Dragonscale and Conflict

The more Alex leveled up the more he felt something calling to him, but there was something blocking it. But the more he leveled up the weaker the barrier became, he wasn't worried that it was something bad because his body yearned for whatever was calling him.

He was somewhat in a hurry to level up so he went out every night and dealt with low level unaffiliated thugs. There wasn't much to be gained but the streets were still dangerous, so he cleaned them up.

The only way Alex could increase his leveling speed was to kill his enemies, but that wasn't a line he was willing to cross yet. Playing judge, jury and executioner and becoming a politician were good ways to loose your morals.

Alex just focused on finishing his new helmet during the day and fighting crime at night, the day he finished his new helmet the second container of materials and equipment arrived. While the container was being emptied Alex was looking at the city's surveillance feed because A.N.G.I. notified him that the Brotherhood resurfaced.

Alex saw that his speculation was right, the Brotherhood upgraded their weapons. The majority of them were sporting M16s and some lookouts had M24s.

Alex had a brief moment of narcissism and said out loud " I didn't even realize that I was doing my job so well that they think they need Grenade launchers to deal with me." when he saw them offload two crates of M32s and something even more disturbing than grenade launchers.

An entire crate of C4, judging by the fact that all of crates these weapons and explosives came in had the same logo on them, they all came from a government branch. The Brotherhood either held up an envoy transporting these crates or they bought it from someone who did. ( I'll let you decide which sounds more realistic. )

Alex was worried because regardless if they bought it or stole it. It meant they either had plans for it or they'd make plans for it. Both cases were horrible, image what a bunch of supremacists would do with a literal tonne of C4.

Alex was making plans on how to relieve them of the C4 because he was much more responsible, he'd put them to better use. As he was planning his raid he saw a somewhat familiar figure, it was a young Robert 'John" Pilgrim.

He was currently an avid believer of his group and a rowdy relatively young man. He is currently an assassin for the Brotherhood so they were probably expecting Dragon to show up.

As Alex was looking at John Pilgrim he heard a sound in his head that gave him nightmares, it was the sound of a new quest being issued. These quest weren't as glamorous as one would think, they had Alex jumping through hoops like a trained monkey.

But for the first time Alex saw a quest that awarded Exp.

[ Defeat John Pilgrim and cripple the Brooklyn branch of the Aryan Brotherhood. ]

[ Rewards: 500% Exp & 100,000 Qps]

Alex wasn't the least bit worried about the trap though, the complete version of his current suit would be completed in two hours. It would be more accurate to call it armor than a suit since Alex and A.N.G.I. managed to cover all of his body parts in either scalemail or platemail.

Alex swapped out the enhanced Carbon fiber for his upgraded version of Carbon Nanotubes called Dragonscale Carbon. It was made from layers of Carbon Nanotubes and polycarbonate plastic, but the fibers were braided to look like Dragon scales and it was more compressed than the original version of Carbon Nanotubes.

Dragonscale Carbon is twenty five times stronger than Alex's special Carbon fiber, it weighed and occupied less than its predecessor so Alex used slightly thinner plates in certain areas to make space for his projectiles.

He also made a composite fabric called Dragonsilk, it was made from Kevlar, Nomex and Spandex woven along with the fibers from Dragonscale Carbon into a fabric. It was breathable, had some stretch and was surprisingly comfortable.

Alex sewed a layer of a breathable gel between two layers of Dragonsilk and used it as the foundational material of his armor. It was capable of stopping a bullet from a handgun.

Alex's chest and epaulet plates could deflect a .338 mag round or stop a single 20 mm bullet from a rifle at the cost of being destroyed. His chest plates distributes external forces they experience to every part of the armor, so a 50 cal bullet would destroy the plate it hit.

The scales on the other hand would stop or defects anything from a handgun or commercial assault rifle, rounds from an average rifle would be lodged in the hit scale. A round from a .338 lapua magic would destroy the hit scales cause some minor damage and anything above would just make its way through. The helmet was the strongest part of the armor and also the hardest to design.

Since it only connected to the neck scales it was hard to find a way to distribute the vibrations through them. He soon realized it was impossible with his current materials and instead added plates that looked like spinal fins to his armor which solved the issue and increased the armor's performance.

The visor was also limited by material but it could still block a bullet from any handgun. His boots and gauntlets had motion activated claws made of sharp Dragonscale Carbon.

There wasn't much physical changes to the armor, the important joints were now covered by plates and scales and the helmet employed a visor instead of eye holes but that was it. The appearance on the other hand changed vastly, since it was made from Dragonscale Carbon it gave off a visual illusion that it was made of actual scales.

There were no more pouches on the armor, all of Alex's projectiles were stored below his armor plates, his kunai dispensers were stored below his epaulet plates and his shuriken dispensers were stored at the base of his spinal fins and below his chest plates.

His armor looked sleek and lightweight but the weight was relative, the armor itself weighed 60lbs but the projectiles brought it up to 75lbs. To him this was a slight inconvenience and a few levels later it'd be negligible.

The only worry Alex had right now was his katanas, he was still working on an alloy to use for it. He couldn't strengthen it but he could customize it, the pommel was painted gold and had a Dragon's face exactly like his chest plate engraved on it.

The cord wrap was changed to gold colored cord, the tsuba was changed to two chasing Golden Dragons, the blade collar also had a Dragon's face engraved on both sides. But the most amazing thing was the hamon, mune and ha, there was a Golden Dragon embedded in it.

It's tail started from blade collar and it's head reached the curved edge. (Google parts of a katana) This was only possible because it was machine forged, but it was beautiful beyond comparison.

