock cannon back through the window and made his way out of the building and headed westward. Unlike a lot of FPS or MMO games that White had played in the past, BRSO lacked any kind of radar system. It was completely up to you to know how many enemy troops there were, where they were located, and how fast they were moving. This one fact left White nervous as he navigated his way deeper into the ring of buildings that surrounded the factory complex, his right arm tense and ready to shot at anything that moved his direction.
"Careful White, I can only see you about half the time the way you're weaving through buildings like that." Rose's warning didn't come as a surprise to White, as that was part of his plan. Anywhere Rose could see him, it was more than likely a Thilan soldier could too.
"Just keep an eye on where the enemy is moving." White ordered as he rounded a street corner, coming face to face with two Thilan soldiers. His Guardian body reacted almost on instinct, the cannon in his arm slamming hard into the right one before snapping back across, stopping right in front of the second and shooting his head off at point-blank range.
The resulting graphical effect of the man without a head made White want to puke for a brief moment before managing to choke the feeling down. It took a few deep breaths to remind White that this was just a game, but at the same time the game was the most realistic game that he had ever seen.
Ignoring the bodies of the two soldiers, White pressed onward, weaving through half broken buildings and scattered furniture whenever he could. Every once in a while he would spot a pair of soldiers running through the streets or searching through buildings and quickly pick them off before backtracking the way he came or repositioning himself to kill anyone who thought it would be a good idea to follow the cannon shots.
In the course of forty minutes White had managed to pick off twenty of the Thilan soldiers thanks to this hit and run style. He had executed it flawlessly, without even being shot at once since the opening skirmish by the main gates of the complex. The operation was going well, too well. White was ducking behind a couch that looked like it had been attacked by a pack of wild dogs when he heard DJ's annoyed voice.
"Hey White, whenever you're ready to create that distraction! The alarm bells aren't ringing over here!"
"Well sorry if it's a little hard to create a massive distraction with only two people!" White hissed back in a whisper. White slowly lifted himself until he could see just over the top of the shredded furniture. Walking down the street were four Thilan soldiers looking around with weapons raised, pointing a spotlight at wherever they aimed. Shit, they're onto me. White thought, more annoyed than concerned.
"We're going to need a new plan White. The pair of you picking off troopers isn't a big enough threat." White hated to admit it, but Winston had a point. Even with him and Rose picking off infantry, it wasn't enough of a threat to give Winston and DJ a big enough opening. Then White heard Rose shout out a warning.
"White you have incoming; two assault tanks have left the base and are working their way over towards you!" White smiled, this is what they had been waiting for. It may not be all-out by the Thilan, but a few soldiers weren't a threat to his friends, especially since DJ was packing a chain gun that would rip apart the light-armored Thilan infantry.
"You wanted your go signal DJ, you got it." White said with a soft laugh. "Give them hell." Rising above the couch, raised his cannon until he was looking down the barrel, taking aim at a Thilan soldier and shooting off his head instantly. Reacting with the speed of an elite gamer, White adjusted his aim slightly and took out a second soldier before the remaining members of the squad realized where they were being shot at from and opened fire on White, but he had already rolled to his left. Well out of the way of the initial burst of energy bolts. White quickly bounced to his feet and ran through a door that was on the western side of the room, out of view of the soldiers.
"Yeah I don't know about that signal, we still don't hear alarm bells going off!" DJ retorted angrily.
Energy bolts whizzed around him as White continued running, not bother to shoot at targets that he couldn't see. The house he ran through was fairly small, and after only about fifteen feet he was jumping out a small window in what looked to be a torn-up bedroom. Landing softly on the grass below, White instantly raised his cannon and waited for the soldiers as they approached. The pair of red-armored Thilan's rounded the corner and barely had a chance to blink before they each had a new hole in their chest and dropped to the ground. White remained perfectly still, listening for the sound of footsteps of potential reinforcements.
"Has it ever occurred to you that the Thilan's might not even use alarms? Get your asses inside and steal one of those tanks! Rose, how many have you managed to take out?" White asked, lowering his cannon and climbing back through the window.
"I've gotten six." Rose answered with an annoyed tone. "Sneaky little bastards are keeping to the shadows, how about you?"
"Twenty-four, which means that the only thing left to deal with, are the tanks." White leaned against the wall and noticed his energy sitting at twenty percent. It was the first time he had looked at the little yellow bar since his first night on BRSO. Right away White grew concerned, he didn't know what would happen when his Guardians energy reached zero, and he certainly didn't want to find out in the middle of a combat situation.
"So how do you plan on dealing with them?" Rose asked, drawing White's attention away from his energy concerns. After all, they still had a factory to blow up.
"The two of us aren't equipped to handle those tanks. Go ahead and change position so the Thilan can't get a lock on you, I'll see if I can sneak inside the western entrance and create a distraction that way."
"I hope you realize how crazy stupid that plan of yours is." Rose sighed.
Winston
Despite having received the go signal from White, Winston and DJ were forced to wait another twenty minutes before moving due to how much traffic was going back and forth in front of the exit. They weren't soldiers, but any movement to try and get to the fuel tower or a tank would have been suicide regardless.
The secret tunnel started from a door hidden behind a large rock and quickly dipped underground until it reached inside the factory. The tunnel itself was dark, damp, and probably had a terrible smell. Fainted paint on the concrete was barely visible in the dim light. The squeaking or rats could be heard ever so often if you stopped moving. The loud echo of footsteps tended to dissuade the small rodents from making an appearance.
At the end of the tunnel stood a large silver colored ladder, which placed you in a hidden closet that was inside of an equipment locker that was in the corner of one of the assembly rooms. The hidden passage was very well designed, and also painfully hard to find for anyone looking for it. Winston and DJ were at the door to the large equipment locker, looking out at the assembly line through the thin slits in the metal.
