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Bleak was but one word to be used when describing the landscape of the “Brave New World”, cities turned into slums and littered with trash and dead birds, rats and even cats and dogs. Those who inhabited the looming buildings, looking down on the footpaths and roads like angry gargoyles, hardly ever left, too afraid of the Metrocops. Oppressive, menacing, cruel people masked by their uniforms consisting of a dark grey and blue attire that looked like a cross between body armour and scuba gear. Topping it off were the emotionless white masks, caging the cold-hearted face of the metro cops in what looked like a gas mask crossed with a diving mask. It was figures like this that struck fear in all who dared walk the streets in hope that they wouldn’t be maliciously targeted by the metro cops and beaten for their own sadistic pleasure. Every once in a while a building floor would be raided by the metro cops. Some people were just too risky; nobody escapes the metro cops. Except one.

In a small dim bar, where only few sat, was the man, the only escapee from the metro cops. He sat huddled in a corner with a mug sitting half empty in front of him. His cold dark eyes stared forth from under his hood. He wore a thin, dark green jacket that reached his thigh and had a brooding hood, some old, grey, ratty sneakers, a grubby white singlet and faded, stained and tattered black pants. Under his hood was a man who bore many emotional scars administered by the metro cops. He was known to many, but none knew his name. He preferred to stay a John Doe, nameless to all. He only knew himself as Vil. When the metro cops had raided his floor, he’d managed to kill a few with his bare hands. After that he only remembered being hit in the face with a stun baton. The stun gave him permanent scarring from an electrical burn around his eye. He’d lost 46% of sight in one eye. He was still a sharp shooter and could see a mouse from 250 metres away. After his run-in with the stun baton Vil had awoken near the sea. Hearing only the waves and seagulls, but on his chest was a note that read: “You’re name is Vil, don’t forget it”. Something or someone had saved his life, for what reason Vil couldn’t even begin to think about, though that isn’t to say that he isn’t a smart individual.

As he sat in the bar he heard the raspy croaking of a metro cops radio receiver. Suddenly the door bursted open and a squad of 6 metro cops barged their way in. They went straight to the bar and spoke to the keep. “Have you seen this man?” The Metro cop’s voice was distorted and sounded like it was coming out of an old radio, in it’s hand it held up a wanted poster with an old picture of Vil.
The barkeep stammered, “N-no, never s-seen him.”
“You’re hiding something, tell us where he is.”
“I-I’m telling you, I’ve n-never seen h-him.”
The metro cop pulled his service pistol from its side holster, a semi-automatic Glock 20. He held it firmly to the barkeep’s forehead. “You have until the count of three.”
“I’m telling you I don’t know!” The barkeep’s voice had stopped stammering and was now raised in anxiety.
“1,” The metro cops voice droned with a confronting angst.
“I keep telling you I never seen the guy!”
“2”
“What the fu…” Blam! The shot echoed of the walls of the small tavern. Vil’s eyes went wide. Why did they have to kill him? They had just sealed their fate in doing so. The cops were moving to another person in the bar. Vil jumped out of his seat and put his arm tightly around the nearest metro cop’s neck and lodged a knife in its throat. The metro cop gurgled and made a sickening choking sound. As Vil threw the body down he grabbed the metro cops small Heckler and Koch MP5-N. The other metro cops spun round to see what had happened. Vil jammed the trigger back hard and the muzzle spewed forth a fiery burst of bullets and flames. The metro cop’s bodies exploded in a shower of red. Vil had emptied the clip when the last metro cop had slumped to the floor of the bar. In all the commotion his hood had flown off his head, revealing extremely short brown hair, perhaps a millimetre or two from his scalp. “Everyone make yourselves scarce.” The few others in the bar raced out into the street. Almost as quickly as they had left, a new patrol of metro cops had bursted through the doorway of the tavern. They saw the smoking MP5 in Vil’s hands and switched on their stun sticks. “Citizen, stand down.”
Vil spat back at the metro cops, “Fuck you, jerk,” then he threw the mp5 away and ran through a doorway leading into another room, there he proceeded to climb some stairs leading to the roof. The metro cops followed.

