Post by Maximor on Mar 22, 2017 18:48:31 GMT
"Shit! We got a Dagoth incoming!" a male wolf mercenary cried out as he unloaded a hail of bullets on a hulking beast from down the canyon that bolted straight for the wolf's group. "Les, get the client away from this!" a cougar man commanded a weasel, who then proceeded to take a fox girl in the group away from the fight. "Everyone else open fire on this motherfucker!" the cougar ordered. They were in The Faults, in a sandy canyon with only one straight path, running was not an option. The beast kept charging, shrugging off gunfire as if it were invincible. This was going to be one hell of a fight, one Sea Rhino against a band of hired guns. Max was one of these seven mercenaries, he would be participating in this battle. He flicked the safety of his shotgun off, and turned his gun toward the beast, joining the others just in time for some volley fire, not that it did much.
A big male fox screamed as the Sea Rhino reached him at full speed, and stabbed its horn right through his abdomen. When it slowed down to a stop, the beast grabbed the legs of its victim, trying to get them off so it could see. It pulled downward, ripping the fox in half who now stopped screaming, spilled its victims innards all over itself and threw the dismembered body to the ground. The dark creature was now covered in blood, looking even more monstrous than before. The team was horrified at what just happened, cringing at the disgusting sight. Max was shocked as well, but he had a stronger stomach, so he didn't hesitate his offensive. He knew that getting within reach of that thing would mean instant death, it didn't even show any stress when it ripped that fox guy in half. Buckshot wasn't doing shit against the monstrosity, so Max unloaded the remaining shells, and hurriedly inserted some different ones into his shotgun. These rounds were called "Nitro Busters", they were specialized shotgun rounds that would explode on impact, the explosion was small but a direct hit was deadly, typically blowing the target to bits, a good powerful round for tough enemies.
The battle ensued, the Sea Rhino stopped charging, it closed in on another mercenary, a human who was within its arms' reach. Max wouldn't risk firing an explosive round and wounding his associate, all he could do was watch the damned monster swing down one of its arms at the human, smacking him into the earth with a sickening crunch. The damn thing had tremendous strength, the body of its latest victim was twisted and broken, it looked like roadkill. Compared to all the carnage the Sea Rhino caused, there wasn't a much damage it received, some areas on its exoskeleton were lightly chipped and dented from the ongoing gunfire, but the monster was still fighting at full strength. The team was down to five fighters in less than two minutes, the situation was grim.
The Sea Rhino stumbled a bit when a sudden explosion hit it in the back, then turned its attention to Max, who had just fired a Nitro Buster at it. The monster's back was scorched, but the shot didn't do any real damage, it only made it madder. Making a low pitched growling sound, the creature then began to charge, speeding towards Max like a huge cannonball. Running away from a Sea Rhino was never a good idea, it would always catch its prey. All one could do was accept their fate at that point....
Or, they could try something smart. Just as the Sea Rhino was a few yards away, Max dived sideways, dodging the living battering ram. Once it reached full speed, it couldn't turn, a helpful fact that Max kept in mind. The Rhino came to a stop, angrier now that it had missed its target and got ready to charge again. Max positioned himself right at one of the canyons walls, he had an idea. The thing came charging again, ignoring all the other mercenaries and their bullets, it was hell bent on killing its target. Just when it was a couple of yards away, Max jumped out of the way, and it smashed into the wall. It worked, but the Sea Rhino was still in fighting condition, although its coordination was clearly affected by the hard impact. Growling even more now, the monster proceeded to regain its balance.
"Max! Bring that big guy over here!" the cougar mercenary yelled. Max ran over to his associate, who then pointed to a deep crevice which seemingly had no bottom. No further words were exchanged, they both knew exactly what to do. They shot at and taunted the Sea Rhino to get its attention again. The creature was absolutely furious, and once more charged recklessly at its targets. Max and the cougar dodged the bumbling beast, which threw itself into the abyss, echoing a desperate roar. They had won the battle.
Everyone regrouped, Les, the weasel from earlier, bringing back the client they were hired to protect. "Hey Clawson, what happened to Jordon and Will?" Les asked the cougar, who then replied grimly, "They're both dead." The weasel was silent upon hearing the news, clearly upset. "We have no time to bury them, we need to keep moving now, before the high tide comes in," Clawson stated. Everyone agreed with this, they had only a couple of hours left to get out of The Faults before they were flooded. Without any objections, the group pressed on.
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The remaining trip through The Faults went on without incident. Walking slightly behind the group of mercenaries hired for this job, Max's thoughts began to wander. He went back to the beginning of this mission, when he first got the job. Someone had taken notice of his capabilities after he had done a lot of work in various places, and invited him to take part of a high profile mission. Max went to go meet with the client for the details and was surprised to see that there were other people who were interested in this contract. He was even more shocked to hear that this job was going to require an eight man team, something much different from solo jobs. The client was a middle-aged human male, Mr. Grey, who was allegedly very wealthy, and opposed the Golden State coming from the North. He wanted them to do an escort mission, transporting someone from the Northern part of Socal to the South East; this was to be a dangerous mission too, because the subject would be relentlessly pursued by the State, and one of the routes to avoid them was the lethal Faults. No details on why the subject was being targeted were given, but nobody asks that question in this kind of business anyway. Once the team was formed for the operation, half of the payment was given to them and arrangements were made a week later, and they got to meet their client who would be traveling with them. She was a young lady fox, red fur, didn't speak, and she wore a strange high tech device on her head that looked like it was embedded into her skull. Max got strange vibes from her, feeling like something was wrong with her, but disregarded it since she would be gone when they made it to the evacuation point.
At dawn, from the point where the team picked up the VIP at the start of the mission, they drove an SUV down a ruined freeway and were soon met by State agents on motorcycles. After being chased for a while, they managed to eliminate the agents, but had to escape into The Faults since reinforcements were to be coming from every direction. They had to ditch the SUV and travel on foot when it got stuck in the sandy base of The Faults, but for the time they had lost the agents. Most of the trip through the canyon went without incident, until they encountered that Sea Rhino that killed two of them, leaving them with six guns left for the job, well at least for a while. This number was reduced by one when they were climbing out of the canyon, one merc, a human, slipped and fell to his death like some sort of freak accident, Max had been so caught up in his own wandering thoughts that he didn't even notice the guy plummeting right into a rock and becoming a roadside pizza . There were now just five people left for the job. While he didn't speak to them much, Max learned about the kinds of people he was working with, well at least the ones who were still alive at this point. First there was Clawson, a hardened cougar mercenary who had sort of taken up the role as leader, he was the most focused on the the job out of everyone, but had about as much personality as your typical shallow jarhead. Next was Les the weasel, an obvious greenhorn who didn't have much courage or experience, but at least followed orders and stuck with the team. Then there was Alex, a meathead wolf who thought he was all macho and shit, Max hated him very much. Last of all was was Ali, a leopard female who was an excellent sniper and a target to Alex's harassment. Max didn't really care about the others, he was only in it for the money just like them, but he knew it was better to have more guns for a greater chance of success.
