Bite took a furtive glance through a shattered window on the ground floor of the sniper's building. Seeing nothing but an empty hallway, he climbed through. He was mindful to not make a noise on the tile floor, the surface of which was fractured and discolored with age. He heard a muted, dull thud from above, accompanied by a shower of dust as a vibration shook the building. The sniper was here. Bite took a moment to delicately exchange his shotgun for his ripper; a chainsaw-like weapon held in the same manner one would hold knife.<br/><br/>He had barely begun his ascent up the building's main flight of stairs when the sounds of gunfire filled and permeated the once-silent halls. The deafening echoes made it difficult to tell the number or location of the shooters, but this overwhelming noise also worked to his advantage. He continued up the stairs with greater speed, confident that the activity from the first floor would mask his approach. From the stairwell he could hear the sniper's rifle with a greater clarity, and quickly progressed up with a haste born of impatience. He entered the doorway leading into the third floor.<br/><br/>Bite didn't notice the tripwire in the doorway—or the gun it was rigged to—until it was too late. As his boot hit the thread, it gave way with a tell-tale splitting noise. He had barely registered the trap before the thunderous sound of a shotgun filled the enclosed space, battering his left arm with a shower of birdshot and sending a shock of burning pain throughout the limb. Had he entered the room any slower, or had been in a different position, he would probably have a hole in his stomach large enough to to fit an arm through. He glanced at the wound and released a string of creative epithets of all manner, and attempted to stem the flow of blood. He was peripherally aware that the gunfire below him had seemed to have stopped abruptly, but this seemed like irrelevant news for the moment.<br/><br/>He could hear a scrambling from the room adjacent to him, wrenching his attention back into his current peril. Both of hands were now colored an alarmingly dark shade of red and were slick with his own blood. Fresh pulses of crimson trickled down his left arm. He felt lightheaded and faint, and he struggled for clarity.<br/><br/>He seized his dropped ripper, pulled a syringe from his belt and, with a shaking hand, injected himself in the crook of his right arm. The effects were immediate. His heart sped up to a breakneck pace, his breathing became more rapid, and he could barely feel or notice his wound any longer. He let the syringe drop to the floor, held his weapon with both arms, and readied himself to fight his foe. He entered the adjacent room, ready to face the sniper.<br/><br/>The sniper was clearly ready from him as well; as soon as Bite entered the room the sniper immediately leapt upon him, knife in hand. The man was surprisingly strong for his relatively small size and collided with Bite with full force, knocking Bite to the ground. Bite swung violently at the man's midsection before his foe could get close enough to dig his knife into his throat. Bite's ripper, now roaring like some malign creature of metal, met only thin air, its intended target having jumped back at the last moment.<br/><br/>The full effect of his chem had begun to kick in, and Bite's mind became barely recognizable as his own, overflowing with ephedrine and epinephrine. Every instinct cried for him to fight.<br/><br/>Bite leapt to his feet and furiously pressed his advantage, driving the smaller man towards the great opening into empty space on the other side of the room. Although the sniper was able to avoid most of his attacks, it was not long before he saw that his tactical advantage of surprise was lost. The sniper bolted for the exit, deftly unpinning and releasing a grenade as he fled. Bite's every urge said to intercept the fleeing man, but even in his chem-induced bloody haze some small part of his mind was aware that to do so would be suicide. He darted behind a wooden set of drawer between him and the explosive, reaching cover barely in time to avoid being shredded by burning-hot shards of metal. A agonizing ringing bounced around the inside of his head, but the grenade had not harmed him any more than that. He lay there for a moment, back against the wooden piece of furniture, breathing in ragged gasps.