Drawn by  spritedude

**the following is from Smoke's PoV from this submission: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/39541111/

Smoke shook his head as he creeped along the interior of the Maverick base. Sticking to the shadows, and there were plenty of them, he made his way to the bases reactor core deep inside its confines. Once again he had been roped into a job by his friend, Specter. A trained assassin/sniper that Hunter HQ used when they needed a rather difficult target eliminated. He usually didn't mind helping out the green armored Hunter but this job he had been tasked with was one of the more dangerous ones. He had been tasked with mapping out the confines of this base and passing the intel to Specter. Doing that was the easy part but now, after having infiltrated the base several times without being caught Smoke was starting to think that his luck was going to run out. Especially with this last run...the satchel of explosive charges he carried hampered his movement to a degree but he had promised his friend that he would deliver and Smoke never went back on his word. Especially to his best friend.


Smoke had made his entrance from the roof of the Mavericks base where the defenses were light. Only a few blaster sentries there which were easily disabled. Even the areal sentry drones hadn't spotted him due to his cloaking field that he employed. He had to hurry though as he could only keep it up for a few short minutes but that was all he needed to cut a hole into the roof with his laser blade. Having to avoid making a sound he employed a device to induce a weak magnetic field to momentarily keep the cut out portion from clanging to the floor. A few moments later he was inside and replaced the cut out portion back after coating it with a strong adhesive to cover his tracks. It looked like nothing had ever been disturbed.


"Whats your status?" Smokes internal com unit went off making him wince. The voice was Specter's but Smoke couldn't answer him as he was too deep into the base and any com traffic might be picked up especially if he answered. Better to have the Mavericks think that it was just random radio chatter or a stray signal. At least the voice was in his mind instead of audible or his friend would have given him away. He dropped a charge off in the hallway at a location that Specter had marked off on a map. A map that Smoke had committed to his memory module so he could pull it up in his mind at a moments notice.

Going from room to room, corridor to corridor Smoke layed out the charges as his friend had instructed him too. Oddly enough none of these explosives had a timer on them or any other form of detonating device. All of them were just an explosive compound that would blow when subjected to excessive heat and shock. On the plus side there was no electronic signal or even light or sound coming from them so they just sat there, completely passive and hidden. Several Mavericks passed by the door to the room Smoke had just laid his charge in but seemed to be completely unaware that he was there. They rounded the corner and were soon gone as Smoke exited the room to his next destination, the bases reactor core.

Of course that room was guarded and Smoke had planned for this from his past excursions into the base. He fingered a throwing knife made of a black metal etched in light green patterns. The guard at the entrance to the reactor, a somewhat large reploid based off a warthog, snorted flame as he stood beside the door. Smoke activated his cloaking field and exited from the corner of the corridor tossing the small knife at the Maverick. The warthog felt a small prick to his neck but then just stood there as the knifes etchings flared up and disintegrated the knife. Smoke quickly made his way past the guard and punched in the code to the door that he had seen entered on his past excursions into the base. It slid open and Smoke slipped on in, just as the warthog regained his senses from the momentary stasis he had been put in from the knife and its payload. He continued his watch as if nothing had happened.

Fortunately this was the last room that he had to place the charges in and then he could make his escape. There were two reactor operators on opposite ends of the large room with the reactor core humming with power and a slew of consoles and sub stations scattered around. The operators were low level Mavericks and Smoke tossed two more of the black metal knives with green etchings. The struck the two and they went still as the stasis poison entered into their systems and caused them to lock up. These two would be under the effects of the stasis for a lot longer then the warthog Maverick though and that would give Smoke ample time to set up the last of the charges in the key locations he needed. Again, no device was attached to these explosives and Smoke was beginning to wonder how Specter was going to set these off.

Finishing up his task Smoke spied his planned means of egress. A covering in the floor concealed a pipeline that, from the schematics he had observed, led to a large concrete holding pool outside the bases walls. Normally this would have been a fools errand as the waste from the reactor was highly toxic and would have caused Smoke to become a liquid just like the waste. However, his friend had timed this mission to an exact point when the pool had just been drained for recycling and was now completely empty. The reactor wasn't scheduled to discharge its waste for another full day so Smoke had a completely clear means of exit. He pried open the cover and dropped into the large pipe. Thinking it would be safer to not leave all of this to chance he activated his speed boost module and raced along the pipe and out into the empty holding pool outside the bases walls.

"T-minus two minutes" Specter's voice said in Smokes head again. This time however Smoke could sense the tinge of concern in his friends voice. He smiled under his mask at Specters worrisome tone. The two had been friends ever since they were introduced at Hunter HQ and teamed up to take out a Maverick target that was giving Hunter HQ fits. The operation went off without a hitch and the two Hunters came to respect and admire the each other cementing their friendship.

Smoke had already begun making his way to where Specter had set up his sniper nest. A hill outside the city that had a perfect viewpoint of the building he had just been in. Moving a little beyond it so that his approach was from behind he crawled up the hill and came up on the right hand side of his prone buddy. Specter was looking through his scope at the building but Smoke had a feeling that Specter was aware of his presence.

"I hope your not worrying about me, Specter." Smoke said as he lay next to his friend.

"Maybe a little, buddy. What can I say, your my friend. I am allowed to have some worry."

"Touching, bud." Smokes retracted the mask from his face that covered up his muzzle when he was in combat or stealth mode. He smiled warmly at Specter even though Specter never looked away from his scope. "Missions done though, you sure this is going to work?"

"If the interior is as you say it is and you put the charges in the right places, as I am sure you did, then yeah...this should work."

"I really want to see this." Smoke said as he followed the barrel of the rifle to the view-port it pointed at. It was one of the few that looked out from the base onto the outside world.

"Well, you wont have to wait long." Specter said.

Smoke looked at his friend and then to the finger resting on the trigger of the sniper rifle that Specter employed. He saw the smooth but deliberate squeezing of the trigger as a lance of highly concentrated plasma energy shot out of the barrel of the rifle. It hit the view-port, broke through and hit a Mavericks head just as it was passing by the view-port. Smoke remembered that he had set up a charge close by that window and blinked as a small explosion from the Maverick core going critical detonated the charge he had placed. He watched as the chain reaction of those charges one by one tore through the base and finally ended in the reactor core going critical itself and engulfing the base in a massive ball of plasma and fire. The destruction was complete and nothing could have survived that detonation of the core. Smoke was sure of that and he whistled as the fire raged where the base had been. He continued to watch as Specter quietly rose from his position and began to walk off but Smoke wanted to watch the flames a little more before rising himself and following his friend.

"You never cease to amaze me, Specter. Everything went down just like you said it would in the planning brief. Remind me never to make you mad at me." Smoke smiled as he walked beside his friend. "Though you could have just shot the target and been done with it."

"I couldn't have done it without you, buddy." Specter said as he departed the scene. "Yeah, I could have but then we still would have had to deal with his cronies and a protracted fire fight. Better to take them all out at once. I never do something halfway, Smoke, you know that."

"Yeah, I do. I will see you back at HQ then."

"Yep, see you there." Specter replied.

Smoke once again activated his mask as it covered up the cat reploids muzzle and his grin. He activated his cloak and soon disappeared into the night as he made his way through one of the last remaining forests as he leapt from tree to tree silently as his namesake. He thought briefly about what would happen if he or his friend ever went maverick themselves and one had to take out the other. Smoke was highly skilled but he knew that Specter would give him a run for his money and vise versa. He banished the thought from his mind though as he didn't want to dwell on that possibility. He had other targets to take care of tonight before he made his way back to Hunter HQ and promised he would enjoy a nice E-tank with his best friend before the night was over.