3000 CE Ch. 01: Of Gear and Guns

Author's Note: This series will be primarily sci-fi, consensual sex, and non-erotic. If that ever changes, I will provide ample notice, but I do not plan on deviating from those standards. Should there ever be rape it will be taken seriously. All characters are 18 and above.

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Ness held her breath. She slowly creeped over to the edge of the hallway.

BOOM!

The wall she had been taking cover behind suddenly disintegrated in a puff of glowing debris. Coughing from the impact, she ducked back into cover, clutching her twin energy pistols. Peeking back out, she spied her quarry: A key near the center of the room, flanked by two Argent Guardians. Their helmeted heads turned in unison, energy poles descending once again.

Ness rolled out from her hiding spot, only narrowly avoiding twin beams of supercharged light. Righting herself into a crouched position, she took aim... and fired.

The force of the blast, deadened by her gravitic silencers, expended their rage instead on the Guardians. Metal sprayed as the beams penetrated their titanium armor, and sparks flew as their bodies fell with deafening clamor onto the cold stone floor. They were down.

The girl, shaken, swiftly holstered her pistols and stood up. Her body was lithe and deadly, a result of many millenia of training and combat. She had honed her reflexes to a knife's edge, but still paled next to some of the cybernetic monstrosities of the Age of Stars.

Her gear beeped as she passed the threshold. A guardian groaned on the floor, armor clanging against the floor as he clawed for his polearm. A quick shot from her pistol silenced the man, and his lifeless form dropped with finality to the ground.

A siren greeted this development, and Ness activated her cloaking signal. As more guardians streamed past the openings, she approached her destination, a key in the middle.

"This wargear is quite impressive," she muttered quietly to herself. Of course, Emma had given them the best of her equipment. She recalled the fitting room, a few hours ago:

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Ness entered the armory, naked from her bath earlier. Her perfectly tanned skin gleamed in the artificial light, and her body glowed with health. She stepped up the stairs lithely, the fibers in her legs tensing beautifully as her feet made contact with the cold metallic flooring. Erica watched from the back.

"Looking good, Ness." She was grinning, hazel eyes admiring her pucked ass and slim form. "I'll leave you to it. But I will say, the cloaking module is quite handy." The other girl ducked out of view, her slacks brushing the doorframe as she made her exit. Ness turned her attention back to the task at hand with a slight smirk.

She entered her catsuit first. Gasping as she put it on, she felt the sensors and electrodes link up with her skin and muscles. The magic of the Age of Dominion and the neuro-physical enhancements in this strange time boosted her speed and agility to godlike levels. She moved gracefully over to the rest of her wargear.

The Stealth-MK-5000 exoskeleton, fabricated five days ago in the Laseruz Labs, is a form-fitting exoskeleton that served as light armor; it protected most of her body, save for the palms of her hands and the soles of her feet. Those were covered only by her catsuit, and would allow her added dexterity in her missions.

Ness gasped again as the myriad pieces fit around her slim body like the pieces of a puzzle. She tested the gear with a jump, and noted with satisfaction the low whirring of her leg-servos. But then, even that noise was deadened by its stealth functions. In a few seconds, she was one with her exo-suit as well.

Finally, a light polymer-belt and harness. Secured around her slight thighs and torso. She exited the station with only her head free, short hair shifting in the wake of ventilated air. The girl applied two contact lenses as protection for her eyes. She blinked twice, and a myriad of lights and holographic status symbols glimmered into view. These contacts would help her in this mission. She secured two pistols to her hip and three multi-purpose grenades to her harness. Lastly, she hefted a light molecular-blade. It was as light as a feather but could cut with nanometer-level accuracy and deadliness. She slipped the weapon into a small strap on her back, and moaned as it fit into place, all the loose belts and fasteners tightening around her streamlined body with the addition of this final piece. Ness felt herself lifted into the air as the stealth armor fully engaged.

