Silver Moonlight (Marshal)

Meanwhile, before the clock struck midnight, stood a large buff man under the night sky holding two modified military gloves on top of a warehouse roof. He stared at them with a blank expression as he thought about the inevitable future with them. He then gently shook his head and then placed the gloves on his hands and stared at the night sky.

"..." He took a deep breath, "Just what is it that you have gotten yourself into Alan?" Marshal said as the sound of a door slowly opened. On the other side stood Evangela panting for air as if she rushed to the top as quickly as possible. Marshal looked at her and asked, "Evangela, what's wrong?"

Evangela placed her hand on her stomach while she was looking at Marshal with a pained look. "We got bad news." She said, "But get down here now." Evangela then turned and grabbed her stomach with force as she carefully rushed back down to the others.

Marshal followed Evangela through the door and down the stairs. He then stopped as he saw everyone at the center of the room with an air console opened to an image of Maverick wounded with a black eye. Jason glanced at Marshal as he came down the stairs with Evangela and turned back to Maverick.

"We are all here, now can you speak?" He said impatiently.

"..." Maverick glanced around the room he was in and then spoke, "I will only say this once. My only goal at the moment is to stall till midnight, then someone else will take over this call. Anyways, I have two things to tell you all: the first being that Alan is no longer at the station, his whereabouts are currently unknown; the second is that we, the EDPD, are longer able to offer any assistance to aid you guys-"

"Hold on," Jason interjected immediately without allowing Maverick to continue, "just what the hell do you mean by that. How did you lose contact with Alan and who gave that damn order to stop you guys from helping?"

"The city." Maverick's face was expressionless as he said that. There was a short pause of silence in the room as everyone realized what he meant. Jason bit his lip and balled his left hand into a tight fist. Marshal glanced around the room and noticed that Audrey, Lucianna, and Evangela were taking this information pretty hard.

"The city..." Audrey echoed with a disbelieving tone. The three girls then turned away from everyone else in the room.

After a few minutes of silence, a strange echo chime noise played in the background of Maverick's audio and he slowly made his way off-screen. Everyone turned their attention to the screen and a figure in a silver dress walked on-screen with a silver masquerade mask with her hair parted with a silver hair clip on her left side. The woman looked at the air console with a frown as she looked at a certain person.

"Maddie…" Evangela said with disbelief as she recognized the person behind the mask.

"...I'm sorry…" The woman said with a sad low tone. She then cleared her throat and began to speak in a forced joyful tone as if she was practicing for this day, "Welcome ladies and gentlemen to Silver Moonlight Masquerade. This is a special party only opened to those blessed by the mark of the past. Your objective is to enjoy yourself in a carefully crafted event that will test the limits of the sinners. But the sinners have two choices: either enjoy tonight's events and fight to the death with the other guests, or give up peacefully and come with us." She stopped then dropped her fake persona, "Though I would advise against fighting. These guests aren't natural."

"So are these guests victims?" Jason said naturally as if the current situation she announced unfazed him. Marshal looked at him in shock but then realized that not even he was surprised by this announcement. It was as if he had gone numb to the surprises of the night or it was as if he already knew what was gonna happen next.

"...Yes, they are the 1% who were captured by the government. Though I would advise trying to save them like you did that girl. That girl was only in the government's hands for less than a week, so it makes sense that you were able to save her. The others have been subjected to brutal tests for months, so their minds have already been shattered."

"I see." Jason finished talking and talked towards the air console then stopped just before he closed it. "One more thing, I assume you guys did something with Alan?"

"That's a negative. He made his escape before we took over the EDPD. It was as if he knew we were coming, though that's not really a cause of concern since our data on him predicted that outcome. But that's all the time I have," she then turned towards Evangela, "Evangela, I'm sorry you have to go through another ordeal because of that man. So," tears began to flow from the bottom of her mask, "please survive. Find Alan and Renne and end this damn experiment." Jason then closed the air console and turned towards the group.

"So...what...now?" Mary looked at Jason with an empty expression as she pulled out a strange gun.

"Get your asses ready for a fight." He then walked over to Audrey and placed his hands on her neck.

"Hey, just what the hell are you-" Audrey struggled.

"This wound on your neck is a similar wound to Renne and Alan, correct?" He said, disregarding Audrey's comfort.

"Yeah...what of it, creep?"

"Then you should be able to use the same powers they use. So draw your weapon." Jason let go of Audrey and she glanced at him with a scornful glare.

"I can't, rather, I don't know how." She said quietly while avoiding eye contact with him.

Jason had a pissed look as he walked away, "Useless." He said quietly as he walked over to the weapon safe and opened it. He then walked back to the group with a large container of bullets and three pistols. The group sat quietly as they watched him load the bullets into magazines. He passed the pistols with four magazines to Audrey, Evangela, and Lucianna. "These are XPC-H custom; they are modified hybrid pistols that link up to your implants to allow for enhanced accuracy and better usage. Each magazine holds 12 explosive rounds and 4 tracer rounds. Every 5th stot will be a tracer round, just in case you fuckers can't aim." He then looked at Evangela. "You, rich bastard's daughter."

"Y-yes!" Evangela said in surprise.

"Reprogram your group's implants. Reconnect the access point to this server…" Two of them were locked in a heavy conversion in regards to implant technology that Marshal could not understand.

