A Thousand-Meter Confession

A series of muffled blasts reverberated behind us as we sprinted toward the exfiltration point.

BOOM! BOOM!

"Are those your claymores?" Brielle asked, her voice tight.

"Yeah," I confirmed, shoving my way through a tangle of bushes and low-hanging branches. I had seeded our escape route with a few surprises, just in case we were followed.

Suddenly, a sound cut through the night. "Halt!" I whispered, raising a clenched fist. I signaled for us to get down, and we both dropped into a crouch. I brought my SMG to bear, scanning the darkness around us. Beside me, Brielle did the same with her Springbright rifle.

A voice shouted somewhere in the trees. "Find those responsible for Master Alaric's death! Don't stop until you locate them!" It was Lyra.

"Yes, ma'am!" a chorus of voices bellowed back. It sounded like ten, maybe twenty men.

I took cover behind a thick tree trunk while Brielle concealed herself behind a large boulder. The crunch of footsteps grew closer. I silently drew my bayonet. A moment later, a guard walked right into my kill zone. I waited for the perfect instant, then lunged, grabbing his collar and slamming him against the tree. I clamped a hand over his mouth to stifle his scream as the blade sliced across his throat.

Simultaneously, Brielle dispatched another guard, using the butt of her rifle to deliver a crushing blow to the back of his head.

I spotted another guard wandering nearby, armed with a single-shot musket. "Hey, Tony! Bernard!" he called out, searching for his fallen comrades. "Where are you?"

I dropped to my stomach, crawling through the dense undergrowth. My ghillie suit made me one with the forest floor. Once I was directly behind him, I rose silently, wrapped an arm around his neck in a chokehold, and severed the arteries in his neck.

But as he lost consciousness, his finger spasmed on the trigger.

POW!

The shot went wide, but it had alerted the others. "Who's there?!" a guard shouted. I saw multiple figures converging on our position. One of them spotted me. He leveled his sword in my direction and yelled, "I see him... wait, what the hell is that thing?!"

"Dude! We're spotted!" I yelled to Brielle. "Go loud!" I raised my SMG and dropped the guard who had seen me.

"Wha—it's talking!" another guard exclaimed, as if I were some kind of jungle beast. I ignored him and sent a single, suppressed round through his head. A second guard popped out from behind a tree, firing a crossbow. I sidestepped the bolt with ease and stitched a short burst across his chest. Leaping from her cover, Brielle shot another guard in the neck.

A silhouette emerged from the shadows, approaching us with unnerving composure. It was Lyra. She fixed us with a venomous glare. "Finally, I found you both," she said. Four guards trailed her like wolves. Brielle and I trained our weapons on them.

The woman's attire was different now. She wore form-fitting armor that accentuated her curves, a belt laden with what looked like ammunition pouches, and steel-toed boots. She carried only a pair of daggers. Three vertical purple stripes were painted on her forehead, and three horizontal red stripes were drawn on each cheek. The paint was meant to intimidate, not to conceal.

She stopped a few paces away, her gesture sharp as she pointed at me. "You! You killed my master!" she screamed, her voice cracking with rage. "Why? Why did you do it?" Tears welled in her eyes.

"Because it was my mission," I stated calmly, keeping my sights trained on her head. "And because it was the right thing to do." This was pointless banter, a waste of precious seconds. I was ready to end it with a 9mm round.

"No!" she shrieked, tears streaming down her face. "You took everything from me! Without Master Alaric, I'd still be a destitute vagrant, or worse, a cheap slut! And now you've taken him from me! I will never forgive you." She clenched her teeth, her knuckles white on the hilts of her daggers. "I'll kill you!"

Her words struck a nerve. I had killed many people, but I often forgot that they were just that—people. They had families, loved ones, people who cared about them. I was suddenly reminded of a kill-or-capture mission from a joint operation years ago. We had raided the home of an insurgent commander. He resisted, shooting one of our men, and the rules of engagement forced me to put him down—right in front of his family. His wife had screamed at me, just as Lyra was crying now.

No matter how vile a person becomes, they are still human. They feel. They love. That was true even for Alaric Thorne. For a fleeting moment, I felt a pang of empathy.

I was about to drop my SMG and challenge Lyra to single combat, but Brielle stepped forward. "I won't let you harm Arc!" she declared, leveling her rifle's bayonet at the rabbit girl.

"Brielle..." I was taken by surprise.

She glanced back at me with a determined grin. "Leave this to me, okay?"

I nodded. "I get it. I'll handle the guards. You focus on Lyra. But we need her alive." I pulled a fragmentation grenade from my ghillie suit and carefully worked the pin loose.

Brielle fired, but the subsonic musket ball was easy for Lyra to dodge, who rolled forward with fluid grace. As Brielle tried to reload, Lyra lunged with her daggers. Brielle parried with her rifle, then jabbed with the bayonet, but the nimble woman sidestepped the attack. Tossing the rifle onto her back, Brielle drew her rapier.

"I've changed my mind! I'll kill you first, Brielle De Verdannia!" Lyra snarled. Brielle looked stunned to hear her own family name.

"How... how do you know that?!" she stammered. Lyra ignored her and charged.

I turned my attention to the five guards advancing on me. I pulled the pin on the grenade and lobbed it at one of them. It bounced off his head, stunning him for the brief second before it detonated.

BOOM!

The explosion killed three guards instantly. A fourth screamed as the blast tore off his leg. The man I'd hit was decapitated, his brain matter splattered across the forest floor. I pushed aside any flicker of sympathy and focused. Kill or be killed.

As the final guard from that group stumbled, I cut him down with a quick burst.

Another guard charged me, brandishing a sword. I dropped the empty magazine and slammed a fresh one into my SMG. Before I could aim, he tackled me, throwing me to the ground. "Hraah!" he roared, raising his sword for the killing blow. I drove a powerful kick into his gut, sending him flying. Scrambling into a squat, I put a controlled burst into his head, turning it into a red mist.

An arrow zipped past my head. I spun to see a guard with a crossbow behind some bushes. I shot him before he could reload.

Another quick reload. In the distance, more guards opened fire with muskets. I broke from cover, weaving between the trees as I closed on their position. I found three of them hiding and eliminated them with precise shots to the chest and head.

I slapped in another magazine. "Last one," I muttered to myself. I had traveled light, not anticipating the mission would get this complicated.

I burst from my cover, gunning down anyone in a guard's uniform. The last one charged me directly. I fired a long burst, but he ducked under it with surprising agility. This was no ordinary guard.

CLICK!

"I'm out," I whispered, slinging the empty SMG across my back. Before I could draw my sidearm, a chain whipped around my neck. I dug my heels in, holding my ground as he pulled. "Damn it!" I cursed, drawing my Minato P9 and firing at the chain, shattering a link.

He closed the distance, his fist connecting with my cheek with enough force to make me stagger. I spit a mouthful of blood. "You're strong, huh?" I said, raising my pistol, though I knew he was fast enough to dodge the shot.

"Heh, I was the strongest mercenary in the region," he replied, settling into a fighting stance. He was taller and more muscular than the other guards, with chains wrapped around his forearms. "I think I'll have some fun with you before I deliver your head to Miss Lyra!" He swung the chains like flails.

I dodged the first strike, but the second wrapped around my forearm. He yanked me toward him. As I stumbled forward, he threw a punch with his free hand. I ducked under it, pressed my pistol to his head, and fired. "Who's having fun now?" I asked his corpse, before putting one more round into his brain for good measure.