The Red Hand

"Oh? What do we have here?" Herlex was surprised to see Minazawa. "You got here pretty quickly, I thought you weren't even in Tokyo today." Their intel stated she'd be in Fukushima today, so seeing her here was quite annoying.

"Dang, what were those idiots doing." Elna cursed the others for failing to keep tabs on her.

"Isn't it fine though?" Armalthy laughed. "We can just take her out right now!" He lept forward, his fist charged with electrical energy. "Without Ishigami, you're not so tough!" he slammed his fist into Minazawa's shield, causing the ground to crack under her feat.

He hadn't expected her to take his blow so easily and was shocked. Minazawa didn't miss a beat and activated her shield ability and sent him flying backward into the side of a building. "You're right, Ishigami would have been useful right now; but that idiot went and got himself killed." She clanged her blade on her shield. "But don't think I'm helpless without him."

Herlex thought the sight of Armalthy flying in the air was quite amusing. "Well, let that be a lesson to you." He chuckled. "Fighting Minazawa might be a little bit harder than those cops." He sent a few of his feathers at Minazawa which she easily deflected. Her eyes were focused on Elna, the dedicated martial artist among them. She knew that her speed and heavy-hitting strikes would be the most dangerous of the three.

*BOOM*

Elna slammed her foot into the ground causing a large chunk of asphalt to pop up. "Let's see how that shield does against this." She kicked it forward towards Minazawa, who sliced it in half. When she did so, Elna took the opportunity to rush her, while Herlex fired off several beams of light.

Elna's hit on her shield was much harder than Armalthy. Minazawa held strong, but the blasts from Herlex were quite annoying. Her defenses were good enough to take them for now, but over time the chip damage from them would add up.

*BOOM**BOOM**BOOM**BOOM*

Elna acrobatically moved around Minazawa, constantly trying to find an opening in her defenses, but Minazawa's Adamantite Plate Armor and Shield were quite resistant to damage.

{Damn this hurts my hands!} Elna yelled in her head. Hitting the hard shield with no protection was causing her hands to bleed.

"Perhaps you forgot that my main role was to sponge up damage for others?" Minazawa scoffed at Elna's attempt as she threw her back with her shield. "Your punches are quite strong, but you were foolish to come without your gear!" She raised her blade and slammed it into the ground causing a tremor that exploded underneath Herlex, causing earthen spikes to erupt from the ground and send him flying.

"No, we didn't forget; we just need to keep your attention," Herlex said as he stabilized himself in the air. Suddenly a massive blast of electrical energy slammed Minazawa in the back; she'd forgotten about Armalthy.

"I don't really appreciate being thrown through buildings." he shot more blasts at her which she absorbed with her shields. Seeing this opportunity, Elna flung more asphalt at her. Unable to block both, Minazawa began taking damage.

Herlex began to charge one of his attacks, and his palm lit up with blinding light. Minazawa knew just what this attack was, and she wasn't happy at the prospect of taking it head-on.

"Now then, Minazawa, let's see you take my Holy Spear Lance! All that armor won't help when it bypasses it and hits you directly!" The light in his hand changed into a long spear, and he held it above his head

{Fuck, fighting three at the same time is not good.} She hadn't taken much damage but, at this rate, she might lose to them in a war of attrition. And if that lance hit her, she might just go down.

"It's a good thing I'm not alone." As she said this, an energy round slammed into Herlex's right side, causing his attack to dissipate, as he plunged into the ground. Flying was quite an advantage, but it also left him open to range attacks.

"Shit! Herlex! What the fuck was that" Elna watched as he crashed into the ground. While Armalthy traced back the shot to find the sniper. The shot in question had come from Minazawa's new partner, Mixu, the vampire sniper. She was originally an archer, but their dedicated weapon maker Destructive Imp created a sniper rifle that worked with her abilities. As you can imagine, a magical sniper rifle was quite an upgrade over a bow.

"Dumbass, you think I'll just let you float up there and charge your attack?" the white-haired vampire laughed as she watched Herlex fall through her scope. She had a cigarette in her mouth and was perched at the top of a high-rise on the other end of the city. Her long black trench coast swung in the breeze, and her blue eyes showed her enjoyment at taking Herlex down. The shot she just made would shatter all world records, but it was just another day for her. She pulled the bolt back and loaded another magical round, ready to fire again. "Now then, what will you idiots do next?" She chuckled.

"Fuck, I thought Mixu couldn't fire from that far!" Elna panicked.

"I'll go deal with her!" Armalthy charged up to run across Tokyo but was stopped by a woozy Herlex. "NO! Don't go anywhere; if we split up, we're fucked!" He was damaged from that hit, but not critically, and he staggered to his feet. "We did our job, and even if we underestimated these two, everything's still going according to plan."

He pointed to the smoke in the sky coming from the direction of the Governor's mansion. "If these two are here, then they aren't defending the Governor, so let's withdraw, for now, and deal with them later. We don't have our gear, and I don't want to take more hits from Mixu." His jacket had a nice burned-out hole in it.

