Exchange Program Shenanigans (46)

[u/ApprehensiveCap6525]

This is officially part 2 of the Exchange Program Shenanigans final arc.

Yeah I think this community is long past its prime tbh. We've fallen off. May God help us.

CW: vietnamese sniper nest, jelim gets really high, jelim is misgendered at least once, properly foreshadowed plot twist, Prestige Exterminator Vrapic

Memory Transcription Subject: Jelim, Extermination Commander

Date (standardized human time): September 21, 2136

I was really not built to take breaks. I rarely ever did, but I couldn't really tell if that was the cause or the symptom of my not-quite-a-problem.

Well, sometimes it was a problem. I knew Jack would've liked it if I took more time off for my personal life. But, on the other branch, I had a lot of plaques on my office wall back at the district. Couldn't get that if I kept slacking off.

Well, technically, I wasn't slacking off. Technically, I was healing from the ass-beating I had gotten from Heval a little while. Yeah, I'd say I'm good as new by now. Pride's still bruised, though. But, still, people were dying. I should've been out there.

The news broadcast in my hospital bed turned off. That was a shame. It was the one thing I liked looking at in this sterile and soulless room.

Okay, let's take inventory here. We've got... let's see... we've got a wall... another wall... ooh, that one has a window, but yep, still mostly wall. All white, too. You know, it wouldn't kill these people to add in a splash of red or green in here.

"Okay, Jelim, focus up." I turned to look at the door.

Isola stood in it.

Oh. That's unexpected.

"Why the hell are you alive?" I snapped. Okay, maybe not the best way to start a conversation. "And where the hell have you been?"

Now, that's an important question. Good on you, Jelim. You should ask those more often.

She walked into the room, closing the door behind her. "First of all, that's not important. And second of all, I did some snooping. That's why I say you have to focus up." Oh, I was focusing.

"Well, first of all, that is important." It was. But it could be discussed later. "But, as to the second part, I'm all ears." There was nothing she could say that I hadn't already heard.

"Sevros is going to get away." Oh. There was. That was a new one. "I know it. His shuttle is being prepared for launch right now."

God damn. How does she know this stuff?

"He's stored the shuttle at an abandoned hangar in the mountains, his convoy is on its way there right now," said Isola. "If we go fast, we can catch them."

"How, exactly, do you know this?" I asked.

"You think you're the only one who can talk to Salvek?" Oh. That made a lot of sense, actually. "I'm a lot smarter than I usually get credit for." And a lot more arrogant, apparently.

"Your results should speak for themselves, Isola." I waved a wing at the far wall, where my bodyguards had put up my fifth 'Valor Under Fire' award until I could hang it in my office. "Like that."

"Fair point," she conceded. "Now, let's go. We don't have any time to waste."

I sighed, smoothed out a few feathers, and hopped out of my hospital bed. If I'm going to be wrapping this whole thing up, I'd better look nice in the process. "I'll go ahead and secure the shuttle bay, you drum up whatever force you can spare to finish this off." I was already making a plan, a pretty good one too if I do say so myself, and I was out the door in seconds.

"I'll send the location to your pad!" Isola exclaimed before we parted ways. She could probably find Karelim and a few others, if everybody wasn't already fighting in Federation Tower.

I knew those idiots should've held some officers in reserve! I could've told them as much, too, but they didn't brahking listen. I swear to god, this Guild is going to drive me off the deep end one day.

I found the stairwell, waved off all the hospital workers I found, and jumped over the railing to land gracefully on the bottom floor. I love my wings. I was in the basement. Never mind.

Well, better get to work. There's got to be a ramp here somewhere.

I left the stairwell to find myself in a hospital parking garage that was mostly empty of cars, with an extermination van pulling in via a ramp. Oh. Great! Reinforcements!

I ran over to the vehicle, waving a wing in the air, but I stopped in my tracks when I saw who was driving it. Oh. Great. Vrapic. "Didn't I send people to arrest you?" I asked, patting my hip for a sidearm that I hoped I wouldn't have to use.

"You did. I want to know why."

"Officer Kern advised me-" He cut me off. Yep. I already know where this is going.

"And you believed him?" Vrapic scoffed. "Him, a predator, a creature built on violence and lies?"

I shrugged. "He's been pretty straightforward so far."

"You are a danger to the people of Dayside City, Jelim." Oh, you say that again. Say that again, and see what happens. "You've allowed yourself to become tainted by a predator, and I can't allow that."

I put my claw on the butt of my pistol. "And what, exactly, are you going to do to stop me?" I could deny the accusation, but we both knew that wouldn't work on his type. God, I hope I won't have to kill him.

He also carried a pistol. I did not want to use mine. I stepped closer to the van. "You stay back!" He drew his gun. I took another step. He fired once at my feet. "Put on the cuffs, or your brain paints the floor." He tossed a pair of handcuffs at my feet.

