Bounty Hunter

Bounty Hunter
Mina levered her smart-phone to her face as she tried to fiddle with the applications on it, only to complicate herself with the strange interface of the device. She tried to reach the mailbox of the machine but was unable to navigate herself to it as she cursed to herself. She then pulled out a piece of paper on her pockets which she scribbled some directions on it but vulgarly cursed to herself again as she remembered that some of the writings on it had faded away.

Now, relying on her own instincts to find her destination navigating through the busy streets as cars and hover-jets flew all across, Mina began to reminisce the events of the past, where she saw herself as a great knight five years ago, valiantly serving beside the duke of her city. But the fateful day where everything changed came unexpectedly, where strange metallic airships with glowing lights etched all over them came down into the skies. Pouring out of the floating war machines, were human soldiers, like her, ordering the surrender of their planet.

Resistance was little from her Planet, Evacon as the sheer power and technology of the invaders, who named themselves the "Allied Forces of Planet Earth" was far superior to them. What the Evaconians had were swords, bow, magic and rudimentary war machines against automatic rifles, tanks made out of unbreakable steel and artillery that could ravage miles and miles of land in a single onslaught.

Knights like Mina were put out of commission due to the Allied Forces already having superior infantry. But however, there was still some used for "professionals" like Mina; Mercenaries, basically, who were soldiers for hire.

Mina remembered one of her contacts recommending her an Earth Based Mercenary guild called "Revered" for her to join, which was looking for new recruits. Mina purposely dressed up in her most intimidating armour for that day to strike an impression.

Mina finally reached the place; it was not the Guild hall she imagined to be; it wasn't a tavern like establishment where there will be guards in ornate uniforms protecting the area, but it resembled an Earthen Night Club with neon lights hanging everywhere, with delinquents hanging about the area and the entire place was polluted with a cloud of smoke of both Tobacco and Marijuana, which could be smelt from a considerable distance away.

The Mercenaries were not what Mina would have thought they would be; instead of being donned in a themed uniform or armour, most of the Mercenaries were clad differently from one another, some being lightly armoured and some of them, were equipped with high tech equipment like laser guns and powered armour. Not everyone in there was human; the Allied Forces also had other alien races with them, like the Bipedal Arachnid-like Ra'agn and the Chtoids, which were bipedal squid-like creatures.

Mina felt insecure as she was the only one in the establishment without a high-tech firearm, but only with her trusty Damascus blade. She entered the building, only to have the entire inhabitants eyeing at her as they stopped their conversations, sneering at the newcomer.

"A Newcomer?" A large and tall Earth human figure clad in a bouncer's armour approached her and asked. Sternly, Mina replied, "Yes, I heard you people are requiting". She was then led to a small room of the facility and was told to sit on a bench, which others, like her; newcomers. Some of them looked tough and intimidating, armed with guns, ranging from submachine guns to rifles, while some of them were like Mina, ex Evaconian soldiers, with some of them arming themselves with guns whilst some of them, sticking to their swords and the others, were greenhorn hoodlums that thought they would find a livelihood in the mercenary business. Mina was told to wait for the guild officer to enter the room to brief them.

Mina sat down, and was immediately snarled by a large and imposing mutated Earth Human that sat beside him. He was clad in makeshift armour made of scrap metal and kevlar. Mina glared back at him and readied her sword by gripping it by the handle.
 
Before the staring got any fierce, an armoured figure entered the room and commanded the room to quiet down as he readied to make a speech.

"Alright ladies and Gentlemen, I will be your senior officer, Johnson, and welcome to the Revered. As you know, we might not be the biggest Merc' guild out there, but we're explandin'. So, as I can see, not everyone of you are well equipped, as we can see, some of you are using your teeny  metal swords. But not to worry, here in the Revered, we can supply some of our refurbished equipment! So those who need some Allied tech, please enter the armoury on the left to pick a weapon!"

Mina was reluctant to abandon her blade. But she knew that she will need weapons of better technology in order to fight against modern enemies. With her head down, she queued into the Armoury to pick up a refurbished HEAT-sword, alongside with a CALAS-Tech .45 automatic pistol.