Max returned his focus back to the current time, now afternoon. The group was out of The Faults and in a valley, headed towards the next point where a spare vehicle was arranged for them to continue traveling along an old highway for a while. Once they got there, they entered a medium-sized truck with Clawson commandeering the vehicle, and began the drive to the South East. It was a long, quiet and rather dull trip until sunset through the countryside and over mountains, they met no opposition the whole way or had any exciting things happen. After several hours, the destination was finally visible. The mountain road they were going down, overlooked a big desert, and at the base of it nearby was a party of vehicles, it was their client and his security team, but there were more vehicles than necessary. Something was up, had the State agents found them? As the group got closer to their destination, they heard gunfire and explosions. The clients and their enemies were engaging each other. "Everyone get yourselves ready for a fight," Clawson ordered, "We are going to be arriving just in the thick of things." Ali sighed at this, she and the others were hoping that they wouldn't have to get caught in another engagement. The truck accelerated, they were now at the bottom of the mountain and would get to the clients in no time.
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The client and his bodyguards were outnumbered by the State agents, they weren't going to last much longer in this engagement. At least they thought that, but then the arrival of his employees changed that quickly. The state troopers got torn up by the surprise attack, with the group driving by in the truck and unleashing hell unto them. Once all current hostiles were dead, the group joined with the contacts and set up a defensive, this wasn't over yet, more were coming. Mr. Grey showed up and desperately explained the situation to his employees, "Good thing you made it, it's not over though, as we got more of them coming. We don't know how they found us, but that's not important right now. Right now we need to deal with the incoming menace so we can make some time to get out of here!" Right on cue dust clouds in the distance arose, signaling the team of the incoming enemy vehicles. The agents came in fast, the team barely had time to get into cover before the bullet storm started. Max took cover behind a large solid rock, while the others scrambled around their cars to evade enemy fire. Max peeked over the rock and tried to get a grip of what was going on.
"Five jeeps, probably four men in each one, they are about sixty or so yards away," he thought to himself, "They have automatic weapons, assault rifles. My shotgun and pistol aren't going to keep up with them, gotta use the hide and shoot strategy."
One of the enemy jeeps suddenly accelerated faster than the other ones and made a beeline for the team and the vehicles they were hiding behind. The crash was loud and violent, pushing the car that was hit a good distance away. Right beside the broken glass and deformed metal laid two bodyguards and Ali, they had been crushed by the same vehicle they were hiding behind. Some men emerged from the jeep that hit them, disoriented from the impact but quickly turning their weapons to the team. Max saw this opening, so he came out of cover and dropped one of the agents with an almost perfect headshot, making the rest of them duck down as he went back into cover. Gunfire from one of the team members was focused on the remaining agents of the jeep killing all of them. "You killed her! Fuck you!" an enraged voice cried out. Max peeked out to see who it was, and it turned out to be Alex, the wolf meathead. He was clearly upset with Ali's death, but it wasn't like he actually cared for her, Max knew his type, to Alex she was just a sex thing and nothing more. The idiot was out in the open with no cover, an incredibly stupid move during a firefight. One second later, he was shot up like bloody Swiss cheese by the other agents. "What a dumbshit," Max thought as he smiled secretly. He was amused by the sheer stupidity of the wolf, after all Max was a patron of natural selection. Bringing himself back to the current battle, he spotted the other four jeeps even closer now, they were parked and clustered together, acting as barriers for the agents to use as cover as they fired at the team. They were within range but not to close for an idea that hatched in Max's head. With his shotgun still loaded with Nitro Busters from earlier, he came out and fired a few explosive slugs at the agents. The first two shots did nothing but stagger some of them with the shock of the blasts, but the third time was the charm, making one of the jeeps explode and setting off a chain reaction that blew up the other ones and scorched his foes.
"Sure, taking cover behind a car is a good idea, until it fucking explodes!" Max laughed, knowing how pointless their tactic was.
The jeeps were now burned black in an orange inferno with the cooking bodies of the State agents strewn about. The others on the team commended Max for pulling it off, they were just as glad as he was for bringing an explosive weapon. The celebration was short-lived however as a new sound was heard from up above, getting closer each second. "Shit! Up there!" Les exclaimed with absolute dread. Everyone looked up and got a glimpse of their next foes consisting of two men with sniper rifles on flying platforms and a grey helicopter manned LMG turrets on the sides." Aerial units!? You've got to be kidding me!" Clawson yelled. Max was just about as shocked as they were, but it was nothing compared to the fear in the eyes of the fox girl they had been escorting, who was trying her best to hide.
"What the hell could they possibly want with her to send this much firepower our way?" Max thought. It was no VTOL or attack chopper, but rare aerial units like this were still a major threat to anyone that didn't have that luxury of flying and shooting at the same time. Not only that, but flying snipers too, whose gunfire came down like some hellish rain, causing Max and everyone else to run. There was nowhere to hide from the enemies, no cover at all that could protect one from an aerial attack.
Most of Mr. Grey's bodyguards dropped like flies as the heavy sniper bullets ripped through them, leaving large gorey holes in their bodies. One flying sniper swooped down lower to the ground for a better shot, chasing frantic Les. Clawson took aim with his rifle while the enemy was distracted, and unleashed a burst of fire onto him The sniper turned to aim at Clawson, but it was too late, his flying contraption didn't respond, so he smashed right into the ground, dying instantly.