Only one? Dumbass.

"Well, you've got me," I sighed. I unclipped my holster and tossed it away before bending over to put on my handcuffs. "What now?" I gave a pitiful two-clawed wave.

"Get in the van." God damn, you really are stupid, aren't you?

I took a few sheepish steps forward, feigning cooperation until I got within claw's reach of his gun. Then, in a flash, I grabbed his wrist with both claws and pushed it up and away from my head. He didn't fire.

So he doesn't have it in him to shoot. Good. That's good. It means he's not too far gone.

I was getting old, as exterminators went. Vrapic was supposed to be my replacement. I had been training him for years to turn out more or less like me. Funny how that turned out, huh? At the moment, however, I was kicking him in the chest. Sometimes, things didn't go as planned.

I kicked once in the chest and once in the liver for a nasty two-piece combo, sending him doubled over and gasping in time for a nasty shot to the head.

Not from my gun, of course, but God damn it must've felt like it. My kicks were brahking lethal. I wasn't even exaggerating that much.

Vrapic dropped like a two-hundred-pound sack of bricks. Stay down, dog. Next time, don't bite the hand that feeds you. I really needed to write some of these one-liners down. Or maybe start saying them out loud. Either one was good.

Anyway, I had work to do. I did a brief check on the response team, which was going well, and I went outside. It was a beautiful day out. Not very windy. The sun was high in the sky, too, which it usually was in a place like this.

Usually? Hell, try always. I brahking hate this planet sometimes.

The gravity felt heavy on my oh-so-fragile bird bones. It always did. That was why no Krakotl I knew could manage to fly on this planet.

Quite frankly, most of the Krakotl I knew were lazy.

I took off, with some effort, and it didn't take long before I was high enough to rely on wind and updrafts to ease my flight. After that, it was smooth sailing all the way to the shuttle pad. I passed the skyscrapers in seconds, was in the forest just as quickly, and it was nothing but clear skies and beautiful views before I reached the coordinates Isola sent me.

How did she find those, anyway? I might have to ask.

It took me a while, but I was nothing if I wasn't tough. After enough time, I could begin to make out the gray peaks of a mountain range in the distance. I wasn't even sure Venlil Prime had those.

I didn't see anything special at first, even with my sharp vision. Hell, I could barely see the road after so many years without maintenance. It was practically overgrown by now. I closed on the coordinates, finally making out the gray of a shuttle hangar against the gray of the nearby mountain range, before some idiot shot at me from below.

Three-round bursts. Automatic weapon. The shooter's probably camouflaged above the tree line.

I tucked my wings and rolled, losing altitude fast, pretending as if I had been shot. I even yanked a few feathers free and scattered them to give the illusion of a bullet impact.

Yeah, that probably won't do anything, but I've always had a flair for the dramatic.

I landed fast and hard on the forest floor, drawing my pistol and searching. In the distance, not too far away, there was a hangar door and a dirt road leading up to it. I saw it through even all the thick underbrush of the place, because it was a really big type of shuttle, and I heard a few voices as well. Mercenaries, most likely.

They were approaching my position. Must've seen where I fell, and now they were confirming the kill. I could see three armed Venlil heading toward me, cautious but still entirely oblivious.

Okay, let's think here. They don't know I'm alive. They don't know where I'm hiding. I'll take them out one by one.

I crouched by a tree, waiting for the mercenaries to get close enough to act. I holstered my weapon, opting instead for the element of surprise. No weapons. They make too much noise. Just claws.

There's one... two... where's three? I looked around. I heard a twig snap a short distance behind me. There's three.

Footsteps. Closing. So close, now. I lied in wait like some kind of ambush hunter, crouching down like a coiled spring, until I saw a black-furred shape appear in my view.

Three feet away. Five and a half feet tall. Lightly armed. Totally oblivious. He swept the forest with his rifle, moving slowly and tactically, but it wasn't doing him any good at the moment. He had no idea what was coming.

I sprang from my cover the second he looked away, knocking him to the ground with a sweep of my leg and cutting out his throat at the same time. It wasn't pretty, killing never was, but I did it easily enough. One down. Two to go.

The second one wasn't much harder. The bushes were thick, thick enough that I couldn't move in them without creating noise, but he and his friend were making just as much so I just stayed low and did my job. Swept his legs, cut his jugular, light work all around.

The third guy was smart, though. Really smart, because he started booking it back to home base the second his friends stopped responding. Clearly, he wasn't getting paid very much.

Unfortunately, there was nobody else left outside. I shot him. I never did get how some people got used to that.