The officer then grouped the entire room into 5 groups and assigned each group an "Initiation" mission. Mina sighed in disdain as she discovered she was grouped with the terrifyingly ugly mutant. The 4 others in her group were of mixed sorts; 2 of them were street junkies, who equipped themselves with the biggest guns in the armoury, thinking it would to be to their advantage, alongside their submachine guns. The third one was an Ex-Soldier like Mina, who like her, took a bladed weapon and a small arm from the armoury and the last one was an old, grizzled male, whom appeared the most readily equipped out of all of them, refusing to take any equipment from the armoury and already had an Assault rifle with him and was donned with a rather sturdy set of ballistic armour with light servos on the joints.

Their mission was simple; a large group of punks have set nest on an abandoned facility north of the city and have been causing trouble for some wealthy folks, take them all out. Failure on the mission would forgo their chances of joining the guild permanently, whereas success would earn them a spot in the guild.

The group then briefly introduced themselves.

The Mutant took initiative in that, and introduced himself as "Baron", as he pulled out his gigantic shotgun from his back and proudly pounded on it.
The junkies was a female and male duo, whom introduced themselves as Robert and Mia.
The soldier stood up and with a gruff voice, he introduced himself as Voxius, of the 31st King's regiment. Unlike Mina, he wasn't clad in heavy Evacon armour, but instead, a light Kevlar vest with other plastic guards on his elbows and knees.

The grizzled man revealed himself to be an Allied Forces Veteran, whom name is Cromwell.
Mina's crew readied themselves as they headed to the abandoned building, with their swords and guns raised high. Baron was not as what Mina would thought him to be; a Buffoon. Instead, he was able to relay tactics to the other teammates, and was always discussing tactics with Cromwell. It turns out that there is more to his looks.

"Shhh!" Baron warned his teammates as they approached a large room after identifying a group of punks in the way. "Let's get em!" Robert exclaimed. "They're sitting ducks over there!"

Cromwell tried to hush the young and energetic junkie and Mina tried to coax him to keep silent but to no avail; breaking out of cover, Robert tried to fire his grenade launcher but the cylinder unfortunately jammed for him, causing the Punks to retaliate, gunning Robert down in an instant whilst revealing the squad's position.

"DAMNIT! ROBERT!" Mia yelled hysterically over the death of her boyfriend, breaking out of cover to fire her machinegun at the Punks, only to get herself killed in the process.
Desperate, the team tried to relocate themselves, only to get further pinned down by the heavy gunfire dealt by the punks. Voxius was the next to fall in battle, as a stray bullet punctured his neck killing him instantly. The only ones left was Cromwell, Mina and Baron. But Mina kept herself calm and tried to project the battlefield; one of them was on the other level and another one, taking cover behind a steel drum. Mina could hear automatic fire from the other level as lead kept on hailing from that side.

After hearing a click, Mina pre-emptively broke out of cover and aimed her gun at the punk wielding an assault rifle on the second level and fired, taking him out. Startled, the other punks looked back, giving an opportunity for both Cromwell and Baron to strike them unaware, as Baron fired his high powered shotgun at the punk behind the steel drums, killing him.

The punks were taken aback at their loss and tried to retreat. Using this to their advantage, the squad, or what's left of it advanced towards them, firing their weapons at the fleeting punks, only to get themselves outnumbered again as the punks got reinforced.
"How many of those motherfuckers are there?!" Baron yelled as he dashed for cover behind a heap of scrap metal, getting his arm shot in the process, dropping his gun. Baron cursed and swore as he clutched his bleeding arm and slumped down. The only able guns were Mina and Cromwell...

Mina then noticed a corpse of a Punk beside her and noticed a frag grenade. Instinctively, she grabbed the grenade, unpinned it and threw at the opposition, scattering the enemy as it exploded.

