*Boom!* The bazooka exploded right in Tellius's face, but by spamming his Invincibility skill, he easily withstood the attack.
As such, he rushed out of the flames to save Tina from the kidnappers. Yet he couldn't even step fully out of the flames as yet another bazooka exploded right in his face.
*Boom!* It exploded, and since Tellius hadn't spammed his skill in favor of rushing to Tina's side, he was thrown back by the explosion.
'F**k it!' Tellius thought to himself and, in a spur-of-the-moment decision, he marked the two bazooka men.
*Clunk!* *Clunk!* The safeties of two Stormsurge barrels disengaged before two grenades simultaneously left their barrels. *Flump!* *Flump!*
*BOOM!* *BOOM!* The grenades nearly simultaneously struck the two bazooka-wielding enemies, engulfing them in the flames of explosions.
Instantly, tons of dust were thrown into the air, giving Tellius cover to attack the remaining enemies with his Gladius Blades.
*Slid!* The twin blades engaged, and Tellius charged at the closest enemies. Unleashing his attack, limbs and heads started flying before the dust began to settle once more.
The first enemy he encountered was a bearded man with tattoos and a super shotgun. The next second, he had lost his limbs and collapsed dead onto the floor, cut horizontally in half below his ribs.
With the first corpse falling to the floor, Tellius was already closing in on the second enemy. Only this time, the bald, tattooed woman somehow blocked his slash to her neck with her katana.
Yet as they exchanged only a few moves, Tellius easily decapitated her and moved on to the third enemy. Sadly, unable to sustain his high-speed movement, he slowed down and grabbed one of the bazookas dropped by the corpses upstairs.
*Clink!* The bazooka's safety engaged, and Tellius aimed it at the few remaining enemies before shooting.
*Whoosh!* The warhead shot out before it exploded in a blaze of glory, taking the enemies with it. *BOOM!*
Yet as the dust settled and Tellius stepped over the corpses of his enemies, Tina was gone without a trace left behind. Shocked, confused, and embarrassed, Tellius dropped the bazooka.
"F**k!" He cursed, and just as he was about to call Sarah, she called him first.
"Hi, Sarah... Look, I lo-..." Tellius began to say but was cut off in the middle of his sentence.
"Yeah, hi, you too! Did you know that the Grim-Souls Themed Park closed down years ago?..." Sarah asked angrily for Tina, thinking that the little girl must be sad and disappointed. "... But lucky for us, we'll be getting the park for ourselves! You see, the local Marshal has a problem with a gang that has taken over the park..."
"Yeah, Sar..." Tellius began to say while looking at the corpses around him. "... I know of the gang... You could say that I had a little altercation with them."
"But how?..." Sarah questioned him, confused. "... Marshall Ryan assured me that they were only active inside the park... Oh no!"
"Sar, now calm down! Give me a moment and let me explain..." Tellius tried to appease her. "... You see, we knew that the park was closed, we'll sort of..."
"Telli! What happened?" Sarah interrupted him once again, the anger in her voice palpable through the transmission.
"Well..., We broke in, Tina hacked the park's attractions, we were ambushed by the gang that you just mentioned, I killed them all but Tina must have been kidnapped by them and is now missing." Tellius summarized the events of the last few hours in one breath before Sarah could interrupt him a third time.
"I have pinged your location..." Was all Sarah replied to him before she added, pissed. "... We'll be with you in 10 minutes."
And ten minutes it turned out to be before a small marshal-service transporter descended into the food court through the now broken roof.
Its engines turned off, its gangway soon opened and walking out came a miffed looking Sarah and the handsome but rugged dark skinned marshal.
Yet before Tellius could greet the man, Sarah's hand already hit his face in an eardrum tearing slap.
*SMACK!* Her robotic, yet synthetic, flesh-covered fingers shaped into his face.
Angrily, Sarah then screamed at him. "How could you take a six-year-old into a gunfight?!"
"Hey, it wasn't my idea..." Replied Tellius, unfazed by the slap that he had just received as he defended himself. "... They came out of nowhere, grabbed Tina, and before I could stop them, I was already being shot by bazookas, not once, but thrice!"
"You withstood three direct bazooka shots?..." Questioned the Marshall skeptically as his implants checked out the manufacturer's stats for a Juggernaut X-86 Bodyframe. "... What type of alloy did they use for you?"
"No idea, and not the point..." Sarah, the law enforcer, told him as she changed the topic back to the issue of Tina's kidnapping. "... Any idea where they might be bringing a little girl with a talent for hacking?"
"Let's see..." Marshall Ryan replied as he brought up the tactical map of the entire park.
