a/n: content warnings:
before you begin, please note that this chapter includes slightly violent scenes containing blood, people being shot, and/or yelling with pain (nobody dies though); so proceed with caution
X debated on taking them down with his gun, but the element of surprise was everything in their plan, and gunshots would certainly ruin that.
So he slowly kept the gun beneath his feet and raised his arms above his head, showing that he was surrendering. The operative facing him smirked slightly but didn't lower his own gun. 'Smart choice, Agent X. If you'd resisted, we would have had to harm you to make sure you wouldn't try to do anything funny.'
X didn't offer any reaction, and quietly let them handcuff him. His mind was racing as he came up with plans ranging from shoving them and making a run for it, to relying on Hacker and Sheaf, wherever they were.
However, those ideas were quickly put to rest when he saw Hacker and Sheaf, tied up like him, being led to a mysterious room. He exchanged glances with them and gestured for them to stay silent until they figured out what was happening.
They were made to sit on chairs arranged in a row, facing a blank wall. The room in question wasn't very impressive; it was laid out with the bare necessities of sofas, tables and chairs against a background of sterile white walls.
Presently, they heard someone open the door behind them. Multiple footsteps echoed across the marble floor and came to a stop in front of them X got an immediate dejavu as he stared into Shell's eyes with contempt.
'Well, well, well. What do we have here?' she asked with a hearty chuckle. 'Agent X and his team, all wrapped up and kept on a silver platter for me.'
X kept quiet and didn't rise to the bait she was tauntingly dangling in front of him. His silence didn't deter her though, and she just stared at him with that amused smile on her face.
'Since you've made it this far, I'm assuming you already know all my plans for world domination. And that this was a desperate attempt to try and stop me. Oh Agent X, you really should know better by now. In fact, I'm wondering why we even took you in the first place. All your plans seem to be failing one after the other.' she mocked him. X still kept quiet, his face frowning in concentration.
Shell frowned at him at his lack of response, but decided to brush it off without much thought. She had many more important things to accomplish anyway.
She gestured to the guards standing next to her and pointed at the three of them. The guards nodded and stood in front of them with watchful attention. Shell gave Agent X one last look of contempt.
'You know, Agent X, you really should stop worrying so much. I don't want the complete destruction of this world any more than you do. After all, a ruler is nothing without her subjects. I just want the world to be in the hands of someone capable of bringing it to new heights. And if this is the way I get control of it, then so be it.' she told him and briskly walked out of the room.
X rolled his eyes at her reasoning and focused on their plan. He hoped Hacker and Sheaf had accomplished what he'd specifically told them to. He tried to catch their eye and ask them his burning question, but Hacker looked like she was still on it, so he let her be and tried to engage the guards.
'So...' he began awkwardly. 'Big night coming up, huh? I bet you guys have been preparing for this for a very long time. Excited about it?'
All of them just looked at him peculiarly. X sighed inwardly to himself and continued his extremely one-sided conversation. 'I bet I would be jumping with joy when this much of my hard work is close to fruition. You must've been really frustrated when I and my team tried to ruin everything, right?'
Still no response.
'All right, so...' he began, but was interrupted by a loud screech as a chair was drawn back. Hacker stood up in a blur of red and threw something at Sheaf. Then she faced the oncoming guards in the classic fighting stance.
'Come on, girly, this isn't a fair fight for you. Why don't you just peacefully sit back down? We'll forget about your little escape attempt in return.' The guard facing her said with a mocking smile. She grunted and returned it with a smile of her own, and deepened her stance.
'Looks like you need to learn a little discipline then. Don't worry, I'll be more than happy to teach you,' he said with a scoff and walked towards her languidly. Everyone watched them keenly as he neared Hacker and threw a punch at her face.
Hacker dodged the punch and grabbed his arm, turning around and flipping him over her back. He somersaulted in the air and fell on his back with a thump. The other guards instantly became alert as they realised that they had severely misjudged her.
She turned to all of them with a proud smirk and beckoned to them tauntingly. With a yell, three of the guards ran to attack her while two stayed behind to watch over Sheaf and X.
Hacker took on all three of them comfortably, dodging punches and sweeping the men off their feet. She was even laughing all this while, throwing her fists in all directions and knocking them over one by one.
The guards watching over X and Sheaf seemed to be considering joining their fellow guards, but they were hesitating and wincing with every grunt their peers gave.
Just then Sheaf threw his chair back and jumped up as well. He tried to throw the device both of them had used to disable the locks, but the guards had caught on by now and grabbed it before it could reach X.
