Shadow Image

[Tabris]

Ben knew this was a bad situation, but he had the last laugh, it started as a small chuckle, soft and even before slowly growing into a full blown laugh, shaking his head he looked up briefly at Alvarez, looking around him as the net was closed in.

"Alvarez, as much as I would like to say I am surprised at you being here, I am not, afterall I know too much to be let go just like that." He lightly commented before chuckling once more. "It's not enough the Coalition tries to murder me despite my loyalty to it, to insult me by not sending a team of Commissars to do a job that should have been finished in the Cargo Bay." he mutters, mentally tallying how many bullets he had left in his pistol and how many shots he could get off before being taken down, all he needs is another minute.

"I knew I couldn't escape, you people are so desperate, so high-strung that you cannot risk me revealing what I know." he let out, humour appearing on his face. "But I have the last laugh, because despite all of this, all your hard work you have failed miserably, I have hurt you more than you know, you should have known better than to try and kill a man with access to...Damning Information." he stated calmly with a hint of a smirk on his face. He may have lost here, but in the end he won a different type of victory.


"You may have caught me, but nothing will undo the damage I have done to your treasonous Nation, a Nation that would destroy a loyal officer out of fear of supposed disloyalty, in the end, I have won, I may or may not remember that I won later on, but nothing can change that fact, no matter how deeply you purge it from my mind or how many ways you torture me before death." he taunted the Hispanic man without a hint of pity. These people had betrayed him, if there was one thing that echoed within his mind, it was No Mercy for Traitors.

Ben was starting to tired from the blood loss, but he kept himself awake forcibly so he could at least have one final stand.

[arvg]

"You are a funny man, Hermano," Alvarez said, fishing out a cigarette and lighting it, despite the fact that they were in "Church".

"You really think we would go to so much trouble if we wanted you dead, holmes?" He shook his head. "No esse, if we wanted you dead, you would be dead long before you got off of the Lithuania, si? You know what we do to traitors, and scum... did you ever think that you were being used?"

Alvarez took a long drag on his cigarette, "that your every move wasn't predicted, orchestrated, and choreographed right from the start?" he shook his head. "Hermano, you really don't know Commissar Mendel that well, do you? Psychotropic drugs in the air supply on the Lithuania, makes you locco, thinking your own men are trying to kill you. Then your convenient access to classified materials... All chosen by the Ministry of Truth, esse, all selected because once the people you ran to saw them, they'd know what they were going to be facing in combat."

Alvarez smiled faintly, "The Corsairs, they panic easily, holmes, you know that. You have hunted them with me. If they see that we have superior ships, weapons, and equipment, the moral blow to the disorganized rabble, will cause them to tremble, to flinch at the sight of a ship they know to be better than theirs, flown by a proper disciplined military pilot. No, you gave them exactly what we wanted you to give them, a reason to fear us."

"I would say that this was Mendel's idea, but it wasn't... si? I think you know who ordered this mission... and who suggested you be the one to do it..." Alvarez activated a holographic image of Colonel Ben Warner, in his uniform, looking smug.

"Say hello to yourself," Alvarez said, with a gesture. "You see, you took the precaution of recording a message for yourself, should it be time to bring you home. I think you should listen to what he has to say, it is ... interesting."

---

[Tabris]

Ben was unimpressed, drugged air was a rather pathetic ruse, he merely scoffed in reply and smirked slightly at the Hispanic General.

"I see that the Coalition is once again unoriginal in it's lies, not surprising since I already know my successor is a foolish muppet who cannot fabricate a decent cover story." He commented lightly, brushing off the claims of Ben being used off as if it was mere dust on the sleeve of his cloak.

When he pulled out the Recording he rolled his eyes.

"Once again unoriginal fabrication, I was in the Commissariat long enough to know that any idiot worth his salt can create falsified Holographic Images and using my voice patterns you can make what seems to be a 'will' or 'memory', General, your insulting my intelligence." he shot at the General, mildly annoyed that he could come up with such a pathetic plan to make him return 'willingly'.

"Now General, I think we've established my stance and your own quite nicely, while you may be able to bring me down does not mean I will go to the Commissariat for reprogramming without a single struggle." he shot at him. he knew he wouldn't last long with this wound and this many Coalition infiltrators. But he 'd be damned if he went down like a punk Rogue.

[arvg]

Alvarez went down like a crumpled rag doll, an audible silence entered the church.

There were a few minutes of gasping as, Alvarez struggled to sit upright. "You shot me!" he shouted incredulously. "Esse, you SHOT ME!"

His hand closed over the wound, feeling the blood rinsing over his hand.

"I am unarmed, hermano..." he gasped, looking at the bloody fingers.

---

[Tabris]

As Alvarez crumbled to the floor after being shot Ben merely smiled brightly.

"Yes I shot you, to be fair though your boys shot me." he commented, biting the inside of his cheek after he said this, feeling a flare of pain go up his now useless arm as he stood there, near his feet drops of blood could be seen dripping slowly from the length of his wounded arm.

When Alvarez told him he was unarmed he scoffed.

"Your not unarmed, you are General Alvarez, you command these 'fine' gentlemen" he baited with sarcasm in his voice as he turned his pistol towards the next man, one of the men blocking his exit. "Now Alvarez, you have acouple choices, you can kill me and end a potential threat, capture me and hope that I don't break the mental conditioning or simply let me go without further injuries, although I doubt your man enough to do the first, too cowardly to do the third so that simply leaves you with the second." he states calmly, in his mind he knew that this would not end well for him, but he was simply beyond caring now.

[Omi]

The huge oaken doors of the church flew outwards, slamming into the wall with twin booms that reverberated around the room. A power-armoured figure raced in, having heard the previous commotion over suit communications. Lukas wasn't very pleased - at all. He'd been cursing himself since it turned out he'd miserably failed to catch the target, but now he only hoped he could make up for it in some small way. At least he could clearly see him, rather than running endlessly through tunnels after cloaked mysterious figures.

Lukas raised his gun high, aiming it at the swaying, bleeding man in front of him and squeezing off a burst of shots at him as he continued onwards, heading to assist the downed general any way he could. No time for chit-chat.

---

[Jayce]

The small vehicle raced into the room after Lukas, and with speed far outdoing a normal human, passed him without issue. The electric motors of the vehicle were not even at half output, yet they could overtake a human at a full sprint in mere seconds.

"General Alvarez!" said the holographic image of Doctor Will Foetsch as the small vehicle approached, "Get down!" Alvarez threw himself prone just in time for the spray of bullets to pass over him, shredding the shins of the bleeding Ben Warner.

The injured man collapsed into a a bloody heap before general Alvarez, his legs (or what was left of them) unable to support his own weight.

"Sorry to steal your thunder, Lukas," said the hologram of Foetsch as Lukas came to a stop by the body, "But High Command wanted this charade over once and for all..."

The vehicle approached the body of Warner, and a small laser tool emerged from its front. With near-surgical precision, a high-powered laser began cauterizing the wounds Warner had sustained, so that he would not bleed out.

---