The whole place was a buzz of activity. Loud clangs of machinery echoed throughout the room. From what Winston could tell, it seemed like the Thilan workers wouldn't be stopping anytime soon. Even in the middle of being attacked they continued to work on the assembly line like nothing was going on. Winston realized that there was a possibility that they would still be here working when they set off the bomb.
"Alright Richston what's the plan?" DJ asked while continuing to scan the room, the new nickname caused Winston to give his friend an annoyed look. The brief silenced that followed led the Trooper to glace at the Assassin in confusion. "What?" Winston shook his head.
"It's nothing, forget it." Winston gave the room one last intense scan. From what he could see, which wasn't too much, there didn't appear to be any guards inside factory. At the very least it seemed like White and Rose had managed to draw the soldiers away from the inside of the complex. In reality, their best option was to leave the storage container and take their chances inside the base. But how could they play it so they wouldn't get caught?"
"You're taking too long! I'm not sitting here any longer!" DJ moaned loudly out of boredom before slamming his body against the door, forcing it to swing open with a loud crash. "Iiiiiit's DJStarswag, everyone come out with your hands up!" Immediately following DJ's declaration, the entire room was focused on them. Winston slapped his forehead and grimaced. He had forgotten that his friend couldn't handle standing around and thinking when someone else was having fun. Raising his pistol, Winston ran out of the closet and did another scan of the room, surprised to not find a single guard anywhere.
The room was small, leading Winston to believe they ended up in one of the smaller assembly line buildings. Small of course, was relative. The room was still large, easily over a hundred feet long and over twenty feet wide. Workers in pure white clothing stood on either side of a wide conveyer belt that moved along metal parts to who knows what. A lot of the workers that had been looking at Winston and DJ simply returned to their work, like they were completely uninterested in their new visitors.
"Alright what's with this place?" DJ asked, slinging his chain gun back over his shoulder. "No guards watching the assembly line, the workers don't even seem to care that we're here, and for a factory that builds tanks that are essentially mobile fortresses. Please tell me you see what's wrong with this picture."
"If I had to guess, I'd say that those workers aren't programmed to be aggressive. They'll just keep working on building those tanks until we set off the bomb." Winston turned away from the workers and tapped DJ on the shoulder, pointing to an exit to their left. "Come on, we shouldn't waste time. We need to find one of those tanks ASAP."
The pair left the assembly line and its workers behind and began navigating their way through the facility. There wasn't any kind of a map for Winston to follow, and while he knew the route to the fuel tower, he didn't know the layout well enough to point them towards the tanks. Winston moved quickly, keeping himself light on his feet and his pistol raised in case they bumped into anyone. But as they moved through the metal hallways of the factory the entire place seemed deserted.
"Left." DJ declared at the sixth split in the hallway.
"The last time you said left we ran into a dead guy who was hanged." Winston noted dully as he kept a careful eye out for visitors, trying not to recall the image.
"I can't be wrong all the time can I?" Winston rolled his eyes as DJ's rhetoric question and started down the only other option, straight ahead. "Hey, what are you doing?" DJ asked, his whisper coming out as a low hiss. Winston didn't reply, but continued onward. Rounding a corner to the right at the end of the hall, the assassin walked down another short hallway before entering a large room. Two people in long red coats rounded on him.
"Hey what are you doing in he -" Winston shot both men in the head before either one could finish pulling their weapons, collapsing to the floor in a lifeless heap. DJ rested his freshly drawn gun on his massive shoulder.
"I told you we should have gone left! We'd better backtrack; we have no idea how long White and Rose have." DJ turned around to run back down the hallway, but Winston stopped him by grabbing his arm when something out of the corner of his eye caught his attention. "What is it, we gotta go!" Winston walked over to the left side of the room, navigating around a large blue table with a bunch of documents on it.
"DJ, grab those papers for me if you can." Winston said, stopping in front of a computer that appeared to have some kind of message on it.
"How do you expect me to carry them? I don't exactly have pockets in this outfit!" DJ replied tartly.
"Grab them and stuff them in my bag. This is the Thilan command center." Grumbling in a low voice that Winston couldn't make out, he heard the trooper start shuffling papers as Winston holstered his pistol and began reading.
Message received at 5:13am
General Lervis,
As per the request of the Emperors Hand, your army is herby ordered to terminate the Zana complex and advance on a large Sanctuary weapons shipment coming from the southwest before launching a full scale attack on the Zina stronghold. Details for the attack have been provided. Remember that surrender or retreat will be regarded as treason. May your conquest be swift and victorious, and long live Origin.
Winston's eyes widened and he could feel his chest tighten as he realized what was going on. Holy crap, no wonder there's nobody defending this place, they're all about to attack the Blue Rift base! As quick as he could, Winston slammed down on his F1 key.
"White, can you hear me?" His voice was as level as always, but Winston could feel himself talking faster than normal.
"Of course I can Winston! What's taking you guys so long, I've almost broken into the base!" From the joking edge in White's voice, he could tell that his friend was having fun freely picking off Thilan soldiers.
"I thought you said this place was crawling with Thilan troops, but from what I can see there's hardly anyone!" Well at least White and Rose are having fun. Winston sighed inwardly to himself after Rose's excited comment. On a hunch, Winston began scanning through the computer as he relayed his information.
"Listen guys, DJ and I managed to find the command center for the complex, and it looks like one of the commanders forgot to delete their orders."
"I don't like where this is going." DJ said grimly from behind Winston.
