Cyberpunk: Ultimate Cyborg System-Chapter 62: Focus.

Flare failed to grasp what had occurred in the past few seconds. The floor beneath her suddenly disappeared, and before she knew it, she was in an entirely different location. The first thing she recognized about it was the cloaked woman who called herself Delta and the four gunmen who came into the brightly lit hexagonal room with her.

The instant their eyes fell on her, Delta pointed in her direction and shouted a command. Flare didn’t wait to hear it and rushed to find cover from the rain of bullets that would inevitably come.

The nearby platform was the best hiding place she could ask for, and though it wouldn’t take long for the enemy to follow after her, the seconds she bought herself should be more than enough to reorganize her thoughts.

What mattered right now was that she had made it out of the hexagonal cage. Recognizing it as her chance to escape, Flare knew she couldn’t afford to waste it.

Taking in the surroundings gave her the impression that she was near the center of an arena. Rows and rows of seats surrounded her, bathed in the faint light coming from the center. Stripes of staircases separated them, each rising toward a double-sided door from which the audience could enter.

A thought flashed in Flare’s mind and she turned to look at the small platform she was hiding behind. Inside was a cart she recognized almost instantly. It was the same one her captors had brought into the hexagon shaped room earlier, and on it was what remained of the feast she had just indulged in.

The temperature jumped up all of a sudden. As it turned out, the hexagon cage was the stage at the center of the arena and the walls were made out of one-way glass from the start. The thought of being watched without her knowledge plunged Flare into the depths of despair then ignited the fires of shame. Her mind went through everything she had done since waking up in the bright room, but she found nothing that could be called embarrassing except for the way she had eaten her food a few minutes ago.

"No! Focus!" She slapped her cheeks and tore her mind off that line of thought. "I need to get out of here first!"

So what if people had watched her eat without her knowing? The situation could have been much worse. Right now, her first priority was to escape. Everything else didn’t matter.

If this place really is an arena much like the ones used for sports events, then it should have plenty of exits scattered around. There were the doors above the audience seats, then there were the exits meant for the staff and the ones leading to the locker rooms. Any of them would do as long as they allowed her to safely escape.

Just as she was about to make her choice, the sound of footsteps interrupted her thoughts. Someone was running toward her from the left and something told her the right was the same. Time was running out so she had to make a quick decision.

Taking a deep breath, Flare pushed down all her hesitation, stopped thinking, and started acting. Crouching down, she placed her hands on the floor then kicked with her legs, bursting out of her hiding place. Gunfire erupted and sparks scattered behind her, but she paid them no mind.

Flare was nowhere as fast as a bullet, but she was faster than anything humans could react to. The gunman followed her with his rifle, but by the time a bullet shot out of it, the flowing red hair was already somewhere else. Circling around him, Flare closed the distance between them in two seconds and planted her fist into his face.

The first gunman bounced off the dais and fell to the floor face-first. Flare was sure she held back when striking him, but seeing that he wasn’t moving gave her pause. Nevertheless, the situation didn’t allow her to check on an enemy as another gunman appeared from around the corner she had just rushed out of.

Her body moved before she could even think. Somersaulting backward, she linked a series of backflips to evade the bullets flying at her. She soon reached the audience seat and kicked off the front barrier, launching herself in the air.

As she spun in the air, Flare struck her fists together. An incandescent heat ignited, and flames erupted on both. The gunman raised his rifle and aimed at her, but before he could pull the trigger, she punched the air and blew a torrent of fire at him. He jumped aside then rolled, barely escaping the burning tongues of fire, but just as he rose to his knees, a glowing fist zoomed in on his face, smashing into the visor of his mask and knocking him back.

This time, Flare didn’t stop to think about the man’s condition. She moved right away, rushing to hide behind the dais of the hexagon cage once more as gunfire roared from behind her. Two gunmen were down, but from what she had seen earlier, there were more than the four she had met before.

With her back pressed to the cold stage, she took a deep breath and listened to the shouting of her enemies. Noticing something odd about it, she peeked from behind the corner to confirm.

"What in the world-"

"What’s going on!?"

"Careful-"

"Watch your steps!"

"The bastard can-"

Indeed, the enemy seemed to be retreating. Flare didn’t know how she should feel about that. While it gave her a moment of respite, she was a little confused as to why they decided to get away now. Was her escape really the thing that pushed them into that?

In the first place, how did she escape?

The question floated to the front of her mind, and as she was being overwhelmed by how bizarre it was, something fell on her shoulder and sent all her senses into a frenzy. Spinning around, she raised a flame-covered fist to strike whatever had approached without her notice.

"Hey hey HEY! Calm the fuck down!"