As that was happening, the fox girl was running from the pursuing chopper while Max and Mr. Grey's remaining bodyguards joined the chase. "Come back!" one of the guards yelled to the fox girl, trying to get her to stop. The helicopter flew low and positioned itself sideways to her. The agent at the turret facing her took aim, and fired a single shot. The fox girl fell to the sandy ground, she was hit. Max was in disbelief with how fast it happened, dropping his pace and falling back behind the guards. "We're getting her out of here dead or alive, keep moving!" one guard commanded. Max didn't like the thought of going through all this trouble just to bring back a corpse, but he knew that it was best not to ask or argue on jobs like this. As the helicopter descended closer to the body of the fox girl, ready to take her away, Max and the bodyguards all shot at the damnable aircraft in a futile attempt to ground it, Nitro Busters couldn't hit it. The vehicle suddenly turned itself to make one of its sides face them, and the man on the gun turret opened fire. Max dropped to the ground, he hadn't been hit, but he would be for sure if he stood up. The only other one to duck in time was another bodyguard, a muscular cheetah guy. The rest of the guards looked like hamburger by the time the gun stopped firing.
Laying on the ground trying to be as motionless as possible, Max felt defeated, they were outnumbered and outgunned. The helicopter had landed, and agents emerged to collect the fox girl. Before he could think of what would happen next, the cheetah guard sprung up and made a dash for the helicopter. "This guy is insane," Max said to himself with wide eyes, "He left his gun behind too! What is he thinking!?" The agents didn't notice their incoming adversary soon enough. The cheetah moved with almost lightning speed with perfect reflexes, even for a cheetah. He leaped high into the air, and came down on an agent, killing him instantly by seemingly cutting off his head. The other agents were shocked at this and tried to retaliate. The cheetah moved gracefully, pulling of moves like Albert Wesker from Resident Evil and dodging bullets. He spun while midair between two agents and sliced their throats. With another enemy, he picked him up of the ground showing no signs of stress, and decapitated him with the rotor of the aircraft. Max's jaw dropped, but he couldn't just sit there stunned by this display, so he picked himself up and went to help his ally with his pistol in hand. There were about ten men in the helicopter aside from the pilot and co-pilot, but the cheetah had destroyed all of them, or so he thought. A loud boom told him otherwise, as the cheetah was knocked to the ground by a force from behind. One of the agents had survived the attack by playing dead and took the chance to get the cheetah with a shotgun. The agent made his way over to the feline, ready to finish him off. Before he could even lift his gun, he was switched around to be on the receiving end of a surprise attack. Several gunshots rang as his torso was pierced in numerous places, the tables had turned, and the blood-soaked agent fell to the ground. Next, Max ran up to the chopper executed the pilot and co-pilot with a bullet through the skull each, before going to check on the cheetah. He wasn't feeling so hopeful that he would see him alive and well.
Much to Max's astonishment, the feline got up on his feet and looked like he was okay despite getting hit in the back by a shotgun round. "Damn! You're something else dude!" Max complimented him. The cheetah responded with a smirk, "Ballistic skin does wonders." It didn't take anymore info for Max to figure out that this guy was either a cyborg or android, since those were the only two kinds of people that could have and a natural creature normally wouldn't be able to pull off moves like that; this was further supported by his now visible features such as long sharp knife-like claws and the place where he was shot not showing any real damage other than a small amount of blood. "Why didn't you bring that out earlier?" Max questioned, to which the feline replied, "Because I can't jump high enough to get them in the air, had to wait while they were on the ground and unprepared." They were interrupted by a sharp gasp for air from someone else, and they were dumbfounded when they saw who it was. The fox girl, soaked with her own unnaturally glowing blood, pushed herself up off the sandy ground and stood up.
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The fight was finally over, it hadn't lasted very long but it ended with a lot of carnage. Everyone left standing regrouped over by the client's vehicles, this was going to be the end of the mission. The only ones left included Max, Clawson, Les, the fox girl, Mr. Grey, and the cheetah bodyguard. There were no more incoming enemies in sight, or any sounds that indicated anyone else.
"That was a brutal fight we had not foreseen, we lost a lot of people, but we survived," Mr. Grey spoke to everyone, "It is done. Your payments have been arranged just like we agreed upon, they should arrive immediately when you return. I'll take it from here, it was nice doing business." "Wait just one moment!" a voice in the crowd emerged. It was the cheetah, he didn't sound happy. "You never mentioned that our VIP is a goddamn biomorph!" Max didn't understand what he was talking about, but Clawson and Les looked shocked at this announcement. Mr. Grey paused for a moment, then responded solemnly, "That doesn't change anything, the job is over and you are getting paid." He was right, but there was still an intensity in the air. Max didn't think about why it was a problem since the job was done, and he remained silent as the others argued.
"You let that thing walk around freely with us?! Are you mad?!"
"She could've gone feral on us this whole time!"
"But she didn't."
"What else haven't you told us?"
"Yeah, what's really going on?"
"That would best be left unknown!"
*BOOM*BOOM*BOOM*
Gunfire coming from nearby interrupted the argument and caused everyone to run for cover. Max got a glimpse of what was going on, one of the snipers had slipped away during the fight and was hiding nearby, waiting for the perfect moment to strike. Just as quickly as he appeared, Clawson took him out a few shots to the torso. "Sneaky bastard," the cougar remarked. The team got together once again after this, initially nobody seemed to have been hit, but painful groans turned their attention to who had been shot. The fox girl was curled on the ground, clenching her teeth and holding her head. There was no blood or brains on the ground, but the device that she wore on her head was absolutely destroyed, like it exploded, shooting out sparks.
"Oh fuck! No, no no no...." Mr. Grey cried out, losing his cool for the first time. The fox spasmed on the ground like she was having a seizure, with an awful choking noise in the back of her throat. "Hold on! Don't let it take over, you can do this!" the client frantically yelled as he sat by her side. Max had no idea what was going on, "Was she dying?" he pondered, "What did he mean by 'it take over'?" "It's hopeless, we gotta kill her now!" the cheetah exclaimed to Mr. Grey, who responded, "No! We couldn't have come this far for nothing! We can't afford it!" The cheetah aggressively approached the shaking fox girl, literally throwing the client to the side and saying, "You can't stop it now, she's not going to make it! I'm going to kill her now before she becomes mind-"
The cheetah never got to finish what he was going to say; everyone looked in horror at what had cut him off. From the body of the fox girl, narrow black tentacle-like emerged, several shooting right through the cheetah. He gurgled, throat filling with blood, and collapsed to the ground when the appendages suddenly retracted. The tentacles grew longer and greater in number, wrapping around the fox girl and forming a layer over her body. Two big tentacles formed, pushing off the ground and pulling her upright; she wasn't standing normally, she was suspended in the air sort of like the body of a spider being supported by the legs. She eerily moaned, her head seized violently, shaking in every direction, then her jaw ripped open and hung down as if it exploded, with more appendages coming from her mouth.
