At the moment Alex smashed through the window and landed on the poor guy, crushing him into a bloody mess, he fired his first shot. That was the signal for the whole team that it was time to act.
On the second floor, Maine kicked in the door and, wasting no time, shot his first target right in the face.
«What's up, bastards,» he said, reloading his shotgun with a swift motion.
Before the members of the Maelstrom gang could react, Maine had already taken down two more. The ammo Alex had given him was surprisingly effective against these crazed fanatics, who had replaced most of their bodies with cyber implants.
The Maelstrom gang sought full cybernetic transformation, completely rejecting flesh. After killing everyone in the room, Maine looked around to make sure he hadn't left any survivors. Satisfied, he reloaded his shotgun, switching to explosive rounds.
Maine stayed alert — years of being a soldier had trained him to always be on guard, especially when it came to missions involving killing. This mission was no exception: they had to deal with the Maelstrom members who had taken over this warehouse.
Maine was focused on reloading his shotgun when a noise distracted him — a group of enemies burst into the room. However, Maine, with his exceptional reflexes honed by years of service, activated his 'Sandy' (Sandivistan) just as the enemies started shooting.
He hadn't wanted to use it after what happened the first time, fearing another bout of cyberpsychosis, but Alex's assurances that he could safely use the 'Sandy' a few more times convinced him to take the risk.
As the world slowed around him, Maine saw the bullets that had been flying toward him frozen in mid-air.
«So this is what it's like using 'Sandy,'» he said with a wide grin.
Maine stopped thinking and took aim at his enemies. The shots from his shotgun were frozen too, while he calmly stepped out of the line of fire. Deactivating the 'Sandy,' he brought the world back to normal speed, and the bullets meant for him slammed into the wall. Maine noticed with satisfaction that his enemies were torn apart by his shotgun blasts.
«You could get used to this,» he smirked, moving forward.
Meanwhile, Dorio had smashed through a wall, grabbing a Maelstrom gang member by the head and crushing it like a watermelon, splattering blood everywhere. She noticed that the remaining gang members suddenly started behaving strangely: they dropped their weapons and grabbed whatever they could find. Some of them had cyber implants in the form of blades, which they now decided to use.
«You seriously think your heads are tougher than my fists?» Dorio asked with a grin, cracking her knuckles.
Five gang members charged at her, but Dorio was confident in her strength. She clenched her fists, feeling the knuckledusters her younger brother Alex had given her enhancing her punches.
«Let's play,» she said, moving toward the enemies.
The first enemy lunged at her with a metal pipe, but Dorio deftly caught it and punched him in the chest. The impact caused his rib cage to cave in, a sickening crunch of broken bones echoing through the room. The man collapsed, blood pouring from his mouth. Without hesitation, Dorio stomped on his head, crushing it.
«No head means he's definitely dead,» she smirked, heading toward the next enemies.
Her new knuckledusters were even better than she'd expected.
«Alex sure knows how to please a woman,» Dorio muttered, glancing at her hands.
Just then, Maine's gruff voice came through the comms, grumbling at her comment about Alex. Dorio laughed, realizing that Maine was jealous.
«Alex's got such a jealous big brother,» she smirked.
Maine started grumbling again and, to blow off some steam, switched to taking down enemies with even greater fury. Pilar, bursting into the warehouse with his sister, immediately fired a grenade launcher at a group of enemies, scattering them like ragdolls. A wide grin was plastered on his face as he shot wildly in all directions, laughing maniacally. Rebecca, watching this, barely resisted the urge to kick him.
«Alex specifically asked you not to blow any of us up, and here you are, shooting like a lunatic! You want the warehouse to collapse on our heads?» Rebecca scolded, giving her brother a disapproving look.
Pilar heard Rebecca's comment just as his grenade launcher ran out of ammo, and he took cover behind a wall to reload. Pulling out rounds from his belt, he turned to his sister with a wide grin, surprised as he looked at her, wondering if this was really the Rebecca he knew. She was usually the first one to support causing some fireworks.
«You're not sick, are you? Aren't you usually the first one up for explosions?» Pilar asked in confusion as he continued to reload his grenade launcher.
Rebecca responded by kicking him hard in the leg. Sure, she loved some explosive action, but she definitely didn't want the warehouse to collapse on them.
«No, I just don't want the roof to come down,» she replied, kicking him again to emphasize her point.
