"Anything yet?" Frigid Night asked the Stalliongrad Assassin as he spied the area with his eagle sense.
"Nyet, Frigid. Don't rush me," Trueshot replied as he looked around through his sniper scope. "I will let you know if I see anyone."
"What's the rush, Frigid?" Glimpse patted his shoulder. "The demo team needs time. We'll just have to wait and see what the Templars do. As soon as we get the signal, we'll create a good distraction!"
"Do you think she's here, Glimpse?" Frigid asked the pink haired woman. "She worked with you for a while. Do you think she'll be here?"
"I'm not too sure, Frigid..." Glimpse shook her head. "She was always a hard one to read. I hope she's here. She's got a lot coming. I'm sorry; I know you two were close."
"No, it's fine, Glimpse." Frigid fidgeted with his knife belts. "She betrayed us. We have to do what we have to do, and I'm going to be the one to end it."
"Good resolve, kid," Trueshot said from the edge of the roof. "The show's about to start. Get yourselves ready, you two."
Frigid and Glimpse joined him by the edge, looking down as a group of Templars arrived in a black van. They were mostly scientists, each one wearing a white lab coat. Two guards flanked their sides, carrying SMGs in their hands, dressed fully in black.
"Ready?" Trueshot asked as he aimed his barrel towards a guard.
Before he could pull the trigger, a bullet drilled itself into the cement just under his gun, sending a puff of dust up into the air.
"Sniper!" Trueshot hissed as all three Assassins crouched down behind the parapet.
“My, my. You’ve grown lazy, Trueshot. You've gotta pay more attention if you don't want to die early,” a voice chirped in their earpieces. "Nice to see you up and about... Friggy."
The others turned to Frigid. Only one person out there called him 'Friggy'. His expression immediately changed to one of anger.
"Mirror Match!" he said through his teeth. Somehow she had gotten access to their comms.
"Sorry it had to turn out this way, Friggy, but I've got a mission, and nothing's stopping me."
"Do you see her?" Glimpse popped her head out from her cover to look before being chased back by another bullet.
Trueshot peeked out, only to duck back down when another bullet hit the parapet. “No, but she’s got a semi-auto out there, so she’ll have more than one bullet ready to fire. We can’t risk running until we get her position.”
“So what do we do?” Glimpse asked impatiently. “We’ve got a job to do. We can’t just sit here all night.”
“I’ll go around,” Frigid suggested, keeping low as he headed to the roof’s ladder. “Keep her busy. I’ll get around and take her down. She must be on the plant’s building.”
“Too risky, Frigid,” Trueshot shook his head. “We don’t know her exact location.”
“Well, you have a better plan?” Frigid shot back before hopping down the ladder to the lower platform. “Just distract her! I’ll do what I can.”
“He’s right,” Glimpse pointed over the parapet. “This is better than no plan. Let’s find her, Trueshot. At least that’ll make things easier for the guy.”
Glimpse and Trueshot moved to opposite sides of the parapet, continuing to look out for Mirror Match. They focused their eagle sense, taking in the surroundings ahead. Four other buildings stood around the plant, each one full of objects for a sniper to hide behind.
"Wrong direction, Trueshot," Mirror Match taunted before another bullet punctured a pipe above his position. “That’s your last warning shot. Take your Assassins and go home, or I start shooting for keeps.”
"Got a flashlight, Glimpse?" Trueshot asked his friend. "I mean, I figured all you Raiders had lots of gadgets."
"That's not how it works, but I do have one. I always do." The female Assassin pulled it out. "What do you want me to do? Shine it around?"
"Of course."
Glimpse popped her flashlight over the cement wall and clicked it on, panning the light across the space ahead. It’s powerful beam sliced across the air, lighting up objects on the other building. That’s when Trueshot saw it. A little fleeting glimmer of light, quickly disappearing behind a water pipe.
“Found her,” he nodded, his words telling Glimpse to turn off her light and get back behind cover.
Not a moment too soon, for as soon as Glimpse had gotten herself behind the parapet, a bullet ripped through the fabric of her hood and buried itself into the floor behind them.
“Oh gosh, that was close.” She threw herself flat and patted the smoking hole in her hood.
“Everything alright?” Trueshot called over as he brought his sniper back up and rested the barrel on the parapet.
“If you stay here, I can guarantee you it won’t be…” The voice on the radio growled. Glimpse twiddled the dial, but all the channels had been hijacked. They had no way of communicating with the other teams.
