(A.N.) Well, The winner of the poll was the LuNa Story Our History, for those of you who didn't know, so that will be released apon this fic's completion. I haven't gotten a whole lot of writing done here on vacation, so the next update is being delayed until the 30th, sorry. Hope you enjoy this chapter, which is the first mission our trio will embark on.
Awaken: Book of Bonds
Chapter 14: Bonds of Fear
I hated these jobs, assassinations weren't my style, I was much better at interrogations. Whatever, the job had to be done. So many dirty politicians, just being puppeteered by the Dictation. He didn't have a family, or friends, or an opinion, he hardly had a soul. He sold it all for money. He left his office, and I made my move. He took the elevator; I jumped out a window into the pitch black night and latched on to a ridge a few meters from the ground. The strain in my arm went nearly unnoticed, and I dropped the rest of the way, and took a shadowed position behind his vehicle. He exited the building, and walked into the parking garage, the click of his heels could be heard echoing off the walls, he was so unsuspecting, from the regal he carried himself, he thought he was on top of the world. Well, I'm about to knock him off. He turned the corner, and came into my view, he was bulky, dressed in a beige suit, and thought he was going to live to see daylight. He was wrong. I lashed my whip just had he reached out for the door, my whip wrapped around his neck, forming an effective noose, and constricted his windpipe. He tried to scream, but he couldn't. "Just relax, and it will end quickly!" I spat, growing irritated at his struggle. His face turned purple, his struggle faded, his breath calmed, and finally stopped. His bowels released themselves at the loss of bodily control. I swiftly made my way into the building, where the secretary was waiting with my payment. I handed her my card. 'Awaken Merc- Mike'
Wow, that was a long time ago, my first mission… Now, I'm taking these three to theirs. If it weren't for Robert being totally wigged out by that LA Renegades bullshit, I would have been completely confident in their ability to succeed. I can't believe I'm taking time off from training those back at the complex for something so simple. All they had to do was retrieve a stolen artifact from a museum. Probably going to be just some thug who wanted to pawn the thing. "You guys know what to do?" I ask them to be sure.
"First, we track the artifact." Robert started.
"Then, we retrieve it, by any means necessary." Devante continued.
"Then, we return it to its rightful owner, and collect our pay, split it in 4, and give 1/4th to Michael, and keep the rest." Tyson finished.
"Good, I'll be watching your moves via satellite from a secure location; you'll all have radio transmitters in your helmets linked to me, and to each other. I'll guide you guy's if you need me." I reply, as we neared the drop off zone. "You guy's ready for your first jump?"
"Affirmative!" They all yelled. They had been set up with parachutes, created of a clear material allowing them to fall safely, but undetected. The drop zone was a large field approximately 5 miles away from the city, they would trek three of the miles, and meet up with a transport that would take them to the museum, where they could gather the info needed, and go from there.
"Alright boys, good luck!" I shout to them, they jumped and were swept away.
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I couldn't hear the shit that the other two were screaming about. I could hardly hear my own screams as I fell down. We were over 9000 meters above the ground, and we had a long fall. The sky had turned orange in the beautiful sunset, and loved looking at it every time my body turned towards it in my spinning.
About 1000 meters left… Robert had already pulled his strings, and his parachute expanded, and caused his speed to rapidly decrease. Devante and I looked to each other. The unspoken was heard loud and clear. Bet you hit your chute before I do…
900…
800…
600…
500…
I was growing nervous… how far was he willing to go?
400…
300…
200…
100…
FUCK! I hit the chute at about 25 meters to go, and Devante bust out fire, altering his course, and he landed in a nearby lake, hitting the water hard. Goddamn bastard… That was genius! He got me; I hadn't even considered using the lake as a safe point. He also used fire to reduce his speed, so he didn't get a full hit from the water, but he was more than likely to be injured.
I touched down, and immediately sprinted for Devante. "Devante? Are you alright?" I called out. Before long, his head surfaced on the water, gasping for air.
"I win!" He roared.
"Too bad you didn't place an amount!" I called out to him. He swam over to the edge, and climbed out, muttering curses at his flaw. "And I'm not one to fall for the same trick twice!" I remind him with a pat on the back, as we begun heading in the direction where Robert would be landing. The wind carried our Irish friend over and landed more westwards than we had.
"How was your fall buddy?" Devante asked a slight strain in his voice. That chemical we had taken was absolutely amazing, Devante fell that far, and it seemed he'd only suffer from stiffness and significant bruising.
"You're on to talk, dare devil!" Robert chuckled as he unstrapped. "Alright, we've got three miles to trek southwest from here." He reminds us, and we began a decent paced walk through the calm field.
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We continued on, I had a slight limp from landing on my left side. It wasn't my greatest idea, but I didn't really regret it… What's life without a few risks? Besides, I wanted to start pushing my new limits far beyond the gym. The slight breeze of early summer was enjoyable. "When's the last time we just had a walk?" I think out loud. This had just been a regular activity for us in our childhoods
"At least two years…" Robert mutters. It really was too bad that we couldn't enjoy this sunset… We were on a mission after all.
