Shattered super-soldier

As the sun slowly sank below the horizon, the sea was illuminated in orange, the 3 ships under Sir Marcomir’s command, Emilia, Amalina and Seda slowly drifted along, they had good tailwind for most of the day, but by now the wind had chilled leaving calm waters as the 3 vessels drifted along on the upper deck of Seda the sailors had gathered in the mess hall where they had just finished their evening meal

“Hey, Joseph, go down and feed the slaves!”

Joseph, a young man just under 20 years old, answered at once with a almost naive energy that matched his age

“Yes sir”

Joseph stood and collected the 2 large bucket of potato and carrot peels mixed with other various food trash and quickly made his way to the lower decks, once he reached there he put down the buckets and let out a deep sigh, his facade of youthful energy which he kept up among the other sailors left him at once as he sat down on a wooden box with supplies, he sat there for a bit before he muttered

“... I want to go home”

A few moments passed as he thought of the port city where he had grown up and his naive view of sailing the open sea exploring, the grandeur of finding new land had left him, by now he was tired of the long pointless journeys it took to chart out the open seas enough to shave off a couple of days for other ships that would pass in the future

“Well, back to it”

He rose back to his feet and picked up the two buckets again before he proceeded down into the lowest deck, the hold smelled terrible as always, as he stepped off the staircase he put down the two buckets on the floor and stuck a match to light the lantern that hang off a wooden pillar

“One moment”

As the hold became illuminated, the 30 or so slaves that were crammed into the small dungeon hold were illuminated, they started at the 2 buckets of food waste silently, in fact the hold were far too quiet for feeding time, normally the slaves would be more rowdy, however Joseph failed to notice this as the wooden match slipped

“Shit…”

He cursed his tired fingers, before he kneeled down to pick up the lit match in order to not strike another in vain, however just as he grabbed it with two fingers a flash of metallic light shortly illuminated the hold, from there he felt the strength leave his body as he fell over forwards, the last thing he saw was the blood that flooded out of his neck snuff out the small light of his match, from there darkness took him

-

‘One hostile down, proceeding with mission undetected’

Ripper flicked the blood of her mono-molecular sword with a turn of his wrist before she looked at one of the many sets of eyes that had watched her in the darkness since she had infiltrated the ship by cutting a hole in the hull, which she had then resealed with a quick hardening foam, she saw herself in those quiet eyes, thus she broke her silence and spoke in a faint voice

“Remain quiet, and I will save you from this hell… Expose me and I will make you long for something as sweet as death”

Normally she wasn’t one to make threats, however with how the slaves had likely been psychologically conditioned to be loyal to their masters, and it was likely they would expose her unless they feared her and Matthew more than their current masters, after a few moments of silence she took the slaves silence for ordinance and reported

‘...Slaves secured’

Then she kneeled down and removed a cylinder object from her belt, which she stabbed into the floorboards

‘Sensor suit deployed’

[Understood, 4 target on the decks above are moving down towards the hold, R1 move to intercept]

Ripper nodded silently before she disappeared, her body moved with complete silence up the stairs to the storage deck where she hid herself near the staircase to the upper decks and waited, a few moments later the light of a lantern appeared on the top of the staircase, the 4 sailors walked down the stairs as they chatted

“Where did you guys hide the booze?”

“It’s over near the entrance to the hold”

As the 4 stepped off the staircase, Ripper pressed a switch on the bottom of her sword's hilt before she quickly rounded the corner, her figure quickly vanished as Aea reminded her

[Optical camouflage engaged for 5 seconds]

Ripper moved quickly, like a vengeful specter she instantly closed the distance to the closest target and with a quick hack she cut though the first sailor’s neck, her blade cut cleanly through his spine as her blade flowed onto the next closest target as she slid across the wooden floor she served slashed cleanly through the next sailors' skull, parting it in two before she guided her sword through the stomach of the 3rd, severing his Diaphragm from his spine

“Eh?”

The echo of the first sailor falling over caused the last sailor to turn around, the image of the 3 sailors he had chatted with cut apart was the last thing that entered his mind, well the 2nd to last as an instance later Ripper’s sword entered his right eye socket before she twisted it half a rotation before she withdrew her sword, as her figure reappeared she caught the lantern from the last sailor before he could fall over

‘Targets down, how much longer before the sensor suit is done?’

[20 seconds]

‘...Any additional targets?’

