Well, this fic seems to be going on a bit better than I expected.
Anyway, to help the less "gun-literate" readers, I'm going to put a glossary in this little author's rant. Before that though, thanks for the reviews you guys posted (yes, that includes the flames). Kinda kept me going for this fic.
And by the way, credit for this chapter goes to whoever made the movie, "Equilibrium". It's a good movie with decent action and some deep – not philosophical, from what I heard – thinking. Not to mention that the last fight scene was incredible! I mean, face to face (emphasis on face to face) with guns blazing but only one bullet gets to hit one of them in the end!
So anyway, here's the glossary Byakko asked for.
Fn100 SMG – you can see this gun in Half-Life:Counter-Strike (known as a 3:3 to most players). It also has some similarity to the gun Makoto used against the tank in Ghost in the Shell: the movie (forgot which one, but it's the movie where they went against some guy called the "puppet master")
Railgun – a fictional (I think) weapon that uses magnets to increase a bullet's velocity (theoretically). I don't know if I got the concept right, but I've heard it enough times to gather the guts to use the idea.
12-gauge shotgun – the shotguns I heard of uses three kinds of shells – 12-gauge, 8-gauge, and slugs. 12-gauge are the weakest but has more spread than the other gauges. Slugs on the other hand . . . just think of them as HUGE bullets.
Napalm – some kind of jelly like substance that burns for a very long time. It sticks to skin and is pretty hard to snuff out.
"Dropstick" – I heard this term from some movie back then. It the kind of detonator that when dropped, detonates the bomb (examples in "Speed" and "Terminator 2")
From this point on, I will give a glossary at the beginning of every chapter with a new weapon. OK, so I'm a war freak . . . sue me.
RAGNAROK ONLINE FANFIC
SOLDIER'S TASKBy: RAGNAR (that really is my name)
Chapter 05: Brothers by the ShadowEvin Gonzales' death was all over the news the day after John's attack on the building. So were the brutal images of burned and bullet-riddled corpses littering the building floor.
But those pictures and Gonzales were already stale concepts to the general public's mind. So, most of the focus was basically the mysterious wreckage of a spider mech at the very center of the ground floor. Only only a few bullets seemingly took down the assault robot when the machine was purposely built for heavy fighting on the battlefield. The makers of the GX Model Arach Series heatedly denied their involvement with any of Gonzales' operations and claimed that the one found in the alleged "terrorist's treasurer" was a "mere copy" and that their machines can never be disabled by only thirty bullets.
They did not mention, however, that the bullets were tipped with synthetic diamonds and that the slugs were most likely projected from two medium-caliber railguns . . . as claimed by the city's CSI team.
John turned the TV off with the remote and walked towards his apartment's mini-bar where he fixed himself a glass of vodka mixed with some lambanog. It wasn't exactly tasty, but he needed to forget a few things.
Marus appeared from the shadows sometime in John's eighth glass. "Drowning away the world again, I see." The man said while tossing him a disk.
Partly drunk as he was, John caught it in midair. He already knew what is in the disk– it was the monthly report from the Agency. "I'm psycho-empathic, remember? Everything everyone feels in half a mile goes through my brain. If you were in my position, you would probably drink five gallons of alcohol a day, if I had to bet."
John didn't know if it was his drink but the shadows shook when Marus stepped back to hitch a ride on them. "Tell me, how do you do that? The shadow thing?" he asked.
Marus chuckled . . . an odd sound coming from a man of Marus' temperament. "You wouldn't believe me even if I told you. But for your ease of mind, just think of it as something that is long beyond its time. By the way, aren't you allergic to alcohol?"
Riddles again . . . maybe Marus just got a hold of some top-secret light-folding device probably inspired by the medieval times . . . yeah . . . right.
When the man left, John took off his gun holsters and hung them on the door. His guns went back to the hidden compartment behind the bookshelf – the bookshelf was cliché, but somehow, it actually worked to keep others from finding his weapon stash.
Making his way to the shower with only a groggy head for company, John accidentally bumped a bookshelf. When he did, a shoebox fell, spilling out some wrinkled pieces of paper.
It was the forms he had when he was a member of the government's now dissolved psi-corps. When other kids were having troubles with their third-year high school physics, John and his batchmates were out there on the field trying to dodge bullets, mind-control an enemy soldier, and all other stuff that might have been taken out of the comic books. Too bad, it was fun while it lasted.
Strangely, the government actually grew a set of ethics and disbanded the psi-corps, giving the kids back to the normal ring of society. Actually, after some discreet inquiries, John found out that the psi-corps wasn't exactly "cost-effective" and had to be dissolved "efficiently".
The ex-members of the corps were then met with "accidents" in their daily lives. It was usually seen as suicide, mugging, strangulation by an electric cord, and some other stuff that goes by in the back pages of the newspaper. John believed that he was the only one left that came from that group of kids . . . maybe there may be some left out there, but he never trusted hope.