'Oh, come on!' he cried out, fisting his outstretched hand in the air. Sheaf shrugged at him apologetically and went to work with the remaining guards. He bent sideways to avoid an incoming left hook and retaliated with a sharp jab to his face. The guard crumpled to the ground, and Sheaf finished the job by plunging his elbow into the guy's back.
By this time, the other guard caught Sheaf unawares and shot a gun at him. Luckily, since Sheaf was moving around so much, it narrowly missed him and hit the wall instead. Sheaf spun around furiously and smacked the gun out of the guy's hand using a roundhouse kick.
Like the others, this guard didn't seem to be equipped for hand-to-hand combat and quickly succumbed to Sheaf's powerful blows. Sheaf immediately turned to Hacker to see if she needed assistance, but she was already tying up the unconscious guards in a pile with a flourish.
'Good work, Sheaf!' she called. 'I've just finished binding up these guys. I checked them and made sure they wouldn't be able to break their bonds anytime soon, so you can take care of your guards.'
Sheaf chuckled to himself and bound the guards lying at his feet as well. Then Hacker fished out her lock-picker from the guard and unlocked X's bonds as well. He stood up and rubbed his wrists, and thanked her.
'You guys must be new here, so I'm assuming you wouldn't have known this yet, but our team never fails its missions unless we want it to.' Hacker told the unconscious guards haughtily.
X patted her shoulder proudly.
'How did you manage to hide your lock picker, though? When I assigned that responsibility to you, I don't remember defining how exactly you would break us out.'
'Ah, that. When I realised that they were coming for us, I picked it out of my jacket and hid it in my hair. Fortunately, they missed it.'
X chuckled lightly and gestured for them to start searching for Shell. 'And about our plan? Were you able to complete what I asked of you?'
Hacker nodded. X took a deep breath and began planning for the mission ahead. Since she had managed to complete her end of the mission, it would buy them some time to deal with Shell.
'Why in the world isn't this working?' they heard someone yell in the distance and snickered. This voice had taken different levels of ego in their presence, ranging from smirks, and taunts to full-blown bragging. It was refreshing to hear her frustrated voice for a change.
'I thought I told all of you to check it a hundred times to make sure everything would run smoothly today?' Shell continued scolding someone. They heard Snow's soft voice trying to calm Shell down, but Shell kept overriding her.
'Perfect. This is absolutely perfect. Now that she isn't able to access the mainframe, she won't be able to send those threats or start the sequences to launch the rocket. Good job, Hacker.' X said with a small whoop.
Hacker acknowledged the compliment with a gracious nod of her head and quickened her footsteps, prompting X and Sheaf to follow suit.
X once again ran through their plan on the way, to the accompaniment of Shell's complaints in the background. Hacker must have blocked the mainstream in a hurry, and although he didn't doubt her work, she wouldn't have done the task with the same accuracy she would generally have if she had more time. And, after all, there was a whole team of national-level scientists on Shell's side, which meant that they would eventually crack the code.
Yhup, they had to hurry.
Hacker and Sheaf had managed to cover a huge area of the lab by running through many of the blind spots and knew exactly where each activity was happening, but even without their knowledge, X would have known exactly where to go. Shell's loud voice was a dead giveaway to her location.
They kept inspecting room to room as they went, but the workers bustling around were so busy with their work that they didn't even notice the intruders. The team quietly stalked through the corridors until they found the room Shell and her team were in.
They immediately hid behind the wall and carefully inspected the room. Shell was pacing around the room with loud footsteps, while a team of men and women around her were cowering into the shadows. The place seemed to be a control centre of sorts and had ancient-looking gigantic machines towering in the back.
'Shell, look, the damage is done now. How about we send them off to fix the issue?' Snow tried placating her again, this time using logic as a weapon. Shell simply looked at her for a few moments, then turned toward the scientists.
As if it was happening in slow motion, X pulled out his gun immediately and fired at the machines in the back. The bullet revolved and spun in the air and struck the complicated-looking wires right in the heart. He shot bullets successively and caused short-circuits in various It created a spark that quickly caught on the live wires and spread into a fire.
In the midst of all the loud bangs and chaos, the scientists, Shell and Snow immediately ducked to the floor and ran out of the room at the first chance they got. The scientists turned tail and ran for their lives, but Shell was beyond furious now. She pulled out her own gun and pointed it at him.
'Agent X. You should have killed me when you had the chance because now I'm not going to let you go that easily. You've ruined months of planning by destroying our entire database and controls, and made it quite hard to launch that VX,' she paused and gave a crazed laugh. 'Oh my, Agent X. You're absolutely done for.'
