Harbinger
"Ah— no, wait, I mean, uh…."
Dark Zone was, at its core, a virtual reality FPS.
In an era when the word FPS got thrown around like a proper noun, plenty of people reduced it to a vague catch-all for "games where you shoot guns" — but FPS, in essence, meant a first-person shooter.
And that meant Harmony's streaming cam was broadcasting exactly what her eyes were looking at.
Granted, as the game service matured and the platform evolved, viewers had gained the option to switch between various perspectives. But the fundamental nature of the thing hadn't changed.
Which meant—
Every single one of the roughly seven thousand viewers who had piled into the stream had just watched Harmony drop her magazine onto the ground without realizing it.
And of course, the chat was immediately thick with the sound of molars grinding down to dust.
But contrary to what everyone expected, that cheerful little symphony of doom — magazine meeting concrete — never came.
Instead, something quietly filled the bottom of the streaming feed.
Beneath a night sky thick with darkness, a mottled pattern was just barely visible — hard to make out in detail, but there all the same.
Something swift whispered across the ground, and the magazine that had been tumbling toward the pavement was suddenly caught by something.
No. Not something.
It was the snake's tail — the one everyone had written off as nothing more than an extra avatar part.
"…Th-this…."
A scream surged up her throat, but the reason that her earlier blunder had just forged held it back by a hair.
Fear of snakes was instinct for most of humanity. Factor in a thing as thick as a calf lunging toward her legs out of nowhere, and she honestly deserved some credit for keeping it together this time.
But then—
"………."
Click.
Harmony locked eyes with Eugene's sharp gaze — the enemy-ID function on her lenses lending it the faintest wash of white — and her mouth snapped shut on its own.
As the magazine slid back into the well, she learned firsthand that deliberate silence could be far more terrifying than any outburst.
Regardless of any of that—
The device, automatically eavesdropping on nearby in-com data, slammed the translated conversation into their ears.
Russian.
Russian naval infantry — elite landing troops who had used America's chaos as cover to set foot on the mainland through the North American coastline.
The two of them pressed into whatever cover they could find, eyes locked on their red-dot sights, muzzles trained toward the sound of what felt like countless footsteps.
And then—
───Rustle.
Through the overgrown brush, three hostiles burst from the park entrance.
Tactical rigs strapped over thick body armor. Balaclavas swallowing their faces whole, paired with Russian-made 1PN63 binocular night-vision goggles. AK-12s lashed across their backs for ready access, VSS rifles in hand for close-quarters work. They advanced at measured intervals, using cover as they swept the area.
Eugene exhaled a short breath and held it, settling her aim on the enemy.
Target: the legs.
The objective was to draw out the main force, whose exact position she still hadn't pinned down.
"Don't do anything until I give the order. The second I fire, get your head down."
"…Got it!"
A moment later, two rounds tore through the air with a noise loud enough to make their ears ring.
Blood erupted violently from a knee as the rounds punched through soft tissue.
A thick, pain-choked scream ripped through the streets of New York.
"………!"
Budda-budda-budda!
One hostile crumpled where he stood. The other two scouts opened up almost instantly, spraying return fire in every direction.
Trees, sidewalk tiles, and benches shattered into splinters as a dizzying roar of gunfire flooded the area.
Harmony curled herself tight as rounds cracked past overhead, and only then did she understand why Eugene had told her to keep her head down.
Meanwhile, the heavy report of another weapon mixed in among the relatively quiet crack of the VSS. Almost in the same instant, more agonized screams rang out in succession.
The remaining two had gone down as well — knees and shins blown apart, collapsing right where they stood.
"…You're not finishing them…?"
Harmony whispered the question over in-com, watching screams so raw they were hard to believe belonged to a game. Eugene simply waited, calm and still.
She kept her eyes on the surroundings and counted down. The number never climbed past ten. And even as that count ticked down one by one in her mind, the three with ruined legs were still dragging themselves back the way they'd come.
Watching them, Eugene added:
"…Get ready to throw grenades."
"Huh?"
"Grenades!"
Fwoom!
In that same moment, several enemy smoke grenades burst open, and smoke billowed up from every direction. It didn't take long for the three wounded to vanish into it.
Through the chaos of noise came the continuous crack and snap of branches and brush being crushed underfoot, and Harmony finally recognized it for what it was — the main force closing in.
A distinctive metallic ping as a pin came free. Harmony hurled the grenade with everything she had toward the smoke that was impossible to miss as a target.
At almost the same moment, Eugene was running through the same procedure.
With one small difference.
"…Okay, how did you even do that!?"
She'd coiled a grenade in her tail, pulled the pin with the tip, and launched it skyward with a whip-crack of recoil.
All while still holding her aim.
But the second it landed dead-center in the enemy zone, Harmony understood this was no showboating.
The silence didn't last long. In the final instant, both of them heard the enemy shouting something frantic.
Then two successive flashes and concussions swallowed everything around them.
───!!
The spreading smoke was blasted apart in a single shockwave.
Even so, visibility wasn't fully restored, so both of them kept their muzzles trained on that direction just in case.
It didn't take long for the smoke to clear completely.
The aftermath was laid bare.
"…Six?"
"Whoa, that's insane…!"
And the chat was losing its collective mind.
This was nothing more than a temporary duo thrown together to reach HQ — but what should have been an ordinary party run had turned into the kind of extreme hard-carry where one side might as well have grabbed Harmony by the hair and dragged her through it.
And it wasn't just raw aim carrying the load. She knew exactly how to leverage every available resource to crack open a given situation.
Unintentional showmanship.
And through it all, Eugene remained calm. Sharp.
Sharp enough that even the hyped-up Harmony started to wonder.
"…Something wrong?"
"Six is too few. Let's wait a little longer."
