The [Cicada-Lock] shard was a solid weight in his hand, and the custom handgun holstered on his thigh felt like a reclaimed piece of his own soul. He finally was feeling more himself than he had been ever since waking up in this digital hell.
"You ready to get out of here?" Echo's voice was a welcome sound in the quiet. The memory-construct of her stood at the vault's entrance, one hand on her hip. She had a faint, cocky smile pulling at her lips.
"Just about," he said, pocketing the data shard. "How's Dorian holding up?"
"He's fine," she replied, her eyes flicking toward the elevator shaft. "But he's flagging a significant power surge on the upper levels. The corporate cleaner team has arrived. Looks like they're not taking any chances."
"Good," An excited grin slowly appeared beneath Lucien’s mask. His hand came to rest on the grip of his handgun as he stepped toward her. "I need some practice."
He led the way back to the elevator shaft, his stride full of a new but familiar confidence. When they reached the gaping maw of the shaft, Echo was already preparing her grappling line.
"So," he said in a casual tone, leaning against the doorframe. "You need me to catch you on the way up, too?"
She shot him a look of professional annoyance, but there was no real heat in it. "Don't get cocky, we’re not out of here yet.” She fired off the grappling hook which soared up the shaft and connected several floors above.
"Just try to keep up."
She launched upward, her ascent smooth and controlled. He followed a moment later, using [GHOST STEP] to bound from support beam to support beam in a series of powerful, gravity-defying leaps. He passed her halfway up when she had paused to re-deploy her grappling hook.
She moved in hurried, frustrated motions as she prepared to launch the hook again, fully aware of him watching from his perch slightly above her head.
Back down the elevator shaft, a powerful charging sound started thrumming.
“Shit,” Echo looked down. “I think this entire place is about to electrify.”
“What?!” Lucien yelled out.
He dropped down, and before she could protest, he picked her up.
[GHOST STEP ACTIVATED]
Lucien bounded up and up and up, back and forth between walls and support beams until he reached the ledge they had entered the shaft from.
Echo looked up at him with wide eyes as he slowly set her down.
“Thank—”
Gunfire rang towards them, forcing them to duck behind walls for cover.
The corridor was a warzone. The bodies of the Data Phantoms had de-rezzed, but the scorch marks and shattered panels remained. And at the far end of the hall, blocking their exit, were six heavily armored corporate assault troopers.
Echo yelled over the roaring gun blasts, "Dorian says they're running heavy-duty para-military shielding. Simple rifle fire won't be enough."
"I've got something better than a rifle," Lucien replied. He drew his custom handgun, the [MARKSMAN] skill highlighting the weak points in their armor on his HUD. "You ready to show me what those toys on your belt can do?"
A confident, excited grin appeared on her face, a flash of white in the dim, strobing light.
He broke left, she broke right. The troopers fired after them, a mix of traditional and plasma rifles spitting a wall of lead and searing energy down the corridor. Lucien slid behind a support pillar, the air where he'd been a second ago hissing with heat. He leaned out, fired two precise shots from his handgun—one shattering a trooper's visor, the other punching through the joint at another's knee.
[TARGET NEUTRALIZED]
On the other side of the hall, Echo tossed two capsules. One erupted in a cloud of thick, purple smoke, obscuring the troopers' vision. The other unfolded into a small, tripod-mounted turret that immediately began laying down a barrage of suppressive fire.
“Is that gun of yours just ignoring their shielding somehow?” Echo asked over comms.
“Yeah, I got all kinds of neat tricks,” Lucien answered.
Then, under the cover of the turret, he advanced, taking down another trooper with two more shots to the chest.
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Three left.
One of the troopers suddenly lobbed a grenade.
Lucien saw it coming, his HUD instantly tagging it with a strobing red icon.
He could have dodged.
[GHOST STEP ACTIVATED]
Lucien launched out from cover, straight into the grenade’s trajectory, and swung an open hand hard, smacking the grenade mid-air. It sailed in a blur of motion back towards their assailants—
Then exploded.
The grenade had hardly traveled back down the hallway before the fuse ran out. Lucien’s perception ignited in a wash of white-hot pain and static. He flew backward and quickly found a wall with his back.
[INTEGRITY: 35%]
[WARNING: CRITICAL DAMAGE DETECTED]
His vision was swimming, a high-pitched whine screamed in his ears, and his heartbeat hammered in his temples. Through the haze, he saw Echo's second drone, a sleek, lavender-colored recon unit, zip through the smoke and fire a single, precise laser burst that took out the trooper who had thrown the grenade.
The last two troopers, seeing the battle go against them, began retreating for the exit, laying cover fire down as they moved.
