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It was an abandoned town somewhere in the Arabian desert where Raiden had wound up. There had been an unusual influx of UG and cyborg activity in the region, and though Raiden was no longer with Maverick, he couldn’t let it sit and fester.
Based on the brief report he’d dug up, it sounded like Desperado and their cut-throat tactics. With their all-mighty Winds of Destruction and their cash-cow Armstrong gone, he’d assumed that they were completely disbanded.
The village was a sight when he’d arrived-- buildings barely hospitable and practically falling to pieces. There were remnants of IRVINGs sparking with fresh lacerations in the muscle tissue of the legs; clean cuts with barely any resistance. Not to mention the cyborg infantry detail… all gone.
Their bodies were riddled with curved gashes that split them by the abdomen into halves. Their electrolyte insides were completely gone, and their blood was shaped in odd crescent moon fashions. There was no evidence of anyone around either-- nothing was coming up on Raiden’s sensor and the sand had long covered up any possible footprints. Hell, the remnants were already blanketed and slightly dusty.
He knit his eyebrows together as a warm, sandy gust blew past. Cautiously, he approached one of the dispatched cyborgs and knelt down in the sand to inspect the corpse. Raiden lifted a hand to brush away the sandy granules covering the body. His hunch was right-- it was Desperado; the red and black skull insignia was all too clear on the cyborg’s upper thigh.
They hadn't initiated the standard self-destruct sequence utilized by Desperado either, despite having been here for some time. Raiden assumed that because the organization was just a shell, whoever was behind this wasn't concerned about a possible data breach. But there was the golden question-- who did this?
Raiden continued moving through the abandoned village attentively. There were more corpses of Desperado cyborgs and even more destroyed UGs. A few LQ-84s, even more IRVINGs--hell even a few GRADs… it was a complete mess.
Coming to a small, more open area, Raiden noticed a figure standing on a pile of rubble. They were nonchalantly leaning their body weight against the frame of a building, as if expecting him. Raiden instinctively whipped his arm back to grasp the hilt of his HF.
Using his ocular, Raiden zoomed in and scanned the figure-- they were feminine in stature and the lower half of their face was shielded by an armored covering. A cyborg, as expected, but her XIFF was labelled unaffiliated. The real surprise was the Desperado insignia imprinted on her left leg in a similar fashion as Mistral. She was custom built-- not like Desperado’s common, garden variety contractors...and there were two curved blades attached to extensions on her lower back. There was also a utility belt featuring a handful of grenades attached to her waist.
Raiden expected possible Desperado involvement, sure… but a Desperado affiliate taking down their own cyborgs?
“You’re Jack, right?” the cyborg asked suddenly, almost as if expecting he wouldn't answer.
Through the face covering, her voice sounded younger than what he'd faced with the rest of Desperado…
“I’m kinda surprised you even showed up,” she mused, straightening her posture as she began to pace the brick and concrete rubble she was situated upon. “Glad I didn’t do all this for nothing, though.”
She motioned toward the trail of wreckage she left behind offhandedly.
Raiden’s eyes narrowed as he observed her warily-- she was behaving far too lenient and relaxed for his liking.
“Who are you?” Raiden questioned with an unrestrained edge to his tone.
She turned her head to gaze down at him in mild surprise, stopping in her tracks.
“Sheesh, what an unfriendly guy…” she noted dismissively. “You can call me Simoom.”
“I’m not known for my friendliness towards people like you.”
Simoom scoffed bitterly and her shoulders appeared to slump ever so slightly.
“Yeah, so I’ve realized...”
There was a beat of silence as another sandy gust blew past.
“So, what’s the point of all this? The Winds are gone, World Marshal is gone…and you’re sabotaging your own men?” Raiden prodded carefully-- it felt like he was walking on eggshells.
Simoom looked down at him with a glint of amusement in her eyes. She reached behind herself to grasp the hilts of two curved sickle swords. She spun the blades around her fingers languidly before locking gazes with Raiden.
“Let's call it 'unfinished business.'”
Before Raiden could ask for elaboration, her eyes flashed a dangerous red; she too was equipped with optical implants. She swung her right arm forward, the curved blade aimed menacingly down at him.
“Let’s play a little game, Jack. Try to keep up!”
Suddenly, without warning, a few IRVINGs leapt out from behind the rubble where Simoom was standing. A small unit of heavily armed Desperado cyborgs rushed in close behind. Raiden drew his HF blade and watched as Simoom cheekily waved goodbye and sprinted away in the opposite direction.
A set-up-- she had deliberately led him here.