Deciding that he should fix the mess on the floor later – or burn it . . . whichever way. He still couldn't figure out why he kept those pieces of paper anyway. Maybe it was just batch loyalty . . . maybe.
Staggering a bit, John opened the bathroom door, fell down in front of the toilet seat, and puked.
Marus stood on the edge of the flat roof of Neyus' highest structure, a business building that pierced the clouds. Beneath him, the city can be seen through the canopy of clouds. The midnight sky up here was so dark since there was no moon and only the stars for light. When Marus first went into this spot, he first thought that there would be windows and light from the building, but that was when he found out that it was only solid concrete. The building actually uses artificial environments within its walls. This suited Marus very well because he comes here every so often just to think.
As he sat on the ledge like some gargoyle, his coat flapping behind him from the powerful winds, Marus wondered why he joined John Marshal's Agency. Part of it was because it was had a very efficient system of information gatherers and he needed that to find what Nathan's plans required.
The rest . . . he didn't know. Maybe he was just foolish enough to hope that maybe there was at least some small shard of honesty in the world.
"So this is where you've been hiding." A voice rang all around him, but Marus knew it was from behind. It was strange how people who used the shadows always come from behind. Stranger still, Marus was able to think that at a time like this.
The shadows spiraled and welcomed in Nathan. Red eyes glowing from the little light that was present, Nathan stood next to Marus on the ledge.
"It's easier to think here, Nathan. No people." Marus replied. The man was supposed to be the enemy, but they were both immortal, so fighting would be absolutely useless.
Nathan took out his rifle from his back and aimed it a random location on the ground. "What do you think would the people down there would do when I pull this trigger?"
Before the man could even act, however, Marus already had his own gun aimed for Nathan's head. The only part of his body that moved was his arm. Marus never took his eyes off the city.
"Always the show-off, eh Raidi?" Nathan responded.
"That's not my name anymore, Nathan." The cold up here turned both their breath into frost. Really though, there was practically no air in this height, only their immortality gave them the advantage of not suffocating to death minutes ago.
Nathan replied with heat, "Why do you insist on using the name Sei'Gash gave you! He's dead, Raidi! Dead!"
Marus' lips twitched on one side. "I'm still his son, no matter how evil he was."
"So it's guilt then?" Nathan said coldly.
"No . . . conscience."
Nathan growled and disappeared from his side. Marus simply tilted his head to the side to avoid the bullet from behind. He pivoted on his heel and shot at Nathan. Nathan ducked and used the motion to aim his rifle and fire. Marus in turn jumped to the side while firing another shot with his gun, his other hand reaching for his other piece.
The next two minutes proceeded with him and Nathan firing at each other only to hit thin air. Marus was circling his brother with guns blazing while the other man was dancing to the tune of gunfire while aiming and firing at quick intervals.
The two of them were sensitive beings to the tune of events. "Dancing to the music of fighting", that was what they called the way they fought. Guns, knives, and fists, Nathan and he were capable of extracting music from the clamor of chaos.
That was what Nathan was after . . . The Choirs of Chaos. In short, he wanted to bring back the war of the Ragnarök, or something close in scale. Marus thought Nathan was simply deluded and mad.
The dance ended when their weapons only gave out sharp clicking, telling them that they were both out of ammo.
Quickly, Marus dropped his normal guns and took out his two railguns while running towards Nathan. In the time Marus removed his weapons from their holsters, Nathan already reloaded his rifle and switched it into rail-mode.
Marus sidestepped and the first bullet zipped right past his face. He surged forward, firing one round from each handgun. Nathan simply ducked like the last time and fired another round. Marus sidestepped again to avoid the bullet.
When he was at arm's reach of Nathan, Marus thrust his right gun forward and fired, only to have Nathan hit his arm with the rifle's butt and swing with the barrel. Marus used his left gun to block the barrel and he then tilted his head to the right when he saw Nathan pull the rifle's trigger. Marus then bent his right elbow and fired his gun towards Nathan's head but the man used the rifle's butt to divert Marus' aim upwards.
They went on like that for a good five minutes, bullets zipped past their faces and body with only air to hit. Heat from where their slugs that went past turned the cold sky air hot.
They both ran out of ammo again. Nathan reloaded his rifle while swinging the rifle's barrel towards Marus arm. Marus reloaded both his guns with the clips tucked in his belt with the same motion he used to duck Nathan's swing.
And then they continued firing at each other.
After another good five minutes of shooting, Marus was able to end it by hooking Nathan's knee with his foot. The moment the man was about to kneel down from his unexpected move, Marus kicked again, sending Nathan flying a few feet away.
