LightReader

Chapter 12 - Birth of a Phantom part 4

The man with the top hat marched forward, standing taller than both of them — clearly older.

"Stay where you are." Felix raised his pistol at the unknown figure, scanning his attire. The older figure was dressed a brown vest, an elegant top hat, and had a small bag strapped to his belt.

With a wide grin, the older man asked, "Why are you two hiding in a boring old server room when there's a festival outside?"

"Who are you?" Felix demanded.

Despite his calm demeanor, it was obvious to both agents — this man was far more dangerous than any of the guards they'd faced.

"I apologize for my rudeness, please allow me to introduce myself, I am one of the guards here you see." He took off his top hat, revealing his brown hair as he bowed.

"Don't lie to us." Felix responded, his eyes narrowing, focusing on the blood on his sleeves.

The blood-stained man smiled wider, putting his top hat back on, "Well, I can't tell you that, but please refer to me as Harbinger. Please allow me to explain, I was employed recently here in order to—"

A knife whistled past his head before he could finish. The old man turned around and saw the knife pierce through one of the servers.

"What kind of guard kills his own men?" Maria clicked her tongue as she placed her hand on the onyx table. Her playful demeanor gone, her voice now frigid.

Harbinger nervously laughed and continued to feign ignorance, "My, please enlighten me, whatever do you m—?"

A shot rang out, sending Harbinger slamming towards the door.

Felix blew out the wisp of smoke flowing out of pistol, his glowing blue-eye radiating through the darkness, his body silhouetted against the moonlight.

As he lowered his gun, the table beeped with a high-pitched sound.

"Looks like our download is complete." Maria perked up, grabbing the drive.

"Harbinger, he said…"

She tilted her head in curiosity, "Oh, how foreboding. What about it?"

"I recognize that name codename… Rank twenty-seventh, a veteran who went MIA months ago. He must've been the one who tried to work with the Robin outside. The first intruder that caused them to be high aler—"

Maria shoved Felix to the side as a spinning blur passed between them.

Something shiny struck the window with a snap. Maria turned her head, and she saw a knife stuck to the window — the same one she threw at him a few moments ago.

A soft cackle followed, and the man Felix had just shot got back on his feet.

"I see my reputation precedes me." The former agent smiled.

"You're still alive?" Maria shifted her gaze to the knife embedded in the window

"Both of you are from the agency, correct? Did bullet-proof vests stop being standard issue while I was away?" Harbinger scoffed, brushing off his brown vest as if nothing happened.

Maria pulled out her weapon from the cracked window.

Felix raised his gun once more, firing without hesitation. Only for Harbinger to hop away, holding his top hat as he ran between the servers.

"How rude. From what I gather, you and I are on the same mission. So would you please give me a moment?" Harbinger suggested, hiding behind one of black-cased machines.

Felix paused to reload his pistol, his mismatched eyes never leaving his target, "And what mission would that be?"

"First off, I introduced myself. Alliance protocol dictates that you grant me your codenames." Harbinger's voice echoed through the large room.

"What for?" Maria asked sharply.

"Codenames let the other party know what they're dealing with. It's in the treaty to let an unwilling participant go unharmed if they're associated with the alliance." Felix elaborated in a low voice, while Maria readied herself for combat.

She turned to him and replied, "I'm surprised you know this."

He glanced over to her, "I'm surprised you don't."

Harbinger walked out with his hands above his head, responding, "Something tells me you two haven't been in the field for too long. So I'll cut you a deal, if you please give me a copy of the information, all parties will be able to go on their merry way."

"You wouldn't happen to have a drive on you?" Maria asked, putting the drive in her back pocket.

"I do… but after dealing with the guards…" Harbinger replied as he pulled out a broken flash drive from his vest pocket.

"That sucks. You didn't think to bring a back up?"

"Did you?"

"I—" Maria wanted to argue, but the two of them only had a single drive. She then drew her blades, two sharp combat knives, "Even if we did, we wouldn't hand it over to you."

