Chapter 69: Chapter Sixty-Nine: Bickering
Ying, Alex and Vivi burst through a metal door leading to the roof of a three-story, unmarked, building. Looking panicked and hurried, Ying looks around the roof before running towards the edge of the rooftop to the east side of the building, activates some buff magic and jumps off of the roof. Vivi and Alex follow behind her and the jump off with Ying, land roughly and roll onto a three-story parking complex barely shorter than the building they were just on. When they look back at the roof they had just jumped from, they see soldiers looking off of the edge and pointing down at the three of them. Some soldiers storm off back inside the building they're standing on as others pull out a radio and report the situation with Ying and the others. The soldiers they were running from were all wearing United Kingdoms uniforms. Ying, Alex and Vivi ran across the top floor of the parking complex, when suddenly, more soldiers climbed up the side of the building, onto their level. These soldiers were more drones, in the black uniforms with the now mostly drained endo pipes. Their movements looks jagged as if their body was either falling apart or they were exerting too much energy for every movement. Their tenacity befitting the word "zombie".
The three of them, looking tired, turn towards their left and begin running towards an elevator for the parking complex. The drones chased after them as the sounds of a helicopter approaching could be heard. They reach the elevator before the drones could catch up, and when Ying presses the button to call the elevator, the button does not light up. Ying presses it again rapidly, then bangs her fists on the metal doors. "Cover me!" Ying yells to Alex and Vivi. "I think they cut the power!"
"Cut the power!?" Alex asks. "How smart are these things!? I didn't even know they could think!"
"Apparently, they can think and more!" Vivi yells as she pulls out two handguns from the inside of her jacket. "Get ready!"
Alex takes out his shotgun shaped impact gun and shoots the first drone that gets close. The first drone ran and jumped at Alex as if trying to tackle him to the ground. The moment the drone came within range, he was sent back with Alex's gun, and tumbled violently across the cement ground. "There's never an end to these guys!" Alex calls out. "Once one finds you, expect them to come forever unless you can run!"
"Give me a second on that!" Ying yells as she pries the elevator doors open. "Trying to get us out of here!"
"We'll need a car or something!" Vivi adds as she shoots at the incoming waves of drones. "Can you go on ahead while we hold them off? One of these cars gotta be able to be hotwired!"
"Fat chance!" Ying replies. "But I'll try! It's the only chance we have!"
After Ying jumps down the elevator shaft alone, Vivi and Alex keep their backs to the now opened doors of the elevator and keep fighting off the waves of drones. However, they noticed an attack helicopter coming around a nearby tower in the distance, and it was looking right at them. "We have to go!" Alex yells. "We have to go now! Jump down, jump down!"
Alex and Vivi jump into the elevator shaft and catch onto the elevator cable. They hold onto it as Alex uses his gun to shoot a couple of times at the doors for the floor below them. When the doors open, they still couldn't see Ying anywhere in sight, and there were drones on this floor too. "All of this because of our reliance on this stupid alliance!" Vivi yells.
"What else are we supposed to do!?" Alex asks. "It's their territory! We can't afford to anger both sides and risk being in the middle! If we did that, then-"
"If we had just operated our own way, like I wanted to!" Vivi argues. "We listened to that shit German too much! We followed his orders, contacted his confidants, performed his operations! Look where it got us!"
"Vivi!" Alex argues. "A man died today trying to help us!"
"He died because we put him in that position!" Vivi says.
"You're being short sided!" Alex yells.
"You're a pussy!" Vivi argues.
"You are what you eat!" Alex yells as he shoots another drone.
"Ohhh, don't you start with that childish shit with me!" Vivi protests.
Suddenly, a car screeches and drifts right in front of them, stopping just before hitting them. The passenger window rolls down as Ying yells from the driver seat "Get in the fucking car, now!" Alex and Vivi hurriedly climb into the car as Ying drives off fast, running over several of the drones on the way out. One of the drones climbs onto the windshield as he's hit with the car, and Vivi takes out a pistol and sticks it out of her passenger window and shoots the drone in the head. The car hits a speed bump as they exit the ground level entrance of the parking complex, causing the body on the windshield to fall off, and then they speed away. The helicopter follows them, firing bolts from the helicopter. Ying swerves and dodges as she takes the car to the highway. Police, as well as the UK military chase them as they try to run away.
"Can't this thing go any faster?" Alex panics.
"Can't you do anything other than yell at each other?" Ying asks. "I get you two get off that way, but try to keep it out of the missions!"
Alex sticks his shotgun out of his backseat window and points it at the tires of the closest police car. He shoot and the tire pops with a loud bang, causing the car to bounce just a little and swerve out of control, hitting the police car next to it. The police cars all come to a stop, but the military was still hot on their trail. "You know that's not what this is, Ying!" Alex argues.
"I dunno!" Ying argues. "Because I know you two understand each other well. If you're blowing off steam, might I suggest doing it in a less loud way!?"
"I can't do anything while working with this... stupid alliance!" Vivi says. "How do you expect me to blow off steam?"
"That's not my problem, now is it?" Ying asks as she turns and looks at Vivi while still driving.
"Uhh, Ying?" Vivi asks, nervously. "Eyes on the road?" Suddenly, a bright, white light shines brighter and brighter on their faces through the windshield. "Ying? Ying? Eyes on the road?" Vivi looks over and sees a military APC coming right at them from a distance. "Ying, eyes on the road!" However, Ying refused to take her eyes off of Vivi, as she held a constant face of disapproval. "Eyes on the road! Eyes on the road! Ying, please keep your eyes on the road!"
