Assault: CQB

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I focused on the supermarket's windows until the silhouettes behind the glass resolved into something I could actually see. A Standard Human wouldn't have spotted even that.

Unlike a regular building, a big-box supermarket didn't have many windows. That made it hard to snipe from the outside — but it also made it hard for anyone inside to shoot back out.

I drew the Air Gun, put the crosshairs dead on a silhouette standing beside a window, and squeezed the trigger.

The pane shattered. A scream ripped out from inside, and a wave of panicked voices boiled up through the store.

Reload. I swept the windows again, found another silhouette, and fired.

Another scream. After that, nobody lingered by the glass. Fair enough. Two people had already taken pellets. Anyone still standing next to a window was basically begging to die.

That said, it was an Air Gun. After punching through glass, the pellet would have lost most of its punch. Whoever I'd hit probably wasn't even badly hurt.

Shooting through the windows wasn't the point anyway.

I switched to the semi-auto shotgun and sprinted for the supermarket wall. Nobody fired out at me. They'd all pulled back from the windows.

The first-floor walls were solid — no glass at all. I approached the main entrance at a measured walk.

The supermarket's front doors were floor-to-ceiling glass. Furniture had been piled up behind them as a barricade, but through the gaps I could see the interior perfectly. People were scattered across the first floor in the distance. I picked out the men holding weapons.

I blew out the glass with a blast from the shotgun, triggered Super Sensory in the same instant, and opened up on the men inside.

BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!

The rate of fire was so vicious it barely deserved to be called a shotgun.

Six of them were corpses before they hit the floor. Screams erupted. Women's high-pitched shrieks stabbed at my ears. Men swore and roared.

A few people started shooting toward the entrance, but most of them didn't even have guns — just crossbows, if they had anything at all. The crowd stampeded for the upper floors.

I drew a revolver and started picking off the ones who were still armed as they ran. It didn't hit as hard as the shotgun, but anyone I put a round into properly didn't get back up.

When there was nobody left on the first floor inside my field of fire, I scanned the interior and reloaded both the shotgun and the revolver, shell by shell, round by round.

Four dead. I'd hit six of them. So the other two had survived.

Once I was reloaded, I eased the shattered doors open and stepped inside.

They still had fighters and guns left, as far as I could tell — they just hadn't managed to hold the barricaded entrance. That told me everything. They were already falling apart from the inside.

Just inside, a man was gasping on the floor with a pistol round in him. His eyes were wide with terror as he looked up at me. I put a shotgun blast through his skull without hesitation. Blood sprayed across the tiles.

A few steps deeper, the ones hiding behind pillars and cover opened up with guns and crossbows.

Through Super Sensory, the incoming bullets and bolts crawled. I slipped past them like they were standing still.

In that stretched-out time, the men behind the pillars were easy targets. They only had half their bodies exposed — but half was more than enough. I just had to hit whatever they were showing me.

I raised ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the shotgun and dropped them one by one. A man whose thigh turned to hamburger. A man whose entire arm vanished. A man whose head came apart. Ruin one piece of a human body and the rest of them is done fighting.

After I'd killed about ten, the survivors broke and ran. Some bolted for the escalator to the second floor. The rest scattered in every direction.

Anyone who ran for the front doors, I lined up and put down. Thirteen dead on the first floor.

A few of them had even hidden in the bathrooms.

"P-please don't kill me! I threw my weapon away!"

One man and two women, huddled in a restroom, begging for their lives with their weapons discarded.

I cuffed the man's arms behind his back with the handcuffs I'd brought. Handcuffs really were the most convenient thing. I made the two women take off their tops, then bound their arms with their own clothes. Their chests were pretty big. I liked that.

"Go to the front entrance and lie face-down on the floor. You move anywhere else — even a little — and I shoot you on the spot."

They did as they were told, bent at the waist, shuffling slowly toward the doors.

The first ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠floor had gone quiet. All the movement I could feel now was upstairs. The floor above was a mess of shouting, cursing, and screaming. They were sliding into full panic.

I looked up the escalator to the second floor — one of those wide, flat-stepped ones you could push a cart up. The second I showed even a sliver of myself, bullets poured down from above.

I watched the incoming rounds through Super Sensory, slipped them with almost no effort, and returned fire.

Two down. But the escalator was long. Punching straight up it didn't look easy.

The elevators wouldn't be running. Emergency stairs, then.