"That's a shame, I can't come back empty-handed." Harbinger drew his gun.

With two daggers in her hands, Maria took her stance, her fangs in full view.

"Harbinger, engaging."

"Venom Vanguard…" She hooked the table's leg with her foot, then kicked the table towards Harbinger, "Engaging!"

A glassy onyx wall made it's way towards Harbinger, but he swiftly jumped over the airborne obstacle with his gun ready. But before he could even plant his feet, she closed the space between them in a single beat.

The edges of her steel blades clashed against his gun before he could even aim, and he was forced to use it to parry each of her explosive blows.

As their weapons clashed, her unnatural strength quickly overpowered him, to the point where he found himself struggling to keep her daggers away from his chest.

Unable to aim, he kicked Maria's diaphragm, and hopped away to a safe distance.

"Venom Vanguard… The serpent who kills with a single cut, with blades laced with neurotoxins that could kill an elephant in minutes."

"Are those the rumors going around?" The dark-haired woman hissed at him while rubbing the lower part of her chest.

"Quite. I have to say, disabling someone's motor functions is quite a scary gimmick for a little girl."

Maria got back up and threw another knife towards him, "So you know who I am, yet you're not backing down?"

Harbinger shifted his body and effortlessly avoided the attack. In response, he raised his gun at her, but before he could fire, a bullet struck him in the chest, which slammed him against one of the pillars.

"Right… forgot about the other one." He huffed as he got back up, quickly moving away as two more bullets shot at him.

"So what about you, boy… whoa!" Harbinger spoke to the darkness while avoiding the shards of lead aimed at his head, "May I please ask for your codename?"

"…Ch-Child of Stars." Hidden behind the server, Felix accidentally let his first thought slip out of his lips.

"Child of…? That sounds oddly familiar." He perked up curiously while the Venom Vanguard leapt at him. The two danced with gun and blade, while simultaneously attacking each other with words.

"It's rather odd for an Elite Agent to prefer fighting in close quarters." He remarked.

"It's odd for an Elite Agent to be mouthing off the way you do, and yet here we are!" She pushed back.

Felix continued to attack from the darkness, behind the countless blinking lights of the data servers. But Harbinger simply dodged the bullets coming his way, "My, my, you sure lack presence. If it weren't for your glowing eye, I'd have taken you for a ghost."

Though he fancied the shadows, his glowing blue eye betrayed him. Its light reflected on the glassy surfaces of the servers, letting Harbinger pinpoint his location.

He continued to fire at Harbinger from behind one of the servers, supporting from a distance while Maria acted as the vanguard.

But as the two clashed once more, Harbinger parried her knife, then raised his leg. Maria, who was not gonna fall for the same counter twice, raised her guard and steeled her body. But Harbinger grinned, finally able to push back against her, he aimed his gun and fired.

Cracks formed in the knife.

Maria's hands trembled as she tightened her grip on the knife's hilt. The impact radiated through her veins as she just barely blocked the bullet with her knife.

Felix whipped out his cobalt gun, and a dull pulse shot out. Invisible rings rippled out, distorting the air it passed through.

Harbinger moved on the offensive when a numbing pulse shot through his body. The invisible blast had struck him with full force, shocking his nerves.

Frozen, Harbinger's eyes searched forwards, where he saw the reflection of Felix's glowing blue eye in one of the glass panes.

Felix raised his pistol and pulled the trigger.

But only silence followed.

— His pistol was empty.

Nervously, he pulled the trigger two more times.

The ex-agent mustered up his willpower, and felt a twitch in his hands.

In the few seconds it took for Felix to grab a fresh magazine from under his coat, Harbinger broke free from his stunned state, and immediately tried to shoot at him.

Dozens of glass fragments splintered through the air as the bullet narrowly missed the blue-eyed agent.

"What a cute toy!" Harbinger gleefully unloaded the rest of his shots.

Panic ran through the black-haired agent and he darted behind another server.

With his back pressed against the ebony machine, Felix breathed and looked at the top of his gun, the glassy black grid was now glowing red, a sign that it was almost out of battery.

