Trouble at the road from Rose Garden

Kaja looked at the cat with a frown and chuckled at the cat’s reply. She liked this cat; she was sure of that now.

She wanted to reply to the Black Cat’s, but the cat was faster in his reply. She frowned and tilted her head slightly, had she heard that right. Kaja looked towards her guildmate and saw her speak ‘drama queen’ without a sound. She responded with a grimace that turned into a wide smile and giggled. Kaja looked to the door through which the cat had walked and back at the Black Cat. ”That’s a curious cat,” she whispered, hoping the cat was out of hearing distance. She checked the door again.

Kaja looked curiously at what her guildmate was doing, she donned a ring and then suddenly a small black cat appeared upon the Black Cat. She looked closely at the animal; it was bigger than a fist, but the size wasn’t the only thing that stood out. The cat seemed the have eight eyes. ”You are very fond of cats,” said Kaja as she looked how the cat moved towards her guildmates shoulder, ”What is it if I may ask?” She couldn’t suppress her curiosity.

The assassin swept her right hand in front of her, a 2D screen of neon colours appeared. ”Here take a look.” The screen displayed what the drone saw; the blue truck stopped at the gate to be checked by the guards, they could see how the window of the driver rolled down. Instead of showing an ID or papers, it was a sizeable pouch that appeared from the window. The guards accepted it and let the truck through the gate. Kaja shook her head, paying off guards was not a very bright idea. People can gain leverage over you if you did, it was something very risky in her eyes. The truck turned left, following the road next to the wall which was not the road they were supposed to take. ”We should follow,” she swiped away the screen and rushed to the empty alley behind the building.

The trucks stopped at a small parking lot. Most of the buildings, if not all, were abandoned here. There was another truck, white of colour, at the location with a group of armed people. They had nearly caught up with the truck, now that it stood still. They were able to follow the alley but there was a 2-meter wall between the alley and the parking lot. Kaja stopped at the wall, it wasn’t necessary for them to look over it to see what was at play behind bricks. She reopened her screen, just in time for both to see how they moved the shipment from one truck to the other. ”It doesn’t seem they get robbed but are in league with them don’t you think?” There was nothing that suggested that the drivers were forced, especially as they had taken a different route. ”We should ask that them ourselves,” there had been two men who had driven in the blue truck. She uses her internal commands to assign orange squares above those two men. The others gained a red triangle, a total of twenty-five people had been given a tag. In Kaja’s HUD appeared a target list with twenty-five targets; they were simply named as target and were assigned a number and the status ‘active’. ”Those two should we capture,” two smaller frames appeared with a close up of both their faces. The cyborg executed an analyse of all the opponents; some of them were armed with magical pistols, others with more primitive melee weapons like swords and maces. But there were also a couple that people that stood out because they did not have any weapons on them or at least they were not visible. Experience had taught her that those were usually the biggest threat, they were mages and were less easy to predict as it was unknown what kind of magic they used. An additional tag besides the red triangle was an exclamation mark. The assassin conjured a P90 personal defence weapon, she favoured this weapon for its compact size and high capacity magazine of body armour penetrating munition. ”Ready?

She looked at the wall in front of them and studied it for a second and calculated its weak points. She punched the wall quick and hard at a few places, nocking over the top 1-meter. Allowing them to quickly move over it as well as giving them cover from enemy fire. One might have expected her hands to break with such actions, her hands did suffer but not as badly. Her skin was ripped open but rather than showing red of blood and white of bone, it was a blue-metal colour that was shown underneath. It was the titanium frame of the cyborg's body. The skin quickly moved back into its original positions, as if had not been damaged. They had now full few on their targets, Kaja’s HUD showed all the markers and tags above the opponents. She brought the stock of her rifle to her shoulder and aimed for the closed threat, someone with a red triangle and an exclamation mark.

Kaja looked at her mission partner and her curious looking cat. She had never the experience of living with a cat or dog, or any pet, when she was young. She tried to win the trust of street animals, but she had never been able to win their hearts. Kaja had an affiliation with technology from a young age and had crafted a simplistic robot cat from parts she salvaged from garbage or stole as she was not always able to find the right components. The little Kaja had experienced little joy out of her cat robot, her father smashed it during one of his drunk rages a few days after the completion. It was never repaired, nor did she ever make a new robot cat. ”Okay, hello Luna.” said Helix almost forced. ”That’s a magic I have not heard of before.”

