And in a shocking turn of events, half of Zurich sank only half a day into the global samurai meeting, if this was not another result of having samurai act independently, I don’t know what is.

  I say that we urge our government bodies to put these public nuisances back under control. Once they are in a proper government organisation, they can finally bring some peace and structure and won't cause millions in property damage.

  --Spokesperson of the No Free Military Movement.

  Ugh, I am so angry. How could she have possibly thought that sinking half the city was, in any way, a good idea? Even with the supports Maniac and Justin pced, most of the city still got rattled pretty badly. And not only did she break the city, she also broke Maniac. Who, for her part, has decided to go sulk in the corner of one of the rooms covered in a pile of bnkets. She seems to be taking this betrayal rather personally. Fuck, she makes me furious.

  Wandering the streets of the upper city does not do anything to improve my mood, as I take in the destruction, but to my continued confusion and relief, the number of people that are around this area is somewhat cking. I would have expected a lot more people running around in a panic. Zürich is not a small city, so the ck of people is a bit strange.

  Then I stop, tears pricking my eyes, as I observe the scene in front of me. Well, at least I know what image is going to haunt my nightmares for a while. On the ground, covered by a small yer of dust and debris, is a child not even in his teens. He is not breathing, which is probably a small mercy, seeing as he has been ripped in two slightly above the waist. With a will of effort, I open a little notepad and create a tally, noting down one child underneath the decided column.

  Suddenly, something painfully stabs into my lower back, sinking in a good eight centimeters. My body quickly grows cold as Maniac takes over and turns around, ready to fight. Our brain does not comprehend what it sees, however. In the distance, I see Magenta standing there in her sparkling pink armour. My body goes hot again, ready to talk. But she attacked with the intention to kill, why? My body goes cold again, then back to hot, to cold, to hot, to cold, then nothing, no heat or cold, no complicated feelings or anything else, just an overwhelming nothingness.

  I stand up quickly, activating the jet stream, my perception slowing down so that I can observe the situation better. Two enemies, one with armour, the other with a rge sword and a tail. Take out the ranged combatant first, then. I run forward, readying my swords as I teleport in front of the pink woman. Swinging both weapons in parallel sideways arcs, and at the same time, connecting to her systems, loading them full of any virus and demon I can find, hoping to disorientate the woman. The pink woman throws up a crystal shield just in time to catch my swords, tracing two lines of ice and fire over it.

  I quickly disengage, teleporting away. I note the swords have neither the power to break the shield nor any useful effects against it. I quickly put away the swords and switch to my halberd instead. It is a lot heavier, and the nanites might be able to eat through the armour as well.

  I teleport again, this time behind the woman in question, swinging out with my halberd. I notice that her companion has decided not to be idle, her ears pointed in my direction as she turned, ready to punch me. Luckily for me, the halberd has a lot more range, and I made sure to stay as far away from the other threat as possible.

  The halberd connects, smashing through a few yers of crystal and sending the pink one down to the ground. I quickly get away from the white wolfgirl, and teleporting above the pink armoured girl, I ready myself to take her out of the fight. I swing the halberd down towards her head.

  Suddenly, a hand grabs my weapon as the wolf girl appears out of nowhere, completely ignoring the force of the weapon. Where did she come from? Even with my enhanced perception, she kind of just appeared. Teleportation? As I try to tug away the weapon, to no effect, I notice the wolf girl’s mouth moving.

  Oh, right, talking, that was something I was supposed to do. Since I don’t know what the girl is saying, I switch to the next best option, something we always do during fights for some reason, and I start to ugh, which is not easy with the jet stream, but I think I have a good cadence that would sound believable to anyone else.

  I give up on retrieving the halberd, instead letting it go and teleporting away several paces, to come up with another angle of attack. From this far away I can see that the pink one has slowly gotten up and is backing away.

  I crouch low, trying to see if she is preparing another attack, but before I can be sure, my head is violently pulled to the left by a sudden impact.

  I quickly review the footage while at the same time setting several of the nanites to work repairing the damage the impact has done to my mask. As I check the spatial data and the footage of any camera I can get into, I quickly find my target, Several buildings away, a sniper in all bck is ying down.

  Once I find her, I triangute the location and teleport next to her, ignoring the faint burning sensation on my skin caused by the rapid teleportation.

  I am about to plunge both swords into the woman's back when I recognise her, she is in one of Evelin’s files as a potentially useful asset. I quickly revise my pn, kicking her in the stomach and sending her flying against a nearby satellite dish.

  I open up one of my prosthetic fingers, revealing the needle underneath, and load it up with a potent tranquiliser, then I jump on top of the woman and inject it into her neck.

