Chapter 11 - 9- The Fight Goes On

Now that I had the attention of every goon in the area, I did what came naturally. I ran. Reaper couldn't shoot and dematerialize at the same time, so when faced with eight people coming from different angles with guns, it was better to retreat for the moment. I ran down a gap between the shipping containers and kept an eye on the goons. If they could just gather up into a nice ball, I could take all of them out with a Death Blossom.

Then, as I rounded a corner, I was surrounded by black fog. Three seconds later, I was myself. I had forgotten that I hadn't trained Reaper and extended his uptime; I had already burned through my five minutes. Crap. I picked up the pace and got ready for another Resonance. I concentrated on my choice, Soldier 76. Suddenly my concentration was broken by the sound of gunfire. I raced around the next corner and managed, between heavy breaths, to call out.

"Soldier, Resonance!"

The fog swirled around me, and my vision turned red as the Tactical Visor materialized on my face. I ran faster as my body strengthened. It was nice, the feeling of being a supersoldier. Maybe I could make some supersoldier serum for myself… after I was done with these guys.

Now that I had a Resonance back up, I could deal with these guys. I stopped where I was and put my back to a container. I could hear them. Since they had lost sight of me, they were moving forward a bit cautiously. Slowly. I held my position, careful to not make a sound. I looked down at my heavy pulse rifle. It was almost showtime.

I listened carefully. Ten feet away. Five feet away. One foot away. I reached around the corner and grabbed the nearest goon by his throat. Quickly I dragged him around the corner and hit him in the face with my rifle, taking him out of the fight. I pulled the gun back up as his friends came into view. Not as many as I had seen before, they must have split up as we went around the containers. I opened fire before they could, and three of the four in front of me quickly went down. But before I could shoot the last man, he managed to get a couple of shots off. One took me in the shoulder, and one in the side. Luckily, Soldier has a bulletproof vest on under the jacket, but it still hurt like heck. I let my mind slip deeper into Soldier's mindset trying to cope and felt myself getting angrier. Soldier knew this pain well and was used to it. It just made him angrier. Not good for this guy.

With a growl, I rushed up and grabbed the man by the hair, swinging him around into the container.

"These. Are. Not. Your. Streets," I shouted, enunciating each word with shoving his head into the wall. "Anymore!"

With that, I let his bloodied head fall limply to the ground. I hated gangsters. Or was it Jack Morrison's hatred? I couldn't tell where the divide between us was at this point.

I heard voices and raised my heavy pulse rifle back up. Dimly, I remembered my time limit and decided to move back to the exit of the docks to make my escape. Still, I wanted to take out a few more of them along the way, so I moved slowly. Every time I heard another goon get close to me, I stopped, and took them out with a shot or two before moving on.

It didn't take long to reach my destination. My time as Soldier was almost up. But before it ran out the enemy's black SUVs came into view. As a final "screw you" to this gang, I sent a trio of helix rockets flying at it. The SUV went up in a ball of flame along with anything contained within. There were two more, but they would have to survive the night, I supposed. I ran back into Hell's Kitchen as my Resonance faded away.

Immediately, the pain came back to me, two dull but heavy bruises on my body. I had been able to easily shrug it off as Jack, but as myself? As Venn? I had no experience with such pain, and I staggered as I walked through the night streets of Hell's Kitchen. To top it off, I was exhausted, and I had a headache building up. I needed to get home and sleep. Fighting through the looming headache, I focused on Pharah and called on her Resonance. With her combat experience, it was easier to bear through the pain. And with her jetpack, it was easier to fly across town towards home. Once I made it across the river and into Queens, I switched Resonances to Genji. In his cyborg body, the pain faded away, the injury translating to damaged metal with no feeling. With his speed, I ran to my building and scaled the walls.

Once I was through the window, I let go of my Resonance. My head hurt even more now. I quietly slunk through the quiet apartment to the bathroom, where I found some medicine that hopefully would ease the pain enough for me to rest. The excitement of battle had faded and now all I wanted was sleep.

With great power, comes great need to nap.

And so, I slowly drifted away from reality….