New Eden: Live to Play, Play to Live

Francesco couldn't hear the gunfire inside the bunker, as the door was too thick to echo noise unless it was struck directly. But what he did hear, though, was the door suddenly unlocking.

Which, in itself, was abnormal. He had not given the code to anyone.

When the passcode was inputted into the console outside, and biometrics verified, normally, the countermeasures would turn offline and allow the person to enter safely.

But, seeing his automated defences pop out on the wall, Francesco ran to the far end of the room, making sure he couldn't accidentally get hit as well.

The door slid open, and all hell broke loose.

Francesco ducked behind a leather lounger seat, covering his ears as the sound of four Gatling guns ripped the air asunder. Fire burned the air, as two flame throwers activated, tracking something inside the room.

The defences went on for a minute, with explosions occurring every ten to fifteen seconds, until it became silent again.

Hearing footsteps, Francesco peeked over the lounger he had hidden behind.

And his face dropped.

Before the door had opened, his film had been interrupted, suddenly showing images of a kid, who tore through his men on the streets, and then in a park, followed by a scene of the inside of his mansion, guards dead and bloodied everywhere.

He already knew the freaking hacker had gone into his system, but now it was showing him things that he couldn't care less about, and things that would never happen.

But when he saw who was walking into his bunker, unscathed from his six countermeasures inside the walls, which were now in rubble, his heart skipped a beat.

He knew there were still things that should have popped up, but strangely, no more countermeasures were coming into play.

Katherine had deactivated the ones that were too dangerous as she unlocked the door. There were grenade launchers and small sub-sonic rail guns in the walls.

She didn't know how the Bianchis had gotten their hands on those, and she also wasn't sure how strong Alexander was. So she elected to shut them down, saving him some trouble.

But, when she watched the cameras, she almost regretted having done so. In the first ten seconds of the entrance, Katherine had to order her techies to back up the video and slow down the footage, just so she could see what Alexander was doing.

He was moving too fast for her eyes to follow him, as he ducked under the first onslaught of bullets and flames, rushing to the side, and starting to take the turrets out.

She didn't want to miss anything he did after this, so she kept one feed on live, and stopped watching the slow-mo one when everything was over. But her men didn't.

All of them watched on, awestruck that a human being could move away from an automated targeting system, and an advanced one at that, and take out machines that were meant to take down entire intrusion forces.

The sight was both amazing and terrifying at the same time. If a human could do this, then what could he do to a person?

Their unspoken questions eventually led them to watch the footage of Alexander's incursion into the Bianchi mansion, once the phone calls to the police had died down. And their stomachs were not ready.

But Katherine's attention was already on the bunker, where Alex was now speaking to Francesco Bianchi.

***

"Who the fuck are you, kid?! Do you know whose house you barged into?! Do you think I won't kill you?!" Francesco hollered, trying to put up a tough front.

There was no way this single guy had taken down his entire force, right? And the hacker had probably made the countermeasures take themselves out.

That had to be it.

Seeing as the young man kept walking toward him, incredibly slowly, his steps like drops of water in a bathtub, Francesco pulled out his gun.

"You take one more step, and I'll pop your head! You hear me?!" he shouted, brandishing his gold-plated 44 Magnum.

But the man kept walking forward, unbothered.

Francesco couldn't even make eye contact with him. Every time he did, his heart almost froze, and he looked at his chest instead.

'What is with this guy?! Is he not afraid of dying?!' Francesco cried out in his mind.

Pulling the trigger, Francesco watched as the bullet suddenly ricocheted off the air before the man, lodging into the wall to the left.

"What the fuck…"

He fired again, and the same thing happened. Then he started pulling the trigger repeatedly, emptying the magazine as Alexander stepped closer and closer.

*Click click click*

Francesco had emptied the magazine, and still, the man was walking towards him, now only a few feet away, almost at arm's length.

"Seriously, who the fuck are you?" he asked, his voice now trembling and cracking.

Alex stopped as the gun bumped into his torso.

"It doesn't matter who I am. It only matters that you couldn't keep your dogs in check, and they harmed my people. And for this, you will pay the highest price."

Francesco could feel his heart start thumping uncontrollably in his chest.

He tried punching the man and making a break for it, but before his fist could reach Alexander's face, the arm dropped to the ground, separated from his body.

Alex didn't even give him time to scream in pain, and immediately used some low-level fire control to set the fresh wound ablaze, cauterizing it in moments. He slammed his hand over Francesco's mouth, keeping him from crying out.

Tears rose into the Italian's eyes as the pain reached his mind.

"Don't bother. If you had the power to do anything in the past, that epoch has long gone by. We are entering a time where people like me will rise, and people like you lose all they have, to the benefit of others. People like you will rise from the masses of people like me. But I will make sure I deal them with, just as I dealt with you. Sadly, you won't be there to see this."

A muffled shout came from under Alex's mouth, and he let go of Francesco's face.

"Wait! I can give you whatever you want! Just let me go! You want money, I have shit loads of money! It's all yours! Just don't kill me!"

Alex looked at him with a scoff.

"Kill you? I already dirtied my hands with more blood than was necessary to deal with your men. I won't kill you."

Francesco was about to sigh in relief until he felt a sharp pain in his chest.

Looking down, his breath cut short, he saw the young man's hand, jammed in all the way to the wrist, right in his sternum.

"I said I wasn't going to kill you, but I never said you were leaving here. I hope that when the demons are done with you, and finally consume your essence, your soul doesn't remember what it is like to be happy. But that won't be for a long time. Longer than you have ever imagined. And longer than your mind can fathom."

Yanking his hand back, Alex held in it a bright orb of white light. The orb quickly got sucked into the ring on his hand, disappearing in moments.

'I want him to suffer forever. Don't you dare eat him outright. Understand?' he mentally commanded the demons inside the signet.

Feeling of ecstasy and elation reached his mind, as the demons rejoiced at the new toy their master had sent them.

Alex felt something tug at his soul, but ignored it.

'I will deal with this when I can. But I had to do it,' he thought to himself.