03/17/2076
Country: Line
City: Altérion
Time: 21:26
Inside the cockpit of a military aircraft flying at high altitude, two people dressed in black tactical suits were stationed. Fine red lines ran across their equipment, and on their foreheads, the logo « DH » gleamed proudly.
The one holding the controls of the aircraft broke the silence in a highly formal tone:
« Dark, we have arrived above the harbor. The traffickers are right below. »
The masked man gave him a friendly pat on the shoulder, replying:
« Good job, Meta. »
As he turned around to head toward the rear of the aircraft, Meta interrupted him, his gaze full of anticipation:
« Dark Wolf… Could I come down and help you guys this time? »
Dark pointed a firm finger at him before walking away:
« You are already doing plenty as it is, stay at the controls. »
He walked through the armored corridor to reach the cargo bay. Inside, seven people wearing similar outfits, though tailored to their specialties, were waiting in absolute serenity. As soon as they saw their leader enter, they stood up instantly as one.
Dark Wolf stood before them, imposing:
« Listen up, hunters. We are right above the group of child traffickers. Let me re-explain the tactical positioning.
Infinity, Lame, Cortana, you handle the guards on the ground.
Big Zero, Vega, you come with me to hunt down their leader.
And finally, Odin and Ghost, you clear out the soldiers stationed on the heights.
The mission is simple: we neutralize the targets, evacuate the children, and let the Armored Units finish the clean-up work. »
Behind him, the hydraulic cylinders hissed and the heavy rear ramp of the plane began to lower with a metallic crash. Outside, the night was pitch-black and an icy wind rushed violently into the cargo bay, making their equipment flutter.
Dark Wolf pointed at his men and raised his voice to drown out the roar of the jet engines:
« For this mission, as always, I will only ask two things of you: we must all return in one piece, and above all… Do not miss. »
The one wearing the most aerodynamic suit, Infinity, adjusted his gloves with pure confidence:
« Don't worry boss, this is going to be easy. »
« We go down, we beat them up, and we leave. It won't take long », Ghost added.
The latter wore a completely black suit with a mask that stopped at the nose, leaving his long locs and his face floating in the wind.
Dark stepped to the edge of the precipice, the pack glued to his heels:
« DH ARMY… Do not disappoint me. »
He stared into the vertical void, then let himself tilt into the abyss:
« One, two, three… Here we come. »
The entire team jumped in their leader's wake, diving toward the ground at a speed so dizzying that the nocturnal landscape became an artistic blur.
After a few seconds of freefall slicing through the air, they finally distinguished the harbor docks, the geometric alignments of containers, and a huge cargo ship where the criminals were loading their human cargo.
Dark pressed his earpiece:
« In ten seconds, everyone deploy your glider. You, Odin, deal with it. »
« [ There are still not enough gliders for everyone on this team! And the only excuse you can find is that I know how to fly? I should have known you blew all our savings on tissues and toilet paper, boss! ] », Odin immediately grumbled through the radio channel.
« [ Shut the hell up, you fake god ] », Big Zero muttered.
Halfway to the ground, the team members simultaneously slapped their thighs with their free hand. Instantly, black polymer membranes deployed, connecting their sleeves to their knees to form wingsuit wings.
They all began to glide in a tight formation, while Odin branched off on his own, tearing through the air using his own electrical energy.
In the sky, the pack split into three distinct groups. Spotting five heavily armed sentries right below his landing zone, Infinity ordered coldly:
« Radio silence. »
On the ground, the mercenaries were patrolling, completely unaware of the threat descending upon them from the clouds. Two of them were chatting to kill time:
« Tell me, Esteban, before getting into trafficking, what did you do for a living? »
The man named Esteban replied, a hint of pride in his voice:
« Well, like pretty much everyone here… I was a hitman. »
The five criminals burst into laughter in unison, before one of them sighed with content:
« Ah, how I love being an outlaw… »
Suddenly, a deep, icy voice whispered right behind the last guard:
« I don't. »
Before they could comprehend, Dark Wolf grabbed the first two guards by the back of the skull. Carried by the kinetic energy of his fall, he violently smashed their heads against the tarmac, which cracked with fissures under the violence of the impact.
