“Feet shoulder-width apart, keep your knees slightly bent.”

  She pulled the trigger, the instant that Trevor, no, the spirit moved.

  It screamed, tearing through the street towards her. Her palms were met with the cold grip of her Nagantra as she withdrew it from its holster. She held the trigger down even as her arms trembled, feeling every vibration as each bullet escaped her magazine. She watched as they speared into the flesh of his thigh in a red haze.

  The spirit tumbled to the ground, thrown off balance, and was sent sprawling across the street.

  “Try not to get tunnel vision, and to make it a point to regularly assess your surroundings.”

  “GET AWAY FROM HERE!”

  Evantra shouted at onlookers who had gathered outside the shops to stare at the scene. People were peeking out of doorways and windows, looking in her direction. The onlookers around her hadn’t yet realised the scope of the threat the man posed. Evantra cursed as she watched the spirit rise to its feet, blood trailing from Trevor’s eyes afresh. She watched muscle and sinew knit themselves together, leaving the bullet wounds she had inflicted a fleeting memory.

  Evantra ran.

  She sprinted away, and she heard the telltale crack of concrete splitting, which alerted her to the spirit’s pursuit. She rounded a corner, hiding behind the corner as the spirit barrelled past her. The spirit skid to a halt when it realised Evantra’s plot.

  “Your parents never took you to a range?”

  She sent another precise burst of rounds towards the spirit’s leg. She watched as her bullets speared into its kneecap, shattering it, and causing the ghost possessing him to fall to a knee. She could feel her heartbeat thundering in her ears, the rush of blood thumping, along with the slight high-pitched ring resulting from the flurry of gunfire.

  Evantra bit her lip as she looked through shaking iron sights, watching as he wobbled on his feet.

  Her lips trembled as she released a soft, shuddering breath.

  “Thanks, kid. You’re not all that bad.”

  Evantra pulled the trigger.

  She watched as the bullets found their mark.

  The spirit fell to the ground, still.

  Evantra shook, rooted to the spot, his unmoving form still in her sights.

  When the spirit rose again, Evantra ran.

  I need to lead it towards Finnerman Canal. The bystanders in the city are in danger.

  She felt her thighs burn as she sprinted down the road, screaming at bystanders that she glimpsed to evacuate the area. She heard and felt the hollow thump of the spirit launching itself from its prone position, and Evantra made for the street corner. She knew that if she relented for even a millisecond, the spirit would gain on her instantly.

  Hearing its footsteps rapidly close the distance, Evantra gritted her teeth.

  I won’t make it, it’s too fast.

  She curled around a corner leading to a side street. The instant she broke the spirit’s line of sight, she activated her skills.

  [Object mimicry]

  [Stonerooted]

  [Conceal]

  She took the form of a ladder, leaning against the wall, and watched as the spirit blasted around the corner into the empty street. The sounds of the gentle wind carrying along leaves from the trees lining the roads was shattered by the scream that tore from the spirit’s throat. Evantra felt her skin crawl with despair as she watched it scan the area.

  I could lose it, but it would just find another target.

  Before it could reorient itself and fix its attention on another bystander, Evantra released her skills and aimed for his limbs once more. The rounds tore through both of his knees, and she watched small, hazy red mist clouds appear where the bullets impacted him.

  I don’t know how much longer I can do this for. Every time I wound him, he gets up quicker.

  She watched as this time, the spirit didn’t bother to rise to its feet before it launched itself towards her from all fours. Time seemed to slow as Evantra watched the bullet wounds across its legs heal, and her shoulders slumped imperceptibly.

  [Razor claws]

  Evantra screamed, her own despair tearing through the air as she rushed to meet the oncoming ghost. The spirit was onto her in a split second, shoulder-checking her sending her arcing through the air and slamming into a shop window. Upon impact, the transparent window was marred with cracks which burst into existence, emanating outwards from her point of impact where the base of her skull had crashed into it.

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  Evantra’s vision swam as she sank to the floor. She blinked white spots from her eyes, turning her eyes to the spirit that loomed above her, which had perfectly retained Trevor’s visage. In place of the twisted smile one would imagine from a bloodthirsty ghost, grief was written across his face. Her eyes locked onto the hand that he drew back in preparation for his finishing blow, aimed towards her skull.

  Evantra closed her eyes.

  The soft whisper of a blade cutting through flesh and bone made her hesitate, and she watched as the spirit’s blow lurched past her, shattering the glass of the storefront she was leaning against. The spirit looked down at its severed shin before lashing out wildly in its periphery, faster than Evantra’s eyes could trace. She heard the sound of a soft impact as the ghost clawed savagely around its immediate vicinity with reckless abandon. Evantra watched as the air shimmered. Guinevere’s cloaking technology faltered before reasserting itself, the Ghostslayer disappearing from sight once again.

  Evantra heard the telltale whine of an aerial vehicle approaching her position. Angling her head upwards, she squinted her eyes and watched as the familiar, sleek Caliburn AV hovered in the air a short distance overhead. She watched its twin doors slide open to reveal Lancelot and Galahad inside.

