Built Different [Cyborg Superhero ProgFant]

Floor Twelve.

With tired eyes, I watched Roxy pull the head off of the last of a group of military goons that had been stationed in the immediate lobby to this floor. My glance turned to the stairwell behind me.

It wasn't the type where you could see all the way down in the middle. Just looking at the next set leading toward the floor below didn't really tell me anything about the security of the place past our current position. There were no sounds from below. Part of me was tempted to sprint down. Skip to the lower section of the hospital.

A reckless plan with a lot of friction against our currently agreed process.

Roxy and I would blaze a path between the stairwells on opposite ends of the building. Take out any tough or dangerous opponents and search for anti-super tech or traps being prepared for us. Once reasonably satisfied, we'd descend, and the rest of the Natural Disasters would then follow our path more thoroughly. Eventually we'd scour the hospital. Make it clean again.

Aside from the copious amounts of lost blood.

I returned my attention to the super. Her head wound was now a patch of discolored scar tissue—which Belle reassured her would fade—but she still seemed a little off, despite the healing. Nothing concerning, just a familiar tiredness and dulled sense of existence. I'd worn the same look on many occasions, and probably would be twice as bad right now without these drugs keeping the furnace fueled.

"Enough assholes here for a whole army," Roxy grumbled, dropping the broken parts of the plant-merc.

[To have furnished every floor with at least twenty to fifty bodies is certainly… something.]

I couldn't think of the word. Not exactly impressive, but concerning in an uncomfortable way. The League should have noticed. I was sure there were ways it could have happened undetected, but that fact was almost worse than a Director turning traitor. Any other answer was beyond my capacity to imagine right now.

"If I get shot in the head again, I'm just leveling the building." The super rubbed at the side of her head and shot a glare down the next corridor.

[Does it not impress you that you withstood a sniper round?]

She gave me a tired shrug. "Always been hardheaded, huh? My brain doesn't have super strength, so I'm hoping I don't have internal bleeding or some shit. Can't afford to lose what few brain cells I have."

Despite Belle saying she wouldn't be able to heal the trauma, I was sure that between us any physical damage to Roxy's brain matter would have recovered enough to where she wasn't in any mortal danger. Probably needed a few days to rest, but who didn't? I stretched out my gun-arm and gestured for us to continue.

[They would know we are here. Bets on what they send against us?]

Roxy pursed her lips together as we walked down the hallway to a reception room. "Sending a lot of these basic groups would be a mistake. They know we can breeze through them. So… either a specialized unit or some tough nut to crack."

[I've yet to meet a nut you couldn't crack.]

She smiled. "Big words considering I almost had my skull emptied out. Good thing I had you to save me."

[Quite the duo.]

I could see the look in her eyes. She wanted to suggest we throw caution to the wind, and our overpowered abilities down through several floors of this building. Maybe make out a little after. Unfortunately, any rising flames egging us on toward that resolution were snuffed out.

The sound of gunfire came from down the corridor, in a ward on the left.

As we readied ourselves, Clara's drone zipped out of a doorway, twisting through the air before righting itself.

//Clara: I got tired of window shopping. Found a few friends.

Another small group of what I called scouts. Pistols and light assault rifles. They poured out of the doorway after the drone, guns at the ready. Roxy had already leaped forward, and snapped into the first with a punch. His shattered body carried on down the corridor for at least another thirty feet before striking a wall with a wet splat.

Bullets sprayed around her as she grabbed the next in line. Gun discarded, she threw this goon down toward me so that she could tear through the other two piled up in the doorway. I met the provided target with an empowered open-handed punch, my metal digits together like a scoop. My attack burst up through his stomach and into his chest cavity. Metal ball fired out and exited his head.

//Clara: Cursory flight found no snipers on this floor.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

Odd, but not entirely unexpected. The few perched on the highest level must have been to take us out if we tried walking right up to the hospital. Few sharpshooters would have been able to pick us out of the sky with our leaps from afar. I felt the rest of the forces distributing here were chaff to buy time for those below. Maybe they thought I'd come alone?

It was pointless to speculate, and too much thinking ran the risk of me either falling unconscious from lack of adrenaline, or swirling down into more mania. So far, I had been keeping it together.

With Clara scouting just ahead of us, we cleared a simple path from here to the opposite staircase. Three more groups of lightly equipped plant people. Easily dismantled, but handy enough to keep my desire for battle sustained. Eventually, we found ourselves by the next stairs, wiping the gore from our hands.

My personal shield hummed back to full power after deflecting a couple of bullets. In our efforts, we had sustained only minor damage ourselves. Roxy had bruises or small scrapes in places from resisting the small-caliber ammunition. I had a cut along my left upper arm, but it was shallow thanks to my trenchcoat. Already mostly healed thanks to my regeneration.