“Indeed, we should.” Said kaja assured. She looked at her companion, ”I am ready as well. Copy, that is fine.”

Kaja brought the stock of her rifle to her shoulder and looked down the sights, targeting someone with an automatic magical gun. She jerked the trigger thrice, a hail of nine bullets ripped their way through the man’s body which dropped to the floor before he had a chance to know what was going on. Another opponent armed with a scatter gun ran after the lightning quick Black Cat. Four trigger pulls and twelve bullets later, and this one bit the dust as well. Shrapnel of brick and cement of the shortened wall went flying around her as they returned fire at her position during her last salvo. She noticed in a glance that one of them used the door of a truck as shield, shooting from behind it. She removed the magazine of her rifle and threw it away, it disintegrated into a heap of purple pink dust. She conjured a new magazine from a portal, these rounds were armour-piercing. These bullets had no issue ripping through the metal door, the downside was that they dealt less damage to soft targets. She brought the view of her drone before her eyes, there was one person to close to her position. The dark-haired assassin came up from behind her cover and fired two salvos of three bullets at closest target to suppress his actions. Kaja turned towards the truck and fired fifteen rounds through the door. A scream of horrified surprise and pain was heard.

The assassin looked how her companion was doing; The Black Cat seemed to handle things fine and was aided in her combat by yet another cat. One with two heads this time. The drone feed showed her how one of the robbers was crawling around the truck with a magical scattergun. Kaja took her pistol in her right hand and aimed it at the rear corner of the truck, while she was still looking at how the two Cats were fighting. Any second now, and the gunner would appear into the sights of the pistol. She carefully looked at the drone images. Four times she squeezed the trigger, releasing a hail of bullets at the gunner without giving him a chance to react. The body fell to the floor and Kaja was already analysing a new target to take down.

Kaja jumped over the rouble of the brick wall and sprinted to the truck, at which she had been shooting, with great speed. There were still a couple thugs shooting from behind a, with algae and moss covered, car. The android used the truck as cover and looked for an opportunity to strike as she kept a finger on the trigger, ready to squeeze a volley of bullets; a hail of certain death. A sudden burst of bullets ripped through the metal of truck, leaving behind a zigzagging trail of ridged holes. The gunmen had fired over the trunk of the car without looking, to supress her. She might not be able to see them with her own ‘eyes’ but her drone showed her how one of the gunners ran to a different car, they were attempting to encircle her. She would not stand for that and quickly set her mechanical brain to work for a plan, she instantly knew that the bullets of her rifle wouldn’t be able to pierce through an entire car, but she could avoid the car entirely. She dropped on the ground and aimed through the sights at the exposed legs of the first gunmen which were visible underneath the car. She fired a single burst, the bullets tearing through his flesh. The gunner fell with a scream down on the ground, the second gunner looked up at his mate. Kaja disappeared in a vapor of pink particles, only to reappear in a puff of purple behind the second gunner. She dropped her P90, which was caught by the sling that hung around her shoulder, and grabbed her pistol. She grabbed the men firmly by his throat from behind and pressed the barrel of the gun against his side of his head. She squeezed the trigger and the felt struggle stopped, the body collapsed and fell on the ground.

The Black Cat called out to her as she walked away from the body towards the wounded gunner. ”Sure thing,” shouted Kaja back, who gave an order to her drone; which was by now low on battery. The assassin closed the gap between her and the gunner, whom seemed to have heard her steps; he stopped winning for a moment. “Please, help me! I want to…” A loud bang was heard, silencing him. ”I do not care,” said Kaja solemnly. There was still one thief left, hiding within a truck and she walked to wards it. The doors of container were closed from the inside as they didn’t open when she pulled at one of the doors; she gave a firm tug and heard a piece of steel explode, followed by a rattling impact of a chain. She swung open the doors and a man came at her screaming the air out of his lungs, he wielded a sword kept it at all times in front of him. Kaja quickly fired two rounds, one at his right shoulder which made him drop his weapon; the second at his left leg which made him tumble and fell facedown just near the edge of the door opening. Kaja dragged him out by one of his arms while the man was screaming in pain and pulled her towards the other prisoner, whom the Black Cat had caught.