Ace IV

Devon Sharps stood in a back alley, the young woman’s body laying on the ground next to him was riddled with knife wounds, none of

which he had inflicted. Apparently when someone failed to appear for a hit ordered by a military organization they were dealt with the

moment they were spotted. He stooped down and peered at the black envelope that had been duck taped to her frame, it was pointless to

try and peel it from her, the paper he needed to see was on top of the folder, meant to be in plain view for him to view. Trish Accardi, next to

her name on the file was ID containing a picture of a smiling young woman, Devon laughed “Who in the hell picks a bright smiling picture for

their their ID” a grim smile stayed tattooed on his face at the thought of someone finding out she was coming to kill them. He then began

walking out of the alleyway, his thoughts turning back to his last encounter with a target, Michelle someone simple to have eliminated and

he had been interrupted by the damned whelp Jace; anger began to cloud his mind, he would kill the brat the next time he laid eyes on him.

As he came to the alleyway’s bend a bright metallic gun barrel gleamed in his face, a shaking hand gripped the handle of a startlingly clean

9mm, Devon looked up the length of the arm and to the desperate face of its owner. “On the ground now!” The man seemed to think yelling

would make things happen quicker, Devon didn’t know what to make of him, he didn’t look beaten enough to be homeless or poor, yet he

did have a crazed almost glazed look in his eye, he was clean shaven in a deep ocean blue button up and black dress pants, a rather

expensive looking watch on his wrist, probably some fool down on his luck thinking he’d turn a new leaf and start robbing people to help pay

the family bills. Devon watched him a moment longer before getting down on his knees, “yeah nice and easy, don’t make this any harder on

the both of us than it already is” Devon began to lift his head, and was met with the guns barrel striking his jaw. “No looking at me, I don’t

want you looking at me” Devon grabbed the man’s wrist, his hand shooting from his side like a striking cobra and snapped it with two swift

movements, the gun clattered to the ground and the man screamed. Devon stood and pulled a pill from inside his jacket quickly shoving it

into the man’s mouth and shutting it, caught off guard the man swallowed unsure of what events had just unfolded. Devon stood up fully and

brushed his pants off, looking at the man as he clutched at his abdomen, his face a steady kaleidoscope of flashing pain, he walked away

and let the man enjoy his torturous final moments. An hour later he arrived at his temporary home, a small pale sky blue house that seemed

to have been slapped together by developers overnight, and entered, what no one other than himself knew was that the inside of the house

was damn near barren. He had very little to place inside considering he moved about the city often, when he was even in the city itself. One

of the, if not the largest amenity he allowed himself was the jumble of chords and tech devices he had setup within the corner of the house’s

first floor. A fortress of information he had thrown together recently and something he needed to track down his current target, Jordan

Halleck, a supposed “super sniper” and a product of his own class of warriors. Jordan’s name was well known now, throughout the proper

circles however somehow he continued to get away from every crime scene without the slightest of trouble, Devon swore it seemed as if

the cops even gave him extra time to get clear the hell out of dodge, before they went in. This last fact is what didn’t sit well with him and

what was causing him to believe that Jordan was working for someone with power, the person he suspected caused him even more

uneasiness, The General. If he was right than the general would have to be killed, than again that wasn’t something he was opposed to

doing in the slightest, it almost brought him a small bit of joy to think he had precedence to finally rid himself of the man, he had been

looking into information about The Organization, added to what he already suspected and knew from interrogations of a few fun figures, he

was poised to enter a war sometime soon, what he didn’t like was that the general himself was the one who gave him the file. An image of

electronics being ripped apart by bullet fire shot through his head, just for a moment, Devon grabbed the small smart phone off the table

and the slightly larger portable hard drive and shoved them into his pockets. He turned and headed for the basement door managing to

slide into the narrow corridor, behind the door’s thick metal frame, seconds later he heard car doors slam and the front door burst in,

raucous explosive bullet fire followed, he tumbled down the stairs and scrambled off the ground. “People are just having a good ole time

trying to kill me today” he growled under his breath as he lurched out and grabbed a container and briefcase from a low hanging shelf, He

crawled under the wooden steps and waited, the tiny door behind him was a good insurance policy in case there was too much to handle.

