The Six Guns

"What are you doing?" Finn asks in a panic, "this is no time to rest".

"Sorry" Alex says in a hoarse voice, "just give me a minute to get back on my feet".

As Siran directs his attention towards Alex, he recalls when they were all practicing magic over the past year. Namely, when he discovered Alex could use distortion magic.

Several months ago, Alex was asking Siran about learning unconventional magic arts 'just in case'. Eventually, Alex started learning distortion magic, which only came as a surprise to him.

"It's unusual for someone to be able to pick up on one of the forbidden styles quickly" Siran says to Alex.

"I think I can see why it's forbidden" Alex says while holding his left arm. "I can't feel my arm anymore. Is that permanent?"

"No, but it'll take some time before you can adjust to the type of magic" Siran says. "It takes a physical toll on your body, since it distorts mass. To be able to cast it, the user has to be able to perceive the world as distorted. Which only makes me worry about your past".

"Well, my arm definitely feels distorted" Alex says, and then groans in pain. "Now my heart hurts. Do you think this can cause cardiac arrest?"

Siran just shrugs and then says "Probably".

"How about a little forewarning!?" Alex yells.

Now, while Alex sits against the wall, holding onto his shoulder, Siran and the rest are torn between fighting the enemy or helping Alex out first.

"It'll be a little while" Siran says, "before he can fight off the pain".

"Should we just cover him until then?" Zia asks.

"Yeah, don't let anyone target Alex" Siran says.

"Got it, Syr" Zia says as she pops her knuckles to prepare for another fight.

"I told you, it'd take more time to get used to it" Siran says to Alex.

"Yeah yeah" Alex says.

Zia makes quick work of all the closest soldiers. Moving quick and striking hard like lightning, knocking several soldiers down in a matter of seconds. Holly stands in front of Alex to keep him shielded, as Finn and Rose prepare to fight off anyone who might get closer. After a while of pushing against the enemy, Alex slowly gets back up. Looking really irritated, he raises one hand, however nothing shows above his hand.

"Getting real tired of this same old circus act" Alex says as he lowers his hand back down.

There was a short pause, a silent moment, before everyone started feeling a shake. Then, all of the sudden, the roof seems to explode and start to crumble down as a large fireball tears through the roof.

"What the hell, man?" Finn asks as he looks right at Alex.

"At least we know we're no longer underground" Holly says.

"I didn't feel like worrying about this damn maze" Alex says, "there might not even be good information to find here, let's just destroy the place like all the other ones".

"But if there is information-" Rose begins to say before she's interrupted by Alex.

"Look" Alex says, "if there's any information to find, it'll probably be in Omnia. Not in Egypt".

"Yeah, but if there is anything to find here, then we better get to it while we can" Siran says.

"Siran's right" Zia says.

"Oh please, we all know you only always take his side because you l-"

Zia interrupts Alex this time by punching him in the face. "Jesus!" Alex says, "can't you take a joke?"

"Wait a minute" Siran says, "where exactly are we?"

As Siran looks around, he finds the same gate they were looking at from the outside, surrounding them. A scorched sign falls off of one of the walls that are still standing. The sign read "Site ALPHA" and the rest was intelligible due to all the burns marks.

"If this is Alpha, then where the hell do we go from here?" Siran asks. "Didn't we just come from Foxtrot?".

"Man, what is up with this place?" Finn asks.

"Over there looks like an important place" Holly says while pointing to a section of the base on the south side of this now ruined site. As the rest looked, the building seemed to be the largest over there.

"Should we just walk through there then?" Rose asks while pointing down the hallway.

"Actually" Siran says, "we now have a place to freely go in and outside of the base. Why don't we climb some of this rubble to the roof, and just make our way around until we find a command room or somewhere a high ranking officer might be?"

"Not a bad idea" Alex says. "Getting tired of this place already".

The team climbed, and ran over rooftops. They checked through windows into rooms, and tried to find anyone who might be in charge, to find out what The Ly'Lum is planning to do with their next move. Eventually, they come across a large boardroom, or at least they came across the entrance to one. The room itself didn't have any windows to view inside. They agreed to enter the room and waited for a chance to sneak in unnoticed. At the right time, all six of them burst in at the same time, but to their surprise, while The Six Guns had their guns aimed at all the high ranking officers in the room gathered around a table, there were more of those soldiers from the MTRU who also had their guns pointed back at The Six Guns.

"Shit!" Finn and Rose say, almost synchronized.

"I don't have the patience for this crap!" Alex says as he raises his arm, ready to punch one of them.

"Too slow" one of the soldiers say as he moves so fast that it almost seemed like he teleported towards Alex. To his surprise though, Zia had stopped the soldier's fist with her own before he could land a hit.

"That's my line" Zia says, then swiftly lands a really quick high kick on him, sending him flying backwards. To her dismay, he got back up with ease.

"You Six Guns are going to need new tricks" the same soldier says as he picks up his gun again. Before he knew it, Finn had that soldier's gun in his hands, leaving him without a weapon.

"If it's tricks you want" Finn says, "then maybe I can help ya with that!"

The soldier laughs a little bit, but then punches him in the gut with a stunning speed. Finn flew backwards this time, and hit the wall.

"Shit" Finn says between coughs and wheezing, "he hits harder than Siran".

"Stabilization and speed buff magic" Siran says.

"Those are some of my specialties" Zia says. "Leave this to me".

Before Zia could charge forward, a digital shield appears before her, stopping her from moving forward. The officers at the table stand up and then point their guns as well.

