text: "Duck!" Wrinn shouted as he threw himself to the ground. "Dammit, cover yourself, Blackburn!" Bullets darter through the air, above their heads, just a moments after Blackburn, at last, ducked. "Who are they?!" the man snapped in a raspy voice. "Wrinn! How could have they known about us?" The other man gave Blackburn a hopeless look, waiting for the barrage to cease. The two men were crouching behind a stony debris, a remnants of a cliff collapsed. Thet were Separators, members of a secret group of highly-skilled assassins, employing advanced tech to download one's memories. Though now, instead of hunting, they were fighting for their lives. "Blackburn! They're no match to us. Remember the training? 'Phase in, shoot' em, phase out!' Move quickly and take no crazy risk." The man's teeth clenched behind his air-filtering mask. He knew, one shot to the power source on his back and he'd be kissed by death, but there was no time for stealthy eliminations - this was a fight. The spray of bullets had halted. A fatal mistake. " Now." Wrinn grunted and, with a grim expression, flung himself from behind the cover. His body blurred as he began phasing - and just as he'd done times before, he dispatched one attacker with a swift spray of shots, blinked behind the other one and delivered a killing blow by piercing their neck. "Good ol' thrusty arm-blade" he grinned to himself at the pun. Turning to Blackburn, who had successfully eliminated last of the three bastards, his grin widened. *He might be worth somethin', the young blood.* "Blackburn! Don't you dare to put your guard down!" Wrinn exclaimed at the trainee, seeing him not reloading his gun. Though Blackburn was not to blame - this was his first mission and it's gone horribly wrong. Wrinn was looking around the complex. Instead of quickly murdering the target, they'dended up with severed means of communication with Sonya, their leader, and driven to corner by mercenaries. Undertrained mercenaries though, as far as Wrinn could tell. "Listen Black, download his data," Wrinn commanded, jamming a pointy stick through the corpse's eye socket into its brain. "And try not to get killed" he added, concerned. "Understood, Wrinn!" A tens of seconds have passed before the men stood up and, not having enough intel to decide on the most optimal way out, started heading one direction. The plan was to climb up the cliff on a rope they've used to get down - however, the sudden explosion above them and following rain of stones buried this escape plan. A much bigger group of armed figured crossed their path. This time, Wrinn leapt towards a pile of crates, pulling Blackburn with him. They've stayed unnoticed - for now. "Wrinn?" Blackburn started. "I have an ide-" Wrinn never got to know the idea, for a high-pitched sound pierced the air, mobilising the complex whole. "INTRUDERS IN SECTOR X-8!" it repeated mindlessly. Blackburn snorted. "At least we know where we are." A simple nod was Wrinn's only response. *But we don't really, do we?* He was lost in his thoughts, racking his brain, trying to come up with a solution to this mess. That's when a swirling sound came from behind. Wrinn hastily turned around with the though of phasing towards the threat and neutralising it, but he was too slow. This threat was to assassins' bad luck too fast. A woman with a familiar breathing mask and a set of funny-looking strapped to her body launched a spinning piece of sharp metal at them - right an Blackburn, too slow of a man to react. "NO!" Wrinn yelled as he realised the imminent danger. With a curse on his lips, he blocked the blade with his body, trying to intercept its trajectory. What a price to pay. A stunning pain erupted in the left part of his body as he got struck. The impact turned him sideways, knocked the gun out of his arm, and he staggered, falling to the ground, watching in utter horror his arm laying on the ground, leaking blood. *You bitch.* "Blackburn, **RUN!**" he snapped at him instead of insulting the woman aloud. He was losing too much blood - his death was inevitable, but he wouldn't perish on vain! It was against all of his principles. He'd always been precise and careful, yet he charged at the goddamned woman with an intention to pierce her with his arm-blade. So far, Blackburn was paralysed. This was no routine mission, this was hell! His mentor was injured and he had no clue what to do next, he was panicking. Though Wrinn's last word - "**RUN!**" - snapped him out of the trance. *Don't think of them as of his last words, you dumbass!* He corrected himself as he leapt above the crates and started sprinting towards where the previous ground of mercenaries had come from. Wrinn knew what was his plan. Phase behind her. Turn around. Use the momentum to sever her spine. He groaned and phased - and just before the jump in space, he'd felt a loud crunch in his suit and for the first time in years, phasing had failed him. As Blackburn started accelerating, he heard a loud thunk from behind him. Glancing there at instant, he saw Wrinn laying on the ground, the woman wielding a strange, circular-shaped blade and crushing his abdomen under her boot. "Wriiiin!" he squealed in pain, forcing himself to continue forward, proceeding to keep standing only for seconds before an impact. *Impossible!* Wrinn thought. The tech was remarkable. How could have she interfered with Sonyas secret creation? The woman cackled. "Wrinn, you old, stupid man. You've thought you were untouchable, have you, right?" With a playful smile, she proceeded to break a few of his ribs as she stomped on him. "Oh I'm sure you recognise me not. Just know... Your arrogance, my old friend, had become too much for me to control." Wrinn moaned in pain. Missing an arm and having his insides crushed was torturing. He wished to faint, for his mind was already hazy, but there was one other way. "You may have bested me, woman!" He managed to yelp at her. "But our secrets won't be unearthed!" He added as he raised his shaking arm and drove the sharp end of the downloading device into his brain, knowing it would fry his neural network. She only cackled. Blackburn found himself laying on the ground, his mask nowhere to be seen. He was sure the sudden strike had broken a few of his ribs, he couldn't breathe and for the first time that day, he'd realised that he was about to die. Struggling, he managed to get on all fours, hoping to be lucky. And he was, for he spotted his mask a few meters away and started crawling towards it frantically. "Oh my, how does he live? " a female voice inquired mockingly. He looked up and recognised the woman who'd injured Wrinn. Barely moving, he reached out to the mask. He touched it with the tips of his fingers... And got overwhelmed by excruciating pain, as the woman crushed the mask and his hand alike under her boot. "Nothing personal, kiddo. But rules are rules, 'No missions without Sonya's approval,' remember? That's what you get for treating Wrinn like a leader of ou-" And with his breath running out, so did Blackburn's consciousness.