"Come on. We just dropped that many — there's no way there's still more around—"
Their eyes met.
The moment those ice-blue eyes locked onto hers, Harmony's tail dropped on instinct.
"…There could be. Ehehe."
"…."
Rustle.
Eugene carefully eased out of her stance and scanned the surroundings, then quietly picked up a suitably broken chunk of sidewalk tile.
A brief silence. But it didn't take long for her to gauge the distance and hurl it hard into the brush beyond the intersection.
With a rattle of shaking branches, the chunk of concrete disappeared into the park undergrowth.
Then—
───Shff-shff.
"…Looks like two, maybe three left…."
"…Huh? For real? How can you tell?"
"…."
How was she supposed to explain it?
That a Russian squad — no BMP, but still — ran nine deep? Instinct built from years of accumulated experience? A rough estimate from the rustling sounds?
But Eugene never forgot that practical confirmation always came before long-winded explanations.
She mapped a route to the suspected enemy ambush position, scanned the cover along the way, and then spoke in a low voice.
"I'll need to check it myself."
"Should I come too?"
"…Watch our six and follow me."
She wasn't thrilled about it, but Eugene wasn't the type to be picky about her support.
This time, with thorough noise discipline, the two of them carefully emerged onto the sidewalk beside the brush. Quick steps, suppressed sound. They moved from wrecked car to wrecked car, using them as cover.
After what felt like ages, they found themselves near the park entrance where the scouts had first appeared.
Pressed tight against the brush, they continued in the barest whisper.
"What now?"
"…I'll draw their attention near the entrance. If they open fire, pin down their position. Even better if you can lob a grenade or two their way."
"Got it."
Fortunately, by this point Harmony could at least handle simple orders.
She dug through her pouch and pulled out a grenade the same way as before. Eugene held a short breath — then shot past the entrance in a blur.
───BRRRRT!
A half-beat later, a light machine gun opened up, pouring a storm of fire into the entrance.
Harmony muttered in disbelief, cowed by the sheer noise and firepower.
"Jesus, stick your face out into that to find their position… is she actually insane…!?"
But even so, she had no choice but to do as she'd been told.
While Eugene, tucked into the brush on the far side of the entrance, laid down suppressive fire to keep drawing their shots, Harmony peeked out just a fraction — and there, roughly a dozen meters down the park footpath, muzzle flashes were continuously blooming from the brush beside the trail.
She ducked back behind cover, took one deep breath, and pulled the pin the same as before.
It left her hand.
But—
"I threw it wrong!"
"Push in the second it goes off!"
Most of it was buried under the thunderous gunfire shaking the entire city block, but the content wasn't hard to catch.
She counted down in her head.
One.
Two.
And three.
───!
The instant the blast and shrapnel erupted in every direction, Harmony clenched her teeth and sprinted into the entrance like a round leaving the barrel.
But Eugene was already going in ahead of her.
"Get down!"
The last thing Harmony saw before she face-planted right where she stood was the utterly deranged spectacle of Eugene firing her weapon while lobbing a grenade with her tail — as casually as breathing.
She couldn't see what happened after that, but another roar of detonation and the gunfire that swept the park between the blasts were enough to paint a pretty clear picture.
Some amount of time passed.
───Tap-tap.
"Get up."
"…Uweh?"
Making that ridiculous little sound, she struggled to her feet.
The area was a wreck.
Trees shredded by grenade fragments and bullets, gouged earth, shattered concrete — the whole scene painted a single chaotic landscape.
Maybe from planting her face in the dirt, she felt a phantom ache in bangs that had no business hurting, and gave her head a dazed little shake.
A vacant voice to match her disheveled appearance managed to crawl out.
"…How'd it go?"
"Situation's clear. I'll handle security — you reorganize. Check for anything lost or any leftover explosives, make sure your weapons are functioning, nothing broken…."
"Ah, right, right."
The chain of command had established itself with almost unnatural ease.
Harmony let the system take over, and her body began running through maintenance on its own.
Clear the chamber, drop the magazine, inspect the breech, then reverse the whole process. She checked her zero through the sights for any shift, counted remaining magazines and grenades.
After a brief silence—
"Everything checks out."
"Copy, confirmed."
"So… we move now?"
Her mint-colored ears perked up as she asked with pure, guileless innocence.
To which—
"No. We've still got a few things to do."
"Ah, gotcha…."
"Grenades and the like — you want to keep restocking them whenever you've got the bandwidth. Just keep an eye on the perimeter for me."
"Okaaay. Anything else you need me to do? I think I can handle it."
A grin.
After all of a few engagements, she'd already blown past a simple confidence boost and arrived at baseless swagger complete with a smile that had no foundation whatsoever.
Eugene watched her with an odd look, then added something as if it had just occurred to her.
"…Now that you mention it. There is one thing."
"What is it?"
And with a remarkably bright smile, she added:
"Get down."
"Huh?"
"I said get on the ground."
"W-wait. Why all of a sudden? What did I even do wrong…."
Of course, it didn't take her long to realize that smile was not a good sign — it was an omen.
The encore performance of a magazine hitting the dirt with a cheerful clack was just the bonus track.
"…Okay yeah I did do that, ehehe."
"If you make a loud noise this time, you had better be ready for real."
"I-I'm sorry. I mean it, I really mean it. But wait, didn't I pull my weight a lot this time though? If you could take that into consideration I would reallyreallyreallyAAAAAAGH…!"
Thwack.
Eugene delivered an affectionate little kick to the shin, and that kindly request — complete with a modest application of physical force — persuaded Harmony into a voluntary push-up position.
Sure, a desperately muffled low-volume scream was mixed in there somewhere, but hey. Whatever.
At any rate, the night was growing deeper.