Charly, Hotk, and Saul kept their hands raised. Facing them, the man holding the woman hostage watched for the slightest twitch to pull the trigger.
« Why do you want me to raise my hands? » Charly asked in a calm voice. « You can see perfectly well that I have no weapons left in my possession. »
The Italian narrowed his eyes, his finger tight on the trigger.
« Sorry, but I know you well, Charly Jean-Luc Dutruduk. Your bare hands are considered weapons of mass destruction by every country in Verinold, and in fifteen other states besides. Do you really think I'm going to lower my guard against a man whom the Republic of Line considers a one-man army? I'm not stupid. »
Charly let out a faint smile.
« Oh, well-informed, I see. What do you want? »
« Don't play dumb. Give us the briefcase, and fast. »
« But why do you want my bag? » the veteran feigned. « There are only papers and bank receipts inside. I don't see why you covet it so much. »
The man began to lose his patience, his voice rising a octave:
« Charly, don't force me to execute this poor woman in the middle of the afternoon. Hand over the briefcase containing the Elionice. »
Charly retreated into silence, locking his gaze into the attacker's while scanning for a weakness.
« I don't have time to waste here », the Italian resumed. « I'm going to count to three. If I don't have the bag, I kill them all. One… »
Charly swept the area with his eyes. Around them, several civilians lying flat on their stomachs trembled with terror, some already whispering prayers for the salvation of their souls.
« Two… »
The old soldier then locked eyes with the hostage. Tears were rolling down her cheeks. In a choked breath, she pleaded:
« Help me… Please, help… »
« Three. »
At the exact microsecond the fateful number echoed, Charly made a move to toss the briefcase toward him, but he was beaten to the punch.
BANG!
A sharp detonation rang out. The Italian had just drilled a bullet at point-blank range into the victim's head. Blood partially splattered the killer's face, but he didn't even blink.
« Me, when I say I shoot on three, I shoot on three », he uttered coldly.
Charly watched the woman's body collapse to the floor, twitching with reflex spasms. The veteran slowly placed the briefcase at his feet, a murderous gleam in his eyes. His voice turned sub-zero:
« I knew I recognized that voice. There is only one piece of trash with that Italian accent capable of such a demonic act: Francisco Bianchi. »
Without flinching, Francisco redirected the barrel of his weapon toward another civilian lying on the ground.
« Shut your mouth that reeks of fromaggio. Kick the briefcase over here. »
With a sharp kick, Charly slid the object across the concrete, spitting out:
« She was someone's daughter, mother, and sister, you monster. »
Francisco then pulled down his face covering, revealing a sadistic grin adorned with several gold and silver teeth.
« No, she was my little sister. »
What happened next plunged Charly, Hotk, Saul, and Techno Rider—who was still observing from the restrooms—into utter stupefaction.
In perfect unison, all of the allegedly terrorized civilians stood back up, drew handguns, and trained them on the Armored soldiers. Worse still: the woman who was supposed to be dead rose in turn with a fluid stride and calmly pulled out a pistol. The scene had flipped entirely into a horror movie.
Francisco took a few steps back, smoothing his mustache.
« A beautiful staged performance with real blood and a little engineering, not bad, right? »
A dark rage consumed Charly. He lowered his head, exhaling heavily to contain his fury, before snapping it back up, his gaze ferocious.
« Ah, I see. I won't make any long speeches… GG to the dead. »
He was about to press a hidden button on his sleeve when a wild card shattered the dynamic. A small black marble, tossed from the restrooms, rolled right into the middle of the enemy group. Every eye locked onto the device on the floor. At that exact split second…
FLASH!
A luminous burst of blinding intensity saturated the underground station. The mercenaries spat out curses, shielding their eyes with their forearms.
Capitalizing on the chaos, Techno Rider bolted from his hiding spot. In one fluid motion, he snatched the briefcase from Francisco's hands and disarmed the gang leader with a precise spinning back kick.
As the effects of the flash began to fade, Charly saw the Rider, bag in hand, slam the button on his own sleeve. Immediately, the briefcase projected a powerful wave of invisible energy that swept through the room. Apparently, nothing happened.
The fake hostage aimed her weapon at the Rider and pulled the trigger. To her great surprise, no detonation occurred. The other accomplices tried to open fire in turn, but their plasma weapons remained completely inert: the pulse had just fried every electronic system in the perimeter.
Rider pivoted on his heel and delivered a violent roundhouse kick to the back of the woman's neck. She slammed heavily into the ground and lost consciousness.
Charly lunged toward the young hero to recover the briefcase. At that same instant, Francisco, driven mad with rage, coated his fist in crackling purple electricity and ambushed Techno Rider's left flank.
The Rider didn't have time to see it coming. At the precise moment the briefcase left his arms to meet Charly's, the supercharged punch caught him dead-on.
BOOM!
The impact was of ungodly violence. Under the power of the shock, Horace's body folded into an arc before being catapulted across the room. He crashed heavily against the opposite wall, imprinting a titanic network of fissures into it.
Charly recovered the container just as Francisco followed up on him with a right straight. The veteran dodged the blow by a hair, slipping to his right. He swung the briefcase behind his back, and it instantly locked onto his gear. Pivoting with the agility of a young man, Charly raised his heel and unleashed a devastating flying kick right into the Italian's sternum.
