Nothing.
That was all they knew about Linna's current location, and as much as Sylia was keeping, had to keep a positive outlook on the situation, she was aware
that Nene was beginning to take it personally.
"I don't get it, Sylia!" she groaned as she leaned back in the computer chair. "I'm getting
plenty of hits on Crey's datanet as to where she used to be. Their data security is like, thirty years behind what I'm used to now that I have a proper
machine to set up the subroutines. But abruptly before we found Priss, she just drops off the map. Vanishes. Even Crey's up in arms about it. They think we
have her already."
Priss scowled from her seat as she watched Nene work. The fact that the problem didn't involve either smashing or any of her other various skills made her
irritable, especially since all three of them were painfully aware of the strokes of luck that'd led to the situation thus far.
"So, if Crey doesn't have her, who would have reason to take her from a classified Crey facility?" Sylia asked. It was the obvious question, but
Nene seemed to work better when she was explaining the obvious to those less in the know.
"Well, Crey's got a long list of enemies, but most of them are on the upright. Of their non-good and proper enemies, the Council might want her, but
they have their own super-soldier program that they seem just fine with. This Nemesis guy already has life-like machines that can't be detected, so
that's out. The Vahzilok and Goldbrickers might have reason to steal her, but the zombies don't know we're here and the Goldbrickers stick to the
Rogue Isles. And Arachnos might have a reason to do so, but if so, why not grab the rest of us at the same time?"
"What if somebody just pinched her on the way out of the company as a severance pay?" Priss suggested.
Nene gave her a look. "Crey isn't entirely as nasty as GENOM was, but they're not that pathetic that
someone could just waltz out of there with...a...highly classified...." she trailed off, before whirling back to her computer, the key taps forming a
sudden stacatto of rapid searches as she dug through the files.
Sylia chuckled, glancing over at Priss. "Or maybe so."
Priss just shrugged back, not entirely satisfied. "Yeah, though at least if I'm right, Linna's probably safe and not undergoing some horrible
experiments."
***
"More tea, master?" Linna asked as she bent down to fill the cup. Upon receiving a nod, she poured just so, adding a lump of sugar to it and stirring
five precise strokes to even it out as she had every other time.
When the master raised a hand up to her face, she stopped, allowing him to complete the motion without interference. He ran a finger along her cheekbones,
looking at her with the odd expression that her emotional reaction subroutines couldn't quite classify. Her predictive ones suggested a 78% chance that he
might make use of her in a recreational capacity again, however.
He chuckled, letting the hand drop and taking a sip of his tea as he leaned back in the chair. "Such an exquisitely detailed doll. To think they were
going to waste such work dissecting you. Might as well chop up the Mona Lisa while trying to learn how Da Vinci painted."
Linna had no immediate reference for the statements, but she felt a 95% certitude that the master would clarify for her if he wished her to understand. And if
not, it wasn't anything that concerned her.
***
"Got it!"
"What've you got, Nene?" Sylia asked, walking in from the mezannine.
"I've found where Linna went missing down to the minute. I had to hack their entire security camera network to find out when the blackout happened,
but whoever set it up wasn't expecting someone like me to come sniffing after his tracks. And once I had his trail, it was easy to figure out who did
it."
"Which means....who, Nene?" Sylia asked patiently, before getting a twitch from Nene of recognition.
"Sorry. Doctor Paul Summerfield, one of Crey's problem children. He's rumored to have absconded with a few things here or there from time to time,
but he's so good at it no one can nail down his methods. Well, no one aside from yours truly," Nene preened.
"You have an addresss?"
"Yeah," she said, bringing it up. "Most people would hide their ill gotten gains elsewhere, but Summerfield....nah....he's gonna keep it
right at home...."
***
So, let me see if I've got this straight," Knight of the Peace said, helmet currently under one arm as he looked over the compound, a high-end
personal estate on the outer edge of Steel Canyon. "You want to infiltrate that." Land in the reclaimed
sections of Paragon City fully considered under control in the aftermath of the Rikti War was expensive, typically belonging to corporations that wanted to
make certain their facilities were secure, or for vital portions of the city's infrastructure. Certain examples, like Terra Volta, were big enough targets
that even the best PPD efforts couldn't keep them entirely secure. But here, far from anything that the criminal element couldn't raid from less well
protected segments of the city, the city was relatively safe. Safe enough that one Doctor Paul Summerfield had decided to build his summer home. Which, for a
summer home in the safe part of town, was fairly well protected. Crey security in plainclothes patrolled the grounds as well as a large series of close circuit
cameras.