X tightened his grip and gave a short laugh. 'I mean, that was sort of the point of my whole mission. But believe me, it was incredibly tempting to kill you on the spot instead of attacking the machines. Unfortunately, my mission requires me to bring you in alive, and I honour my mission above all else, even revenge. Even then, it's you who's done for, not me.'
By now, the remaining workers were running helter-skelter, trying to escape from the gunshots. The noises of the stampede were followed by the loud clattering of metal as they realised that they'd been locked inside the lab.
The crowd posed another problem though. From X's hiding position, it was hard to aim at Shell with all the bodies pushing through the corridor. He even tried shooting once or twice, but it repeatedly hit somebody else in the arms or legs, judging from their screams.
Luckily, Shell also seemed to be content by waiting it out behind a large vase she'd hidden behind. Hacker and Sheaf had blended into the crowds as well to complete the final task X had set for them. As the mass of bodies started dwindling, he could only hope that they'd been able to accomplish it.
Both of them shot in the air a few times to get things going, and when the last person had fled the corridor, they hid behind their respective places in tense anticipation.
Then someone yelled loudly down the corridor out of frustration and fear, and the spell was broken. Shell and X began the shoot down with cautious shots first to test the waters.
It quickly progressed to rapid rounds of shots that ricocheted off the walls and flew in all directions. X and Shell had to work to avoid these as well as they kept firing their guns. X paused in between to load his gun again, and Shell took this chance to riddle his plastic vase with bullets. It broke under the pressure of the metal, and X scrambled away from the debris to shoot Shell.
He moved towards her now, firing at her in the open and dodging bullets as best as he could. However, since Shell had a wide range now, a bullet struck him in the arm and he groaned and stumbled, clutching the area above his wound.
'Ha! I've got you now, Agent X! I would give you time to say your goodbyes, but you don't deserve that,' she said, smirking and aiming for the final shot. With all the effort he had left in him, X calculated the timings and jumped to the side as she fired a succession of bullets. They all missed X, and because of the angle in which they were shot, they renounced and hit Shell's ankle and thigh.
Shell choked back a yell and fired at X again, but this time no bullets left her gun. She screamed loudly and scrambled for more bullets, and threw her gun on the floor when she realised that she was out of ammo.
X leaned heavily on the wall and fired at her again, this time hitting her arm. Shell did scream this time and pushed herself off the wall. With great effort, she began hobbling away from X with a spiteful glance at him. X watched her go without raising another finger. His part would come later. Now, he only had to follow Shell after weakening her.
He silently stalked behind her as she limped and dragged her legs through the winding corridors.
She stopped at an intersection that went straight and sideways towards her left. She kept walking straight but paused in her tracks when Hacker appeared at the end of the corridor. Hacker crossed her arms and leaned against the wall with a smirk.
Shell screamed at her in frustration and quickly turned around to walk in the other direction. However, she didn't even walk two paces before Sheaf made his grand entrance, stepping out of the edge of the wall. Shell turned tail immediately, trying to walk back the way she had come.
X paused in his tracks and crossed his arms, effectively blocking her only way out and trapping her. Shell narrowed her eyes when she spotted him and folded her hands into fists.
"Ah, this is a trap of yours, I see," she said and gestured towards Sheaf and Hacker. "You really thought that you could capture me with these playground tricks? You have no idea how much I've sacrificed to get here. If not me, then someone else from SHADE will rise to take my place."
X, Sheaf, and Hacker glanced at each other. Did she not know that all of SHADE's operatives had been captured by them?
"Ha! See? This isn't the end. My successors will be assisted by Snow, and they'll carry on the task of reshaping this miserable world. Just you wait and see." she spat, walking towards him with raised fists. Seeing X coolly cross his fingers and wait for her enraged her beyond belief.
She quickened her steps and almost reached him when her leg caught on something and she tripped. Instantly a jute net fell on her and wrapped around her tightly. Shell yelled in disbelief and trashed around the floor.
X was upon her in an instant, holding her tightly in place while Hacker and Sheaf rushed towards him. They helped X steady Shell and tie her properly with firm rope and a flexible fabric Hacker had scavenged.
They all stood up in relief and cracked their knuckles. X then pulled out his device and contacted ACE, informing them that it was safe for them to get in and capture the rest of the team.
After that, it was a matter of waiting patiently for the yelling and protests to die down, ensuring that everyone had been arrested, before walking out with a captive Shell.
Seeing them stride out of the wrecked building with Shell in tow, all the ACE operatives present on the scene cheered wildly, clapping and hooting to show their appreciation. An operative walked up to them and X handed her over without ceremony. Shell shot one last glare at him before she was dragged away.
