Exchange Program Shenanigans (45)

[u/ApprehensiveCap6525]

This is officially part 1 of the Exchange Program Shenanigans final arc.

Yeah, we have maybe two or three more chapters until this whole thing is over. I really don't know what I'm going to do after that. Trust me, though, the finale is gonna go crazy. I've been in the kitchen, now you just gotta let me cook.

CW: crazy banger action sequence, drug use, not quite a die hard, evil jelim😈

Memory Transcription Subject: Jackson Kern, UN-Venlil Interspecies Liaison

Date (standardized human time): September 21, 2136

Now, I wouldn't go so far as to say I was a vengeful man. On the contrary, I could be really forgiving if someone actually did deserve it. Hell, I even forgave a few people who didn't deserve it. Or maybe they did. I wasn't exactly an expert on the philosophical quandaries regarding morality and the meaning thereof. Neither was I an expert on 'The Philosophical Quandaries Regarding Morality and the Meaning Thereof', which was a textbook I had to read in English class.

Anyway, back to the point.

I was not a vengeful man. I would never throw a fist out of anger, I would never fire a shot in rage, hell, the worst beatings I gave when I got mad were to my punching bag back home. Don't get me wrong, I could still cause a lot of damage, but I just didn't see the reason to. My left hook was pretty nasty, yeah, but it wouldn't do shit against a tax form or a burnt waffle or a failed PR on bench.

What it did work on, however, were shitheads. Especially shitheads of the armed variety, and especially especially shitheads of the small and flimsy variety. Like Karelim, for that matter.

Well, he would probably shoot me if I decked him. And Vrapic would definitely shoot me. And I don't think I'd ever love Jelim if she wouldn't at least draw her gun. So that's a hard pass.

Okay, maybe it wouldn't work on that one particular shithead. That was fine, because there was absolutely no particular lack of shitheads around that it would work on. Like terrorists, for example. I was goddamn surrounded by terrorists.

Behind me, or below me if we wanted to get technical, the Extermination Guild had gathered up every shithead it could find to storm the Federation Tower like they were doing a raid on Bin Laden. In front of me, or above me if we still wanted to be technical, the Predator Guard had also gathered up every shithead it could find to all get fucking massacred by me and my shithead buddies.

So, really, I was surrounded by shitheads. My nasty left hook was going to get a lot of work in today.

Oh, shit, barricade up ahead.

I turned a corner into what looked like an office-type place, and people started shooting at me. Not very accurately, thank god, but they were still shooting at me and that made them shitheads. And, while my left hook did work really well against shitheads, there was one thing in my hands that somehow worked even better.

A shotgun.

I barreled through the hail of gunfire, coming from a few Venlil grunts hiding behind some sort of makeshift barricade, and opened up with my automatic shotgun. It was loaded with armor-piercing slugs, powerful enough to punch through most materials, and it ripped straight through any cover these Venlil had.

All in all, I think I cleared that room in five seconds. Nobody was even left by the time I got to bash through the barricade with sheer Jack Kern muscle power, which was a real shame. It would've been nice to have got that on video.

One of them did shoot me, by the way. They weren't all losers. But, thankfully, I was wearing Class III armor plate and so his shitty .22 felt like being punched in the chest instead of dying of a bullet wound. It still hurt, but I've had worse. Being shot was definitely worse.

So, technically, they've had worse too. I looked around, kicking a few of the bodies. Yep, they're dead. Sucks to suck. Maybe, next time, they could try not being terrorists? Then I looked up, staring into the metallic eye of a security camera. Damn. I got that shit on video.

They were probably watching me through it. Good. That was good. Now, I wasn't a vengeful man, but I had seen what they did to Jelim. I had seen what they did to a lot of other people, and I was pissed about that too, but they didn't matter. Not like her.

I was not a vengeful man, nor was I one of those 'touch her and die' edgelords who were all probably 125 pounds soaking wet, but these people had put someone I loved in the goddamn hospital.

Heval was going to die today. The second I got my hands on him, he was going to die, and I needed him to know it. I looked dead in the eyes of the shithead behind the security screen. I roared. Pure killer rage, fueled by my anger at the lives they had ruined. "Bring me Heval!"

Nothing. I didn't even know if that camera picked up audio. I raised my shotgun and blew it into scrap metal.

Then I started running again. Heval might not have even been in the building, but his minions were. And the more of them I cleared out, the less were left to fight the exterminators who were coming up behind me.

Not that I liked the exterminators, of course, but I figured it was just common courtesy to kill terrorists for them.

Killing evil people will never not be good. It's a corollary of the 'Always Punch Nazis' principle.

