The assorted team walked through the doorway leading into the dam. Inside, they were greeted by a dimly lit path that was more like a tunnel than a hallway. With no time to waste, they picked up the pace and started down the hall.
Sora was the one with the map so she directed the group on which way to go. They walked for what seemed like several minutes, passing several doors on both their right and left with caution.
“Keep eyes on these side doors. The Black Diamond could be hiding in any of these side corridors. If we’re ambushed, try and hunker down in the little bit of cover they offer. Sora, give us an update on the directions too,” said GM.
“Keep straight on this path and we’ll be at the control room soon,” she said, following along with the map on her laptop.
“We’re getting pretty far in now,” said GM. “There’ll likely be some Black Diamond sons of bitches any minute.” As usual, his intuition was spot on. A group of about ten Black Diamond’s came out of a side door and started shooting all at once. MC and the team pressed against the sides of the hallway and somehow all made it safely into the closest shallow doorways.
“What do we do now?” MC asked the group.
“I can take care of these guys,” said GM. “You try and find another route.”
“I’ll stick with you, GM,” said The Vampire with more than a little bloodlust in his eyes. He pulled out two long knives and licked the blade of one of them. The cold steel against his tongue seemed to be intoxicating to him.
Can you find us another route, Sora,” Emi asked.
Sora, with laptop in hand, happily deduced another route to the control center. “Anything to get me away from this guy,” she said, shooting The Vampire a side eye. “This place is like a maze. There’s at least two other routes to the control room though. The hallway to the right looks like the most direct route since this one isn’t an option anymore.”
GM stuck out a gun and started firing down the hall to give them a bit of cover as they backtracked slightly and took the designated side door.
“Let’s hope there’s no more Black Diamonds hiding in these halls waiting to ambush us, but if they also had the schematics to this place, they probably posted groups to ambush us in these side tunnels as well” said MC.
“Let’s pick up the pace. Every minute we waste in here is another minute that the flooding continues,” said Emi.
They sped up and proceeded down the route with a jog. This particularly damp and dim hallway seemed to spam forever. It had a bit of a curve to it that only allowed them to see about a hundred feet in front of them. MC held his shotgun at his waist, ready to fire upon any unwanted company.
It wasn’t long before they heard something up ahead. MC stopped and faced his palm back towards the team behind him, signaling them to stop. If he was lucky, the enemy hadn’t heard them coming yet.
He signaled them to back up and crowd into a doorway that had been a little ways back and then turned to quietly proceed on his own. The team was all hesitant in their own way to let MC go ahead alone, but knew that with his fighting style, they’d probably just be in the way.
Aiko gripped her pistol in her hand and sank against the doorway, waiting for signs of the fight. There was a sudden flash of light and a concussive blast. He’d thrown a flash bang. The surprise attack was followed by several shotgun blasts that MC fired from the hip. He’d managed to take them by surprise and get the first few shots in. Blinded, The Black Diamond members couldn’t do anything but fire their guns into the abyss. MC didn’t even have to dodge. With this tactic, he finished the job in seconds, pumping pellets into each of the enemies.
“Come on,” they heard MC’s voice call out to them from up the hall. Aiko and the team followed, each doing their best to avoid looking at the carnage of the four fresh bodies that littered the floor. MC, however, was completely unscathed. He opened the shotgun’s chamber and replenished the ammunition with red shells from his belt.
They quickly came upon what Sora said was going to be the door to a large area before the control room. There was a yellow sign above the entryway that said “Generators.” A deep hum and rhythmic mechanical clunking came from the other side of the door.
The group paused and prepared for an ambush waiting for them on the other side. Emi grabbed the door handle and tucked Sora behind her. MC and Aiko stood with their guns at the ready and Emi jerked the door open.
The area inside was a spanning room about the size of a football field. MC was surprised an area so large was able to fit inside the dam, but they were deep in the base of it now. MC’s eyes were drawn to two large generators the size of dump trucks. They created a droning sound that was loud enough to make a person need to substantially raise their voice to be heard. The floor was made of large metal grate panels and there were several other smaller machines and generators along with fifty-five gallon barrels of what he assumed to be fuel of some sort. A pair of small stair sets on each side of the room allowed for access to a slightly lower area of the same grated floor and machines. Thick cylindrical metal railings created fences along the stairs and around several of the generators.
