Arthur woke not to the sound of busy traffic like he was used to, but instead to the smell of cheap coffee and chatter. This, if even slightly, calmed Arthur, who got a maximum of one hour of sleep. This serenity was rudely interrupted by Sam, who leaned over Arthur positioned in a sleeping bag Simon had found the day before.
"AH! Lad you're finally up, I was up from 7 am sharp! Always was an early riser even in my youth."
"Mhm."
Arthur grumbled and ignored Sam, who turned back to the boiling pot of coffee, seemingly hurt.
"Goodmorning Arthur, first on the agenda, the gym is over there for use and the kitchen is over there." he too, was leaning over Arthur in his sleeping bag, he pointed to a camping stove with boxes full of out of date biscuits and "meat". Arthur pulled himself up from the sleeping bag and stood to face Simon.
"Ok."
Simon looked up at Arthur from his sheet of paper he was intently staring at.
"Hey, you asked for this."
"What?"
"We are a serious operation, I am aware of your situation but if you're serious about this then act like it."
Arthur walked up to Simon, "Fuck. You.", Arthur spat.
"We leave at 10pm sharp." Simon said calmly. Walking away and leaving Arthur standing alone at the foot of his sleeping bag.
Arthur went through his day normally, except he would look out of the window instead of being at school, which was 90% of his day. He was struggling to process his emotions and couldn't think straight, the idea of his family being gone had not yet sunk in fully. He found himself wandering the base looking for things to do, he didn't want to go near the recreation area because Erin was over there, and things were still pretty tense between the two. He eventually stumbled on the half deconstructed plane, curious, he climbed into the cockpit. It was clearly VERY old and had a dense musty scent, the interior was pale yellow and there were a lot of controls that Arthur had no clue how to operate, not that it would fly anyway. He ventured into the back and found a pair of flying goggles and a strangely high tech mask, it was an odd pair, a seemingly ancient pair of goggles next to a modern mask. The goggles had round lenses and were leather-bound, the mask matched the brown colour palette and was fit around the entire nose and mouth due to being moulded, with small slits to allow for breathing. Arthur felt a strange connection to these items and decided to hold onto them, surmising that the previous owner probably wasn't coming back for them. After climbing down from the cockpit, Arthur heard Simon shouting for another meeting.
"Attention everyone, meet in the centre please!"
The small group of members dawdled there way to the centre, the sense of urgency Simon had tried portraying obviously lost on the bunch.
"Do you have to sound so nerdy when you call a meeting?" Erin jeered.
"What? It doesn't sound nerdy it sounds proper."
"Everyone to the centre promptly!" Erin imitated Simon by putting one had behind her back and one pointing up.
"We're off topic." Simon did not think it sounded nerdy.
"We will be leaving tonight in 40 minutes, I trust you all remember your stations for tonight's raid. On the table you will find an earpiece, please put them in before we leave."
True enough there were exactly enough earpieces for each member.
"Other than that you can make your own preparations, that's all." Simon concluded
Each member collected there earpiece and continued with what they were doing, waiting for the raid to start.
50 minutes later:
The crew were positioned above the dock on an adjacent buildings roof, after consulting the binoculars for some time, Simon finally spoke.
"Right so-"
"I'm the attack right?"
Simon paused and turned to Arthur.
"Yes Arthur, also where did you get those?"
He was pointed at the goggles and mask Arthur was wearing.
"I found them in the old plane."
"Right... Yes you are, you and me we will take out the guards."
"5 minutes." Arthur said, not taking his eyes off the dock.
"Sorry?"
"Give me 5 minutes and I'll leave everyone in that dock incapacitated." Arthur said calmly.
"We are a team we do things together." Simon was clearly annoyed at this proposal.
"Set a timer."
Arthur burst from the rooftop and flew towards the dock.
"Ughh *sigh* set a timer." Simon said defeatedly to Erin.
"OK that's now three crates, should be enough for tonight leads head ho-"
The guards thought was cut short by a flying knee to the jaw, knocking him out instantly. Arthur skidded before stopping and ended up facing three more armed guards. The loading bay was wet, drips splattering from looming lampposts like blood from a carcass.
"You're Monsoun correct?"
"Kill the little bastard!" the guard said, ignoring the intruders question.
Arthur's stance suggested no signs of fear however, arms out at the side and head looking down. These people were not threats.
The guards opened fire spraying and avalanche of bullets at, well, nothing now, as Arthur had already closed the distance down on the first guard. He was just under the guards gun, so he grabbed it and slammed it into the guards teeth, breaking nearly all of them. He then used Burst again to close the distance on the second guard. This was Arthur using Burst for mobility, creating holes on his back to explode him forward with venomous pace. He struck this guard in the stomach, however he used burst and created a hole on his elbow as he punched, allowing his punch to travel incredibly fast and land incredibly hard.
"You fucker!"
The final guard rushed Arthur and grabbed his arm, he then threw Arthur over his shoulder using a form of martial arts and put him in an arm lock.