As one should, Alex named this armor Dragonscale Mk1 and his sword Dragonfang Mk1. Alex ate dinner and calmed himself down because this was in no way going to be an easy fight.

When he finished meditating his armor was finally finished, he put it on and exited through the sewers. Mumbling about how much he hated them he exited from the sewer access point in an apartment building.

He made his way to the roof and headed to the trap. Thanks to his new H.U.D he made it there in record time thanks to the course plotting function.

Standing on a rooftop away from the Aryan base Dragon observed the lookouts. They had the before seen M24s, they didn't pose a problem to him though.

He was searching for for John Pilgrim, if he was outside he'd have a larger caliber rifle than what was highlighted in his H.U.D.

It seems before he found religion John was a bit reckless and overconfident. Since there was only four lookouts Dragon took them out individually before making his way to the base's rooftop .

Over the past almost two weeks Alex managed to raise his Intermediate Projectile Throwing Skill to level 9 and his Martial Arts, Espionage and Parkour to level 6.

His Swordsmanship rank upgraded to the intermediate rank and reached level 3 also. His skill level was nearing the grandmaster rank, something very few alive attained.

Dragon made his way down the staircase he encountered two guards that would be having trouble eating for the next few weeks. He didn't hold back too much against his foes, the people he fought against weren't nice people.

Making his way around the building Dragon was shocked by the amount of guards there were. He already knocked out 19 of them yet they were still coming.

Dragon wanted to cut the power but there were several backup generators and even some guards with night vision goggles. After marveling at their preparations Dragon went on to deal with over thirty more guards before someone spotted an unconscious body.

Dragon hid himself amongst the rafters in the warehouse part of the base, since there was no feasible way to get up there from a normal person's perspective.

While Dragon was running around knocking out guards he also rigged the fuse box to explode and sabotaged the generators. He also had a plan for the night vision goggles but it wasn't time for that yet.

Dragon watched as all of the remaining thugs gathered around their haul. What bothered him about this situation was that he couldn't spot John Pilgrim, After asking A.N.G.I he found out that he wasn't in the sewer hiding either.

She knew that because she had worker drones down their on standby with transportation vehicles to extract the C4. Alex couldn't just put it in a truck and drive off with it.

Dragon then blew the charges in the fuse box, the thugs were startled for a bit before feeling confident about their plans but that was short lived when the generators didn't turn on. With apprehension they put on their goggles and that action marked their demise.

Dragon found a crate filled with flash bangs earlier and he grabbed a dozen before he went up into the rafters. Using a string he found lying around he looped it through all of the pins so he could pull them all at the same time.

Pulling the pins Dragon scattered the flash bangs and they did the rest, the flash temporarily blinded them and the bang disoriented them.

While they were scrambling around Dragon picked them off one by one using his remaining shurikens and when he was done he dropped from the roof and kicked them unconscious.

A few of them managed to fire of some shots at him but he blocked them and knocked them out. He searched the place once again to see if John snuck back in but found nothing, so he had the drones come up and take the C4.

After they were done Dragon but a few sticks in a bag and headed to the roof, after taking a few steps he felt a nudge in his mind telling him to turn his body slightly and so he did.

Dragon felt a huge impact on his chest that sent him stumbling backwards, he looked to the direction of the impact and a half mile away his H.U.D highlighted John with a .338 lapua mag.

If Dragon didn't turn the impact from the bullet would have sent him stumbling off the roof. Dragon took out his last remaining shuriken and hurled it at a different location from John and hid behind the rooftop building(Closest name I could find for it ).

John saw the throw and was shocked, ' Why doesn't he use guns and does he really think that could reach here.) While John was waiting for Dragon to take a step out Dragon's shuriken found it's way in John's rifle.

John was stunned, never in his life did he think something like that would or could happen. He shook it off and reached for an assault rifle, by the time he looked in Dragon's direction again he had already traveled a quarter of the way.

Dragon already saw John reach for a new gun so he threw 3 kunais at different angles to strike three possible spots his gun would be in. Luckily the middle angle hit the gun at the junction between the barrel and the magazine.

After a second long range hit from a handheld projectile John no longer doubted Dragon's skill. He reached for a smg and started firing at Dragon, a poor choice of gun since all of the bullets just bounced off.

Even though the bullets were reflected and the vibrations were distributed throughout the suit it still killed off some of Dragon's momentum. It took a minute but he was finally closing in on John.

Dragon fired his two wrist mounted grappling hook at two buildings at the side of John's and used them to pull himself closer. John smirked when he saw his target in midair and grabbed an already prepared M32 and fired it at Dragon.

John thought he'd see Dragon be blown out of the sky but instead he saw Dragon twist his body and dodge the grenade that blew up a water tank instead of Dragon.

Dragon landed on the roof and drew Dragonfang, John tried to draw his gun but it was knocked out of his hand. Knowing he wouldn't be able to draw a gun he charged at Dragon and attempted to trade blows with him.

He was good at close quarter combat but he wasn't good enough, after a few rounds of observation Dragon used the pommel of his sword to block a backhanded swing from John that left a bleeding wound.

He then grabbed John's two arms and broke them over his shoulder before shoulder tossing him into the floor and kicking him in the head to knock him out.

After dealing with the threat Dragon looked around and saw several guns all loaded and prepared. He just shook his head and heaped them all in a corner before setting them on fire using a can of fuel he found in the corner.

Dragon kicked the ammo and mags aside and called the police. He then went to a rooftop two blocks away and looked over John, two minutes after being knocked out he woke up and stumbled away before the police came.

Alex didn't bother stopping him because he had a role to play in the future. As he watched John struggle to escape Alex heard the notification tone in his head indicating the quest's completion.