Ying turns to the left a little to go around the APC without looking, and the APC turns towards them again. At the very last second, Ying looks forward and yanks the steering wheel to swerve right as she narrowly dodges the APC, without flinching at all. "Don't drag me into your childish messes just because you can't find a healthy way to handle your stress!" Ying demands.
"G-got it!" Vivi nervously replies. "Just don't do that again!"
"Guys!" Alex panics. "How are we going to lose the military!?"
"Leave it to me..." Ying replies. Ying turns on a turnpike and takes a tunnel route. The helicopter loses sight of them and has to find a new angle to look for the crew again, as the military cars and APCs still follow behind them. Ying makes a sharp turn as they exit the tunnel, before being found by the helicopter, and enters another tunnel. However, this tunnel didn't have a road. This tunnel had train tracks. Ying speeds down this tunnel as the APCs refused to enter. A few of the military cars follow them into the tunnel, and Ying takes the first turn to immediately park the car just as they get out of sight. "Out of the car!" Ying yells. "We're taking this on foot! Leave the car!" Many military cars rush down the tunnel and catch up to the now empty vehicle, ramming it into the wall with their cars, reinforced with plates of steel. However, and train was rapidly approaching, and the cars had to turn around and leave, then try to come back to check the wreckage for bodies. Ying, Alex and Vivi, however, move through the maintenance tunnels as Ying pulls out a phone and contact someone. "Max, we need exfill, ASAP." Ying immediately hangs up, puts her phone in her pocket, leans against the walls of this tunnel and lets out a long sigh. "This was not the plan..."
"Look" Alex says, "none of us planned on Patrick being killed like that. That was not our faults. I know it seems like he was only there for us, to give us intel because we were looking for a spy on the UK, but he would've been involved whether we were here or not." Alex then looks at Vivi, and says "None of us wanted this to go down like that. But what's done is done. They found out Patrick was a double agent and tailed him. We're lucky we got away. Let's be happy with that much."
Vivi sighs, then also leans against the wall. "There's too much going on at once. Why does this have to be so complicated?"
"People are always like that." Ying answers. "Things are never just black and white. It's just how it is."
"This alliance wouldn't exist if things were so black and white, to be fair." Alex adds. "Germany and Ireland have this irregular joint-in-arms to squish out what's going on with the many branches of government now at war with each other, inside the UK. If the UK were able to keep their problem with the drones and just admit to the corruption, then the UK wouldn't have to be in a conflict with both Germany and Ireland."
"Yeah, fat chance in getting any government to address its own corruption." Vivi scoffs. "The UK wants to sweep the issue under the rug, especially when the epicenter seems to be the British Secret Service and their intelligence agencies. Ares really dug his fingers deep into this country. You'd figure with the obvious proof of corruption seeping into the streets of the UK and its neighbors, they would at least not try to cover it up."
"Plausible deniability." Ying adds. "Which is what makes these secret missions so important. Espionage is not my thing, considering it's just... very illegal... but we have to create leeway for the alliance to not be able to take the blame."
"But what about us?" Vivi asks.
"What about us?" Alex asks. "We already knew what this was when we came here. We can't deny that we're going to be the scapegoats again. At least this way, they won't have plausible accountability to kick start the next world war."
"Silver linings..." Ying agrees. Suddenly, her phone vibrates and she checks it. It was a set of coordinates. "Alright, our exfill is here. Looks like it's really close too. Just by the highway M5, coast of Belfast. Not very far from here. Maybe just about 6 kilometers."
"Alright." Vivi says as she stands up. "Let's get out of here and back to Germany. I've had enough of Northern Ireland for now."
After a long journey, traveling by small motorboat over to Wales, and then a plane back to Germany, the crew arrives at a military base in Hamburg, Germany. The crew has the look of defeat amongst them as they go deep inside the base, to their dormitories. When they arrive at their shared dorms, they see Siran and the rest waiting for them. "Siran..." Vivi say as she freezes. "Siran, you're okay!"
"You guys all came!" Alex says with a smile. "It's been a while! Who's the new guy?"
Ying, however, did not speak. She walked slowly, staring Chao directly in the eyes and she slowly takes step after step, slowly picking up speed until she quickly stomps across the room and slaps Chao across the face as hard as she can. "How dare you!?" Ying yells. The rest of the crew went silent as they watched. "You! You should've stayed in that prison! How dare you show your face!"
"I see you still haven't forgiven me..." Chao says in disappointment.
"Forgive you!?" Ying asks. "I will never forgive any of you! You and that stupid brother of yours! All you two did was separate the people in Hong Kong, and then involved China as well in your mess! All because you two couldn't pull your own heads out of your asses! You forced me to learn how to fight at a young age, but what good did it do? Where has your martial arts gotten you? Mom died, and all you two did was exaggerate the pain and stretch it out! Grandma died and you two couldn't handle it! I was alone with grandpa when you started that war!"
"I'm sorry-" Chao begins to say.
"No!" Ying yells. "I'm not having it! I made a promise to try to ease the wound on our people the best I could. I became a police officer despite you and uncle, with your bickering and bitterness! Yet, all you have to say, after dumping all of the family responsibility on me is sorry? Burn in hell!"
"Li Xiu Ying, look at me..." Chao says as Ying begins to walk away. Ying turns around to face him as he says "I'm not the Master Chao you once knew. I come to you as a father, someone who loves you. I fought because I wanted the very best for my family. I was thinking of you, not against you! Please, Ying. I'm your father."
Ying squints, then says "First time for everything..." then walks out of the room and slams the door.
Weekly Power Status
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