"You would think they'd have something up here to deal with us by now," Roxy said, looking back at the destruction we had caused. "They know where we are."

I stepped up to the stairs and crouched down. Reasonably competent work, but I was experienced and currently hyper-alert.

[This section is trapped.]

A thin wire running along the top stair. Payload or trigger wasn't obvious, as the mechanism seemed to run down the edge of the stairs to the floor below.

I raised my eyes as the sound of footsteps came from above.

"You come across anything interesting?" Roxy asked the three Natural Disasters as they descended.

"Three more snipers," Roy said. "Knowing that they were triggered by sound made them easy to distract."

"About twenty other mercs hiding away, as well," Belle added. The shielder held one of the assault rifles in her hands, a faint green light illuminating it. She had also taken a tactical vest from one of the scouts and was covered in spare magazines.

Ren was the only one not lashed with streaks of blood, although her expression was just as grim as the other two looked. "Their lack of speech wasn't too unusual, but they don't even show signs of pain other than brief grunts. It's unnerving."

By the time they had finished grumbling, and Roxy had updated them on floor twelve, I had finished disarming the trap. Well, the cable part of the mechanism, anyway. While I was sure I could trust the others to remember to step over it, I didn't want to leave that risk. Just in case. I had a bad feeling about this one, and I knew to trust my gut on things like this.

We gave the others a brief nod to send them off. Between them, they'd have zero issues with the current force. That wasn't just because of their superpowers either. Over the time spent with me, they had learned to be killers. Without hesitation or compromise. Perhaps not something I should be proud of, but I was. The life of a hero didn't need that—and ideally shouldn't need such callousness—but a day like this was bound to happen.

The status quo was being tested, and our opponents had no qualms about being ruthless. I didn't want my friends being hens in the wolfhouse.

I furrowed my brow, uncertain about that last sentence, as we stepped down to the next floor. In addition to my brain fraying at the edges, I was also concerned about the tripwire running all the wall down through the door onto the next floor.

We stopped before it, and I gave the hovering drone a glance to gauge the techie's thoughts.

//Clara: I would expect the door to be trapped, Gunquake.
//Clara: Possibly explosives.

With the stairs behind us, I weighed up the idea of skipping this floor. Most of the doorways encountered so far had windows, but the ones blocking our entrance did not. No hint as to what lay beyond. I brought up the floor plans into my lens.

[Hmph. Let's just make our own doorway.]

Roxy stepped over to the wall I indicated on the right and dug her fingers in, tearing a hole as if it was a birthday present. Which, oh shit. That was tomorrow or something. My drug-addled mind jumbled several thoughts together, suddenly unsure as to what day it was or when the last time I slept was. I tried squishing that whirlwind of distraction into a tight ball to focus on the present problems. Just about managed it.

We stepped through the rough doorway the super had created, into a storeroom. Mostly bare due to the refurbishments and current takeover, but the empty shelving did have a couple of boxes on it. This door had a small window, but glancing through it didn't reveal any immediate danger.

//Clara: 80% of the criminal and villain activity has now been quelled.
//Clara: Still no news on Kingston or Chevalier.

[I'm surprised the League isn't chewing us out for going vigilante.]

Roxy tutted. "Their fault for allowing that branding."

//Clara: I am filtering the messages that you both receive.
//Clara: Distractions would not be ideal, Gunquake.

Too true. How much did they know about the Arena and what I was currently doing? They had enough on their plates with Kingston missing and Goldarch in a state of crisis. Worst-case scenario, they had probably assigned us to some thumb-twiddling job to keep us out of trouble. Nothing the other heroes couldn't help pick up the slack on.

There was a slight chance all the other problems would get solved without us, and we could just go home after either saving or killing Boss. Maybe that was a little too much optimism.

I gave Roxy a nod and then we pushed out of the room and into the corridor. To our left was the stairwell entrance that we had skirted - and I was thankful for our caution.

To the sides of the doors were several metal barrels, no doubt attached to whatever trigger mechanism was on the stairs and probably the doors as well. Possibly explosives, as Clara had said, but I didn't even want to guess the alternatives.

[Best tell the others to be careful on stairs and avoid any doorway they can't see through.]

//Clara: Relaying now.

Just as I was about to open the map to find the easiest route to the opposite stairwell, a noise caught my attention. Roxy and I both turned to the right. From down the hallway, two figures appeared, running toward us.

Same masks and tactical gear, but instead of firearms, both had long blades replacing where their hands should be. Frantic and desperate compared to the calm of the ones we had faced previously. More unnerving than that was the muffled wails the pair emitted as they clambered toward us.

I turned my head to see at least two other similar figures coming from the opposite direction.

My gun-arm chamber opened up, ejecting the steel ball to the floor.

I loaded in a much different shell.