Devon flipped the container around and upended it spilling out into his lap a G18 pistol, 2 extra clips, a miniature homemade smoke

grenade and the scope from his new sniper rifle. He knew they would be in within moments and set his instruments up in a line on the

ground before him. He knew he hadn’t locked the basement door behind himself and was glad for it, that meant the assholes wouldn’t be

using some high powered explosives to blow the damn thing down. “Down here, there’s a basement he probably went running to wait us

out” whoever the voice belonged to, they sounded large, somewhere in the three hundreds, Devon waited on his knee with the G18 and

clutched it tightly in hand when the door above him was ripped away. He saw two feet run down the steps than a second pair, waiting for a

third he heard one of the two yell for the last guy to stay and watch for anyone. “ Aww come on, let me come down, I wanna see him twitch

when he dies“ the guy who had yelled earlier was the one complaining,“ okay, okay, come on and get your ass down here” whoever the

voice belonged to sounded young and was apparently heading the trio’s assault. Devon waited, as feet weighed heavily on the wooden

stairs, Devon raised the gun up and squeezed the trigger right underneath the individual’s shifting weight. The G18’s bullets ripped through

the wood and raced through the air tearing through the fat and muscle of the man above him, “what the fuck” Devon heard the younger

man’s voice again as he burst from underneath the staircase. He looked in the voice’s direction and aimed the gun at the young black male

carrying a H-bar Aug, He squeezed a quick set of rounds off, as his body was propelled backward slightly from the gun’s force. Bullets

sliced upward in an almost straight line and blood covered the room. Devon looked around quickly and saw the last man in the room, an

asian man who looked somewhat aged and wary, than again the ak47 in his hands already aimed at Devon didn’t seem to mind. Devon

threw the smoke grenade into the air and pushed his body off the ground scurrying and scrabbling away from the device than sliding onto

his back, there was a small banging sound, and the room filled with smoke, Devon slid behind a beam as the ak47 fired rapidly and

recklessly in short bursts. He took a breath and threw one of the spare clips, through the air and looked out just as it hit, machine gun fire lit

the air, Devon aimed and fired the G18 not stopping until the pistol had no more to offer. He walked through the smoke filled room and

reloaded the G18 with the last clip as he looked at each of the bodies he bent down and checked for any signs of life or ID, when he got to

the man who was supposed to be the lookout, before he had made his eager choice to try and see Devon die. He checked his body and

found nothing but two desert eagles, Devon thought for a moment before hearing a voice ring out above him. “Hey are you guys finished up

in here ?” He picked up one of the eagles and slowly crept up the ruined staircase, trying to avoid making any unnecessary noise. When he

got to the top of the stairs he pointed the gun directly in front of his face and felt something bump against it, walking out some, his clothes

destroyed and his body cut and shrapnel filled, Devon held the Desert Eagle to the head of who he could only assume was the group’s

driver. The man looked as if he had just shit himself upon seeing Devon walk out of the smoky destroyed basement, “ So this was the

general’s work I assume ?” The driver nodded, Devon looked at him for a moment longer than a smile slid over his face, lasting only a

second “thank you and goodbye” He pulled the trigger and was met with a wave of blood spraying his face, he checked his pockets to find

that the cellphone was completely destroyed. The hard drive looked like it was scratched up pretty badly, he prayed it worked, Devon ran

down back into the basement and grabbed the suitcase he had put under the staircase, than he walked back upstairs grabbed the car keys

from the driver’s mostly headless body and went out to the see the black Honda Civic parked outside. He jumped in and drove off, the only

thing on his mind was killing Jordan, and taking his new target out along with him.


3 Days later

Devon had found out where Jordan would be for his next mark, he had setup his workstation in the building across the street. On the table

before him sat four briefcases, three of them empty, the fourth had an explosive device sitting inside, he knew that from this moment forth

he was going to war and that the man in the building across from him would do all he could to kill him and worst of all he would only be the

first, Devon cracked a small smile at the thought of his second battle against another Ace, maybe this time he could finish the job. He stood

back and picked up his duster, swinging it over his shoulders and thrusting his arms through, his new sniper rifle was beautiful a XM2010

and the black duster he had picked up fit nicely over top it, a size to large and a way of concealing the weapon from any prying eyes, the

poison capsules were in his jacket as usual, as well as a new G-18 and MP5 sub-machine gun, the Gerber Mark II combat knife sat

holstered inside his duster as well. He picked up the set of briefcases on the table being careful of the one containing the bomb and made

his way out the building, he tossed three of the briefcases into the car he had driven here though the back alleyway, gently laying the fourth

down on the car’s back floor. The sun shone down over the city as he began his casual stroll to the hollowed out shell across the street with

the G18 and MP5 in hand. The moment he entered the building a bullet rang past his ear, his only salvation being that he had seen this

scenario already in his mind, the serum that the organization had pushed into his blood wasn’t something he normally thought of or needed

to use, but it ran rampant in his system now, seeing every scenario of how this encounter could play out. He felt his body had become damn

near weightless, what had just moments ago on the walk over felt like over 45 pounds of added weight, now didn’t even seem as if it were

there, he pushed off from his the ground and jumped through the air landing on a small platform behind a giant iron cylinder. He knew that