"Not now…" He only had a second to look disheartened, as the sound gunfire immediately reminded him that he was still in a battle.

"Does he ever run out of bullets?" Felix growled, but paused as a question hit him, "Wait… does Marie ever run out of knives?"

Stunned, he got lost in thought, but a bullet to the shoulder brought him back a second later.

Though it couldn't pierce through his black cloak, the impact felt like his bones shattered like glass, "ARK! Bollocks!"

Felix let out a feral growl and kicked the server with immense force, flinging it towards his enemy.

Harbinger was startled by his enemy's inhuman strength, but as it black pillar hurtled through the air, he simply ducked beneath it, barely breaking a sweat.

It crashed into the other servers, toppling them down like mechanical dominoes.

"The Child of…" Harbinger made a curious stare as he dropped his gun and pulled out another one from his thigh.

Before the last syllable left his lips, a blade carved the air, leaving a trail of light. It grazed his cheek — just enough to sting.

Grinning, a wave of bloodlust surged out of Harbinger, and he began raining lead at the dark-haired woman.

But Maria moved as quickly as he aimed, leaping above one server after the next. Each successive round burst through the servers.

Felix felt a strain in his arm, the bandage that was wrapped around it began to feel warm and wet. He took a step forward, lifting his arm once more.

But before he could return to the battle, his body froze as his eyes followed a grenade that came in his way.

Yet before it could fall, he heard the sound of an unwinding cord, and watched as it was caught in the claw of a grappling hook.

With the bomb locked onto her grappling hook, Maria improvised. She turned it into a makeshift flail that danced to her will, slithering like a serpent.

The explosive whipped up and down, left and right, leaving no room for Harbinger to go into the offensive. He was cautious of both Maria's bomb whip, and of Felix, who had resumed shooting from the rear.

He was left to defend himself and bide his time, waiting as his wounds accumulated. He only needed a few seconds.

With a grin on his face as the explosive began to beep, he grabbed the cord on Maria's grappling hook and threw the explosive back at her.

— Click.

Her eyes widened in response.

"Get down!" She yelled.

The grappling hook, which was swinging side-wards, took a sharp, unnatural downwards swerve.

With a deafening boom, the explosive slammed into the ground, and a cacophony of crumbling followed.

All three combatants were thrown back by the fiery burst.

Debris rained down above them as the ceiling snapped. Thousands of black glass shards clattered on the ground. The powerful blast left a dark crater on the ground, which quickly collapsed into a large hole.

The window walls around them had cracked, and let the frigid air slowly seep out with a silent whistle.

The tremors from above caught the attention of the guards below, narrowing down their search.

Dizzy and lightheaded, Felix opened his eyes and felt a stream of red liquid flowing out of his forehead, "…I hope this counts as minimum damage."

But as he tried to drag himself up, he found himself unable to move. His arm buried under the rubble of the ceiling. He struggled to lift the debris with only one arm. Memories flashed in his mind of a similar event. A clear memory of his own mangled leg, buried underneath a fragment of a concrete wall.

He grit his teeth and angrily pushed the rubble away. But his eyes widened as he heard his enemy groaning a few feet away.

Harbinger slowly got up, pain visibly radiating from his movement. His top hat was on the floor, showing his disheveled brown hair.

The ex-agent grumbled, staring at the hole on the ground, "Damn tofu bricks."

Panic began to set in as he watched Harbinger pull out a magazine and reload his gun.

Felix used every ounce of strength he could muster. His veins started to glow, and a numbing electricity crackled out of his fingertips, letting him get rid of the rubble.

But as he did, his face turned pale as he saw his arm, tangled in a web of wires, while a shard of glass from the metal server protruding through his flesh.

Trapped, he searched frantically for something he could use, and saw his pistol lying a few feet away from him.

But while he could barely reach the tip of his gun, Harbinger had already aimed his own at him. Felix closed his eyes, then Harbinger fired — with a loud bang, a splatter could be heard spilling across the ground.

~

More Chapters