"When we get some free time," Tyson began. "Let's get out, and just act like none of this ever happened for a day and just camp out like we used to." Tyson smiled after a long 20 minutes of silence.
"Right." The both of us nod. We neared our destination, and placed our helms on our heads, which had been sitting in our thankfully waterproof packs.
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We showed up to our transport right on time, we boarded, and relaxed. We remained silent, each looking out to the growing nightlife of the city. None of us had much experience in city life, so all of the lights and the absolute mass of people were unlike anything we've ever seen.
"Wow." It was all I could muster self to say. Tyson and Devante nodded in equal awe. We were soon dropped off at the museum; we entered through a back door, as we had been instructed earlier. We met with the curator, and he showed us everything there was about this artifact. Some sort of staff, made out of some ancient ore, an incredible conductor of heat and electricity. Valued at $320,000, the bronze like staff was one of the lesser priced exhibits in this museum.
"We're not dealing with a thug." Tyson said.
"What else could it be? People steal and pawn things of value all the time!" The short curator exclaimed.
"Looking around your museum sir, there are things of much greater value that would be much harder to trace. Either someone was looking for this staff, or they wanted the ore it was made out of." Tyson and his wonderful logical. The man's eyes widened in realization.
"Go quick! Before they melt it down or something!" He exclaimed.
"Give us a minute sir." I try to calm him down. Touching a switch on the side of my helmet, I change the visual to ultra violet, which would allow us to see fingerprints. Looking around, there was only a few on the glass case which had protected the artifact. Then, with my newly upgraded Com-Link, I scan the fingerprints, and in a matter of minutes, we had a match.
"The guy who stole it was definitely no thug." I announced as I read. "Dr. Zimmer Darién, arrested for cruelty to animals in some of his experiments, and escaped from prison about 7 weeks ago."
"Great, let's find him." Devante muttered. We left and began to brainstorm where he could have gone. We sat in a dark alleyway, where no one could see us do to our black suits, except the silver A on the chest and back, which would shine when it sees light. Most would find it as a flaw in the design, but it carried the message of what we were about, a second chance, a light shining in the darkness.
Looking up to the sky, I notice something. "There are no stars." I remark.
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Realization hit me. "Of course!" I shouted. The others looked to me. It's a thunder storm tonight; he's going to use the staff as a lightning rod to power something!" If I could have seen Tyson's face in that moment, it would have been priceless.
"Since when are you the smart one?" He asked.
"I don't know, I hit that lake pretty hard." I mused. We agreed to make way to the rooftops, split up, and contact each other if we found it.
"Well, there are no skyscrapers in the east of the city. So I'll take west district, Devante, you take downtown, Robert, take uptown." Tyson ordered. We scaled the buildings easily thanks to the semi sticky nature of the gloves and boots.
I love this suit! I think remembering all the features Michael told us about.
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6 hours ago- We followed Michael into the training area, decked out in our own armor suits. He wore his, but instead of the silver parts that we had, his were gold, signifying his position as the leader.
"Your suits have several qualities, the first thing you'll notice, is it's light weight, that's crucial for your jobs, since they'll mostly involve sneaking in shadows at night. The main armor, which covers your chest, arms, and legs, has a fireproof and non conductive cover, to prevent element damage, Ice can still get to you though, so be careful. Underneath that, there is a bullet proof layer, beneath that, is a steel plate to prevent damage from blunts and blades, and beneath that is some breathable material. Now, to maintain lightweight, all of these layers aren't incredibly durable, they are meant to protect you from surprise attacks, not a full out fight." He informed us. He then stood before one of our dummies that we practiced on. "You have a few basic hidden weapons, in your right wrist…" He punched the dummy, and a huge gash formed in its neck. "Is a hidden blade." He held up his right arm to show us the knife extending from underneath his wrist, and showed the small button on the glove you needed to press with your thumb to activate it. "Left wrist is a gun." From the top of his elf wrist, a small gun appeared. "It's very inaccurate, and only has three rounds, use at short ranges only." He continued to inform us. He showed us the button on the palm of the glove, on to activate and hide the gun, and another to fire. "The heels of your boots have blades on them, and there's another small blade in the tip of the boot as well." He performed a round house kick that left another gash, and a toe kick to the stomach that left a hole in the dummy.
"Oh hell yes!" I exclaimed. "Now I've got weapons built in!" This was going to be fun. He continued to tell us about communications in our helmets, and the different views we had built in. An infrared, ultra violet, night vision, and somewhat of an x-ray, which could see through walls, but not clothes. "Michael, you're no fun, man." I mutter at the mention of our x-ray's incapability.
