Everyday Stresses of Kazuki - Sci-Fi Action/Intrigue Webserial

The trio landed right in the middle of a squad of guards, right in the middle of an aquarium in Obadiah's suite block. Gunfire roared between the squad as they dragged themselves into cover.

Gunfire erupted as the ambushed squad was blasted away. The large aquarium had a dozen displays. Each whizzing plasma bolt sent through the cases burnt everything within them.

Plants, fauna, sealife. All were burnt and charred from the constant superheated water. Kazuki ducked behind one of the cases, constantly shuffling to avoid the dripping water.

'We're pinned!' Václavos grunted over. 'Dammit, and we're all just stuck here being shot at!' Václavos and Nihara were taking cover together, on the other side of the aquarium.

'No, they're stuck in here with us,' Kazuki noted. 'Cover me.'

Immediately, Václavos raised his DMR, suppressing a barricade of guards across the room. Still, they were flooding in, rushing forward with drones. Nihara crashed forward, out of cover.

Crackling her knuckles and knives, Nihara held up the advance. Drones whizzed by overhead, but Václavos' precision took most of them out.

With the guards distracted, Kazuki made his move.

Rushing to the side, Kazuki slammed into the aquarium's maintenance halls. A dozen guards were sneaking about, and they stared at Kazuki with anticipation.

At the drop of a hat, one raised their muzzle. Kauzki flicked his shield up, barging forward and opening fire with his WRIST-SHOT.

A blanket of plasma forced the first man back into soldering heat. As the gunfire continued, they kept backpedalling. At a moment's notice, Kazuki activated his ANCHOR.

A knife and figure appeared directly in front of the first man. Kazuki gashed their neck open. Their gargling corpse was turned into a shield.

Brushing forward, Kazuki took the dead man's pistol. Raising it past the blasted and armoured corpse, Kazuki slammed down the hammer and trigger. Crackles ripped through the maintenance shaft, as the guards rushed into crevices and indents along the thin hall.

A mistake, Kazuki thought. Rushing forward, Kazuki allowed bolts to ping off his armour. A few skidded beneath the plates, but Kazuki's exospine kept up the stream of painkillers and stimulants.

Ballistic impacts were countered with sheer tenacity. Tackling and grappling, Kazuki cut through the hallway. Upon each crevice and indent, the guards tried to fight back.

They threw hands. They ducked forward, drawing knives. Either way, it didn't change the outcome. They all became hunking sacks of decaying flesh.

"No, fuck!" The last guard began to panic, crying out as he ran out of bullets. He then dropped the rifle, sobbing as he pressed himself against the wall behind him.

Kazuki took a small moment to think. Spare? Then, the man slowly slid his hand down to his holster. Poor choice, Kazuki thought. Kazuki sighed, dashing forward and weaving beneath a flurry of panicked bolts.

Upon contact, Kazuki stabbed his knife into the man's skull. It was a clean and quick death.

Nothing more, nothing less. Moving on, Kazuki walked back to the hall's windows. It peered into the aquarium, where the back and forth was still going. And best of all, Kazuki could see all the guards cowering.

Kazuki kicked up a small machine gun. Aiming by the hip, Kazuki felt no remorse as he held the trigger down. A blast of bolts careened through the wall and into the aquarium.

Those standing in their way were terminated. Eradicated. Destroyed utterly. Close-casket funeral.

A breach has been made. The team's ICAPADs showed the direction of their objective. Václavos took the rear guard, defending their rear flank, whilst Kazuki remained in the middle. Nihara rushed through the settling smoke, followed by Kazuki.

Blood hung to the floors.

Adrenaline rushed into Kazuki's body. His exospine spurred to life. Breaching the next room, a barricade of drones and guards halted their advance. Nihara took cover behind a small crate, as Kazuki ignited his shield. He pressed his shield arm against his chest, withstanding the flurry of bolts.

Václavos took shots from the previous storage room. There was no time to think. Kazuki had to act. He rushed forward, bodying a guard that vaulted over cover. Nihara rushed from the side, barrelling into the barricade.

It was a chaotic masterpiece, a symphony of death. To-be-terminated guards clung to life. Hopeless.

Placing a bolt into the guard below him, Kazuki quickly turned his bolts to the drones up the air, whittled down by Václavos. Kazuki finished the last one, as Nihara was brutalising the last guard. Václavos and Kazuki cleared through the room, with its shelves and crates stored to the side and around.

Dark and black walls turned to blood. The maze of rooms and halls spun in all directions.

Only a faint white hue along the walls illuminated any sort of darkness in their presence. Nihara blasted the final guard in the face, before taking up point again at the next door. Kazuki waved his hand, just as another door leading into the room burst open.

Guards exited forth, along with a few drones. The trio quickly turned their attention backwards at the new threat.

Without a single word uttered, the three conducted themselves as Kazuki's finest combatants. Nihara blunted the damage, rushing forward as she grabbed hold of the first guard.

Several bolts turned the guard limp. 'How many security guards will we have to face?' she asked calmly.

They've killed around forty by now. It was a large entourage, especially for a reserve force.

