Ugh.. ow.. head is pounding.. heart is pounding more.. what is that, two hundred beats a minute, three hundred, more? And what's that weird sound I hear.. sounds like firecrackers. I pressed the button and the cables disconnected with an unnerving pop (Hey, I reminded myself, this is super technology, if it wants to pop without hurting my brain, it can.) and the automatic bandage system put my bone and skin back where it belongs. Hey.. what the hell is that firecracker sound anyway.. oh, I recognize that, that's..

Shooting? Here? What the fuck... my first unimplanted moment in two years and all the joy of it has to be sucked out by yet another fight. But who the hell could possibly be fighting here... "Fuck a duck..", Sarah muttered groggily. "That can't be.."

"It is!!", the Anarch called back. "Go and get your weapons! I can hold these guys off a little while longer.." I heard Fido whine as Sarah disconnected the wires and put the bandage on his furry head.

"Who the fuck is shooting at you?! And how the fuck did you survive the implants?", I shouted. Great. Just.. great. Murphy's Law, I guess.

"Enforcers are shooting at me!! And I didn't, I just evaded it for a while. That thing will be back for me when I go to sleep. Now get em.. I can't kill em all!!" Howard was yelling for us to come on, I almost didn't- until I realized internally what had changed. Great.. I have to have problems like this now. And it turns out that the Enforcers weren't implanted for Howie after all. Just.. great. How the hell are we going to get out of this? We ducked past the railing- the Enforcers spotted us and just opened fire.

"WAIT!! We can't take the elevator!", Sarah screamed, as we ducked into the guest bathroom. The Anarch was forced to go partially in there with us, firing at the Enforcers, killing a couple, trying to drive them back. "I assure you, it's trapped!" Why does this figure.. we can try to take the Enforcers hand-to-hand now.. no. Not with that many, not with that many bullets. Either we get some ranged weapons or we try to fight one at a time with the rest shooting at us, and willing to blast through their comrade to do it. And I'm so fucking tired..

"Shit..", he muttered. "All right.. I don't think so. So I'll go. Here!" The Anarch flew down the elevator, throwing the gun and some ammo to Sarah, who attacked Enforcer after Enforcer, the specialized bullets (when'd he get those?) blasting through their armor. How many of these guys are there? She's killing them... but the rate is increasing and they're going to overwhelm her and take us right out.. these are damn good Enforcers too.. oh crap!

"Great! Just what I always wanted..", Paul screamed, panicked but not without his wits. "First we fight off that thing and now this? I feel like I'm in some bad RPG." I realized that he was really going to die, and then I realized that we were really going to die, and then I realized, on a personal level, that I WAS REALLY GOING TO DIE on account of overwhelming firepower.

I think I snapped just then. I started screaming my fucking head off, using complete echo. My only consolation was that Howard was doing the exact same thing. We're going to die.. like rats in a fucking trap. Fuck. A minute of freedom... for too high a price. Sarah continued fighting but she kept dodging back into the bathroom, again and again...

The Anarch returned much sooner than I expected, which was never. Not a trap? Take the luck as it comes.. the Anarch threw a double handful of weapons in our direction and Sarah unloaded a burst of cover fire, making one Enforcer dodge clear off the railing, and threw the gun back to our only Enforcer. I realized I was still screaming and I ceased, again at the same time Howard did.

"Maybe... just maybe.", I found myself saying.

Howard grabbed the Micro as soon as he saw it, I took the atomic shotgun and its attached case of ammo (heavy.. but I don't give a fuck), Sarah got some strange mini-missile launchers that attached to her arms and back, and Paul got the big gun. Really big gun. How the hell can he even lift that thing? Adrenaline, lots of it.. and it looks like it fires in a spread. With that thought, I thanked whatever Supernatural Entity In Charge Of Lucky Breaks there is that the Enforcers weren't using shotguns. We can dodge a few, maybe, but not repeated spread-shots from multiple foes..

And then we screamed again, this time not of fear. Not even of rage. Just.. power. Absolute power. Power I didn't know I had. Power that made me feel for a very brief moment like I could kill them all at once just by thinking about it. Power that might- just might- win this one.