Dropping back down with a dampened thud, she looked up and smiled.

She was ready.

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Of course, she felt less confident now. Her enemies were ruthless, and once she was past the initial groups of rowdy gang-folk, she encountered instead, professional soldiers and cybernetic-warriors.

The soldiers weren't too difficult save for the occasional lucky plasma shot, but she managed to dispatch them with ease, suffering only a mild burn on the shoulder; the worst of it had been diverted by her advanced exo-suit, and made good time to where she had fought the two Argent Guards and spied the key in the central sanctum.

She grabbed it and slid down the stairs, followed by a hail of gunfire and shouting soldiers. These Argent Guardians have already been greatly enhanced with gene-splicing, but with the addition of state-of the art cybernetics, they were nigh unstoppable. And they had power armor to boot.

The hulking warriors were converging on her position quickly, and as Ness leaped off the stairs, the girl disengaged her stealth field and ran, full pelt, towards the door. They must not catch her. Not this time.

The men were catching up however. Though her movements were a streak of raven across the neon-backdrop, the guards moved faster still, tearing through the facility, snarls of primal hatred following her ever move. It seemed that in every era, there were those who outstripped her abilities, Ness thought grimly. But they needed this key, and failure was not an option.

Yelling with exertion, she made one final dive at the door, making it through just as the lead guardian grabbed her ankle.

Crying in pain, Ness aimed her pistol at the door control panel, and fired. Short-circuited, the heavy blast doors closed with a sudden hiss, cutting the gene-forged warrior's arm off at the elbow. She could hear curses from behind the barrier, followed by a large bang. Bumps appeared in the frame.

Curses, she thought, wiping a drop of sweat off her brow. They will try to force it open.

She tested her ankle and winced. It hurt, but a slight dose of painkillers will have to do for now. She administered them and an injection of healing nanomachines. They will take time to work. Ness fixed her ankle servos, and ran off for the next airlock. She was almost through.

Shouting from up ahead. More guards. Human this time.

Smiling, Ness activated her cloak, and with slight deliberation at the doorway, launched herself at the hapless soldiers, pistols blazing with energy.

The poor bastards didn't have a chance to react before they were disintegrated. A brave young man swung a blade at a shimmer in the air, but was caught with equal force. Ness materialized, eyes vibrant with data feeds from her contacts. Swift as night, she parried and riposted, cleaving a deep wound in the man's torso. Dropping to one knee, he screamed with pain. Grimly, Ness cut down again, and finished the job. The man's head dropped from her shoulders. A clean cut, but not without a mess. The girl took a moment to steady herself.

A bang, louder than the others before, came from behind her. Looking back, she realized that they had finally broken through. The Argent Guardians poured through the gap, led by a tall, titanium-clad brute wielding a large force-hammer. He pointed at her and roared a challenge.

Ness would not give him the satisfaction. She sheathed her blade and kept moving, leaping over the sizzling corpses of her enemies.

She burst through the wooden door, a covert entrance to the underground facility, and with swift strokes, sliced the gang guards' heads clean from their shoulders. They dropped with heavy thuds.

They were in an old museum, where it seemed the gang had made their home. Leaping over a dilapidated desk, she unlatched a grenade from her harness and tossed it at the breach. With a flash and a rumble, the grenade exploded, detonating the beams around the entrance.

As splintered wood and shards of stone flew out from the impact, Ness ducked while the main structure began to crumble. Her pursuers were relentless, and drastic measures will have to be taken to stop them.

The worst of the shrapnel gone, she got back up and ran, hoping to outpace the collapsing building.

Another roar, and the hiss of a mighty power-axe. They were closing in. She ran faster, panting with exertion. Unhooking another grenade, she tuned it to "flash" and lobbed it behind her. It detonated, followed by curses and yells as some of her pursuers veered off into collapsing pillars and falling concrete.

