The shockwave from the explosion sent me flying back five meters. As I soared through the air, I watched the mushroom of fire collapse whilst the moon re-appeared, orange and purple coloured clouds moving through the skies without a care in the world.

I landed on the ground with a loud boom, feeling as my spine was about to snap in five places. It didn’t thankfully, and that was thanks to the cybernetic spinal cord that cradled my every move, ensuring my spine didn’t snap under my cybernetics.

The drag the explosion sent me through, left me pricked and bruised, and downright dirty. By the time my drag was done, I’d scooped up everything within my path leaving a mesh of dead leaves and twigs behind me.

This was minuscule because all that ran through my mind was where the fuck did that explosion come from!

“CYPHER FOR FUCKS SAKES ARE YOU DEAD?!” Naedon screamed in my ear.

“No…but I feel like it.” I coughed.

“Stay down Cyph.” Rynord shouted, “you don’t want to get up.”

“Agreed Cypher, stay down. I’m coming for ya.” Tryzer said.

“Someone whizzed a FUCKING BAZOOKA AND SHOT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE FUCKING PARK” Stelig hissed.

“WHICH SIDE?” Naedon roared.

“SOUTH!”

“Rynord, that’s your section!”

“On it boss!”

“CYPHER! Are you still with us?!”

“…barely…what’s happened? What was that explosion?” I croaked.

“Nothing too serious, just get up and meet up with Tryzer, he’s on his way to you. Stel, Rynord. CONVERGE!”

An array of bullets rattled through the air, killing the silence that once reigned upon Freedom Park after the explosion.

I pushed myself up with shaky knees, ready to make my final stand for my wife and daughter had been just killed. My vision was blurry, but not my heart, so the first time I made was to charge towards a Hannya Boy who was pushing himself up from the blast itself.

I buried my hand into his chest, pulling shards of metal and coolant piping ripping them free. He dropped his pistol to the ground, then fell making a robotic moan.

I snatched up the pistol, tracing my eyes across the Freedom Park, hunting from where the smoke was coming from as I hid behind a tree, using it as cover.

Two shots took down, a Hanya Boy to my left, then I crawled up to him, snapping up the submachine gun. I proned, then fired three burst rounds into another’s chest before stalking my way up the incline.

“STEL THEY’RE FLANKING YOU!” Naedon roared through the comms.

“GOT EM!” Rynord spat.

“Good thing we have the Commissioner on our side.” Stelig joked.

“Two down from my side,” Tryzer added.

“Two from mine,” I added.

“CYPHER GET BACK, WAIT ON TRYZER YOU’RE IN THE OPEN.”

“I don’t care, I have to see what HAPPENED!”

A surging pain shot up my arm, as the cut from the Reaver’s sword pulsed incessantly, making me squirm as I held the submachine gun in my right hand.

I switched the submachine gun to my cybernetic arm, relieving myself of that constant pain. That was my fault though. When I shot those Hannya Boys, I squeezed the trigger as if it were orange.

To be honest, I wasn’t thrilled to use my cybernetic arm, especially the display it’d been showing these past couple of days, shutting down at a whim in crucial moments such as this one.

I could die, if that happened again, and that was something I wasn’t going to allow to happen, especially when my family was here!

“WATCHING OUT CYPHER DRONES HEADING IN YOUR DIRECTION!” Tryzer roared. Two bullets shot right past me, sending me to the floor. I rolled left, switching to Echo-Sight, watching the sound waves ripple in front of me.

I scrambled up behind a tree, switching to X-Ray Sight, and fired at the drone that swirled around me, then sprint up the hill to finally see where that explosion came from.

The van Akatani had in the middle of the park was burnt to a crisp, shards and pieces of broken metal was spread across the Freedom Part as if a dirty bomb had been exploded with my wife and daughter being at the centre of it. “No…” I whispered. “No…no-no…NOOOOOOOOOO!!!

I dropped to the ground, legs haggard and weak. All the adrenaline I’d used up for the past couple of days, left me to feel like a piece of paper on fire, ready to burn out of existence. I outstretched my hand trying everything I could to force the explosion from my sight but it was all for nought.

Tryzer darted across the grass pushing me down as bullets zipped past me, sending us both rolling back down the incline.

