Sigma/Star: Aftermath

Chapter 142: The Search Begins

Porter's chest heaved as he stopped to catch his breath. He quickly glanced back over his shoulder, checking around the corner for any of his prior pursuers. It was emptiness. Just an alleyway between glass towers. For now at least.

Sigma had vanished within seconds. The android had confidence that Porter could be fine and just used his own speed to disappear when needed. Porter was used to it though. The two had an agreement anyways, since Sigma could always find his brother, but Porter couldn't say the same. If one of the two was going to get caught, let it not be the one who could rescue the other from anywhere.

The men chasing Porter all appeared to be affiliated with the Dalarcian government. That was somewhat odd, since Dalarcya hadn't been as heavily affected by the Breach and certainly hadn't been a target of uprising from Porter back during his old declaration of war against his home government. It was better not to listen to their explanations though. It was always better to run.

The White Storm was outside the city though, a fair distance away from Mantos to keep it safe. It stuck out like a sore thumb in this country, where the Goliaths were so uniquely different, so it was best to keep it hidden whenever possible. It just left Porter in a very inconvenient state now when he needed to bail as quickly as possible.

Assumptions had to be made. The hotel they had been staying at would be compromised, there was no question of that. Any of the places he had frequented were unavailable if they were being tracked or watched. And Porter didn't have any friends he could call upon within Mantos. It was just him and Sigma.

So he needed to choose now. Run in circles until he found a way to lose everyone involved, try to find Sigma and hope he would risk flying them out, or make a break for his battlesuit. None of them were incredibly appealing since they all involved a lot of running, and that just wasn't something he was interested in doing more.

Porter slid down slightly along the wall, pressing into it as he tried to rest a bit and clear his mind to think. He could hear some shouting around the corner but he didn't flinch. They didn't know where he was yet, and if they did, they would be keeping quiet about it. They certainly had a communication system between them all. Government agents wouldn't go into pursuit like this without the proper equipment.

"Check alleys, fan out." Porter sighed as the command floated by between the voices. He still wasn't going to move. The last time he had experienced this, it was a decoy, a trap to try and get him to move again so they could track him. They could easily be doing scans for motion. If this really was the government, ships would be overhead shortly, sweeping for life signatures between the buildings. Then again, maybe they wanted to keep this contained.

A pebble moved into Porter's vision. It had been kicked. He heard the crunch of a boot coming down on the dirt on the ground. Maybe they really were fanning out properly. But if that was true, it meant this was just a one on one. One on ones were good. Porter liked those.

The youth reached around the corner, grabbing onto the man's skull. He threw his leg out as well and yanked forwards as hard as he could, tripping up the soldier and flipping him, letting him slam down onto his back. Porter didn't hesitate to deliver a finishing blow, knocking the man out with a swift kick to the temple. No risk involved. That was part of Reaver's old teachings.

Porter flexed slightly, rotating his arm around his shoulder. It felt like he had pulled something at first but it seemed to be passing. That was always rough. The last time he had dislocated his shoulder had been in a sparring match with Sigma. He was pretty certain his brother had intentionally wrenched it out though to prove a point about openings. But you were always exposed against someone who could calculate every possible angle of attack in a nanosecond.