A GUN THAT IS NOW LOADED
(94th floor)
Sean removed his magazine, reloading it with spare ammunition in his Exo-suit.
"Maia, status report," radioed Xiao Tian.
"We are making progress," she said, moving up the floor, with Electra and Ethan taking point, she in the third position, Charlotte behind her, and lastly with Khai and Shirley covering their sides.
"The rest of the contractors below have pushed back the Pegasus contractors and Vanguard terrorists, but they have taken some serious losses too. Is the Libyan army coming in or not?" she asked.
"Negative," replied Xiao Tian. He then told her about how the Libyan Air Force had tried to shoot them down, saying that they should not trust the Libyan military for the time being.
Just as they discussed situation, the Team Ion members below walked into another floor. Charlotte's life form detector stopped beeping for the first time since they entered this building.
"Weird, there is no one here at all," she said.
Maia looked around, just then, she noticed something which caught her eye.
A bloody footprint.
Getting her teammates' attention, they followed the footprint, finding Sir Campbell sitting on the floor in one corner, bleeding out from a wound in his abdomen that was clearly inflicted by the use of freezing magic, evident from the traces of ice picks around him.
A SIG MPX submachine gun laid next to him, its barrel bent.
"We have Sir Campbell, he is badly wounded, I repeat, badly wounded," reported Maia. As a precaution, all of them still kept their guns trained on him, while Ethan moved the SIG MPX away out of precaution.
"What happened to you?" asked Maia.
Sir Campbell coughed, weakly moving his arm.
Suddenly, his body disappeared, dissipating off like a smoke puffing away into the distance. Maia reflexively tried to catch him, only for her hand to phase through.
"It's a mirage," she said.
The disappearing mirage soon spontaneously combusted, a figure then appeared, its Kronos.
"What did you do to him?" asked Maia alertly.
"That turncoat is taken care off," he said nonchalantly, throwing the bent SIG MPX onto the floor.
Charlotte stared at him alertly, her Bethorian armour's drone swords detached, their rocket engines igniting, hovering around her. their plasma cannons pointed forward.
"How are you still alive?" she asked alertly as she gestured to Maia, Electra and Ethan, signalling them to spread out, while Shirley and Khai, who are out of sight to Kronos, readied a rocket launcher each, intending to surprise Kronos with some extra firepower.
"Perhaps, you should have checked again," sneered Kronos.
Charlotte snickered, nodding her head. "Won't make that mistake again this time, your ability has already been figured out."
Kronos smirked, activating his shields, switching to the blue defense shield.
Maia promptly fired at the shield, blasting it. Kronos immediately disappeared in a puff of green light, then suddenly reforming behind the wall, having voided his body and phased through another wall, entering another corridor.
"Ok, this is new," said Charlotte, realising that Kronos no longer has a 5 minute window in between shield forms, and can now change them spontaneously.
"Artemis 10 in pursuit!"yelled Ethan, moving in the direction of the corridor Kronos had phased into, keeping his HK-416 raised.
Maia and Electra followed after him in clearing the corner, then moving and turning into a T shaped walkway.
"Where did he go?" asked Electra.
Charlotte, Khai and Shirley rallied behind them. Charlotte checked her lifeform detector, finding that there is a signal on the left end of the walkway.
Confirming the intel, Ethan moved forward, while Maia followed after him, taking up a high ready position, ready to cover him.
Just as Ethan moved, his leg walked past a motion activated doorbell.
"Ding Dong!" the loud sound of the doorbell resonated throughout the dark corridor.
"Sh—" before Ethan can finish his sentence, heavy firepower came from the other end of the walkway, blasting him relentlessly. Maia quickly moved back into cover.
"Ahh!"he screamed in pain. Even his Exo-suit cannot take the sheer amount of ammunition being fired at him, the armour getting defeated quickly and his body taking several hits.
To make matters worse, a couple of grenades landed by his feet, blowing up, that resulting damage badly hurt his feet, causing him to stagger.
Finally, a 7.62 NATO catridge hit him in his Exo-suit helmet visor, shattering it, sending the polymer fragments into his face. Fortunately, the round did not penetrate the helmet and kill him, but Ethan is still heavily wounded, felling onto the floor, his body littered with bullet holes and blood. He gasped in pain, trying to move into cover, but to no avail.
"ETHAN!" Maia exclaimed. She yelled at Electra to cover her while she moved, wanting to pull her "sibling" into safety.
The opposing Vanguard terrorists commanded by Kronos reloaded, resuming their shooting. Maia is hit in her arm, grimacing in pain as she moved back into cover.
"Dang it…" cursed Maia as Khai attended to her, bandaging her gunshot wound.
Charlotte sent out a drone, only for it to be promptly shot down by the heavy gunfire from the opposite side, the wreckage dropping down beside Ethan.
"Draw a firing line!" yelled Charlotte, summoning a few more drones and letting them into the walkway, firing their plasma bolts, covering Shirley and Electra as they rushed to the side.
Electra peeked out, opening fire with her CZ BREN 2 after switching to her left hand.
The 40 round extended magazine she is using soon depleted, and she turned back to reload, while Shirley moved up instead, firing her Noveske N4, laying down suppressive fire.
(94th floor)
"You..." muttered Xiao Tian as he looked at the 4 individuals approaching them.
Duchess Livia and "Spectre" approached them. "Spectre" wearing an Exo-suit, while Livia is dressed in a set of armour that resembles that of Sellardraxian armour, but it looks much more different from the usual ones Team Zero operators are used to seeing, instead it looks more living than metal.
