<>When the two last helicopters were out of Arimane"s sight, he breathed out in relief and sat on the ground while shouldering his rifle. At the same time, he heard two more explosions and then the sound of the choppers going down.
The rest of the squad apparently acted to destroy the last helicopters. But unfortunately, it was too late and the entire base was already alerted with all of the terrorists searching for the intruders.
Tieria and Jiro approached Arimane and sat down beside him, they had a bit of time to rest since the towers will not really be checked first and the whole enemy base was trying to recover from the shock.
"What the h.e.l.l was that?" Jiro casually asked as he lit a cigarette and put it in his mouth. Tieria also sharply stared at Arimane.
The latter just shrugged "Nothing. I"m just like that since they injected me the nanomachines" He truthfully answered.
"An error or a dysfunction?" Tieria asked Jin since he was the most knowledgeable about that stuff.
"That should not be possible" Jin shook his head "They are supposed to adapt to the metabolism they are in. They can"t make a human body go beyond the limits like that. Since humans are not supposed to be able to get that strong in the first place" He looked at Arimane when he said the last part.
"Why did you keep it secret?" Tieria suddenly inquired when Jin finished.
"Why do I need a reason?" Arimane snickered and responded.
Jin lightly laughed "You"re right about that. Things get really annoying with humans once they find something different with others" He said and looked at Arimane "Also, if I"m correct, your body has something that we don"t know about, if some of the higher-ups were to learn that, maybe they would try to lock you up and make researches to clone your special condition"
Jin expired smoke and sighed "People in the upper stairs always try to get new weapons and ways to kill people and making themselves scarier among the populace" He declared and threw his cigarette away.
"Well don"t worry, I don"t have any intention to give satisfaction to those sc.u.ms" He stood up and said.
Arimane glanced at him and just smiled. Tieria also got up and nodded toward Arimane "I"ll keep the information for myself too" She said and then turned to look at Jin "What is the situation?" She asked.
"Well, I don"t think that any of our members were captured or compromised for now. Also, our aerial support is coming soon, although now they"re coming for a non-existent reason, thanks to Arimane who gave us the opportunity to take out the choppers. That"s basically the good news" Jin summarized.
"Now, for the bad news, the targets in this entire base are now looking for us, they also seem to understand we are spread around the place, hidden or disguised, and they"re taking measures for that" Jin told while looking at the virtual screen coming from his watch "Ah" He suddenly exclaimed "Our position is compromised, when I say us, I"m talking about the three of us" He bitterly smiled.
When Arimane and Tieria heard that, they frowned together and in the next instant, an explosion occurred just outside of the tower and a part of the wall broke.
"Was it too hard for you to understand that it was the most important thing!?" The trio instantly laid down and Arimane couldn"t help but shout at Jin.
"Hey, listen, I can"t check everything at every moment. I just happened to see them because they entered my drone"s view at the last moment. That"s why I was too late to notify it" Jin retorted.
"Don"t start arguing right now please" Tieria said to them when the whistling in their ears caused by the explosion stopped completely. But soon after, another rocket struck the tower and shook the whole structure as it started to crumble, starting from the foundations.
The trio looked at each other while the ground they were on started to shift diagonally. They immediately took their decision and jumped out of the tower by the window. Arimane caught his two comrades and landed safely on the ground before the tower fell and formed a big dust screen.
Jin laughed and ran to hide behind a rock "Your const.i.tution is really useful. Even from that jump, you felt nothing" He remarked and Tieria nodded as she crouched to hide too. Arima also sat down against the ruins of the tower.
"By the way" Jin the raised his voice "Why the h.e.l.l are they shooting like that!? They can see us?!" As he just complained about, the three of them were actually covering themselves from the barrage of bullets coming at them.
"I think they have night and thermal vision goggles" Arimane commented while putting some green lentils on his eyes along with Tieria. Jin looked at them and clicked his tongue before doing the same with a reluctant expression.
"I don"t like those things. It hurts" Jin complained once more and put the night vision lentils on his eyes.
"It"s kind of necessary right now so keep quiet" Tieria scolded him a bit and peeked around her. Arimane did the same and then sat down.
"I count thirty-seven. What about you?" he asked Tieria.
"Forty-two" The latter answered and Arimane wryly smiled.
"Forty-two?" Jin frowned unpleasantly "No wonder there were so many bullets. Those d.a.m.n terrorists don"t even know how to aim and save their ammunition. They just know how to pull the trigger"
"True" Arimane smirked and took out two small gray spheres, the size of a fist, in his hands "Where are the two biggest groups in your opinion?" He asked and Tieria pointed at two different directions. Arimane didn"t hesitate afterward, he pressed a b.u.t.ton on the sphere and threw it over the ruins of the tower.
"Ruthless…" Jin muttered at the same time. The spheres touched the ground at two different places which gathered many terrorists. The spheres lit up and a blue light escaped it before they exploded with a powerful detonation and strong flames coming out of a cyan blue energy, burning and destroying everything around them for ten meters at least. That was the effects of an Eion grenade.
