She ripped her hand free—claws tearing out chunks of charred flesh—and spun toward the fourth man.
He raised his rifle. She was faster. Her legs came up in a scissor motion, thighs clamping around his neck from opposite sides.
I heard the vertebrae crack—three distinct pops like someone snapping thick branches. His head lolled forward at an angle necks weren’t designed for. She released him and he crumpled, body twitching as his severed spinal cord sent random electrical impulses to limbs that no longer received coherent signals.
Urine spread across his tactical pants as his bladder released.
The fifth man in their group made the mistake of standing his ground, rifle raised, controlled bursts.
The bullets sparked off Ava’s shield. She closed the distance in three steps—her shield flaring each time a round hit it—and drove both knives into his gut, just above the belt.
Then she pulled them apart horizontally, like opening curtains.
His abdominal wall split. His intestines spilled out in a wet rush, hitting the ground with a meaty slap. His liver followed—dark purple and glistening—sliding free and plopping onto the growing pile of his own organs.
He looked down at them, looked up at Ava, and then his eyes rolled back and he collapsed into his own viscera.
"Heavy fire!" Ava’s voice came sharp through comms. "LMGs, three o’clock!"
I spun.
Three men with belt-fed light machine guns, barrels already spinning up, brass starting to spit from the ejection ports in glittering streams. They’d set up a proper firing position behind overturned concrete planters—good cover, overlapping fields of fire, supporting each other’s angles.
Professional.
Useless.
I charged straight at them.
The LMGs roared to life—a combined 2,400 rounds per minute tearing toward me. I watched the bullets come, tracked trajectories, calculated impact points. Most would miss. Some would hit.
The ones that hit struck my shield first, kinetic energy dissipating in explosive sparks. A few punched through—my tenfold durability could handle it, but it still felt like getting repeatedly punched by someone who really meant it.
Bruises bloomed deep in muscle tissue and healed almost instantly, cellular regeneration working overtime.
I reached the first gunner.
He was still firing when I grabbed him by the throat. My fingers closed around his neck—I felt it compress, cartilage rings crushing, windpipe collapsing. His eyes went wide behind his balaclava.
He tried to let go of the LMG, tried to grab my hand, but I was already lifting.
I hoisted him overhead with one hand, held him there for a moment while bullets from his squadmates sparked off my shield around us. Then I grabbed his belt with my other hand and pulled in opposite directions.
His spine resisted for maybe half a second.
Then I felt it start to separate—vertebrae popping apart like a chewed snack, spinal cord stretching, then tearing like wet string. His torso separated from his hips at the waist, organs sliding out of the gap, intestines hanging down like grotesque party streamers. Blood rained down on me, hot and thick.
I threw the upper half at the second gunner. It hit him in the chest hard enough to knock him backward off his firing position. I threw the lower half—legs still twitching—at the third. He tried to dodge, failed.
The second gunner was trying to get up, still tangled with the corpse I’d thrown at him. I stepped on his back, driving him down. Then I aimed the captured LMG straight down and pulled the trigger.
It split him from groin to sternum in under two seconds.

"Reinforcements!" Ava called. "North side, thirty-plus!"
The mansion was emptying its garrison—men pouring from every door and first-floor window, some with rocket launchers, others with explosives strapped to tactical vests. Volkov had held back his main force, waited to see what we could do.
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