Nathan staggered to his feet clutching his chest and panting but still holding that railgun. "You're still the best of the Siblings, Raidi. It is a shame you do not share our views."
"Go away, Nathan."
The shadows spiraled towards his brother while the man just laughed. "You should know, Raidi, that the dirge for the dead never ceases."
What did that mean?
The shadows engulfed Nathan and disappeared. But the moment proper light came back; Marus saw a dropstick falling from where Nathan's chest had been.
Muttering a string of curses, Marus ran as fast as he could towards the edge of the roof. The moment his foot landed on the ledge, he bent his knees slowly as he angled down. As soon as he saw the city lights right below him, he kicked as hard as could. His move sent him at a headlong course parallel the building's wall and straight for the ground.
He was somewhere a hundred feet from the roof. In his mind, Marus pictured the dropstick falling. It was probably four feet from detonating whatever bomb was close by.
Two hundred feet from the roof . . . the dropstick was only two feet from hitting the rooftop. Marus was now besides the building's glass paned walls, shocked workers and residents stared out at him the instant he went by their offices thinking he was a suicide jumper.
Two-fifty . . . the flapping of his trench coat was the only sound he heard as he kept on with his dive.
One foot
Three hundred.
In his mind, Marus heard the detonator's plastic hitting concrete. The sound echoed in his mind. There was a moment of absolute silence.
He felt the rumble first. It was an ominous sound that started from the roof and traveled through the wall. The vibrations he felt where tremendous when they passed him by. Then, another set of vibrations went past him . . . from the ground up.
Shit! Nathan rigged the bomb from the top and bottom!
Glass shattered from above and below him filling the air with the sound of a thousand chimes. Marus had to cross his arms in front of his face to keep the flying glass shards away from his only good eye.
Seconds after the glass, the building rumbled again. This time however, flames shot out from every floor. The explosions followed each other in rapid succession and coming closer towards Marus.
Before the explosions reached Marus, however, the shadows caused by the harsh light from the flames were thick enough for him to use to transport himself out of this raging inferno.
The shadows engulfed him, sheltering him with their cold embrace, shutting off the heat of the now falling building.
Janet and Denise, along with Alfred and his two bodyguards walked down the halls of a museum that was once Prontera's Sanctuary. Their trip to the Underground's headquarters left Denise in a confused daze and one look at the Assassin behind her told her that Janet felt the same. The two of them were sure they went down that long winding stairwell that to Alfred's headquarters, but the next thing they knew, the five of them were exiting from the front of the building with Janet and Denise with absolutely no memory of what they had done in there.
Alfred, however, seemed to be in a brooding mood they stepped out. Not much like the joking and confident man they met in that alley. He told them that he would help them and keep them out of trouble, but that was all he said to them. Most of the time, he just told them where to go and what to look for.
Their search wound them up here, in the now empty halls of the museum at closing time. How Alfred was able to get the guards outside to look the other way without even talking to them was beyond Denise. Maybe he bribed them. At the thought, Denise shuddered. She never did like political corruption. Her father was the King, after all.
The ring of metal behind them told Denise that Janet was testing her new knives again. Alfred explained to them that the two four-inch-long two-and-a-half-inch-wide daggers were mainly used by soldiers in the field when they run out of . . . "ammo"? The terminology in this time was confusing to her, Denise thought ruefully.
But nevertheless, Janet obviously liked the two knives she was weighing on the palms of her hands. A test with an apple told them exactly how sharp they were. "Good balance." Janet said approvingly while tossing the knives on her palms.
Alfred's footsteps suddenly stopped. Startled both Denise and the Assassin looked at the man. But when they looked at Alfred's direction, it was what the man was looking at that caught their attention.
Bull's horns glinted in the little light that went through the Sanctuary's stained glass windows, the ground shook as the monster descended from the stairs leading to the altar, and an enormous hammer peeked from behind the thing's back.
"What the fuck is that!" Alfred shouted while drawing his guns.
"It's a minorus!" Janet replied and charged forward with knives in hand.
The hammer went down on the floor with a tremendous boom but it missed the Assassin when she quickly jumped to the side. When the monster raised the hammer once more, Janet jumped up and slashed with both daggers. Acrid red blood spewed out from the stump of what was the monster's arm. The hammer and severed limb fell to the floor, breaking displayed seats and ancient floor tiles.
Janet then used the minorus' chest as a stepping stone so she could jump above the monster's head. The Assassin landed on the monster's shoulder, and before the minorus could react, Janet jammed both blades through its eyes and the base of its spine.
With a roar that shook the Sanctuary, the minorus fell to the floor writhing in pain. When the monster finally died a few seconds later, Janet pulled out the blades and replaced them in their sheaths.
"I've got to admit, you girlfriend's got the moves." Alfred grinned at Denise.
