Chapter 8. Robbery(4)
The hunt had begun.
The corridor was dark, power to the mansion had been cut.
To Wraith, that didn't matter. He could see perfectly.
From a tiny drone following Wraith, Coin observed his precise sturdy movements despite the lack of lighting and noted.
'Innate night vision'
Wraith traversed the long corridor, soundless. Footsteps echoed down the hall ahead. He stilled.
"Guard approaching. Lightening esper mutant."
A late discovery by Coin, but contained valuable intel nonetheless.
A lone guard appeared from the corner, flashlight sweeping warily. He gripped his unsheathed katana tightly, lightening swirling around its blade.
Wraith moved before the beam turned his way. His body dissolved into a black nanite pool and reformed behind the man.
A quick motion. Blade across the throat, The guard gasped, eyes wide open in disbelief.
Wraith caught him before he fell, lowering the body soundlessly to the ground.
"One down". His comms flickered.
He dragged the corpse into the shadows, eyes scanning the hallway.
Coin's voice came in again.
"Thermals show two more approaching the west wing. You're close"
Acknowledged.
Wraith advanced. Soundlessly. Every step measured.
A door slid open ahead, voices leaking out.
"…I'm telling you, something's wrong with the system. Control's offline…"
The door burst inward, halting the words. Wraith fired twice. Suppressed rounds. Two clean headshots. The men slumped where they stood, blood splattering across the wall of monitors.
He stepped over them. Eyes glanced at the screens. All black.
"Three."
The comms stirred once more. It was Coin with the kill count.
"Proceed east, Two heartbeats remaining in the residential hall."
Wraith turned. The corridor ahead opened into a luxurious chamber. Velvet drapes, gold trim, exotic polished furniture.
Two people stood near the far wall, a man and a woman.
Their posture, professional, trained.
They were armed, the woman with a katana and the man, a pistol.
Coin's voice slipped through.
"Caution. Both are trained. Female is a renowned esper, Clara Woodland. Top twenty in outer sanctuary esper rankings. Male is her husband. Master sharpshooter. Damien Fly. Former protector. Force mutant. Piercing force."
Acknowledged.
Wraith crouched low, blending into the shadows. His nanites pulsed. His form blended with the color of the walls. He was gone.
Coin noted, quietly impressed, 'Advanced camouflage.'
The man paced towards the center of the chamber, scanning the darkness.
"Motion sensors aren't responding. Something's.…"
A whisper of air.
The woman turned just in time to see a dark blur dart past her. Her sword whipped out instinctively.
Too late.
Wraith's hand clamped her wrist, twisting sharply.
A dull crack.
The katana fell to the floor.
She screamed, the sound cut short by a blade through the throat.
The man spun, pistol raised. But Wraith was gone again.
A second later, he was behind him.
A gunshot. Suppressed. Clean. To the head.
The man fell forward, lifeless.
Silence again.
Coin's voice returned.
"Five"
A pause.
"Dervin Woodland has retreated to the vault level. Multiple signatures moving to reinforce him. All mutants.
Acknowledged.
Wraith bent over to grab the fallen katana. Nanites from his hand pulsed and spread rapidly across is surface. Soon the entire katana was devoured.
Another weapon had been added to his arsenal.
He turned toward the far end of the chamber. A staircase spiraled downward.
As he descended, the mansion groaned faintly, systems rebooting in the distance. Somewhere above, machinery hummed to life again.
The lights flickered on as Coin's voice came through, his tone sharp.
"They're rerouting auxiliary power. Your assigned time has been drastically reduced. You have only twelve minutes to get out of there."
Acknowledged.
Wraith glided rapidly down the staircase, soundless as ever. At the bottom of the stairs, the vault doors came into view. A massive steel barrier, etched with the Woodland insignia.
A faint glow flickered beneath it. Someone was inside.
Coin's voice came through, calm and cold.
"You're at the vault. Dervin is armed and armored. Expect heavy resistance. I will override the power, grant you twenty seconds of darkness. Use it wisely."
Acknowledged.
Wraith waited.
"Done. Remember. I have no drones in the vault. You'll be walking in blind."