MC took only a second to observe the surroundings and then focused his attention on the two men standing in the center of the room. It was Kuro and Shiro. They were both clad in dark cloaks and stood ghostly still. A light breeze swayed the edges of the cloaks around their shins. A ways behind them were stairs leading up to a door that had a sign labeled “Master Control Room.”
The team all instantly raised their weapons at the twins and started to close in. Sora stayed behind in the entryway, able to use the door for cover if needed.
Shiro stepped forward and with a slightly raised voice said, “Bout time you all got here. I was beginning to think you’d let the entire lake flood out of the dam. According to the control panel, in just a few hours the entire lake will have drained and the majority of the city will be flooded.”
“We’re here to stop this madness,” said Emi. “Close the gates and stop the water.”
“Why on earth would I do that? If I didn't want to finish the job I wouldn’t have started it,” said Shiro.
“Then we have no choice but to stop you at any cost,” Emi replied.
“Of course, dear, but do you really think that you and these two others have the power to stop us? Didn’t it take all of you and two others to finally take out that old dog, Jin?”
“Shut up!” yelled MC. Aiko glanced over at MC next to her. He’d taken on a serious face. “I’ll kill the both of you myself if I have to.”
“Then come and get us,” Shiro said with a smirk.
Emi aimed down the sights of her pistol and fired at Shiro. Kuro stepped in front of him and took the bullet right to his chest. He staggered back a step, but didn’t fall or even cry out in pain.
“Well that wasn’t very nice,” said Shiro, stepping past his brother.
“What’s happening?” asked Aiko in astonishment. “How is he still standing? I saw the bullet hit him right in the chest. He was even pushed back by the impact.”
The twin unbuttoned the clasp near the neck of his cloak and let it drop to the ground to reveal silver armor shielding almost his entire body. The only exposed areas seemed to be his head and the bottoms of his feet and palms along with small areas along his joints that allowed for movement.
MC scowled. “Get ready,” he said, just loud enough for Aiko and Emi to hear. He raised a flash bang, pulled the pin and flopped it onto the ground in front of the twins. When it detonated everyone jumped apart at once, using various generators and machines for cover. MC honed in on Kuro, running at an inhuman speed with his shotgun in hand, trailing behind him. He saw him round the corner of a smaller generator and took a quick shot. Specks of red and orange lit up as pellets slammed against his armor. MC rounded the corner after him and was met with a gun in his face. He quickly dropped and slid under Kuro’s legs to dodge the bullet that grazed the tips of his hair. He dropped the shotgun and Kuro spun around. They struggled, each grappling the other. MC held tight against Kuro’s wrist, not letting him aim the pistol while their opposite hand locked fingers, each one attempting to force the other into taking a step backwards. MC felt Kuro’s strength draining as his enemy began to crouch, but it was a false hope. Kuro sprang up from his crouch, breaking free of MC’s grasp and doing a front flip over him.
MC quickly unsheathed a combat knife from the back of his waist and slashed at him in the air, moving quickly and staying close enough to avoid being shot. He hacked and slashed, aiming for the joints in Kuro’s armor. Some attacks bounced right off the metal while others lightly skimmed flesh between joints. He wasn’t able to inflict a substantial wound, but he had drawn blood.
Kuro was forced to take out a knife of his own, dropping his gun to the grated floor. Their blades struck each other and MC was pushed back by Kuro’s might. Even fully under the influence of a flash bang, he was still just barely physically weaker. Kuro’s attacks also had the added weight of his armor behind them. It made him slower and stiff, but his physical attacks had an extra weighted power behind them.
MC jumped back to create space between them now that Kuro didn’t have a gun in his hand. He’d managed to shape the fight into something more manageable, but was having trouble keeping up with Kuro’s tremendous speed, power, and defense.
