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Freedom. That is what he felt as he plummeted through the sky head first with closed eyes. His back felt light without the weight of any parachute and just that of the rifle scabbard and combat harness. The air rushed by his face, whipping by his ears and only allowing the oddly pleasant white noise-like sound to be heard as he came closer and closer to the surface of the Earth below. He opened his eyes and the neural lace inside his head started to scan the sandy landscape below until it found the point he was supposed to land. He was at least a couple kilometers off target, but that didn't matter. Most people dropping from high altitude would be at the mercy of the air currents and would have to find their target location after they landed. Not him; he was the master of this sky, he could choose his own path. He slowly opened his wings, the blood within the arms quickly becoming chilled as the air greeted them.

The ground below was still dark, despite the beautiful red hues Talon was able to see from high in the atmosphere. The Earth was still casting a shadow upon herself here. Below, the sands and the nearby village carried on in their slumber; completely unaware of the death descending down upon them. Subject 1276 hit the 1000 meter elevation point and he flicked his tail just slightly, causing his pitch to raise just slightly. It was enough to let his wings catch some of the air and the rest was automatic. As he collected the air in his membranes, he angled them more parallel to the ground and started converting his vertical motion into horizontal movement. His wings strained a little, the arms of his wings pulling at their joints. For the first time since he left the plane, he took a deep breath and luxuriated in the feeling of his wings.

He spread his wings out as far as he could, the membrane only having a small amount of slack left in them. As he started to glide, he angled his body to the left, correcting his course just a little. As he slowly lost altitude, the darkness enveloped him, casting him in a veil of shadows; no one would see him. The dragon smiled as he hit 700 meters, already mentally prepared for his landing. He had done this countless times before this moment and every part of him had been tuned to this action. Two-hundred meters, and he felt his heartrate start to thrum in his ears as a natural reaction due to his human origins. He pressed on, pushing that part of himself aside; there was no room for worry right now. As he got dangerously close to the ground, the youth flicked his tail again, pitching his feet forward as he back-winged to slow himself down. This was the hardest part, really. His wings pulling on his body as if trying to escape. Still, he held his focus, flapping a few more times until his speed was under control at a manageable level. Then, he tucked in his wings and allowed his clawed feet to impact the ground. The sand gave way, surprising the young dragon by allowing him to slide a few meters before coming to a complete stop. Subject 1276 let out an exhilarated huff. He had made it safely to the ground, and just under 2 meters off target!

The augmented teen reached behind him as he traversed the short distance to the set drop point, disengaging the clasp that held his deadly tool. He shimmied it out slowly from the modified holster and unfolded the buttstock. This rifle was his. He had trained with it when it was nothing more than the average, run-of-the-mill Remington 700. Now, he had modified it to his liking: a ten-round detachable magazine, a lightweight carbon fiber composite stock, a 4-12X 45mm scope, a smoothed custom action, and chambered to the NATO standard 7.62x51mm instead on the factory US .308in bullet. This was work all on its own; something he prided himself in. He gave the rifle quick examination, making sure he didn't find any sort of damage to his baby before sliding it gently back into the scabbard.

He wasn't far from where he had to set up shop. The beauty of him doing a solo high-altitude jump was that no one was likely to see him come in; just the thing for a killer that relied on not being spotted first. He soon laid himself against the sand, sighing softly at the feel of the cool grains yet to be touched by the Sun for any significant length of time. A good portion of the sand was loose, so the reptilian killer wasted no time in digging himself in. It wasn't the threat of being seen that was the main cause of concern. No, the operation wasn't supposed to take place for a while, his chromatophores had plenty of time to take on the appropriate color of his surroundings a hundred times over. The dragon's main concern was trying to avoid the coming heat as much as possible. Nothing would be more deadly to him than to be baked by the Sun. Luckily, the dragon had a cloth, which he used to drape over his head, neck, and shoulders. And thus, it was like this - buried in sand and fabric - that the young sniper sent in his confirmation of being ready to work and waited for his call to duty.

***

"Gone," Archer repeated, looking up over his crossed thumbs and feet. He was looking at the poor communications officer who had given the Director the news of Fang's disappearance. "In precisely what context..." The director squinted at the rank insignia, "Corporal, do you mean by 'gone?'"

"Sir, as I had already stated, he is late for his pickup from the operations zone. A report from the special op sent in for cleanup made no note of any unusual sightings, but did make note that everyone at the compound was dead; presumably from 'high-precision use of martial combat implements,' to use the exact words in the commander's report." The officer was shaking slightly, he was on duty at the time when 1275 was to be extracted. Granted, there was nothing he could do, considering the interference from the weather. However, he was tasked with breaking the news; fodder in place of his CO.

