The armory locker shrieked open in a plume of freezing vapor, reeking of hot oil and scorched steel. Ramona didn't touch the ceremonial gold-trimmed garbage. She ripped a carbon-weave ballistic vest from the rack, hauling the heavy straps across her ribs until they bit deep into her flesh.
Lina slid a heavy marksman rifle across the metal table with a lethal clatter.
“If you miss, you're dead,” Lina hissed, her eyes blazing. “The council rats won't watch your back. Shatter bone.”
Ramona caught the weapon mid-swing. Years of phantom weakness vanished, replaced by the electric surge of pure, violent muscle memory. Her thumb snapped the safety off with a sharp, metallic click.
Across the room, Gary slammed the bolt of his plasma scattergun home. The power core wailed, screaming a high-pitched, tooth-rattling pitch as it gorged on raw energy.
Another seismic tremor cracked the bunker ceiling, raining a blizzard of concrete dust into their hair while the sirens screamed overhead.
“Transport is hot!” Gary roared, his voice cutting through the chaos. “Let's show the high council what happens when the leash snaps!”
Ramona slung the rifle tight against her spine, her eyes locked on the blast doors as a deafening wall of claws and screeches tore at the outer steel. Let the capital burn. She was ready for the fire.
Operation: Ash-BORN
The screaming metal of the outer corridor yielded with a shriek of tortured hydraulic pressure, plunging the armory into a Strobing red twilight.
Ramona stepped off the grated catwalk, boots striking the reinforced deck with the hollow ring of an executioner's bell. The vault doors buckled inward, groaning under the mass of a dozen Vanguard enforcers who thought a council badge still meant something. They were wrong. The leash hadn't just slipped; it had shattered against teeth and carbon steel.
Lina was already a ghost in the smoke, her marksman rifle coughing suppressed, supersonic death into the shadows. Glass shattered. A heavy body hit the grating with a wet, final thud.
Gary bellowed a laugh that rattled the loose fillings in his teeth, his plasma scattergun blooming into a blinding, cobalt sun as he swept the sector clean. The heat scorched their eyelashes, smelling of fried ozone and melted armor plating.
Ramona didn't wait for clearance. She thumbed the fire selector, raised the heavy barrel through the drifting white fog, and walked straight into the wreckage of the world they built.
The transport bay doors peeled back to reveal the choking, orange-lit expanse of the lower concourse, where the skyline of New Mercury burned like an open wound against the starless sky. Sirens wailed a frantic, dying rhythm across the districts, drowning in the roar of incoming drop-ships and the distant, thunderous collapse of the council spires.
Ramona vaulted the rusted terminal rail, her boots hitting the landing ramp with bone-jarring impact. Lina flanked her left, a silent shadow feeding a fresh magazine into her rifle with practiced ease, while Gary held the rear, his scattergun humming a low, menacing threat that kept the shadows at bay.
The air tasted of ash, ozone, and copper—the sweet perfume of a crumbling empire.
A dozen tactical drones descended through the smoke, their optical sensors glowing a blinding, uniform crimson. Gary grinned, his teeth flashing white against soot. Ramona raised her rifle, aligned the sights against the leading machine, and let out a cold, steady breath.
"Open the throttle, Gary," Ramona whispered, her finger tightening on the cold steel of the trigger. "Let's give them a proper funeral."