"The Thilan army that was stationed here has been ordered to attack a weapons shipment arriving in twenty minutes." Winston continued. "On top of that they plan on overloading the fuel tower to completely destroy this facility." There was a brief moment of silence that hung in the air before White's voice filled the empty comms.
"Alright change of plans then. Forget planting the bomb, take a tank and come pick us up. We need to get over to the train station as fast as we can."
"There's no way were going to get back to the station in twenty minutes!" Rose protested.
"You're right." White admitted. "But hopefully we can get back there in time to make a difference. No way am I going to sit this one out. Rose, try and meet up with me by the west entrance. If there really aren't that many defenders left inside of the base then we can storm the place and meet up with Winston and DJ." Winston felt a force push down on his bag. Turning his head, he spotted DJ slamming the papers into his bag. That's when Winston realized that DJ didn't have a large metal box.
"Yo DJ, where's the bomb?"
"I left it back in the secret passageway until we had the tank secured." DJ answered without stopping his paper shoving. Winston's initial reaction was a mix of shock and anger, but it was quickly replaced with a sigh and a sense of disappointment. Doing something like this was one-hundred percent DJ, but it wasn't like Winston could complain. DJ's reckless style hadn't failed them yet.
"Alright, you grab the bomb, I'll backtrack and get the tank started up." Winston felt the pressure on the bag disappear and he turned around to find DJ looking down at him with one raised eyebrow.
"How do you plan on driving one of those things? I don't recall you putting any points into vehicle proficiency."
Winston shrugged. "I'll figure it out as I go. Not like we have much of a choice anyway." Re-drawing his weapon, he started back down the hallway with DJ on his heels until they split at the intersection not too far down the hall. Winston stopped briefly and watched as DJ raced down the hallway, his massive gun out and ready to tear into anyone who got into his way. Winston's first thought was how reckless DJ was, but he didn't think of it in a bad way. In fact, it was probably a good thing that Squad Keeper had someone that wasn't afraid to act first and think about consequences later. It kept them moving at a rapid pace that few could run with without any mistakes.
Normally, Winston would have liked to go at a slower pace when making his way through an unknown part of an enemies base, even if it was deserted. This time, the assassin didn't have that luxury, and raced down a long hallway, watching for any signs of movement both in front of and behind him. His habit of awareness allowed him to spot a man who appeared to be a ranking official exiting his office behind up, pistol in hand. He was shot in both the chest in the head before he even laid eyes on Winston.
After another hundred feet later Winston ran through an open door and ended up in a colossal sized hangar, big enough to easily fit at least a dozen commercial jets. Looking around, Winston found the hangar abandoned except for three people climbing around on the top of a large red fortress. There wasn't time for Winston to run straight at the tank, he'd be spotted in an instant and the group would have time to take shelter inside the massive vehicle. He needed another way to get to them.
Looking above him, Winston found exactly what he needed. Directly above him, there was a platform about twenty feet above him that ringed around the walls of the hangar, probably used to do work on the highest most points on the tanks. About halfway on the platform in the back of the hangar was a large crane that stuck out from the ring, and the edge of it reached right above the three men.
Spotting the ladder in the back corner closest to him, Winston began making his way across the massive hangar, making sure to put himself behind any objects that would prevent the men from seeing him. The process seemed to take forever, and he knew that none of his companions would have been patient enough to pull it off. It was why he ended up being the assassin for the group. He was the only one who could sit still for longer than five minutes.
By the time Winston did eventually reach the ladder, he could feel the time constraint of the fuel tanks creeping up on him, and he knew that he needed to move fast. He had no idea how long he had until they blew, seconds? Minutes? An hour? He didn't have any time to lose, he had to climb, and fast. Even if there was a great risk of getting caught at this point he needed to move.
When Winston was about ten feet up there was a series of loud bangs that echoed through the hangar, and he was so surprised that he nearly lost his grip. The assassin watched as all three men dropped dead and slid off the tanks, and right away Winston slid down from the ladder and ran towards the tank, stealing a few brief moments to look at it before White and Rose caught up to him.
"What the hell was taking you so long Winston?" White asked with an amused tone. Winston narrowed his eyes in annoyance.
"You didn't have to intervene, I was about to take care of them." Now it was Rose's turn to be annoyed, although Winston could tell that her annoyance was more good-natured and was leaning towards a teasing attitude.
"Come on Winst, did you really expect me to sit there while I had the easiest shot of my life? Besides we're still counting on you to pilot this thing!" Rose placed a hand on Winston's shoulder, and the assassin took in a deep breath. There's no point in letting my pride take over. Besides, getting out of here is more important than my kill count. Knowing that there would be time to pull ahead of his friends score later, he turned to the tank.
"Right, follow me." While waiting for the go signal, Winston had taken the time to read up on the mobile fortresses. The official name for these behemoths was the Thilan Assault Tank, a TAT. With multiple automatic turrets, a shield for the command center, one massive plasma rock cannon, four hover-engines, and two manned gun towers, the TAT was a "girl that end any argument with looks alone" according to DJ. Looking at the war machine up close, it was hard for Winston to disagree.
Leading his companions behind the tank, Winston found the back entrance to the TAT. A large section of the back wall was lowered to the ground, acting as a ramp for anyone who wanted to get inside.
"Ladies and Gentlemen your carriage awaits." Winston bowed with his arms extended towards the TAT, inviting his friends to take a look inside.
"A carriage with guns on it," Rose observed. "Now that is an idea that I can get behind." The trio walked up the ramp with Winston quickly following. The clang of boot on metal could be heard echoing through the tank. The vehicle was tall enough to stand up in, the walls for three feet upon entering the vehicle lined with shelves filled with all kinds of armor and weaponry. White whistled, clearly impressed by what they were dragging in.