Raiden sliced through the approaching cyborgs’ abdomens and dodged around the swinging legs of the lumbering IRVINGs. The UGs howled as Raiden tore through the muscle tissue of their legs, a yellow-green lactic acid spraying from the fresh lacerations. The machines fell to the ground in chorus of their automated groans.
Immediately, Raiden set off in a sparking ninja run after the Desperado perpetrator. Leaping over the rubble and blazing a trail through the blistering sand, he was faced with more enforcement. He barely stopped to take them down, instead focusing on the trail Simoom was taking.
She was damn quick on her feet and much more agile than anticipated.
“Raiden, I recognize her,” the automated voice of Blade Wolf suddenly interjected from Raiden’s codec.
“Wolf?”
“I found interest in the status of your current mission,” the AI responded. “Simoom was a child that was found by Desperado in the Syrian steppe. A victim of the local civil war.”
“A child?” Raiden muttered in disbelief. “How old?”
“She would be sixteen now,” Wolf stated. “She was rescued by Sundowner two years ago and given cybernetic enhancements. A child soldier on two fronts of life.”
Raiden felt himself grimace as he cleaved through a Mastiff. There was sick irony in hearing that Sundowner rescued her. That bastard wanted an army of brainwashed children to push his twisted war agenda. He was sure that the terrorist didn’t do it out of the goodness of his heart.
“Her namesake comes from the Arabian ‘simoom’-- the ‘poison wind.’ A searing hot wind prone to delivering heat stroke,” the AI commented. “I know very little about her, but it is likely that she was seeking you out to carry out lex talionis. Proceed with caution.”
“...Right.”
Now, Raiden wasn’t sure how to feel. He didn’t want to kill a child.
But now was not the time to dwell on it as two more heavily armed cyborgs came rushing toward him with their blades drawn. As Raiden was getting ready to perform his standard zandatsu, the cyborgs were cleaved open by the abdomen as Simoom came barreling toward him. The artificial blood sprayed in waves, and Raiden barely could raise his HF before the curved blade of one of the sickles collided violently with his shoulder and the weight of the cyborg plowed into him.
The sudden force was enough to knock him onto his back with the sickle carving into the synthetic muscle. A plume of sandy dust erupted around him at the unexpected impact and obscured his vision. The weight suddenly disappeared off of his chest alongside the sickle, and Raiden swiftly jumped back to his feet while the dust settled.
A few spurts of his white blood gushed from the wound as he stared Simoom down. The young cyborg was spinning the blade she’d cleaved into him as she walked backwards away.
The corpses of the Desperado cyborgs had already collapsed, their milky colored blood dripping mercilessly off of her sickles and bleeding into the sand. There was an intense aura about Simoom-- that of someone who had nothing to lose. An all-or-nothing strategy.
“Too slow, Jack,” she mused, voice laced with venom. “Gotta be a little bit quicker on the draw.”
Raiden grimaced as a few more ropes of the white liquid spurted from the tear in his shoulder. Unusual-- her sickles were modified with HF oscillators strong enough to damage his custom body far too easily for his liking.
"I'm not going to kill you," he responded, lowering his blade. “That’s not my objective.”
A tick of annoyance decorated her visible features, and her eyebrows were drawn together. A brief flash of red engulfed her eyes; her amusement had quickly faded.
"Why? Because I'm young?" she snarled. "As if that should be the determining factor."
"Desperado is gone, you don't have to do this anymore," Raiden stated, watching as Simoom's eyes narrowed into a crimson glare. "You can start over."
She scoffed.
“Easy for you to say.”
“I’m serious, Simoom, you don’t need to live like this,” Raiden reassured. “I know what it’s like, and I can help you.”
Her hostile expression appeared to falter for a fraction of a second, as though she was considering it. Her gaze steeled itself and she shook her head vehemently.
"Yeah, no--not interested."
And just like that, she was off-- sprinting through the blistering sand yet again. Raiden had no choice but to follow her. It was like an estranged game of cat-and-mouse, he realized. She wanted him to catch her, or at the very least, take him somewhere. He needed to stay on his guard lest he be walking straight into a trap.
"Raiden," Blade Wolf buzzed in again, "can you afford to spare her?"
"I have to," he muttered. "She's a kid-- she doesn't have to live this life, especially when Desperado can’t pull her strings anymore."
"What if there is no other option?"
"What do you mean?"
"Her loyalty to Desperado may run deeper than you realize,” the AI responded. “She was saved by them and it's likely that her sense of ‘unfinished business’ is dealing with you-- the one who killed her hypothetical saviors.”
Raiden felt a sudden rush of exasperation at that.
“That’s bullshit! They had to have been using her!”
“Most likely, but that doesn’t change the debt she may feel that she owes.”