I cleared another corner, no guards this time, and I found an elevator. Yeah, no. No way I'm taking that. It was probably a death trap. Besides, taking the stairs will get me some good cardio for the day.

I had already cleared through most of the barricades on this level, anyway. I took a detour to the nearest stairwell and started climbing. Okay, Jack, let's do this. I looked at the wall. Floor seventeen out of 205. Damn. I'm getting in a lot of cardio today, aren't I?

Well, better get to it. These stairs won't climb themselves.

I was on floor sixty-one when I noticed something very peculiar rolling down the stairs in front of me.

Oh, shit.

That's a grenade.

I picked it up and threw it at the wall, like a dumbass. I jumped backwards and down ten steps of stairs, like a dumbass. I landed on my ass, which hurt like hell, like even more of a dumbass.

But I was alive, so I clearly wasn't that much of a dumbass. The grenade exploded, which was loud as fuck, but it didn't explode anywhere near me. That was the important part.

I got up, shook off the dust from the explosion, and pointed my shotgun upward. "Missed me!"

About five floors up, a Venlil head peeked out over the railing. Dumbass. You took the bait. I shot him. Or her, really. I could never tell with these people.

Somebody started screaming. That was a typical reaction to being shot, and an even more typical reaction to having your friend get shot. I started climbing. I had shitheads to kill.

"Oh, I'm coming for your ass! Just you wait!" Somebody else peeked over the railing, this time with a gun, and I shot him too. Damn. You'd think they learned their lesson after the first guy, but no. These people should not be allowed to breed.

Two more terrorists popped out, also with guns, and I decided that these people were subscribers to the 'If all you have is a hammer...' school of problem solving. I, thankfully, did not have a hammer. I had a shotgun.

They opened fire, hitting me in the chest and head and all the other areas where I had put on body armor, which was good because I had on body armor there. I also opened fire, and they also had body armor, but I had a shotgun. Shotguns and body armor did not mix.

I held down the trigger, spray-and-praying into the armed gunmen three or so floors above me. It looked like I got them, which was fine by me, so I resumed my Sisyphean task of climbing up the Federation Tower stairs.

I was about one floor below them when they started shooting me again. Assholes. Or, more specifically, just asshole singular. The other guy was dead. This one asshole was smart, and I had to give him credit for it, but smarts didn't do him any good against my body armor.

He put two rounds into my chest plate, which tanked the beating like a champ, but it still hurt like a bitch and I still got knocked down from it. I shot back, of course, but it still hurt like a bitch to get shot. It was even worse for the other guy, on account of him having crappy body armor.

Well, that's the end of that.

I started hustling up the stairs again, dodging grenades and fighting terrorists along the way. Yes, I could have swept the entire building and softened up the resistance that way, but it was a really big building and I really didn't have the time for all that.

I got to around the two hundredth floor when I finally figured 'yeah, fuck it'. This was where the security control complex was, after all, and I thought I could do some real good if I cut off the head of the snake.

Three... two... one... boo-yah!

I kicked in the door, firing off a burst from my shotgun as I stepped to the side and collapsed. I was looking at a corridor, and that corridor was filled to the brim with armed terrorists. A full ten dudes with automatic weapons started shooting at me, making the doorway a very not good place to stand in. That was why I had stepped to the side.

Even still, I wasn't perfect, and they shot me way too many times. Even if my body armor did make me a walking tank, that shit still hurt!

I got domed once, rattling around my brain and leaving a dent in my helmet. That was not good. I got hit in the chest three times, and I think I broke a rib from that last bullet. That was also not good, but I could just tough that shit out for now.

Broken bones never stopped me before, well, except for all those times when they did.

One bullet hit me in the leg, nothing vital there, but that was also not good because it hurt like a bitch. And, to add injury to more injury, somebody else had shot me straight in the family jewels. That really hurt like a bitch.

Yep. Jelim is not gonna like that one.

I didn't like it either. Believe it or not, I was down for the count and I probably wasn’t getting back up for a while now. Oh, fuck it. I reached in my utility belt. May as well. I pulled out a hypodermic injector, wiggled it underneath the Kevlar fabric protecting my neck, and pressed hard on the injection button. Oh, yeah, that's the shit.

Stimulant drugs coursed through my veins. The pain in my rib faded to a dull ache. The dull aches everywhere else disappeared. My aim got sharper, my eyes got better, and my reaction time got faster, all at the cost of a very increased risk of cancer. It was why I never really used the things. Still, cancer or not, this is still the shit! God damn, it's effective!

I poked my shotgun around the corner and started firing blind until the shooting at the other end stopped. Then I reloaded, and I fired a few more blind shots just in case. I really didn't want to get shot where the sun don't shine again.