The three other soldiers tried to raise their rifles, but they were outpaced.
A man wearing the same suit as Dark, but featuring five vertical slits at the mouth level of his mask, appeared behind them: Big Zero. Materializing two sharp, translucent ice spikes between his fingers, he brutally drove them into the necks of two guards. As he pulled his weapons back, the frost propagated instantly, turning both men into solid blocks of ice.
The last surviving mercenary wanted to pull the trigger, but Vega was faster: a high-powered roundhouse kick caught the man right in the neck. The sound of the impact echoed twice in a row, and the soldier collapsed heavily, unconscious.
Meanwhile, at the top of a watchtower, a sentry spotted the skirmish. He moved his hand toward his radio to sound the alarm, but a gloved hand emerged from the dark and slapped over his mouth.
In the blink of an eye, his entire body was sucked in and swallowed by a moving puddle of shadow on the ground. A few moments later, the shadow spit out the guard's lifeless body. A silhouette slowly extracted itself from it: Ghost.
« Tss… Too easy », he muttered.
Spotting two other targets stationed a bit further away on the roof of a container, he dived back into the darkness to instantly reappear behind them. He grabbed them by the collar and growled as he dragged them into his dark world:
« Ah, I'm seriously starting to get bored. Where is the fight in this? »
He activated his mic with the press of a finger:
« Hey, Odin, how many of these bastards have you taken down already? »
« [ Oh, I stopped counting after ten. There is no action here ] », Odin replied. He immediately switched to the general channel: « [ Yo boss, the heights are cleared. As usual. ] »
Stationed on the roof of a metal container, Dark Wolf observed the drop zone. Below, he spotted two major targets: a giant Black man with heterochromia eyes, and beside him, a leaner individual, white-skinned with vibrant green hair.
« Oh, don't worry, the action is coming », Dark replied to his team. « Go find your lookalikes and gear up for combat. »
He cut the communication, took a running start, and leaped from the container to land heavily a few meters away from the two men. The two accomplices turned around, smiles on their faces, as if they were precisely expecting this intrusion.
« Hello, Cisnet! », Dark called out in his predatory voice.
The man named Cisnet, the green-haired individual, stepped forward theatrically, opening his hands wide:
« Ah, Dark Wolf, my old friend! It has been an eternity! How long has it been, tell me? A whole year? »
« Exactly, you are not mistaken. And you must know why I am here? », Dark asked, calmly crossing his arms over his chest.
Cisnet smiled, then turned around, walking a few steps back with a provocative assurance:
« Of course I do. You are here to arrest me, or at best to kill me to avenge your precious dead pals. But what you ignore, my dear wolf… is that you are the one who is going to die tonight. Because all of this was nothing but a trap! »
With a sharp motion, he pressed the button of a remote control concealed in his hand.
Instantly, the metal walls of several surrounding containers automatically slid open. Dozens of heavily armed mercenaries poured out, surrounding Dark Wolf in the blink of an eye, their rifles trained on him.
Dark Wolf swept the crowd with his gaze, then slowly raised his hands in the air, while Cisnet burst into a manic, psychopathic laugh. The leader of the DH ARMY fixed his eyes on the criminal through his visor:
« Wow… The old surrounding trick, that is so outdated. »
While his hands were still raised, a black hand emerged from the shadow at his feet, grabbed him, and absorbed him into the ground. A fraction of a second later, the mercenaries opened heavy fire, riddling the empty space where the DHA leader stood with a mass of bullets.
The soldiers ceased firing, completely lost by this disappearance. Cisnet turned to the colossus beside him:
« Dexter, go start the boat. Right now! »
The man turned around and moved forward. Suddenly, a red streak shifted at an insane speed between them. Dexter felt a monumental slap sting his face.