Jordan was, unlike himself, a sniper through and through and would most likely have packed with him only a pistol for this excursion, not

having expected an assassination attempt on his life by someone the organization had marked for termination. As he waited for another

bullet to slam into the area surrounding him he quickly unloaded a bullet from the G18 in hand, than slipped the magazine back in, after

having counted to 8 in his head Devon flipped the bullet out into the open and threw his body around to the other side of the cylinder

swinging the automatic pistol in front of himself and firing before he even caught a full glimpse of Jordan, only knowing the general vicinity

the man was in. Bullets spat from the G18 with haste ripping apart the everything they struck, the MP5 still sat in his right hand, and he

clutched it tightly ready to begin firing the moment the G18 had been emptied. He caught sight of Jordan sitting near a splintered window

as the G18’s bullets erratically blasted around him, the man looked steady on the tiny piece of floor that held his frame and only slightly

flustered at the intense barrage that ripped away chunks of cement and pinged off steel around him. Devon saw the sniper rifle that sat in

his target’s hands and that he was already looking to squeeze off another shot, he tossed away the now empty G18 and let the MP5 find its

resting place comfortably in both his palms, just as a bullet cut through the air around him just missing his head. Devon turned quickly and

leapt from the platform back to the ground, inspecting his landscape fully for the first time, a burned out building with hollowed out rooms

and shattered staircases, pieces of the past creating tiny platforms normally not stable for any sudden movements or even standing. Devon

knew what he had found in his reports of Jordan’s kills must be true, the man didn’t just use the serum coursing throughout his body for

occasional fighting or killing, he let it run through himself uninhibited full time, quite dangerous considering others could track the limits of his

abilities with ease, but allowing him to gain a more complete hold of what he could do, explaining why he could so easily control his body so

that even sitting on such a tiny perch was capable. Devon snapped back to the present just in time to turn his body, his right arm had a

deep grazing wound, Jordan would kill him if he wasn’t careful. He pulled the MP5 up and fired off a constant barrage as he ran forward and

underneath the perch Jordan stood on, he saw a flash as the man leapt into one of the hollowed out rooms across from where he had been;

Devon put a plan together in his mind of how to end this without letting himself take much more than 1 last gunshot, but he knew it would hurt

like a bitch when it happened. There weren’t many more bullets left in the MP5, Devon ran and dove underneath a staircase, careful of the

three rapid fire shots which pounded the ground chasing him there, he tossed off the jacket and dropped the MP5 before flipping the

XM2010 into his hands finally feeling at complete ease with his primary weapon out. He pulled the Mark II combat knife out of the jacket and

shoved it into a makeshift holster on the left side of jeans he wore, with his course plotted out his mind Devon got ready and took off running

from under the staircase, jumping through the air, and landing on a crumbling concrete platform, he turned and caught sight of Jordan

almost immediately, in one swift motion Devon had the rifles scope to his eye and squeezed the trigger, a bullet blasted out and snapped

into Jordan’s shin. Jordan stood up a moment after the bullet struck, his mind conflicted on whether to run from the scene or continue the

fight, his confusion clearly written across his face, Devon saw the opportunity and jumped up vertically 6 feet, grabbing hold of a bottom

stair that looked as if it were going to fall away in his hand, he hauled himself up onto it. Jordan had a look of determination gleaming within

his eyes now, and clearly had no intention of leaving, the man took off running for a steel framed piece of door that had fallen to act as

makeshift perch to sit, Devon cursed under his breath that was exactly where he had been headed, it gave the best view of all the grounds.

Devon looked around for a way to end the fight before Jordan made it up there, knowing the end results wouldn’t be pretty for him if he

couldn't put Jordan down quickly. He began leading, aiming for the next spot he knew Jordan would be going for and managed a direct

shot blowing away his knee and the length of his leg from that point and below, a shout of surprise and pain echoed though the building and

a grin spread across Devon’s face, he knew the fight wasn’t over but at least it was close to a close now. He whipped his body into the air,

jumping higher than anticipated, and felt a piercing burning sensation as a bullet drove home into his left bicep, his body landed on a

groaning wooden and plaster wall that had fallen over. “Fuck !” he said through gritted teeth, the bullet hole burned, but he would work

through it to finish this, he pulled out the Mark II with his right arm and held it, testing its weight than cocked his arm back and flung it forward

with vicious force, the knife jammed in to the hilt buried in Jordan’s left shoulder as the man was trying to pull himself up. Still holding the

