Revenge Fantasy

The sky is half orange, as the day is coming to a close.

The rampant teleporting gorilla of a woman, Yumi, lies dead. One single shot, fired into the head to finish her off, does what the numerous shots to her body failed to. She is now riddled with bullets, devoid of life.

Chouko, meanwhile, is unconscious and bleeding from gaping bullet wounds in her ankles. After enduring these last dozen minutes, lost in her own mind for far shorter than it felt, she now lies against the diner's parking lot as the defeated. Nothing left for her to do.

The sniper stands triumphant in the sunset after this rampant show. Her platinum blonde hair blows in the Tennessee wind, blood trailing from her hand-covered eye. After the absurdity that is Chouko and Yumi's attempts to overpower her, pure exasperation is plastered on her face.

To the sniper, Chouko is nothing more than an impostor who got lucky. The sniper has already expressed her distaste for Chouko and is one single gunshot away from finishing the pitiful woman off. As long as the head is unharmed, the sniper can execute her any way she wishes.

... but every drop of blood flowing in the sniper's veins is telling her to end it with a bullet to the brain.

It's not enough to shoot her heart, lungs, or any other organ. Only a shot to the brain will finish Chouko off. Any other shot is lesser and lacking.

The sniper can very well blow Chouko's brains out. The claim would be self-defense, that the sniper had to kill Chouko. The proof is in her own bloody eye, which is a testament to how unavoidable Chouko's death is. If the sniper kills Chouko now, she can be done with all of this.

So, the sniper—if she can even still be called that, with just a pistol in her arsenal—aims her gun at Chouko's forehead, taking a deep breath with her finger on the trigger. There's no reason to comply with the hacker's demands anymore. It's as simple as a quick pull of the trigger.

"I wouldn't do that."

An annoyed and irritated grimace forms on the sniper's face. Hearing this voice, the sniper immediately hesitates to shoot.

John, the Serbian Flashbang, stands at a fair distance away. The metal-armed man stares at the sniper, a cold look in his eyes as he uses his metal arms to restrain the LED masked hacker with a chokehold.

The events with Chouko and Yumi distracted the sniper from Trojan's actions. The sniper didn't consider why Trojan took so long to get the car. The sniper didn't know where the Serbian Flashbang was during the plan, given that only Yumi and the android were up there. The sniper didn't think of John sneaking up to Trojan and immediately restraining the physically inferior hacker.

No, all that was completely out of the sniper's attention until now.

The sniper stares at this sight with a look of realization. "So that is why you took so long to get your car. The Serbian," the sniper tells Trojan, sighing as she keeps her pistol on Kuroiwa.

Trojan has a frowny face on his LED mask. "Sorry... he got me."

Now the two are in a standoff, with the sniper keeping a gun on Chouko's head and John keeping Trojan in a restraining chokehold.

John's plan involves the sniper having some semblance of attachment to Trojan. This threat only works if they're still engaged in their partnership, if the sniper has any value for Trojan's life.

However, what John receives instead is a clear indicator that the threat doesn't work.

"Well. Do explain. Why should I not fire?" the sniper asks, her one-eyed glare locking onto John with sheer disinterest.

John tries to maintain the threat, to latch onto something. "Because, now that Ashford is unconscious, we can use her to earn more of a payout. If you kill her now, then all of this is for nothing, and we all leave as unhappy men and women."

The sniper tilts her head, having a visibly condescending look on her face as she stares John down. "Nothing. I see. Well, what if I want her dead? What if I just want her to drop dead, now, and be done with it without any money?"

"Then I'll kill you both," John answers, immediately tightening his chokehold on Trojan, threatening the sniper with the sounds of the man choking. "I have two arms. Both of them are ready right now. You are aware of my, how you say, flashbang."

"So you are going to kill me if I shoot her. I see," the sniper answers, a cold look in her eyes. "If you're going to do that, you might as well take the masked one out of the equation."