On the rooftops Vil was swift on his feet. The metro cops would take random pot shots at him but Vil kept running. He was halfway across one, when he saw three metro cops coming at him. He turned to run way but the same horde that had followed him were now slowly advancing, stun baton’s whirring with voltage. Nowhere to run. Vil had no weapons left, he’d discarded the mp5 and his knife was probably still lodged within the metro cop’s throat. “Citizen, get on your knees!” Vil looked over at the metro cop and raised his middle finger at it. “Screw yourself!” The metro cops advanced slowly, cautiously. When it seemed that Vil was a goner, the window next to him flew open and a hand grabbed him by the sleeve and pulled him through. The hand flung Vil to the floor and wrenched the window closed. Split seconds after a stun baton punctured through the glass. The person keeping the window closed just yelped out: “Get out of here, I’ll hold them off!” As he had said that a metro cop fist flew in through the hole in the window and planted itself on the helpers nose, knocking him back. Vil got to his feet and ran down the corridor. He stopped at the head of the stairs and looked back, three metro cops were inside the building now, one of them had its gun levelled at the helpers head. Pulled the trigger. The helper’s head was rocked violently by the force of the bullet and some blood sprayed onto the metro cop’s uniform. The metro cops saw Vil and immediately chased after him. Vil flew down the stairs, luckily there was only three stories but the metro cops were hot on his trail. When he got outside he ran to the nearest ally way. Vil climbed the ladder that was attached to the balcony of the apartment building. He jumped off the other side, now separated from the metro’s by a high wall of interlocked metal. They could still shoot him or go the way he’d gone though. Vil didn’t stopped running. He found the railroads and followed them until the sound of the metro cops voice distorters had disappeared.

The occasional train would pass by, notifying him of their presence with a droning horn. It had been a few hours since Vil had rested. He went away from the railway tracks to find decent shelter. He found an old railroad truck sitting nearly on its side some distance away from the rails. Better than nothing. Vil walked inside its walls and curled up into a ball.

A few hours later he was awoken by the feel of cold steel against his temple. His first thought was, “Oh shit, the metro cops tracked me down!” Two rebel fighters, one male and one female, were standing over him. The male holding a Sig Sauer P226 to his face, the female pointing a SPAS 12 at Vil’s gut. He spoke quickly and demandingly, “Who the hell are you? A metro cop spy? I swear to god, if you don’t tell me I’ll send your brains on a trip to the wall.”
“Relax, I’m not a spy. Far from it actually. Take that gun out of my face and I’ll explain.”
The male holstered his pistol and lent Vil a helping hand, which Vil took. He sat up against the wall of the railroad truck as the two rebels looked down on him. “I’m on the run. I killed about 6 of the bastards, the reason being that they decided to kill an innocent bartender.”
“Alright, I’ll believe you but I’m keeping my eye on you.”
“No need, I just want to be on my way, no doubt my picture will be plastered all over the cities and the cops’ll be on the prowl. With any luck they’ll overlook you two but if you’re seen with me, they won’t spare a thought before they put a bullet in your heads.”
The female raised her shotgun to Vil’s gut height, “Why don’t we waste you here and now and reap the reward.”
“You won’t do that, you’re just like me. You hate the metro cops, you’d never want to be their puppet.”
The female tensed her finger on the trigger and then eased it forward and lowered the gun, letting it hang lazily next to her leg, “Good answer,” she said with a grin.
“So you two have anything to pledge to a fugitive with nothing but his hands to defend himself with and his wits to help him survive.”
The male reached into his satchel and pulled out a flask of water and threw it over to Vil. “Well that solves my survival problem…somewhat.”
The male sighed and reached behind his back and took a metro cop issue Glock 20.
“Thanks, I’ll be on my way now.”
Vil grinned a satisfied grin and sprinted off.

Vil had been walking for about an hour and was close to the sea. He saw a metro cop checkpoint station coming up ahead of him. “Shit, how the hell can I get through?” There would be at least ten metro cops at the station, which was the mandatory minimum. He could see the metro cops standing guard. Cradling shotguns and looking around, not particularly alert for anything but keeping a close eye on the road ahead. No doubt Vil would be easy to spot if he got to close. He hadn’t nearly enough fire-power to take on all of them, but if he could take out the two at the front and get there weapons fast enough then perhaps. No, he wouldn’t be able to get close enough without them seeing him. Shit, there really wasn’t any way around it. Suddenly there sounded a droning horn. Vil looked up and realised that there was a railroad above him. He just had to scale the cliff without being seen. Now or never he thought. He searched for some foot and handholds and started climbing. About halfway up, he heard a crackling sound and the rocks near his body splintered and flew away from the cliff. They must have spotted him. Vil knew he couldn’t jump down, he’d break his leg and get killed or captured by the metro cops. Instead this sudden attack gave him further incentive to climb quicker. Scaling fast he pulled himself up over the cliff and ran, with the metro cop still firing at him. Vil started to follow the tracks quickly, the bullet’s closing in on him. Suddenly there came the shuffling sound of a cargo train and it came around the bend and into view of Vil. He kept running but let the train pass him. He grabbed onto one of the carriages near the middle and pulled himself up. The gun immediately ceased fire and the train sped away and the settlement got smaller and smaller.

