Chapter 106: How was it? (1/2)
After the squad left the building, it was already time for the Eion helicopters to arrive.
Moria spoke to the pilots through the radio. ”The enemy aerial forces were luckily eliminated, but because of that, our stealth is out of the window. Please standby and wait for our signal, we'd want to demand support then,” He told the pilots and his request was accepted.
Meanwhile, Arimane locked his sight on his target. He was already lying down, ready to shoot. Tieria was crouching beside him, observing with her binoculars. Jin was sitting in a corner with a laptop on his knees.
”Arimane, you have ten seconds,” After a few minutes of wait, Jin suddenly opened his mouth and transmitted Moria's message.
Arimane acknowledged the order and looked through his scope. He aimed at the head of the leader and breathed in. He held his breath and made some adjustments based on Tieria's measurements.
He pressed the trigger a few seconds later and exhaled. The bullet flew all the way across the town and pierced the wall of the HQ, opening a blatant hole in it. As expected, the bullet deviated and became stuck on the floor of the room.
The man inside obviously panicked and tried to run but the huge caliber bullet lodged in the floor beeped before blasting apart the entire room.
Arimane didn't even check if the target was dead or not and swiftly reloaded the rifle with classic Eion bullets. He then orientated his scope toward the turrets around the HQ. Those turrets were a double barrel type, perfect for aerial defense, but good for land defense as well.
There was no one piloting it in normal times, and its range was around two miles. But because of its old model AI's, it could only detect bigger objects automatically. That's why they couldn't catch sight of the squad who could hide very skillfully.
Arima aimed at a two-feet-wide barrel and fired. The bullet quickly traveled the distance. It entered the barrel and destroyed the turret from the inside. Arimane pulled the bolt and immediately aimed at another one. He then continued to destroy every turret with a single shot until one of the turrets abruptly moved and narrowly escaped the bullet. That same turret rotated and pointed its cannons toward the trio.
Arimane clicked his tongue and stood up. ”(So, they spotted us after all. Shit, it was the last one too. There's always something to mess up everything,)” He cursed inwardly. Jin and Tieria were already prompt to bail out but Arimane did something completely unexpected.
He drew his revolver and pointed it toward the front. Tieria's eyes widened and before she could say anything, the turret fired. At almost the exact same time, Arimane fired two times and the same number of explosions occurred in midair. It didn't stop there, the turret fired two more times and Arima four more times. Four explosions occurred above the town.
After that, Arimane was out of bullets. He didn't have the time to reload since that thing was shooting two shells every second. He hastily grabbed one of Jin's grenades and threw it.
At the same time, he inserted new bullets in his gun. The grenade exploded in mid-air and deviated two more shells that went crashing on the buildings nearby. When Arima finished reloading he started shooting again.
After four bullets, the turret stopped firing. Arimane grinned and quickly grabbed his rifle, he didn't have the time to lie down. He sat down and put the stock of the sniper against his shoulder. He looked through the scope for three seconds then shot.
A terrorist who was behind the turret, controlling it, suddenly died by losing his head. Arimane sighed and shot a second time, destroying the turret.
”…no way,” Jin muttered and Tieria gaped. ”How the hell can you shoot like that?! It wasn't a dream, right? You just made clash the projectiles of two firearms, right?!”
Arimane sighed and put the rifle down. He shrugged at Jin.
”It's just because it fired explosive shells. Since that model is old and not really optimized, it fires slowly and can only shoot twelve shells before having to be reloaded from an automate storage directly into the ammunition chamber.”
”Don't try to explain something like that with logic,” Tieria retorted with a darkened expression. ”Your common sense is already out of control. You don't look like a newbie at all for your first time on the battlefield.”
”Heck! He's the pillar of this operation since the beginning!” Jin bawled.
Arimane smiled wryly since he didn't know how to respond. ”I just have a very good reaction time and my body is a bit strange… I guess?”
Jin raised an eyebrow and stared at Arimane with an expression that seemed to say 'what the hell is this kid talking about?'.
He scratched his head really hard. ”Fuck it. First, it's your nanomachines and body, now it's your damn mind that doesn't make sense,” He grunted and looked one last time at the screen of his laptop before closing it.
He stood up and went toward the stairs. ”Let's go, Sir Moria already entered the building. With the panic from their leader's death, the entire HQ will soon be cleaned up. Also, the mission now just changed a bit. We'll gather there and our aerial support will bombard the base before extracting us,” Jin explained as they exited the building.
”This mission is basically over,” He declared and Arimane nodded. ”But seriously… It was kinda messed up from the beginning to the end. Especially when I was with you,” Jin added and Tieria could only agree with him.
”…sorry?” Arimane uttered.
Jin and Tieria looked at each other and burst out laughing.
A moment later, the trio arrived in front of the HQ's door. They found many bodies lying on the ground dead with a single bullet in either the head or the heart. As expected from special forces. Even with Eion bullets, they never waste a single shot.
A few minutes after they entered, Arimane was already being hugged by Tiria whom they met whilst going up the building. Gano and Farro were also there with her.