On the 31st of December, I pulled into a bus stop in Rigob. With only hours left I couldn’t wander the city in search of the mall, I didn’t have time. Instead I scaled the tallest building I saw and took a look from the top. This was the one of the cities that remained unscathed from Deroga’s path of destruction. Raven Corp has mercy on cities like these because they’re run by money-pinching lawyers, which apparently favors Raven Corp, so they leave these cities be. I guess Deroga’s sat by too long and is just itching to crumble another city.
“You’ve got to be #$%@*#% kidding me.”

I found the mall. This didn’t look too good. It was literally in the center of the city. Every single building that surrounded it was at least 60 stories tall. A blast of the right size would send those buildings falling, creating a domino effect to the rest of the city. But I was determined not to let that happen.

When I got to the mall I went to the security office and took out the officer on duty. He left me his uniform and some snacks to pig out on, which I did. After donning the sacred garments of a mall cop, I watched the security screens for any suspicious signs. Nothing came up so I grabbed a Segway and went on patrol. All seemed calm and quiet. The people were going about their daily lives, without any knowledge of what was about to take place in a matter of minutes. Some people were already beginning to gather in front of clocks as the time grew closer and closer to midnight. This was all laid out for me like a crime scene; Deroga would pull his trigger as the clock struck 12. What were these people thinking? The world was in ruins outside of Rigob, just because Rigob had been safe this whole time doesn’t mean it wasn’t in for something. I began to loath these people and their stupidity, their arrogance and their sense that they were better than everyone.
My collision with a tree brought me back to my senses. Some people were just staring at me, wondering what sort of mall cop idiot would drool his way into a tree. Answer: me. I continued my routine check up. I was just passing an entrance when I saw a black van screech to a stop outside. My senses went on full alert and I dashed to the nearest bathroom to change back into my “civvies”.

Halfway through my changing (I just had to be half naked at that point) something twisted its way to the back of my brain. I could feel this dull throbbing like I had overlooked something and it was about to bite me in the @$$. I looked around to see what it was, which wasn’t much considering I was in a stall, but I saw it. Black dress shoes standing perpendicular to the toilet in the stall next to me. Maybe I shouldn’t talk, but I can’t pee or crap like that so I’m figuring he was doing something else and by the beeping noises I figured it was not good. Some Regulators are not the greatest and being sneaky, but this mission probably didn’t involve stealth. It was more of a shock and awe campaign that Deroga went on. But if Deroga was using Regulators to help carry out his dirty work, then that must mean Raven Corp had given him enough funds to do much more. Possibly enough to buy the bomb Carl described. I shot a railroad spike through the stall wall and heard the Regulator breathe his last, followed by a pool of blood quickly gathering on the ground. That janitor needs to be paid more.

Swinging around to the adjacent stall, I immediately saw the laptop mounted to the wall, I mean, who wouldn’t? It’s obviously a bomb! I looked and realized I had plenty of time to get the thing out of harm’s way, about 15 minutes. If I moved right at that moment I would’ve been able to get it a good 50 miles from Rigob before it blew. There’s no way I could’ve even tried to disarm the thing. Unfortunately I didn’t have that long. Just as I was reaching for the thing, the whole wall behind me exploded, burying me under the stalls and a large chunk of the wall. When I finally got the rubble off of me, I ran out of the new exit from the men’s room. Everyone was in panic, running around and screaming like chickens with their heads cut off. No one appeared to be even thinking about the many exits located around the mall. No one even seemed to have a thought of where they were going; they just all ran in random directions, almost bouncing off the walls when the found there was no more path in front of them. I started to yell at them to run for an exit and keep running, but at that moment my conscience failed me. I let them wander helplessly, putting their only chance of survival now on me getting the bomb out of there.
Looking up and to my left, I saw Deroga standing on an overpass. Above him, out the window, I saw a helicopter pulling up. I had to stop him from leaving. All thoughts of the bomb vanished from my mind and I became directly engaged with Deroga, and avenging the White Ops.
“It’s a pleasure to meet at last, you son of a %*#$@!” –Me
“Don’t play hero, kid,” the only person I’ve ever let call me “kid” was John, “just run along and play nice.” –Deroga
“We have something to settle. I’m not leaving until you’re dead.”
He leveled a gun to my head, “Well that’s not happening. Haven’t I seen you before?”
“Yeah, you killed me. The name’s Ryan...”
“Oh, $%*#!”
I held out my finger gun at him, “You slaughtered my family! I’M GOING TO MAKE YOU SUFFER IF IT’S THE LAST THING I DO!!!”
“It will be!”