This terrible sight shook Max greatly, for he had never seen anything like that before, just in movies. The others were disgusted and shocked as well, but they maintained a better composure as if they had experience with things like this. Les opened fire on the abomination, causing a glowing red blood to seep from its wounds. The monster wasn't fazed by this, it used its "legs" to zero in on the weasel, then a single whip like appendage came out from it and lashed at him. Les was knocked to the ground, but got up to continue fighting until he realized the extent of the damage. He looked down in horror to see his blood and intestines spilling out of his body. He died immediately from the shock.
Max, Clawson and Mr. Grey were the last ones standing, and the feral biomorph turned its attention to them. Mr. Grey tried to make a run for the vehicles, and the monstrosity went after him. Clawson went over to Max and spoke grimly, "We don't stand a chance against it." "I know," Max replied. Truthfully, he really didn't know for sure what kind off chance he stood against this unknown monstrosity, but like hell he was going to die.
The feral biomorph was only some yards away from Max and Clawson, with Mr. Grey being its closest target. The poor bastard didn't even get a chance to have a futile attempt of reaching out to her, instead she tore him apart in seconds then absorbed him. As this happened, Max and Clawson made a run for the State agents' helicopter. Neither of them knew how to fly, but they both knew that it contained something useful that they could use, the machine guns on the turrets. They made it to the helicopter not a moment too soon, the monster was just finished with absorbing its victim, a set its sights on the remaining two people,
As he was trying to force a machine gun out of its mount, Max took note of the tail rotor and got an idea. He had only seen it work in movies and video games, but he figured that if he was able to get the monster to run into the blades, then it would be killed or severely weakened. He went over to the pilot seat and messed around with buttons and switches until the aircraft started up. "You know how to fly this thing?" Clawson asked over the loud sounds of the chopper. "No," Max answered, "But let's see if we can get him to run into the rear blade." The cougar was amused by this answer. He got his machine gun from the helicopter and laid down some fire on the fast-approaching biomorph. Max positioned himself with the tail rotor just behind him, ready to execute his plan. Clawson ceased fire and let Max grab the monster's attention with his own gunfire, although the Nitro Busters didn't do much except slow it down or piss it off. After the abomination shifted its interest to him and rushed his way. Max crawled under the tail of the helicopter and carefully avoided the spinning blade while getting as close as possible to it, the trap was set just in time, the creature was not even a couple of yards away. Max crawled away just as it charged into the rotor. It was just like a blender, the chopper blades shredded the monster, cutting off almost all of its appendages and nearly turning it into a pile of dark goo.
The remains of the monster biomorph were absolutely motionless, the plan had worked. Max picked himself up and gave a thumbs up to Clawson, who then came over so see the mutilated mass. As he got closer, the cougar moved slower, his walk changed into a "sneaking" motion. His face was serious, gaze fixated on the corpse. Over the noise of the still running helicopter, Clawson spoke to Max, "Looks dead, but we should torch it." "Torch it?" Max questioned, and was answered with, "Yeah, we should burn it just to be sure that it won't get up and that the State task forces don't recover it." This was a good point, the State was after the fox girl turned monster for whatever reasons, and the thought of it getting back up justified burning it. Clawson produced a couple of flares, then lit them up and threw them at the corpse.
Over the sound of the helicopter, a loud, corrupted female scream broke out. The two nearly jumped out of their skin, and looked back to see the "corpse" of the biomorph spasming on the sand. There was no time to react, it shot out one long appendage which went right through Clawson's chest, then pulled him in to be absorbed. Max was absolutely shocked, while he didn't really give a shit about the others on this job, he was the last person left and this fact was especially terrifying since he would be facing this monster alone.
The absorption of the feral biomorph's victims was not immediate, it seemed to take around half of a minute to complete before it went back to full combat potential. While absorbing Clawson, the creature slithered slowly toward Max, getting ready as soon as it was finished devouring its victim. As it approached him, Max went to his thoughts, looking for a way to defeat the thing.
"Nitro Busters just seem to piss it off. It does react to fire for sure, but I have no incendiary weapons. If there was a car nearby, I would blow it up....wait a minute, it doesn't have to be only a car for this to work," he pondered, "I did hear that aircraft fuel burns pretty hot."
Back to reality, the biomorph was almost finished absorbing Clawson, and was only a few yards away. Max put some distance in between himself and the helicopter, he certainly didn't want to get caught in the upcoming inferno. He fired a Nitro Buster at the helicopter, it did visible damage but didn't blow up. Max chambered another explosive slug and fired at the same place, more damage but no explosion. There was no time left, the abomination was almost done recovering. With another trick up his sleeve, Max fired a shot at the landing skid of the helicopter, damaging it to the point of the helicopter tipping over. When the vehicle tipped over, the biomorph was once again chopped up by the rotor and rendered immobilized. Through the thinned out dark appendages, Max caught a glimpse of the former fox girl. Not wanting to see into the dead eyes or her hanging jaw, Max fired a slug at the helicopter once more, this time it worked. A stream of fire spouted from the aircraft, signaling its imminent destruction. Max sprinted as fast as he was able to and made it just out of range. The helicopter finally blew up in a blinding flame and dark cloud of smoke. Just as this happened, Max heard the final scream of the monstrosity before it finally died.
After taking a good look at all the carnage from that battle, the last one standing made his way over to one of the undestroyed vehicles, an armored muscle car, and jumped into the driver's seat. Max knew he had to get out of there before more State agents showed up. He was almost out of ammo and exhausted from the mission, but rest was something that had to wait. As the sun set and evening arrived, Max started the car and set off for home.
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The mission was a failure, everyone but Max had been wiped out and the client was dead and now unable to give him the other half of the payment. Max laid on his bed, reflecting on the day and all that wasted effort. He still had half of the payment, but it could have been so much more if things didn't go the way they did. Max hated the damned State agents, they had interfered with his job and cost him a lot. Furious, he swore that he would settle the score one day with the people behind the attack.
As his thoughts flowed through his head, he couldn't help but wonder about the fox girl. He didn't really care, she didn't have much personality anyway, but there was so much more to the whole operation. This was the first biomorph he encountered and it proved to be a tough fight, so he kept in mind to watch out for them in the future. But with this case, the fox girl had a special device on her head, something that Max found unusual for even a biomorph; given how she and Mr. Grey reacted when it was destroyed, he concluded that the device was what was keeping her from turning into that monster. And seeing all the agents and their special units coming after them, he knew that this mission was bigger than he thought.