"Yes. And quietly. I firmly expect this to explode once we get inside," Silicon said, matter-of-factly. "At which point, PPD will find that a
warrant was issued for a search and potential seizure of illegal materials. No evidence will be attached, it was a pure misfile, but the search itself will
come across several incriminating items," she said.
Knight of the Peace frowned at the description. "You hacked the PPD?"
"He has one of my girls. And he is holding her as his personal property. If possible, I will follow the niceties of the law, but these identities can
vanish in an eyeblink if necessary. I will not allow him to hold her any longer." Her tones were flat and hardened, and Knight suddenly became very aware
that his younger sister(and what an odd concept that still was) had possibly not guessed at the level of dedication this woman had to her teammates when
she'd offered her assistance in locating them.
"Right....and why exactly are you telling me this? You obviously intend to go in alone," he frowned.
"I cannot assume that most groups will find our hero liscenses sufficient protection from assumption that we are not, in fact, criminals. The Legendary
are one of two such groups that presumably have access to our total story and I believe..." Hope, she didn't say out loud, but right now, it
didn't matter. "...will allow us to walk away."
"You're honestly planning to blaze through this regardless of who you go up against," he noted, not without a little awe.
"I will not leave her behind," she said softly. A ways away, the other two glanced at their leader with a
questioning. "Under any circumstances."
"....all right then. I'll do what I can....assuming you don't do any more than you say you're going to."
Silicon cocked her helmet at him, once, then shrugged. "Fair enough."
Then all three of them moved as if on some invisible signal and jumped.
***
"Primary entryway has been breached!"
"Hall A-1 forces all down, send backup!"
"Protector corp 8 reports total energy loss! Field systems are down and cryonic weapons unresponsive!"
"What the hell are these people?!"
***
"Warriors, from another world," Doctor Summerfield chuckled as he considered the imagery. "It seems that your comrades are here to rescue you
from my clutches, my dear. However futile their efforts may be."
Summerfield didn't see the almost imperceptible twitch in his latest acquisition at his statement. He was too busy looking over the three that had simply
given him the perfect excuse to acquire them for his collection. Linna's eyes crossed as her internal subroutines began tangling on the logical snarl of
his infallible opinion labeling the invaders as her "comrades" who were trying to "rescue" her from him. Summerfield, for his part, was too
busy considering the alterations he'd have to make after these three were brought down to adjust them to Linna's level.
Truthfully, that was all there was to it. What Crey wanted was, in his not-so-humble but still rather educated opinion, impossible. They wanted absolute
control over what was a remarkable, nay, miraculous piece of engineering which replicated a human mind in all its infinite eccentricities to the last neuron.
While Crey had developed reliable mind control, the most effective adjustments took weeks of hard core programming and overwriting to get results, and a
talented psion with proper experience could take them apart eventually. Crey wanted a mass produceable, quickly replenishable source of cannon fodder with the
intuitive intelligence and flexibility of a living being and the hard locked loyalty of a machine. And while his analysis, before he gave up on the idea
entirely, of this fourth one...Linna...suggested such a goal was indeed possible, the expense to produce the software and hardware necessary, as well as model
the synthetic brain through every step of development, would bankrupt the company. His method he'd used on Linna simply eliminated the calculation for
self-identification, thus imprinting her on him in a simple master-slave engram that her drastically more limited cerebral function under this masking program
was capable of understanding. Crey wanted reliable enforcers on the cheap, but like so many others over the years, they failed to understand the simple concept
of "you get what you pay for".
None of which mattered to him. He had no interest in their penny-packet battlesuits, but the dolls inside....masterpieces. He'd shove a few handy bodies
into them later and suitably have his private security detail dispose of them in a manner that would make identification impossible. After all, why would Crey
suspect him of wrecking the armor and leaving the interiors intact?
And behind him, Linna twitched again.
***
"We're almost to the interior and WHAT THE HELL IS THA-DUCK!" Nene said eloquently as all three Sabres ducked just as a gigantic metal coil
snapped about at chest height, smashing through decorative columns like the fist of an angry god.
