Preparation.

The broken terrorist fell back. There was a little squash on my hand so I wiped it down.

"That's one down. One more to go."

"Brutal, man. What's wrong with you... No 14 year old should act like that. It's disturbing." Rune complained.

"Oi. I'm a 14-year-old kid who played VRFPS. This level of brutality makes total sense." Especially if you consider the fact that I was the Demon Lord. I mean, the number of necks I guillotine chopped was inhumane.

The call put on with Rune and Luha remained silent. Well, that was expected, neither of them knew about my past. And I did just kill a dude. I should have closed my eyes or something so that Luha didn't have to sit through that.

Anyways, it was vexing but I didn't have the time to be bothered.

When every other squad member arrives on the main ground and notices nothing is there, they'll realise someone else was manipulating behind the scene. And then all hell will break loose. That would probably also be the time they would disperse the most making it the ideal time to ride away.

That moment wasn't all that far away.

I snuck back into the hangar. The air was slightly stale and it smelt like gunpowder and lube. Judging by the dots in my periphery, no one was dead yet. But that would only last so long.

"Where's the rack?" I asked over the voice chat.

"Oh- the r-rack, AH! It's right there to your right." I already saw the rack but I needed Luha to snap out of it. She did see me kill someone but right now, she needed to be the most alert out of everyone here.

I ducked down beside it and took the barrel out. Just in the little movement, some spilt out. The gamble I made on there being sufficient machine oil paid off.

Meaning that I used up a little bit more of my nonexistent luck.

'I need to keep on my toes.'

"Dang, if this is how much machine you have left after using most of it, the school must have a huge budget." I'm surprised the Americans didn't come here to claim it as their own.

"Well, you've seen the scale of our creations."

"Mmhmm." I thought back to six years ago when she revealed that transformer.

I slowly and extremely carefully rolled the barrel over and pointed it towards the centre of the hangar.

"What are you planning?" Rune asked.

"Just a little something that involved the terrorist not being able to get up." He probably got what I meant.

I tipped the barrel over gently. The oil started spilling out gradually. I tore off a piece of my uniform and drenched it in the motor oil.

The next phase of the plan involved getting the bottom of all the ropes lubed up before the entire floor got covered. Because if I couldn't do it before that, I would be the victim here.

I rushed to the centre and rubbed the cloth on the main cable that held the mechs up.

From the top, I could hear the sobbing of the children and the barking of the terrorist. This specific terrorist holding the kids hostage was pretty vocal. Before killing them he was trying to instil fear, saying cliched lines about what he'd do to their corpses and ripping faces off.

He was an animal.

I dodged any oil that would get on my boots and kept doing what I did to the main cable to the other ones. I needed to make sure he had no way up.

By the time I was done almost two-thirds of the first floor was covered with motor oil. It stopped spilling. I could use another barrel, but this was more than enough. The 'buggiez' on the side seemed rather free of them.

"Aren't you taking too long?" Rune asked. "At least a quarter of the terrorists headed to the main ground have gotten there."

I looked at the time.

Still, 50 something minutes left. In my books, I was pretty fast. I mean I killed a dude and finished 2 stages of my plan in 5 minutes. I couldn't possibly be faster. The problem was that was the other party was pretty quick too.

They seemed organised. This attack was premeditated to a frightening degree.

It wasn't guaranteed that we would be safe even if the military arrived. For all we knew, there could be an entire war taking place as soon as they reach the village. The terrorists definitely took the military into account while attacking. That only made sense judging by how prepared they were.

The military could be headed straight into a trap.

Unfortunately, this only primarily placed us- the stranglers in danger. The ones in the bunker were safe. Our final bet really was that one shield that Yuuno made for us.

I headed up the staircase that was near the entrance. And while sneaking behind construction beams reached the platform opposite the terrorist. He was one large jump away with his back turned to me. The kids were shivering while looking in my direction.

I put a finger on my lips as a kid caught a glimpse of me. He almost broke down crying.

