Chapter 387: Metal Arm.
The majority of the buildings in Hollowgrid are the massive megacomplexes that span entire city blocks, separated only by wide streets. For that reason, the side alleys in the district were different from the usual. Most went straight through the buildings, acting as a sort of lobby connected to some staircases, but for some people, they were nothing more than shortcuts.
Another thing that differentiated them from conventional side alleys was the presence of ceilings. One could argue that it made no difference, but with how dark things tended to get at night, having the light from above was quite important, especially with how some of the buildings lacked maintenance.
Dante chose a random building to deal with his rat problem. It was unexpectedly deserted, perfect for an ambush. Just as he crossed half the distance between him and the first set of stairs, he heard the sound of footsteps hurrying to catch up with him.
The fact that they said nothing before surrounding him showed it wasn’t a simple mugging. He studied their faces, trying to discern what prompted them to make this grave mistake. One of them stood out to him right away, and suddenly everything cleared up.
"Don’t tell me Riot hasn’t given up yet," Dante said. "Or... what? Did he send you to give me a good shaking?"
"The boss? Yeah, you could say he left handling you to us." The guy stepped into the rat circle. "That’s not why we’re here, though."
"Okay, get on with it already. I’m kinda sleepy right now."
Lines washed over the rats, selecting parts of their bodies and marking them with red. Once the scan was over, small screens appeared around each of them, showing their threat index and basic retention, as well as some info about their enhancements.
[Nine hostile entities detected.] Volcan said. [Most are Level 1 Intermediate Cyborgs. They seem to be armed with pistols as well.
’And that one is a Level 2,’ Dante noted. ’Guess he got an upgrade since we last met.’
"You don’t remember me, do you?" The leader of the group said.
"Nope," Dante replied without hesitation, a if he didn’t just compare the guy to the version he had in his mind
He did remember him, of course. The guy had left quite the impression, being the first victim of Volcan’s Diving. Despite the cold weather, he was wearing a vest that left both of his arms exposed just to show off the alloy plates covering one of them. Though it looked different from the last time he saw it, Dante was sure he was looking at the same guy, even if he couldn’t recall his face. He couldn’t recall whether his head was shaved back then, either.
’Wait, didn’t you tag him a while back?’
It just occurred to him that he had seen metal arm stalking him a while back, likely on Riot’s orders. Volcan should have tagged him as a hostile entity at the time to keep track of his location, but if that was the case, why did he say anything about the bastard a while back?
[My apologies. It seems they have turned off their NIMs.] Volcan replied. [For that reason, I failed to recognize these individuals until they came within the range of my other sensors.]
’Huh... So they’re being cautious...’
Dante frowned at the rats, gathering his thoughts.
"Oh, wait, you’re that one guy whose arm caught on fire." He said, making a show of being surprised. "I see you got a new one."
"Yup. Took me a while to gather the Gs for it." Captain Rat said. Raising his bionic arm, he turned it around, smiling as he looked at it. His gaze then shifted to Dante, and his brows went down. "Tried to get a refund for the old one, like you suggested. Turns out they don’t take back stuff fried by a Diver."
"Well, sucks to be you." Dante shrugged. "So? You gonna state your business or do you plan to keep me waiting?"
A frigid silence spread through the side alley, dropping the temperature even further. Someone happened to come down the nearby stairs just then—a man with white eating at his hair. Noticing the tense standoff, he turned around and took the long route to the other exit. Because of him, the silence overstayed its welcome.
Captain Rat took that time to get his nerves under control. Having regained his calm, he raised his chin and cranked up the arrogance, trying to look down his nose at Dante despite the latter being more than a couple of centimeters taller.
"I heard something interesting from one of my pals. He said you were a hound."
Dante’s eyes narrowed despite himself.
"And?"
"Just wondering where you got the guts to hang around Black Cross territory."
"Not sure if you haven’t noticed, but Black Cross is dead." Said Dante. "So are the Blood Hounds."
"One of their mutts is still here, though."
"One who wants nothing to do with them anymore."
"Too bad. That’s not for you to decide."
The air shifted, and the tension spiked once more. Sensing the approaching clash, Dante moved to take his hands out of his pockets. His perception accelerated just then.
It was a reaction to the sudden movement of Captain Rat’s metallic arm. It shot up out of nowhere, continuing to move even as everything else slowed to a crawl. The plates shifted, and the hand at its end snapped, splitting into four parts that slid back to reveal the barrel of a high-caliber rifle, pointing straight at Dante’s face.
Keeping his composure, Dante grabbed the bionic arm and pushed it to his left, making sure it was pointing directly at one of the rats standing behind him. The faint flash he saw in the corner of his eye told him that the shot had been fired.
BLAMM!
Holding the same expression was a little difficult with a gun firing right beside his head, but Dante still managed. Losing his hearing in one ear didn’t stop him from catching the sound of splatter following a bullet piercing an old concrete wall, and when something prayed over the left side of his face, he didn’t need to check to know its color was crimson red.
He kept his eyes locked on Captain Rat, his brows quickly tilting at a very sharp angle. Even with his perception back to normal speed, he still got to see his enemy’s expression slowly change as the realization hit him.