"Nothing else interesting… this is, after all, only a base of theirs, not their headquarters." Messimah sighed and looked at the time on a device on his wrist that was free of the gauntlet, before pressing the glowing trigger button on the modified Pulse Cylinder.
5 minutes should be enough.
After doing that, he dropped it on the table in the room and left confidently, with wide and fast strides. On his way out, a smug smile fell on his lips as he glanced at the unconscious guards that he and Trumm had knocked out by the corridor before stealing their things back… and more.
"Messimah, use the roof, they're already here. Going out through the ground floor would be suicide. Some of them are already chasing after me." Trumm's voice came from his headphones.
"No problem, on my way," Messimah replied, unbothered that he might be coming up on people who might take his life.
Stepping out of the corridor and onto a stairway path, Messimah looked up to see how far Trumm had climbed.
If they are already chasing Trumm to the roof then I can just sneak up on them from behind. Messimah thought.
He began climbing upwards only to slow down to a pause. From where he was, Messimah could hear the footsteps of many people coming up the staircase.
"Just my luck, heading up with many people behind me will just make this worse," Messimah uttered, quickly changing his initial plan of sneaking up on Trumm's pursuers.
He charged into the corridor of the 79th floor with more than a dozen armed men chasing after him.
…
Back to the present.
"Get back here!" The armed man chasing after Messimah called out. Attracting the attention of other armed men that are a few floors above Messimah.
Without wasting any time, rather than following the route Trumm suggested, Messimah quickly jumped towards the 78th floor, running into the corridor and back to the room where he kept the Pulse Cylinder.
The armed men followed after him, not knowing what was waiting for them.
Around twenty armed men stepped into the corridor on the 78th floor, only to spot a device with a sleek, dark titanium body and a matte charcoal-gray finish hovering silently overhead, emitting a faint blue mist.
Chink!
The moment the Pulse Cylinder struck the ground, it detonated in a surge of electromagnetic energy. A crackling sphere of electrically charged arcs expanded rapidly, engulfing the armed men and unleashing a paralyzing wave of electricity that coursed through their bodies, electrocuting them where they stood.
This surge of electromagnetic energy lasted for a few seconds before it was safe for Messimah to come out from where he was hiding. Looking at the knocked out electrocuted men sprawled on the floor, he couldn't help but chuckle.
At least the satisfaction from this isn't much different from the satisfaction I would get from killing them.
Messimah found his way back to the stairway part of the building once again, only to be met with another group of armed men.
"There's a rat above, take him out!" Messimah heard someone shouting from below as he attempted to climb up the stairs.
Crack!
Immediately he heard that Messimah stopped in his tracks and leaned close to the walls. As though he knew what was about to happen.
Bang!!
Semiautomatic guns that shot several rounds of bullets in a short while, started letting loose.
The bullets ricocheted off the metal railings on the stairway some even hitting spots a few centimeters away from where Messimah was.
"Trigger happy bastards, you're lucky I can't kill you here." Messimah whispered as he got up quickly and ran towards the nearest door.
"Shit, bionic skeletal suits?" Messimah cursed out, his focus more on the suited men than the ones armed with a rifle.
There were a few men equipped with bionic skeletal suits a few floors below him, and then another group of armed men a floor above him.
"Messimah, I hear heavy gunfire, are you good?"
"Yeah. Change of plans, you take the roof, and I'll take a shorter route."
"Where?" Trumm asked, knowing that his friend was thinking of doing something only a madman would think of.
"Just go, Trumm!" Messimah shouted, kind of annoyed by Trumm's constant questioning.
Giving up completely on trying to ascend the stars, Messimah went back to the 78th floor again. Reaching the door and opening it, Messimah stepped into the corridor that was still riddled with unconscious electrocuted men.
Messimah looked towards a speck of sunlight coming from a cracked window at the other end of the corridor.
Doing a quick calculation, while jogging lightly towards the window, he suddenly heard the rhythmic clanking and movement of machines.
"Bionic skeletal suits, indeed… those could be useful. Should I?"
Messimah slowed down as he began to wonder if he would indulge in the idea that just crossed his mind.
"They're dumb fucks equipped with bionic skeletal suits, what's the worst they can do? I mean, I'm also wearing one. I just have to try not to kill them."
Just as he said that, with the gauntlet in his hand, Messimah punched through the wall beside him, grabbing a handful of the wall, pulling what he could out, and throwing it at the cracked window.
Crash!
At the same time, the 3 men in bionic skeletal suits, barged through the door and appeared in the corridor just in time to notice that something or someone had gone through the window at the other end of the corridor.