  Through bleary eyes, she glimpsed Lancelot level a familiar sniper rifle towards the spirit. The Ghostslayer unleashed his first round, and the hovering transport tipped slightly from the sheer force of the round. Evantra saw a red spray as the bullet tunnelled into the spirit’s torso. The momentum of the round alone pushed it off balance, and a millisecond later, the crack of a second gunshot reached her.

  Followed by another.

  And another.

  The spirit’s shoulder joint exploded as Lancelot’s shots unerringly found their mark, crystal blue eyes blank, as he lowered his rifle. All of his shots had landed, targeting discrete joints to immobilise the spirit. While it didn’t seem to impede the spirit’s regenerative speed, she watched as the spirit slumped to the ground, unable to support itself.

  Evantra struggled to shift herself upwards, palms pressing against the shards of glass beneath her to no avail. Her ears still rang from the sudden blow, the creature’s shrieks and Lancelot’s gunshots. All she could do was watch helplessly as Guinevere cut through the spirit’s other leg, terminating the spirit’s attempts to rise to its feet. Even so, its regeneration was potent enough that it wouldn’t hold it down for long. Evantra glimpsed the woman’s skin where the spirit had clipped her and saw that her cybernetic skin was flickering, malfunctioning due to the impact.

  It pierced her subdermals with the force of its bare-handed strike.

  “YOU KILLED THEM.”

  The voice carved its way directly into her ears, causing them to ring, and her head to throb. Evantra watched as the spirit lashed out at Guinevere, sending her sailing through the air, crashing some distance away on the ground. The spirit’s eyes unerringly traced Guinevere’s body as it sailed away. Guinevere twisted and broke into a roll across the lawn to break her fall.

  “YOU KILL—”

  Evantra struggled to reach for her Nagantra a short distance away, but every movement hurt. It reminded her of when she had jumped from the moving train, breaking her ribs. Every breath brought with it a new wave of pain.

  Through numb fingertips, Evantra felt a thump as something crashed into the ground. Angling her head towards the fight, she saw that Galahad had leapt down from the AV to crash into the road below, and was running towards the ghost to intercept the ghost before it could follow up with its strike on Guinevere.

  The stumps that were the spirit’s legs had already healed, and Evantra felt the ground rupture beneath it as it launched itself towards Galahad, who had interposed himself in its path to Guinevere, who was slowly recovering from the blow and righting herself.

  Ghost and Ghostslayer clashed.

  Evantra’s eyes widened as the spirit’s bare hand tore through Galahad’s left forearm, ripping through the metal plating that comprised the cybernetically enhanced limb. To Galahad’s credit, he barely flinched from the blow before kicking the spirit in the chest, making it sprawl backwards from its overextended position. Unlike Evantra’s initial kick that had sent Trevor sprawling, Galahad’s barely made the spirit flinch, before it righted itself, readying to coil outwards towards the hulking ghostslayer.

  The interlocking metallic plates on his right forearm began to unlatch and retreat, revealing the missile launcher embedded within.

  Galahad unleashed the missile.

  The explosion rocked the street, sending glass in the neighbouring shop fronts and parked cars shattering. As the smoke cleared, Evantra stared in horror as the burns and wounds that had been inflicted by the weapon effortlessly began to stitch themselves together, turning back into mundane skin. As the ghost began to crawl to its feet, she watched the final Ghostslayer leap from the AV onto the ground below.

  In place of his sniper rifle—

  Lancelot held a blade.

  Or a fragment of it. The Ghostslayer’s hand was curled around a worn grip, from which a gleaming, shattered blade sprouted. It was broken midway through its length into a jagged edge, as if someone had snapped it clean through. Seeing the Ghost lunge forward, Lancelot barely even flinched as he reversed his grip on the fragmented blade, stabbing downwards like one would a dagger, plunging it straight into the spirit’s chest.

  The blow had an instantaneous effect.

  Evantra watched as the spirit let out a scream of despair, which made its previous cries pale in comparison. She watched as all of the Ghostslayer’s flinched from the force of the sound. Blood trickled from their ears, as it did from her own. She watched as shopfronts far in the distance exploded from the shriek, and muted car alarms were triggered in the vicinity.

  The death cry continued for another minute, Lancelot in a crouch, placing his hands over his ears, flinching away from the creature.

  The wound inflicted by the blade didn’t dissipate, unlike the previous ones that they had sought to inflict.

  Evantra frowned, blinking through bleary eyes and doubting what she was seeing.

  He’s watching it. It’s not that he can’t attack it; he’s choosing not to.

  Finally, after another minute of screaming, heedless of the damage inflicted upon his hearing, Lancelot rose from his crouch and repeated the motion, driving the broken blade into the spirit’s chest. Lancelot repeatedly stabbed the spirit in the torso with the sword, and his target slowly slipped to the ground, its cry diminishing into a soft, lingering rasp.

  Then it fell quiet.

  Evantra struggled in vain to right herself, blinking away the tears brought from her impact against the storefront. The aerial vehicle touched down on the road, and Evantra watched as Guinevere and Galahad shot a glance towards her before making their way inside. Lancelot’s clear blue eyes locked onto her slumped form, and he approached. The Ghostslayer crouched before her, brows creased as he scanned over her injuries with practised efficiency before giving himself a slight nod.

  The last thing Evantra remembered was the cold stainless steel of the needle entering her neck before she lost consciousness.