"W-W-What?" Trojan chokes out in disbelief.

The sniper explains to John. "He's outlived his purpose and serves no further use to me. I do not care what happens to him. You can spare your effort and energy by killing him now."

John stares at this woman for some time, a calm look on his face as he assesses the situation. "Is that so? You would have me kill this man?"

"Yes. In fact, on the count of three, Serbian, let us kill our hostages together," the sniper immediately responds, having a completely soulless and indifferent tone to Trojan's life.

"W-Wait, waitwaitwaitwaitwait!" Trojan shouts, a dead x-x look on his face as he flails and struggles in John's chokehold.

John keeps his hold on Trojan, scowling at the sniper. John has no choice. He has to use his last resort. "Again, I wouldn't, if I were you..."

The sniper begins counting, ready to shoot Chouko. "One, two—"

"... Cynthia."

This immediately causes the sniper to freeze. The number three doesn't leave her lips, and no bullet is fired.

Hearing that single name completely mortifies her. One single mention of it strikes a nerve with the sniper, as if her veins are injected with a stiff chemical. No muscle, bone, or nerve moves in her body as she hears that name.

The sniper's immediate hesitation tells John that his information is correct. Through his means and methods, John has discovered this blonde woman's critical weakness: a single name.

Cynthia... the name of the sniper.

"How... How do you know that name?!" the sniper shouts, violently glaring at John.

"Does not matter how I know," John responds, keeping a stern look as he keeps the method to himself. "What does, is how I use it, Cynthia. If you kill me, a contact of mine will release this information to thousands of mercenaries and assassins, and I'll happily spread your name if you kill Ashford."

A cold sweat trails down the sniper's face—or, rather, Cynthia's face—as she understands John's threat, keeping her gun pointed at Chouko. She moves her finger off and away from the trigger, her breath ragged as she stares at John. "You... You are bluffing. You guessed my name by luck."

"Ah. Yes. By luck, I suppose," John remarks, taunting Cynthia as he keeps his chokehold on Trojan. He weakens it enough to stop choking him, out of common courtesy. "I suppose it is by blind luck I found your name, and I certainly cannot use it on its own. Maybe if I throw in a Liam or a Jason. Maybe those will, how you say... put you in your cage."

A glare burns in her eyes... but behind that anger is Cynthia's panic and fear. The Flashbang isn't bluffing. He knows her name, as well as those two names. In that very moment, her blood boils in infuriated defeat, as the man with the gruff beard holds the metaphorical gun to her head.

Trojan's LED mask has question marks for eyes. "Eh? I'm lost. Liam? Jason? The hell are you talking about?"

"Husband. Son," John respectively explains, confidently revealing more and more of his hand.

"Oh, hold up, WHAT?!" Trojan shouts, with his LED mask lighting up a :O face in pure green light. "Holy shit, you're bringing her family into this, Flashbang?"

"Indeed," John answers, metaphorically slamming his hand of cards onto the table and bringing his full focus on the sniper. "What will it be, Cynthia? Is that enough to convince you to put the gun away? Or would you prefer I bring a different name into this, like—"

"Fine! I... I give up, Flashbang!" Cynthia desperately shouts, defeated by John's extensive threat. She keeps her pistol in her hand for safety, but points it at the ground and away from everyone. "What exactly do you want from me?"

"Simple. Carry on as you two have already been doing," John begins to answer, keeping his gaze on Cynthia. "I believe you were making a getaway by van. So, put the bodies in the back of the van, and we drive to safety before this diner is surrounded. If things go well, we take the reward for Ashford and split it three ways."

"Three ways... okay. Very well, Serbian, I accept," Cynthia responds, compliant out of fear for what John will do if she doesn't.

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"Good," John tells her, before letting go of Trojan and kicking the man in the back.

Trojan flops straight onto his face, pathetically hitting the asphalt with a thud.

Cynthia scoffs at the hacker, electing to ignore him while directing her attention up to John. "Right... we are at your mercy."