These men quickly ran towards the window considering the possibility that Messimah had jumped through.
But they highly doubted this, unless the person they were chasing after was crazy.
Knowing that even if he was wearing a bionic skeletal suit, if he didn't die from a fall this high, he would be on his way there due to the injuries he would incur.
Nonetheless, they all went to the edge of the window to check.
"Hello," The men heard from behind them, but before they could turn to see who it was, two of them felt a hand on their backs that pushed them out the window.
As for the third man in the bionic skeletal suit, he was able to turn around, however, there wasn't much he could do as he felt his skeletal suit weigh on his body as if it was malfunctioning.
Well, almost.
Messimah had skillfully detached the power source of the skeletal suit.
"This would sell for a good price. As for the rest of the suit… garbage."
"Uh,"
A grunt reached his ears, bringing his attention towards the window. Two pairs of hands had grabbed onto the edge, saving themselves from falling to their death.
Messimah smiled, when he pushed them, he had at least made sure not to put a lot of force behind his push.
He expected to see this. But that wasn't why he was smiling, their suit energy sources were what was making him smile.
Immediately pulling themselves up, one of them was suddenly met with a gun pointed at his skull and the other found himself in the same situation as the man that wasn't pushed out.
The energy source of his bionic skeletal suit had been detached so quickly that he didn't know when and how it had been done.
"Show your face if you're confident." One of the men said as he stared at a masked Messimah.
"I am confident, but not stupid-"
"Shit!! Messimah, they are two floors away from the roof, where are you? I'm leaving!" Trumm's voice came through his headphones, interrupting Messimah.
"I already told you to leave dammit!" As Messimah cursed out, he approached the window and stuck his body out, using a hand to hold on to the side of the window.
Looking up, at the moment, he saw a figure with his leg tucked into his chest, about twenty-something floors above him, jumping from the top of the roof, soaring across the air, and landing twenty-something feet away, on top of the roof of a tilted skyscraper.
"Crazy bastard," Messimah chuckled.
Trumm did in fact have some crazy in him, one of the reasons why he's friends with Messimah.
Still hanging by the edge of the window, a strong wind blew at Messimah, forcing his attention away from the top to the evening view of the place he was in.
His coat fluttered under the influence of the wind, revealing a post of the bionic skeletal suit underneath it.
Outside the building lies a desolate, post-apocalyptic landscape that stretches out as far as the eye can see.
Once a sprawling urban area, now a wasteland, with half-buried skyscrapers jutting up from a sea of sand like jagged, broken teeth.
These buildings, were once symbols of human achievement, now they stand ghostly and defeated—many leaning precariously, as though held up only by the deep sands encasing their lower floors. Their shattered windows and the occasional gust of wind sent clouds of sand swirling up through cracked concrete and rusted steel beams.
Around the building that Messimah was hanging from itself, the ground was littered with fragments of old technology—twisted metal scraps, broken circuits, cracked screens, and a few vehicles by the side owned by the men that owned this base.
Mutated desert plants clung to life in the sand, their twisted forms and thick, dark leaves adapted to the harsh environment. In the distance, a faint, sulfuric haze hung in the air, casting a strange, burnt-orange glow as the sun gradually sank behind the skyline.
Where was I?
Yes…
Looking at the burnt orange glow in the sky, Messimah thought to himself.
In this large mass of a planet, mutated by unknown forces and plagued with dangers, is there truly a place in this world for me?
The scene was overwhelming, as the distant sound of sand shifting in the wind and the occasional metallic creak of weakened structures settling deeper into the sand echoed out.
"Down there!"
A loud voice interrupted Messimah, bringing him back to reality.
Bang!
Messimah pulled himself back into the building, narrowly dodging the bullets that were shot at him from above.
The gunmen started running towards the stairway by the roof.
"You won't be able to escape, rat." One of the destabilized bionic skeletal suit wearers said.
"Don't be a pessimist," Messimah uttered as he slapped the man across the face, knocking out a few teeth and simultaneously knocking him out.
Looking down the corridor, Messimah hesitated for a second, before a smile appeared on his face.
Messimah walked back to the window and jumped out of the building.
The destabilized bionic suit men who were still conscious immediately concluded that they were dealing with a madman through and through.
They didn't want to know if he would survive the fall.
…
A few minutes after arriving by his bike, Trumm saw the person who had kept him waiting, running towards him at full speed, using his bionic skeletal suit to move.
Messimah was at least moving at 40-45kph.
"I thought I told you to leave."
"Just get on your bike, I turned it on for you," Trumm said as he revved his bike before speeding off.
With a smirk, Messimah followed behind him.