Winston weaved his way past his companions and dashed toward the front of the TAT, nearly tripping over the six inch drop between the rear compartments. That would have led to a splitting headache. Winston noted after he had managed to duck under the lowered roof of the driver's seat. Sitting down in a low to the ground chair, a HUD appeared in front of him. Taking a moment to figure out where everything was located, Winston grabbed the two control sticks in front of him and pushed them forward. There was no lurch or signs of movement.
"Yo Winston, we need to get moving!" White called from the rear compartment. Winston was at a loss. His manual was useless, and he didn't have the slightest clue as to where to get started. He might as well have been trying to cure cancer.
"I'm working on it!" Winston was afraid to hit any random buttons or throw some of the switches on the dash above him, he didn't know what might cause an overload. Another five minutes passed and the TAT still wasn't moving.
"Winston, I hate to tell you this but we may not have a lot of time left here!" Rose shouted in a panicked anger. Winston looked around desperately, hoping for some kind of epiphany.
"Heyo, is our Winston having issues?" Winston recognized the voice of DJ echoing from the very back of the TAT.
"This isn't the time DJ!" Winston shouted back. There was the loud crash of an object being set down carelessly and the loud boom of approaching footsteps behind him.
"Alright Richston move over, lemmie give it a shot." Winston didn't move and kept scanning over the controls. He really wasn't in the mood for his friends jokes. "Seriously man, give me the wheel!" Winston realized that DJ wasn't kidding. Getting out of the chair, Winston stepped out of the little hole and watched the trooper sit down and immediately start punching in controls and flipping switches. In almost no time at all, the TAT was off the ground and heading for the exit to the facility. Everyone in the group was dumbfounded.
"How in the world did you know what to do?" Winston finally asked.
"You should know mister handbook." DJ teased with a smile on his face. "The Trooper class comes with the ability to pilot any and all types of vehicles, ally or enemy."
"But the manual comes with instructions on how to pilot almost every vehicle!" Winston protested. "No one from Blue Rift has ever been in the driver's seat for one of these things, so how do you know what to do?" Winston saw DJ shrug.
"I don't really. I just know what switches do what because of how they're labeled. My Guardian just pieced it together from there."
"Why didn't you mention this to us before! We wouldn't be cutting it so close if you had just told us you could pilot this thing!" Winston hissed.
"Like I said, you should have known I could do this, and I like surprising you guys!" Winston couldn't believe DJ's relaxed attitude. He knew that dying once in this game got them kicked out, and he was laughing his head off about his so called surprise!
"You know you have all these tricks up your sleeve but you still can't seem to pick up a girlfriend." Rose commented, walking forward until she stood to Winston's left.
"Shut up Rose! Now that I have this baby I'll get all the chicks in the game!"
"Because girls dig a tough guy driving a tank right?" White asked rhetorically. "Come on man, if that were true you'd have Rose around your finger right now."
"WHAT?" Rose rounded on White. "Like hell I would fall for a wimpy guy driving a virtual tank!" White grinned.
"My point is proven."
"Bro, just because I can't pick up girls in the real world doesn't mean I couldn't pick up an NPC or a Keeper. I bet Black Rock Shooter would fall into my arms the second she were to see me." Winston rolled his eyes at DJ's over-the-top fantasy.
"I doubt even virtual girls would fall for that man." White sighed.
By this point DJ had driven the tank out the front gates and back towards the train station. Apparently the factories automated defenses registered their TAT as a friendly, so they were allowed to escape easily without incident. The tank was shockingly slow, only maxing out at about twenty miles per hour. At this rate it was going to take them a while to reach the station. Thankfully, the two TATs that had been hunting White earlier were no longer sitting by the front entrance. Winston guessed that they had been ordered to pull out so they wouldn't be caught in the explosion. As to where they were now, it didn't matter. Their escape had been clean and simple, and Winston wanted a break before the next shitstorm.
About five minutes after the TAT rolled out of the complex a massive explosion rocked the tank. No one asked what it was, everyone already knew. Their mission had been a total success, but now they needed to hurry over to the train station and stop the Thilan army.
Day 3
Date: Sunday, 1st Month, 23rd day, 1017th year D.A. (Dark Ages)
Location: Khua: Zina Train Station
Time: Roughly 1:42 S.S.T. (Standard Sanctuary Time)
Black vowed to repay her debt to Hans after her mission was complete. Not only had he managed to smuggle her onto the Accelerator Train, but he had informed her which box held a hovercycle which would allow her to reach the Zana complex in less than an hour. At long last she was about to get some answers about her sister.
For some reason Black had found the humming of the train's engines calming, and she had taken the chance to relax and read one of the books that Sy had given her. Black sat inside one of the cargo cars on top of a stack of metal containers. Thanks to Hans, the container that he had used to smuggle Black onto the train hadn't been perfectly sealed, allowing Black to get out and stretch her legs rather than be cramped up in a small box for two hours. A small rusted out lamp swung from the roof, providing a small amount of light. It wasn't very reliable but it was enough for the senior Keeper to enjoy her reading in peace.
Sammy couldn't really understand why, but she had no desire to kill the man that had been hunting her down ever since the war began. He was responsible for killing her brother, her mother, and her grandfather. Yet she couldn't bring herself to kill him, there was something about him that warned her against the action.
Black had read that passage over and over again, and she couldn't understand it. The man that had been hunting Sammy in her book was responsible for killing her family, all so he could be the one to save his country. It was a situation all too similar to Black's, except she knew she wouldn't have the same weakness. The second she saw that Guardian or any member of the council, she wouldn't hesitate to pull the trigger.