Hovering above the palm of his left hand, the faintly blue 3D map showed the park with all its attractions, including three additional castles that towered over the three sections of the park.
"My deputies and I were ambushed here..." Ethan told Sarah and Tellius as he pointed at the castle in the western section. "... Using the high ground and superior firepower to their advantage, they created a kill zone that we couldn't escape from..."
Then, pointing at the eastern section—not at the castle, but at the "harbor," the marshal explained, "... The second time, they ambushed us at the docks where they store their weapons."
"So, I'm guessing they're using the park's security system to anticipate your moves and then let you step into an ambush..." Tellius immediately concluded, remembering Tina's words about someone watching them. "... Which means that we have two options..."
"... We can either turn their ambush into a slaughterhouse for them like Telli did here..." Sarah continued Tellius's sentence with a small smile. "... Or we locate their lair and exfiltrate the hostages."
"But wouldn't they eventually threaten us with the lives of the kidnapped?" Ethen asked, concerned for his wife's life.
"If we were law enforcers, then yes. But we're mercenaries. It is always better to negotiate with the likes of us than to threaten us..." Tellius agreed with an arrogant smirk in his artificial voice. "...But what was that about hostages? As in, more than one person was kidnapped?"
"Yes, aside from Tina, they already had Miss Ryan, Ethen's wife." Sarah confirmed while looking at the map in the Marshal's palm.
"So, what do we do now?" Ethen asked the two mercenaries.
"You'd better leave the park, Marshal, or they might take you hostage as well..." Sarah told the man. "...But before that, could you send us that map? It could be very helpful to us."
"No can do..." Ethen replied before he explained that he was talking about the map. "...That map was encrypted by Dionysus against duplication. So, if you need the map, you'll have to let me accompany you."
"Well, then so be it..." Tellius exclaimed, annoyed as he wasn't happy about having an unknown gun at his back. "...Sarah, do you remember what we did on day three?"
"You mean a Split & Snatch?..." Sarah asked with a happy smile on her face as she remembered how they had stolen an entire supply ship from the corporate mercenaries back on Thermopoly-6 during the planet's siege. Seeing him nod, she asked. "...Nice, but for that one, we need to know where they hide the hostages."
"Oh? Don't we already know?!" Tellius asked, having already calculated the most likely location of the Grim Reapers' hideout.
"No..." Ethen answered, looking confused at the map in his palm. Just as Sarah refused to answer, knowing that Tellius would otherwise make fun of her, "...Where do you think they're hiding the hostages?"
"Check out the castle's layout! The one up north seems to have still been in its interior construction phase when the park shut down..." Tellius pointed out on the map. "...Doesn't it look just perfect for a gang's hideout?"
"That doesn't make sense, as we only detected gang activity in the castles to the west and by the harbor!" Ethen pointed out as he added his team's survey data to the map.
"Oh, it does, since you didn't check the park's underground facilities and the supply tunnels in your survey..." Tellius explained as he zoomed in on the park's underground. "See, perfect for covert activities."
"I agree, but we already checked those via the park's security system..." Ethen pointed out before he realized the error in his thought process. "... Oh, yeah, a security system already hacked by the Reapers. That makes sense."
"Correct!... Sometimes you have to look at what's missing instead of what you find...." Sarah explained in Tellius's stead, proud of her lover's intelligence. "... But what about the reinforcements you were waiting for? Got an ETA?"
"No, but they only give one once in orbit..." Answered the marshal. "... as is protocol."
"I am detecting several hostiles approaching..." Suddenly, Tellius stated, as his mini-map showed half a dozen red dots enter his scanner range, "... But they don't behave like humans, so I'm guessing they're armed and hacked park robots."
"If it's only robots, I can take care of them!" Ethan stated, itching for a gunfight as he turned off the 3D map and drew his modified jet antique-looking hand cannons.
"After you, then, Marshal!" Sarah said and gestured to the exit where glass doors once stood.
...
Meanwhile, Tina found herself strapped to a chair after being dragged through stinking tunnels.
"Don't fight them..." A woman's weak voice beside the little girl said. "... They will only hit your pretty little face."
Looking to her right as the straps were tightened, Tina found a once pretty brown haired lady strapped onto yet another chair identical to hers. Still pretty in Tina's eyes, the woman was thin like a skeleton with saggy skin and graying hair.
"Who are you?..." Tina asked, confused. "... What will they do to us?"
"They'll use your brain for its computing power..." the woman replied, her emerald green eyes glazed and unfocused. "... I am Yelena Ryan, by the way..."
"I'm Tina. Nice to meet you!..." Tina replied to the woman, just before a man dressed like a bandit from Grim-Souls appeared in her periphery.