Girlfriend? Denise blushed all the way to her scalp at what Alfred insinuated. "I am not her – Janet, look out!" Denise screamed when another minorus appeared from the shadows charging towards the Assassin with its hammer raised.
Too late, the hammer was already halfway on its way to crush Janet.
Suddenly, the hammer just stopped as if hit by an impregnable force. The air rippled from the force of the blow when the hammer hit an unseen wall. That was when Alfred screamed in pain clutching his head.
"Boss!" one of the bodyguards started for the now kneeling Alfred. Janet started to run for the man, concern written all over her face.
"I'll be fine!" Alfred snapped. After a very short moment Alfred shouted at his two men, "Well? What the hell are you two morons waiting for! SHOOT!"
The Sanctuary's empty halls became filled with the rhythmic sound of automatic gunfire when the two bodyguards took out their "Uzis" and unloaded all their bullets into the minorus.
Blood splattered all over the floor and sprayed the air red as every round hit the monster. When the bodyguards' weapons were empty, the minorus stared blankly into the air and fell backwards on top of the first monster.
They all sighed in relief – until the ground shook. The tremor was so strong that some of the chandeliers on the ceiling actually swayed and rattled.
"That was from outside!" Alfred started in surprise. The man's nose was bleeding rather profusely but he didn't seem to notice – or maybe care.
All five of them ran back to the exit. What they saw outside was terrible. Prontera's – Neyus's – tallest building, an incredible structure that literally pierced the clouds, was burning from every floor. Sirens from the city fire fighters wailed in the distance and they never seemed to stop. The night sky was as day from the blaze.
"We have to save those people!" Denise reached into her belt pack for a blue gem. If she could get close enough to the building, she might be able make a portal inside it without having to memorize the location.
But before she could even pull out a stone, Janet grabbed her hand. "No, Denise, those people are dead."
"How could you say that? They need our help!" Denise struggled to free her hand but the Assassin was physically stronger than she was.
Janet's eyes blazed with anger as she spoke. "You hired me to keep you from being fucked! That means I get to order you around when times like these show up!"
At any normal time, Janet's language would have been shocking, but Denise just glared at the Assassin while still trying to pull out a gem. "How could you be so cold!"
Before she knew it, Denise felt sharp steel right under her chin. "Get your hands off that pouch, Princess! If I have to cut your throat to prove my point, I will! There is no point killing yourself for a defeated cause. Those people are dead!" The nighttime fire burned in Janet's blue eyes.
Forcing her hand out of the pouch, she gave the burning tower one last look before falling on Janet, crying. "How could anyone do this? What kind of a man is capable of this!"
The Assassin just stroked her hair giving her comforting words. "Hush, Denise. There is not much we can do now but pray for the living. Hush."
But Denise just cried even harder when she heard the thunderous roar of the building crumbling down on itself.
Alfred placed his hand on Denise's shoulder with a sympathetic look on his face. Despite the garishness of his clothes and jewelry and the blood on his nose, the emotion actually seemed genuine. "You know, I once had a friend who lost his wife in an attack like that," he waved his other hand towards the building, "he told me that there is a saying once. 'Death to the guilty. Justice for the dead.' It's a cruel and hard belief, but it helped him get through life."
Death to the guilty and justice for the dead . . . that phrase sounded familiar.
With realization and shock, Denise broke off from Janet's embrace. She looked at Alfred while wiping away tears. "Where did you hear that?" she asked.
Puzzled, Alfred stared at her. "From a friend of mine from when I was with the Secret Service . . . why?"
"His name! What was his name?" Death to the guilty was Marus' favorite phrase and philosophy. It was what he believed with all his heart as an agent for the Fates. And if this "friend" isn't Marus, then this person must at least know him if he had found out about that philosophy.
Alfred frowned, trying to remember. "Ummm . . . John . . . John Marshal. But I think he might be dead. Every kid that came out from psi-corps was hit with government cleaners for practically every day of their lives. I might be the only one left!"
Denise grabbed the man by the collar. "There must be a chance he lives! He's the only person I now know might have contact with the person we're looking for!"
"Why are you so desperate to find this man!"
It was Janet who answered. "We are looking for a man that can't die. A man that we need to bring back home so we can fix a problem only he can face. If we do not complete this mission soon, those bull monsters back in the Sanctua –" Janet cut herself off and continued with little pause, "museum will be the least of your worries."
Alfred grimaced at the perceived truth of it. "All right, I'll go to my sources, maybe they can find a few things here and there." After a moment's pause, Alfred looked at them and said, "You know . . . come to think of it, things are getting a little weird in the city . . . the terrorists, the vigilantes, and now the monsters. I hope you're not getting me into any weird shit." He wiped at his nose and seemed surprised at the blood he found on his hands.
Denise just saw Janet smile in response. Despite herself, she also did.