"Today, Jamie, we're going to destroy the Dynamos branch in the slums."
"Wait, today?" Jamie frowned. "No 24-hour notice or anything?"
"If you wanna get technical, we're doing it right now. I put out the order to my men 2 hours ago."
As if on cue, there was a loud sound, like the crack of a whip, and Beck's window exploded. Jamie put an arm up to shield himself from glass shards as a small piece of metal rolled towards his foot. Jamie picked up the metal and examined it as the loud cracks continued outside.
"Bullets?" He turned to Beck. "This is-"
"Old Earth shit, I know." The middle-aged man nodded at Lowe. "Energy cells were getting scarce for our laser rifles, so our handyman over here used all the scrap around to bring back good old lead."
"It's cost-efficient." Satisfied with the pistol in his hand, Lowe walked towards the broken window, looking out before aiming and firing the pistol a few times.
Curious, Jamie rushed to the window, looking down to see that Lowe had just put a couple of holes into a cop holding a pipe, one of Beck's guards lying on the ground in front of him.
"What exactly was your order?"
"Start attacking every cop in sight." Beck walked towards the window as well, taking a peek at the street before turning to Jamie. "With Dynamos focused on finding whatever they've been looking for these past few days, they've been spread thin. I saw it as the perfect opportunity."
"Lucky us, I guess." Jamie thought of Shell, the intruder, but decided against revealing his knowledge on the situation.
"I choose to see it as a sign. Us versus Dynamos. This slum isn't big enough for the two of us." Beck whistled as Lowe fired at another cop that came running. "By the end of today, only one will stand victorious, and it better be us."
He pulled out a small communicator similar to the ones Dynamos officers used and gave it to Jamie, who looked at it. "We'll instruct you using this."
"My family-"
"Will have 10 people guarding it at all times." Beck reassured him. "I know what you said about my men being there, but it's better than leaving them vulnerable."
"Fine." Jamie reluctantly nodded. "So what do you need me to do?"
"Destroy their headquarters. Leave no survivors."
"Destroy their communication devices and any electronics you see." Lowe chimed in as he reloaded his pistol. "If even a single cop ticks off the other sectors, phase two and three and fucked, along with us."
"Be fast, but careful." Beck added as an afterthought.
"You make it sound easy." Jamie breathed out and ran a hand through his hair to calm his nerves. "Alright."
Not wanting to wait any longer, Jamie left the office and the building, with Prime following. As someone who explored the slums often, Jamie was no stranger to the Dynamos Headquarters building. He just didn't know about the port behind it, and the other sectors.
"Come on, Prime."
Jamie hopped on his mecha and took to the sky, flying above the buildings and rioters, heading towards the north side of the slums. Now that it was basically war between the cops and the criminals, there was nobody to hide Prime from. Gunfire rang throughout the city, and places were on fire. Jamie even spotted the occasional Wizard cop fighting back with their affinities.
"Time to wipe out an entire branch of police, I guess."
******
Back at the mechanic shop, a cop was standing in front of the garage. He looked around, seeing that the door was locked and the windows boarded up. He knocked on the shutter, which he noticed was dented.
"Hey!" He knocked harder. "Open up!"
The cop kept knocking, oblivious to two armed men approaching him from behind.
"Don't make me break this shutter down - huh?"
He heard footsteps behind him. Turning around, his eyes widened as he saw two men armed with rifles. He tried to draw his sidearm, but was too slow as the one on the left punched him in the gut while the other smashed his nose with the butt of his gun.
Knocked out, the cop was dragged away by one of the men to an alley while the other one stayed behind as the shutter was opened from inside, putting the rifle into his sling.
"Jamie? Oh, who are you?"
A woman with red hair and green eyes raised the shutter, her expression turning into one of surprise then fear as she saw the armed stranger.
"Sorry, looks like I got the wrong place." The man smiled and scratched the back of his head. "Have a nice day!"
"You too…" Amanda, perplexed, closed the shutter without inquiring any further.
"Phew."
Sighing in relief, the man approached an alley where his partner from earlier waited, the cop, now sporting a bloody nose, laying on the ground unconscious.
"Ready?" His partner asked.
"Ready."
Almost immediately, his partner raised his rifle, which had a long tube attached to the muzzle, and aimed it at the cop's head. He pulled the trigger, letting out a quiet pew, and the cop died as the bullet casing hit the floor.
"Heave, ho!"
They picked up the corpse, one by the arms and the other by the legs, dragged it deeper into the alley, and tossed it on a pile of other dead cops with holes in their heads.