Somewhere in the back of Black's mind she knew that the white Guardian had nothing to do with her sister. He had merely been the one to inherit her equipment. But something about that felt wrong, like it didn't truly belong to him. Is that any reason to kill him? The voice in her mind asked. Black couldn't answer, all she knew is that her emotions and thoughts became muddy and unclear whenever she thought about the subject. It doesn't matter. I'll figure out what to do when I find him.
Out of nowhere Black was thrown to the side of her pillar of boxes. She landed hard on her right side, and thought herself lucky that none of the boxes full of heavy equipment had landed on her. She felt the train come to a screeching halt. Every bone in her body was on full alert, and she knew that the train was being attacked, and that meant that it was no longer safe inside the car. Black stowed her book back in her jacket and pushed herself to her feet.
Since accelerator train cargo cars always locked from the outside, Black had no choice but to take out her rock cannon and blast a massive hole in the side wall of the car. When the dist finally cleared, giving Black a clear view of the outside, she was shocked to find a massive Thilan army headed right for her. Her first thought was panic, had they found out that she had snuck onto the train and were out to capture her? No, Black realized quickly. There was no way that the Thilan had any knowledge of the Keeper project. It was more likely that they were after the train itself, to destroy the supplies meant for the Sanctuary army. Normally, Black would put her personal mission on hold and engage the Thilans directly, but this was a lost battle. From what Black managed to see back at the Delesi station, this train had a pathetically small guard. It would have had a tough time stopping a small raiding squad let alone a large army.
Black quickly scanned the battlefield and realized that even hope for a clean retreat was out of the question. They were located in the wastelands just outside of Khua, a mere two miles from the train station. It was a fairly open battleground, meaning that the eight TAT's that the Thilan's had with them were going to tear apart both the train any anyone trying to run. If that didn't do it, there were a number of heavy troopers and countless infantry. The one thing that Black was thankful for was the lack of Thilan Speedbikes, meaning that she had a shot at getting away alive.
A bright light caught Black's attention, and she immediately recognized the glow as the giant rock cannon that served as the primary weapon of the TAT. The fact that the Thilan's had rock cannon technology came as no surprise to Black, after all they were the ones who came up with it in the first place. Jumping hard to her right, Black sailed a good twenty feet away from where she had been standing, which was now incinerated thanks t a massive red beam that obliterated the train car.
Black ran back alongside the tracks of the hovercar, headed for the last cargo car in the set while keeping any eye out for any more TAT blasts. Each of the cars was colored differently, a silver gray for weapons and ammo, green for food and water, and black for heavy ordinance. It was a code that was swapped out every two weeks to keep the Thilan from figuring it out. Thankfully, the color coding was still the same from before she was turned into a council fighting machine, allowing her to identify which car she was looking for before the Thilans blew it away.
Lacking for time, Black blasted off the lock and threw the large sliding door open with all her strength. Inside were at least a dozen jet black Express Hornets, the newest and fastest hoverbike on Blue Rift. Black stowed her rock cannon and ran towards a locked case in the back of the room, pulling out her katana as she did so. Repeating the process of lock cutting, Black retrieved an access key from one of the hooks and climbed onto the bike closest to the entrance to the car. Swiping the card in front of the bike's instruments, the vehicle roared to life and lifted off the ground. Gunning the engine, Black torpedoed out of the car and plowed right into a Thilan soldier, throwing him backward.
Black didn't even give herself a moment to criticize herself on her lack of awareness of the infantry's position. Instead she spun the bike in a circle and pulled the trigger for the bike's forward guns, mowing down the small Thilan squad that had quickly surrounded her.
As Black brought herself upright again, more laser fire began flying past her from the large wave of infantry closing in on her. Black had hoped to find a few survivors of the initial attack and bring them with her to safety, however with a massive wave of Thilan soldier having reached the train she realized that was no longer possible. That left her with the last part of her plan.
Get out of there, and fast.
For Black, there was no honor in death. Despite the number one rule being 'Kill all Thilans," there was another rule that her instructor had given her. "Never fight against impossible odds." Spinning the Hornet around, Black retreated around the tail end of the train and raced away from the Thilan army, headed in a direction perpendicular to the city. The train offered a little cover, but after narrowly getting hit by another TAT rock cannon blast, she pulled away, speeding away from flying lasers and rocket fire.
Then after a good twenty seconds, it stopped. Black turned her head around to find that the Thilan army was growing smaller and smaller. It was obvious that they had no intention of spending resources tracking down one girl on a Hornet, especially when they had no means of catching her. Then Black winced as an unexpected surge of pain crashed through her, coming from her left leg.
Looking down, Black realized that the wound on her left leg, which had only just started healing, had not only been reopened, but she had been shot in the lower part of the same leg as well. Crap. Was her initial thought, the second was a question. How in Blue Rift was she going to get this patched up? She had no medical supplies, was in the middle of a warzone, and if she didn't treat it soon, it was bound to get infected. Her healing abilities were great, but she wasn't immortal. The wounds, especially the new one, were bound to be infected in a wasteland like Khua, and there wasn't a populated city within a day's drive. There was no way she was going to pass up her chance to find Whitestar.
That's when the plan began to form in her mind. A team of four Guardians were bound to have some kind of medical supplies, supplies she could use to patch up her leg and get some answers out of Whitestar at the same time. Her leg wasn't in the greatest of conditions, but she had dealt with worse in the Obroseon arena and in training. Black was confident in her ability to take them on. Turning her Hornet towards the city, she began her search for her sister's copy.
Day 2
Date: Saturday, January 22nd 2015
Location: Kheawuton: Khua
Time: Roughly 11:35pm P.E.T. (Pacific Earth Time)
It had been a little over an hour since White and the rest of Squad Keeper had left the smoking crater that was Thilan Factory Zana. In his eyes, White viewed the mission as much more than a success. Not only had they completed their objective to blow up the Thilan factory, but they didn't have to use the bomb that the Sanctuary army gave them, they stole a TAT, which had never been done before, and discovered plans to attack a supply train and firebase Zina.