XM2010 in his left hand, Devon began jumping from platform to platform until he sat 15 feet away from Jordan on a set of halfway

destroyed time worn stairs. “So now than, this is what becomes of the great hope who was to take my spot from underneath me” Devon

said with a small hint of joy in his voice, Jordan looked at him, his eyes were red and he looked haggard “ Fuck you Sharps” he said with

rasping out a low bloody laugh,  Devon grinned grimly “Is there something funny to you in your last moments ?” “No, I’m just happy, that you

beat me, I remember being in your group back at the academy, when they told me I was supposed to be taking your spot, only 2 things went

through my mind. Either 1 you were wanted dead for pissing them off and knowing too much, or you had become a pussy and they just

wanted you out.” Devon tilted his head back laughing and just caught himself from falling off balance on the ruined steps, “I assure you, it’s

the first of those 2 reasons.” Jordan smiled, as blood ran out of his shoulder and leg, “So you gonna finish this, I mean you never know this

whole little respect and adrenaline surge I feel could wear off and I could kill you right now.”  Devon hefted up XM2010 “You got a point, and

I’ve got a bit more work to do before I can let this arm heal up, the serum only does so much on such a low level” Devon didn’t need to aim

the rifle for his last shot and simply pulled the trigger back, it cut the air and drove right into Jordan’s chest. He jumped the distance and

pulled the Mark II out of  Jordan’s shoulder than swung the XM rifle onto his back, he than began his descent back to the ground level and

out the building, he stopped just short and went back picking up his duster and flinging it back on, than left ready to end his mission. He

crossed the street and walked into the back alleyway, once there he dismantled his XM2010 and placed the pieces back into one of the

suitcases, than picked up the suitcase still containing the explosive device he had constructed and turned its 4 dials into place locking it, a

timer switched and a white digital display lit up with the word Active. He jumped into the car and began out, making his way to the Columbia

Center, an hour after continuous driving through the city and circling some neighborhoods he had arrived and before walking indoors

Devon went to the back seat of the car and lifted the IED bomb briefcase from the floor, he leaned back into the front of the car and popped

open the glove compartment, a specially designed composite mask sat inside and he pulled it out pressing it over his face and pulling it

over his head, he took off his duster and threw on a light windbreaker that had sat situated in passenger seat, than began his way into the

building. He walked inside calmly going to the elevator and making his way to the 23rd floor, Devon walked to a corner of the hallway and

pulled out a dark red handkerchief, a last gift from the agency used to sweep away all prints and past traces from any object or surface, he

swept the case over to assure nothing of his was left on the on it, than he walked back to the elevator and got off on the 1st level, walking

out of the building and checking his windbreaker pocket to assure that the control for bomb was there. When he arrived back at the car he

heard a buzzing noise coming from within armrest Devon looked in at his cell and saw an unlisted number calling, he answered and

pressed the phone to his ear, “So you know right now I could kill you” Devon smiled at hearing the boy’s voice again, Jace sat on the other

end of the phone and inside the building he had just planted the bomb in. “Boy if you think killing me is possible right now...when I’ve got so

much work to do, than I invite you to try, but hell or high water come I will not be stopped.” Devon’s voice held a coldness that Jace

hadn't expected, not with the man knowing there was a gun trained on him at the very moment. “Jace, there is a lot you don’t know, and you

need to learn before you take any further actions, especially against me.” A light hearted laugh came through from Jace “Do you think

you’re a threat of some sort to me, you couldn’t kill me when we last met.” Devon took the control from his pocket and flipped two switches

on it, the face read 8 minutes with a slight pulse before the clock started, “Jace in 8 minutes the building will have 3 floors gone, you need to

be out of that place before this happens, because as it comes I need you alive.” “What the fuck do you mean you need me alive, and what

are you up to ?” Devon looked up at the structure “There is a bomb inside that building that is going to blow very soon, now listen carefully I

am going to say all this once. Almost none of what you know is the truth, The Organization is extremely corrupt, The General was an Ex-

Ace , and if you don’t straighten up your behavior or learn too much, The Organization will try to kill and replace you, Now in the meantime

get the fuck out of the building you have 4 minutes left.” Devon hung up the phone and hopped back into the car, driving away from the

building and the carnage soon to come, 4 minutes later an explosion rang out, the 23rd, 24th, and 22nd, floors of the Columbia Center were

ripped apart, a whirlwind of flame twisted along with glass and steel. Dead were scattered everywhere, and panic had swallowed the minds

of all who were still alive, the building was being evacuated with people trampling one another in the process, the only pieces from the

original explosion left were bits of the suitcase, specifically the double layered titanium etched ID numbers used to trace any materials used

by The Organization’s Council members, the tag would be slightly warped but not destroyed, this particular ID had been assigned to former

Ace General Alistair Williams.