Sarah rushed out the door, followed by Howard, followed by me. They saw him before me, they aimed at him first, he danced around bullets like a monkey on Jolt Cola. I didn't have to look at him to know that. I was just looking at my targets, and the bullets headed for me. This one? *BLAM!* Okay, next one? *BLAM!* Naturally, the noise was deafening, but I didn't really notice it. I did, however, notice Howard's working knowledge of microwaves reflecting off metal; he wasn't going to let the narrow beam he was using come back to him at any strength. There were more enemies. There was one- *BLAM!* with a bloody gap between its shoulders and the top half of its skull flying into the nearest ceiling, bouncing off it and the wall, leaving red smears behind. There was one that got neatly cut in half, the wound only partially cauterized by the searing blast of the Micro as the top half continued firing for a bit. There went one, flying through the air, blast marks up and down its tattered body. There were several of them blown/shot/blasted to tiny gibs. And there was one that I killed, by putting a blast straight through its chest- you could see right through it as in a Tom & Jerry cartoon, just before it fell over dead. And, on top of it all, I managed to hear the Anarch singing Sad but True over our combined screaming.

More Enforcers came. More Enforcers went. I realized that I hadn't done much dodging myself- just a few, here and there, between the cannon-like BOOMs of the ridiculously overpowered shotgun. What a fucking mess, in every sense of the word. We have no idea who the fuck the wise guy is who took the Enforcers and commanded them to shoot us upon unimplantation, making it a strategical mess. We are so ridiculously outnumbered that it isn't funny (WHERE are these guys COMING FROM?!), making it a tactical mess. And there are Enforcer guts strewn up and down the smoldering, bullet-torn remains of the once-luxurious living room, making it a bloody mess. And we're still screaming, which just seems to add to the general mess. Good old-fashioned havoc, I thought to myself, as I subconsciously continued to take aim and fire at the dwindling supply of enemies. Eat this, assholes. Ten years acting like a normal, two years- TWO WHOLE YEARS!!- as his servant- and now you expect me to just keel over and die after those things were finally removed? My pure hatred and this atomic shotgun say otherwise to your substandard minions. And then when I'm through with them, I'm coming for you.

I heard an enormous blast on the roof and realized that someone obviously had thought of a Plan B. Shards of metal hung off the gaping hole, others were blasted partially inside the floor. It didn't break into tiny shrapnel- if it did, we'd be shredded meat. Howard used his Micro to cook the next incoming missile (and two more beside it), and I noticed the reflection again. We've got to get out of here. More missiles like that and this whole place is going down- as I thought that, more missiles did indeed come, but Paul managed to get them and was luckily out of the way of a small spatter of shrapnel, which Sarah leapt away from. Paul has gotten luckiest of all- but then again, no one's been aiming for him. The Enforcers could have probably been able to kill him.. but they were obviously ordered for us. Howard the target in all likelihood, me the corollary because they can't tell us apart.

I calmly noticed, looking to the left, that Fido had gotten a kill, his jaws caked with Enforcer blood. There weren't many left- Howard and Sarah jumped down from the railing, as I popped off another couple of good, deadly shots. He's got those (kick, rip, beat), she's got that one (RIP goes the skull).. so I decided to exact revenge in like fashion.

"I've always wanted to do this.", I growled. I vaulted over the railing, forced myself downwards for more speed, and rushed the last three of them- no, make that two, the shotgun's got that one (amazing what kind of kick this thing gives in mid-air)- and I pressed my palms against the wrists of the suit, summoning the seldom-used nails, and tearing out both their throats in extremely rapid succession (I have never seen an Enforcer not react before) before putting the nails back in their place, and finally ceasing to scream- again simultaneously with Howard. And then I looked around and realized.

This is unbelievable. Unbe-fucking-lievable. They had numbers galore. They had good, high-velocity weapons. They had reinforcements. They were the best Enforcers there are. They even had missiles, for fuck's sake. All logic dictated that we were definitely going to die, and all logic continues to dictate so, even though it's not going to happen- we tore through them like wet tissue paper, the only thing that stopped us from doing it faster was the logical restrictions of our weaponry...

What the fuck are we now?