Emi and Aiko stuck together, chasing Shiro down. They remained several yards behind him, chasing, jumping, ducking under obstacles, and firing shots as they were able to. Shiro was much faster than them. His cloak flapped open as he ran, showing that he wasn’t wearing any sort of protective armor like his twin.
Shiro slid under waist-high railing and fired shots backwards as he did. The detectives both reacted quickly to easily avoid the rushed trajectory of the bullets. It was a game of who could slip up first. In a gunfight, one mistake was bound to be lethal, especially among such highly skilled individuals such as these. As long as the pace of the fight was fast, nobody had time to lock in with an accurate shot. They needed to maintain speed in the pursuit. Otherwise, Shiro would have a chance to really line up a shot and hit his target. Of course Shiro knew the same about Aiko and Emi. They kept a constant pressure of battle on him. If it had been only Emi or Aiko against him, they’d already be dead. Even with both of them, they were hard pressed in the fight, just barely keeping his attacks at bay. For as little as the twins actually showed their faces and put in a fight of their own, it was easy to see why Jin never tried to overthrow them. They were both extremely skilled. The ways that they used the terrain and small elements of surprise in the fight was far superior to any Black Diamond captain or team leader from The Organization.
MC and Kuro clashed with the speed of the wind. Knives collided and sparked in the dim light. I’m holding him off for now, but that’s all I’m really doing. If I can't get on the offense, I’m going to lose.
Kuro launched a spinning attack starting with a swish of the knife followed by two kicks and then an unexpected second knife appeared in his left hand. The surprise of a second weapon concealed by his combination of attacks and spin motion struck MC across the chest. MC felt the blade cut through his skin and bounce across the bones in his sternum. It was a deep cut that shredded a thin layer of flesh and likely chipped bones, but his skeleton had done its job in protecting the vital organs behind. MC jumped back a bit and tore his ripped shirt off. Can’t have that getting in the way. He clenched the pain away as he was used to.
Kuro paused and looked at MC with inquisitive eyes. “I always wondered how it was that someone was able to mow through our ranks of captains so quickly. I’d trained several of them myself. Now, fighting you face to face, I see that you are indeed quite capable. That little gimmick you do with the flash bang might have helped you, but I can see the effects starting to fade. You are already slower than you were just a few minutes ago.”
“Kuro…” said MC. “If you think I’m going to let you win, you’re mistaken. This fight isn’t just about protecting the city. This is personal. I’m going to make you pay for what you did to Jin, my mother, and the man I believed was my father.”
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“Still playing a little game of revenge are we?”
MC relaxed his fighting stance a little as he talked. “You’re doing the same though, are you not? Isn’t this whole flooding the city thing an act of revenge towards what you’ve lost. A tantrum of a solution. Flooding the city is just an easy way to see your problems go away.”
“You know nothing of me, boy.”
“Actually, I used to be a lot like you. I was willing to sacrifice anyone and anything to get what I wanted. Now I see that what I was once willing to give up was all I really needed. My friends and loved ones are everything to me. Now I’m willing to fight to protect those things rather than to find some sort of peace in revenge.”
“Well, aren't we high and mighty.”
“I can tell you’re scared too. You pulled me into a conversation just to wear off the effects of the flash bang. I’m not stupid and I’ve got more on the way.”
MC had been feeling the effects starting to wear off slightly. He took another one off his belt, pulled the pin, and threw it, aiming at a spot on the ground halfway between himself and Kuro. Just as it left his hand, Kuro threw one of his knives striking the flash bang and sending it flying back behind MC. It detonated a bit too far a way for anyone to be affected much by it and Kuro sprang in for an attack. He bombarded MC with a mix of punches and strikes with his remaining knife. MC defended and struck back as he could, but he was being pushed to his limits. Kuro’s strikes were coming dangerously close, each one as precise as GM was with a blade. If he made a mistake and let a strike fully slip through, it would surely determine the outcome of the fight.
I’ve got to get another flash bang, but I can’t reach for one with this pressure he’s putting on me from all the attacks. MC jumped back and Kuro followed. He ducked under an attack and rolled on the ground a few feet and Kuro still followed, keeping pressure on. MC couldn’t slow the pace at all.