Many questions remained unanswered for Max. What did the State want with her? What did Mr. Grey want with her? What other biomorphs are out there? What is really going on?
With no reason to bother with these things any further, Max shut his eyes and drifted away.
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Finished
A big male fox screamed as the Sea Rhino reached him at full speed, and stabbed its horn right through his abdomen. When it slowed down to a stop, the beast grabbed the legs of its victim, trying to get them off so it could see. It pulled downward, ripping the fox in half who now stopped screaming, spilled its victims innards all over itself and threw the dismembered body to the ground. The dark creature was now covered in blood, looking even more monstrous than before. The team was horrified at what just happened, cringing at the disgusting sight. Max was shocked as well, but he had a stronger stomach, so he didn't hesitate his offensive. He knew that getting within reach of that thing would mean instant death, it didn't even show any stress when it ripped that fox guy in half. Buckshot wasn't doing shit against the monstrosity, so Max unloaded the remaining shells, and hurriedly inserted some different ones into his shotgun. These rounds were called "Nitro Busters", they were specialized shotgun rounds that would explode on impact, the explosion was small but a direct hit was deadly, typically blowing the target to bits, a good powerful round for tough enemies.
The battle ensued, the Sea Rhino stopped charging, it closed in on another mercenary, a human who was within its arms' reach. Max wouldn't risk firing an explosive round and wounding his associate, all he could do was watch the damned monster swing down one of its arms at the human, smacking him into the earth with a sickening crunch. The damn thing had tremendous strength, the body of its latest victim was twisted and broken, it looked like roadkill. Compared to all the carnage the Sea Rhino caused, there wasn't a much damage it received, some areas on its exoskeleton were lightly chipped and dented from the ongoing gunfire, but the monster was still fighting at full strength. The team was down to five fighters in less than two minutes, the situation was grim.
The Sea Rhino stumbled a bit when a sudden explosion hit it in the back, then turned its attention to Max, who had just fired a Nitro Buster at it. The monster's back was scorched, but the shot didn't do any real damage, it only made it madder. Making a low pitched growling sound, the creature then began to charge, speeding towards Max like a huge cannonball. Running away from a Sea Rhino was never a good idea, it would always catch its prey. All one could do was accept their fate at that point....
Or, they could try something smart. Just as the Sea Rhino was a few yards away, Max dived sideways, dodging the living battering ram. Once it reached full speed, it couldn't turn, a helpful fact that Max kept in mind. The Rhino came to a stop, angrier now that it had missed its target and got ready to charge again. Max positioned himself right at one of the canyons walls, he had an idea. The thing came charging again, ignoring all the other mercenaries and their bullets, it was hell bent on killing its target. Just when it was a couple of yards away, Max jumped out of the way, and it smashed into the wall. It worked, but the Sea Rhino was still in fighting condition, although its coordination was clearly affected by the hard impact. Growling even more now, the monster proceeded to regain its balance.
"Max! Bring that big guy over here!" the cougar mercenary yelled. Max ran over to his associate, who then pointed to a deep crevice which seemingly had no bottom. No further words were exchanged, they both knew exactly what to do. They shot at and taunted the Sea Rhino to get its attention again. The creature was absolutely furious, and once more charged recklessly at its targets. Max and the cougar dodged the bumbling beast, which threw itself into the abyss, echoing a desperate roar. They had won the battle.
Everyone regrouped, Les, the weasel from earlier, bringing back the client they were hired to protect. "Hey Clawson, what happened to Jordon and Will?" Les asked the cougar, who then replied grimly, "They're both dead." The weasel was silent upon hearing the news, clearly upset. "We have no time to bury them, we need to keep moving now, before the high tide comes in," Clawson stated. Everyone agreed with this, they had only a couple of hours left to get out of The Faults before they were flooded. Without any objections, the group pressed on.
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The remaining trip through The Faults went on without incident. Walking slightly behind the group of mercenaries hired for this job, Max's thoughts began to wander. He went back to the beginning of this mission, when he first got the job. Someone had taken notice of his capabilities after he had done a lot of work in various places, and invited him to take part of a high profile mission. Max went to go meet with the client for the details and was surprised to see that there were other people who were interested in this contract. He was even more shocked to hear that this job was going to require an eight man team, something much different from solo jobs. The client was a middle-aged human male, Mr. Grey, who was allegedly very wealthy, and opposed the Golden State coming from the North. He wanted them to do an escort mission, transporting someone from the Northern part of Socal to the South East; this was to be a dangerous mission too, because the subject would be relentlessly pursued by the State, and one of the routes to avoid them was the lethal Faults. No details on why the subject was being targeted were given, but nobody asks that question in this kind of business anyway. Once the team was formed for the operation, half of the payment was given to them and arrangements were made a week later, and they got to meet their client who would be traveling with them. She was a young lady fox, red fur, didn't speak, and she wore a strange high tech device on her head that looked like it was embedded into her skull. Max got strange vibes from her, feeling like something was wrong with her, but disregarded it since she would be gone when they made it to the evacuation point.
At dawn, from the point where the team picked up the VIP at the start of the mission, they drove an SUV down a ruined freeway and were soon met by State agents on motorcycles. After being chased for a while, they managed to eliminate the agents, but had to escape into The Faults since reinforcements were to be coming from every direction. They had to ditch the SUV and travel on foot when it got stuck in the sandy base of The Faults, but for the time they had lost the agents. Most of the trip through the canyon went without incident, until they encountered that Sea Rhino that killed two of them, leaving them with six guns left for the job, well at least for a while. This number was reduced by one when they were climbing out of the canyon, one merc, a human, slipped and fell to his death like some sort of freak accident, Max had been so caught up in his own wandering thoughts that he didn't even notice the guy plummeting right into a rock and becoming a roadside pizza . There were now just five people left for the job. While he didn't speak to them much, Max learned about the kinds of people he was working with, well at least the ones who were still alive at this point. First there was Clawson, a hardened cougar mercenary who had sort of taken up the role as leader, he was the most focused on the the job out of everyone, but had about as much personality as your typical shallow jarhead. Next was Les the weasel, an obvious greenhorn who didn't have much courage or experience, but at least followed orders and stuck with the team. Then there was Alex, a meathead wolf who thought he was all macho and shit, Max hated him very much. Last of all was was Ali, a leopard female who was an excellent sniper and a target to Alex's harassment. Max didn't really care about the others, he was only in it for the money just like them, but he knew it was better to have more guns for a greater chance of success.
