We moved toward the electronic wing quietly, like shadows. The electronics wing wasn't large—about five stores that sold computers, phones, video games, radios, TVs, and more. It would've been strange for any group to set up a base there, but the Beginner's Store was worth it.
I wondered what the Chosen were doing for food. Did the Beginner's Store sell any? Were they scavenging? More likely, they were killing and robbing people. Not really important right now.We reached the entrance to the wing. Everything was looted. Bloodstains and drag marks streaked the ground leading out. I nodded toward the others, and everyone separated, heading to their positions. My team and I waited for Nicole's signal at the entrance.
The storefront for Pear—the electronics store at the end—was heavily barricaded from the inside. Shelving, broken displays, and welded debris turned the front into a kill funnel. We wouldn't be able to breach through the doors without alerting everyone inside.
That's when Nicole called an audible. She and Logan scouted the structure and spotted a section of unfinished drywall on the right side wall, just behind a neighboring appliance store. It was thin, likely used for maintenance access and storage—unguarded and forgotten.
Just before we moved, Nicole had pulled Hirose and Sloan aside to clear the approach. The Chosen weren't stupid. They had three lookouts stationed in the shadows near the side entrances, but only one was taking their job seriously.
Hirose took out two before they could raise an alarm. Sloan handled the third with a baton to the throat. No shots fired. No screams. Just cold, clean elimination.
Nicole's voice crackled in my ear through the short-range radio. "All teams in position."We didn't know how many hostiles we would encounter once inside. The boy claimed six in total three of whom had skills—fire, healing, and one unknown. But if I'd learned anything in this new world, it was never to trust a scared recruit's headcount.
"Alpha ready," I whispered.
"Bravo ready," Nicole returned.
"Charlie in place," came Viktor's voice.
"Delta green," Logan added.
I raised my hand, signaling my team to stay low. We were crouched just beyond the corridor's edge, a shattered kiosk hiding our movements. Sol was beside me, arrow nocked. Liam had his baton drawn. Amber flanked the right, her eyes locked forward. Karen knelt quietly behind the makeup display, wide-eyed but steady.
"Three... two... one."I dropped my hand.
The store lit up in chaos.
Delta hit first—Jordan barreled through the thin drywall near the right flank of the electronics store, shoulder-first. A crack boomed across the floor with screams following.
Alpha and Bravo surged into the corridor through secondary access points—side maintenance doors and broken interior panels they had identified during Nicole and Logan's earlier scouting. The main entrances were too heavily barricaded, but the team had found weak spots in the surrounding architecture to press through with clean precision. Charlie's route was slower—tight turns, debris, and a signal tripwire that Sloan barely caught before it snapped under his boot.
"Trap," Sloan warned. "We're rerouting."
Ahead, the Chosen were already reacting. A horn blew—primitive and loud. Their masks turned in unison.
The first clash happened in the main corridor. I caught a glimpse of the flame user—his mask a scorched black, his hoodie tattered and flameproof. "Flame Burst!" he screamed, hurling a fireball down the center.
"Down!" I shouted, yanking Sol behind cover.
The flame licked past, setting a pile of debris ablaze.
I heard Bravo's advance—blades and batons. Nicole's team ducked under a collapsing shelf and cornered two Chosen guarding the left hallway.
One of them screamed, "Restoration Pulse!" and a soft green glow surged over her comrade's wounds.
Liz hit the healer with her bat at the woman's knee, and Jesse followed with a shoulder slam, driving her into the wall.
Alpha pressed forward. Amber split left with Liam. I took Sol and Karen right. A masked figure blocked our path.
"Look at me," she said, voice syrupy.
My pulse skipped. Sol froze mid-step, his bow sagging.
"Drop your weapons," she added.
Karen lowered her blade following the orders.
I didn't think—I moved.
My katana flashed. I slashed low, catching her across the knees. The spell broke with a shriek.
Sol gasped like he'd come up for air. "What the hell was that?"
"I don't know, probably a skill." I said. "Ignore her words. Block it out."
The girl fell back, clutching her now missing legs, cursing at me.
"Don't look at her, she will bleed out," I said.
"Charlie, entering from the rear," Viktor barked over the comms. "Engaged with three targets."
"Status?"
"One has brute strength. Took out a shelf like it was paper. Giselle's pinned."
"Copy," Nicole answered. "Delta, shift support left. Bravo, hold the hallway."
Delta pushed through, Laney and Kyle smashing through debris. Briar hauled Giselle free while Logan swung a mall security baton at the Brute. The masked attacker caught it, crushed it in one hand, and screamed, "Brute Force!" again.
He charged.
Logan sidestepped. Jordan tackled him from behind. The two crashed into an endcap of televisions.
Meanwhile, more of the Chosen began pouring from back rooms, maintenance halls, and hidden nooks. First three, then five, then more.