John gives a nod to Cynthia. "Very good. Then I need you both to hurry. Knowing the Underworld—"

"The hell's wrong with you, you crazy bitch?!" Trojan immediately, loudly, and furiously shouts with an ">:(" on his LED face as he stands up. "Here you are, threatening MY LIFE and telling me straight to my face that I don't matter! Now we're doing this 'cause of your stupid family?! Huh?!"

"... yes," Cynthia responds, rolling her eyes at him in mild disinterest. "That is precisely what we are doing, no further question. So, hacker, get your van, and—"

"Nuh-uh, no, stop right there," Trojan interrupts, pure rage boiling in his LED face. That entire interaction rings in his head, leaving a sour taste in his mouth. Pure bile is in the back of his throat as he stares Cynthia down. "You know what? Screw you. You don't get to boss me around when YOU'RE the one who has stuff to lose! I ain't taking this crap anymore."

John takes note of the two starting to argue with each other, sighing as he discreetly scratches the back of his head with his ring and middle finger. Ever so calmly, the back of his palm begins to glow, and he charges an attack in the event things go wrong...

"We don't have time for this," Cynthia tells Trojan, urgently glaring at Trojan. "Just get your van, and we can discuss—"

"Us two, me and the Flashbang here," Trojan interrupts and explains, pointing a thumb at John. "We're the ones that have power over you, 'Cynthia'! What's stopping us from being the ones to exclude YOU from the deal, huh? Why don't WE just take you out of the equation and claim the reward for ourselves, 50/50?"

Cynthia squints her goggle-covered eye at Trojan, expressing agitation at that idea. She decides to aim her gun at the masked hacker. "Are you stupid? What's stopping him from killing you if I'm gone?"

Trojan lets out a proud and boastful cackle as a crow appears on his LED mask. "Because I ain't alone, STUPID!"

Suddenly, a bullet hits Cynthia's pistol, shooting it out of her hand.

Cynthia's eyes go wide as she watches this, having a quick yet delayed reaction to the shot. For just two seconds, her hand is holding nothing but air as pure shock and disbelief form on her face. "W... What the—"

The shot came from high above. Three androids stand on the 6th floor, all three of them armed with sniper rifles. The one in the center, the one that fired, is currently reloading while the other two are aiming down their scopes at John and the "sniper", respectively.

"Ever heard the old saying, 'Appear weak when you are strong'?" Trojan asks, grinning. "The Serbian Flashbang took out a good majority of the staff, but not all of 'em! Do you think someone like me, capable of hijacking an entire building's worth of androids, will really make himself a defenseless fool without reason?"

Immediately after Trojan says this, electronic beeping echoes out as a dozen androids emerge from their hiding spots. Behind many of the cars left behind, as well as from the diner seats themselves, the androids come out and run to surround the three of them. Each one is equipped with different guns: pistols, shotguns, and hunting rifles. The ones with pistols are holding kitchen knives and wrenches.

"Been doing this for a WHILE, you dumb dumbs! Both of you fell for it! I even gaslit MYSELF into thinking I couldn't do anything!" Trojan exclaims, pointing his finger at the side of his head as a clown face shows up on his LED mask. "I'm the one in power, now! I'm the one calling the shots, now!"

Cynthia quickly turns to her pistol, only to see one of the shotgun-holding androids stepping on it. The shotgun is aimed right at her face.

John tensely grips the fingers of his right hand, planning on attacking Trojan. He knows of Trojan's methods. If the hacker and his computer—which is still on his body, given he's a traveling hacker—are taken out, then the virus in the androids will be disabled. It's just a matter of unleashing one wave of light on Trojan, and—

"Ah-ah-ahhh~!" Trojan exclaims, sticking his middle finger up at John and seeing right through him. "Notice where I'm standing? When I think that I made GOOD use of your knowledge of me... I meant it!"

John stares at Trojan, raising an eyebrow in response to what Trojan is saying, before...

