Imperfections (FoolishCrew AU)

Chapter 3: Loot

|Socks' POV|

The fleshing was shot and scrambled to the floor.

Hit.

Red liquid oozed from their upper shoulder. This confirms that this is indeed the fleshing that everyone was looking for.

Restrain target.

The fleshing's eyes widened as they placed a hand on the new wound and shot their weapon towards me. I dodged it effortlessly and with the press of a button, turned my weapon to a taser.
Just as I was about to use the weapon, the fleshling threw something directly to my face and scurried away. I pressed the trigger at that same time

Unexpected, yet dumb.

The thing that the fleshling threw at me turns out was the weapon stolen from a mettanoid referred to as Tbh. Who, soon will be rebooted the next day.
The weapon formed a small crack on my mask. That was not the problem though, the problem was that I have lost my target.
There was a trace of white smoke clouded and exasperating where I last saw the fleshling. A piece of paper was left right on the spot.
Curious like any other Mettanoids, I dusted off the smoke and collected the paper.
Actually, it wasn't just any paper, it was more like an imagery, a photo.
It was crumpled up badly and was smudged with black oil. I stored the item carefully into my suit pocket to inspect it later and put my index finger up to my right temple.

"Target last seen in tunnel D."

I reported to the system that'll soon alert the others. Instead of turning back and getting out of the tunnel, I decided to investigate into this tunnel a little further. The fact that a fleshing knows about these tunnels is beyond suspicious.

What was the fleshing hoping to achieve here?

There was a forked path that led to three other different tunnels, the tunnel lights flickered dimly in purple. By now, the others will be marching their way towards here.
If this was some sort of ambush set up by the fleshling, I'll have to deal with it on my own for a while.
It's not like they stood a chance anyways, they were never armed or trained with weapons that Mettanoids wielded.

Spirit activity was recently detected in this area.

The guide in my vision flickered several times to pinpoint the area of where the photo was located earlier.

That's new, could a spirit be allied with this fleshling?

There's been theories and assumptions around the city that the spirits were siding with the fleshlings to take Star Numera for themselves. But that didn't worry me as much as it should. That's only a concern for the Vanishers after all. They were the ones who dealt with the Spirit activities.
My only task now is to figure out where the fleshling might have gone to.
I turned on the night vision lights from my mask to take a better look of the tunnel. There was a faint trail of white steam at the left side of the tunnel.
That tunnel I believe lead to a nearby museum located in the center of the city fountain.

Strange for a spirit and a fleshling to go to a museum, there's nothing much valuable there.

The faint trail continued along the path as I followed it. It took about ten minutes before I spotted small droplets of red liquid stained on the ground. I put a finger back up to my temple to report what I have just discovered.

"Targe-"

Then something pierced the back of my head that caused my systems to shut down.

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