Grabbing the initiative, Baron ignored all the pain, grabbed his shotgun and fired at the punks, taking 2 of them out and inciting panic in them. The punks tried to run but coming out of the cloud of dust was Mina, with her HEAT sword blazing hot as she deftly swiped at a fleeing punk, severing his arm and hacking of the legs of another fleeing one. Hysterically, the remainder of the punks retreated, only to be gunned down the combined forces of the combatants. Even their leader, a taller punk, wearing a gas mask, was cowering away as he shouted pleas of surrender, but the orders were to kill everyone of them and thus, he was relentlessly gunned down, alongside his minions.

The mission then ended, but Mina sighed disdainfully as she gathered the corpse of the fallen. Cromwell then came behind her and consoled Mina, "They were great soldiers." Mina paused for a while as she stared at their bodies. "Yes... I have seen many fall in combat during my time... But I have to admit, the two of them were idiots."

Leaving the area, the team made it back to the guild's club and returned to the room. The room was filled with bloodied up mercenaries with some of them crying and weeping whilst the others looked extremely depressed. Shortly, the officer came to the room.
"So, how did your little huntin' trip go?"

The room remained silent.

"Ima ask again, anybody has success in the mission I issued?"
The room still refused to speak as one of the members from another team start to mumble prayers in Arabic.

Mina then stood up and begun talking as she handed the finger of the punk leader to Johnson, "We killed the leader of the punks, officer Johnson. But 3 of us died..."
The officer appeared pleased as he accepted the finger smilingly.

"Now, what about the rest of you? Nothing? Failed the misson? THEN GET THE FUCK OUT!" the officer, from a friendly voice, suddenly switched into a hateful and angered tone, driving out the rest of the recruits out of the establishment.

The Officer then approached Mina and her surviving party members and handed them a credit stick. "Here's your payment..." the Officer calmly said, whilst wiping sweat from his fringe with his hands. "I'll leave it to you to split up the dough..."

Concerned, Mina curiously asked, "What about the others, means they failed the test?"
Johnson rolled lit up a cigar and didn't answer Mina, leaving her waiting for an answer. Mina, who was then about to ask again, was interrupted, "Yesh, thosh guysh, we won't be sheein' them again. Pretty neat way of initialising guys to join this neat little joint huh? The bad ones get killed and the good ones get to stay for long, hope ya don't die too quickly... Here, take a drink."

Mina, frustrated and angered, swiped off the glass of whiskey on Johnson's hand and yelled at him, "What do you take their lives for!? Expendable little worms!? You just can't get people killed all like this!"

Before Mina could continue yelling at the sneering Johnson, she was pulled away by Cromwell with Baron bowing and telling the officer that they are taking their leave. Cromwell then turned to Mina. "You can't argue how things work 'round here. Here, take your share of the bounty."

Mina grabbed the credit stick and calmed herself down. Drinking off a glass of whiskey and scanning her credit stick with her smart phone, she smiled a little. "When's the next job...?"

--

Mina levered her smart-phone towards her face, trying to scan in a credit stick she swiped from a body of a dead bandit, only to be complicated by the messages of account balances. She tried to reach for the cancel buttons but she will be always puzzled by new age allied technologies. She pulled out a Evaconian gold note and remembered how money was much, much easier for her to even understand back before the invaders came.

Now, relying on her new team mate, an hacker, whom was expert in numbers to handle the money gathered from dead bandits. Mina begun to reminisce the events of the past; she remembered the first job in the guild five years ago, on how she lost her comrades in battle, to the subsequent battles she that came by in missions handed to her.

Mina grew stronger and stronger after each battle and got even more addicted to the job itself, spending blood money from both rewards and those taken from dead bodies to upgrade her weapons and purchase bits of technology to improve the fighting. From her old sword and her old armour piece, she is now clad in an Elite Light Powered armour, armed with a high-tech AVRT-Plasma tech blade and a military grade AMP pistol.

Bandits and space pirates that terrorised innocents were quickly put out of commission by Mina and her crew, all due to their superiority in combat and expertise in hunting them down, as long as there is a fee to be paid to them.

Cromwell then asked, "We made a fortune out of this business... When do you think is enough?"

Mina replied, "Till my blood stops running in my veins..." Mina grinned crazily as she gripped her sword and gun even tighter, eagerly waiting for the next wave of bandits to find them instead of retreating back to base...