The detectives were having their own troubles against Shiro. He kept a quick pace, running and planting his hand on a railing to propel himself over it. Aiko and Emi did the same. Shiro took advantage of their awkward motion in the air and fired a volley of rounds at them. They were just close enough to give an accurate enough shot without having to aim much. A bullet struck Emi in the stomach and she collapsed to the ground.
“Emi!” Aiko screamed, instantly firing back at Shiro to make him scurry away around the corner of a generator machine. Aiko crouched over Emi. “Emi, let me see the wound.”
“No. Go! I’ll be ok,” Emi said, pressing the wound with her hand.
Aiko hesitated, but knew if she didn’t keep pursuing, they’d be sitting ducks. She gave one last look at Emi’s loosely reassuring eyes and sprinted after Shiro at full speed. It wasn’t just a mission anymore. It was personal.
Sora stood in the doorway of the generator room where the team had left her. She was unsure what to do. In front of her, bullets fired, knives slashed, and blood poured. She stood dumbfounded while peeking across the large room that held the controls.
Sora was not fast or strong like the others. She considered herself an intellectual. While she knew that every minute she was not in the control room the dam pumped more water into the city, she could not bring herself to move a single step forward. The fear of death was petrifying. In fact she was so scared that she felt herself step backwards. Away from the horror that he witnessed, but when she stepped back into the hall she felt something stop her. She reflexively jerked and spun around to see The Vampire. He stood tall and covered in blood splatter. “Ahhhh!” Sora shrieked.
“For the love of…” said GM, walking up next to The Vampire. “Calm down Sora.”
“How are you going to tell me to calm down when that guy is standing here all creepy and covered in blood and there’s gunshots going on right behind me? Are you out of your mind? And what took you so long to get here? MC and the detectives are barely hanging on. You gotta do something, GM!”
“Looks like you’re right. They need some help in there,” said GM, looking in and deducing the situation. “Vampire, can you take Sora to the control room?”
The Vampire let out a sigh. “I suppose,” he said with a bored tone.
“Then let’s go,” said GM, rushing past and into the fight with his katana drawn.
“Come on, girl. Let’s get you into that control room.”
“I am not going in there. I’ll die before I get halfway there.”
“So be it,” he replied and picked her up, holding her in front of him.
“Put me down!” she yelled, but he didn’t even seem to hear her. Instead he plunged straight into the room. Shiro must have noticed him, because a bullet whizzed past him and put a hole in his long cloak. Sora screamed at the top of her lungs as he moved with the speed and power of a semi truck straight to the control room door. He jumped right up the stairs and kicked the door open before gently setting Sora down on her feet inside the room. He turned, shut the door behind him, and then jumped into the battle.
“Gahhhh!” yelled Sora. Her hands shook from adrenaline, but she knew she had to get to work now that she’d finally made it to the control room.
The room was small. There was only space for a few office chairs in front of six large computer screens That were all flashing red warning signs. She moved over to the computers and pulled a cord out of her pack and then noticed the body of a man in overalls laying in a pool of blood on the ground. She didn’t even have the voice left to scream. Must be the guy who was running the control room when they took over. She stared for a second feeling sick to her stomach and then turned back to the computer and got to work trying her best to push the nausea aside.
Normally, she would have just hacked in with a password and then pulled the large lever in front of the screens to stop the water from flowing, but the lever was broken off and laying on the ground. Looks like I’m going to have to take the tougher route. She ran a program that hacked the password and started sifting through their files.
It was a very basic and old system which made things a little easier. A system like this one didn’t need any state of the art features to keep it running. Dams had been functioning just fine for decades without them. The only challenge was getting through the constant passwords needed each time she gained deeper access into a file.
Eventually she got to the backup water flow protocol files. It was a long document that she didn’t definitely didn’t have the time to read. She skimmed each page looking for key words and it didn’t take long before she was able to bypass the extra formalities and get to the meat of the information. It gave clear step by step directions that ended in restoring the lever to the upright position which was impossible because it was physically broken.