Max returned his focus back to the current time, now afternoon. The group was out of The Faults and in a valley, headed towards the next point where a spare vehicle was arranged for them to continue traveling along an old highway for a while. Once they got there, they entered a medium-sized truck with Clawson commandeering the vehicle, and began the drive to the South East. It was a long, quiet and rather dull trip until sunset through the countryside and over mountains, they met no opposition the whole way or had any exciting things happen. After several hours, the destination was finally visible. The mountain road they were going down, overlooked a big desert, and at the base of it nearby was a party of vehicles, it was their client and his security team, but there were more vehicles than necessary. Something was up, had the State agents found them? As the group got closer to their destination, they heard gunfire and explosions. The clients and their enemies were engaging each other. "Everyone get yourselves ready for a fight," Clawson ordered, "We are going to be arriving just in the thick of things." Ali sighed at this, she and the others were hoping that they wouldn't have to get caught in another engagement. The truck accelerated, they were now at the bottom of the mountain and would get to the clients in no time.
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The client and his bodyguards were outnumbered by the State agents, they weren't going to last much longer in this engagement. At least they thought that, but then the arrival of his employees changed that quickly. The state troopers got torn up by the surprise attack, with the group driving by in the truck and unleashing hell unto them. Once all current hostiles were dead, the group joined with the contacts and set up a defensive, this wasn't over yet, more were coming. Mr. Grey showed up and desperately explained the situation to his employees, "Good thing you made it, it's not over though, as we got more of them coming. We don't know how they found us, but that's not important right now. Right now we need to deal with the incoming menace so we can make some time to get out of here!" Right on cue dust clouds in the distance arose, signaling the team of the incoming enemy vehicles. The agents came in fast, the team barely had time to get into cover before the bullet storm started. Max took cover behind a large solid rock, while the others scrambled around their cars to evade enemy fire. Max peeked over the rock and tried to get a grip of what was going on.
"Five jeeps, probably four men in each one, they are about sixty or so yards away," he thought to himself, "They have automatic weapons, assault rifles. My shotgun and pistol aren't going to keep up with them, gotta use the hide and shoot strategy."
One of the enemy jeeps suddenly accelerated faster than the other ones and made a beeline for the team and the vehicles they were hiding behind. The crash was loud and violent, pushing the car that was hit a good distance away. Right beside the broken glass and deformed metal laid two bodyguards and Ali, they had been crushed by the same vehicle they were hiding behind. Some men emerged from the jeep that hit them, disoriented from the impact but quickly turning their weapons to the team. Max saw this opening, so he came out of cover and dropped one of the agents with an almost perfect headshot, making the rest of them duck down as he went back into cover. Gunfire from one of the team members was focused on the remaining agents of the jeep killing all of them. "You killed her! Fuck you!" an enraged voice cried out. Max peeked out to see who it was, and it turned out to be Alex, the wolf meathead. He was clearly upset with Ali's death, but it wasn't like he actually cared for her, Max knew his type, to Alex she was just a sex thing and nothing more. The idiot was out in the open with no cover, an incredibly stupid move during a firefight. One second later, he was shot up like bloody Swiss cheese by the other agents. "What a dumbshit," Max thought as he smiled secretly. He was amused by the sheer stupidity of the wolf, after all Max was a patron of natural selection. Bringing himself back to the current battle, he spotted the other four jeeps even closer now, they were parked and clustered together, acting as barriers for the agents to use as cover as they fired at the team. They were within range but not to close for an idea that hatched in Max's head. With his shotgun still loaded with Nitro Busters from earlier, he came out and fired a few explosive slugs at the agents. The first two shots did nothing but stagger some of them with the shock of the blasts, but the third time was the charm, making one of the jeeps explode and setting off a chain reaction that blew up the other ones and scorched his foes.
"Sure, taking cover behind a car is a good idea, until it fucking explodes!" Max laughed, knowing how pointless their tactic was.
The jeeps were now burned black in an orange inferno with the cooking bodies of the State agents strewn about. The others on the team commended Max for pulling it off, they were just as glad as he was for bringing an explosive weapon. The celebration was short-lived however as a new sound was heard from up above, getting closer each second. "Shit! Up there!" Les exclaimed with absolute dread. Everyone looked up and got a glimpse of their next foes consisting of two men with sniper rifles on flying platforms and a grey helicopter manned LMG turrets on the sides." Aerial units!? You've got to be kidding me!" Clawson yelled. Max was just about as shocked as they were, but it was nothing compared to the fear in the eyes of the fox girl they had been escorting, who was trying her best to hide.
"What the hell could they possibly want with her to send this much firepower our way?" Max thought. It was no VTOL or attack chopper, but rare aerial units like this were still a major threat to anyone that didn't have that luxury of flying and shooting at the same time. Not only that, but flying snipers too, whose gunfire came down like some hellish rain, causing Max and everyone else to run. There was nowhere to hide from the enemies, no cover at all that could protect one from an aerial attack.
Most of Mr. Grey's bodyguards dropped like flies as the heavy sniper bullets ripped through them, leaving large gorey holes in their bodies. One flying sniper swooped down lower to the ground for a better shot, chasing frantic Les. Clawson took aim with his rifle while the enemy was distracted, and unleashed a burst of fire onto him The sniper turned to aim at Clawson, but it was too late, his flying contraption didn't respond, so he smashed right into the ground, dying instantly.
As that was happening, the fox girl was running from the pursuing chopper while Max and Mr. Grey's remaining bodyguards joined the chase. "Come back!" one of the guards yelled to the fox girl, trying to get her to stop. The helicopter flew low and positioned itself sideways to her. The agent at the turret facing her took aim, and fired a single shot. The fox girl fell to the sandy ground, she was hit. Max was in disbelief with how fast it happened, dropping his pace and falling back behind the guards. "We're getting her out of here dead or alive, keep moving!" one guard commanded. Max didn't like the thought of going through all this trouble just to bring back a corpse, but he knew that it was best not to ask or argue on jobs like this. As the helicopter descended closer to the body of the fox girl, ready to take her away, Max and the bodyguards all shot at the damnable aircraft in a futile attempt to ground it, Nitro Busters couldn't hit it. The vehicle suddenly turned itself to make one of its sides face them, and the man on the gun turret opened fire. Max dropped to the ground, he hadn't been hit, but he would be for sure if he stood up. The only other one to duck in time was another bodyguard, a muscular cheetah guy. The rest of the guards looked like hamburger by the time the gun stopped firing.