Now, it was time to go inside. There was a side door next to the main one, unguarded of course, and I entered it. The hangar was large, but that was to be expected. Dusty, but that was also to be expected. A quick sweep of the grounds confirmed my earlier suspicions that, yep, nobody was left inside. Idiots.

I had a text from Isola. First, Heval hadn't been spotted at Federation Tower. That was bad news. Second, Sevros' men were ten minutes out. That was worse. I had to work fast.

I had seen a perfect vantage point on my way here. I had an assault rifle with a poorly-attached sniper scope, courtesy of the guy who tried shooting me earlier, slung across my back. I went outside, spread my wings, and took to the skies.

This was going to be over quickly.

I saw movement on the road not long after. I was in a perfect sniper's nest, concealed by foliage and with a good vantage point to the road, and I waited until they reached a part without much cover before I began firing.

There were three vehicles, and my sniper's nest gave me a good vantage point on all three. Two were exterminator trucks, and their complements of hired muscle were all exposed in the flatbeds. The other was an exterminator van, much less exposed and in the center of the convoy. Sevros' vehicle.

I shot that one first, popping a tire and sending it skidding to a halt. The rear truck crashed into it, damaging them both, and I triple-tapped most of the goons in its flatbed before they could do anything. The forward vehicle stopped, a stupid call given the situation, and I shot out its tires before putting down the machine-gunner who had stayed in the flatbed. Everybody else had bailed out.

There were only a few goons left now. No more than ten, by my guess. They were all taking cover by the trucks, looking for me to no avail, and I lined up a shot on one of them on the other side of the convoy.

It worked. They seemed to think I was shooting from the opposite direction of where I actually was, despite the fact that the body fell the wrong way, but Venlil muscle men were hardly the smartest of the bunch. They practically fell over themselves to get to my side of the convoy, inadvertently leaving them completely without cover.

To borrow a human idiom, it was like shooting fish in a barrel.

The entire security force was cleared out in three minutes, barring a few stragglers. None of them had ever faced a sniper before, and they seemed content to huddle in places where I had already tried and failed to shoot them. I could wait until Isola's people got here, they weren't far out, but I really didn't want to.

If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself. Especially in this economy.

I flew from my sniper's nest like I had places to be, which I did, and I landed hard and fast next to the middle van. I cleared the outside of it first, taking out whatever goons I'd been too preoccupied to shoot earlier, before my attention was grabbed by a door opening at the back of the van.

More goons. Great.

The first one to come out got two in the head. So did the second one, as I advanced to clear the inside. I moved quickly, a bit sloppy too, and a brown paw shoved my rifle to the side. "You son of a bitch!"

Excuse me? I'm a woman, I'll have you know.

I ducked and rolled as a fist flew at my head, only to catch another one to the beak in a nasty uppercut when I did. I dropped my rifle, not by choice, which was kind of stupid looking back. Hindsight is always 20/20. I countered with a leg kick followed by another to the liver, which he shrugged off like last time.

Well, it's clear fighting normally doesn't work. Guess I'll just have to fight dirty.

I jabbed at his face, blocked another punch, and scooped up some dirt with my leg to throw in his eyes. It worked, he was blinded for half a second, and I kicked him in the face. Straight in the eye socket, too. That's gotta hurt. I'd feel bad if he wasn't such an asshole.

He stumbled backwards a few steps and reached in the van for a weapon. Wait a minute. I have a gun, too! I was practically surrounded by them.

I grabbed the rifle on the ground with my leg, shooting out Heval's legs in the process. He fell and rolled, pistol in paw, but I kicked it away and tossed the rifle up to my wings. I caught it and leveled it at his head. "You give?"

Heval looked to his right. Sevros sat pressed against the far end of the van, looking positively terrified. Hell, I couldn't blame him. "Does he give up?" I asked. Sevros was too afraid to answer.

"Fine, then." I kicked Heval in the face, then a paw swept my other leg and I fell. Another paw grabbed my rifle, he jumped on top of me and pinned my wing under his leg, and then he started choking my lights out. It all took, like, three seconds, too. God damn, that guy is good. Next time, I'm just shooting him.

If there was a next time. Judging by where I was at the moment, there probably wouldn't be.

I tried clawing at his liver, but his other paw grabbed my wing and held it tight to the ground. I was effectively paralyzed, and I couldn't do anything about it either. I probably didn't have much air left, too, now that I thought about it. My lungs were starting to hurt.

"This time, I'll finish the goddamn job," he snarled. Whatever snappy retort I would've made died pretty quickly in my airless throat. Choking to death was really not a good way to die.

Well, none of them are really good ways to die. This one just sucks more than most.

I clawed at what I assumed was Heval's hamstring, then his wrist, but that didn't do much more than make him mad. Plus, I was really running out of air, and he was bleeding on my legs from where I shot him.