Looking down at her with an ugly smile as he jacked a brain-CPU interface cable into the port on the back of her head, Tina immediately screamed. "... AAAAAH!"
"Take deep breaths, little girl... keep them coming, or you might stop breathing." Yelena Ryan's voice echoed inside Tina's head as virtual and real overlapped before her eyes.
"Oh, wow!" Tina exclaimed, wide-eyed as a massive data stream rushed through her mind.
Witnessing Tina's reaction, the older woman warned. "Don't get addicted, or you might never want to return to reality."
"I wouldn't!..." Tina declared before explaining, "... I like Ghost-Waffles way more than this!"
"That's good!" Yelena commented just as Tina began manipulating the stream of data that flowed through her brain.
Although only six years old, the little girl possessed a massive talent for hacking that even most veteran hackers envied since it enabled her to intuitively visualize data as simple constructs like doors or windows.
And doing just that, Tina climbed through a metaphorical digital window to gain access to the park's camera feeds. Hence, numerous screens—some blacked out, others showing different sections of the park—appeared floating in front of her.
"Ah! Who's that with Sarah and Tellius?" Tina exclaimed, surprised by the gunslinger's skill.
"Who are Sarah and Tellius?" Asked Yelena, the little girl confused since she wasn't seeing the screens Tina was seeing.
"My friends! Tina is that awesome assassin, and Tellius is a big dummy—or that's what Sarah always calls him." Explained Tina, a bit smitten with the handsome gunslinger as he elegantly sidestepped bullets and yet accurately hit his targets.
"Sounds like mercenaries..." Commented Yelena, just as Tina shared this particular camera stream with her. "... That's my husband, Ethan!"
"You're married?" Asked the little hacker while watching robots get annihilated on the screen with every shot.
"So, he still hasn't given up..." Murmured Yelena ambiguously before she answered Tina's question with longing in her voice. "... Yes, I am. He saved me from captivity during the Corporate War. After that, we stayed in contact, dated, and eventually got married just a few months ago."
"Like your knight in shining armor?" asked Tina, with firsthand experience of the horrors of war, yet still retaining a child's idealistic innocence.
"Yeah..." Agreed Yelena before her voice grew weaker, apparently because the data stream processed by her brain spiked. "... just like my personal knight in shining armor."
"Just like my parents..." Moaned Tina sadly as the gunfight on the screen came to an end and she watched Tellius and Ethen wander the battlefield with Sarah nowhere in sight. "... Hmph."
"Did something happen to your parents?..." Asked Yelena compassionately. "... Is that why you're with these mercenaries?"
"They killed my mother when they took me..." Confessed Tina with a choked voice inbetween sad sniffles. "... Dad wasn't there when they came, or he would have fought them!"
"Do you know where your dad is?" Asked Yelena carefully yet with warmth in her voice.
"Nope, but Sarah and Tellius think that he's still on Johal VII..." "Stated Tina as she forced herself to be brave and stopped crying. "... We only stopped here because it was on the way, and we needed to restock Ghost-Waffles.'"
"Sarah and Tellius sound like very nice people." Commented Yelena, her voice slowly strengthening as the data stream slowed down a bit.
"They're the best! Especially Tellius! He's basically a one-cyborg army! On Mr. Baldur's station, I saw him fighting other mercenaries." Excitedly told Tina to her new friend.
"And what about this Sarah? What about her?..." interrogated the woman, the little girl, with a suddenly hard tone of voice, as if her previous compassion had been fake. "... As an assassin, she should be a hell of a fighter, too!"
"Well, I don't actually know... I never saw her actually fighting myself..." Though Tina out loud, blissfully ignorant of Yelena's sudden tone of voice shift. "... But I heard her tell Tellius that she defeated a guy named Iron Chined Something and his mercenary company called Iron something something."
"You mean to tell me that this Sarah has taken down Iron Chin Logan and his Iron Dragons?..." Questioned Yelena in shocked disbelief. "... That's an F-ranked mercenary company! With Iron Chin himself an E-ranked mercenary!"
"Yep!..." Confirmed Tina happily and proud of her friends' battle prowess. "... But I think Tellius is more impressive than her as he defeated one mercenary company and forced another to capitulate while fighting both at the same time."
"Impressive..." Agreed Yelena with a strained voice as another spike in data volume hit her brain and she screamed in pain. "...AAAAAH!"
"You okay?..." Asked Tina while manipulating the flow of data to lessen the burden they were both experienced as she mentally complained. '... Dammed! Who optimized this system? Must have been some of these stupid AIs!'