He watched her being taken with a strange feeling in his heart. Watched her react in disbelief as she saw everyone in chains, being lined up to go to prison. Watched her jailer inform her that SHADE was officially no more, as X and his team leaked its coordinates and ended its stint.
He saw all this, yet felt no particular happiness in his heart. After such a long time spent planning and executing his revenge, he felt strangely bereft of the euphoria he had expected.
Then again, it was perhaps for the best. Instead of feeling lost and confused about his path now, he had a clear idea of his future. So it was perhaps good that he didn't celebrate this victory too much. After all, what's the point in dwelling in the past, now that my future is bright and clear?
He suddenly felt a hand on his shoulder and turned around to see Sheaf patting his shoulder gently and congratulating him. He couldn't hear Sheaf properly, and all he could recall was that incident all those days ago when Sheaf had given him a warm hug, much to his reluctance.
All he could think about was their unwavering support for his mission, and all the care they'd shown him in spite of his, well, less than warm responses to them. And the only thing that was playing in his mind was to show them how much he appreciated it, how much it had helped him.
So he smiled warmly at Sheaf, much to the latter's surprise, and wrapped his arms around him in a warm hug. Sheaf's arms dropped to his sides in disbelief, and he just stood still as a statue.
Just when it was beginning to get awkward for X, and he was starting to regret his decision, he felt Sheaf hug him back with equal enthusiasm. So he relaxed into the hug and felt Sheaf do the same.
Both of them heard a small 'oh, all right, even I'll join in!' before they were thrown back by a blur of red and an additional pair of arms joining in the hug.
'Hacker!' both of them chuckled and pulled their arms around her as well. All of them laughed freely, partly from relief and partly from the sheer happiness of it all.
When they finally broke the hug, a guy approached them with a wide grin on his face. "Agent X! It's so nice to see you after so long! You've done a very good job here. Capturing Shell must have been hard enough, but you've even managed to catch all the scientists and her assistant as well! I knew that hiring you would be one of the best decisions we've ever taken!" he said with a speed that resembled a machine gun being fired.
X laughed as well and gave him a quick hug. "Thanks, Em. It's quite an achievement, but I couldn't have done it alone. Not by a long shot. These guys here were a massive help, and I honestly couldn't have done it without them."
"Yes, yes. I know, you've told me all about them. You're Hacker and Sheaf, I take it?"
They blinked slowly, clearly showing that they didn't know who he was.
"Oh goodness, don't tell me you haven't even introduced me to them?" he exclaimed and punched X's shoulder lightly. He rubbed his shoulder with a slight 'owie' and gestured to the stranger.
"Guys, this is the manager I keep talking about. Everyone around here calls him Em," he said. Em inclined his head slightly in greeting and they did the same. X chuckled and shook his head seeing their awkward interaction.
"So what's the plan now? What are you going to do going forward" Em asked him. X took a deep breath and stared at the clear blue sky.
"I'm not entirely sure," he admitted with a shrug. "But whatever it is, I am sure that my journey will be guided by love and dedication, not revenge. This mission was really important to me, to help me get on with my life without hurting all the time."
"Don't need to sound so philosophical, Agent X," Sheaf said with a laugh. "You're not an old man of eighty on his deathbed. You're young and free, and this certainly isn't the last chapter of your book. There are much more adventures to come, ones that you can look forward to."
X laughed too and put his arms on his waist. "You're right, Sheaf. A hard chapter of my life has closed, but this isn't the ending. This is only the beginning of so many more chapters, and I'll enjoy all of them to the fullest."
This is it.
Agent X is officially at an end.
I still can't believe this.
I mean, seriously. It has been 11 months since I've been working on my first novel, and it was quite the journey to get here. And I don't wanna sound cheesy or anything, but I'm gonna miss Agent X, Sheaf and Hacker sooo much T-T
And I would love to think that I've emerged as a better writer from this experience. There is a long way to go though, and many more novels in fascinating worlds with lovable characters are yet to emerge.
So, yes. I literally have nothing else to say, though to be honest, I've been thinking about what to put here for quite a few weeks actually. I kept thinking of passages full of melancholic things to write, but I can't recall anything now, so I'll just end with a HUGE thank you to you, my dear reader.
Thank you for picking up Agent X from the millions of books out there. Thank you for showering it with your precious love, even if you were a silent reader (of course, I appreciate every one of you!) and if you took the time to vote and comment, you've always made my day with your notifications. Thank you for everything, and I hope you enjoyed this journey as much as I did!
Oh, and I'm honored to be signing off Agent X with a whopping 2.4k reads and 863 votes as of now, so thank you for that as well :P
That's it, I guess. Make sure to check out the ending note if you want to read more stories by me but don't know how to access them.
Adios, my friend. Till next time!