"Soldiers don't just vanish, boy." The Director's voice held an edge to it, seeming to call the competence of the communications officer into question. "Also, you aren't at your post, a crucial post, I might add, when we have operatives in the field! That said, this is what you are going to do, Corporal: you are going to go hop back into the comfortable chair in front of that communications array, scrutinize any data flowing across the screen; and then, if you so much as think you see any data regarding the location Subject 1275, you are going to call it in. Is that clear?"

"Y-yes sir." The Corporal stammered and barely managed anything other than a stiff posture.

"Good, now get the hell out of my office, before I demote you to cleaning every inch of it." The young man gave a quick, sweaty salute before turning and briskly vacating the room. Wickham Archer sighed a little and opened a drawer of his desk, retrieving a small pill bottle. I'm starting to see the benefits of the project's medical plan, he thought.

***

It was around 17:00 when a buzz from the neural lace roused the young dragon from the nap he had dozed into. The day was still hot, the sand that covered him still scalding from its endless bake in the sun. The hunter, however, was still sufficiently insulated from the excessive warmth. The beauty of the desert heat was that the majority of it was from direct contact from the sunlight; there was no moisture to hold onto it. If one could simply avoid the unforgiving photons, staying cool was easy. But now the sand was much hotter than when the killer had hunkered down, and the sniper took great care to avoid burning himself as he shimmied out of his makeshift burrow. It was no easy feat, the heat would still flow from the sand and through his scales with ease. The cloth that he had used to cover his head was now being used as a sort of platform for safe leverage, insulating his hands while he pushed himself up into a crouching position. He took a look around to make sure no one had happened to venture out toward his location. Seeing that he was still in the clear, the sniper withdrew his rifle from the compartment on his back again and gave it another once-over to make sure sand didn't get into places it shouldn't be. He was being paranoid, he knew: there was no way a little sand was going screw up his gun too badly. He had made sure the parts could stand up to some punishment, but that didn't mean he was willing to put it in unnecessary danger. For this mission, he had made sure to bring flip-up clear lens covers. They gave everything viewed through them a bright yellow tint and kept his precious scope lenses safe from disorienting scratches. Gingerly, he laid out the cloth down lengthwise so he could lay prone upon it, which he did as soon as he was able. His scales had long lost their default red coloration for the beige of the sand. He was certain that he would not be able to find his own hand had it not been for the slight differentiation in texture.

Thankfully, he did not need to see his hands to use them as he traced them over his rifle from with muscle-memorized movements. The magazine was loaded, but no round in the chamber; he like his first shot to have the added challenge of chambering the round to fire. The dragon popped open the lens covers for and peered through his optics. The town that sat distantly before him was suddenly brought closer as if right in front of him. Still, his vantage point allowed him to look through every open window and down every open street that faced his direction. His vantage point gave him the ability to cover two sides of the town and the rooftops, especially the buildings where the ops group was supposed to hit. The dragon consciously brought the rest of his neural lace online. He traced his scope over a couple faces and smiled as the cybernetic implants in his head identified them as members of the operations team sent in for the job. That was two out of the supposed five team members: the leader and the tech specialist. They were sitting at a table near what appeared to be a café nestled in the market. A few streets down were the other three: a corpsmen and two operators.

"Ops group, this is your sniper support, call sign: Talon," Talon said, broadcasting through his neural lace, "A fine day in the desert. I have visual on all of you. How's the ground down there?" One of the nice benefits of the dragon's neural lace was that he could send messages from thoughts and have them be broadcast as if it were a voice through a comm set. Even better, he could make it sound like either his own voice, or any other voice he could think of; it was just a matter of being creative. For this, he had chosen to use a blend of his own voice and that of a 30-something sergeant he had heard talking around the testing facility. It made him sound young, but experienced; it was exactly what he needed for this situation.

"Talon," the leader repeated his name in greeting. The sniper smiled a little as he watched the man move his lips while talking, as if speaking casually with his partner next to him. "All seems clear here. Though, zero-hour is still a good time away. How are things up there?"

"About as good as it can be. Awfully hot here in BFE," the sniper sent a sighing noise through his implant to give his 'voice' more life. "No positive IDs on any targets, yet. I will keep you updated."

The town was bustling; people moved from one stand to the other in the market. The crowd got larger as the day grew on. Talon was amazed that such a small town could hold so many people. As the time neared zero-hour, the time when the operation was planned to begin, a message from one of the operators floated across the sniper's neural lace. "I think I see a target. My three o'-clock, 13 meters, red bandana on the head. Can you get an ID on him?"