... realizing the hacker is precisely standing in the way of Chouko.

If John tries to unleash his flash of searing light on Trojan, Chouko Ashford will be caught in the crossfire, her body subject to the same lethal force Trojan would face. He can't use his cybernetic hand whatsoever.

Furthermore, in the time it takes for him to get a gun out, the army of androids surrounding them will be free to use their weapons as they see fit.

John is completely cornered.

"I know you need to keep this girl alive, Flashbang! So I'm pretty sure if you burn her alive or I have my entire army shoot the hell out of her, she ain't worth crap to you, me, or anyone~!" Trojan shouts, taunting John with a goofy face on his mask. "You ain't gonna do a single thing to me, now, eh? Ain't gonna do one of your flashy tricks to burn me alive, right? Not gonna try a single dumb thing while I got you both at gunpoint, eh?!"

John calmly lowers his hand, taking a deep sigh. Trojan truly lives up to his name, both as the Trojan Virus and the Trojan Horse. This is quite akin to, how you say, getting the upper hand...

Cynthia, meanwhile, stands defeated as the shotgun remains aimed at her head. A discomforted look is on her face, realizing she has badly underestimated the "bumbling idiot" before her.

"Hahaha~! Good, I see the looks on your faces. So we all agree! We're doing this to the tune of my beat, now, got it?" Trojan asks, wagging his finger from side to side. "This here's what we call... checkmate! Ain't a single thing you can do to me, now! Both of you!"

A deep, deep sigh escapes John's lips. "Right. So are we going to return to... your original plan, to get your van to drive Ashford away?"

"Oh, no... nonono, the van's a red herring!" Trojan loudly exclaims, raising his hand up to the sky and snapping his fingers. "The real escape's riiiight up above."

Following this, the sounds of several engines roar out from up above.

Trojan, when he was keeping watch over the entire building in its mass panic and power outage, kept track of which trucks either had single drivers, android drivers, or automated driving systems. With this catalog in mind, Trojan commandeered a wide assortment of trucks that were left behind.

Keeping in mind how this diner operates, furthermore, Trojan proudly stands as he makes the trucks drive out of the building directly. It's a 10-story building with trucks being flown up to the upper levels, after all... the technology is highly experimental, and a hacker of his skill treats this entire building's infrastructure like a playground.

John and Cynthia look up and stare at the semi-trucks driving out of the building. Several trucks simply drive out of the building's walls, hovering in the air with bright neon-green lights lining the wheels. Waves upon waves of trucks depart from the building, gracefully driving down to the ground and driving far away from the building.

"Ah... yes, the hover trucks..." John quietly mumbles, sighing with a hint of disgust in his throat.

Cynthia, meanwhile, has an oddly impressed look on her face, picking up on the erratic behaviors of the trucks themselves. "So you've thought that far ahead... having every truck scatter about NOW of all times?"

Trojan nods. "Yep! Hacked their little navigation systems to random GPS coordinates. If every truck scatters about, the incoming mercs ain't gonna know who to tail! And if they tail the van, they'll end up with nothing! Genius, ain't it?"

While most of the trucks drive immediately away from the diner, a group of three trucks lower down into the parking lot. All of them are semitrucks for Sweet Bot Industries, escorting dormant androids in their mass cargo containers.

"... interesting. You aim to take the cargo trucks containing the androids," Cynthia tells Trojan, narrowing her eyes. "I suppose that's more for your little army, here?"

"Well, no, not these useless ones. I'm just a scalper as a side hustle," Trojan explains, gesturing for only one truck to park near the group while the other two drive to the ends of the parking lot itself. More diversion, if they take just ONE single truck...

Two of Trojan's androids walk to the back, opening the cargo door itself. A bountiful shipment of "Fruit Models" have been stored away in the truck, showing labels for several limited edition androids. of all colors and shapes.