At the same moment, Cisnet saw his own cell phone get ejected from his pocket to smash onto the ground. When he picked it up, the screen showed the camera app open. When he looked at the shot that had just been taken, his eyes widened in surprise.
It was a photo of Infinity, who had just taken a selfie of everyone present, striking his best pose.
Cisnet screamed at the top of his lungs:
« They are all here! »
A powerful voice thundered from the heavens, shattering the sound of the waves:
« Keba kake! »
Looking up, the criminals saw Odin descending from the sky like a comet. He wore no mask, leaving his determined face visible, and his forearms were covered by two massive objects acting like arm guards. His entire body irradiated with blinding lightning flashes.
Cisnet didn't even have time to move before Odin violently slammed into the ground where he stood. An explosion made of lightning occurred. Defeated by the thunderbolt, all the soldiers located near Odin fell unconscious on the spot.
The dust was barely settling when Odin, standing back up, spotted Cisnet trying to flee. He charged straight toward him, but a man in massive metallic armor, Conter, grabbed him firmly by the waist and both crashed heavily to the ground:
« Wait, where do you think you're going like that? »
Odin concentrated the lightning energy into his left hand and delivered a blow of unprecedented violence right to his attacker's head. The man spun backward, smashing straight through a container which was completely destroyed under the impact.
After a moment, the giant slowly rose from the rubble. He glanced at his left hand, whose knuckle had turned backward the wrong way, and snapped it back with a quick, sharp motion:
« Oh… Interesting, kid. »
Odin stood up and looked at him with a deeply astonished look:
« Wow… You're not dead? »
The man popped his shoulder back into place, saying:
« You think that little hit is going to… »
Without warning, he didn't finish his sentence and received a powerful blow to the face that launched him violently onto the edge of the port. The person who had just struck was Cortana. She wore the standard DH ARMY outfit but seemed to feature a silver armor underneath that enveloped her face, while her long braided hair covered the rest of her body down to her back.
Odin, pointing a finger at the man, said while looking at Cortana:
« That was mean, Cortana. »
« We're not at a picnic », she retorted, clenching her steel fists.
The man stood up as best as he could and growled in a surge of rage:
« Ah… You're annoying m… »
He didn't have time to finish before he received several lightning-fast blows from all sides, concluded by a terrible punch to the face. The attacker moved so fast he was almost invisible, but Infinity finally appeared in front of him, pointing a finger at him in a purely provocative manner:
« You didn't see that coming. »
Then, thanks to his divine speed, he dashed toward the other team members, stood in front of them, and said while doing a quick spin on himself:
« Oh, guys, you are so slow. »
The man stood back up, furious, and screamed at the top of his lungs:
« I've had enough! I don't like being cut o… »
He didn't finish before he received a lance of black flames right in the torso, which exploded directly in a destructive blast. It was Dark Wolf approaching with slow steps, already sending two more his way.
When he reached the others, the leader admitted with an astonished air:
« Hmm, he is durable. »
It was then that the rest of the team members appeared from behind other metal containers. Lame, sporting a wide black hat and a long black coat over his mask similar to Ghost's, stepped forward alongside Big Zero and Vega.
« We eliminated all the soldiers present at the harbor. All that's left is to go get the children out of the boat », Lame said, stopping in front of them.
Ghost slowly stepped out of the shadows, right behind Dark Wolf's back, whispering in his sepulchral voice:
« They are in the four containers on the left, and there are a dozen super-terrorists in there. »
Hardly had he finished his sentence when a racket echoed and about twenty people started walking down from the upper deck of the ship. Each of them positioned themselves proudly in front of the vessel, blocking access.
On their side, the entire DH ARMY team lined up parallel to the super-terrorists, forming a compact rampart of elite warriors.
Ghost added with a ruthless and serious look:
« We must save the children. »
Dark Wolf conjured a crackling lance of fire in his hand, fixed his eyes on the enemy line, and breathed with a smile:
« Well… this isn't going to be easy. »