  Not wanting the wolf girl to follow me with her own teleportation-like ability, I quickly teleport back to her, slightly above her, both swords already poised to strike the woman down.

  In a dispy of both extreme speed and strength, the girl quickly turns and grabs both of my swords, ignoring both the heat and the cold of them. Noted, the pupper is tough and fast, even faster than I can observe, even with the boost of the jet stream.

  The woman says something to me, but with my sped-up perception, it is hard to figure out what she is saying. Going for pn C, I let go of the swords and throw a punch, not a particurly good one, but that is not the point. Just as I had suspected, she got out of the way.

  I quickly summon my new gravity hammer, a tool we picked up while wandering the undercity with the child. The shield above ensured that no unfortunate accidents could happen, so the other me had decided to have some fun.

  The hammer head connects, and with an explosion of gravity, the wolf girl is sent flying into the next building, finally showing that she is not completely invincible. That's good to know.

  In the next moment, a rge part of the building disappears, turning to dust and just floating away. The wolf slowly gets up, her eyes looking a bit angrier than before. I quickly shrug out the special sword bots, creating as many weapons as I can before shooting them all at her at different angles.

  The wolf girl seems to think the same way and summons a whole host of weapons for herself, using them to block my barrage, the light constructs shattering on the other weapons.

  Before I can think of a new strategy, the wolf girl is on top of me, grabbing and twisting my right arm at a painful angle. I am going to need a new pn, and fast. She is both too strong and too fast for me to compete with. I need something to slow her down.

  I quickly sent a message to Lyssa

  “Lyssa, I need you to fill my mask with a gas that would impair someone's judgment as soon as I take it off.”

  Understood.

  With that, I raise my left hand to my face, take off my mask, then quickly turn it around and aim it at the wolf girl's face. As soon as it connects, the only thing I have to do is seal it, and she should become a whole lot easier to defeat.

  New Purchase: Tickle Gas

  Points reduced to... 5242

  Suddenly, my hand is stopped, or to be more accurate, my mask is. I let go and pull back my hand. I notice that the mask is frozen in pce. How curious, but also rather inconvenient. In the next moment, I notice the wolf girl's eyes turn even darker before she swings me around and into a nearby building. I feel my right arm snap and tear from the sheer force of it all.

  Then I hit the wall of the building, going straight through it. Even though my bones are reinforced, the rest of my body isn’t, and I am now sporting several cuts and bruises. I quickly release all my stored nanites, hoping that they can restore my body quickly. I really don’t have enough firepower for this. I guess there is only one option.

  “Lyssa, give me the best weapon that I can buy”

  It would be my pleasure

  Css I Electronic Weaponry unlocked!

  Points reduced to... 5182

  Css 2 Electronic Weaponry unlocked!

  Points reduced to... 4782

  Tokens reduced to…6

  Css 2 Bded Weapons unlocked!

  Points reduced to... 4332

  Tokens reduced to…5

  Css I Esoteric Metalworks unlocked!

  Points reduced to... 4282

  Css 2 Esoteric Metalworks unlocked!

  Points reduced to... 3832

  Tokens reduced to…4

  Css 3 Electronic Esoteric Swordsmith unlocked!

  Points reduced to... 2232

  Tokens reduced to… 1

  New Purchase: Electronic Utilising Technological Honed Antipersnale Nanoedge And Silica Induced Aggregate

  Points reduced to... 732

  A bck metal cymore appears in my left hand. As soon as I touch it, sparks fly, as electricity arcs between it and the exposed metal around me. I quickly teleport out of the building, holding the sword at the ready. In a few more jumps, I am on top of the wolf girl, new sword ready to strike.

  The wolf girl, for her part, seemingly just stands there with an annoyed expression on her face. I strike at her as fast as I can, but somehow she's even faster, grabbing my sword with one hand. As soon as she touches the sword, a torrent of lightning is released, going in every direction and hitting anyone and anything close by. Well, except for me, the streams of psma seem to curve around me, leaving me perfectly unscathed.

  Sadly, I am not the only one unscathed, as Miss Wolf still seems more than capable of fighting me. With her ridiculous speed, she moves closer and with extreme precision grabs my left arm and twists it in the wrong direction. I see this enemy is beyond me. I need to get out of here. I start to activate my teleport to send me several blocks away, only to be kicked in the legs, making me fall over. Hands grab me and I am thrown several streets back to my original location. Two long legs enter my vision as the wolf girl stands over me, I see her lips move again and I finally decide to purge the jet stream from my system.

  “… or do I break the rest?” I hear, catching the tail end.

  “What was that?” I ask, while trying to find a way out of this situation.

  “I said, can we talk now?”

  “Sure.”