Team Justice booked it across the body-strewn loading dock. Just ahead, the complex's door, a 30x40 wall of metal, was lowering, and between the ground the door, several canisters were thrown their way. Sylver saw the canisters fly through the air, almost in slow motion, and without hesitation, she sped ahead. Almost like a dance, as she grabbed each container, she spun around and chucked it right back through the door's diminishing opening. The scurry of feet and shouts of "shit!" lit up her audio sensors like a Christmas tree. The door's materials were blurring parts of her visual and heat scanners, but there were too many of them to hide from her.
"Fifteen men. Thick body-armor. Three squads--two on ground level, 10 yards in; one above on a balcony. Assault rifles!" She shouted, rambling off the information as it passed through her sensors. The door was almost closed.
Sylver slid, like a baseball player going for home, right between the ground and the door and braced the door open. Alerts scrawled through her digital brain: increased weight to upper region, engaging joint-locking and pressure-lift. Her knees locked in place, and the more pressure the door put on her body, the more power was pumped into her shoulder and arm systems. She pushed the door up another foot as her teammates crawled through.
Sping!"Dammit!" Sylver spat. Right as she dropped the door, two bullets hit her: one into her left shoulder, the other her lower neck. Immediately, the pain sensors in those regions shut off. Sylver rolled behind a shipping crate with LG and Zaniel. The injuries would hardly kill her; the bullets were stuck between her synthetic flesh and layers of cybernetic-infused muscle and plating. But leaving them might cause issues later, especially in the shoulder.
The soldiers were shifting positions. The ground squads were trying to go around them, cutting off the exit; the balcony squad had their sights trained on the crates.
And Sylver started laughing--chuckling--and she pulled the energy katana from her belt. She shrugged at her perplexed teammates. "It's not funny at all really. It's just been so damn long since I've wanted to fight this much. And here I am, breaking into a superhuman lab, when I spent most of my life trying to break out of one." She squatted, infrared scanners now trained on the squad to their left, behind an army-style Jeep. Still smiling, she muttered much more darkly, "I effing hate these kinds of assholes...the ones who take peoples' lives, their bodies, and use them like toys. I'm just glad to be the one to mess their shit up."
Without turning, she said, "LG, I need you to boost me, probably with your shield, right for that Jeep," The soldiers were just behind it now, weapons reloaded," NOW!" She vaulted backwards, hands connecting with the shield's center, her body folding up like a spring--
PHOOM! The force launching her forward echoed, like wind cracking or the sound barrier breaking. Like a bullet, she shot forward, feet first, into the Jeep.
THWACK-BAM! Sylver somersaulted backwards, but the impact launched the Jeep forward, like it had been punched with a garbage-truck-sized fist. The impact crushed two of the guards; two were struggling to get up to her right, the other--to her left--was cursing loudly, grappling for his gun. Sylver smirked, holding her arm out, "SHIELD!" Whatever he'd been doing, LG's shield shot across the room and she grabbed it with her left hand. With her right, she brought her blade down on the Jeep's gas tank.
A blur, of speed and fire--Sylver jumped, hid behind the shield, and was launched backwards by the explosion. She landed, digging up some of the cement with her heels, and--already sensing it--spun, sliced up with her sword and smashed down with the shield, taking out a merc.
"Catch!" She threw the shield towards LG, who then blocked a spray of gun gunfire from his front. Sylver ran, homerun-slid past LG and right up to his current attacker, and brought her sword up and through his extended arms. Everything past the elbows fell to the ground--the man roared from behind his riot-gear helmet. Without skipping a beat, Sylver grabbed the front of his helmet with one hand--cracking the visor with her vice-grip--and sunk her mechanical fangs into his throat. The bloodflow immediately hit her system--extracting energy from the liquid--and fused her damaged flesh and joint from the bullets.
Sylver dropped the soldier--who had already passed out from pain--and, in a heartbeat, switched out her sword for her sniper rifle.
"Go ahead! I've got you covered!" She shouted to her teammates, who were both making quick work of their opponents. This is too easy. If Kapeniak knows what we're capable of, he should be more prepared. What's his play...? "Be careful though. I sense an ambush."
Two Days Ago...
"Blair, you don't have to stay. I'm sure this looks disgusting."
"Not nearly as disgusting as the dresses they're wearing to the Oscar's this year. Gag me."
Sylver pursed her lips and playfully stared Blair down, but her bubblegum-haired friend was already engrossed in another phone app, cheerfully ignoring Sylver's attempts to have her leave. Sylver, on the other hand, had more tubes and wires tapped into her body than a super computer. She sat on a workbench in the WAL mechanics lab, both her legs missing sections of flesh to reveal cybernetic cores and her left arm opened up where Sylver was feeding wiring into her system. Tubes, with a slow drip of blood, connected her her heart, spine, and left wrist.