'I DUNNO!? AN ARMY?!' Václavos snapped, taking potshots at the guards from behind a shelf, whilst shifting to the side. 'HOW RICH IS THIS GUY?!'

Kazuki shrugged. 'Rich,' Kazuki responded. 'Obadiah's a Triarch of the Mischief Board. Foremost Criminal Empire... He expects trouble. Well...'

Václavos scoffed. 'Let's give it to him on a silver platter!'

'With his head as the cherry on top.' Nihara joined in as the wave of cold remarks and humour caused the three to almost forget they were in a firefight.

Kazuki rushed around the room, firing frantically forward whilst bouncing a grenade across the floor. A light ignited throughout the room. Shifting his body to the side, Kazuki rammed himself into their formation, grabbing one of the drones and slamming it into the head of a guard.

He used it as a bludgeon, before blasting his SMG into the rest. All fell, just as Kazuki ejected the magazine for a swift reload.

The war horns have been blasted. These guards shall know death. Kazuki waved his hand in the air. 'We'll take on as many as they think they'll need to kill us.'

It was a mess of a fight, with more than a dozen drones and guards falling. All deaths were pointless. One shrieked: "The Contract-Breaker's h—" before a high calibre bolt cut his sentence short. The rest tried to flee, rushing away from the fusillade of munitions thrown down the chambers, halls and walkways. None survived. Kazuki will reach his objective, at all costs to him and those in front of his muzzle.

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'Oh! So it won't be enough, then?' Václavos smugly asked, whilst looking at Nihara for approval for his comment. Nihara gave him a shrug and a nod, a mixed message indeed.

Don't worry Václavos, Kazuki nodded to him. He too had no idea what she thought.

'Come on, you have to give me some credit for that.'

'Stop acting so smug and maybe I'll give you a proper response,' Nihara said. The trio stacked up on an opened door. 'And… you're not my type.'

'Stop flirting, you two,' Kazuki commented. Václavos chuckled at that. Despite all his injuries, he continued to look smug at Nihara. She met his smugness with a glare. Yeah… That makes sense.

'Whatever,' she said.

Kazuki rolled a grenade into the next room. Gas and fragmentation shattered the atmosphere. He waved his hand up, twirling his finger beside his neck. The two took out a small device from their pockets. Kazuki did too. Pressing on a button, they extended out into portable respirators.

It fitted on their mouths and noses, just as vapours meandered back at them - filling the rooms nearby.

Snapping his fingers, Nihara rushed through into the next room. Kazuki followed, then Václavos. They took points of control, firing at the few guards stationed in the storage room, most were chocking. Some fired sporadically.

None hit.

Kazuki looked down at his ICAPAD as the bolts blew by. He weaved under them; more drones poured into the room from the other side, a small fireteam capable of air support.

His eyes scanned across the building plan. Then, he re-routed them into a new course. Speed is key to reaching Eliza and Obadiah. They had to be deep in the Suite… Probably that locked room in the living room.

Seems safer than the rest of the suite-block, after all.

The team snapped back on track, clearing each room and hall with immense proficiency. Soon, they came out of the storage section. They were in a long series of same black halls. Then the guest suites. The guards slowly diluted away with more incoming drones.

They were losing manpower. Good. Breaching into another room, Kazuki quickly noted the wide array of plants and greenery within it. Throwing himself into cover, Kazuki glanced around.

A greenhouse? Here of all places? Kazuki scoffed at the contrasting notions Obadiah wished to portray. Nihara and Václavos stormed in under a hail of bolts. They rushed to the sides of the room, hiding behind the array of plants and tall-stemmed vegetables blanketing the room.

The smell of burning starch filled Kazuki's nose. He took a look over the cover, seeing a whole blockade of guards and drones – throwing bolt after bolt, grenade after grenade.

Fragmentation narrowly missed Kazuki's armour, blasting holes in the walls and plants.

If Obadiah lived, Kazuki doubted that he'd be amicable to the loss of crops. Shame. Kazuki glanced over to Václavos. He lugged up a grenade launcher...

"Sharpie. What the fuck?" Kazuki called out across the room. Václavos looked back, confused as he loaded the rotary machine. "You brought a grenade launcher?"

"Yeah?!"

"This is a hostage situation," Kazuki calmly stated.

Václavos nodded and shrugged. "I'll unload all of them right now if you don't want your princess being hurt."

"She's..." Kazuki narrowed his gaze, but Václavos merely popped out of cover. Aiming down sights, he pulled down on the trigger. A loud screeching mechanism hollered death.

Grenades, and nanobot grenades, were dispatched. Steely explosions rattled the other side of the room.

Nanobots careened from the small airburst shells. Vacuum grenades had turned the fortune ones to red mist. The unlucky ones were eaten alive by the sea of steel upon them.

Their screeches and screams were silenced by the advancing team, crunching over the now-deactivated bots. Václavos shuddered slightly, and so did Nihara – but Kazuki pushed through.

Past the greenhouse was another intertwining series of corridors, seemingly endless in a maze to confuse them.