Vil slumped against the containers on a flat truck. Enjoying the journey. He begun to think about where he was going, where he’d end up. He didn’t know the region he was in, bad for him because he didn’t know where any metro cop checkpoints were. Suddenly, interrupting his thoughts a metro cop deployment plane came screeching over head and flew low over the train allowing a load of metro cops to jump onto the roof of the train, there was ten in total. That checkpoint that he’d just escaped from must’ve filed a warning or something. They were looking for him and not just to say hi and have a cup of tea. Vil drew his pistol and stuck close to the side of the containers. There was a metro cop walking around right above him. Vil’s thoughts screamed at him, “Don’t look over, don’t look over!”. Sure enough the cop looked over the side, but Vil was quick. His hand reached out like a viper and he pulled the metro cop off the container and he landed on his back with a whump! Vil put his pistol up against the metro cops chin and pulled the trigger with no hesitation. Searched the body quickly and found some magazines for his pistol and took the cops mp5 and some spare clips for it. Then he rushed off to a different carriage.

Vil was in between two carriages, waiting for a metro cop to walk over him. As one did he pulled the trigger of his mp5 and a three-bullet burst tore into his leg. The metro cop buckled and fell in between the carriages and landed on the couplings. Vil sent his heel ramming into the metro cops head, slightly dazing him, then kicked the back of his head. The metro cop fell off the couplings and landed on the rails, less than a second later came a sickening slicing crunch as the metro cops legs were severed from his waist. Two other metro cops raced over to where they’d seen their comrade fall. The moment Vil saw them he pulled back the trigger and the metro cops violently convulsed and one fell over the side or the train, kicking up dust on impact. The other merely fell back. Vil climbed a ladder and peered over the carriages, seeing only 4 metro cops on the roof. The sound of a gun being cocked resounded in between the carriages. Vil saw the metro cop with is weapon aimed right at him. “Step down.” Vil stepped off the ladder and raised his hands. Another tight spot, how to get out of this one. The metro cop spoke to his comrades through his mask radio. They all responded with simultaneous affirmatives. “Hand me your weapons,” the metro cop demanded. Vil reached forward to give the metro cop his gun, and in the moment where the cop lowered his gun, Vil thrusted forwards with his whole body, knocking the metro cop off guard. He almost fell off but grabbed the side rail of the carriage and hung precariously with his feet dragging along the ground. Vil poked the muzzle of his mp5 against the metro cops temple and let loose a three round burst. The metro cops arm flew off the railing and his white face mask suddenly turned deep red. Two more metro cops had shown up and peered over the edge of the carriages, Vil spared no moment and blasted the metro cops to hell. Now with three metro cops left Vil travelled on the roofs of the carriages. As he was stalking a metro cop a sudden flash of sparks appeared all around Vil. He immediately stopped. The metro cop he was stalking suddenly turned around and aimed his weapon right at Vil. Vil released a long burst of rounds at the metro cop, who was twenty metres away. A few bursts of red re-assured Vil that the bullets had done the right job. He spun around and let one leg slip so as to lower his body and he fired another long burst of rounds towards the metro cop that had startled him before. Again, bursts of red sputtered from his body. One left over. Easy pickings. As Vil searched around for the last metro cop he heard a sudden clear bang and felt a searing pain in his left thigh. Vil’s leg buckled and he looked around frantically to find his assailant. Then he saw it. Standing about 40 metres away was a metro cop sniper. Chambering another round. Vil raised his mp5 and took careful aim. The few bullets he had left, about 5, escaped the muzzle and whistled through the air heading toward the sniper. Two managed to slam into his chest and one in his shoulder, that was plenty. The sniper was knocked backwards slightly and he fell off the train and rolled out onto the ground and out of sight. Vil suddenly tended to his wound. He pulled off his jacket and took off his singlet, he tied it tightly around his thigh. Hopefully the bleeding would stop within an hour. The train was going to be stopping soon, the brakes had sounded. Vil got off a fair way from the station. He painfully limped through a break in the large rock formations adjacent to the train.