She kept running. The exit was nigh, and she could see it. Ness wondered where they would be when they came out. The outskirts of the city, she bet. There were still some old buildings and shantytowns there, forgotten by those in more civilized places.

The girl burst through the door, shattering what was left of the windows and supporting panes. The structure, with a final sigh, collapsed in full behind her, burying what was left of the Guardians.

She was on all fours, gasping for air. Heaving herself up unsteadily, she turned back and marveled at the carnage in her wake. It wasn't just the museum, but an entire block. The land had caved in with the instability, burying most of the structure. Ness smirked with satisfaction. The Order of the Eye would not recover from this loss easily. She took out the key. It glowed with arcane energies, and she marveled at it. What does Emma hope to learn from such an artifact?

Suddenly, the ground split beneath her. Ness jumped back in fright. A genehanced warrior climbed out, armor dented and cracked from the falling boulders and debris. He tore off his helmet, revealing a fierce, ravaged face.

He drew his greatsword, and red energies flared from its edges. Roaring a challenge, he attacked.

Moaning with terror, Ness managed to jump out of the way as the first strike descended. It pulverized the ground where she was a few milliseconds ago, carving a deep gash into the paved ground. Snarling, the man lashed out again, cleaving a horizontal wound into the air.

Ness avoided this one too, ducking beneath the strike. She was getting wet again, and a feeling of submissiveness, taught to her thousands of years ago, began to surface. She thought to save herself and submit to this man, perhaps they might spare her and take her as a slave?

Ness shook her head. No. She was better than that.

Taking charge of her shaken emotions, the girl lunged back and drew her own blade. She caught the warrior's sword millimeters from her face, gasping from the immense strength behind the blow.

Thrown backwards, Ness managed to cartwheel midair and land on her feet, and sidestepped another blow. The man, already beaten from the falling rubble before, stumbled at last.

Here was her opportunity. Cutting quickly, Nessa carved a deep wound into the exposed back, through a crack in the armor. The blade sang as it moved, and she felt bones break and skin sunder. The warrior cried out with pain and anger.

Reacting with preternatural speed, he backhanded her across the chest, breaking three ribs with savage force. Screaming with pain, Ness felt herself thrown back yet again, but this time was unable to stop herself from getting caught full in the back by a jutting rock. She tumbled to the floor, defeated and heaving for air.

The man stepped forward, blood streaming from his open wound. Ness tried to get up, but was forced down yet again by a pang of pain in her chest. Gritting her teeth, she applied another dose of medication, sighing with relief as the pain was dulled by the cool spray. She rose to her feet.

Roaring again, the man pushed her back down. It was all she could do to avoid hitting her head against the same rock she had collided with before. Scrambling to all fours, she narrowly dodged a strike from the man's still-potent weapon. It sunk into the ground with a hiss of energy, melting the stone around it into a torrent of lava.

But it was no use. Ness was already behind him. Looking around desperately, the warrior spotted her too late, and with a wearied shout, the girl sunk her blade deep into the already open wound, this time severing his spine and lacerating his inner organs.

Gasping with pain, he crashed to the ground. Scrabbling around desperately, the man attempted to halt the flow of blood. But even he could not heal that fast, and before long, the Argent Guardian breathed his last.

Straightening again, Ness looked around. She was exhausted, and the painkillers were bound to run out soon. She needed to return, but the facility, as well as all the surrounding infrastructure, was destroyed. The inner city was two days away, and she was still gravely wounded.

Grimacing, Ness made her way across the darkening road. She would take this journey, no matter the cost. Once again, it had fallen to the brave maiden and her band of sisters to save the collapsing world.

One step at a time.

Author's Note: Thank you all for reading my stories! If you would like to see anything just let me know; I also welcome any editing/artwork should you like, if you've been enjoying things so far. I appreciate any feedback!

P.S. "Ness" here is "Nessa" from my other stories. Read them if you wish but a word of warning: there have been some character development since then haha