Pilar smirked, understanding the real reason behind her concern.
«You say 'on us,' but really you just don't want the roof falling on your beloved Alex,» he said with a wide grin.
Instead of replying, Rebecca quickly aimed her shotgun at Pilar and pulled the trigger. The sound of the shot pierced the silence, and Pilar's back instantly broke out in a cold sweat. He glanced behind him, his eyes widening as he saw a fallen Maelstrom gang member.
The body, riddled with buckshot, started to dissolve before his eyes, turning into a smoking, bloody mess. White smoke rose from the acid-burned body, and the gurgling death rattles only added to the eerie atmosphere.
«Damn, you scared me! I thought you were going to shoot me,» Pilar said, wiping sweat from his forehead.
«I missed,» Rebecca replied calmly, resting her shotgun on her shoulder.
Pilar gulped nervously, realizing she might not have been joking. He silently vowed to be much more careful with his grenade launcher — he definitely didn't want to end up like their enemy. Rebecca, noticing how pale her brother's face had become, smirked quietly. Of course, she hadn't planned on shooting him, but it was fun to scare him a little.
Pilar started grumbling that his sister didn't love him anymore and that all family affection had disappeared. However, the moment Rebecca cocked her shotgun, his complaints stopped immediately.
He was struggling to reload his grenade launcher when Rebecca peeked around the corner and spotted members of Maelstrom rushing toward them. They looked insane — as if something had broken in their minds, turning them into berserkers running straight to their deaths.
Rebecca started shooting at the closest ones. When her shotgun ran dry, enemies were still charging at her, but then Pilar sprang from around the corner and blew up the nearest foes.
«What's wrong with them? Why are they acting like zombies?» he asked after blowing up the attackers.
«No idea. At first, they were shooting back, and now they're running straight into bullets without caring about their lives,» Rebecca replied, shaking her head.
Meanwhile, Lucy and Kiwi were making their way to the terminal to erase any data that could lead back to their group. Along the way, they took down several Maelstrom members guarding access.
Lucy connected to the terminal through a tablet—after Alex had said that connecting directly via her brain was too risky, she no longer used it that way. According to him, it was reckless: the chances of frying her brain or catching a virus were too high. Alex had specifically created this tablet for her and upgraded it with the help of GIR, the best hacker in their group.
Kiwi, watching Lucy, raised an eyebrow in surprise.
«I've never seen you with that tablet,» she remarked.
Lucy, momentarily distracted from hacking, glanced at her.
«Alex is overly protective. He gave me a whole lecture about how dangerous it is to connect directly. So he made me this tablet,» she replied, pointing to the device, which displayed the data upload process.
Kiwi nodded. She was continually amazed by this Alex, who was willing to do anything for his friends. She had heard how, over the past few months, he had taken on a huge number of jobs to earn enough money to buy a ticket to the Moon for Gloria so she could scatter her son's ashes. And although Kiwi used to think of people like that as fools willing to do anything for others, her opinion had started to change.
Since then, their relationship had become more strained. She had learned about Alex's past and realized that he had lost everything, and all he had left was Gloria's kindness, which had supported him in his darkest hour. Kiwi had wanted to apologize to him, but couldn't find the right moment until she got a mission where his skills could be useful. When she finally did apologize, Kiwi was surprised to find that Alex had never once blamed her and still considered her a friend.
In that moment, she felt ashamed of how she had treated him, and for pointing a gun at him. Since then, their relationship had improved, and they began interacting like normal friends. That's why she agreed to this crazy mission to infiltrate Arasaka, despite it being a risky, near-suicidal move. Kiwi hadn't even noticed when she started having strange thoughts about Alex and confusing feelings whenever she looked at him.
While Kiwi was lost in her thoughts, Lucy continued hacking the terminal and soon glanced back at her friend, who was clearly deep in thought. To pass the time while the program created by GIR hacked the system, Lucy decided to strike up a conversation with Kiwi. GIR—a strange robo-dog—was a mystery to her.
He could be dancing one moment, lounging on the couch like a lazy dog the next, and sometimes he would just say «woof» instead of barking. But what scared Lucy the most was when she moved in with Alex—she woke up in the middle of the night and saw GIR's glowing eyes in the darkness, nearly giving her a heart attack.
«What are you thinking about?» Lucy asked, catching Kiwi's attention.
