Chapter 27.

"One truth and one lie," she pants.

"Right now?"

"Right now."

I unwrap the tape around my fists and sit down on the stiff fighting mats, Kira does the same – handing me a water bottle and leaning against me. We face opposite sides of the gym, her back against mine, the tips of her hair brushing against my neck.

"Okay, uh, the only reason you're helping me with the Unit is because you like hitting me," I say, "And you're planning on stopping the whole bounty hunter act."

She groans as she stand up, she still smells like strawberries after two hours of sparring. I personally think it's witchcraft, but you won't catch me saying that to her face. She offers me a hand and looks up at me.

"Planning on stopping the act – truth?"

She slaps me. "If I do then who's going to pay for the penthouse? 'Cos you're definitely not."

I shrug and pluck my aviators from the mat. "We can stay with Saia and everyone else. Like a massive house for all of us."

She shakes her head and wipes her face with a towel. "We'd all be hammered the entire time."

"Tr-"A rumble passes through the gym. Weights fall off of their holds, machines groan and creak.

"The Gray doesn't get earthquakes," she says, fiddling with her earpiece.

"It's probably just Saia's bombs," I say. "She's been really invested in the whole blowing things up activity."

Another rumble, followed by screams and shouts. Saia doesn't blow things up in the Manor, though. We rush out of the gym with the other Rogues on our heels. We burst into a wall of dust and debris, it chokes and blinds us immediately. Shouting comes from every direction, the erratic pop of gunfire pierces the air. We stumble through the choking dust, tripping and staggering over debris and bodies. Kira leads the way onto the main balcony that oversees the entrance to the manor.

Or what should have been the entrance to the Manor.

A gaping hole where the door used to be, and where the entire wall used to be. Soldiers in white are storming the building, thunder claps of rifle fire ripping through surprised Rogues.

Kira spins round and shouts, "All of you to the armory. Get civilians to safety, take as many of these fuckers down as you can."

They rush back into the choking veil of cement dust. Leaving Kira and I crouching behind the short balcony wall. She has her black guns in her fists, the long barrels drawing in the darkness of the night around them. She springs up and clears both of the gun's clips, the rage of gunfire downstairs cuts short with her last bullet.

We fly down the staircase and into the main street, streetlamps blink in the thick night, the usual warm air of the Gray tainted with the smell of blood. Soldiers in white were coming from the park, Rogues in windowsills and rooftops clearing them out. Civilians scream their way past us and deeper into the Rogue territory. A car roars towards us and comes to a screeching halt. The rear door swings open and Saia waves us in.

We leap into the backseat as Draco lurches the car forward.

"DRACO!" Saia, Kira and I scream. The car slams into the wall of soldiers, sending us to the ceiling of the car and back.

"Hera better get her ass in gear," he barks. "No way in hell I'm going to the Zoo for that."

"Where the hell is she?!" Kira spits, slamming in two more clips and leaning out of the window. The small explosions in her fists fill the car, the smell of gunpowder overwhelming and nauseating.

I squeeze my earpiece in and tap twice. "Mei?! What the-"

"Guys?" her voice comes from the car speakers. "Where the hell are you? Shits hitting the fan!"

"We know!" Saia yells. She's digging through a satchel in her lap, she triumphantly brings up two small black orbs and tosses them out of the window. As soon as they touch the tarmac near another group of soldiers rushing towards the Rogue territory, they go off. Like, a split second of silence and then an ear shattering explosion type of off. "Holy shit they worked."

"What worked?" Mei asks, her voice shrill with panic. The sound of keys getting hammered rings through the car. Either that or I got tinnitus from all the gunfire.

"Saia killed twenty people in one go," I yell over Kira's gunfire. "Where's Hera?!"

"Outskirts of the Gray. I can't get to her comms."

Draco swings the car a hard right, the tires screech against the tarmac. "Hell is she doing out there?"

"How the hell should I know?" she snaps. "Something about Judgment Day."

We all know what that means, we don't have to ask any more questions.

"Alright. Something's jamming comms between the Rogues…Jesus we're getting massacred in the Gray," she says. "Ok. Get to the Gatekeeper's Black Box tower."

"Where?" I shout as Saia throws more of her bombs out of the car.

"The big black shiny building near the river," Mei shouts, she says something to Ceejay and the connection cuts, a harsh buzz cutting her off.

Draco floors it. He weaves through pedestrians, all of the clambering out of the way. Families rushing into buildings as more of the soldiers in white appear. They keep appearing from the shadows and the back alleys, more and more of them until the entire street is filled with them. They aren't shooting at the civilians, though. They're splitting up and heading towards the Rogue territory. The other groups are going deeper into the Gray. Hera might have been checked. The queen wasn't on the board right now, and the rest of her pieces are scattered.

Draco swing the car around another corner into a unit of soldiers, all of them becoming speed bumps. The old me would have probably been sick, but these bastards in white were the reason Tick is six feet deep. They followed orders to come here, and I'll make sure as few of them as possible were going to go back.