Laying on the ground trying to be as motionless as possible, Max felt defeated, they were outnumbered and outgunned. The helicopter had landed, and agents emerged to collect the fox girl. Before he could think of what would happen next, the cheetah guard sprung up and made a dash for the helicopter. "This guy is insane," Max said to himself with wide eyes, "He left his gun behind too! What is he thinking!?" The agents didn't notice their incoming adversary soon enough. The cheetah moved with almost lightning speed with perfect reflexes, even for a cheetah. He leaped high into the air, and came down on an agent, killing him instantly by seemingly cutting off his head. The other agents were shocked at this and tried to retaliate. The cheetah moved gracefully, pulling of moves like Albert Wesker from Resident Evil and dodging bullets. He spun while midair between two agents and sliced their throats. With another enemy, he picked him up of the ground showing no signs of stress, and decapitated him with the rotor of the aircraft. Max's jaw dropped, but he couldn't just sit there stunned by this display, so he picked himself up and went to help his ally with his pistol in hand. There were about ten men in the helicopter aside from the pilot and co-pilot, but the cheetah had destroyed all of them, or so he thought. A loud boom told him otherwise, as the cheetah was knocked to the ground by a force from behind. One of the agents had survived the attack by playing dead and took the chance to get the cheetah with a shotgun. The agent made his way over to the feline, ready to finish him off. Before he could even lift his gun, he was switched around to be on the receiving end of a surprise attack. Several gunshots rang as his torso was pierced in numerous places, the tables had turned, and the blood-soaked agent fell to the ground. Next, Max ran up to the chopper executed the pilot and co-pilot with a bullet through the skull each, before going to check on the cheetah. He wasn't feeling so hopeful that he would see him alive and well.
Much to Max's astonishment, the feline got up on his feet and looked like he was okay despite getting hit in the back by a shotgun round. "Damn! You're something else dude!" Max complimented him. The cheetah responded with a smirk, "Ballistic skin does wonders." It didn't take anymore info for Max to figure out that this guy was either a cyborg or android, since those were the only two kinds of people that could have and a natural creature normally wouldn't be able to pull off moves like that; this was further supported by his now visible features such as long sharp knife-like claws and the place where he was shot not showing any real damage other than a small amount of blood. "Why didn't you bring that out earlier?" Max questioned, to which the feline replied, "Because I can't jump high enough to get them in the air, had to wait while they were on the ground and unprepared." They were interrupted by a sharp gasp for air from someone else, and they were dumbfounded when they saw who it was. The fox girl, soaked with her own unnaturally glowing blood, pushed herself up off the sandy ground and stood up.
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The fight was finally over, it hadn't lasted very long but it ended with a lot of carnage. Everyone left standing regrouped over by the client's vehicles, this was going to be the end of the mission. The only ones left included Max, Clawson, Les, the fox girl, Mr. Grey, and the cheetah bodyguard. There were no more incoming enemies in sight, or any sounds that indicated anyone else.
"That was a brutal fight we had not foreseen, we lost a lot of people, but we survived," Mr. Grey spoke to everyone, "It is done. Your payments have been arranged just like we agreed upon, they should arrive immediately when you return. I'll take it from here, it was nice doing business." "Wait just one moment!" a voice in the crowd emerged. It was the cheetah, he didn't sound happy. "You never mentioned that our VIP is a goddamn biomorph!" Max didn't understand what he was talking about, but Clawson and Les looked shocked at this announcement. Mr. Grey paused for a moment, then responded solemnly, "That doesn't change anything, the job is over and you are getting paid." He was right, but there was still an intensity in the air. Max didn't think about why it was a problem since the job was done, and he remained silent as the others argued.
"You let that thing walk around freely with us?! Are you mad?!"
"She could've gone feral on us this whole time!"
"But she didn't."
"What else haven't you told us?"
"Yeah, what's really going on?"
"That would best be left unknown!"
*BOOM*BOOM*BOOM*
Gunfire coming from nearby interrupted the argument and caused everyone to run for cover. Max got a glimpse of what was going on, one of the snipers had slipped away during the fight and was hiding nearby, waiting for the perfect moment to strike. Just as quickly as he appeared, Clawson took him out a few shots to the torso. "Sneaky bastard," the cougar remarked. The team got together once again after this, initially nobody seemed to have been hit, but painful groans turned their attention to who had been shot. The fox girl was curled on the ground, clenching her teeth and holding her head. There was no blood or brains on the ground, but the device that she wore on her head was absolutely destroyed, like it exploded, shooting out sparks.
"Oh fuck! No, no no no...." Mr. Grey cried out, losing his cool for the first time. The fox spasmed on the ground like she was having a seizure, with an awful choking noise in the back of her throat. "Hold on! Don't let it take over, you can do this!" the client frantically yelled as he sat by her side. Max had no idea what was going on, "Was she dying?" he pondered, "What did he mean by 'it take over'?" "It's hopeless, we gotta kill her now!" the cheetah exclaimed to Mr. Grey, who responded, "No! We couldn't have come this far for nothing! We can't afford it!" The cheetah aggressively approached the shaking fox girl, literally throwing the client to the side and saying, "You can't stop it now, she's not going to make it! I'm going to kill her now before she becomes mind-"
The cheetah never got to finish what he was going to say; everyone looked in horror at what had cut him off. From the body of the fox girl, narrow black tentacle-like emerged, several shooting right through the cheetah. He gurgled, throat filling with blood, and collapsed to the ground when the appendages suddenly retracted. The tentacles grew longer and greater in number, wrapping around the fox girl and forming a layer over her body. Two big tentacles formed, pushing off the ground and pulling her upright; she wasn't standing normally, she was suspended in the air sort of like the body of a spider being supported by the legs. She eerily moaned, her head seized violently, shaking in every direction, then her jaw ripped open and hung down as if it exploded, with more appendages coming from her mouth.
This terrible sight shook Max greatly, for he had never seen anything like that before, just in movies. The others were disgusted and shocked as well, but they maintained a better composure as if they had experience with things like this. Les opened fire on the abomination, causing a glowing red blood to seep from its wounds. The monster wasn't fazed by this, it used its "legs" to zero in on the weasel, then a single whip like appendage came out from it and lashed at him. Les was knocked to the ground, but got up to continue fighting until he realized the extent of the damage. He looked down in horror to see his blood and intestines spilling out of his body. He died immediately from the shock.