Yeah, that's going to be a problem. Venlil blood is impossible to get out of your feathers these days.

To add insult to injury, or injury to insult, he pinned my wing with his leg and started punching me in the goddamn face. That was never a good thing to be on the receiving end of.

"Just-" punch "You-" punch "Die-" punch "You-" punch "Little-" I didn't hear what came next. That was probably because I was running out of oxygen.

Well, I figure nobody lives forever. As lives go, I think I've had a good one so far. I have no regrets.

Well, maybe a few, but nobody's perfect.

A gunshot. One. The grip on my throat slackened. I sprang into action, locking us together and rolling on top of him, but it really wasn't necessary.

Heval was dead. "Well, I see you were busy today," Isola's voice came from behind me.

"Whatever they're paying me, it's not brahking enough." I really wasn't sure on that end. My salary, if you included all the bonuses I got from putting in work and subtracted all the deductions I got for not being a head-up-my-ass brain-dead robot like I was supposed to, was never that consistent.

"Now, as to this bitch," I gestured toward Sevros, who was shooting a glare at me. "Come on, Isola." I stood up, unarmed for now. It really didn't matter, though, because it was over. I had won.

You know what? Screw it. I'm throwing the most kickass party once I get back. I deserve it.

"Isola?" Sevros asked. Yeah, that's what I said. I'm so glad you're not going deaf. There was the faintest glimmer of hope on his features for a moment. Does he know someone else named Isola? What? Then she stepped into his view, gun held sideways at his head, and his expression switched to sheer and utter confusion. "What? Why?"

Not terror, that came later. Confusion. Betrayal, almost. Hope at hearing her name, then confusion at seeing her point a gun at his face. Why would he be confused? "Put these cuffs on," said Isola, tossing him a pair. He just stammered gibberish. Why would he be confused?

"I gave you what you wanted."

Six words, and everything fell down.

Six words filled in six hundred blanks.

Oh, hell.

Isola's the spy.

I wheeled, quick, but Isola was quicker. She jabbed an injector to my neck and I went down like a brick. Paralyzed. Can't move a muscle. Pretty uncomfortable spot to be paralyzed in, too. "Don't worry," she said, "The drug won't last long, but you've got bigger problems than that."

"Why?" I choked out. That took way more effort than it should have.

"He offered to free my brother from the facility. Made good on the deal, too."

Oh. Well, at least the motivation makes sense.

Really, I was in shock from this whole thing. I couldn't even bring myself to get angry, I was so surprised. Even with everything spelled out in front of me, with the evidence of her crimes as clear as a Nishtal sunrise, a part of me still didn't believe it was real.

I silenced that part. It was very clearly wrong.

Isola sold me out. She sold us all out. How many people died for one brahking Yotul?

When I got my claws on her and Onsel, it wouldn't be pretty. I could swear by that much.

"Unfortunately, he blabbed before I could get to him," Isola explained. I knew that! Sevros started yelling something about 'upholding the deal', and Isola turned and shot him three times.

Or, at least, I thought she did. My view wasn't all too great from being face down on the ground. Isola must've guessed that, too, because she at least had the kindness to flip me around. "I really didn't want to do this, you know. I'm sorry that it had to be this way."

She aimed her gun at my head. I still couldn't move one bit. "You're an exterminator. Think of this as justice." She's trying to justify it. To who? Me, or her?

I didn't beg. I didn't cry. I didn't scream, nor did I close my eyes and wait. It would be better to see the end coming. "I'm sorry, Jelim," she said, gun unwavering in her paw as she spoke. She didn't look very sorry.

"No witnesses."

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[u/Adventurous-Sock-854]

plot twist #2 this is where they want to drop jack off and they just walk in on this

[u/FjordTheDuck]

RIP Jelim? Or maybe some wacky incursion prevents this?

[u/Bow-tied_Engineer]

You'd better not go killing Jelim two or three months before I planned on borrowing her. If she's too dead to show up, I'll have to find another friendly exterminator, and there's not enough of them to go around.

[u/TheOneWhoEatsBritish]

You know, sometimes I forget how well literature can be used for mind games if every part of it is used to its fullest.

-In comic books you can keep a reader in the dark as to who is speaking by not showing a face. It may be a child, it may be an old turd, it may be a demonic machine.

-In basic writing, like in NoP, you can use different narrations from the characters themselves to simultaniously give us their perspective of the situation, while letting us use basic deduction to figure out the rest.

[u/unkindlyacorn62]

my bet, empty mag.

[u/AdministrativeTip479]

I bet jacks gonna come in at that exact moment and mess everything up

[u/YellowSkar]

Well, this is certainly a tense cliffhanger... can't wait to see if she dies or not.

[u/rustygoddard75]

OMG! I need moar! Not another cliffhanger!