Once we stopped, my body roiled from the pain. I wanted to give up, but the crackling sound of the flames that danced in the ear refused to let me do so. “Shin-Lee…Hannah…I’ll be joining you soon, but not before I kill this bastard” I whispered.

I yanked the comm from the ear, ignoring Naedon’s screams. He was telling me something about Akatani on the ground, but I could be careless. I wanted him dead!

“Where are you…you bastard!” I hissed pushing myself off the ground.

I killed a Hannya Boy who tried creeping up to us to the left and darted in his direction. Not before long, I sprinted up the incline and darted across the disjointed surface, running on the side of the incline, which happened to be smoother.

Bullets flew past me as I ducked and weaved between the synthetic and organic trees. Until I hit a rough patch and tumbled across the surface and rolled back down another incline, at least five meters in length.

At that moment I caught myself, then dug my cybernetic arm in the ground, stalling my slide, then kicked myself up then continued to my left, eyes tracing the area looking for Akatani.

My knees cried for mercy, whilst my body hissed in agony, but I didn’t care. VENGEANCE is what I needed to quell the pain from my body, because no one, and I mean no one was gonna stop me!

Where is he I thought, switching to infrared scanning the entire area? Rabbits, rats, and weasel tracks sprinkled across the entire area. The haunting skyline didn’t help much as I felt as though Akatani was getting away by the second.

As I looked left and right frantically, the battle between the Hannya Boys and the Cobra Squad was raging all sides of Freedom Park.

The Hannya Boys had little to no cover, whilst Naedon and his men were Converging on them to the east. Tryzer, who I left joined the fray, shooting two men as they tried to flank Stelig.

Rynord was closest to Naedon and was guarding his flanks as he Naedon pummeled through the men weaving through the trees as cover picked down five Hannya Boys in quick succession.

I know the Cobra Squad was the best within CSS, but to see them work so efficiently, was marvellous, despite my heart thumping as I just couldn’t find Akatani during the warfare.

Two Shots cracked the air, zipping past me, forcing me behind a tree as they barely missed me. I fired in the direction the bullets came, then hunkered down, changing back to X-Ray vision.

I sat there for two seconds, waiting for the bastard to peep out in hopes of taking me down. He failed. I sent a bullet through his skull and scampered to my left, trying to get closer to the van as bullets riddled around the area.

“God damn it, where is that bastard?” I hissed, feeling frustrated.

Akatani was scum, and I needed him dead, but the bastard was Snively. An entire firefight was taking place, and that bastard was no place to be seen, which made ZERO SENSE TO ME! How could a bastard disappear just like that?

The frustration I felt, was similar to when I offed those shots at Akatani in the yard during the raid Jix and I did. My bullets had whizzed past him like it did that Reaver. Does he postilion shield? If he does…wouldn’t it be possible for him to have Octocamou as well?

I switched my vision to infrared and began tracing the area with my cybernetic eye. The crackling flames and shards of metal made it hard difficult to decipher the difference in heat, as the centre of Freedom Park was as bright as the sun.

Dozens of footsteps were spread across the grass, the footsteps were still fresh, unlike another pair which were short, wobbly and possibly fresh, based on the moisture seeping up from the ground from knee imprints in the soil.

The rustling sound of grass swished behind me, forcing me to turn around as I turned off my infrared vision, snapping a full 180° then squeezed the trigger of my submachine gun twice, killing two of the three men that tried to flank me from the back. The third man strafed right ducking behind a tree in front of me. The moment he stepped out, I buried a bullet in his arm, watching him sink to the ground, then fired another shot in his head for good measure.

A bullet zipped past me from behind, barely missing my right shin. I scuttled back behind back in the tree, which exposed me to the remaining Hannya Boys, which by my count was not twelve. Where the fuck did he get the money to pay for all these kids’ Cybernetics? I huffed, firing an array of bullets to a group hunkered down to my right.

More bullets came from behind me, which, unlike the rest made me jaded and annoyed. I jumped over a hedge, then rolled to the side, keeping myself low, then switch to X-Ray vision upon finding a concrete slab.

I looked out ahead, watching as a body hobbled across the plains of Freedom Park, then switched back to natural sight. The bastard’s got a camo SHIT…NO WONDER I COULDN’T FIND HIM…HE’S RUNNING.