He’d walked for a few minutes and didn’t know where in the world he was. As he was walking and tiring from the pain in his leg there was a sudden banging sound as two figures seemed to jump from the ground. Holding Colt Commando machine guns they inspected the intruder. A few seconds later they raised their machine guns away from Vil. “What’s your purpose?” One of them asked inquisitively. Vil croaked feebly, “I’m on the run from the metro cops and I’m injured. Please, lend me some help.”
The two people rushed forward and helped Vil into their bunker.

It had turned out that this was a rebel bunker. Vil lay on a comfortable infirmary bed while a female doctor inspected his wound, Vil winced and twitched a bit. “Come now. It can’t be that bad. What did you do to get this?” She spoke with British accent “Little bit of a scuffle with a metro cop sniper, lucky he wasn’t that good.”
“I take it that this was no chance encounter.”
“I’m on the run, the metro cops killed an innocent bartender, so I killed them.”
“I see, do you understand the risk we’re taking to keep you here?”
“Well, I figured you guys wouldn’t turn your backs on a fellow metro cop enemy. You know how that old saying goes, the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”
“Well I’d think you of all people would know how risky is to make friends these days.”
“All I know is to not make friends unless you need something. Besides, I don’t plan on taking up permanent residency.”
“That’s fine, but I suggest if anything you get some rest, I’ve treated your leg so you won’t get an infection and it should heal faster.”

Vil slept for the rest of the day and a few hours into the night. His wound was healing well, whatever that doctor had given him was working and working well. Vil got up and walked around. It had become very cold, especially when he was wearing nothing but tight hospital shorts. He still had to limp. He came out into a hallway where a few people were walking to and fro. Vil suddenly spotted the doctor. “Hey doc, where are my clothes?”
“We took them to be cleaned, but your pants are ruined, we had to cut them off you.”
“That’s okay, just as long as my jacket’s going to be fine, it holds certain…sentimental value.”
“It should be fine, follow me, they’re probably be dry now.”

Vil sat alone in the changing room. He’d been given mostly new clothes, a new pair of black pants, some military style boots and a baggy grew shirt. Vil had previously showered. He pulled on his clothes and walked out to greet the doctor. “I’ll need to be leaving now, I can’t express my gratitude for all you’ve done for me. But I still need one more favour. Guns, if I’m on the run I’ll need guns.”
The doctor sighed, “Follow me.”

Outside the gun locker there was a man sleeping in a chair. The doctor went over and shook him awake. “Wha! What’s happening”
“Calm down, the new guy needs some weaponry.”
“Okay fine, give me a second.” The man got up and punched in a code for the weapons locker.
“Help yourself.”
Vil stepped inside and browsed through the weapons. He picked out a holster attached to a belt, clipped it around his waist and picked out two Sig Sauer p226’s. Next up he grabbed a submachine gun, Deutsche DK5 and a 12 gauge SPAS 12 shotgun. With the machine gun slung under his arm and the shotgun resting against his back, Vil was ready to go. Suddenly an alarm sounded, the alarm was abruptly drowned out by the sound of a loud bang! “Shit!” The doctor exclaimed, “The metro cops must have found us.” Sure enough the metro cops had infiltrated the rebel bunker with all guns blazing. Screams of dying rebels echoed through the complex accompanied by the rattle of the metro cops MP5’s. “We have to get out of here,” the doctor screamed. “The thought had crossed my mind too.” The doctor pulled Vil along as behind them the sounds of machine gun fire seemed to be getting louder. Vil peered back and spotted them chasing after him and the doctor. He took his machine gun and fired back at them, seeing a few drop to the ground in a spray of red.