The young killer moved his crosshair onto the speaking soldier, using him as a reference point for following the given directions. Sure enough, the man in question face facing in his direction just enough for the lace to read the face and find any relevant information. There was around a minute of latency as the lace fed the teen information: ID CONFIRMED. ISAAC ALDULAMAHD. WANTED: CONSPIRACY, RAPE, AND ASSAULT. MULTIPLE TERROR CELL AFFILIATIONS. ORDERS: TERMINATE. The sniper let off a real sigh this time before opening the channel again while reading off the rest of the information, "Yeah, that's one of the lieutenants for the big guy around these parts. Orders are termination." The teen squinted through his scope as he caught a brief flash from inside the target's folds of clothes. "It looks like he is packing. Maybe an SMG or a high-caliber pistol." The man in question was looking around a little, almost as if he was alert. Accordingly, the sniper let his dependents know, "Heads up, the Lt. looks a little on edge. Do not let him know you're more than tourists."

Such advice was definitely easier said than done. The men looked deadly even when smiling. Plus, it was likely difficult to hide the shotguns and assault rifles: There was only so much that a cloak could do to hide the bulk of primary weapons, even if they were shortened for urban close quarters combat. It was even more worrisome, considering that the lieutenant's gaze slowed every time it neared one of the men, as if he was tipped off about the threats hiding within the crowd. And then, he began to move away from the entire ops team: he knew.

"I think he's on to you." The sniper said, keeping his thought-voice surprisingly calm. "He's moving down a back street. Recommend a distant shadow. Follow safely." Just them though, the sniper's neural lace lit up like a decked out tree for the later-year holidays. His implant started to ID several more terrorist affiliates, no matter where the sniper looked through his scope. "Something's wrong. I'm starting to get more positive enemy IDs. I think we've been sold out!"

The dragon had just barely relayed his message before someone fired a pistol round into the air. The sounds reaching the sniper a few seconds after the fact as a small, inconsequential pop. Most everyone in the market scattered and the ops team hit the deck, trying to remove themselves from any incoming rounds while revealing their full combat attire and opened up the comm channel, "Shots fired! Shots fired!" The sniper was frantically searching through his scope, looking for the one who had fired the first shot. There, holding a silver Beretta M9, red bandana positioned over his mouth. Talon operated the bolt, stripping the first round from the magazine. He didn't even hesitate as he pulled the trigger. The round left the barrel with nary a noticeable kick for the trained sniper, young though he was. Roughly a second later, the man's head blossomed in red fluid that coated any and all around him. The lieutenant made a run for it, heading toward one of the buildings that had been marked as one of target sites within the town. The sniper couldn't focus on him, only tell the team that the man was making a break for it while he sent another bullet on a kilometer-long journey into another would-be killer's skull. That was two, eight more rounds left in the magazine. Bang! Make that seven. Another man fell: a shot to his chest that likely mutilated his heart before it had a chance to disgorge the blood it had been preparing to pump. Another shot, six, that killed a man before his legs gave out underneath him.

The spec-ops team was finally on their feet, weapons off of SAFETY and firing. One of their 5.56mm rounds caught another terrorist in the shoulder, which dropped him to the ground in pain. His comrades took up positions near him while dozens of civilians scattered for the safety of their homes. Another one of the operators put down two more enemies while the entire team started toward the small group of buildings that was believed to be held by the terror organization.

The rooftops started to become populated with more hostiles, and the sniper devoted the rest of his magazine to their elimination. He left the bolt open while he quickly grabbed a new mag from his vest and swapped it into his rifle. The old box was simply left in the sand next to the dragon while he kept his focus down range; there was no time to put the spent mag into the dump pouch. The sniper put three more rounds down range, then realized that he was starting to lose visual of the situation. It seemed like everyone was starting to find and avoid the places that they could be hit from sniper fire. "I'm losing visual, guys." The dragon couldn't help the disappointed tone in his voice, "you're on your own unless I can get a better view."

The leader of the ops team gave a quick vocal acknowledgement of the information. Luckily, they were close to the target buildings. The tech specialist and one of the operators split off from the rest of the group, moving in to breach a small two story building that looked to have a small communications array on the roof. The operator pulled a small brick of C4 from a pocket on his BDUs. The soldier stuck the plastic explosive to the door and inserted the fuse. The two eventually hugged the wall a few feet away and activated the detonator. The door exploded into splinters and dust, and the two-man team entered. Their comms was opened up again, the technician's voice coming through, "The L-T is down." The tech's voiced sounded winded like he has a taken part in intense hand-to-hand combat. "And we found what appears to be a good amount of intel. I'm going to get as much out of here as I can."