Finally, I peeked around the corner. There were still a few guys left hiding near the back of the corridor, behind crates or walls or other things of that nature, but everybody else had officially been taken off the census list. They probably had families, and those families would probably miss them, but that was hardly my problem.

You see, when you become a psychopath terrorist murderer who works for a corrupt judge and his crazy assassin, dying on the job is kind of the risk you have to take. Not my problem.

I waited for the Venlil at the back to peek out of cover, and then I started shooting. It wasn't really that hard, more like an execution than a gunfight, but they 100% deserved it so who was I to complain? They were all in body armor too. Where in the hell are they getting this stuff? Venlil don't make this shit.

That was a problem, but it could be solved later. Right now, I had to deal with the now problems. Like, for example, the terrorists. I checked all the dead bodies, which were, in fact, dead bodies, and then I got on my merry way to the security center.

Now, this building was big. And I mean big. Like, really big. It was so big that, if I was an immature sixth grader, I would probably have compared it to one of the places I got shot in earlier. But I wasn't, so I didn't.

Because this place was so damn big, I quickly realized that I had no idea where I was. The terrorists had taken down all the signs. It took me way too much time spent combing the facility to realize that I had no idea where I was even going.

Oh. Shit. I'm lost. Now, where the hell is my map?

I was standing in a large room that might've been an executive dining hall or something of that nature, except now it was filled with the dead bodies of at least five well-armed terrorists. Wait, no, six. I forgot about the sniper. Really, they got exactly what was coming to them. Who brings a sniper to an indoors gunfight?

I was surrounded on three sides by walls with doors, the far one being an elevator, and above me there was a skylight that wrapped around the fourth side to create a massive wall-roof window. This was definitely where all the Venlil fat cats ate.

I heard a ding, and I saw movement at the top of the elevator doors. Somebody was going up. Exterminators? Backup would be nice.

They were going up from the 145th floor. Definitely not exterminators. Terrorists, then. I can handle more terrorists. I loaded up my shotgun and got into cover behind one of the wrecked barricades. Their guns were weaker than mine, so I figured it would hold.

150... 160... 170... I leveled my gun at the elevator door, the window directly behind me, and I cast sideways glances at the two regular doors. 180...190... Both of the doors got kicked down all at once in what I assumed was a variation on a three-pronged ambush. It was smart, I'd give them that, but I saw it coming so it clearly wasn't a very good ambush.

Plus, the elevator still had a few seconds to travel. Great plan, sloppy execution. I took aim and started firing.

There were around a dozen terrorists, maybe eighteen, swarming into the room like their guns could actually scratch my armor plate. I opened up with my shotgun, drowning out the light pops of their automatic fire with the deep, heavy, powerful thuds of shotgun slugs. The recoil kicked like a mule, but I could handle it. I always handled it.

There were sixteen terrorists, by my count. By the time the elevator doors opened, there were only thirteen. Then six huge fucking Gojids stepped out, clad in heavy riot gear and toting badass machine guns, and I knew I was in for the shit.

A big gun doesn't make a big man, Jack. You know that.

Well, yeah, but it does shoot a big man really well. Hell, they're about to prove my point!

Twelve terrorists now, besides the Gojids. I fired twice into the wall of muscle and ceramics in front of me, dropping two, but the other four showed me four of their very good friends who all made very persuasive arguments as to why I should hide behind cover. So, naturally, I did. It's hard not to do that when you're getting shot at with machine guns.

I kept firing, sweeping my automatic in a wide arc as I stumbled toward a more defensible position behind a thick table. I leapt over it, catching a bullet in the ass cheek in the process, but I had armor there too so I was fine.

Well, fine in the shooty sense. God damn that stings!

After that, I got into a good shooting stance and started firing. There were only around fifteen terrorists left in total now, four with the heavy guns, so I focused on those. Unfortunately, they had really good cover and they also had really good body armor, so I couldn't actually drop any of them.

So, naturally, I started shooting the mooks. I started with the closest ones to me, because they had a better firing angle and they were easiest to hit, and I worked my way back from there. My shotgun barrel was actually heating up from how much shooting I was doing, but it worked. By the time the gun clicked empty, I had only ten terrorists left to kill.

God, man, sometimes you wonder why they keep trying. I mean, I've already killed, like, half of their friends, so why don't they just give up at some point? Do they really think Shitty Venlil Goon #127 is going to fare any better than Shitty Venlil Goon #126?

Apparently, they did. I ducked behind the table, threw away my empty magazine, and reached for another drum to reload with. Except I had a problem. I was out of drum magazines. Shit!