With that I screamed and dove at him. Now, I know I was below him but I put a couple of helium tanks in my shoulder blades and so when I dove I uncapped them and it sent me rocketing upwards toward him. I had an M4 shooting out of one forearm and a grenade launcher blasting out the other. While he was shooting, he dove and rolled for cover behind a pillar. To get to him I went crashing through the same pillar, right on top of him. He sprawled away and pulled out an AK, opening fire on me. I, in turn, sprinted through the fire to him. I summoned curved blades to the outside of my forearms as I ran. I took a couple swings at Deroga that he dodged, but the third sliced him this close to his crotch (if I couldn’t kill him, maybe I could prevent his children from developing).

Deroga went and snapped off a section of the railing, swinging it at me like a weapon. I parried his blows and he parried mine for a couple of minutes. Then he scored a strong blow to my side, where the chest meets the stomach. I spent a couple seconds keeling over while he ran for it. When I regained my composer, I ran after him with my arm-blades. He pulled out a pistol and started shooting behind him so I swerved to dodge his fire. When I gained enough speed to catch up to him, I ran up on the wall and dove over at him, tackling him. I held his weight down with my body and put a blade to his neck.
“You have no idea how bad I’ve wanted to do this.” I said with an almost creepy smile across my face.
“Do what?” Deroga said sarcastically.
I got a boot to the chest and fell back on my @$$ while he sprinted and dove for hanging artwork in the Centrum of the mall. I followed and just barely made it up before he kicked me in the face. I knocked his foot away and started slashing at him, but he pulled out a knife and parried most of my attacks. Man, how many weapons does this guy have on him? During one overhead attack, he stabbed my arm with his knife and swung around, flinging me to the ground of the sculpture. Everything rocked.
Just then a rope ladder crashed through the skylight; it was about 10 yards from the edge of the sculpture. Deroga held my chest down with his foot and chuckled, breathing heavily.
“I told you it would end like this, Ryan! Revenge always leads to disaster; you should have figured that out by now.” He looked around, regulating his breathing to normal, “Don’t you get it? I’m helping Culda. You really think we would’ve lasted much longer had these cities kept mass producing? It kills the air, which in turn kills us. These wasteful beings ignore the Life District completely! I’m putting a stop to that! And you are NOBODY TO STAND IN MY WAY!!!”

He went in for the kill. With my last effort of defense I shot a single grenade into the mix of wires holding the sculpture up. Deroga immediately ran and leapt for the ladder, just barely catching the end, and began climbing. I got up as quickly as I could and jumped for it. I hit the ground and rolled. I ended up just outside the demolished bathroom I had started in. Lying on my back I heard faint, muffled ticking coming from the wreckage………THE BOMB!!!

With as much strength as I had, I got up and ran towards the ledge of the floor I was on. Just as I was jumping up onto the railing and off of that, the bomb blew. It sent me flying through the skylight and a good 20 miles from the mall on the blast alone. In flight I let a parachute out of my back, but the wind up inside of it just carried me another 50 or so miles. I would’ve used my hang glider wings but I can’t pull items out of injured body parts.

Even with the parachute I hit the ground pretty hard. At least, I think I did, I was so exhausted I was knocked out by the impact and just laid under the parachute. I woke up this morning in Carl’s plane.