"That was close. If she keeps answering the door to us, she might get alarmed."
"Yup. If it weren't for the blood, I'd gun them down the moment they're in my sights."
"Let's just make sure they don't reach the shop at all."
The two armed men returned to their earlier watching spot, while the other 8 of them did the same. This was a very important order from their boss, and they weren't going to fail.
******
He arrived. He stood in the middle of the road, looking at a large gate encompassing the whole headquarters. Past it he could see a couple of cops rushing around inside, probably trying to divert whatever resources they could to the officers being attacked all over the slums.
"Let's get this over with." Jamie yawned, a grim look on his face.
With a pop, a compartment on Prime's wrist slid out and a handful of micro-missiles immediately shot out, flying towards the gate and blowing a hole in it. The explosion rocked the building a little, and all cops were alarmed.
One cop stood by the gate, waiting for the smoke to clear and inspect what just happened. He let out a yell as a dark, large hand emerged and grabbed him by the neck, the owner revealing itself to be a massive, humanoid robot.
"Where is your communications room?"
Jamie emerged from the smoke as well, asking a question to the terrified cop, who stopped struggling and pointed at the upper left side of the building.
"Thanks." He pulled out his pistol and shot the man in the head as Prime dropped him.
[You have killed a Level 3 Communicating Cop]
Being given an order, Prime flew and crashed into the room the cop pointed at, and began destroying any electronic objects or devices in sight.
While Prime wreaked havoc upstairs, Jamie walked towards the ground floor entrance, talking into his communicator.
"Found and destroyed their communications room."
"Good." Beck replied from the other end. "I suggest you try to take out their power source, like a generator or fuse box, in case they have hidden backups."
"K."
Putting away the communicator, Jamie kicked the doors open, shooting down any cop in sight. He was so caught up in his slaughter that he failed to notice the barrage of notifications so far.
[You have killed a Level 7 Moving Target]
[You have killed a Level 4 Demoted Patroller]
[You have killed…]
[You have killed…]
Clearing the ground floor, Jamie smashed a computer as he moved to the staircase and climbed, Prime's rampage very audible. He entered a very long room full of cubicles, a good chunk of which were completely obliterated by the mecha tearing up the other end of the room.
"Heh." Jamie saw a cop standing in shock in the middle of the room, recognizing them.
Hearing a chuckle, the cop turned around, also recognizing Jamie.
"Y-You!"
"It all comes full circle." Jamie put away his pistol. "You three try to kill me, so I kill you. It's just you now."
The cop grit his teeth in rage. This was the last remaining cop from the trio of bastards that locked Jamie out of the slums, leading to the discovery of Prime.
"You're the one who got the spit, right?"
With Jamie's taunt accompanied by his shit eating grin, the cop lost his temper, roaring and charging at the boy, who stopped smiling and ran at him as well. Since Jamie was soon to close the slum chapter of his life, he didn't mind killing this pig by himself.
No pistol, no Prime, no assistance. A good old fight would be good for Jamie.
The two reached each other, exchanging punches. They were slum boys, they'd been in their fair share of street fights.
Eating a fist to his nose, Jamie grunted and pulled on the cop's coat, throwing him into the side of a cubicle and attempting to kick him into it. The cop sidestepped the kick and slammed Jamie's head into the wood.
"Shit!"
Before taking another blow, Jamie tackled the cop, breaking through a cubicle and hitting the desk. They began to grapple, only for Jamie to be stunned by a stray elbow to the chin.
The cop capitalized on the opening, wrapping his hands on Jamie's neck and pushing him against another cubicle, so far back that his head touched the other desk.
"Die! Just die already!"
"Grr."
Veins on his neck bulged as Jamie tried not to be strangled, one hand resisting while the other reached out for something. Feeling his fingers wrap around something solid, he swung the object into the cop's head, turning out to be a telephone.
"Ack!"
Jamie bashed his head again and again with the receiver, the telephone itself being pulled out of the wall. The cop struggled but to no avail as Jamie wrapped the cord around his neck and kept swinging, and swinging, and swinging…
[You have killed a Level 5 Spit Cop]
"Huff, huff…" Jamie panted, covered in blood as he took a moment to catch his breath.
He stood over the dead cop, covered in his blood. He turned to see Prime watching him, having dealt with everyone else on the first floor.
"What are you looking at? Let's go."
The grumbling Jamie moved throughout the headquarters with Prime, killing any cop they saw.