Unfortunately, considering that they were over an hour into their trek, White had concluded that there was no way that they would reach the supply train in time. So the group had decided to make their way back to Zina to hand over what they knew to the general. Sadly, navigating the city with a TAT was much harder than it looked, and they were still at least another ten minutes away from the base.
Thankfully, the group had used that time to figure out how to operate their new toy. They found out that the command center, accessible from a series of rungs attached to a slanted shaft that led upwards, had a radar that could pick out both ally and enemy forces, could issues orders throughout the vehicle, commanded the automated defenses, and controlled a giant rock cannon that could blow anything on Blue Rift to bits. That's where White was standing now. Rose and Winston were on the two turrets that were embedded into the side of the command tower, waiting for a target to cross their path. Those two turrets were the only ones that could be controlled manually, and would be very helpful if the Thilan decided to throw any kind of jamming device in their way.
DJ was, of course, down in the driver's seat, which was the only thing on this bucket of bolts that White couldn't control from the command tower. He couldn't even turn off communications from that part of that tank. Why does this thing even have internal communications? It's not like the Thilan's need to talk to each other. So White and the rest of the team were forced to listen to bad pickup lines, terrible jokes, and hear all about DJ's fantasies from the first minute they were on the road.
"Hmm, hey Winston could you come down here and give me your manual?" DJ asked with a cheerful tone.
"What for." Winston replied in a bored tone.
"I need to look up the best restraunt in Obroseon. When I finally do get one of those Keepers to go out with me, I want to take them someplace classy."
"You'd probably have better luck taking them to a boxing ring." White commented sarcastically. "That way they'd have a chance to hit you without doing any lasting damage when you insulted them."
"That's a great idea! A boxing match! I wonder what other kinds of sporting events there are in the city."
"Oh. My. God. DJ could you shut up for five minutes!" Rose shouted. "We really don't need to hear about your perverted fantasies!"
"Oh those weren't even close to-"
"Oooookay that's enough of that." White cut in quickly before DJ could go any further with his hormonal train of thought.
"What? I wasn't going to say anything bad!" DJ whined. White rolled his eyes.
"It's the thought that counts DJ." Winston said with a sigh of relief. "In this case, it's the thoughts that don't exist. You follow?"
"Fine, fine." DJ sighed. "But none of you are invited to the wedding!" Snickers from the rest of the squad barely managed to squeak through the microphones. There was no way DJ was getting one of the Keepers to date him.
"Somehow DJ, I think we can all live with that." Rose replied, her mood clearly better that it had been a moment ago.
White turned back to the large projection in front of him, showing a map of the area surrounding the TAT. For the last hour it had been totally blank without a hint of trouble. But a blinking red dot headed right for them caught White's eye. His first thought when he saw the dot was a surprised panic, but then he remembered that the colors were reversed. Because they had hijacked an enemy's tank, red meant good and blue meant bad.
During their hour long drive, Winston had figured out how to tune the TAT's radio to Sanctuary comm. channels, allowing White to let anyone who got close to them that they were very much not Thilan and that they were friendly. Disabling the auto-turrets, which had yet to be configured to shoot at Thilan troopers instead of Blue Rift soldiers, White pressed a few buttons on the glowing panel in front of him to open a communication line with the approaching Sanctuary scout.
"Good evening Blue Rift Sanctuary! Designation Fallen Swag Star Business. We've completed our mission and have brought you guys a lovely little present!" White paused and waited for the Sanctuary scout to give them a reply, but instead a notification popped up on the projection that the vehicle was an enemy, (no surprise as it belonged to the Sanctuary army) and had been identified as a Hornet class hoverbike. That itself wasn't really a surprise to White, but what did catch him off guard was that the bike was shooting at them!
"Oh come on, could you at least wait until we give this thing a paint job before you start shooting at it!" White shouted over the open channel before closing it and giving a sigh to his friends. "Did I say it wrong?"
"No you said it right, but uhh, you may wanna check who's on that bike White." Based on his tone, DJ sounded stunned and very surprised. Who could be on that bike that would be a supr… OH MY WORD. White quickly pulled up a zoomed in visual on the bike and saw a familiar pig tailed teenage girl wearing all black with a rock cannon attached to her back. Only one person on Blue Rift matched that description.
"Would someone please explain why Black Rock Shooter is trying to kill us?" DJ demanded, his voice filled with annoyance.
"Did she not hear the transmission we sent to her?" Rose wondered as Black whizzed by the TAT.
"No she heard it." Winston said. "But remember what happened back at the arena last night? She locked eyes with White and fired a shot right at him."
"That's right! So wait, does she think that White did something to her sister? That's crazy!" Rose exclaimed.
"We've stumbled across the strangest event ever." White muttered to himself as he reopened the communication channel with the Keeper. "Yo Black, we know it's you. Uhh… kinda wondering why you're shooting at us. If it has something to do with your sister I'm willing to talk about it." Another round of energy blasts impacted the hull of the TAT. From the information flowing through the projection, the Hornet didn't seem to be doing a lot of damage. Great, so she has no intention of talking. Fine. White slammed his index finger on a large button on the center of his panel, closing the channel with Black Rock Shooter.
"So what now?" Rose asked. "Do we shoot her?"
"WHAT?" DJ roared. "No way, no killing my girlfriend!" The sound of Rose groaning echoed the annoyance that surged through White, but at the same time the Trooper had a point.