The dragon smiled, but stopped soon after as his neural lace lit up with new information, this time from a satellite feed. It was the same region, and the images showed some sort of vehicles with long rods sticking out of them. The sniper's mind reeled: those were artillery vehicles. What was worse, there was no mention of friendly artillery in the mission profile so those were definitely hostile.

The ops leader hopped on the line to mention that there was no sign of the top dog of the organization. Talon had to cut him off to give the grim news, "I've got reports of artillery moving in on your position. You need to get out of there!" The dragon bit his lip as he watched the artillery in the video feed setup and take aim. The technician was insistent on downloading as much information as he could. He was successful and was on his way out with his partner as the scream of an incoming artillery shell grew louder. The operator was out of the building as the shell struck the building and exploded. There was some static coming across the comm net, followed by a yell of pain.

"My leg," the technician's voice was shaky. "My leg's pinned!." The dragon's gut sank further into his gut. This op was quickly going south and there was nothing that could be done about it. Those men couldn't get to their comrade through that rubble in any reasonable amount of time: They'd all be obliterated by the artillery fire. The terror leader wasn't here, that was not supposed to be the case. Something was dreadfully wrong and whatever intel they could get from that computer system could tell them why. The sniper made a plan, his mind made up.

"Commander, pull the rest of your men out of AO before you get killed." Talon's voice was uncertain in its tone, "I'll take care of your technician."

"Excuse me?" The said, incredulously, "How are you going to get him out?"

"Don't worry about it, or you won't live long enough to see that I'm right." The sniper gave his voice an angry, forceful edge. "Just get the rest of your men out; you've done the best you can."

There was a moment of silence for the commander agreed. Talon did not wait for the confirmation. No, he was already on the wing, rifle tucked away and spent mags stored. His wings beat as hard as his muscles would allow. Gravity was already working with him. He had been perched at an elevation much higher than the town itself. Talon used that difference of height to propel him faster toward the town. The wind rushed by his ears while he closed in on the town. Another round of shelling had struck the buildings. The terrorists were obviously well-equipped and willing to sacrifice the village to keep whatever it was from being stolen, a sort of corrupted scorched earth policy. There were even a few enemy forces still around the building. The teen let out a savage yell as he came down upon a poor man that wasn't expecting death to come from above in a winged form.

The sniper landed on the man, toe claws extended and driven into the man's chest. It was mostly a superficial wound, but it was meant to cause pain. The man's eyes saw what had tackled him from the air and he froze completely, trying to comprehend what he saw. Talon was technically already breaking orders. He wasn't supposed to break from his deployment range, let alone be seen. Thus the altered teen pushed the button on his holster. The kydex strap flipped forward and the dragon drew his sidearm and snapped a round into the man's head. It was almost execution-style, and he felt less easy by it. But he had a job to do. Screw the orders; he was willing to break protocol if it meant success at this point. Failure was less than perfection in his book.

The altered teen took a moment to gather his surroundings. He had landed on the ground, next to the crumbling building. The last round of shelling had been mostly directed at the building a few doors to the North, but the noise still hurt and the concussion still beat hard on the chest. The sniper gave a pump on his wings, and pushed himself up to the second floor. He grabbed the ledge of a window and pulled himself in.

The inside of the building was dark, so to speak; any electricity that the building had was likely knocked out by the artillery hits. There was still enough light coming in from the windows, but that was starting to wane as well. The dragon tried to tune his ears, looking for signs of the man that had been trapped. He heard nothing. Though that wasn't much of a surprise, the sounds of explosions were still rumbling outside. For the first time that day, the sniper actually opened his mouth to speak.

"Technician Albos," The dragon said, the first time using the name of any of the team members. It was information he was privy to only because of the neural lace. But the soldier wouldn't know that. At this point he was likely just happy someone was coming to get him to safety. "Albos, are you here? Make a noise!"

"I'm here..." came the yell reply of the technician. The voice was pained and muffled, distant and coming from the stairs. Loud unintelligible groans followed, but it was better than nothing. At least Talon knew the guy was still alive.