“Stupid old technology. That’s obviously not going to work,” she muttered to herself, then opened a new program on her computer and started typing code. She started from scratch creating basic lines and commands. Something like this was simple to her. She’d done it hundreds of times. It just took a while to get everything into the program.
Her next step was to create commands that managed the flow of water in order to communicate with the floodgates and tell them to close. Upon finishing the simple bit of code, she dragged it over to the gate opening and closing software and input it into where previous lines of code had been and then started the program.
Immediately, there was a loud sound of machinery shifting inside the dam. It sounded like several trains passing by. Sora watched all of the readings of the water levels in real time. The numbers were rapidly dropping. It lasted about a minute until they were all at zero. She had stopped the flow of water. Now she just had to make sure her team was able to win the fight against the twins and make it out alive.
Emi laid on the hard metal grate. She was drenched in sweat and struggling to breathe. She didn’t have much medical gear on her in order to reduce weight carried, but she held a small bit of gauze over the wound in her stomach. It was soaked red and dripping down the side of her. Despite the immense pain and fear of death she kept a relatively cool train of thought. I need to make sure I don’t get shot again. It would be easy for Shiro to put another bullet in me. Even with Aiko and The Vampire on his tail, it would only take a second for him to look over and shoot me. They’ve done well pressuring him so far, but I can tell everyone is starting to fatigue. They can only last so long going at one hundred percent of their speed and attacks.
Emi gritted her teeth together and dragged herself over to a wall And partially behind a large barrel where she could at least sit up. She pulled a small scope with a red dot out of her waist pouch and attached it to her gun. She then added another small attachment. It was an extended barrel. It allowed for a more steady bullet trajectory. With these two attachments she’d made her pistol into a long ranged weapon. She let go of the pressure on her stomach and gripped the gun with both hands aiming it in Shiro’s direction.
Shiro struggled against Aiko and The Vampire. It was a gunfight like no other. The Vampire proved a hard target to hit despite his monster outs size. Shiro had already fired almost a full clip at him with no hits. He should have been an easy target, but he was so fast and above all, unpredictable.
Aiko kept herself hidden just around corners of generators and machines. She was now playing the role of backup for The Vampire who had a much more aggressive fighting style.
Aiko paused and shot a look over to Emi and saw she had modified her gun and was still looking to help in the fight. It was a tactic that they had practiced before in training. A wounded ally and a pressured one on one with cover. They called it, “Formation 44-B.” As soon as she realized the formation, she sprung into the rehearsed position. She took a few steps back and put more room between herself and Shiro. The Vampire kept attacking with his knives, forcing Shiro to defend. Shiro stopped an overhead slash with his pistol and parried The Vampire’s arm away. He was about to fire a shot into his head when the second knife came in. It was a jab the was carried at him by a large step forward.
Emi felt her vision starting to blur. She was about to pass out from the blood loss. She held as steady as she could and fired a bullet at Shiro. It hit him in his right arm. The impact must have hit the bone because it caused his entire arm to twist unnaturally. A spray of blood erupted and showered to the floor in front of him.
While Emi, Aiko, and The Vampire were fighting Shiro, MC and GM were having their own troubles. In their fight, they each wielded a blade. There were no modern luxuries of guns in their battle.
Even with GM’s blade added to the battle, MC still wasn’t sure if they were making much headway against Kuro. He still hadn’t been able to pop a flash bang. He might have the chance to use one now, but it would not only affect him, but GM as well. The effects of the earlier flash bang were now only a tingle in his system.
Adding GM into the fight also made a new and slightly uncomfortable dynamic. He had to watch what he was doing more carefully to avoid accidentally hitting his partner. GM had the longer blade, but he was so skilled with the sword that he wasn’t hindered much by looking out for MC.
Kuro held steady. His tactics seemed only slightly more desperate. “You two really think you can defeat me? Even two on one is hardly a fair fight,” Kuro said.
“I’ll show you a fair fight,” said MC, lunging in with a straight attack from his knife. Kuro turned sideways to dodge the attack and then turned slightly to deflect GM’s blade off of his armor. He spun the knife in his hand and slashed sideways, cutting both GM and MC’s arms in a single swoop.