I found the stairwell and started up, taking my time, killing my footsteps all the way to the second floor. When I eased the door open, there was nobody near it.

What a shitshow. They weren't even covering the stairs. Everyone was piled up around the escalator.

Their reactions were all over the place. Some of them were screaming that I was a monster. Women were sobbing. Someone was yelling that they had to get to the floor above. Someone else was yelling that they should surrender.

Their morale had already hit rock bottom. They were past any kind of control.

Six rounds in the shotgun. Six in each of the two revolvers. Eighteen shots I could dump in a single burst.

I focused. Super Sensory kicked in. Light rippled, and the world slowed down.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

I started with the closest ones and walked the shotgun down the line. Six shells gone. I drew a revolver and hosed them.

Heads coming apart. Men screaming in shock. Men running. One woman just stood there shaking, the seat of her white pants completely black — she'd shit herself.

Using Super Sensory too long brought on a faint wave of dizziness. A few seconds of rest and it was gone.

A few bullets, arrows, and bolts came my way, but I was tucked behind the stairwell wall. Not one of them touched me. I stayed behind cover, watched them, and reloaded at my leisure.

Leisure being a generous word. I couldn't go any faster. Shotguns and revolvers were a pain in the ass to reload. Click, click — one round at a time, careful not to fumble.

A handful of them tried to make a fight of it, shooting toward the emergency stairs. Most of them were too busy running for the floor above.

Someone came down the stairwell from the third floor, firing as they descended. I snatched a revolver from my hip and answered.

Both headshots.

Super Sensory let me react at a speed that was just insane, and then I put both rounds through their skulls. It was exactly like those Western movie duels — the ones where a guy slaps leather and the other guy drops. Except every shot was a headshot.

I topped off the two empty chambers and shoved the revolver back into its holster.

It was brutal. It was also fun. The same rush I'd gotten spraying down a room in an FPS.

I leaned out of the stairwell just far enough and dumped another volley into them.

Eighteen more dead in a few seconds, and that was it. They all ran. Looked like they'd all fled to the third floor or higher.

I finished reloading and started clearing the second floor at a walk.

I found the place where they'd been running the captured women as prostitutes. I opened the little rooms with photos of women taped to the doors. Girls in nothing but underwear dropped to their knees and begged for their lives.

"P-please don't kill me! I was brought here against my will! I-I don't want to fight, I swear!"

She had a pretty face and a good body underneath it, but her hair was greasy and she was smeared with stains. She looked filthy.

"Anyone who wants to live, get out of those rooms and lie face-down on the floor!"

They must have heard me. The women poured out of the rooms and dropped to the floor. No weapons. No will to fight. No reason to kill them.

The sloped escalator up to the third floor. Far above, I could just make out heads peeking over the top, looking down.

I had something I wanted to test. Call it practice.

I stepped out into the open. A shotgun blast came screaming down from the top of the escalator.

Through Super Sensory, I watched the pellets crawl toward me. I read the trajectory, stepped out of it, and fired back at the man who'd pulled the trigger — all in the same motion.

He had nowhere to go. Same principle as slipping a punch and landing the counter. I twitched out of the way. He caught my shotgun blast and went flying.

I took one step forward. Another round came at me — a pistol this time, even easier to dodge.

Unless you were shooting with nothing but the muzzle showing, the person behind the gun always had to expose their face and part of their body. I read the bullet's path, slipped it, and sent a counter-blast into the shooter.

The pistolero's head came apart.

To their eyes, it would have looked like I twisted my body and fired in the same instant — and hit, every single time. Landing that at a hundred percent was not a human thing.

I started walking up the escalator. I countered two more of them, and that was enough. They were so terrified they stopped shooting entirely and ran.

I broke into a sprint. I hit the third floor in a few seconds and hosed the fleeing crowd.

I'd held Super Sensory too long. I ducked behind cover and caught my breath.

There were still plenty of them left, but I could feel their guns running ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠dry. A few were scrambling to pick weapons off the corpses. Most of what they actually had were just crossbows and bows.

A bullet could still catch you if your body couldn't keep up. Arrows and bolts, I could dodge a hundred percent of the time, even at close range.

A middle-aged woman with a crossbow. A girl with a bow. Didn't matter. If they were holding a weapon and they hadn't surrendered, they were enemies.

I finished reloading, then ran forward, shooting anything that moved.

The end was almost in sight.