//Ahn: Vengeful Phoenix

Ahn sat, glancing at Sae frequently, as if to make sure she was still there. She was. She would give him a faint nod every time he looked at her, seeming to say, 'I'm not leaving.'

Each time Ahn looked over, he felt more and more at ease. The pain was slowly subsiding. There was still the matter of the stab wound to his stomach, but it was nothing significant. It would be easily fixed with the parts they had found back in the bunker they hid in earlier.

At the same time, he was very aware of the scattered remaining parts of Ava lying on the floor. They taunted him, calling out like Ava's frenzied ghost was trying to leave its own final impression on him.

He felt selfish - the only thing he could think about as he sat among Ava's severed circuits and the house owner's organs strewn about the room was the fact that for the first time since five years ago, when 4-AE had sacrificed herself, he wasn't sad.

This feeling wasn't happiness. Ahn understood that, but it might as well have been to someone who had never felt anything but sorrow.

He flicked his eyes back in Sae's direction, seeing her reaching for something on the floor next to her. A piece of Ava.

Was she trying to salvage parts from Ava to repair him? No, he thought. Most of Ava's components wouldn't be compatible with him. What could she be doing?

Sae observed the small chunk of twisted metal in her hand carefully, then pulled something out of it. She turned to Ahn. 'Her memory chip,' she stated.

Ahn's eyes widened. The memory chip was what retained all of the memories, personality traits, and programming for androids. If the chip was undamaged, it could be installed into a new host body, allowing the android to operate again without having to teach it everything from scratch. If Ava's chip was intact, they would be able to install it in a different body and bring her back.

While, in theory, this idea sounded great, there were, of course, a few issues that needed to be dealt with. The first was that they didn't have a spare chassis just lying around. On top of this, they were expensive, and even if Ahn and Sae had the credits to buy one, androids weren't able to purchase them. This was to prevent them from building up forces and starting another uprising.

The second, possibly even more problematic, was that even if Ava's memory chip was intact, putting it in a new body wouldn't take her consciousness out of her previous state of frenzy. Ahn didn't even know if it was possible to reverse that effect. If they managed to get an intact body for her, but she still wasn't mentally stable, the effort would be wasted.

Ahn couldn't help but feel angry when he thought about it. She was innocent, more so than anybody he had met before, yet she was the one who had to suffer. What kind of person would it take to do something like that to someone who wasn't even a part of their personal vendetta? It was unfair. They were trash. Lower than trash. He looked at Marvin's head on the floor, taking in the gory sight, examining the symbol on his forehead. A phoenix.

These were the same people that had dragged Sae into a backroom. She hadn't done anything to provoke them, and neither did Ava. Yet they did horrible things to both of them. These people didn't deserve to live. They weren't strong, they only wanted to find those weaker than they were and hunt them. They were pathetic.

Ahn's anger had turned into pure, burning hatred. The flames he felt flaring up inside him would be quelled only by death. He wouldn't take innocent lives. He wouldn't be like them. Not like EDGE, or the casino. The lives he would be ending weren't worth being considered human. They were a waste of oxygen - animals who seemed to desperately want to keep one foot in the grave. They needed to die. He would satisfy this requisite.

Sae watched him intently as these thoughts ran rampant through his head. He met her eyes, his own alight with vengeance.

"We'll need a way to keep EDGE off of us while we're there," Sae said, understanding his intent. When Ahn, who generally was a reasonable person, was angry, there was little that would stop him from taking it out on whoever was unfortunate to be the subject of his hatred.

He nodded. They couldn't afford to attract any unnecessary attention.

It took them less than an hour to come up with a plan. While EDGE's cyber security was top of the line, it wasn't difficult for androids of Sae and Ahn's level to hack into their camera systems. They had set the monitors to play loops of crowded streets to avoid detection. They also took a moment to overload the company's private servers in the area, not allowing for any communication on the block the Golden City Casino was in. EDGE had a complete monopoly on internet access in District 5, so crashing their servers in an area meant that nobody had connection until the issue was resolved.

No EDGE workers would be in the casino, either. There was a strict policy amongst company workers that prohibited gambling of any kind, and there was no reason that any of them would be there on official business. There was nothing to be gained from the casinos. The Golden City Casino was ready to be burned to the ground.