'They never stop coming, do they?' Václavos remarked. Neither Kaz nor Nihara responded to him.

Phalanx Team kept pushing up, challenging any of Obadiah's Triarch Guards to a fair scrap. It wasn't fair at all, Kazuki thought it over again.

One stupid guard rushed forward with a bayonet, only for Kazuki to parry the strike. One swift motion of Kazuki's blade sliced their head off. Their body fell – then their head. Bolts hailed forward, into the guard's corpse. Kazuki kicked it forward. He sent it back to where it came from.

At that, the teams of guards in front of them churned their faces in fear... Good. That fear was the last expression they'd ever make.

Popping out of cover behind Nihara, Václavos gunned them all down.

They kept moving, soon into a large dining area. Chandeliers hung from the ceiling, with a viewing balcony above.

This must be close to the living room, Kazuki thought. The three took cover behind various counters, as drones and guards created a crossfire from all angles and above.

'We're pinned. Great. What do we do?' asked Nihara.

'Fight!' Václavos arrogantly remarked.

Lady Antiar still hasn't shown herself yet. They'll be fucked if she shows up now. Kazuki glanced up and around.

He aimed, terminating drones and guards along the balcony. Some bodies went crack as they fell to the dining table.

Instinctively reaching for a new magazine, Kazuki realised he was out of bullets. Grumbling, Kazuki threw his SMG over his head. The sound of a guard groaning in pain caused Václavos to snicker.

'Even when you're not aiming you hit,' Václavos frustratingly said.

Kazuki took out a backup pistol, sliding the safety off. He then press-checked to see if a bolt was in the chamber. There was.

If it comes down to it, he'll have to Overclock against Lady Antiar. It wasn't ideal, it'll kill him in the long run - but all for the Contract, after all… 'Gas them,' Kazuki said. 'Non Lethal. Don't want the IUN to cry and whine.'

The three took out gas grenades and lit the fuses. Kazuki pointed to Václavos, placing three fingers up. He nodded, as Kazuki lobbed the grenades up into the air. Nihara got ready to vault the counter.

Václavos aimed and sniped all three of them before they started to come back down.

Plumes of smoke exploded outwards. That was the signal. The gas spread quickly. It blanketed the whole room with a thick musk of death.

The coughing started immediately from unmasked guards.

Václavos stood up, as bolts and plasma flickered through the smog. Nihara vaulted into the carnage, as Kazuki rushed through the dining hall. Nihara and Václavos focussed on the guards and drones stuck in the gas, scrambling all peripheral sights.

The limbs of the guards were displaced with lead and plasma by the duo.

Weaving beneath the fog, ducking beneath bullets, Kazuki reached the other side. Exiting out from the gas, he was met with a small squadron of guards and their accompanying drones.

A torrential hail of bolts flung towards Kazuki. Kneeling down, Kazuki weathered the storm. Bolts hammered him. As their munitions dried up, Kazuki weaved to the side, igniting his WRIST-SHOT. A plasma blanket ruptured across the small gap.

The first fell quickly before the rest ducked back. It allowed Kazuki to press his tempo onward.

Kazuki's exospine ignited with blue energy. The spite and wrath were on full display as a stimulant sped Kazuki's body and mind upwards. It flung forward, engulfing each individual guard's head with a bout of purple plasma.

The slowest procedure of this task was waiting for a new slug to load into the chamber. When the stimulants ran out, Kazuki felt an empty vial drop out from his exospine, clanking on the floor.

He was expending too many resources.

Eliza focused far more on durability than its efficiency... Dammit.

As that thought passed his mind, the bodies of the guards creased onto the floor, all missing their heads.

Both Václavos and Nihara emerged out of the smoke, intact. Václavos smirked at Nihara. 'I'll hold you to that one, you know?'

'We're even,' she stated, walking past Kazuki.

'Nuh uh, you still owe me something, Berserker.'

She repeated herself, 'We're even.'

'Can you two please. Stop. Flirting,' Kazuki snarled.

Both Václavos and Nihara backed off after that. 'You got us in trouble…' she muttered to Václavos.

Kazuki and his team continued forward.

Kazuki looked around, following on. They were in the living room. On the top balcony specifically overlooking the lower living room. It was just as dull and dark as before.

Their augments and guts told them of a target down below. Václavos rushed to the guardrail and parapet, taking cover. Kazuki nodded to Nihara. She followed suit, swapping to her machine gun and hiding behind the bannister. She shimmied along, away from Václavos.

Kazuki stepped forward, making each crunching step known to his target. It was unmistakable who it was. Stepping onto the stairs, a throwing knife sliced upwards, narrowly skimming his cheek. A white-cloaked figure was in the living room.

Their blade melted the floor around it.

Armed with her pistols and the Imperial Knight's Champion Blade, Lady Antiar Kelebori stood alone... A constant plasmic hum hung from her blade, bleeding the air and artificial atmosphere dry with its heated presence.

Her amber eyes clashed against the golden hatred of Kazuki's. Lady Antiar seems to have made her choice… So… Poorly.