“Then I need to convince her of how shit they were.”
“What if that fails?”
Raiden couldn’t muster up a response. Blade Wolf seemed to expect this.
“...I’ll think of something.”
“Raiden, you may need to make some sacrifices.”
“I know.”
As Raiden pursued the cyborg, he couldn’t help but notice that there was a lack of infantry this time around… and he could easily keep track of her. She was gracefully jumping over wreckage and nimbly weaving through the skeletons of buildings.
Simoom ended up leading him to the edge of town where the remnants of a large building were laid to waste. It was an open area where the sand had covered most of the ruins. It was a place long forgotten by its inhabitants.
She faced him with her sickles drawn. She twirled them lazily once or twice before firmly grasping their hilts. Raiden skidded to a stop, leaving a good amount of space between him and her.
"I'm the last pillar of Desperado, your last obstacle," Simoom muttered. "The final Wind of Destruction."
"Why are you so devout to them? They're gone, it's over. If you win here what will you achieve?"
She snickered.
"Peace of mind."
The cyborg came sprinting at him and Raiden drew his blade to deflect the attack. Raiden was startled by the amount of force behind her strike as it pushed him back a few feet. Simoom didn’t stop at one strike either, and continued to lash at him. She was swift, but her technique was lacking. There was the evident skill of someone self-taught, but it lacked refinement. This was someone who was used to quick and seamless fights, not a battle that carried on for too long.
Simoom was merciless through and through however, never allowing Raiden room to breathe-- not dissimilar to a sandstorm. She was good at finding holes in his guard and exploiting his openings, the curved blades carving into his synthetic muscle fiber more than once. Raiden never struck back however, and it was evidently frustrating the young cyborg. She stopped her onslaught, eyes observing him menacingly.
"This is awfully one-sided."
"I already told you. This isn't going to get you anywhere."
Simoom’s expression was knit together in anger.
“Pathetic,” she snarled. “You fought the Winds and you killed them! Stop undermining me you bastard!”
She lunged suddenly, but Raiden managed to hook the sickle around his HF.
“They were adults-- you don’t deserve to follow in their footsteps. They knew what they were doing to you,” Raiden argued, knocking her back a few paces. “You can have a second chance!”
“Second chance this, second chance that,” Simoom growled. “The others didn’t get a second chance, now did they? What makes me so different, huh? My age doesn’t change the fates of all the people I’ve killed, Jack! You of all people should know that!”
Simoom practically glided through the sand toward him, her movements far more sporadic than before. She purposefully hooked one of her sickles around his HF and managed to pull him forward, bringing the other blade down to carve into the side of his neck. The young cyborg used her momentum to sweep a leg underneath Raiden’s, knocking him into the sand. The sharp metal of her clawed feet scraped against his torso like nails on a chalkboard, but she didn’t try to puncture the synthetic fibers.
She spun the blades again, the weapons practically stained an ugly white.
“Come on Jack the Ripper, show me what you can do! There’s no need to hold back!”
Blade Wolf’s words from earlier suddenly rang through his mind…
“Can you afford to spare her?”
He was quick to rise to feet again, causing Simoom to move away, the bitter realization that the AI was right all along settling in. No matter how much he tried, it really didn’t seem like she’d come to his side. If he really just kept letting her get through, he very well might die. Unrefined, yes-- untalented, no. Far from it. Whatever regimen Desperado had put her through was effective in building a murder machine, and Raiden wanted to finish it off once and for all.
Simoom sprinted toward him through the sand with the gracefulness of a hunting cheetah. Swift on her feet with the intention to kill. Relentless and desperate, the hunter was about to become the hunted.
As she powerfully brought her sickles down upon her opponent, he was able to catch the blades with his sword. Raiden pulled his HF upwards to force Simoom’s arms up at an uncomfortable angle, causing the blades to tumble from her grasp. She could barely move out of the way before the HF was swung toward her.
Simoom was surprised as she landed in the sand, yet thrilled as Raiden drew close.
“Finally!” she barked, elated and joyous.
The two ran toward each other with bloodthirsty intent. As Raiden swung the blade down, Simoom dropped to her knees and slid through the sand behind him. She had the sickles in her hands almost as quickly as Raiden disarmed her.
Her reflexes were incredibly honed. Nimbly did she weave around Raiden's fierce strikes, deflecting the HF with a single sickle as needed.
Ther display of blades and evasion was oddly enchanting. A dance of blood and sand void of an on-scene audience.
With every movement, the sand beneath them was displaced. The blood of Raiden's body clotting the sand the more they moved.