By the time they had arrived, it was nighttime. It was a moonless night, the only light on the streets was from the neon signs illuminating the pavement below with bright shades of blue and pink. Decorative holographic trees adorned the sidewalks - a luxury only the rich could witness. Real trees no longer existed; the last few had died out over a century ago. Humanity relied on air purification machines to provide breathable oxygen. The tax producing androids had on the environment was massive, especially the cores that resided in Ahn and Sae's chests.

Many weapons were designed to run off of this kind of energy, but the radiation emitted from them was enough to develop malicious tumors in human users after firing just one magazine. The casinos would hire oblivious guards for low prices to use these weapons, then replace them if they ever shot the guns. They really were scum. Humanity hadn't just hit rock bottom, it was looking up at it.

Ahn stood at the door to the Golden City Casino, looking at the monument to humanity's atrocities as it loomed beneath the dark sky, the contempt he held for the people inside revitalizing itself. They had hurt Sae. They caused Ava's death. They would suffer.

He kicked the glass door in, sending the shards onto the red carpet beneath. 'Good,' Ahn thought. 'At least their carpet won't stain.'

Numerous sets of eyes shifted to Ahn, who stood in the broken doorway. He raised a pistol, firing it into the air. The gamblers quickly evacuated with a series of terrified screams. They didn't need to die.

A heavyset man walked over to Ahn, smiling. He had a plasma rifle in his hands, pointing it at Ahn's face. Another was doing the same to Sae, who was standing next to Ahn, an almost disinterested look on her face.

"That was a mistake," the grinning man said. A multitude of voices rose up around the room in agreement, full of confidence. The two people standing in the entrance were delusional to think they could take on the casino. There were nearly fifty armed guards, along with about ten security androids watching the place. These people couldn't hope to achieve anything alone. It wasn't even worth calling for backup.

Ahn lowered his own gun to the man's face, a cold smirk on his face. The man's smile was tainted with frustration. Why were these people so confident?

'It won't last,' he thought, pulling the trigger.

The man's eyes nearly popped out of his head as the plasma bullet dissipated in front of Ahn's face. Ahn didn't so much as flinch, firing his own gun, leaving a steaming hole in the guard's face.

The room was silent for a few moments before one of the senior bouncers shouted at the others. "What are you afraid of? Open fire!"

Out of the corner of his eye, Ahn could see Sae dodge the second guard's bullet, quickly morphing her fingers and stabbing all ten of them into the man's stomach. He coughed in a bloody fit before going limp.

'I'll take the ones on the right, you go left,' her voice appeared in Ahn's head.

'Got it. Meet up in the center by the slot machines when you're done,' he replied. They faced no threat against these people. It was going to be a bloodbath.

Ahn rushed toward the next group of guards, firing a quick series of shots, killing all of them before they could raise their guns. He heard a clattering noise at his feet, then a hissing sound. A cryo grenade.

"I got him!" one of the men shouted as the ice began to form on Ahn's skin, quickly encasing him entirely. "Finish him off!"

Shots rained in on him from all directions, disappearing feebly as he blocked them with his [RIS]. He calmly waited as he used his core to superheat his skin, melting the icy prison around him in a matter of seconds.

The remaining fifteen or so men stood in horror, looking at the android in front of them. There was no way that thing was human - anyone with eyes could see that much.

Ahn casually strode over to them. The guards recovered from their disbelief, shooting at him again. One of the brave ones, seeing that bullets were having no effect, rushed at him, waving his heat blade furiously. Ahn dodged to the side, grabbing the blade with his bare hand and disarming the man, then finishing him off with his own sword.

He turned back to the group of guards, who were still firing at him helplessly. He lifted the sword, then threw it, impaling one of the bouncers directly between the eyes. His lifeless body fell to the floor with a thump.

The other guards stared at the corpse, unable to believe what they were seeing. Who was this man?

Ahn didn't give them the chance to return their attention to him, gunning them all down effortlessly. The trigger was easier to pull with each shot he fired, or rather, it was more enjoyable to do so as the malice residing in Ahn's wounded heart was unleashed with each kill.