Trueshot caught sight of a scarlet blur, darting out from behind the pipes and moving to another set. He fired off three shots, each one closer to the ex-Assassin as she ran, but none found their mark. She leaned out from her new piece of cover and fired back, augering a new groove into the retaining wall. It also gave Trueshot a better look at her weapon.
It was a slim-built rifle with a squarish wooden stock, its barrel and body customized so extensively that Trueshot couldn’t quite ascertain the complete workings. But one thing was for certain, it looked a whole lot heavier and longer, which meant the bullets coming at them would be too. Suppressed, of course. Otherwise they’d have been able to locate her by sound.
They exchanged shots for a few more minutes, neither one gaining the upper hand, then Trueshot noticed something. There was a tall barrel close to where Mirror was hiding, painted a flaky red and blending in quite nicely with the shadows. Perhaps it was extra gasoline for the vehicles, or the generators; Trueshot didn’t really care.
“I got you now, you minx,” He shifted his aim a fraction and fired.
The bullet left his gun and streaked across the expanse, striking the barrel dead center. A lick of flame sprouted at the point of contact, Mirror Match whisking her head around just in time to see the barrel explode into a roaring fireball. The ex-Assassin vaulted over her piece of cover as the blast tore it apart, firing twice from her hip as she did so. The bullets pinged past Trueshot and tore apart a fire extinguisher, flooding their position with opaque gas.
Trueshot felt his jaw drop. “She did not just do that.”
“Lucky shot,” Glimpse told him, trying to see past the smoke that had formed. “I mean, there’s no way her aim could be that true. I mean, even you couldn’t do that. No offense.”
“We have to move,” Trueshot ordered. “While she can’t see us. Otherwise we’re dead meat.”
Both Assassins sprinted through the gas toward an air conditioning unit that looked defensible. On the way Trueshot tried to keep an eye out for any movement in the distance and was rewarded with the sight of a swish of red fabric darting behind an air vent.
Trueshot positioned himself at the corner of the machinery, placing his rifle sideways as he waited for Mirror Match to pop out. The girl leaned out and fired as Trueshot fired off two shots. He managed to get one through her cloak, but none of them managed to hit her at all. Mirror’s bullet whizzed past the Stalliongrad Assassin’s head, narrowly missing his ear as it disappeared into the unknown behind them.
“Not bad, my friend, but you’re going to have to do better than that unless you feel like getting a free facial piercing.” This statement was punctuated by a bullet tearing past his belt and cutting open one of his spare ammo pouches. Magazines clattered onto the rooftop and out into the open.
"Is she serious?" Trueshot looked down at his torn pouch with disbelief. That was no lucky shot.
Glimpse was unfazed. “Yeah, but so are we. Come on, Trueshot. You can beat her.”
The Assassin nodded and checked his current magazine before leaning out again. Mirror Match had plenty of tricks and skills up her sleeves, but so did he. Trueshot eyed the power plant through his scope, waiting for an opportunity to fire. He clicked the fire selection on his gun and waited. He still had one trick Mirror didn't have.
"Come on, Mirror Match. Come out."
Thirty seconds later, a familiar rifle and face peeked out from a stack of crates, lining up another shot. Trueshot’s finger curled around the trigger of his rifle, sending a volley of full metal jackets at his foe. He smiled as he saw Mirror duck and cover; while his gun wasn’t the most powerful piece of hardware on the field, its ability to go fully automatic was something he was sure Mirror’s rifle couldn’t compete with.
“What’s the matter, traitor?” Glimpse sneered into the radio. “Can’t keep up?”
Mirror was silent, the only noise being a series of metallic sounding clicks from the other end. It almost sounded like she was reloading, only Trueshot knew there was no way it took that long to change mags. Something else was going on here.
Trueshot peered into his scope. As if on cue, Mirror Match popped up once more and he readied himself to fire again, but then something caught his attention. There was something different about her rifle. Had there been that thing under her barrel a minute ago? It was small and compact and had a tube on the front, almost like a…
“Votder-” Trueshot grabbed his partner and dived just as a grenade shredded the air conditioning unit.
Bits of metal and plastic flew in all directions as the heat of the explosion blew past them. Trueshot and Glimpse turned their faces away to avoid the debris and heat. They recovered and sprinted to some wooden pallets that had been stacked vertically against the railings.
“A grenade launcher on top of all that?!” Glimpse’s hair was singed and a bit of her sleeve was on fire. “Are you kidding me here?”