[Not at this time]

Ripper let out a sigh before she slid the blade of her sword through the glass of the lantern and cut the top of the candle wick, a few seconds passed before the wick burned out and returned the darkness to the storage deck

‘I guess that’s that…’

Ripper let out a sigh and took a knee as she waited

[Sensor suit completed, 72 targets identified and marked, M1 go for strike]

A few moments passed before the tranquil atmosphere of the storage deck was broken as metal slugs started ripping through the 3 ship, each clearly aimed to take out the sailors, after about 20 seconds Aea gave a report

[8 targets remaining, targets painted, danger assessment elevated, R1, M1 go for assault escalation]

Ripper looked up, 2 targets had managed to survive the Matthew and the combat androids first long range strike, she took a deep breath before she stood and kicked off the ground, she quickly ascended the staircase and arrived at the upper deck where she quickly identified a target and brandished her sword and slashed at the sailor through the wall, her blade passed cleanly through the wooden wall and bisected the sailor, whether Mystic ability or pure luck had helped him survive so far was no irrelevant, Ripper spared no more attention after she confirmed he had been neutralized and quickly moved to the last target on her ship, he was moving fast heading topside on the deck, Ripper quickly followed and after a few moments she reached topside and saw the last sailor, he was yelling for his friends with an insane look on his face, 3 metal slugs were stuck in what looked like a spatial distortion in front of him

[Mystic ability detected, proceed with caution R1]

Ripper silently acknowledged Aea’s warning and slid silently across the deck as she reached into her belt and retrieved a pair of throwing knives, the first she threw at a high arch, the 2nd directly at the sailor as she engaged her optical camouflage and speed up

“ARH! What the FUCK!?”

The 2nd throwing knife embedded itself in the shoulder of the sailor who had failed to intercept Ripper’s sneak attack, however as he spun around the 1st knife which she had thrown at a high arch embedded itself in his Mystic shield, just as he drew his sword the sailor felt a chill go up his spine as his head snapped to the side, an instance later his Mystic shield stopped the blade of Ripper’s sword and shattered the thin blade, he slashed out towards the seemingly empty air where the slash had come from, however Ripper had already moved back, a silent moment passed before she spoke in Turmanic

“...That’s a neat shield”

The sailor gritted his teeth as he secured his posture and yelled a provocation back at Ripper

“You coward! You sneak around like a rat, why don’t you show yourself!”

[I’ve finished mopping up the rest, feel free to take your time with the last one… I got your back Ripper]

Ripper let out a sigh before she disengaged her optical camouflage, her figure was revealed, she wore a tight-fitting bodysuit covered in belts which held numerous bladed weapons, behind her back 3 larger weapons floated, magnetically locked and levitating behind her, her face was covered by a sleek helmet had 2 sensor pods disguised as cat ears on the top of her head, a moment passed before her bodysuit were lit up with lines of red light that highlighted her figure, with this a pair of cartoonish looking eyes and large smile on her helmet, the sailor was momentarily stunned before a high pitch distorted girly voice sounded out

“Here I am, I’ll play with you a bit, mister~”

The face of the sailor lit up in a flush of anger before he kicked off the ground and raised his sword to part Ripper in two, however just as it seemed like he was about to carve her in two she dodged like flowing water, her body mere millimeters from the blade of his sword before she kicked against his Mystic shield and instantly took distance from the sailor

“Don’t be so impatient, I am not going anywhere, mister~”

The sailor let out a roar of anger as he charged at her again, hacking, slashing and stabbing at Ripper with deadly speed and clear murderous intent as she danced around his blade flowing like water, this continued for a few minutes with the sailor growing more and more incensed by the moment, but finally Ripper seemed like she had enough and suddenly kicked him once again to take distance

“Alright, it’s time to die~”

With that she reached up and grabbed the hilt of a weapon on her back, what she retrieved looked nothing like the thin mono-molecular sword she had used to dispatch the other sailors, it was a polished metal ax, the blade came alive with an ominous blue glow as she banished it, the sailor immediately felt the intense heat that radiated off it on his face and gritted his teeth before he charged at Ripper

“Thanks for playing with me, mister~”

With those words, the sailor's eyes were blinded by an intense flash of light that emitted from the blade of Ripper’s ax, a moment later his head were cleaved in two vertically before Ripper delivered a kick the side of the corpse echoed out with the horrible sound of bones shattering and organs turning liquid as the corpse were sent flying overboard

[Confirmed, Hostile takeover completed, M1, R1 move to secure the slaves, Haliea-001 inbound to vessel 1 in 120 seconds]