"Hah! You're fucked now, I'm gonna break this little arm of yours!"
The guard bent Arthur's arm back and attempted to snap it.
"What the fuck is this?!"
Instead, all he was met with was the resistance of trying to bend a bar of pure steel in half, Arthur's hand was near the guard's face in the arm lock position, so he created a hole in his hand and used the explosion to fry the guard to a crisp. Arthur got up and looked down at the charred but barely still alive guard he left in a heap at his feet.
"Steel bones don't bend."
Then Simon jumped down, seeing the three men left on the ground, he turned to Arthur.
"Let's go, after we clear out the boat, Sam can come down and take the vaccines, our intel says there should be four more guards inside the boat, so stay on your toes."
"Got it."
It was raining heavily, the dock was lit by the fluorescent glow of led lamps overhead. The light reflected off the blood on the ground and caught Arthur's eye, it was the first time he actually hurt someone who wasn't just a training dummy. He felt... alive.
The dock was set up so the pier branched straight out with boats either side, as the two men snuck down the middle of the pier, they could see inside the boat. One guard was sleeping and the other was reading a book and smoking, lounging on a built in chair the boat had. Simon signalled to Arthur using military hand signals, Arthur knew them due to his SADL training. They read, "enter on my signal, you take right" then, when Simon saw the reading guard look out the window for a second, he signalled. Arthur blew the door open using Burst and rushed the reading guard, slamming his head onto the table. Simon knocked the sleeping guard out using chloroform. Just then, the third guard exited the toilet, seeing the scene, he immediately radioed before they could reach him.
"Emergency at Sundersbury Dock! Send backup immedia-"
Arthur caved the guards face in, again using Burst to strengthen his punch, and hasten his mobility, something he was trained to do every time he fought, and for every attack he used.
"Fuck! Now we're gonna have Monsoun on our ass! We have to call it off."
"Hold on." Arthur said calmly, he then strolled up to the sleeping guard he slammed into the desk and woke him up using a technique which involved a lot of slapping and shouting.
"Huh... whuh?" the guard lethargicly spluttered through shattered teeth.
"Here's what's gonna happen, you will radio whoever is on the other end of that, and tell them that the emergency call was a false alarm. Ok?"
"Why... *cough* should I?"
"Otherwise... you'll die here." Arthur created a hole on his finger and shot a powerful explosion into the ceiling, which left a sizable hole, demonstrating what would happen to the guards skull were he not to comply. He then handed the radio to the guard and pointed his finger at his head.
"Command come in, over"
A crackly voice through the radio replied, "Command here, Echo 1 do you copy, over"
"I copy, reporting emergency call as false alarm, over"
After a long silence the voice replied, "copy that, over"
"No way that fucking worked!" Simon exclaimed, obviously shocked at Arthur's improvisation skills. The guard looked up at Arthur who had removed his finger, and said "Is that enough?"
Arthur nodded and said, "that's all I need from you." as he raised his finger to his head.
"Woah Arthur! He gave us what we wanted, just let him go."
"Fine." Arthur grumbled.
The men exited the boat ready to radio Sam to come and pick up the vaccines when a voice was heard on Simon's earpiece.
"Hello? Simon?"
"Yeah?"
"Its Erin, I'm seeing a really bad looking thunderstorm headed this way, we might want to get out of here soon."
"Thunderstorm? I checked the forecast this morning there shouldn't be any thun..." Simon's voice trailed off and his expression fell to a ghostly pale.
"Hey Simon!" Arthur ran over to him, "Are you OK?"
"We need to go, NOW!" fear dripped from his words and as they ran back down the pier a figure was spotted overhead in the clouds above. Cloaked in ferocious electricity and black ominous clouds, dressed in an expensive looking suit as their tie flapped in the wind. They slowly descended like god onto the pier and in doing so dispersed the many storm clouds behind them.
"I come here on orders that there was a false emergency call, and yet here I find two mongrel dogs rifling through our precious stock!"
The man was well spoken and had an English accent, he had midnight black hair and a jawline sharp enough to cut diamond.
"These vaccines were meant for the people..." Simon said, almost in a whisper, avoiding the man's gaze. The tension was palpable as both parties stared each other down.
"Oh? Then they can have them for the selected price! Or I suppose such a concept is unheard of for you untrained beasts!"
"Who're you calling untrained?"
Simon's eyes shot over to meet Arthur's, however, they were already locked with the mystery man's.
"Arthur! That is Julian Waxing, ranked 4th strongest in the world, one wrong word and we die here. If I can convince him tha-"
"What arrogance! Shall I teach you manners boy? First however, what is your name?"
"Arthur Bridges." It was clear Arthur was a new to this life, as someone trained would never give their name away so easily.
"Excellent, now dog, shall I put you down?"
Julian clenched his fists and strolled towards Arthur. Arthur primed Burst with many holes manifesting on his body, he took up a battle stance. Then, there was a moment of stillness... before the storm.