Arriving in front of the abandoned Metro station in Mladost, Kirov exhales. He had done many extraction missions before, a politician's daughter being held hostage, or a rival drug smuggler who was surrounded by forty of his security guards. But this time was different. It wasn't about money or power. It was personal now.
"I want you to scan the building and stay on the comms. I don't want you coming inside. I already have the two of them to worry about. Understood?" Vasko shakes his head in agreement as Kirov gets out of the car. Walking into the Metro station, he took out his pistol and cocked it.
"How many are in there, Vasko?"
"There aren't that many ports for me to get info, but it seems like there are five of them standing, and the other two seem to be sitting; those are probably our guys. Sending you the location to track on your optics."
"Understood." Moving in on the tracker, he reached a large room and took a peek. At the corner of the room, he sees Marto and Krisi. Seeing them tied upside-down, hanging from their feet, left a bad taste in Kirov's mouth. He had rarely been on the other side of this scene. Taking a closer look, they had both clearly been beaten and bloodied; one of the Kang Tao mercs was taking out a toolkit. Some of these tools, Kirov had only seen at the Ripperdoc. He wasn't going to wait for them to tear the cyberware off of Marto. He took a breath, closed his eyes, and pulled the pin.
BANG
A flashbang goes off, and Kirov starts to make quick work of them with his Sandevistan. Taking out the first Merc, he shoots out the chains holding Marto and Krisi up. He no longer had the element of surprise and took a defensive position behind some rubble.
"MARTO, get up!" Kirov shouts through the gunfire, but Marto could barely keep his eyes open. Realising that he was alone, Kirov knew he had to pull something out from deep. His use of the Sandevistan had already put some strain on his body, and he could feel it. It was a very aggressive tune, but he didn't have the time to worry about the strain this was going to take on his body.
Putting his Sandevistan into overdrive, he jumped out from his position, taking fire and sending it back. One clean shot to the face took out another merc. Drawing his knife, he goes hand-to-hand with another merc, using him as a shield, charging them. Once he got close enough, he threw the now dead body at them and dashed away. Then they realised that the two grenades on his belt had their pins pulled.
CRASH
Kirov opens his eyes, clearly underestimating how far he had to dash away to be clear of the blast. Trying to push himself off the ground, his face hits the floor as a boot presses on his cheek. Looking up as best as he could, he saw what seemed to be the last standing merc, with his gun pointed directly at him. He didn't have it in him to fight back, let alone turn on his Sandevistan. He took what he thought was his last breath and closed his eyes.
BANG
He keeps his eyes closed, not ready to see what came after his death. But after a moment or two, he realised he was still in pain. Realising that he was still in hell, he started to open his eyes. What he saw wasn't fire and brimstone. It was Vasko, gun in hand, barrel still smoking. To his side was the merc, on the floor with his brains scattered across the ceiling. Looking back at Vasko, he was still in the same position, frozen in place, hands shaking uncontrollably. Kirov got off the floor and took the gun out of Vasko's hands.
"Vasko. Look at me." Vasko finally took his eyes off the corpse and looked at Kirov.
"You did what you had to do. Get used to it." Vasko didn't respond, just kept staring.
"Go wake up Marto and Krisi." Kirov gave him a light slap on the cheek to snap him out of it, and it worked. He went to the others and began removing their restraints. Kirov pulled all of the mers' bodies together and started tearing out the wires from their cyberware and hotwiring them together. After dousing them with the fluid from his lighter, he set them on fire. He turned to the others who had just about gotten on their feet.
"We need to leave, now." Kirov goes over to them and takes Marto's arm over his shoulder, helping him walk out with Vasko helping out Krisi. Getting into the car, Kirov starts driving towards the Vitosha mountain.
"This isn't the way to the penthouse," Marto says as he sits up properly.
"You wake up, and the first thing you do is question me? Kirov looks back at Marto, "We are going to a safehouse in Dragalevtsi; my apartment is no longer safe because someone got hungry." Marto didn't respond. As Kirov kept driving, he took a look at the others, seeing that Marto and Krisi were asleep, Vasko, however, had a thousand-yard stare.
"I meant what I said earlier, you did what you had to do." Looking over at Vasko, he still didn't respond, but he gave a begrudging nod.
Arriving at the house, everyone started to get out of the car, but Kirov stayed.
"Vasko, can you take care of Marto for a few hours?"
"Yeah, sure, he's not dying on my watch."
"In that case, Krisi, get back in the car. We are sorting out this BD business tonight."