Pegasus contractors then blocked off the stairs from behind Team Zero, leaving them surrounded.
Behind them are Chris Adler and one more person whose mere presence made the Team Zero operators' hearts sank.
Director Kovac.
"I don't suppose you are here to join us?" he asked, looking at Xiao Tian.
"We are here to kick your a**," retorted Sean, only for Xiao Tian to stop him when he tried to unleash his barrage of insults.
"Actually," said Xiao Tian, walking forward, keeping his rifle slinging across his chest. "I would like to convince you to turn around."
"Hmm?" muttered Director Kovac, surprised.
"Never have I thought that the loaded gun will pop out behind us," said Xiao Tian. "Never have I thought that you are the threat to mankind."
"I still intend to guard mankind, just in another way," replied Director Kovac. His eyes darted to Livia and "Spectre" momentarily, while discreetly moving himself away from them.
"By wiping out life on Earth and replacing it with a "perfect" life form?" retorted Xiao Tian. All of the enemies attention are on Xiao Tian, so none of them noticed how Nanami and Sean are holding onto 2 modems behind their backs, or how the Team Zero operators are discreetly throwing glances at each other from time to time.
"I must format the entire world," replied Director Kovac coldly, he then absent-mindedly moved in front of Livia, which further obstructed her view of Nanami.
Just then, a loud burst erupted in the headsets of everyone in the room except for the Team Zero operators, prompting them to drop cover their ears in pain.
The Team Zero operators have discreetly readied a high frequency pulse emitter which fried the radios in the room. The reason why it did not affect them is because they have all removed their radios in advance.
"HOT FOOT OUT OF HERE!" yelled Sean as they bolted, charging at the Pegasus contractors behind.
Ariel opened fire with her AUG A3, gunning down those blocking their way, while the rest of them too opened fire, fighting out a path.
Just as they cleared a path open, Livia teleported herself in front of them.
"Still running?" she sneered, punching the leading Ariel back.
Nanami jumped, only for her hand to suddenly freeze, and the ice soon enveloped her arm.
"What the?" she asked in horror.
"Weakling!" sneered Livia, crushing her frozen arm in one karate chop.
Nanami fell, grimacing in pain, Phineas tried to reinforce her, only to find that his Exo-suit is literally frozen to the ground, unable to move.
"Phin!" exclaimed Ariel, getting up, realising she is freezing too.
"It must be her powers!" exclaimed Sean. "Dang it, I am freezing up too."
"Anti-freeze... their Exo-suits have some sort of one..." analysed Xiao Tian.
Ariel shrieked, rapidly generating flames and using it to combat the cold, buying her a few minutes of mobility as she attacked.
"Spectre" then jumped into her way, blasting her back down with a blast of Cosmic Energy, sending her crashing into Xiao Tian. He then turned around, generating an ice shield which blocked Louis' gunshots, then moving rapidly after popping a smoke grenade, appearing in another corner, firing his CZ BREN 2, shooting Louis' rifle out of his hands, while knocking him down with a rifle grenade fired from "Spectre"'s Exo-suit.
Livia smirked, her living armour shielding her from the cold, and also increasing her size into a 3m tall giant.
Sean fired his rifle, his arms feeling like lead due to the cold. The bullets hitting Livia, only for it to have no effect as the bullets ricocheted off.
She then teleported herself right in front of Sean, grabbing him up like some sort of life-sized toy.
"Any last words, you with the mouth?" she sneered.
Sean feebly fought back, emptying his SCAR-H magazine, but to no effect.
Frederica meanwhile is pinned down by 2 surviving Pegasus contractors. They are using plasma swords to hold her in place as she watched in horror, unable to do anything as she is literally frozen to the ground.
Sean grunted, giving Livia a hard punch in the face, which ended up shattering his Exo-suit gauntlet instead. The cold has made it as brittle as glass.
"Such heroic nonsense," she said, firing up a Cosmic Energy blast, ready to finish him off.
A gunshot rang out.
"AHHHH!!" she screamed in pain and shock, just the gunshot died down, dropping Sean down.
"WHAT?!" exclaimed the Team Zero operators, Director Kovac and Richard in shock, unable to believe what they had seen.
Livia looked down at the hole in her body inflicted by a .50 armour penetrating round, the bullet had left a huge cavity, and she is bleeding out.
She staggered, blood coming out of her mouth too as she turned in disbelief.
"Spectre" is standing there, holding onto a PGM Hecate II anti-material sniper rifle. He cycled the bolt, and a freshly fired .50 casing is ejected from it.
"You...traitor..." she coughed.
"I am a gun yet to be loaded," replied "Spectre", speaking in an AI voice now.
"IT'S YOU!!" exclaimed Phineas and Sean, realising that he is the strange person who helped them in the Israel-Palestine region, and the one who saved Aya and her recon team in Korea.
The Inari then sped up, unsheathing his signature sabre, and one stab later, Livia fell, with another deep stab in her abdomen, bleeding out.
"But today, I am a gun that is now loaded!" he exclaimed, removing the mask, now speaking with a French accent, using his real speaking voice now.
"Anti freeze," he said, throwing a few canister at the Team Zero operators.
"Martin Jacques?" recognised Xiao Tian. "The legend who pilots the Apollo Cosmos?"
"Oui," replied Martin in French, affirming it.