"This is more than six!" Sloan shouted.
"Count fifteen!" Viktor barked. "At least!"
I gritted my teeth. "Figures. The kid didn't know half his crew."
In the final corridor leading to whatever the Chosen was desperately protecting, three more Chosen waited—clearly working together. One stood with arms out, chanting—projecting a soft glow as he preparing something. Another carried dual blades, crouched and ready to strike from either side. The third, a woman in a cracked porcelain mask, stood with her fingers twitching, her eyes erratic and wild. They moved in sync, shifting formation slightly as they noticed our approach.
"Shield Projection!" the chanter yelled, and a dome of translucent blue energy appeared over them. It shimmered brightly, pulsing in sync with the glowing podium behind them.
As I closed in, the chanter extended both hands, reinforcing the shield each time Sol's arrows cracked into it. The fourth arrow sparked hard—but still didn't break through.
Nicole flanked the dome, gesturing to Sloan and Laney. "Distract him."
They obeyed. Sloan launched a piece of debris at the shield while Laney rushed to the side with a loud yell. The chanter flinched—just enough.
Before Nicole could close in, Viktor roared from behind and hurled one of his axes. It spun once—twice—and slammed directly into the chanter's spine mid-incantation. The shield shimmered violently, the projection warping as the caster's knees buckled.
"Got him!" Viktor cheered.
The Chosen dropped with a choking gasp. The dome flickered—then shattered into shards of collapsing energy.
Nicole nodded once in Viktor's direction, then surged toward the remaining two.
Nicole hit the twin blade first—disarmed him with a snap kick and elbowed his mask into the floor. He rolled with it and scrambled back, shouting, "Blur Step!" His body flickered, darting three feet to the side like an afterimage. Nicole twisted, barely catching the blur of motion as he lunged again. Their weapons clashed—his twin blades scraping against her baton. He was fast but wild.
She baited his next attack, letting him graze her shoulder before she drove the baton into his ribs. He gasped, flickered behind her, and tried a backstab. Nicole spun low, tripping him with a sweep. As he fell, she planted her knee into his chest and brought the baton down—twice, then three times. The mask cracked. Blood sprayed.
He tried to crawl away, panting, hand reaching for one of the blades. Nicole stomped it, then drove her baton into his throat. The body went still.
I met the porcelain-mask woman—she hissed something, low and guttural. Her fingers snapped upward, and the air around her shimmered. "Mana Flare!" A pulse of translucent force exploded outward, not a true barrier, but enough to knock me off balance.
She lunged forward—faster than expected—and pulled a small jagged blade from her sleeve. I twisted to avoid it, taking a shallow cut along my ribs. My blade came up as she twisted, her magic flaring again in erratic pulses like static in the air.
She was unhinged, her eyes rolling behind the cracked porcelain. She screamed something in a language I didn't recognize and slashed at my face.
caught her arm, twisted it, and drove my katana straight through her side. She gasped, but I didn't stop. One pull. One clean cut upward.
The blade split her sternum. Her magic fizzled. The body dropped in silence.
Minutes blurred. Combat became reflex. Orders, strikes, radio static, cries.
By the time the dust settled, the Chosen were down.
There were eighteen people and all dead. Six of them had some type of skill, which was surprising. I didn't think that we would be able to beat them, especially without any deaths. Looking back on the fight, the people with skills didn't use them very often, maybe 2 or 3 times. There was probably some condition to using the skill, and skills aren't all-powerful since I was able to shake off that woman's command. Sure, it made me pause for a second, but overall, she couldn't control me like Sol and Karen.
As the rest of the teams began regrouping, I signaled for some people who were not injured to sweep the surrounding stores in the wing. One by one, they reported back.
The electronics stores were trashed, but not randomly. Shelves had been rearranged to form crude barricades. Back rooms had bedding, stolen rations, water jugs, and even clothing. One room had dried blood pooled in a corner—and a single zip-tied wrist restraint.
"They weren't just squatting here," Nicole said.
"They were using this place as a base."Viktor nudged a crate of scavenged electronics with his boot. "If they had lookouts, then they had a system. Entrances, shifts, fallback points. They weren't improvising—this was structured." He kicked aside a broken headset.
"Means they've done this before," Logan muttered.
Or it means someone taught them how," I added.
I stood at the back of what used to be a Pear. The aisles were overturned, and shelves gutted. But at the far end, where a service elevator or backroom stock station used to be, a System-generated structure pulsed with light. It wasn't a storefront—more like a vending machine fused into the wall, made of black obsidian with faint glowing lines.
The glowing barrier shimmered, then dimmed.
[System Notice: Area Secured. Access to Beginner's Store Granted.]
I turned to Nicole. "You ready?"
She wiped blood from her mouth and nodded. "Let's see what all the killing was for."