Armalthy was a battle junkie, but he wasn't stupid. He knew fighting without his equipment would be dangerous, so he agreed, and the three retreated, jumping on the rooftops. Mixu refrained from firing out of concern for destroying the buildings, and Minazawa was too slow to give chases.

"Dammit." She cursed into her comm. "Mixu, do you have visuals on them?"

"They hauled ass across the rooftops, but they're not going towards the Governor's mansion. I can't take a shot like this; if I miss, I might explode a building or two." Mixu's voice replied over the com. Though, her voice sounded like it was holding back laughter when she mentioned exploding buildings.

"Yeah, don't do that. If they're disengaging, it's not worth the risk." She called out to another person. "Aoi, how are things looking at the Governor's place?" She was speaking to the one in charge of the returnee unit she was a part of.

"Not great honestly, You two were the only agents we had within range to respond to these attacks. The other three weren't close enough, and since we sent you to City Hall, the Governor was killed." Aoi responded, her voice gloomy. A silence came over the comms network until Minazawa spoke up.

"Understood, our intel told us something was going to happen, but I never expected a coordinated attack by ten others." She knew each of these people personally, and she couldn't believe they would do something like this. "Should we head to the Governor's mansion and clean up?" She wanted to bash these idiot's heads in for what they'd done.

"That won't be necessary. It seems that when those three fled, the ones at the mansion did the same." She was talking to someone in the background at the same time. "From what I heard, they weren't expecting you two, and so they didn't bring their gear, which was fortunate, but I don't think we're going to get that lucky in the future." The fact that they came in normal clothing with no FWO equipment was baffling, and Minazawa didn't understand what they were thinking.

{Why wouldn't they bring any equipment? Were they just that overconfident? If those three had brought their full gear, this would have been trouble.} Minazawa's mind raced as she tried to understand their logic. {God, I really hope Akagi isn't involved with these idiots, or we're fucked.}

"Return to base, we'll do a full debriefing, and I've got the rest of the team en route here. When the five of you are present, we'll get started." Aoi sounded dejected. "I guess no sleep tonight for me."

"Understood" (Minazawa and Mixu). The two women disengaged and allowed emergency services to handle the rest as they rushed back to their headquarters in Tokyo Central Police Department.

After the revelation that some FWO survivors had retained their game abilities, the government swiftly moved to bring as many as it could under its control. At present, it had five: Minazawa, Mixu, Destructive Imp, Excelsior, and Superbia. Imp, as she was called, was as expected, an imp. And was primarily a manufacturer and was the single best craftsman in FWO. She also had a very unique way of speaking, and a habit of creating explosions and crazy contraptions.

Excelsior was similar to Ishigami in his role, but he was a cleric and used a two-handed war hammer. He was a healer, was fantastic at zone of control, and as a Half-Giant, he could hit incredibly hard. Superbia was an Oni swordsman. She was fast and lethal and primarily used a nodachi for her attacks; her Oni-fire was dangerous and had the effect of stripping opponents of natural resistance. She was probably the only player that could give Akagi a run for her money in terms of speed.

This group was commanded by a fellow survivor, but one which had not retained her powers. Prior to FWO, Aoi Yukikaze was an officer in Tokyo P.D., once she woke up, her connection to the other players landed her the position of leading this special team. To say that she was overwhelmed was the understatement of the century, but she had no choice but to take on this role. The returnees refused to work under someone who didn't understand FWO and their abilities.

Imp was the last to arrive, and the meeting began with Aoi recapping the day's events, and detailing what they knew. Tokyo had lost both its City Council and sitting Governor, to a terrorist attack by a group calling themselves Libra, ironic considering they are exact opposite of law and order. They consisted of ten returnees, each of which was either a social outcast before FWO or had bad experiences after returning from the game. After taking a moment to review the list of names, Minazawa put her head in her hands.

"Herlex is bad enough, but Merkyul and Sabia are involved too." She sighed.

"Add in that maniac Armalthy, and you've got the best hits of the Assault team's misfit club." Herlex, Merkyul, and Sabia were some of the most dangerous and rouge members of the assault team, and on multiple occasions, fights had broken out between them and the other members. Hishya had always stepped in to stop them, but they were always a pain. Having those three backed by seven others was trouble and Minazawa doubted they could win against them in a straight-up fight.

"Imp aside, there are only four of us," Mixu spoke up. "I don't think we're delusional enough to think we can just take them on without a plan." Mixu had always been distant from other players and was not actually part of the assault team. Like Akagi, she played mostly solo, and her build was a little more adept at killing players than most. However, unlike Akagi, the vampire was not a player killer and had minimal PvP experience.

"Best I might be able to do is pick a few of them off, but we just saw that even a surprise hit from my rifle isn't enough to drop one of them with one hit, even without gear." She clicked her tongue.

"Yes-yes!" Imp agreed. "Help-assistance needed!" Imp cackled. "The Angel-thing that kills-destroys must pay-suffer!" Imp's speech was quick and erratic. Imp's speech pattern was not because of her race. For whatever reason, she enjoyed a certain fantasy race's way of speaking and now only speaks that way. Everyone hated it but gave up trying to get her to stop.