Kiwi, who had been pondering Alex's life and how he managed to deal with his problems, heard Lucy's question and looked at her. One question had been bothering her—how do they manage to live with Alex together?
«How do you even manage to share him?» Kiwi asked curiously.
Lucy smiled. She didn't have to «share» Alex—he always found time to spend with each of them, even when he was busy with work. He would arrange impromptu dates, take Lucy for rides around the city when the jobs were quiet, or take Rebecca on missions where strength was needed. At home, he looked after Gloria when she was exhausted from work. Alex always made time for everyone.
«We don't need to share him. He gives each of us plenty of attention. Though he can be clingy at times, but that's a plus,» Lucy said with a soft smile.
Kiwi raised an eyebrow. The fact that Alex made sure to give everyone attention, so they wouldn't get jealous, suited her just fine. A thought even crossed her mind about joining them, but her feelings toward him were complicated. When he suggested hugging her today, part of her wanted to agree, but another part resisted for some reason.
«Don't overthink it. If you ever join in, you'll understand what I mean,» Lucy said with a sly smile.
Kiwi didn't immediately grasp what Lucy meant and was about to ask, but they were interrupted by Maine's voice, announcing that they were done. She set those thoughts aside and asked Lucy how much longer she needed with the terminal.
«Almost done,» Lucy replied.
«We'll be joining you soon,» Kiwi relayed over the comms.
Maine gathered everyone near the hole in the floor where Alex had fallen through.
«And where's our Alex?» Maine asked, looking around.
Dorio approached him from the other end of the warehouse.
«Haven't seen him. I heard him start the attack, and then nothing since,» Dorio said.
She then asked Maine how he was feeling after using the Sandevistan. Maine responded that the serum Alex injected him with was helping manage the strain. Dorio sighed in relief, knowing he wasn't at risk of cyberpsychosis.
«Hey, have you seen Alex?» Rebecca asked as she joined them.
Both shook their heads. Rebecca was about to try and contact Alex when Maine interrupted with a question:
«By the way, did you hear those guys muttering something about a 'Mechanical Man'?»
Dorio nodded, recalling how one of the dying Maelstrom members had mentioned something like that. Rebecca and Pilar had heard something similar too.
«It's like they went crazy,» Dorio noted.
Rebecca explained how Maelstrom members were throwing away their weapons and attacking them recklessly, despite being shot at.
«Maybe it's like Alex's 'noodle monster' thing?» Maine suggested.
Rebecca quickly clarified that Alex used that as a cover for his jokes and that it was something completely different.
«So, where's that lunatic? We're done here, but he's still missing,» Maine asked again.
Pilar whistled, catching the group's attention, and pointed to the hole in the floor. He approached it to take a closer look and saw sliced bodies below. It was immediately clear to him that this was Alex's work. So, when Maine asked again, Pilar gestured toward the hole.
«Judging by the sounds of gunfire and fighting coming from down there, Alex is definitely below,» Pilar remarked, pointing to the hole.
The group gathered around, listening to the fading echoes of gunshots.
«Looks like he fell into the basement when he jumped off the roof, and the floor couldn't handle it,» Dorio explained, examining the hole and wondering why they hadn't noticed it earlier.
The team began discussing how many enemies Alex might have encountered, not worrying about his safety. On the contrary, they were more intrigued, placing bets on how long it would take him to deal with them. As this was happening, Lucy and Kiwi joined them, having finished erasing the data from the terminal.
«Where's Alex?» Lucy asked, approaching the group, now engrossed in their betting game about the fight.
Everyone turned their heads in unison and pointed at the hole, from which the final sounds of the battle could be heard. Lucy glanced down and realized that luck had once again played a cruel joke on Alex, dropping him into another mess. She gave a brief nod and stood beside Kiwi while the others continued to place bets.
Lucy didn't feel like joining in on their fun and simply stood off to the side, listening to the fading gunfire. Kiwi also chose not to participate, silently observing everything. When the fight below came to an end, everyone looked at the hole with surprise.
«Looks like he's done,» Maine smirked.
Everyone nodded in agreement, eagerly waiting to see how many enemies Alex had taken down. Lucy and Rebecca exchanged glances and decided to go after him.
«We'll check on him and bring him back,» Lucy said, expressing her intention to go down.
Maine nodded in approval. Lucy and Rebecca jumped into the hole, following the trail Alex had left, which consisted of the bodies of his fallen foes.