Order make monsters. And what about the people who give those order?

We screech to a stop near the river bank. Soldiers surrounded the entire building, and more of them streamed into the Gray from the bridges a few kilometers away.

"Saia, can't you use your bombs or whatever to take them out?" Draco says as we scamper out of the car.

"No. Don't have enough to take out all of them," she says. "That and they don't work a hundred percent of the time."

"What?" Kira snaps.

"Like I said before: prototypes."

"Guys?" Mei's voice through each of our ears. "Thank God. Why the hell are you just standing there? Get inside the building and get down to the control rooms. I'll guide you the rest of the way."

"We have a problem," Kira says, "Around a hundred and fifty soldiers around the building."

Draco grumbles something under his breath and takes out an inch long white pill from his trouser pockets. Saia winces as he throws his head back and swallows the pill.

"What was that?" I ask.

"Just watch," Kira says.

Draco's always been a big guy. By far the biggest I've come across. But he grew about an inch in height and several more in width. Veins and arteries pop on his neck and arms, his eyes rolling back and turning white. I know I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed, but it only occurred to me now.

Draco isn't big just because. He's big because he's a Berserker.

He charges and roars, a guttural roar, the roar an animal gives when it's hopped up on adrenaline and in a frenzy. The soldiers open fire, but Draco doesn't stop. He swings his fists through them like battering rams, slamming them against concrete and each other. It's disgustingly artistic – the spray of blood, the snap of bone, the bellow, the shudder of the earth as he rips through them.

"Let's stop gawking and get our butts in order," Saia says, worried eyes still locked on Draco. She looks like she wants to stop him, but Kira's hand falls on her shoulder and keeps her in place.

We sprint forward, carefully stepping over bodies and parts of bodies that shouldn't be out of them. We avoid Draco, just as a precaution. Berserker's aren't known for their battle intelligence, just brute strength. That and they kill anything their hands clamp down on. We slam into the glass door – locked. I smash the glass with my metal fist and force the door open. The building plunges into a red vacuum, the screams and rages of the sounds outside swallowed by the blare of an alarm.

The workers still in the building swivel round with guns cradled in their arms. Kira pops each one of them off, barely breaking her stride. We scramble across the white floor, ripping past startled technicians and service men and women. Kira putting down each of them.

We reach the elevator, the doors jammed shut and stuck between floors. Perfect. We search the hallways for the staircase, Saia calls us towards stairs bathed in darkness. Kira takes the lead and talks us through the dark stairwell. It doesn't stop us from tripping over each other and a lot of swearing. We eventually come to a solid floor, the sick red glow of the emergency light running down a single hallway. A door at the end of the corridor, I slam my fist through the mechanical lock.

A room as large as Kira's penthouse sprawls in front of us. Large black CPUs stand in rows, all of them beeping and buzzing. The harsh cool air of the fans blowing vapour from the ceiling bites into my skin, clamping my sweat soaked shirt to my back.

"Mei, we're here." I follow Kira into the maze of black boxes. Saia stays at the entrance, already making new bombs.

"Okay, uhhhhm, take a right there and then a left. Another left and….stop. That one."

I look up at a black box no different from the others in the room. But hey, I'm not the one behind the computer screen for a reason.

"And then what?" Kira hisses.

"Okay, open the panel in front of your face, Dan. Pry it open if you have to." A pause and more taps on keys. "There should be a red wire, and then behind it a blue and a yellow."

The flashing red lights in the room make it impossible to tell the difference. I switch on the Unit and things become clearer, almost like I'm seeing things in white light.

"Then?"

"A white cylinder looking thing should be behind them. Twist it…GENTLY, IDIOT. Okay, good. It should come out easily."

I pull and it stays in place. I try again and it still doesn't budge. The sound of boots slamming into concrete echoes into the room, Saia's shouting follows.

"It isn't coming out," I grunt as I try again and again.

"Keep twisting until it does!"

The thunderous sounds of boots is getting closer.

"Mei, it isn't freaking moving."

"Keep pulling and twisting," she snaps.

"Just pull the freaking thing out, Dan," Kira shouts as she rushes towards the rain of boots. The bangs of her guns bounce around the room.

"Don't just pull it!"

Saia's scream again. Not an angry scream, a scream of pain.

Fuck it.

I yank the cylinder out of its placements. Wires and shards of metal follow it. I throw the cylinder deeper into the maze and slam a fist into the CPU for extra measure.

"Dan, Kira, Saia, come in." Hera's voice, rushed and heavy.

"We're here," I shout. I rush towards the room's entrance and find Saia cradling her leg, a bullet had torn through her trousers and out the other side of her thigh. I tore the bandana around my neck off and wrapped it around the wound, blood soaking it immediately.

"Rendezvous at the Church. Mei, activate the Walls."

"Yes ma'am."

From deep in the building we can hear the groan of concrete splitting. The shudder and complaint of the earth. And then the continuous crack of thunder rips through the thick atmosphere of the Gray; loud enough to rival Zeus' lighting.