His murderous spree only ended when there was nobody left in the room to kill, leaving in their place a grim sense of emptiness. Ahn walked over to the agreed meeting place, where Sae was waiting. She was leaning against a slot machine, casually wiping the gore off of her hands, using one of the dead bouncers' expensive shirts as a rag. She looked up, casting the body aside.

"There's more in the back," Ahn said, the uncomfortable look on Sae's face not lost on him.

"You don't have to come with me," he added. "I'm perfectly willing to kill them all myself."

Sae nodded, unphased by his morbid words. She knew what he was feeling now. She even had hints of red in her own eyes. This needed to be done, sooner or later. In order to stop more cases like Ava's from happening, sooner was the better option.

They weren't heroes; Ahn knew this. They probably never would be. No hero, after all, could hold such an apathetic gaze as they watched freshly made corpses fall to the floor. He didn't want to be a hero. He wanted to be free.

Ahn turned to the conspicuous door in the rear end of the massive room. It was adorned with a large gold phoenix insignia, lined with polished marble.

'How stupid,' Ahn thought, kicking the expensive door off of its hinges. 'This is obviously where whoever is in charge stays. It just makes my job easier. Wealth means nothing if the owner is dead.'

The weak needed to be put in their place. This was the rule the casino had enforced for years. That rule would be their downfall; they had pretended to be strong for too long. They were only asking to be torn apart by those who were truly powerful.

One of these powerful people, who had just destroyed a door worth more than most houses in District 5, strode in, taking the opposition in with calculating red eyes. 'So this is where the bodyguard androids were,' he noted, looking at the ten sword-and-shield wielding enemies between himself and a fat man in a purple tuxedo. A large golden phoenix pattern was stitched into the torso. He was clearly running the operation.

The man looked shocked, enough so that he almost fell out of his overly cushioned chair. "Who are you?" he asked, irritation in his voice more than fear. He thought he was safe behind the wall of androids.

Ahn didn't answer, instead raising a pistol, pointing it at the android furthest to the left. The man laughed, amusement creeping into his confident tone. "What do you think you're going to do? Kill me?"

Ahn, still maintaining his stoic silence, started walking towards the desk the man was sitting behind. The androids formed a semicircle around him, ready to close in. An emotionless smile broke his unmoving expression.

The android on his left, to whom the barrel of his pistol was still affixed, approached cautiously. These androids weren't as reckless as EDGE's mindless killing machines. They were made to protect, not necessarily kill through any means available.

While keeping its shield up, it went for a quick slash at Ahn's waist. He blocked the blow easily with his forearm, then forming an [RIS] behind the bodyguard's head. He jerked the barrier towards himself, bringing the unsuspecting android with it, extending a blade from the top of his wrist, driving the sharpened edge through its inhuman face, producing a loud crackling sound as the android fell to the ground, emitting a small storm of sparks from the gaping hole in its head.

He turned to meet the android on his right, which was rushing in thinking Ahn was distracted. He grabbed its wrist before it had the opportunity to swing, forcing its hand back towards its stomach, then drove the blade, which was now soundly lodged in its torso, upward, releasing it only when the weapon had finished its path through the top of the android's head. It was split from the waist up in a clean vertical cut, joining its fellow bodyguard on the ground with a loud clank.

As it fell, Ahn reached out to grab the shield from its lifeless grasp, quickly observing the sharpened edges. This design was meant to catch attackers off guard, and was to be used as a last resort attack. He threw the shield horizontally at a group of the bodyguards, simultaneously decapitating three of them. Only half remained standing after this five-second exchange.

The formerly confident man looked uneasy in his chair, looking on at the slaughter occuring in front of him. Who was this? What could have possibly made him so spiteful?

Ahn decided that he was bored with this flashy combat display. He raised his pistols. The still living bodyguards raised their shields. This, however, was the reaction Ahn wanted to get out of them. He formed a series of five slightly angled [RIS] barriers behind each of their heads, shooting each one at just the right trajectory to deflect the bullets into each of the bodyguards' scalps. They fell simultaneously, almost as if it were the end to a dramatic dance, leaving a smoking pile of metal on the luxurious carpet.

Ahn shifted his gaze to the mortified man behind the desk.

"Your death," he said icily, "will not be so merciful."