Terminal

Chapter 14

I'm used to changing. Just not this much.

A month passes. I've stayed in Phantoms, working with patrols and squadrons, completing bombing raids. It was almost the same as before, but now I was with more people. Ren wouldn't dream of making me his advisor, but he still ranked me relatively high, allowing me to be in control of a few things. Hattori was actually now a higher rank than me, but I didn't really care. It was an endless cycle of killing and hate. I tried to make myself respect Ren more, but I never was able to. I mainly helped with support and reconnaissance. Things were looking bad? I was put in. Unable to locate a target? There's me again. I wasn't in action as much as I used to, but I didn't entirely mind.

Hattori walks up to me. "Hey Akira."

"Heyo."

"Do you uh, want to help me out with this one mission?"

"Hm?" I turn towards him. "What's it about?" Hattori pulls out some papers and shows them to me. "The layout's all funny." I stare at them.

"What do you mean, funny?" I took the pencil out of his hand, along with one of the papers, and put it against the wall, scribbling on it. I hand the paper back to him. "It looks rather simple to me."

Hattori glances at me weird, and looks down. He shrugs. "Well that makes a lot more sense now... kinda."

"Do you want me to explain it to you?"

"Uhhhh..."

"I'll take that as a yes." I start ranting. "This particular city is equipped with SAM missiles, which are protected by force fields. The generators are close to the center, fortified heavily with turrets, which are then reinforced by snipers distributed throughout. Therefore in order to bypass this, there'll need to be an infantry team to take out said snipers, but that leaves... Hold on. You guys have any EMP's? Cause that'll just make everything easier, however the radius needs to be rather large, or they'll just be ineffective, unless there are multiple stationed throughout. However, we can't use aircraft until the missiles are disabled, so the EMP's will have to be activated on foot, so nonetheless, there'll need to be an infantry unit for the snipers, and then to prevent excess alarm, the EMP's will need to be activated immediately, and then there needs to be a unit prepared to bomb the city immediately afterwards, as I assume that there will be people working on restoring everything back to normal-"

"Aki, do you just want to come instead?" Hattori looks at me dumbly, having zoned out, and looked very confused.

"Yeah sure. If you could just ask for permission for me to join.

"Okay. Well uh..." He scratches his neck. "I'll see you later. Bye."

"See ya." As soon as he was out of earshot, I let out a laugh. He looked so confused, as most people do during my rants. It was kinda hilarious. I head off to the armory, preparing myself. I pack light, not needing much. Besides, as much as I knew armour could save my life in the end, I hated wearing it. It made me feel heavier, weighed down to the ground. As for weapons, I would be working from afar. I trusted people with technology more than I trusted people with people, so I would be the one mainly helping out with the snipers. I grab a semi-automatic rifle, stashed two daggers on my back, and called it good. I went off to the hangar to meet Hattori. Around five minutes later, he appears, giving me a thumbs up.

"You can come," Hattori says, letting out a small "yay". I smile at him.

"It's gonna be hard."

"Eh." He shrugs. "We're used to doing hard things."

"Well good." I board the plane with him, along with a few other people, and sigh. "Here goes nothing." The plane lifts off, shooting forwards, accompanied by a few other planes. It stays silent the whole time, approaching the city rapidly. I grab my rifle, and stand up, heading towards the back.

"Akira, what are you doing?" Hattori asks. The door opens, and I approach the edge.

"Just trust me on this, and stick to the plan." I smile and with a quick salute, I jump off. Air rushes at me, chilling me a bit but I didn't care, and I savored the few, brief moments of peace I had. I didn't have a parachute, but I wasn't worried. I bring the rifle to my shoulder, looking down the scope, trying to pick out someone in the distance. I aim slowly, and pull the trigger. The shot fires. Even for me, I would be a bit lucky to hit the shot. I don't waste more time, looking for another person to shoot at. I aim once more, and fired another shot. The ground was approaching rather fast, and I click my heels together. I start to slow, partially heading forwards. I fire one last shot, and then focused on landing. My descent speed decreases, and I finally land, rolling. The blue glow from my boots fade. I slung the rifle back over my back, and heard more gunshots in the distance. Seems that things are going fine. I quickly scale a wall, swinging the rifle back into ready position, and fired off another shot. I start heading towards the center, needing to meet up with everyone else. Course, that wasn't the easiest thing in the world. I jump across a building, and right as I do so, a bullet hits the concrete next to me, leaving a small dent. I whirl around, trying to find the sniper. I roll to the side, barely avoiding another shot, and aim, finally locating him. He was ready to fire when I wasn't. I reach behind my back, grabbing a dagger and throwing it forwards. He shoots, but I had timed it right, so his shot hits the dagger instead. It spins to the ground, and I fire back at him. I smile, a bit satisfied by the small hesitation he had as he collapses to the ground. I jump off the roof, digging my other dagger into the wall to slow myself, and started sprinting towards the center. Bursts of light hit my eye. The EMP's were activated. Good. Everything was on track then. I heard more gunshots, and almost walked into a barrage of bullets. Geesh. An explosion sounds to my left, around the same place where the gunshots seemed to originate, and said gunshots stopped immediately afterwards. I peek around the corner, finding some of the squadron I was with earlier. I quickly saluted, and they saluted back. There wasn't much left now except to get out. Footsteps sound behind me, and glancing behind my shoulder, the rest of the squad appeared, Hattori at the front.

"How did things go on your end?" I ask.

"Worked perfectly. You did a good job Aki." I smile at him, and he turns around, discussing something to his group that I didn't really care about. I watched, waiting for Hattori to finish so we could leave when I noticed a little red dot on the side of his head. My smile fades, and I quickly pull my rifle out, running towards him.

"Hattori!" I yell, and he turns around. The second he sees me, worry covers his face. He starts to speak when dark crimson blossoms from the side of his head. "No!" I scream. Hattori collapses to the ground, and I throw my rifle to the side, catching him in my arms.

"M-m-" he sputters out. I put a finger to his lips.

"Shush, save your energy." He ignores me.

"M-m-mom?" he rasps out, slipping into unconsciousness. There was a brief moment of shock as I looked up at everyone else.

"What are you idiots j-just doing standing there? Get him on a fucking plane and get him back to base!" A group of people approached, taking Hattori out of my arms, and I'm left on my knees. I start to shake uncontrollably, and try to stand up, but I almost fall back down immediately, saved by someone grabbing me.

"It's going to be okay," he says, supporting me on him. He says some other things, but I didn't hear any of it. When someone says it's going to be okay, it almost always means that it's not.