"Marshal?" Lucianna walked over to Marshal with Audrey by her side. "We don't have any other choice, do we?"

"Unfortunately no, it looks like we are stuck in the deep end." He then gave the girls an over-the-top hero pose with his fist thrust towards the girls. "But don't worry, cause I'm here to protect you guys." He then gave them a wink. Marshal internally died from that as noticed everyone one the room go quiet.

"..."

"..."

"..."

"Umm...what the actual fuck was that?" Everyone in the room was quiet except for Jason who watched Marshal's face turn beet red in embarrassment. "So...we have an edgy scrawny boy who bested me once and a cringy musclehead who is taking his role of leading. Interesting."

"..." Marshal stood quietly in embarrassment as Evangela walked over and grabbed his arm. She opened his air console and started tinkering with the settings.

"You know Marshal, you don't always need to impress girls by standing out." She said quietly, "Sometimes you just need to lower yourself, like Alan. He's not very...out there, but he has many people who respect and like him."

"I guess…" Marshal said Evangela let go of his arm and walked over to Audrey. "Maybe she's right." He spoke quietly, "But if Alan was here I would not have said something so stupid…" He then looked at his fist and closed it tightly, "I can do this without Alan, I need to stop depending on him so much. He's not here right now and I have to protect these girls in his place."

Jason and Mary quietly stood in the background with a small girl at their side. "If only I had that much confidence as a young adult, maybe then Linda would have fallen for me."

"In...your...dreams…" Mary gave Jason a weak punch as she turned to look at the small girl who is just now waking up. She used her left arm to part her long brown hair out of her face and looked out emotionlessly at her missing right arm. Her brown eyes were locked onto the stub with a sense of sadness, although her face didn't show it."

"Sorry, young lass," Jason said with a soft tone. "I had no other choice." The girl then looked at him and gave a grateful smile before it shifted to the same expressionless look as it was before. "A mute eh?" Jason scratched his head, "I've got to babysit another person-"

Jason and Mary then stood alert as they heard metallic footsteps approaching the door. Jason then pulled his sniper and shot the door while Mary held the girl's ears. The bullet blew the door off its hinges and it crushed whatever was on the other side with a flesh-crushing noise. Marshal and the others pulled out their weapons in shock and stood cautiously as Mary made her way towards the entrance with a strange gun in her hands. She lifted the door off the ground and it revealed the corpse of a small child with a large hole in their chest wearing a silver mask. The corpse then had black markings consume it and the corpse morphed into a large silver doll. The large doll destroyed the front half of the ceiling as it morphed and it started at the group with malicious intent.

"What the fuck…" Jason stared at the large doll with disbelief and loaded a large bullet into his sniper.

The doll gave out a loud roar as it pulled back its left arm and aimed for Marshal and the girls. The small group scattered as the doll slammed its fist into the ground, causing a strong shockwave to be felt, staggering everyone. Marshal and the other fell to the group as Jason held onto a table and took aim at the large doll. The doll then tried to pull its arm out of the ground, but then a painfully loud bang followed by loud ringing came from Jason's sniper and the doll's head was blown off. The doll then stopped moving as it stood motionless with its arm stuck in the ground. The group stood in awe as their ears continued to ring after Jason's shot. Jason then unloaded a large bullet casing glowing red hot from his sniper. Marshal then walked over to Jason, holding his ears in pain as his face was twisted in a mixed state of confusion, relief, and internal pain.

"Why…?" Marshal said while unable to hear his own voice. Jason didn't respond, but rather he put up five fingers and then slowly brought each finger down one by one. Once he brought down his last finger, the ringing in his ears stopped.

"Heh heh…" Jason smiled awkwardly, "Sorry about that lad and lasses, I had no other choice in what ammo I needed to use to bring that thing down. Soooo…. sorry about ya ears."

"But what was that?" Marshal asked.

"An antisense artillery round, or just ASA for short."

"But you have a sniper."

"A modified sniper." Jason corrected. "This bad boy can shoot normal sniper rounds and small artillery rounds. But… at the cost of overheating the gun." He pulled out a pair of gloves and a small metal brush and opened the chamber of the sniper. "And due to the ability, I have to clean this thing out after every small artillery round or I risk molten metal solidifying in the chamber and barrel."

"I see…" Marshal blindly agreed as he had no clue about what he was talking about. Due to the nature of the city's upbringing and culture, ballistic weapons were very uncommon. Most weapons manufactured in the city were energy-based to allow for cheaper manufacturing and maintenance while ballistic weapons usually sat in the back of many gun stores collecting dust.

"But we don't have time to chit-chat, they know we are here." Jason then swung his sniper over his shoulder. "We are moving out on foot and splitting up." Jason then pointed to Mary and Audrey, "You two will be group one," he turned to Marshal and Evangela, "You two will be group two, and lastly," he turned to the small girl and Lucianna, "You two will go with me." Jason then faced the whole group. "We have two main objectives: surviving and finding a way to end this blasted experiment. Any objections?"

"..." The group said nothing.

"Good, let's move out."

The large group split into three smaller groups and each of them went in different directions. Above the destroyed warehouse they once were in, had a small police drone hovering over the area. The drone made no noise as it began to move towards Evangela's group while another drone came to the area and chased after Audrey's group.