Taking helpless little kids like these as hostages for some stupid cause was cruel. The only race capable of falling this low were humans. I just wanna kill everyone.

"I only get one shot at this." I whispered under my breath.

"ONE SHOT AT WHAT?! YOU STILL HAVEN'T TOLD US!" Rune shouted from the other side.

"Just watch." I crouched down so that my knee almost touched the ground and prepared myself for a run up. In a hand I had a little shard that I had picked out of the vest I was wearing. And the other was ready to pull on the rope. The plan was complex, the movements plenty. But if there was one thing I built over the 9 years I spent here, it was dexterity.

"Let's do this."

Body enhancement. Full drive.

Every muscle in my body was filled with my mana. I felt the sole of my shoe grate against the floor because of how hard I was pushing it down.

And then in one go... Every little fibre relaxed and contracted and relaxed and contracted.

I darted.

There was wind behind me and my eyes were about to shut from the pressure. But I persisted to keep them open. Going blind now would mess everything up.

I reached the edge... It was time I jumped. There was at least an 8 metres gap between their platform and mine. There was no way I would mess it up. For a second or two, I flew. And while I did I grabbed the main cable. The fall lasted milliseconds.

'FOCUS MAO FOCUS!'

I stuck the shard into the cable but it didn't break. DAMN IT! Of course, it wouldn't break that cable was supposed to carry tonnes of stuff. No wait, this was a safety cable. Why did it not break? FUCK! I didn't have time to think about it.

Tch!

Approaching the other platform I grabbed the little hook and flew across to the other side. As I tried to regain my balance, I shoved the hook right into the terrorist's vest and fell right across the floor.

I must have fallen for at least 10 metres before I bumped right into the hostages.

"Ouch.. That must have hurt. Lol." I heard Rune say. He was under the impression that my plan worked.

"I don't think this is the right time to joke. Is the plan still on?"

Could anyone just care about me for a second? And not the plan?

I picked the readied gun from my pocket. Just having it ready like that might have been a hazard… but whatever.

"The plan failed." I admitted while concocting a Plan B using my gun. Do I just shoot? He has a helmet and a west. I had one shot before the dude machine-gunned the life out of us. With my luck today, I wasn't willing to bet death on one shot on a kitted bulletproof terrorist.

"WHAT PLAN?!" I heard Luha shout.

"Originally I wanted to attach the hook on the guy after cutting the emergency cable. That would have made the counterweight fall and dragged the terrorist up from the hook, launching him into the sky…"

"That's brutal."

"I know right?" But it was a sure-fire plan.

"What's going on here?!" I heard the terrorist bark in front of us.

"What are you going to do now?" Rune asked.

"I'll-" My eyes fell on the shard attached to the cable. "Buy time."

THERE WAS STILL A CHANCE!

I got up and brushed off my boo-boos-

"I'm sorry, terrorist-san… But I sort of missed my target. I was here to sort of kill you."

"IS THAT WHAT YOU CALL BUYING TIME?!" I heard Rune shout. "THAT JUST SOUNDS LIKE PROVOCATION!"

"Shh." I muted the call.

"Kill me? By jumping across the platform."

"I planned to use this gun to shoot your stupid brain out. You're just a pathetic cultist anyway."

"C-Cultist, How dare you?!" He was on the edge. Not physically, but his mental state was terrible. Not because of me, just because his mind was terribly weak.

"Come on… look at that stupid symbol you parade as a flag. Your kind is just an emo group who's trying to act self-righteous but is just a disposable pawn for the countries that sponsor you." I pushed with words.

"We serve no country! We serve the goddess who binds us. We fight for our return back to homogeneity. THOSE FILTHY DEMONS AND HUMANS SHOULD NEVER BE TOGETHER!"

"Well, at least you gave the fact that you're human away."

"Tsk." He cocked and some bullets fell from his gun. "I don't know why I was still listening to you."

The opening of his gun started to rise towards our group as I stepped forward.

I had to make a choice.