"And you, my boy, are a pervert." He retorted. He showed us the grip on the gloves and boots that would allow us to scale buildings. How to use our helmets to translate any language spoken into English. Then we went to go have our Com-Links massively Upgraded to serve a multitude of purposes.
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Where the hell is this lightning rod? Jumping and scaling all of these sky scrapers was growing tiring. Downtown was an exciting place, but all of these buildings were beginning to irk me. It seemed like this guy wasn't even in the city. Looking to the horizon, lightning was beginning to form, and the storm was quickly heading towards us… "We've got less than an hour…" I mutter under my breath.
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Running across the roof tops, searching frantically, I search for the bronze like artifact. Where the hell is it? The city was huge, and even only looking through a 4th of it was proving to be exasperating. "Uptown seems to be a bust!" I shout into my transmitter. Where could it be?
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Searching across West District wasn't holding much reward; I stood atop the tallest building and used a zoom like feature on the view of my helmet, but I wasn't finding any bronze-ish poles on any of the rooftops. "Damn," I muttered. Suddenly my transmitter cracked on.
"Uptown seems to be a bust!" Robert's voice called from his location.
"Downtown too!" Devante relayed.
"I haven't had any luck either." I sighed.
"We're gonna have a lightning storm on our hands in about 20 minutes! We need to find this thing fast!" Devante's voice cracked in again. Shit. Looking around, there was only one higher building in the city, which was…
"We'll only one place it could be then." I inform them.
"East?" Robert asked.
"No, the capital building in the city center!" I shouted out to them as I began to sprint across the rooftops.
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Capital building? Fuck! Why hadn't I thought of that? I think to myself as I head south to meet up with Tyson and Devante. The capital building was the largest building in the city! How could we have missed it!
Finally reaching the large tower, I began to scale the building. My lungs began to burn from all of the activity, but I ignore it and continue my ascent. Reaching the top, I see that Tyson and Devante had arrived before me, but they paid no mind to my arrival, they were both staring at something else.
Once I had gathered my breath, I look to see what it is that had their attention. My jaw nearly hits the concrete below me as I gaped at the site.
"It's a bomb!"
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The staff was rigged to an array of wires, which had led to several packs of explosives that led to a large ovular structure… I had seen a picture similar to that somewhere. "Is that… An atomic bomb?" Robert nearly squeaked, my eyes widen.
"As soon as that lightning hits, everything in the city, probably more will be destroyed!" Devante called out.
"Robert, you're best with bombs, try to defuse it!" I barked. "As soon as it's inactive we'll dispose of the bomb, and return the artifact."
"Tyson, this isn't your average bomb, if I screw up, it's not just my life I'm risking, it'd be the entire city's!" He complained.
"Robert, we don't have a choice, the lightning storm's almost here, we have approximately 5 minutes!" Devante tried to convince him. "We have to disable the bomb."
"I'm afraid I can't let you do that." A mysterious voice arose.
"Dr. Zimmerman Darién, why are you doing this?" I growl. He was short, 5'3, graying blond hair, his eyes covered by some strange goggles. And he wore a pitch black lab coat.
"Simply revenge." He smirked. "I break out of jail, to which I was sentenced for nothing more than a few tests, only to find my lab completely ransacked and barren. Now, everyone dies." He smirked.
"Break the law asshole, and this is what happens." Devante scowled.
"Law? What law?" Zimmerman cackled. "I'm working for the true government, The Dictation, developing them a super soldier serum. It's was rat bastards like you that had me done in. In the end, it's all your fault."
"You're making no sense, at all." I growled as I aimed my revolver at him. Suddenly, the revolver flew from my hand, and landed in his.
"I don't think so." He smirked foully. I see Robert turn from the bomb, with his pistol in hand. My eyes narrowed as I connected the dots.
"Robert don't! He's got magnetic gloves!" I ordered. "Go back to working on the bomb." Lightning struck right next to the building, and in an instant, the entire city's power went out. 'Devante, redirect all the lightning away!"
"On it!" He confirmed. I faced off against the crazed man, whom was now nearly invisible in the lightless city, but then again, so were we. The only time we could see each other, was when Devante would redirect the lightning. I unsheathe my huge blade.
"How powerful is that magnet of yours?" I question. His goggles lit up, some sort of night vision. Wow I'm a dumbass. I think as I click on my own. I whisper into my transmitter, "Night vision."
The reply made me feel even more idiotic. "Had it on since we started searching." They had both replied. Stupid, stupid, stupid!
"Let's test it out, shall we?" The dr. smirked. He would have seen my own if it wasn't for my reflective screen on my helmet.
We charged each other, he shot, and I cut the bullet with my blade. Even I was amazed at how fast I could move with the massive sword. Finally, some action.
Awaken
(A.N.) Well, next chapter will be the conclusion of the mission, which means a fight scene. Hope you'll all enjoy. Please review and let me know what you think of the chapter, and the story as a whole. I enjoy every bit of input I get! See you all again on the 30th!