They didn't make it.
Lucien shook his head to clear it, raised his handgun, and put a single round through their heads.
Flames licked the hallway in small pools from the plasma bursts and the grenade’s explosion.
He staggered to his feet, a dull ache radiating through his entire digital form. Echo rushed over to his side, her face a mask of concern. "Are you crazy? You could have died!"
“Little bit,” he pinched his finger and thumb together, leaving half an inch of space.
“What?”
“Little crazy,” he rolled his shoulder out, stepping forward. “Let’s go”
She stood there staring at him for a long moment as he began to move past. He heard her whisper, “Thank you,” almost as if she didn’t actually want him to hear it.
They reached the window they had entered through and hopped out onto the ledge.
As soon as Echo’s feet clicked against the stone, a new sound cut through the air—the deep, whirring thrum of a corporate shuttle lifting up from below. It perched itself directly in their path, hovering level with them.
Thin armored windows on the side of the shuttle revealed at least eight more corporate soldiers waiting for them.
"Well," Echo said, her voice laced with a dark amusement. "That's not ideal."
[GHOST STEP ACTIVATED]
Lucien arced through the air towards the shuttle, knees pulled halfway to his chest, hand braced out for balance. The heavy raindrops seemed to fall in slow motion as the neon lights of the city backdropped his silhouette.
He slammed down onto the roof of the shuttle, causing the entire vehicle to jerk to one side. He held on with one hand, fired three rounds from his handgun down through the roof, then used [GHOST STEP] to send himself sideways away from their return fire.
He zipped out in front of the shuttle, grabbing on and hanging in front of the windshield. The pilot saw him, flicked auto-pilot, and fumbled for a sidearm.
But it was too late.
Lucien put two rounds through the glass, and the pilot slumped over the controls.
He holstered his gun, let out a roar, and slammed his fist through the shattered windshield. He hit the control to open the shuttle's side doors, then vaulted back onto the roof. Echo had deployed half a dozen small drone turrets on the building’s ledge, and they opened up on the now-exposed soldiers.
The interior of the shuttle became a chaotic kill-box of plasma fire and screaming code.
It was over in seconds. The last soldier was knocked out the far side of the shuttle, their body tumbling into the endless, rainy night.
Lucien stood atop the now-vacant shuttle, his coat whipping in the wind. He looked over at Echo on the ledge and gave her a curt, professional nod.
She stared back at him, fighting to keep a grin off her face as one of her drones hovered next to her shoulder. “Can you fly that thing?”
Lucien looked down. “I mean I can, but it’s just…” he looked back up at her. “It’s full of bullet holes.”
Heavy rain pattered a drum beat around them.
“…And bodies,” he added.
Then he held a hand out to her. “Come on, hop across.”
The grin completely broke through. She collected her turrets and drones, then hopped onto the shuttle roof with him, their hands grasping as she landed.
[CORE MEMORY RECOVERED]
Lucien looked down at Echo, her electric pink eyes vibrant against the cityscape. Heavy rainfall obscured the neon lighting, and the ambient noise of the shuttle engines warbled faintly in the background of his perception, accented faintly by the fire still burning back inside the tower.
His heart skipped a beat.
“Wanna fly it into the tower?” Echo asked. Her tone carried a level of excitement that reminded him of a child asking for a present.
He nodded his head wordlessly in the direction of the scaffolding, gesturing for her to hop across. Her eyes lingered on him as she turned, then she leapt over easily.
Lucien took a deep breath, his shoulders rising, then falling. He had a warm feeling in his chest he wasn’t sure if he’d ever felt before.
[PULSE ACTIVATED]
Lucien leapt towards Echo as the shuttle whined and screamed, the electrical systems fried and dying. He landed, turned, and watched the shuttle sputter.
It tilted, then plunged downward, a flaming comet that disappeared into the side of the Xelara tower. A massive fireball erupted a moment later, lighting up the night.
He turned to find Echo standing beside him, her face illuminated by the distant fire. The professional mask was gone, replaced by a genuine, unguarded smile.
"You know," she said, her voice lighter than he'd ever heard it. "I wouldn't mind teaming up with you again. This was kind of fun." She was beaming up at him.
He looked at her, at the fire reflected in her electric eyes, and the warmth in his chest spread throughout his entire body.
"Yeah," he said quietly. "Same."
[MEMORY FRAGMENT: XELARA HEIST REINTEGRATED]
[INTEGRITY: 95%]
[LOGIC +25]
- [LOGIC: 76/100]
[WILLPOWER +30]
- [WILLPOWER: 97/100]