Coin's override clicked. The mansion once again plunged into pitch black darkness. A muffled voice in the vault yelled:
"Brace yourself, they're coming"
Wraith dissolved into a pol of nanites and sneaked under the heavy vault doors.
He reassembled in a corner, quietly observing.
Seven targets. Two with rifles. Three melee. And the armored figure behind them, the unmistakable bulk of Dervin Woodland.
Wraith moved.
The first guard barely had time to register a whisper of motion before his weapon was twisted sideways and turned on him.
Two muffled bursts.
Both riflemen dropped, collapsing into each other.
"Shit, contact!"
One of the swordsmen shouted, lightning flaring across his blade as he charged into the dark.
Wraith was already gone.
Fifteen more seconds of darkness. Five targets standing.
He reappeared behind the swordsman. A ghost.
A dark katana made of nanites materialized in his hand.
It swept upward severing the man's arm at the elbow.
The man barely had any time to yell in pain before a horizontal strike followed
His head was lobbed off.
His body fell with a loud thump unto the floor.
Twelve more seconds of darkness. Four men left.
Another swordsman charged in blindly at the source of the sound, katana drawn high.
Wraith sidestepped. A dagger appeared in his hand.
It met his opponents throat.
A thud.
The remaining swordsmen gulped nervously.
The vault lit up as lightning sparked on Dervin Woodland's gauntlets.
"Show your…"
Two muffled shots rang. The two swordsmen slumped to the ground.
Dervin's voice cut short as his men fell, the echo of their bodies hitting steel ringing through the vault.
With the dim light provided by his lightning, he finally caught a glimpse at his assailant.
What he saw terrified him.
A silhouette. A dark shadow standing in the middle of the vault. Silent. Soundless.
Dervin's pulse quickened.
"You…" he muttered, taking a step back. Lightning coiled tighter around his fists, veins of blue energy crawling up his arms.
"You're not human"
Wraith didn't reply.
The floor beneath him rippled. Nanites spread like an oil slick, crawling toward Dervin's boots.
What unfolded in Dervin's eyes was a shadow slowly spreading darkness towards him.
The man reacted instantly.
He slammed a fist into the ground.
A surge of lightning exploded outward, vaporizing the advancing black mass.
Wraith moved through the smoke, fast.
His form blurred, reappearing to Dervin's left with his nanite katana slashing down.
Sparks burst. Metal met charged armor.
The impact shook the vault, throwing arcs of blue light across the walls.
Dervin, regaining his confidence, grinned savagely, catching the blade with his gauntlet.
"You're strong. But not strong enough."
He twisted, lightning roaring through his arm. The blast sent Wraith flying backward, crashing through a reinforced pillar.
The vault lights flickered back on. Power had been restored
"With such meager power," Dervin taunted. "What gave you the right to attack my household?"
Wraith rose to his feet, wordlessly. His mask had no expression.
But something about his stance changed, colder.
A camera at the top corner of the vault sprung to life and rotated to capture the scene of the battle. Coin was watching.
Wraith spread his hands and broken nanites scattered across the floor surged upward, forming a storm of black shards.
Behind the monitor, Coin's breath quickened. 'Nanite manipulation!'
The shards shot forward, like a swarm of razors.
Dervin countered with a roar, releasing a field of lightning around him .
Then, black and blue collided, a nanite swarm against an electric storm.
The entire vault trembled.
Wraith's form trembled again. He moved through his own swarm, reappearing inside the lightening field.
A black nanite katana appeared in his hand and he stabbed.
Dervin swung. Too late.
The blade pierced through his chest plate, bursting out of his back.
The lightning around him flickered, then died.
He staggered, disbelief written all over his face.
"You…have…no…idea…what you've done," he rasped.
Wraith slowly withdrew his blade. Dervin collapsed, the light in his eyes fading as nanites spread all over his armor, devouring what remained.
Wraith turned
He pried open a hidden compartment in a desk and retrieved a black case, compact. Turning around, he took out the card given to him by Coin and swiped it across a machine at the corner of the vault.
Coin watched as fifteen million credits was transferred to an anonymous account. He leaned back, fingers tapping the armrest.
Phase one was complete.