"Right. Now, we're gonna do it like this," Trojan begins to order and command, looking between John and Cynthia as he proudly organizes and coordinates everything with a wave of his finger. "All three of us are going to be sitting in the truck car itself, and my androids here will be putting the bodies in the back. We head to a safe location, we confirm Ashford's still alive, then we discuss what to do with her."

John stares as Trojan looks at him with a yellow smile, :).

Cynthia, meanwhile, gets the >:(.

"None of us will get excluded or killed, or I make Ashford's brains splatter on the back with a simple snap," Trojan continues, crossing his arms. "So, how 'bout it, feel like taking back what you said about me having 'no further use', both of you?"

John calmly nods. "... Understood."

Cynthia, reluctantly, nods against her will. "Fine."

"Good," Trojan tells the two, flamboyantly clapping his hands together. Every piece is now in play, and he reigns as the king of this struggle. "Now, androids, let's get to—"

Immediately, Trojan pauses and flashes a surprised "o-o" LED face as he looks to see an android crouching down in front of Yumi's body. His LED face looks bewildered at this.

Both John and Cynthia follow the masked hacker's gaze, seeing the android as well. It's the one white-haired android that isn't in his control whatsoever, the android that was with Ashford: Shortcake.

For the entire time that John, Cynthia, and Trojan were focused on each other, Shortcake was quietly just checking on Yumi. Not a single person, and not a single one of Trojan's impromptu mechanical army, even noticed that the android had been near Yumi's body this entire time.

Everything about Shortcake's actions for these last minutes, following the events on the 6th floor, has been an unnoticed mystery. How she got down to the parking lot, how long she's been examining Yumi, and what exactly she's been doing.

This entire time, this android has been at Yumi's side, doing something...

"H... Hey!" Trojan cautiously shouts, immediately walking towards Shortcake. "Get away from that body, now!"

Shortcake doesn't face Trojan, continuing to hold her hands out to Yumi. Her anxious self fidgets and shakes in its usual mannerisms, too focused on Yumi to respond to the shouting hacker.

"I said, get away from her!" Trojan angrily shouts, grabbing Shortcake by the shoulder and turning her around immediately.

Shortcake lets out a startled noise as she faces Trojan, her hands covered in sweat and water. "A-Ah! Sorry, I didn't hear you! I-I'm sorry, I'm so sorry for—"

Trojan, after getting one glimpse of Shortcake's hands, immediately directs his attention to Yumi. A morbid look of fear is on the hacker's face, realizing what has happened.

Seeing Trojan's reactions, John's eyes widen into a look of shock, and Cynthia's face grimaces into sheer disbelief and disgust. Right before all three of their eyes, a near-impossible miracle.

It is the unseen trick. It is the spontaneous ace for a royal flush. It is the enemy queen of the chessboard.

And she is the last lifeline of a truce that Chouko and Shortcake are depending on:

Yumi.

Yumi is alive.

Yumi is tensely and deeply breathing after her near-death experience, her body glistened with clear water. The liquid soaks into her clothes and seeps into her skin. The properties of this water defy reason and reality, as Yumi no longer has bullet wounds in her body. By some miracle, Yumi has recovered and regenerated her body, with a glow in her eyes, a subtle glow from a gem hidden underneath her shirt, and...

... a glow in her veins.

"Shit... shit shit shit shit shit!" Trojan shouts, throwing his hand out at Yumi. All 12 of the armed androids aim at Yumi immediately, triggering the execution protocol.

It's too late, however.

Right before everyone's eyes, one by one, Yumi's body teleports from its lying position... and is seen immediately punching Trojan in the mask.

"G-GHHKKKK!!!" Trojan loudly noises, his LED mask breaking and shattering from this single punch. Cracks form throughout the entirety of his face covering, breaking it into sixths.

Yumi has the coldest look in her eyes, the water on her body trailing behind her like a blur. A violent, yet elegant trail of clear water that reflects the light of the setting sun...

... and her entire body flashes a second time.