«I'm envious. Alex isn't just strong and handsome; he's ridiculously talented. Sure, he's a bit crazy, but for many girls, he's the ideal,» Maine remarked with a hint of jealousy.
He turned to Pilar, who was watching his sister jump into the hole. Pilar grinned and glanced at Dorio, standing behind Maine with a cold smile on her face. Seeing this, Pilar's grin widened, realizing Maine was once again about to get himself into trouble with his comments.
Maine felt a chill run down his spine and turned around, meeting Dorio's piercing gaze. He tried to explain it was just a joke, but he was met with a punch to the gut.
«You had that coming,» Dorio remarked coldly.
Maine grinned through the pain, knowing he had angered her again, but instead of arguing, he hugged her, trying to soothe her. After that, he glanced around and noticed there were only three of them left.
«Wait, where did Kiwi go?» Maine asked in surprise.
Pilar pointed to the hole again.
«While you were dealing with Dorio, Kiwi jumped down after Lucy and Rebecca.»
Maine smirked and joked, «Looks like Alex's harem is about to grow.»
Meanwhile, Kiwi, still worried about Alex, decided to follow Lucy and Rebecca. Walking behind them, she noticed that the bodies of the enemies were initially cleanly sliced—clearly Alex's work with his katana. But as they went further, more bullet marks appeared on the bodies, and Kiwi realized Alex had switched to firearms.
When they reached the end of the basement, Kiwi saw Alex standing next to a mysterious box, covered in blood and bits of his enemies. She exhaled in relief, noticing he was alright, and unexpectedly felt a surge of concern for his safety.
Even though she had recently witnessed Alex effortlessly take down Arasaka's guards, she couldn't help but worry about the sheer number of enemies he had faced alone.
«He's fine,» Kiwi whispered with relief.
At that moment, she heard Alex stop Rebecca from touching the box. His furrowed brow and strange remark left Kiwi full of questions.
«What does he mean by, 'mortals can't touch this'?» she wondered, trying to grasp the meaning of his words.
Alex's words left her feeling confused. What did he mean? Kiwi decided to listen more closely to what would happen next. The more she listened, the more questions arose. She was particularly intrigued by the mention of a «Mechanical Man.» However, the answer came quickly—Alex explained that this Mechanical Man was a god.
«A god? What kind of god?» Kiwi mentally questioned, trying to catch more details.
It soon became clear that this Mechanical Man was an avatar of some woman. Kiwi immediately figured out who he was talking about. Alex had mentioned his organization and the mysterious woman with whom he had made a deal more than once. However, the conversation itself seemed increasingly strange to her.
She couldn't grasp what exactly they were discussing and what significance this avatar held. But gradually, piece by piece, she began to put the puzzle together. And when Alex said, «This world,» Kiwi realized something important—Alex didn't belong to this world.
Her heart began to race as she started to understand that he shouldn't be here. Everything he said only confirmed her suspicions. Fear slowly crept into her soul. Kiwi understood that Lucy and Rebecca seemed to know Alex's true identity.
And now it was clear why he was so strong and why he didn't have any cyber implants in his body. All the pieces of the puzzle fell into place, but this realization sent a chill down her spine. Nevertheless, what she heard next made her even tenser.
«Kiwi, I know you're eavesdropping. Why don't you come out and we can talk?»—Alex's calm voice echoed in her ears.
Kiwi flinched. Cautiously peeking out from behind her cover, she met his gaze. Rebecca and Lucy were also looking at her, but there was neither anger nor judgment in their eyes—only a slight sense of guilt. Alex, on the other hand, looked completely different.
His eyes seemed incredibly tired, filled with the weight he appeared to carry on his shoulders. It was a look she had never seen before. Usually, his eyes sparkled with mirth or irritation after missions, but now they held sadness and… profound fatigue? Perhaps he was about to do something he didn't want to.
Kiwi shifted her gaze to Lucy and Rebecca. Their expressions indicated that they didn't want her to hear this conversation. They didn't look judgmental; rather, their eyes seemed to apologize for her overhearing more than she was supposed to.
Feeling the nervous tension but knowing it was pointless to back away now, Kiwi slowly stepped out from her hiding place and approached Alex and the girls. She knew the truth that awaited her would change everything she knew about the world and about Alex himself. But was she ready for it? The answer to that question was something she would find out here and now.
Her life would undoubtedly change. But would it be for better or worse? That remained to be seen.
To be continued…