Vil and the doc reached a ladder and an open hatch, obviously some of the other staff had used it to escape. The doctor went first. As Vil was about to climb up a flurry or sparks assaulted the rungs, wall and floor around him. Vil spun around and dropped to his knees, letting loose a hail of bullets, slamming into the metro cops and pushing them back. Vil had used the entire clip and now started to quickly climbed the ladder. He climbed out and slammed the hatch down. The metro cops were thumping on it from the inside. Pushing it open, Vil drew one of his pistol’s and took point blanc potshots at the metro cops. Suddenly the hatch slammed down, crunching onto the unsuspecting hand of a metro cop. Vil spotted a slide on the hatch which could be used to lock it, it consisted of a metal slide the same shape as a ruler which would slide through an arc, holding the hatch secure. Vil slid it across and could hear the metro cops banging on it. He holstered his pistol and put a fresh clip in his machine gun. Vil had looked at his surroundings, he was on a large rock on the shore of the ocean. He grabbed the doctors hand and they both started running. As they had reached the road close to the sea a cracking explosion sounded behind them. They looked back to see the metro cop climb through the hatch that they’d just blown off it’s hinges. Guns firing the metro cops chased after Vil and the doctor. They both ran down the road. They couldn’t outrun the metro cops. Suddenly Vil spied a small jeep like vehicle. Inside sat a dead rebel, bullet holes in his face and chest and a shattered windscreen in front of him. Judging by the state of the body the car could quite possibly be in working condition. “Can you hotwire that thing?”
“I’m a doctor not a car thief!”
“Fine, take this.” Vil handed the Doc his machine gun. “I’m judging someone in a rebel outpost would know how to use one.”
“I’ll try my best.”
The doctor pulled back the trigger and let a spray of bullets assault the metro cops. Suddenly the car engine roared to life. Vil pushed the body out. “No room for you buddy.” The doctor got in the passenger seat and Vil pressed the accelerator down hard. The car went speeding away.

“Oh shit,” Vil cursed in frustration, “we’re coming up on a checkpoint.”
“We’ll just have to ram through.”
Vil sped up and as they were coming up on the checkpoint they both ducked. A wave of sentry gunfire tore into the car’s hood. Two metro cops stood firing at the car. Vil didn’t stop for them. He plowed through them and they bounced off the car leaving small blood splatters on the torn hood. They were clear of the checkpoint now but still under attack from the sentry gun. They had no idea how long ranged it was. But they soon rounded a corner and the fire halted. Vil kept driving for a few more miles. He skidded to a halt off the road. It would be safer to travel off the road. They’d probably been reported as in a car so the metro cops would be keeping main focus on the roads and checkpoints.

Night had fallen. Vil and the doctor whose name was actually Elle Winters continued to travel, Vil insisting that the night was safer. “So,” said Elle to break the silence, tell me your story.”
“I can tell you what I know. About a year and a half ago the floor in my apartment that I was assigned to dwell in was raided. Someone decided to hide some illegal substances in there, organic foods not the artificial shit the metro cops give you. Well, they found out somehow, the floor was raided, people I know well were beaten within an inch of their life, others were lucky and actually died, then there were the ones too scared for their own safety and took their lives.” Vil paused as if contemplating what to tell and what not to. “I killed some, 2 or 3 maybe. Then as I turned around to either run or kill more of them I copped a stun baton to the face. I’m surprised you didn’t comment on the scars around my eye. I lost 46% of my eyesight in that eye. Anyway, the metro cop knocked me out. I awoke, must have been several hours after the incident, I was far away. Lying on a shore no recollection of anything before the floor getting raided and even then it was hazy. But the strangest thing, a note. Written in fine handwriting, it read: Your name is Vil, don’t forget it. I lost track of the note as I trekked back to the city. It’s funny how there was no mention of the happenings. But I just drifted around after that, seeking nothing but refuge. Don’t have much other purpose to go on living now, except survival and protecting you.”
“Protecting me?”
“Yeah, can’t let a pretty nurse go walking around by herself now can I? The metro cops would have a bullet in your head before you reached the next city. To tell you the truth they’d try doing it to me as well, only difference is that I’d put a bullet in their heads first.”
“Hm, well, your story was interesting. But I won’t bore you with my tale.”
Vil and Elle walked cautiously through the rocky landscape. About 100 feet away they spotted a light flashing towards the sky in a cone shape. It stood out immensely in the midnight gloom. Vil readied his submachine gun. “Let’s check it out.”

