Barrett had been driving for around ten minutes, concentrating on getting closer to the sounds of gunfire. What he had very nearly forgotten about as he rode down Intercity 5, was quite possibly the biggest anti-elf gang in the entire sprawl: the Spikes. Now as he rode, he had no choice but to notice them, as the rabid pack of trolls raced down the highway, obviously intending to take advantage of the sudden power outage. They were racing north, towards downtown Seattle, shooting anything that even remotely resembled an elf. Barrett was lucky; his armor and helmet concealed his features enough so that all he got was the occasional sneer.
Well, he thought to himself, first things first. With that, the stealthy assassin drew his silenced Savalette Guardian, taking the best aim he could at the lead bike’s front tire. As soon as his Smartlink-2 confirmed the target, and his range finder did its job, he squeezed off a three-round burst that ripped the bike’s tire wide open. The lead troll lost control, causing his bike to throw him and crash in front of his friends, who promptly crashed into it and each other, causing a massive pile-up. Barrett was satisfied to hear the moans and groans of gangers in pain. Those who didn’t crash stopped to check on their fellows and see what happened, allowing Barrett to pass them right by. They never even knew what hit them. Can’t do much damage now, he mused with a chuckle, not with their bikes trashed like that. He briefly considered returning to finish them off, but thought better of it. No sense wasting more ammunition on a bunch of trog gutterpunks.
A few minutes later, Barrett had crossed the border into South Seattle, in the Downtown district. Unfortunately, he realized, this would entail dealing with a whole different crop of sickos, the organlegging gang called the Disassemblers. He knew he would probably be unable to even slow down the gang, but was grimly determined to shoot any that he saw. With their white skull facepaint they were easy to spot, even in total darkness. After about five minutes, he spotted a group of heat signatures on his helmet display. It appeared as though a group of rather large individuals were applying the use of cold steel blades to some hapless stragglers who hadn’t had the good sense to stay home. Barrett stopped his bike short as he approached the scene. Removing his helmet, he dismounted and activated the security system. He drew the Guardian, and took aim at the ork closest to him.
Knowing that any warnings would fall on deaf ears, Barrett decided for the direct approach. He blew the top of the ork’s head clean off with one shot. The ghoulish metahuman dropped to the ground in a heap, drawing the attention of his friends.
“Crunch!” exclaimed a large troll as he looked down at the oozing form of his onetime comrade.
“That was a warning,” Barrett calmly stated, expertly training the barrel of his heavy pistol on the next target, “I won’t give you another.”The remaining four gangers looked at each other for a moment, dumbfounded. Then some of them growled, while others started chuckling.
“You think you can take all of us? By yourself?!” one of the humans asked mockingly.
“Well, now that you mention it…” Barrett began, holstering the Guardian, “yes. Yeah, I think so. Let’s see…four of you…one of me…yeah, it shouldn’t be too much of a problem.”
The gangers all stared at him in disbelief for a moment, then started laughing. The human stepped forward again, drawing his long, vicious-looking knife away from his bleeding victim.
“Pssh. Whatever, keeb. Now, let’s see what your guts look like,” the human snarled.
“Hey, Mookie, dis keeb looks kinda weird,” one obviously intelligent ork declared.
“Yeah, a real furball,” another one snickered.
“Are you pasty-faced hoop-heads gonna talk all night,” Barrett asked with a smile, reaching for his Fineblade, “or are we gonna dance?”
With that, the gangers charged.