"I must admit, I'm quite impressed. I thought this confrontation unlikely, to say the least," the vox-modded voice of what could only be the
rather narcissistic owner of the house said, emitting from the dull finish of the faceplate of a massive combat armor. One fist ended in a sinister looking
blaster cannon, while the coil from before was actually a twitching tail that glowed ominously at its tip.
"But I certainly won't pass up the opportunity. I'm a collector of rarities, you see. This armor is the last remaining piece of Doctor
Quaxitrain's work for Crey, at least until Crey can evade Arachnos's scrutiny again and begin producing them. But none will have the good doctor's
handiwork firsthand into them like this. One can almost understand why Black Scorpion tried to kill him to keep such a piece of art for himself."
The Sabres split up almost immediately, circling the armor with clear practice. The Deathstinger pivoted almost playfully before leaping forward. Sylia ducked
hammerblow from an armored fist before sidestepping a plasma blast. The tail, however, came out of nowhere, and she grunted as she was sent skidding down the
highway. Slow...too slow. Even boomers tended to limit themselves to a normal number of limbs.
Summerfield annihilated another stretch of hallway with another energy barrage that Priss weathered despite herself, before closing in on him. Two blows that
would've splintered concrete simply resounded off his armor with a heavy thud. Priss, however, blinked. "He's hollow!"
"Hollow?"
"There's not someone in that suit. That's for sure. Too much weight, not enough give!!"
"Oh my, am I given away?" the mocking voice noted, sidestepping to bring that tail around, another thunderbolt, aimed at Nene this time.....before
abruptly slumping forward and faceplanting on the floor.
Nene sniffed slightly. "This is why you don't operate defense by remote control with something I took apart and put back together when I was
six," she noted.
Priss gave the prone armor a kick, taking the head off and revealing sparking wires and circuitry, before they moved on, Sylia looking back to Nene. "So,
where to?"
"Almost there. Signal's emanating from just ahead...."
***
Summerfield was not having a good day when the door broke down and three very angry looking (if body language was any indication) women in power armor. Which
lead to a rather awkward tableau.
Doctor Summerfield was immediately in the middle of the room near his control unit. Behind him, he was aware that Linna was still standing there, waiting for
his orders. His emergency exit was immediately behind her, so perhaps throwing her to them would delay them long enough for him to escape, and call down the
whole of Crey Security in order to trap them before they got away.
Linna was still standing stock still, not quite comprehending the whole situation, as the same logical paradox from earlier was drawing more and more of her
processor cycles without the integral fuzzy logic and floating wave flux designs that her higher level functions would've used to sort it out without
problem.
Sylia was evaluating the scene for immediate tactical problems, considering the possibility of recessed weapons emplacements, and calculating the nearest Crey
response team's transit time from one of their central hubs to this area in her head, giving her an ETA on how quickly they needed to remove Linna and be
gone before the cavalry arrived.
Priss and Nene, for their part, were looking at Linna, and sharing much the same thought, though Nene was the first to actually say it.
"....Linna, what the hell are you wearing?"
Somehow, the question, linked to the voice that she recognized despite the vocal modifications of the synthesizer, caused a single snap in Linna's
processor fits, as she identified the women as her friends....and then the whole slipshod architecture that'd been holding her up came crashing down.
"What she's wearing is of no importance. Simply put, you will let me escape, or I will order her to destroy herself, which would be a waste, but I
like my freedom," Summerfield began. "So if you'd all just lower your weapons, I'll be on my wa-"
"Perverted bastard!" Linna snarled, before bringing her leg up and then back down across his head, dropping
the smug looking younger scientist in a single blow.
"Linna?" Sylia asked, worried about a potential trap.
"Hey, uh, Sylia, can we get out of here? I....really, really need to get out," she said, shivering, and not just because of the cold from the
abbreviated ensemble that might've been a maid costume had it had enough fabric to be recycled into a t-shirt to its name.
"Right, let's go."
***
"Linna?" Nene asked as they made their way quickly through the relatively clean sewer system that Sylia'd mapped out for their escape.
"Yeah, Nene?"
"Um...I don't think you meant to kick that high when you clocked him," she noted, sounding embarassed.
"...what?"