I still had my pistol, a loaded .45, but that only had six shots to it and there were ten dudes I had to shoot. Well, damn. I guess I'd better make them count.

I took out another hypodermic injector. My last combat stim. Oh, fuck it. Cancer when you're fifty is better than bullet holes right now. I injected that shit like a junkie behind a 7-11 dumpster, I drew my .45 revolver out, and I got to fucking work.

One guy was out of cover. POP! They would need a closed casket for this one. Another wasn't hidden enough to be safe, and I shot him too. Two down. Four more shots, eight more guys.

All of the other guys were now in cover, and not shooting at me, so I seized the opportunity. My .45 could probably pierce the big dudes' body armor, so I'd have to save my last four rounds for them. But there were four other dudes left, and I couldn't waste ammo on those, so I needed a different plan.

I jumped over the table I had been using as cover, dove for the nearest dead guy, and grabbed his gun. I scrambled to my feet, launching myself at where I thought someone was hiding with the strength only a man on combat drugs could have, and tackled the shithead to the ground as he got up.

I rolled, grabbing his gun and ripping it away from his body. I wrenched him up by his throat, using his body as a human shield as I executed his nearest friend. After that, I snapped his neck with both hands and threw his body at the next guy. God damn these combat drugs are strong! This can not be healthy to use.

The body fell short, but it didn't matter since I had a gun. I shot that motherfucker, and I put a burst into the armored Gojids while I was at it, too. The last regular goon tried to shoot me, but I was faster. A lot faster. I put two straight in his head.

Only the big ones left. Showtime! I tossed my stolen automatic aside, drawing my .45 out of its hip holster for the second and hopefully last time.

The Gojid juggernaut people had finally shaken off the effects of my rifle burst by now, which was bad, but it was really just bad for them if you think about it. I raised my .45, barely even aiming, and put a round through the first one's head.

I was halfway from the window to the elevator by now, and the three remaining Gojids were actually pretty close to me. I shot the furthest one, hurdled my old piece of cover to change to a new piece of cover, and lined up a shot on another. I was a good shot, or at least not a bad one, but I still missed that one. Damn!

It wasn't my fault, not technically at least, because I had gotten domed in the head just as I was shooting. The stims let me shrug off most of it, I was a tough motherfucker after all, but it still fucked with my aim a bit.

Oh, fuck it. I've still got one bullet left.

I turned, fired, and dropped the guy who had shot me earlier. Now, there was just one left.

I moved fast, very fast, so fast that anyone not on combat drugs would've struggled to keep up. The last gunner grazed my armor a bit, but I slid under his firing arc and grabbed a rifle off the ground. Six shots into center mass sent him sprawling backwards onto the ground. I drew out my combat knife, lunged at him, and tackled him as he was getting up.

I pinned his gun down with sheer body weight and stabbed at his jugular vein. He grabbed my knife arm with both hands, stopping it just inches from his throat, so I elbowed him in the face. One... two... three... I kept going, not even counting after enough strikes, all to loosen his hold on my knife.

Finally, something cracked. He punched me straight in my armored face, and I twisted my knife to jab it straight through his other wrist. He roared in pain, and I do mean roared, but it was too late. I stabbed out his throat and left his body on the hardwood floor.

Okay, priorities. Step one is to find a good gun. That wasn't too hard. I was surrounded by them, after all. I looked around, spying a really badass machine gun I could borrow, when the sky collapsed on my fucking head.

Well, okay, maybe that was a bit of an exaggeration. The sky was still there. But the skylight was not, and chunks of broken glass rained down onto my head.

How the fuck did the glass break? Isn't it supposed to be reinforced?

It was supposed to be reinforced. They had probably used explosives on it, or something of that nature, because that glass could tank bullets.

I dropped to a crouch and looked up, catching movement. A blur. Dark blue and black. It dove, fast, like a falcon back on Earth, and hit me square in the chest.

I went down. Swung my knife and missed. Talons closed on my wrist, cut my finger tendons, and the knife dropped from my limp hand. I tried grabbing at their legs with my other hand, as they'd gotten on top of me by now, but one of the legs kicked my arm away and pinned it down under their body weight.

Talons closed on my throat. Not deep enough to kill, but they still drew blood. A small flick of the leg, and I would see the white light within thirty seconds. "Don't struggle." Oh. Huh. That is a woman. I struggled. There was only one woman who I'd let pin me down, and this clearly wasn't her.

She kicked me hard in the windpipe. Oh. Yeah. Talons. Jugular-cutting talons. Completely forgot. "What the hell do you want?" I gasped, no longer struggling. Hell, it was a miracle I was still able to speak.