The glow was coming from a rebel bunker, with a hatch entry. A fluorescent green X had been marked on the underside of the hatch. “Damn, a metro cop hit,” Vil said gloomily. A metro cop hit was when the metro cops raided rebel bunkers and killed all those found, hits were always marked with green fluorescent pen in the shape of an X. “There’s no smoke coming from the hole so I’d say it’s been long since deserted,” Vil said glumly. Vil and Elle climbed down the ladder and what awaited them was a horrible site. Bodies of rebels and metro cops were strewn and sprawled around the complex. Blood was everywhere, on the walls and floor, trails and splatters. But something wasn’t right. These bodies weren’t beaten or shot, they were absolutely mutilated. The bodies torn limb from limb and faces contorted in their last expression of gruesome agony. “The metro cops didn’t do this. This was the work of something else,” said Vil.
“What could’ve done this, this slaughter?”
Vil raised his machine gun, “I don’t know but if it’s still here we want to keep our wits about us.”
Vil and Elle proceeded to explore the desolate complex. It was a slaughter house all the way through. They found the kitchen and Vil almost tore the cupboard doors from their hinges. He finally found some boxes and tins of food. He grabbed a kitchen knife and hastily stabbed into a tin of tomato soup. He drank it in one wig, stone cold. Next he cut away the top of a box of crackers and scoffed them down, handful after handful. Elle just watched on like a mother experiencing the mess her child has made of its room. Vil threw away the box and looked at her. “Want something, it’s on the house,” Vil said dead-pan. Elle started to slowly munch away at a bag of crisps. Vil left the room. Returning shortly afterwards with a small side back. He took a few boxes of crackers, some tins of soup and some bottles of water and stashed them in the bag. “One for the road.” Elle discarded the bag of putrid crisps. Vil left outside the kitchen, she followed.

As they were walking down a sparking corridor, staring, dumb founded at the blood splattered walls, a hand reached out from a hole in the wall and grabbed Elle’s ankle. She let out a small and shrill shriek. Vil immediately spun around and hastily kicked the hand out of it’s grip on Elle’s ankle. The hand belonged to a metro cop, he dragged himself out a little from the hole. His helmet cracked and his eye showing. Vil stood and stared at the scene. He always thought about what was under a metro cop’s uniform, he’d never stuck around to find out. It squeaked through its broken voice modulator, “Kill me, ki---ll me n—ow.” Vil knelt down and grabbed the metro cops head and twisted it violently. The bones letting off a reassuring crack and splinter. Vil stared at the eye of the metrocop, stared into its deep ghastly stare. It almost shimmered. Wait a second, it was shimmering. The metrocops body violently shuddered and with a scraping of steel it was rampantly pulled through the hole it originally crawled from. Inside there could be heard a sickening chewing sound. It all ended with a splinter of bone and a horrifying battle cry. Like a deep throaty growl amplified ten times. “Let’s get the fuck out of here, now!” Vil got up and grabbed Elle’s wrist. He pulled her along and they eventually saw the exit hatch.

They climbed out into a sort of pit, a man made makeshift pit. Rocks piled up as a wall for a defense against metrocops. The duo jumped out of the hatch and hit the wall. As they were diving for the rocks Vil swore he heard a whistling sound combined with a blunt whumpf. Vil shrugged it off, thinking that in the fear of the escape his mind had just run away with him. He looked out over the rocks and peered at his surroundings. Cliff faces lined the horizon and curved around to a point that Vil could not see. “Okay Elle, on my count we’re going to run across the rocks and make our way to the cliff faces. You okay with that?” Vil waited for her response. “Elle, I said are you okay with that?” Vil looked over at her and saw her head rested on the rocks. “What the he—?“ Vil’s inquisition was abruptly halted, he pulled her back by her shoulder and the sight that beheld him was a depressing one. Lodged in Elle’s forehead was a bolt, a 12 inch long bolt had penetrated Elle’s skull and ruptured her brain. She was dead. Vil sat back and looked at the scene. Then he started to think, who uses arrows? He looked out along the cliff faces and glimpsed a black shadow looking thing. Then suddenly it dawned on him. The metro cops had deployed their assassin units to hunt him down. Five more arrows whistled through the air and spliced into the rocks. Lodged in tight. Vil weighed up his options, the cliff face idea was gone, the only safe place to go now is the hatch. Vil spared no more thought as he dived down.