It was without saying that the people in the grenade"s explosion radius all died almost instantly. The rest of the terrorists were a bit scared and stopped shooting for a moment "Good. You got half of them" Tieria declared after she checked around.
"Let"s go then" Jin smiled and looked at his monitor "Sorry for the wait, here"s the data of the surroundings. To be honest, the Eion grenades didn"t help" He said and showed the screen to Arimane and Tieria.
"Here" The latter pointed at a certain area on the display and the two others nodded "We"ll break through with this path"
"I"ll attract their attention by going there then. Tieria, get them from behind. And Jin, please cover us" Arima said and put away his rifle inside the case which he gave to Jin. He then took out his revolver and loaded it with charged Eion bullets.
"Do you have a white flare?" Arimane asked Jin and the latter took out a white tube and handed it to Arimane "Thanks" He said then broke the tube before throwing it to an open s.p.a.ce. The powerful white light of the flare suddenly illuminated the area and the terrorists started shouting as they threw away their goggles to the ground and rubbed their eyes.
Arimane breathed in and kicked the ground, some people instantly saw him but Arimane was quicker on noticing them and started shooting. Each one of his bullets , were very powerful and long to recharge, so he used them in the most efficient way possible, each of his shots would take out at least two targets at once.
Of course, most of the terrorists all started focusing on him and begun shooting. Arimane finished his cylinder and plunged behind a wall to cover himself from the bullets. He opened the cylinder and ejected the bullets before using a speed loader to reload his gun "I can"t wait for the bullets to recharge" He uttered and peeked out of his cover.
He instantly crouched down when he started being shot at. He waited three seconds for the shooting to stop then stood up very quickly, he then aimed with an inhuman speed and eliminated the two who were going to shoot at him first. He afterward killed two others with a single bullet and then killed another six with his last three bullets before going into cover.
He reloaded once more and saw that Jin was helping him with his a.s.sault rifle. After a few seconds, Arimane was ready to go up once more but he noticed that the number of shooting guns he was hearing had dropped dramatically. And it was just before the last one was silenced that Arimane was able to hear the sound of a gun equipped with a silencer.
When he was sure no one was shooting anymore, Arimane went out of his cover, so did Jin. The latter threw back the case to Arimane and then looked around.
He looked at the corpses here and there and sighed in relief "You really did it you two" He said while putting a cigarette in his mouth.
Arimane nodded and looked at Tieria who was going through the terrorist"s possessions. If he had to be honest, Arimane was really impressed by her work earlier. She completely erased her presence and managed to kill at least ten of them without being detected.
"Did you find something?" Arimane asked her. Tieria grabbed a small tablet and threw it toward him. He caught it and looked at what was on it, it was a simple electronic map of the base. But that kind of thing, they could have it with the drone. The most useful thing on that map was where the headquarters were situated.
"Those people are seriously dumb" Jin said as he observed the map "Who casually marks the HQ"s emplacement on a map, which was also held by a simple foot "soldier"" He uttered and sent the same information to the entire squad.
"Well, only that map had a mark like that" Tieria said.
"Anyway, let"s go. Sir Moria just gave us a meeting point" Jin said and started running. Arimane and Tieria followed him and jumped on the roofs to be faster.
Ten minutes later, they arrived at a simple building that was a mile from the said HQ, a reinforced building with a lot of patrols and fixed turrets around it.
When the trio entered, they rejoined with almost all the squad. The first ones they met with was Moria and Erin "Not everyone has arrived yet, but from the information I received, we didn"t lose anyone" Moria said when they entered. He then looked at Arimane and smiled "You really did a good job with those choppers" He praised him and Erin also nodded in agreement.
Arimane just shrugged "It was easy with this rifle" He humbly said and the members of the squad laughed at his usual modesty.
"Well, sorry to rely on you in this mission, but I want you to use that gun one more time. Follow me" Moria said and went to the roof, Arimane followed him along with Erin, Jin and Tieria and some other members.
"Look at their headquarters" Moria handed binoculars to Arimane and the latter looked at the HQ with them "The room in the middle, you can connect the binoculars with the thermal vision of the drone" Moria said and Arimane nodded. He pressed a b.u.t.ton on his binoculars and saw a figure behind the walls, sitting at a desk.
"Do I have to take him out?" Arimane asked "Who is it?"
"From our intel, it"s this town"s leader basically. He"s the one who commands. You can take him out from here?" Moria explained and inquired.
"It"s okay, the walls are tough, maybe it"ll deviate the bullet in a way that I can"t predict, but if I use an EG bullet, it should work without a problem" Arima said while taking out his rifle. An EG bullet was the explosive ammunition Arimane used to destroy the helicopters.
Moria snickered "It"s perfect then. We"ll do the same tactic as last time. Stay here with Jin and Tieria and wait for us to reach that building. At my signal, you shoot. Once you take out the leader, start taking the turrets. They would attack our choppers otherwise" He instructed and Arimane nodded "Fine, it"s time to move again!" He then shouted to the squad.