That was the cue for all the fake civilians to swarm forward.
Techno Rider pushed himself up painfully, seeing the wave of enemies converging on them. He instinctively brought his hands to his temples to activate his combat modules, but his fingers met nothing but empty air.
"Oh no, I forgot to transfer the rest of my loadout..." he realized, caught off guard.
A mercenary armed with a heavy machete charged at him, screaming:
« AAAH! »
Having no alternative, Rider braced his feet and charged back. The man swung a wide horizontal arc with his blade. The Rider slipped to the left, ducking under the cutting edge, and instantly countered with a vicious right hook dead in the face. Without giving him time to recover, he seized his attacker's armed arm and, with a sharp, precise elbow strike, snapped the limb.
At the other end of the platform, Saul had just grabbed an assailant by the throat. He hoisted him up before hurling him like a mere empty bottle against a concrete bin, which exploded into shards.
Suddenly, another enemy stepped forward. He raised his hand toward the station ceiling and then brought it down with a sharp snap. Under the effect of his power, threaded rods, false ceiling tiles, and metallic frameworks tore away in a screech of ripping metal and rained down toward Saul.
The Armored soldier dove backward to evade the first wave of debris. But his opponent guided the metallic objects from a distance with a simple gesture, making them levitate to hunt their target. Saul ran flat out, pursued by a swarm of razor-sharp scrap metal.
Reaching the edge of the wall, he banked sharply to close the distance with the telekinetic. Seeing the DHA powerhouse barreling toward him, the man panicked and hastily erected a shield of metal plates to interpose.
Just before the armor plating could seal, Saul took a monumental leap and vaulted clean over the obstacle. Channeling his energy into his fist, he descended upon the man, catching him flush in the face.
The individual crashed to the floor. Saul gave him zero chance to reposition: mounting him, he unleashed a barrage of heavy, destructive straight punches. After a few seconds of an implacable beatdown, the mercenary's body stopped moving for good.
Meanwhile, the duel between Charly and Francisco was raging. The Italian, his forearms wrapped in crackling lightning, struck with a clear intent: to kill. Charly evaded the assaults with flawless boxing science, slipping his head from left to right while conceding ground.
Charly eventually found himself with his back to the wall. Francisco leaped at the opportunity and threw a powerful left straight. With remarkable ease, the veteran slipped to his right. The punch barely grazed him, but the sheer electrical tension of its wake was enough to slash a bloody gash across his cheek.
The fist of lightning struck the wall full force.
BOOM!
The reinforced concrete blew apart, exposing the infrastructure's electrical wiring. Capitalizing on the opening, Charly drove his elbow with all his might into Francisco's throat. He followed up instantly with a devastating uppercut, before pivoting on his stance to deliver a spinning back kick right to the chest.
Francisco bounded back, absorbing the blow, but immediately returned to the offensive. He feinted a left jab and threw his right.
This time, the blow connected. Charly felt his head snap back, his vision instantly blurring.
"Ah, damn... I'm getting way too old for this shit," he cursed internally.
Francisco gave him no time to collect his senses and buried a second hook into his ribs. Propelled several meters back, Charly rolled across the platform before skidding to a halt. Trying to pull himself up, he spat out a stream of warm blood.
« Just two hits and you're already half-dead », Francisco mocked in an arrogant tone as he approached. « You've gotten very old and very fragile, Charly. »
« Your punches hit like a freaking car, you piece of trash! » Charly countered, painfully pushing himself back to his feet.
Francisco began to charge a massive amount of electricity above his head, his eyes bloodshot.
« Shut your mouth, you old fossil. Why are you always screaming? Here, take a sedative. »
He brought his fist down in a raging gesture, but the confrontation flipped once more.
Techno Rider intervened directly in his path, delivering a precise punch to the Italian's throat. He bounded backward to dodge the counterattack and followed up with an inverted kick straight to the head. Francisco tried to grab him, but the Rider ducked the movement fluidly. Catching his opponent's arm to gain leverage, Horace pivoted, struck the back of his neck with his free foot, and slithered down his limb to lock a flawless armbar on the ground. Francisco roared with rage, while the Rider cranked the pressure with everything he had.
Driven by pure adrenaline, Francisco contracted his superhuman muscles, braced his weight, and managed to lift himself up, wrenching the Rider off the floor through the raw strength of his one valid arm.
On the other side of the thick glass partition, an STGV barreling at maximum speed was pulling into the adjacent track. Utilizing the momentum, Francisco hurled Techno Rider with all his strength against the twenty-centimeter-thick protective glass.
Under the violence of the high-velocity impact, the armored glass exploded in a deafening crash.
SHATTER!
The noise was akin to the detonation of a fragmentation grenade.
Techno Rider crashed through the debris and collapsed heavily below, landing directly in the path of the tracks. Seized by a violent coughing fit, his breath short, he tried to pull himself up as the black veil of unconsciousness threatened to take him under.
It was then that he saw two silhouettes tumble through the breach in turn: Charly had just wrapped his arms around Francisco's waist, dragging him down into the void with him.