"Kill that girl first" one of the officers say, "then kill any of them that resist. Take Siran alive".

Siran's eyes shoot wide open in terror. The MTRU soldier picks his gun back up and the gun starts charging with magic. At that moment, Siran seemed to just teleport behind the enemy soldier. Distortion magic that he used to displace his location, to appear behind the enemy. At the same time, officers throw some different elemental ballistic spells at Siran as the MTRU soldier looks over his shoulder in surprise. Siran elbows the MTRU soldier in the side of the head and redirects all of the spells into the other MTRU soldiers in the room, sending them all crashing into the wall, cracking the wall. As the shield disappears, the rest of the crew get closer to the officers and point their guns at them.

"I have several questions" Siran asked in a very pissed off tone. Hearing Siran like this was unusual for the crew. It was almost absolutely terrifying for them. "First off, you said you want me alive, but to my understanding, The Ly'Lum previously wanted me dead".

The officer directly in front of Siran tried to throw a fireball at him, but Siran just raises one hand and catches the fireball, then makes it smaller until it was only a tiny flame, then throws it back into then officer's face, burning off his eyebrows.

"What does The Ly'Lum want with me exactly?" Siran demands, getting closer to the officer. "I've been trying to figure that out for years, yet I've tried to remain uninvolved with the military for so long".

"W-w-we don't know for sure!" The officer replies. "Orders are orders, we're just doing what we were told!"

"It was a direct order from The Mages" another officer says.

"And what are you planning on doing here?" Siran demands.

"We're just supposed to keep the area under control!" He says, "y-you know, Egypt owes us a lot of debt but refuses to repay anything. It's for economic purposes!"

"You kill civilians..." Siran says, sounding even more pissed, "for money and use the excuse 'for economic purposes'? One last question. Which of your FOBs (Forward Operations Base) is supposed to make the next big move for your economic purposes?"

"W-what?" The officer asks.

"Don't make me repeat myself" Siran says.

"J-j-Japan!" A different officer shouts. "Shibuya. One of our allied countries, Japan, their economic system has been falling apart. We had a secret order to 'promote' a new government system there".

"... Disgusting" Siran says with a sour face. "You annex and take control over your allies, starve your own civilians in your own country, and torture your enemies. I knew I should've never gotten involved or fought with The Ly'Lum. The more I know, the more tempted I am to break my no kill rule".

"Uh... Siran?" Alex says while pointing at the MTRU soldiers, who're bleeding profusely and haven't moved an inch since their collision with the wall.

"Shit..." Siran says. "I'll make one exception for you guys" he says as he turns back to the officers.

"You will?" One of them asks.

"Yeah" he says "if you can escape this room, you're free to go".

"... a-and the catch?" One officer asks.

After asking that, the cement ground comes up around the officers' ankles and wrist and forms cuffs. Their arms were tied together, but their ankles were tied to the ground now.

"Let's go, we're out of here" Siran says as he walks out of the room. The rest follow him, but then Alex stops Siran to talk.

"What about this whole base?" Alex asks.

Without looking back at Alex, Siran says over his shoulder "destroy it like the rest".

"So I'm guessing that no kill rule wasn't a hard rule after all?" Alex asks.

Siran just starts walking away slowly as he says "I told them IF they can get out of the room... I won't look if you want to destroy the place, so it can't be helped if you do or don't".

Alex makes another large fireball in the sky, that shone bright like the sun, and larger than necessary. Before he does anything with the fire, he looks at Siran over his shoulder, who is still looking away, and hesitates.

"It's scary seeing him like this" Zia says, "but they're the ones doing all of this. So if you're not going to do it, I will".

"Just having some troubles focusing is all" Alex says.

"Then I'll help you" Zia says as she makes a second giant fireball in the sky over them. They both throw down the fireballs in opposite directions, and follow Siran out of the base. After a long walk, they finally arrived back at Rose's old rebel base at The Great Pyramid of Giza in the morning. They all took a long awaited rest and fell asleep, except for Siran and Zia.

"Sorry" Siran says to Zia in a soft tone. "I didn't mean to worry or scare anybody, but... I just can't stand-"

"Don't worry about it, Syr" Zia says back, softly. "I understand if it makes you angry. I mean, they killed my family too. My mother, father, younger brother... we all have a reason to be mad at them. You don't have to feel like the only one responsible for their actions. We're here with you for a reason".

"Thanks" Siran says. After a little while, they went to sleep, and after everyone woke up, they began discussing their next move.

"So where to next?" Rose asks. "It was fun being home and all, but there's clearly still a lot to do".

"It's obvious" Siran says. "We need to go to Japan now".

"Yeah, agreed" Alex says. "If their intel was any good, then The Ly'Lum is about to get busy in Japan now. This job doesn't sound very pretty either. We're talking about actually directly taking over an entire country here".

"Exactly" Siran says, "it's bad enough in the continent Atlanta, where Omnia is located, but now they've really stretched to all corners of the world. I just hope we can stop them in time".

"Well, that's what we're here for" Zia says. "Let's plot a course for Shibuya, Japan and make sure they don't have their way with them".

"Yeah, I don't want to see another country end up like my home did" Rose says in agreement.

"So no one's against the idea then?" Siran asks.

"Nope" Holly says.

"Alright then, Guns, let's get ready to head to Japan!" Siran cheers.

"You're starting to enjoy the name, The Six Guns, aren't you?" Holly asks.