"DJ is right on this one Rose, we can't kill Black." White explained quickly. "We're called Squad Keeper for a reason."
"Alright fine, what's the plan then?" Rose asked with an edge in her voice. White began explaining the plan flowing through his mind.
"Alright, Rose, Winston, the three of us will get out of the TAT and deal with Black Rock Shooter on foot. Our goal is to try and knock her out. DJ, you get to come up to the command tower and keep an eye out for any unexpected company."
"What! Why do I have to miss out on all the fun?" DJ complained.
"You're a trooper. Do you really think you can enter a fight without killing her?" White asked rhetorically. DJ didn't reply, a sign that he caught onto White's point. "Alright let's go!" Turning around, White quickly descended down the rungs towards the lower compartment of the TAT, meeting up with Rose and Winston along the way. Within a minute they were running out of the large tank with weapons raised.
The first thing White realized is that it was too quiet. If there was a hovercycle running around and shooting up their tank, they would be able to hear it at this point, which meant that…
"Behind us!" White spun around and started shooting without hesitation, forcing Black to jump to her left and off the TAT, immediately firing a few shots right at White. Oh crap! There wasn't any time to dodge, it was all happening too fast for him to keep up with. A trio of flaming blue rocks impacted White in the chest, or so he thought. The rocks exploded mere inches away from White's body, sending a wave of dark gray smoke to briefly cover the squad.
"White!" Rose shouted in panic.
"I'm fine, apparently the jacket I got has some kind of special barrier." White reasoned. "Kept me alive there." The smoke dissipated enough for White to get a clear view of the surrounding area. They were standing in the middle of an intersection somewhere in the thickest part of the city. Tall skyscrapers that looked like they had been hit with numerous rockets surrounded them. Rubble looted the streets, and the TAT sat at their backside. There were so many places where Black could have fled in those few seconds that he didn't know where to expect her next attack to come from.
"Alright so why didn't she finish us off there?" Winston asked. "She knew exactly where we were, she had the perfect shot."
"No way BRSO would be that cruel." Rose replied with a matter-of-fact tone. "Even unfair games have limits." But something about that bugged White. The way Black moved, the way she reacted when she saw White, nothing about it seemed like it was programming. It was hard to put a finger on, but it seemed like Black Rock Shooter moved with a purpose rather than just following code. Is it even possible that an A.I. has developed inside of a game? A.I. or no, White knew one thing for certain.
"She's not an NPC." White said suddenly, catching the attention of his companions.
"I'm sorry what?" Rose asked in bewilderment. White turned and gave the sniper a hard look.
"She's not an NPC. Think about it, the Guardians replaced the Keepers, so we're supposed to be more powerful. What person would recklessly attack outnumbered and overpowered?"
Rose's eyebrows narrowed. "Nice logic, but then why would Black attack us in the first place?"
"Because of White." Winston concluded. "I mean look at him, he has her sisters cannon and jacket. What person wouldn't want answers? And if you've been trained to fight since the second you were born…"
"The only way you know how to talk to strangers is to fight them." Rose finished. "Alright fine, but how does that prove she's not an NPC?"
White shook his head. "I don't know. But either way we have to treat this like we're playing this PvP. Black is going to be unpredictable, so we have to play that way too. Winston, escort Rose somewhere where she can get a good shot off on Black's leg or something. Winston, after you're done getting Rose situated try and flank around and knock her out. Remember that the goal isn't to kill her. GO!" On White's mark, Rose and Winston took off behind the TAT, heading for one of the abandoned buildings.
Common sense told White that he and Black should be an even match for each other. She had more experience but he had better technology backing him. Normally, experience would win in these kinds of fights, but White wasn't trying to win. He just needed to stall until his companions were in position.
White listened carefully. Since he couldn't see Black Rock Shooter, he would have to listen for her. Any twitch or disturbance of a rock and he would be able to pinpoint her location. But as the seconds passed, White realized that there was no way someone with as much training as her was going to make that kind of mistake. Plan B then.
"So what is it you want?" White shouted to the rubble. "You've come out this far just to find me, and I have no idea why. All I know is that you want to kill me for having your sisters cannon. That you can't stand the thought of the Guardians, who stole your place and essentially forced the Keepers to fight one another, using the tools that belonged to someone you were close to! Am I right, or are you attacking us for another reason?" There was a moment of silence which White let hang over the destroyed battlefield. "Well?"
That's when Black appeared from behind a pillar, cannon pointed directly at White.
"My goal isn't to kill you." Black responded coldly, but somehow filled with choked back emotion. "My goal is to show you that you are unworthy to wield the weapon of a Keeper!" White tensed and rolled to one side to dodge the shots aimed at where he had been a second before. So her goal isn't to kill us for being unworthy. White realized. It's to defend her sisters honor!
Black
From the second she received the transmission from the Guardians Black knew it was Whitestar and his crew. The Zana complex was the only factory within a hundred miles that could produce a TAT. Right away her emotions had switched off and her mind was focused only on her objective. But that's where things became unclear for Black. What was her goal? One of her objectives was to secure medical supplies for her leg, but what would she do with Whitestar? Did she need to kill him? Incapacitate him? Focus on winning the fight. Her mind told her. Worry about details later.
So that's what she did. Drawing out Whitestar and the rest of his team, and dodging his initial attack had all been planned by Black. She had them right where she wanted them, and then she hesitated. For the first time in her life Black had hesitated to pull the trigger. So instead of standing in the open and looking like a fool ready to be shot, she ducked behind a pillar of a broken down corner store, waiting for the perfect moment to strike.