Max, Clawson and Mr. Grey were the last ones standing, and the feral biomorph turned its attention to them. Mr. Grey tried to make a run for the vehicles, and the monstrosity went after him. Clawson went over to Max and spoke grimly, "We don't stand a chance against it." "I know," Max replied. Truthfully, he really didn't know for sure what kind off chance he stood against this unknown monstrosity, but like hell he was going to die.
The feral biomorph was only some yards away from Max and Clawson, with Mr. Grey being its closest target. The poor bastard didn't even get a chance to have a futile attempt of reaching out to her, instead she tore him apart in seconds then absorbed him. As this happened, Max and Clawson made a run for the State agents' helicopter. Neither of them knew how to fly, but they both knew that it contained something useful that they could use, the machine guns on the turrets. They made it to the helicopter not a moment too soon, the monster was just finished with absorbing its victim, a set its sights on the remaining two people,
As he was trying to force a machine gun out of its mount, Max took note of the tail rotor and got an idea. He had only seen it work in movies and video games, but he figured that if he was able to get the monster to run into the blades, then it would be killed or severely weakened. He went over to the pilot seat and messed around with buttons and switches until the aircraft started up. "You know how to fly this thing?" Clawson asked over the loud sounds of the chopper. "No," Max answered, "But let's see if we can get him to run into the rear blade." The cougar was amused by this answer. He got his machine gun from the helicopter and laid down some fire on the fast-approaching biomorph. Max positioned himself with the tail rotor just behind him, ready to execute his plan. Clawson ceased fire and let Max grab the monster's attention with his own gunfire, although the Nitro Busters didn't do much except slow it down or piss it off. After the abomination shifted its interest to him and rushed his way. Max crawled under the tail of the helicopter and carefully avoided the spinning blade while getting as close as possible to it, the trap was set just in time, the creature was not even a couple of yards away. Max crawled away just as it charged into the rotor. It was just like a blender, the chopper blades shredded the monster, cutting off almost all of its appendages and nearly turning it into a pile of dark goo.
The remains of the monster biomorph were absolutely motionless, the plan had worked. Max picked himself up and gave a thumbs up to Clawson, who then came over so see the mutilated mass. As he got closer, the cougar moved slower, his walk changed into a "sneaking" motion. His face was serious, gaze fixated on the corpse. Over the noise of the still running helicopter, Clawson spoke to Max, "Looks dead, but we should torch it." "Torch it?" Max questioned, and was answered with, "Yeah, we should burn it just to be sure that it won't get up and that the State task forces don't recover it." This was a good point, the State was after the fox girl turned monster for whatever reasons, and the thought of it getting back up justified burning it. Clawson produced a couple of flares, then lit them up and threw them at the corpse.
Over the sound of the helicopter, a loud, corrupted female scream broke out. The two nearly jumped out of their skin, and looked back to see the "corpse" of the biomorph spasming on the sand. There was no time to react, it shot out one long appendage which went right through Clawson's chest, then pulled him in to be absorbed. Max was absolutely shocked, while he didn't really give a shit about the others on this job, he was the last person left and this fact was especially terrifying since he would be facing this monster alone.
The absorption of the feral biomorph's victims was not immediate, it seemed to take around half of a minute to complete before it went back to full combat potential. While absorbing Clawson, the creature slithered slowly toward Max, getting ready as soon as it was finished devouring its victim. As it approached him, Max went to his thoughts, looking for a way to defeat the thing.
"Nitro Busters just seem to piss it off. It does react to fire for sure, but I have no incendiary weapons. If there was a car nearby, I would blow it up....wait a minute, it doesn't have to be only a car for this to work," he pondered, "I did hear that aircraft fuel burns pretty hot."
Back to reality, the biomorph was almost finished absorbing Clawson, and was only a few yards away. Max put some distance in between himself and the helicopter, he certainly didn't want to get caught in the upcoming inferno. He fired a Nitro Buster at the helicopter, it did visible damage but didn't blow up. Max chambered another explosive slug and fired at the same place, more damage but no explosion. There was no time left, the abomination was almost done recovering. With another trick up his sleeve, Max fired a shot at the landing skid of the helicopter, damaging it to the point of the helicopter tipping over. When the vehicle tipped over, the biomorph was once again chopped up by the rotor and rendered immobilized. Through the thinned out dark appendages, Max caught a glimpse of the former fox girl. Not wanting to see into the dead eyes or her hanging jaw, Max fired a slug at the helicopter once more, this time it worked. A stream of fire spouted from the aircraft, signaling its imminent destruction. Max sprinted as fast as he was able to and made it just out of range. The helicopter finally blew up in a blinding flame and dark cloud of smoke. Just as this happened, Max heard the final scream of the monstrosity before it finally died.
After taking a good look at all the carnage from that battle, the last one standing made his way over to one of the undestroyed vehicles, an armored muscle car, and jumped into the driver's seat. Max knew he had to get out of there before more State agents showed up. He was almost out of ammo and exhausted from the mission, but rest was something that had to wait. As the sun set and evening arrived, Max started the car and set off for home.
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The mission was a failure, everyone but Max had been wiped out and the client was dead and now unable to give him the other half of the payment. Max laid on his bed, reflecting on the day and all that wasted effort. He still had half of the payment, but it could have been so much more if things didn't go the way they did. Max hated the damned State agents, they had interfered with his job and cost him a lot. Furious, he swore that he would settle the score one day with the people behind the attack.
As his thoughts flowed through his head, he couldn't help but wonder about the fox girl. He didn't really care, she didn't have much personality anyway, but there was so much more to the whole operation. This was the first biomorph he encountered and it proved to be a tough fight, so he kept in mind to watch out for them in the future. But with this case, the fox girl had a special device on her head, something that Max found unusual for even a biomorph; given how she and Mr. Grey reacted when it was destroyed, he concluded that the device was what was keeping her from turning into that monster. And seeing all the agents and their special units coming after them, he knew that this mission was bigger than he thought.
Many questions remained unanswered for Max. What did the State want with her? What did Mr. Grey want with her? What other biomorphs are out there? What is really going on?
With no reason to bother with these things any further, Max shut his eyes and drifted away.
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Finished