Trueshot was inclined to agree with her; this was getting ridiculous. Next thing, they’d be hiding from Templars in a metal drum like in those Wooden Cog games that seemed so popular among kids these days. They had to end this before Mirror pulled something else from her hat like an airstrike, or worse.
Trueshot looked through the wooden pallets and fired back. It wasn't the best of cover, especially not when their opponent had a grenade launcher. Somehow he had caught Mirror by surprise, watching as blood spurted from a wound in her shoulder.
“Time to finish this, you vixen.” Trueshot lined the crosshairs up on Mirror’s forehead and steadied himself for the killshot.
“I quite agree. This has gone on long enough.”
Trueshot fired his weapon, the recoil kicking the stock into his shoulder, but the bullets sliced through thin air, for Mirror Match was no longer there. He hadn’t even seen her move; one moment she had been there, the next moment she had simply disappeared in a blur of red.
"What?" Trueshot turned to Glimpse. "Did you see that?" He squinted through his scope again, looking for the traitor, but she was nowhere in sight. "Where are you, you...?"
"Trueshot!"
The warning came too late as two bullets cut through the pallet, splintering the wood as they found their targets: both of Trueshot's arms. Another two rounds were fired, somehow finding themselves to Trueshot's legs and burrowing through his flesh.
"Agh! What...?" Trueshot muttered as he fell, his sniper rifle clattering to the floor beside him. Mirror Match had skillfully bounced two bullets off the walls and into his legs.
All four of his limbs burned as he tried to move them, but this was it. He was out of action for the rest of the fight.
Glimpse tried to help him stand, but he couldn't maintain enough strength to do so, falling back to his belly.
"You best stay lying down, comrade," Mirror taunted across the radio. Trueshot could almost see her smile in her words.
"She couldn't... have gotten this good in such a short time," Trueshot grunted as Glimpse flipped him over. "Glimpse, you've got to take over. Buy that kid some more time."
Glimpse reluctantly picked up his rifle, examining the gun and the way it worked.
"You think you can best me, Glimpse? I've already beaten your bureau's best sniper. What do you hope to do? You might as well bring him back to base before he bleeds out."
She turned to Trueshot again to see what he wanted.
"Take her down," he gasped.
Glimpse nodded and fired over the ruined pallet, spraying the bullets and following as Mirror Match dashed from her piece of cover behind another generator. Glimpse's bullets broke any glass the generator had at its front, sending sparks and glass fragments across the floor.
"I warned you, Glimpse," Mirror said as another metallic sound was heard over their earpieces. She was reloading again but this time, Trueshot didn't hear a magazine click back into place.
Is she emptying her rifle?
"Glimpse, do you see her?" Trueshot asked as he propped his body up against the parapet. He had pulled out his emergency first aid kit and began pulling the bullets out, grunting whenever he got one out.
"I did," Glimpse replied as she grabbed a new magazine off the floor and loaded it into the gun. "She's behind a generator over there."
“Last chance,” Mirror’s voice growled over the radio. Was the signal being distorted, or did it suddenly sound like there were two people speaking at once? Glimpse blocked out Mirror Match’s words and took aim. She wasn’t as skilled as Trueshot, but she figured with enough bullets, she would hit her mark eventually.
Mirror Match popped up again and Glimpse fired, Trueshot’s rifle spitting bullets at their target. Glimpse kept firing until the gun clicked empty, but just as she ducked back from behind cover there was a sound of breaking glass and something jolted her hands and stung her face. She looked down, praying she hadn’t been hit.
To the horror of both Assassins, Trueshot’s rifle was now covered in a thin film of vile green liquid which was eating away at the metal, corroding and warping it beyond all usability. Glimpse threw it to the floor, where the acid ate through the barrel and receiver completely. She wiped a few drops off her face and winced.
“Game, set, and match. I believe I win this one.” The radio crackled once more then went silent.
"I'm sorry, Trueshot." Glimpse pulled off her coat as parts of it began to corrode.
"It's fine," Trueshot said through gritted teeth as he tied off a roll of bandage around an arm. "But are you alright?"
"It hurts, but I'll make it," she sighed, rubbing at her face. Trueshot noticed a few burn marks, the first layer of skin melted off where the droplets of acid had touched.
"It's all up to Frigid now," Trueshot put a hand to his earpiece. "Frigid. We're out of action. Mirror Match is all yours."
"Yes, Friggy. Come to me," Mirror laughed into the radio. "Show me what you've got!"