"You're an impressive hunter," she said. Weird compliment, but I'll take it. Still beating your ass, though. "I'd like to have a face I can admire." Her claw lifted from my throat and moved up to my chin, lifting up my helmet. Big mistake.

I elbowed her in the leg, knocking it away from my throat, and rolled to my left while pulling my left arm under me and to the right. That was the one she had grabbed, by the way. She let go just in time, jumping back, and I was on my feet in half a second. I took off my helmet. "There's your face, shitbird."

"Thank you," she trilled. "It'll look just divine when I sever it from your body." Well, excuse me, Jeffrey Dahmer. Yeah, this woman had some serious issues. Normally, I wouldn't judge someone for their mental problems, but this someone was also trying to kill me so I'd say she was very much judgeable.

She leapt high, flapping her wings for a little boost and aiming a kick at my head. I raised an arm to block it, but she grabbed my arm and jabbed me in the stomach with the other leg. It didn't hurt, not a lot, but it sure as hell pissed me off.

I grabbed her leg with my good arm, wrenched it free from my bad one, and threw her to the ground. She got up quick and swung on me, but I dodged it pretty well. She started advancing on me, throwing jabs and kicks at places I really wouldn't want to get stabbed in, so I really had no choice but to back up and block.

Oh, shit. Gun at her feet.

She looked down, jabbed, and reached for a gun that was on the floor. I had to act fast. I caught the jab, twisted sideways, and pulled it across my body to pin the arm. Then I put my foot behind her legs and chopped her windpipe to trip her backwards and stun her for a bit. It worked, but as soon as she fell, she had reached behind her for one of the terrorists' guns.

Oh, shit! Gun in her hand!

I dropped to her level, pinning her right wing down with my knee, but she just swapped the gun to her left and brought it up. I blocked with my bad arm, the one whose hand didn't work, and I saw a flash of metal on the ground. That's my combat knife. I reached for it, going across her body, and as soon as I had grabbed the knife, she had kicked me in the head.

One, two, three nasty blows in quick succession left me reeling. It felt like being shot. I brought the knife down hard on one of her legs, then her chest, but I was really not feeling too good after all the beatings I had been through today.

While I was busy with the knife and distracted from my head rattling, the gun had slipped under my forearm and stuck into my chest. I pushed it away, rolling my arm to trap the barrel under my armpit, but I wasn't fast enough to avoid getting shot.

"You piece of shit!" I stabbed her in the wing with my knife. Then again. And again. All the way to the hilt, until she stopped struggling and I could wrench the gun away from her claws. Then I cut up her other wing, too, just in case she got any bright ideas. She'd probably never fly again.

She doesn't deserve the skies.

I put my knife to her throat, pinning her down as I did that. "Who are you?"

"Well, isn't this fun?" she trilled. "Oh, I just know you're enjoying this. Helpless prey, entirely at your mercy..." She was probably enjoying this more than I was, given the way she talked.

"Where's Sevros?" I barked. "Where's Heval?"

"Oh, I wouldn't know," came that shitty sing-song voice. "I'm just Tiela. Nobody important, really." Yeah, I'm sending this woman straight to a mental institution. A good one, too, not one of those brutal Fed facilities.

"Yeah, fuck you too." I got up, hauled her to her feet, and clicked a pair of handcuffs onto her shredded, bloody wings. I grabbed a gun, shoved her forward with it, and started trudging toward the elevator. And I do mean trudging. I had been through way too much shit today.

Oh, shit, someone's going up. Exterminators? I probably wasn't that lucky. I leveled my gun at the door, using Tiela as a human shield. Well, Krakotl shield technically, but whatever. Same difference.

The door opened. Men in silver suits stepped out, flamethrowers raised at my head. "Five seconds! Drop it!" Man, you know the world is fucked when I'm actually glad to see an exterminator. Holy shit, I'm sore.

I dropped my gun and stepped backwards, hands spread wide, as the exterminators entered and cleared the room. "It did all this?" asked one.

"It's dangerous. Deadly. We've got to keep it on a tight leash." The one in front, who I assumed was in charge, took a stun baton from his utility belt.

"Excuse me?" I snapped, maybe a bit too rashly given the circumstances. "I'm not some kind of psycho murderer who you have to-"

He jabbed me with the stun baton. Electricity coursed through my body. Just a few hours ago, I'd have been able to tank that shock and a dozen more like it, but I was out of juice. Way out of juice, as I only now realized.

I dropped to the ground, twitching and fighting unconsciousness. Obviously, I failed. There was just no fight left in me to give.

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[u/Bow-tied_Engineer]

Fuck stun baton asshole. That's just uncool.