54 The Strike

Tia silently walked down the street, passing through the crowds with her shoes loudly tapping on the hard concrete road. Her heart was in her throat as she slowly but surely approached the imposing building.

Her coat's black hood shrouded her features and cast a shadow over her face. Her hand had already disappeared beneath the fabric, gripping the cold metal of her firearm with deadly intent.

'Alright, let's go.' She nodded one last time and passed through the glass entrance doors that smoothly parted in her way, revealing a plain concrete atrium, its bare stone walls showing the government's fake frugality.

She quickly counted the security and scanned her surroundings.

At one end of the hall lay the entrance she'd just used; at the opposite end, a sleek metallic reception desk. Flanking the reception area were twin corridors that stretched deeper into the military building. The two armed guards, in blue Federation uniforms, their short plasma SMGs glowing in bright blue light, stood guard by each corridor and by the entrance she had come in—six in total.

'Let's begin!'

With feline agility, Tia raised her hand, her firearm ablaze with blueish light, the runes around its muzzle flaring to life. As she squeezed the trigger, a vivid sapphire flare erupted from the gun, casting dazzling reflections on the luxuriously polished floor beneath her.

Contrasting sharply with the room's plain walls, the floor was a work of art—an expanse of black marble shot through with veins of emerald green. At the atrium's heart lies an ornate circular seal, masterfully inlaid into the floor. It depicted a resplendent eagle with wings unfurled, the emblem of the federation.

"It is h..." Before the farthest guard could finish his sentence, the blue bolt blasted through his head, his hat evaporating with his flesh, not leaving even a trace behind.

Almost simultaneously, the soldiers guarding the entrance were flung violently backward, colliding into the concrete wall with such kinetic energy that shards of the wall cracked, and the two humans were embedded into the concrete.

'The enchants seem to work, the gun on the lowest setting, but still able to blast someone's head off.'

The floor beneath her splintered and cracked as she propelled herself through the atrium, aided by an invisible force of telekinesis. Her hood fell away, unveiling her cascading waves of platinum hair, now free to catch the light.

'First, I need a cover—I am too exposed here.' She didn't want to taste the enemy's firepower, so she made a quick decision to seek cover.

The remaining trio of guards, reacting with trained precision, aimed their weapons. Lights flickered to life within their gun muzzles as the air itself seemed to shudder, trembling under the latent force of the energy charging within them.

A luminous streak of light tore through the atmosphere, and one of the guards collapsed to the ground, his head missing and a fountain of blood spurting from his neck.

'It must have been her,' Tia realized in a split second of icy clarity.

Finally reaching the reception desk, Tia vaulted over its metallic surface with athletic grace, taking cover behind the imposing structure. An instant later, the room was awash in brilliant light, the flashes from the guards' weapons scattering kaleidoscopic reflections across the atrium's polished floor.

The floor erupted in a mosaic of shattering stone and smoky plumes as high-energy plasma bolts from the guards' military-grade rifles blitzed through the room. Waves of intense heat billowed over Tia, her platinum hair whipped into a frenzied dance by the shockwaves that rolled through the space.

Then came a blaze of even brighter blue light, and in its wake, an enveloping silence and darkness swallowed the room.

<Basic Telekinesis VI (32%)> --> 34%

Suddenly, a blue projection of a woman popped into existence. "Welcome, guest! I am Mirta, your AI receptionist!"

Startled, Tia slightly twitched, her breath turning ragged for a moment, 'The piece of junk...'

"Your path is clear," the dry voice of Number Nine intoned in her ears. Tia rose to her feet, momentarily awestruck by the sheer magnitude of devastation that stretched before her. The short salvo from the two automatic guns devasted the entire hall; the walls cracked, the floor tiles were torn out, and molten concrete dripped from the ceiling.

'Yup, those guns can't be compared with the cheap shit used by civilians and the planetary guard.'

Tia climbed out of her cover and walked toward the nearest dead guard. And as she passed over him, she waved her hand, his weapon vanishing into her ring.

"Code red! Intruder in the building!" A mechanical voice blared over the intercom, and the room's lights shifted to a deep crimson, casting an otherworldly hue over the destroyed scene.

'Enough with the fodder. Time to find someone important.' Tia pivoted, sprinting down the left-hand corridor. Her skirt fluttered, and her shoes clicked against the polished stone, which now reflected the room's ominous, pulsating red light.

'Good, this should lead me right to them. The high-value targets are always upstairs.' Her eyes caught a green arrow symbol accompanied by a pictogram of stairs, directing her further to the left.

Just as she made the turn, a man in a blue uniform appeared from behind the corner. "What the—?" He drew his handgun, his eyes dilating with sheer surprise.

In a flash, Tia's eyes ignited, enveloping the man in flames that incinerated him before his finger could even reach the trigger or scream, his charred body hitting the floor with a thud.

<Basic Pyrokinesis II (1%)> --> 6%

'Another victim of listening to orders...'

Disregarding the charred remains, she continued her mad dash through the narrow concrete and marble passageways, tracking the green arrow and stairway symbol with laser focus. Adrenaline surged through her veins like a torrent.

'There!' She spotted the stairwell entrance as she made another left turn.

But then she halted, her ears picking up the thudding sound of heavy boots descending rapidly toward her.

'So they're already here? It hasn't even been a minute, and they are already here. The footfalls are heavy—likely fully armored soldiers.' Her mind raced. This was the scenario she had feared the most: trained soldiers lying in wait for her, clad in state-of-the-art tactical suits or even mechanized exoskeletons, armed with weapons potent enough to obliterate concrete walls and melt steel.