The cyborg side swept his HF with one arm, a move Simoom had apparently foreseen. Her frame was practically weightless as she delivered a swift and powerful kick to the center of his chest through the brief opening. Raiden staggered back and Simoom leapt forward to tear both of her sickles diagonally down his form.
"Don't disappoint me, Jack," she hissed as she carved into his frame.
Raiden was resilient, however, refusing to back down. He quickly retaliated, crashing their blades against each other.
Their dance tearing through the sand continued. The grating noise of their HFs colliding sang through the air.
Her pace stuttered for nary a fraction of a second and Raiden struck like lightning. The HF ended up barely nicking the side of Simoom's cheek as she clumsily dodged to the side, breaking the rhythm. He managed to catch her off guard.
He charged forward with his strikes violently. Simoom was flustered and unable to bring up her blades for defense, resorting to just evading him.
She'd lost her footing.
Simoom reached back and hooked one of her sickles back into it's extension, freeing her hand. She went down to her utility belt frantically, grasping at one of the grenades. She pulled the pin and chucked it down toward Raiden's feet.
It had barely hit the sand before an electric current was discharged beneath Raiden. The electricity flowed through his frame, paralyzing him and shutting off his optical implant as his system ran through a reboot.
EMP Grenades...clever girl.
Raiden's system turned back on and he was faced with Simoom swinging her leg up at him. The clawed metal of her foot collided harshly with his lower jaw and sent him fumbling back.
"Try harder!" Simoom growled.
Raiden was back on his grind almost immediately at her insult. He blitzed in a charge toward her, and surprisingly, Simoom didn't act in defense. She gripped her sickles and sprinted.
So quickly had the tides changed.
Raiden’s HF reached Simoom first-- the blade smoothly splicing upward between her right bicep and shoulder. The disgusting sound of artificial fiber and flesh being torn pierced the dusty air. With wide eyes, Simoom watched as a geyser of crimson fluid streamed from the wound.
Red. It was red.
Everything seemed to progress in slow motion as the limb fell haplessly into the sand, the sickle still gripped in its lifeless hold. The wail of anguish that came from the young cyborg rang painfully through the air as she stumbled back. Blood was painting the sand a grotesque shade as she gripped at the stump in a haphazard attempt to stop the hemorrhaging. Her remaining sickle had collided with the sand as she fell to a knee, barely managing to catch herself.
That old phrase 'we all bleed red' no longer carried to the battlefield.
Blood is really what dehumanized the art of cyborg warfare after all. The white, opaque liquid wasn’t something that was typically associated with human life. The white was cold, unfeeling. The red was warm, more alive. Take away the human aspects and it becomes so much easier to kill.
Raiden was used to the dehumanization of life given his history, but...this was a child. She was still mostly flesh, hardly a cold and unfeeling killing machine. There were no emotional suppressors or pain inhibitors-- this was genuine, far from artificial. There was no longer a crimson hue to her gaze, it was dark and full with the most human expression of fear.
Yet, this is what she wanted.
A gut-wrenching feeling spread through Raiden as he stood straight again-- the warm blood cascading down the sides of his blade. The younger cyborg watched with keen, wide eyes.
Their eyes met with the intensity of an electric spark. She appeared like a deer in headlights, paralyzed in place. Simoom was breathing heavily, her veins coursing with apparently enough adrenaline to mask the pain of the amputation.
In a weak attempt, Simoom allowed her hand to fall into the sand. She grasped blindly for the hilt of her remaining sickle. The ugly red was smeared against the handle and blade as she finally clutched her weapon.
The clawed, sharp metal of her feet dug into the sand as she rose up. Blood streamed down her side as that terrible red hue glazed over her dark irises yet again. Simoom twirled the remaining blade articulately.
“I’m not done yet,” she heaved, voice strained.
Why wouldn’t she just give up? A heat of twisted bloodlust-fueled rage morphed within Raiden, but where was it directed? Was it at her?-- driven by his bloodthirsty nature? Or was it at Desperado, for how they commissioned this poor girl into such blind devotion?
Raiden ran his sharp, metallic fingers across the surface of his HF, her blood tainting his fingertips. He gripped his sword, eyes flashing a dangerous hue to match his opponent.
He’d play it colorblind and ignore the red oozing out of her body.
Dehumanize the situation. Don’t feel anything.
This time, Raiden was the first to charge. Simoom was able to deflect his first few strikes and had managed to duck in close. Her swing wasn’t very strong and it merely scraped against the metal. It was quite clear that the loss of circulating blood flow and use of her less predominant hand was taking its hold immediately.
For the situation she was greatly unprepared-- a true desperado in her last ditch effort.
Fitting.