"Alright, good." The dragon spoke, slightly rushed as the gravity of situation weighed in on him a little more. "Just keep making noise so I can find you." The teen did his best to quickly descend the staircase, though its relative size made it difficult. The majority of the room had collapsed. Partially buried under the rubble and writhing in pain, the technician groaned. Talon holstered his gun and vaulted over a table to get to the injured soldier. His scales retained the sand color they had acquired from the outside environment, not that it mattered right now. Now he had to save this man without exposing what he was. That gave him a pause. If the soldier saw him, it would open a whole other can of worms that the kid really didn't want to deal with right now.

A thought quickly entered his mind. It was dishonest, for sure, but it would allow him to save this man without exposing what he was. The sniper pulled out the cloth that he had used earlier as a buffer from the hot sand. In one fluid motion, he had covered the downed technician's eyes before he could clearly make out the shape of the agile teen. He held the man's head as the cloth was tightly secured around his eyes and mouth.

"Something started a fire," he announced before the man could complain about the covering. "There's smoke all over upstairs and it's the only way out that isn't covered by op-for." That was better: the last part was more believable.

The sniper-turned-rescuer carefully curled his arms under and around the man's shoulders. "Ok this is gonna hurt, but I need you to trust me, ok?" The technician nodded and the dragon started to pull. However, no sooner had he started than the trapped man began to scream in agony. The teen immediately stopped and apologized while mentally scolding himself for not trying to lessen the pressure on the soldier's lower torso. The man's breath became ragged; the pain had to be getting to him. Now, he focused on trying to remove some of the offending weight on the man's legs. He grunted with exertion as he threw his weight against the chunks of compacted stone. They budged, just a little at first, but then soon began to roll off at a pace only slightly faster than that of a snail. The man screamed again as the pressure shifted on his lower body before being relieved and Subject 1276 wasted no time picking the injured operator up and supporting him over his shoulder.

Up the stairs they went; not as fast as Talon would have liked, but it was better than nothing at this point. They had gotten near the exit window when one of the augmented teen's ear seemed to pick up the sound of particular artillery shell. Somehow, with a gut-churning feeling, he knew that exact round was on a direct course toward the very building he and the operator were exiting. It couldn't be far, maybe 5 seconds from impact, 6 if he was lucky, and 3 if he was wrong. No matter what its distance was, there wasn't time; the dragon boy summoned as much strength as he could spare. He jumped, and the building exploded...

I kill. My aim is true, my strikes perfect. I am called upon to put down those that would harm others. I am a hero, but I never asked to be and none will ever know of me or what I have done. This is one of the many costs of heroism. I know not where I came from, only who and what I am now. I am the sniper: I deal death from a distance. I am a killer.

Talon laid the injured soldier down outside of town, well away from the area targeted by the artillery. The wounded man was bordering on unconsciousness and seemed to be a little punch drunk, either from the negative aftereffects of adrenaline, or shock, the dragon didn't know and, right now, didn't care. Now, he just had to get to his extraction point. However, the man started to laugh a little while Subject 1276 was surveying the area to ensure it was safe, "Man, that was close!" The man shifted against the wall he was sitting against and started to take off the cloth that had been placed over his face. Once it was off, though, the apparent jubilee in the operator's voice disintegrated. "What the hell?"

Talon's stomach dropped. He couldn't react and stop the man from removing the cloth because he hadn't been paying attention to his charge. Well, at least this spot was somewhat safe. Now, the dragon played it cool, acting like he wasn't the anomalous thing that he was, "What? Are you ok?"

"What are you?" Technician Albos asked.

"Well, that's an odd thing to ask." The sniper feigned a small amount of friendly offense, "I'm a sniper, duh!"

"But you're like some big lizard thing!" The technician exclaimed while Talon was slowly moving closer. Again, the sniper faked being hurt by the comment.

"Uh, no..." he looked around himself as if to verify that he himself saw human flesh as opposed to his currently sand-colored scales. "Pretty sure I'm human. You must have hit your head pretty hard."

"But I feel fine!" The soldier countered.

"That's just the thing." Talon said. And then he moved. It was quick, thankfully. A quick turn followed by a slight tail extension that allowed him to whack the man across the side of his head, knocking him unconscious. "Now you're not feeling fine." Talon turned an ran while activating the comms in his neural lace. "Technician Albos is secured on the east side of town. He's unconscious but fine." With that, he cut communication. No matter what the commander of the operation wanted to say, Subject 1276 would not hear it. His job was done, and that was good enough for him. He knew that he could get in trouble for allowing the man to see him. That was a pretty grievous mistake. Regardless, orders were orders, which also required no hard proof of American involvement. A dead soldier left behind would have broken that directive. Even still, Talon had a sinking feeling in his gut: he had made a mistake...