The three all jumped back from each other a few feet and paused. ”Still not fast enough to dodge,” said Kuro. “The way this is going, you’ll both be cut up long before me.”
“Don’t let his taunting get to you,” said GM. “We’ve got the upper hand.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Can’t you see? There’s a spot on his armor what I’ve been wearing down. A few more solid slashes on that spot and it’s going to chip away and leave a large opening.”
MC hadn’t seen it in the dim light and heat of battle, but now that he looked closely, he saw that GM was right. There was a spot on the left side of Kuro’s chest that was wearing down. “Alright, so what should I do?”
“Aim for that spot as much as you can.”
“You two think that if you chip off a piece of this armor, you’ll be able to win? What is but a small patch on an entire body of armor? One weak spot will not be my downfall,” Kuro said with anger in his eyes.
“Ready, MC?” asked GM.
“Ready.”
The two closed the gap between themselves and Kuro in the blink of an eye. It was a hacking and slashing fest between knives and swords. GM gripped his sword and prepared to pierce the weakened spot in Kuro’s armor. He thrust his sword straight at him and pierced through. His sword narrowly missed Kuro’s heart and pierced through flesh and lung until it hit the layer of armor on Kuro’s back. GM released his grip and Kuro took a step back, the sword still lodged deep into his chest. A single line of blood slid out from his strangely grinning mouth.
“A desperate attempt, GM,” said Kuro. “But you’ve sacrificed yourself.”
MC was stunned. He saw Kuro’s blade lodged into GM’s side. It was already pooling red on GM’s tan overcoat.
“GM, no!” MC shouted.
“The fight is yours to finish,” said GM, reaching into his overcoat. His hand reemerged with a flash bang. He pulled the pin and let it detonate right in his lap. Both Kuro and MC were close enough to feel heavy effects from the flash bang.
MC didn't hesitate. He rushed Kuro who was now weaponless and hit him with a flying kick. It sent his body bouncing across the ground, sparks flying on the grate as his armor hit. He rolled and landed on his feet before quickly gripping the handle of GM’s sword and ripping it out of his own chest to use as a weapon. Blood sprayed from the wound and ran down the front of him. MC was on him without a moment to spare. They exchanged blows, Kuro using the sword and MC using his knife.
With elevevated power from the flash bang, MC was much faster now. He sliced at two of Kuro’s joints in one move before delivering a spin kick to shove him back. The impact made Kuro spew blood. The attacks kept coming. He narrowly missed Kuro’s neck and then avoided an overhead slash.
It was time for the kill. He stepped on Kuro’s hand, pinning it to the floor and making him drop the sword. MC grabbed it and performed a scissor-like slice with the two blades, cutting Kuro’s head clean off.
Shiro grabbed his wounded arm in pain, stepping back a few feet from Aiko and The Vampire. He looked over at Emi who’s smoking barrel was now on the grated floor. She’d passed out.
“You all are going to pay for this!” Shiro yelled.
“I don’t think so. You’re a dead man,” hissed The Vampire. He kicked Shiro in the chest, toppling him over and then jumped on him, plunging his knife through his body.
Aiko looked away to spare herself the gruesome details and then ran over to Emi. She pulled off Emi’s exterior clothing. It was all soaked with blood. She must have lost gallons of blood. I need to stop the blood loss. Aiko pulled off a strip of her shirt and pressed it to the wound and started performing as much medical care as she could.
MC came over to GM and provided the medical care that he could as well. Luckily, GM was still conscious. He’d traded a wound for a wound with Kuro, but he’d definitely gotten the better blow of the trade in.
“What were you thinking, you crazy old bastard?” said MC, forcing a smile.
GM pulled out a pack of cigarettes, popped one into his mouth, and lit it. With an exhale he said, “I thought I trained you better than that. You should have known what I was going for there. Anyway, this is nothing more than a scratch. Nothing a few cold ones can't fix.”
MC smiled genuinely now to match GM’s comical expression and ridiculous statements.