Simoom couldn't move fast enough before Raiden's HF collided with her oxygen concentrator, splitting the covering down the middle and gashing her across the mouth. She staggered backwards as blood dripped from her lips and the covering fell to the sand. She grimaced and spat a wad of blood, weakened stance wavering. The cyborg was having trouble standing straight.
Fragile, Raiden thought, so quick and daring but so easily ensnared. In reality, she wasn't that powerful. It was all a guise-- just like how animals will sometimes attempt to intimidate their predators. Her performance was nothing short of a false warning display.
Despite her exhaustion, she was able to evade another of his strikes. But just barely. In a sloppy thrust of her remaining arm, she was able to carve the sickle into the side of his abdomen. White blood oozed from the laceration in ropes.
The sickle was lodged deep into the synthetic material to the point where Simoom could no longer pull it out. A bloodied look of shock adorned her features. The blade slipped from her grasp and Simoom stumbled clumsily backwards.
Raiden charged viciously, bashing the hilt into her forehead and sending her even further back. He didn't stop and tore his HF down her front in an x-formation. Pieces of her exoskeleton splintered off and hit the sand, hot blood seeping through the cracks.
He quickly dug his blade deep into her side and cleaved horizontally. Blood spilled followed by something else… Raiden refused to acknowledge it. He thrust the HF forward, transfixing the weapon through her abdomen.
Simoom choked, blood bubbling up violently in her gullet. She could barely breathe as she coughed and sputtered. Raiden forced her against the crumbling ruin wall of the building. Through a pained haze, she stared him in the eyes.
For the briefest of seconds, the red had once again faded from Simoom's gaze. Her expression had returned to the doe-like fear followed by a sharp intake of breath.
Raiden didn't let it register.
His blade tore through her with lightning fast strikes. The same treatment the other Winds got-- her body spliced into smithereens. Raiden's forceful onslaught pushed them further into the old building, more rubble collapsing.
Pieces of her body crashed into the rubble around them violently. His final strike was decisively delivered to her throat, disconnecting the brain from the body. The bloodied frenzy was over almost immediately with no sign of struggle.
Not even a single cry for help.
Her fate was painstakingly mute, resigned. Welcomed, even.
Harsh, heavy breaths escaped Raiden's lips. The red, bloodthirsty haze of Jack the Ripper slowly retreated from his stained frame. The air was quiet, undisturbed-- unfitting for the circumstance.
Blood streamed down Raiden's blade, dripping viscously onto the rubble. The red decorated the sleek material of his frame like a painting. Disgusting.
He sheathed the HF somberly and tore out the sickle carved into his frame, not even flinching. Raiden turned away, observing the curved blade now in his possession.
He couldn't bear to stare down at what he'd done. It didn't feel like an accomplishment. After everything Raiden had been through with Desperado and World Marshal, he could scarcely feel as though he truly won this battle.
She was the poster child for what Desperado was trying to achieve, even before they had started mutilating children for their brains. She was their success-- a devotee to phantoms. Her existence served as a kick in the teeth, sealing that Desperado got the last laugh after everything.
As he began to leave with a heavy heart in tow, an eerie, static reverberation echoed. Raiden felt a shiver rack his bloodied frame and his breath caught in his throat. Though the sandy air was warm, his body ran cold.
“I wish things could have been different…”
The muffled, grated voice of Simoon was strikingly haunting against the dead static. It was so brief and hushed that Raiden wasn’t even sure he had heard her. He spun around to peer at her body’s massacred remnants. The light of the sun streamed perfectly through the hole he'd made, illuminating her beheaded figure.
A final, dull red glow faded from her lifeless gaze. Her face was gnarled, bloodied, and streaked with a clear fluid.
Tears. It was tears.
And perhaps even worse was the faint, poignant trace of a blissful smile decorating her dismantled features. She had stirred him up expressly for this outcome. There was never any intention to win the fight and emerge victorious, no. She wished for death so she could at least die as one of Desperado...to pay off her debt.
It was so unbelievably fucked.
This was the face of blind devotion-- someone so willing to die for a cause. A kid, a literal child.
Raiden felt sick to his stomach. He felt so indescribably disgusted with both himself and the bastards that ran Desperado.
He didn't win. This wasn't a victory in his eyes. Nothing, absolutely nothing was glorious about what happened.
Raiden tapped into his codec solemnly as he stepped out of the dilapidated building. There were so many emotions raging within him, but he knew what he needed to do.
“Doktor?”
“Raiden…?” the German accented voice quickly responded, almost sounding shaken.
Figures. He’d had a feeling the cybernetics specialist was watching the ordeal.
“Send in a medical convoy to my coordinates. Do what you can, Dok, I don’t want things to end this way.”