"It's not that I don't want you here. I just prefer to be--"
"--by yourself. I know. But you've been by yourself the whole time we've been here. I want to hang out with you. And so does your team!"
Sylver raised an eyebrow and continued to feed the wire into her arm. As expected, slowly, it began to fuse into her system, like hot metals mixing. She'd learned from her last fight; she needed to improve her core's strength and ward off electrical attacks. The wires should feed any electricity out, as opposed to driving it further in. As Nyte had designed her, Sylver's cybernetics were the perfect fusion of machine and biology. They grew and changed with her body. And since every growth and change and healing needed energy, Sylver could "power up" her body with the raw energy of life, which in its purest form was blood. Her arm sealed back up, and she began working on her legs. CPG and her fight against the Nyte operative had taught her what it would be like to fight against superhumans for the rest of her life. They were stronger now...smarter, more adaptable. And she had to adapt to keep up.
She shook her head. She was still thinking like an assassin: how to outwit, how to overpower, how to find that weakness. And maybe that's why Sylver had such a hard time bonding with her team. People weren't people to her...not yet. People had always been assignments, jobs. They were predictable, until now. She had never been surrounded with so many different people, yet each of them could probably understand her better than most. And, deep inside, that frightened her, to be so exposed.
Sylver set down her pliers. "I do want to get to know them. I want to care. If I'm going to be risking my life for them...for other people... if I'm going to be watching their backs, I want to..." She paused, "But I'm not sure how...to make myself. It doesn't come naturally for me."
Blair hopped down from the bench and took Sylver's hands in hers. "Nokias are indestructible."
Sylver frowned, "What?"
"Nokias are indestructible, on the outside. But that only matters if what's on the inside works. You can have an indestructible Nokia shell and not have a working battery. You need both, but it takes time to charge a worthwhile battery." She smiled, let go of Sylver's hands, and then casually walked out of the double glass doors.
Sylver cracked a goofy smirk, "Damn...that actually made sense."
Two Days Later...
While LG and Zaniel blazed ahead, Sylver remained atop the wall, sniper rifle trained on the oncoming blurs of motion that would've escaped the average eye. She kept her suit dark, like her training had taught her: black, body-forming armor, black knee-high boots, black hooded coat that fitted around her arms and chest and flared around her legs. Even her rifle was a solid ebony. In one chamber, she had loaded a bullet of her own concoction--mini tasers that latched to the skin upon impact. In the other, she had armor-piercing rounds.
She itched to use the second chamber but hesitated when she remembered that at one point in her life, she had been these people: a high-class pawn, canon-fodder. They deserved a chance to recover.
In rapid succession, she nailed three infected, all in the chest. They hit the ground, thrashing but paralyzed. Her scanners began ringing in her head and Sylver looked up through the scope. Two squads of at least ten infected each were flanking them. She threw the rifle onto her back holder and launched herself off the wall. Landing in between LG and Zaniel, she whipped out her energy katana and yelled, "They're flanking! Someone stay on point; the other, go right." She bolted for the left. An infected was barreling straight for her, and Sylver's strategy module kicked in.
5'5''. Approximately 140lbs. Female. Slight limb, right leg. Sylver dropped, sliding a kick right into the girl's right leg. As she fell, Sylver turned her back and smashed her elbow into the infected's belly. Two ribs broken. Bruised lungs. She fell, passed out. Before the body fell, Sylver had picked up the next infected: 300 lbs. Fast, muscular. 6'6''. Heavy boots. Left-handed weapon. She barreled to her left, back still facing the hoarde, just missing the blow of a thick, meat-cleaver shaped hammer. The infected swung the weapon madly, barely keeping his grip. Sylver timed her jump and landed on his hammer head when it hit the ground. In the blink of an eye, her sword sliced up his arm, severing tendons, and she landed a roundhouse kick to his temple, dropping the giant. The rest were directly behind him, seemingly running in a pattern-less pack, but Sylver saw a path directly between their ranks. She veered to the right, sword outstretched, and booked it. She sliced through a row of legs, and five bodies toppled behind her.
No! She'd sensed it, but too late. A large, female infected grabbed her from behind, massive hands pinning her neck and sword arm to the ground. Foam and drool hit the back of her neck, and Sylver flailed her other arm behind her, grabbing whatever flesh was there, vice-gripping, and ripping forward. A splatter of blood coated her hair, but Sylver threw the woman off of her, hesitating only for a second before clocking her upside the head. Sylver pulled back, stunned. She'd ripped out the woman's eyes and part of her nose. She used to be impressed at her ability to decimate people, to leave bodies broken; now, she wondered--if they saved these people--would this woman even thank her?
The howls of the infected from the right flank snapped her back. Well...we'd better save them first to find out. Sylver held her sword upright and lunged at the next group.
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