And that's when Whitestar had started talking. His words presented an air of truth to Black. Yes, she did want to kill Whitestar for possessing the cannon that belonged to White Rock Shooter. But at the same time she didn't want to kill someone who she shared a common enemy with. They were both created to fight the Thilan Empire, but more than that she remembered something that the Gunsmith Riho had said back in Obroseon. "…Good group of kids, they didn't seem particularly happy about what they saw in the arena during your little free for all." They didn't think the Keepers were just bodies thrown at each other to amuse the population of Blue Rift, and if they did they didn't like it. They were on her side, if not allied with her directly. She couldn't kill them. They were more than innocent, they were after the same thing she was.
"My goal isn't to kill you." Black shouted coldy at Whitestar, revealing herself from behind this pillar and taking aim at the Guardians legs. "My goal is to show you that you are unworthy to wield the weapon of a Keeper!" Doing a double take on herself, Black re-purged all sense of emotion now that her objective was clear and shot. The Guardian however, had anticipated her shot and rolled to the right. Readjusting her aim, she fired again, this time aiming for where she expected White to roll. Her aim was dead-on, and Whitestar exploded in a cloud of black smoke. Black's eyes narrowed.
The black smoke was a flaw in her cannon. Normally when one of her flaming rocks hit flesh, they didn't explode in smoke, instead entering the body in a way that old projectile weapons would. The fact that her flaming rocks had exploded in this manner for a second time left her with no doubts, Whitestar had a shield that protected him from ranged attacks.
Using the smoke as cover, Black charged at the clouded Whitestar, stowing away her rock cannon and summoning Black Blade from her dimensional storage. With some idea of where her opponent was standing, Black charged through the smoke and prepared a horizontal strike, lunging forward and aiming for the chest the second Whitestar came into view. A loud clanging sound rang out as the Guardian blocked the strike by using his cannon as a shield.
Taking note of his reflexes, Black spun around and aimed a back kick straight at Whitestar's chest, sending him flying backward into a bunch of rubble. Sensing an opportunity, the Keeper charged forward towards the Guardian. Whitestar raised his cannon with a look of determination on his face and shot a few spheres of energy, forcing Black to slide to the right while continuing forward. The motion was so smooth it clearly caught the Guardian off guard, the move a result of over seventeen years of training. With her eyes locked on Whitestar, Black prepared her sword for a death blow that she intended to pull at the last second, a move to force her opponent to surrender.
However she was stopped a few feet away from her target by a sniper bullet impacting the ground in front of her. In less than two seconds, Black identified the location of the sniper coming from the third floor of a building on the left side of the TAT. In letting White's companions go, Black realized, she had set herself up to be a perfect target for the female sniper. Quickly correcting her mistake, she swapped Black Blade to her other hand and whipped out hr cannon before firing a series of flaming rocks at the Snipers location and briefly saw a figure disappear before the projectile exploded against the building.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw another few balls of energy fly towards her and, with only a fraction of a second to react, leaned her upper body backwards. The spheres sailed past her mere hairs away from her face. Using her backwards momentum, Black spun around before stopping with her cannon re-aimed at Whitestar, who was also now back on his feet with his cannon pointed at Black.
"So what now? I've got a sniper with a perfect shot, a shield that will block your attacks, and another two members of my team that could be anywhere." Whitestar did a good job of laying out the odds for Black, not that it mattered in her mind. Black didn't reply, she simply started thinking about how she was going to get out of the situation she had gotten herself into. These Guardians, despite being unprofessional in nature, were experienced killers. One wrong step and she would be joining her sister, and leaving her friends to be slaves.
White signed. "Look, we don't want to kill you either. In fact you being here could really help us out." Black felt a twitch of curiosity but it was drowned quickly like all her other emotions. "We want to free the Keepers from whoever is forcing them to fight each other. It doesn't matter if it's the Thilans or the Blue Rift Council, what's going on in that arena isn't right. I don't know what your relationship is with the other Keepers, but I'm asking if you would help us free them." Black considered the idea for a moment. This group of Guardians was asking if she would help them free her only family left. The offer was extremely tempting, and Black almost said yes, but one thing still remained.
"I cannot ally myself with those who insult the Keepers!" Black shouted before firing at Whitestar and leaping forward simultaneously. Using the smoke as cover, she ran past Whitestar into the building across the street from the sniper. This way, her chance of being ambushed by Whitestar's remaining two companions was a lot higher, but she was no longer at risk of having her head blown off from long distance.
Black worked her way through the building, keeping her footsteps light and her katana out. In close quarters combat like this, her rock cannon would do little good. At the moment she was crouched behind the counter of some kind of convenience store. Many of the shelves were toppled over and various products of all kinds were spilled across the floor. There was no chance anyone was going to make it through the room without alerting Black to their location. Hearing footsteps, Black tightened her grip on her blade and readied herself to jump over the counter when the footsteps stopped. A feeling of dread crashed over Black and she immediately spun around on the balls of her feet and swung her katana at the figure behind her.
Her blade locked with a knife about a foot in length. Quickly pushing backwards, Black jumped up and away from the assassin who had nearly succeeded in taking her life. She needed to find a way to retreat further into the building, there was no way she was going to win a fight pinned between the White Rock Cannon and a skilled assassin. If she could shoot at Whitestar's shield again then maybe she could use the cover to jump over the counter and make a break for the-
As soon as she landed from her jump backwards her left leg finally gave out. Black had completely forgotten the injury, but it came crashing back to her in a massive wave of pain. In the attempt to best Whitestar, she had pushed herself too far, and her leg could no longer support her weight. She crashed to the floor, her head slamming against something hard, probably the floor. The last thing she saw was the assassin lunging for her and the thought goodbye.
Ugh feels like my brain ran a marathon… Leave a comment below guys! Keeps me motivated :D
And no, I'm not sorry cliffhanger!