The dive was rough, he’d hit his head on a rather large pipe as he flew down. Blood flowed steadily from the small gash left by his collision. Still, he knew he couldn’t stop; the assassins weren’t ones whose paths should be crossed, for whatever reason. He got to his feet and through blurred vision began running. He was all over the place, he could hear the assassins tailing, not like the metrocops would though, they were tracking him, not just blindly following into the unknown. His vision cleared up soon. They were still in pursuit but at least this way Vil could give himself a fighting chance. Although he greatly underestimated the Assassins. As he rounded a corner he saw two of them, one of them raised his crossbow, aimed low, fired. The slender bolt whistled through the air and with a sickening splicing sound it had lodged itself in Vil’s leg. He buckled over. The bolt had gone through one side and was poking out the other. Vil made no sound; he just cringed and kept running. The assassins followed. They were close behind. Vil ran and frantically looked around for a means of hiding. As he was running he noticed a ladder leading into the crawlspaces of the roof. He climbed up as quickly as he could, his leg throbbing terribly. He looked down and noticed blood on the floor, the pressure he’d put on his bad leg had made it bleed more. Tell tale signs that he was up there. Luckily he found a body lying in the crawlspaces, it’s face was badly mutilated and he couldn’t make out any sort of description. He put the body over the ladder so its mutilated visage would peek out over the ladder; hopefully the assassins would think it was his blood and not Vil’s.

The assassins walked by and spotted the blood, one of them sneered. Until he saw the body, then his sneer turned into a frustrated growl and he sent an arrow into the bodies face. This was the first time the assassins had lost their game, worse still, this game was wounded.

Vil sat in the shadows of the crawlspace. He snapped the head of the arrow off and had to stifle a pained growl. Then he gently eased the bolt out of his leg. He opened his flask of water and poured some in, hopefully this would serve to clean the wound up, a bit. He ruffled around in his pockets for something to crudely bandage the wound with. He found some bandages that had been given to him by Elle, before the metro cops hit the rebel bunker. Without a thought he’d stashed them in his large pockets and forgot about them through all the commotion. He hurriedly tied the bandage firmly around the wound. Then he sat back and panted, this battle was going to be a bitch. The metrocops were on thing, but assassins on the other hand were trackers, trained hunters and killers. Rumors circulate throughout the drunkards of the inner city and those who dare speak of the metro cops freely, mostly rumors about their existence. Vil thought if he was lucky enough he could just sit up in the darkness and blow them away one by one without them being none the wiser. They could be in the crawlspace on the other side of the bunker and already know where Vil was. They were great that way. Vil’s best bet was to make a break for it; even then odds were stacked up against so high that death was certain. Fuck it, he thought. He was dead either way and if so he would go down with as many of them as he could. He climbed down and held his SMG out in front of him.

The assassins patrolled in packs of two’s. Usual behavior for them. One of them spied a leg moving through a large hole in the wall. They moved quickly. One of them handed his crossbow to the other and withdrew a fierce looking dagger. He got on his chest and commando crawled through until his head and shoulders weren’t visible through the opaque grey of the concrete. “This place is dark, really dark. I can hear a sort of hissing sound, it may be a boiler room but I can’t be sure. It’s not that hot in here.” Suddenly a snarling sound was heard, it sounded like it was right in front of the crawling assassins face. On the other side the second assassin looked inquisitively down. With no warning though, the first assassin’s body was torn through the wall, his body gashed on the concrete. Sickening ripping sounds and screams of agony were heard from the hole. Then it stopped, whatever was through that hole, looked through at the other assassin, his face turned ghostly pale.

Vil heard a blood curdling scream that made his own run cold as ice. Whatever was happening now, he was to be no part of it. He limped as fast as he could, his vision darting frantically to and fro. All of a sudden, assassin, aiming. Before Vil could even surmise that he was there a large amphibian looking arm with fierce, sinister looking claws, it swiped down from a jagged hole in the cooling ducts and snapped the assassin upwards with a horrid cracking sound. Vil tried to run but was entranced with the horror he’d just witnessed. Random, ragged slabs of gore would clumsily spill from the hole as the assassins agonized screams echoed through the thick stone walls. Vil ran forth, gun blazing, puncturing the cooling duct. He slid along the floor and slammed his shoulder into the wall. He stood silently. Behind him, about 50 metres away stood an assassin, looking desperately around for the assailant. Without warning, a blur of murky green, like a flash, and a scream from the assassin. Vil snapped around. He saw nothing. Then the torn body of the assassin was slapped against the ground. The body beheaded and torn the shreds. Vil didn’t wait to be entranced this time. He took off again.