Storming The Front

The day of the operation... I'm suited up, locked in, and loadout. Natalia is keeping watch from above. Surprising she knows how to do distant over watch. I walked towards the densely populated housing area with a M4 Carbine at hand. The people seemed to be afraid as I walked around the seemingly problematic place. Reminds me of home to be honest.

I checked my corners and Natalie giving me heads up on where to go. "Quite surprising you know this much about being an over watch support."

"Hey you don't think I only know one thing, I know stuff too." Sounds like she's annoyed. But what can I do? My only knowledge of her was from a few years ago.

"Any updates up there Nat?" I looked around for the area to search for the target. Gun ready but concealed carried as I don't want to raise alarms of the people here. They might have guns too.

"Nothing yet Vaughn. But be on high alert I've spotted a lot of hot signatures in one of the buildings there. The target might be there." Seems like she's using thermal scanning.

I feel surreal... I oddly feel surreal right now. I feel it... The sense of targeting someone, that missing feeling I haven't felt in a while. I feel exhilarated something is bad is probably gonna happen. I open the door slowly to the place Natalie highlighted through my HUD.

"Vaughn heads up there are plenty of bastards on the other side of that door." Man it's been a while since I've last wore this mask. I wear my armored masked to protect me from headshots and aids my aim as a means of assisting and predicting where my shots would be. I load up my assault rifle and kicked down the door.

After that a rain of bullets come to my wake as they shoot wide open in this tight corridor but my armor managed to deflect it. I shoot back at them Natalie is connected to my onboard camera to check and identify the guy we wanted. "Vaughn more targets at your 8 o' clock." As I flick my aim to my 8 o' clock she wasn't wrong there was like 5-6 enemies there.

"Have you identified our guy? I can't see through the mess at the moment." As I reload behind a thick concrete wall and continued firing back taking them one-by-one. "Not yet, but his heat signature is close. Careful with collateral damage we need him alive." Said Natalie.

Damn it, there's a lot of them I need to wipe them off. It's weird to take advantage of an exosuit in this situation but we need to be swift today and time isn't in our side. Activating Combat Program 2...

[Activating Combat Mode in Simple mode]

[Initializing Active Aim System...]

[Multiple targets sighted]

[Analyzing collateral damage]

[Results: Very High Collateral Damage]

[Proceeding with Auto Mitigation of Collateral Damage...]

[Do you accept the current program?]

Yes, activate the program.

[Happy hunting Mr. Killjoy]

I can already feel the machine improving my aim. It's been a while since it was this easy popping heads off bastards in like a decade or two ago. Man this feels nice again.

"Woah there Vaughn its been a while to see you kill that many people that quick. They're falling like flies now." Seems like she can also give compliments while I shoot down the remaining guards. As I try to catch up to the target. He ran across the rooftops while I follow suit on the other hand trying not to get shot at.

[Probability of injuring the target: 70%]

Chances of death?

[About 25% of possible death]

25%? That's still a lot. Any suggestions to prevent that 25% happening?

[Shoot that roof over to his left the chances of him dying from that will drop to 2%]

I see can you highlight it for me so I can give a clear shot.

[Target Highlighted]

Nice, as I expected he survived that fall. I went to the scene of the accident and saw him lying on a pile of flour. I picked him up and tied his hands, grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and began interrogation. "Remember me punk?" As I speak to him face to face in trials to interrogate him.

"Killjoy you bastard. I thought you were dead!"

"Me? Dead? Don't make me laugh no can't kill me. Plus you are a disgrace to the arms industry you bastard." As I hold him by the collar still and headbutts him into sense. "You think you can get away from supplying this piece of shit ammo you bastard."

"Is this why you are torturing me? Are you really serious? It was intentional that I sold them crap ammo." He struggles not to laugh while under my grasp. I give a second thought of his words and just followed along. But... I have another question for him after this I temporarily disabled my camera and microphone.

"Joseph... Do you have any idea what this bullet is made from? Hey don't avoid my question I could shoot you here right here and now but I wanna know what's the deal with this bullet you have in those mechs." He struggles a bit while I'm holding him in place.

"So you knew about the mechs huh."

"We we're attacked by one of course, dumbass." As I pin him against the wall tying up on a chair for me to properly ask Joseph about the mech's munitions.

"Those are prototype bullets made to be as light as possible without losing energy over long distances. It's also made to be armor piercing and material penetration. Quite surprising you managed to grab some of them yourself."

I punched him to give sense into him. "Yes, I did managed to grab a lot of them just tell me where you got those bullets."

"It's nice that you asked but I was the one who made them. I can give you the information on how to make them yourself." That answer is off... I must be careful when accepting his requests.

"Why are you giving me this information?" I reply to his probably bluff since this bullet he made is very dangerous.

"You can grab the details on how I did it on this flash drive. I know you need it Vaughn, I have a hunch that Null might do something worst to you. Plus remember we're arms dealers we don't have a side right? Weren't that your own words Vaughn?" He's right I forgot about us arms dealers being unbiased and neutral.

"You maybe right about this one but why give it away?"

"Vaughn I didn't tell you this but they might kill me soon because of what I've sold to them." As he says that the floor shakes...

"They're here for me Vaughn. Go run with the data don't let anyone know about this one." Is he really serious letting me get all of this precious data?

"You know we can try to escape right?" As I slap Joseph again to gain some sense into him.

"Vaughn just run I'm already a dead man." He looks so sure about dying just why? After this I hear Natalie screaming through my comms.

"VAUGHN GET THE HELL OUTTA THERE! A TWO MECHS HAVE ARRIVE GOING TOWARDS YOUR LOCATION!" Crap I have to leave quick.

"Good luck out there Vaughn see you sometime in the afterlife you crazy bastard."

As the room explodes from explosives I got pushed back outside the house as it collapses and I saw the two mechs. I stood up looked around to find a shortcut and ran for it. I hear machine guns shooting from a distance and the sound of bullets just flying across me as I run faster towards the open area where Natalie is waiting to fight the mechs.

"Vaughn what were you doing down there you could have been blown into pieces ya know."

"I know Natalie let's focus on the bigger picture here first of course."

As we prepare to fight the two mechs all on our own.