"There's nothing under that skirt," Priss clarified from the other side with her typical bluntness.
Linna went bright red from head to toe as Nene started babbling.
"....not that that's anything to be ashamed of! I mean, you look really nice if you're into that sort of cosplay fetish thing, and it's not
like you have a bad body or anythi-"
"Nene....please shut up. I don't think my brain can process you hitting on me," Linna groaned.
"....WHAT?!"
***
"They're clean away?" Knight asked as Katie looked at her gizmo and fiddled with it a touch.
"Yep, looks like."
"Time to cover their tracks then. If you'd do the honors?" he asked.
Katie grinned, before pulling out the Typhoonotron 6900 Kai EX's control unit. Sure, it'd burn out in about five minutes, but with weather control, all
you really needed was that opening spark. Of course, three weeks later when the rain had yet to let up, there'd be awkward questions, but for now, Katie
was positive this would work as she threw the switch.
"Abracadabra, alakazoo!" she said, just before the clouds immediately began swirling and then dumped the city's most torrential rainfall it'd
seen in years on top of their position.
"...you overdid it."
---
"Oh, silver blade, forged in the depths of the beyond. Heed my summons and purge those who stand in my way. Lay
waste."
That was all they knew about Linna's current location, and as much as Sylia was keeping, had to keep a positive outlook on the situation, she was aware
that Nene was beginning to take it personally.
"I don't get it, Sylia!" she groaned as she leaned back in the computer chair. "I'm getting
plenty of hits on Crey's datanet as to where she used to be. Their data security is like, thirty years behind what I'm used to now that I have a proper
machine to set up the subroutines. But abruptly before we found Priss, she just drops off the map. Vanishes. Even Crey's up in arms about it. They think we
have her already."
Priss scowled from her seat as she watched Nene work. The fact that the problem didn't involve either smashing or any of her other various skills made her
irritable, especially since all three of them were painfully aware of the strokes of luck that'd led to the situation thus far.
"So, if Crey doesn't have her, who would have reason to take her from a classified Crey facility?" Sylia asked. It was the obvious question, but
Nene seemed to work better when she was explaining the obvious to those less in the know.
"Well, Crey's got a long list of enemies, but most of them are on the upright. Of their non-good and proper enemies, the Council might want her, but
they have their own super-soldier program that they seem just fine with. This Nemesis guy already has life-like machines that can't be detected, so
that's out. The Vahzilok and Goldbrickers might have reason to steal her, but the zombies don't know we're here and the Goldbrickers stick to the
Rogue Isles. And Arachnos might have a reason to do so, but if so, why not grab the rest of us at the same time?"
"What if somebody just pinched her on the way out of the company as a severance pay?" Priss suggested.
Nene gave her a look. "Crey isn't entirely as nasty as GENOM was, but they're not that pathetic that
someone could just waltz out of there with...a...highly classified...." she trailed off, before whirling back to her computer, the key taps forming a
sudden stacatto of rapid searches as she dug through the files.
Sylia chuckled, glancing over at Priss. "Or maybe so."
Priss just shrugged back, not entirely satisfied. "Yeah, though at least if I'm right, Linna's probably safe and not undergoing some horrible
experiments."
***
"More tea, master?" Linna asked as she bent down to fill the cup. Upon receiving a nod, she poured just so, adding a lump of sugar to it and stirring
five precise strokes to even it out as she had every other time.
When the master raised a hand up to her face, she stopped, allowing him to complete the motion without interference. He ran a finger along her cheekbones,
looking at her with the odd expression that her emotional reaction subroutines couldn't quite classify. Her predictive ones suggested a 78% chance that he
might make use of her in a recreational capacity again, however.
He chuckled, letting the hand drop and taking a sip of his tea as he leaned back in the chair. "Such an exquisitely detailed doll. To think they were
going to waste such work dissecting you. Might as well chop up the Mona Lisa while trying to learn how Da Vinci painted."
Linna had no immediate reference for the statements, but she felt a 95% certitude that the master would clarify for her if he wished her to understand. And if
not, it wasn't anything that concerned her.
***
"Got it!"
"What've you got, Nene?" Sylia asked, walking in from the mezannine.
"I've found where Linna went missing down to the minute. I had to hack their entire security camera network to find out when the blackout happened,
but whoever set it up wasn't expecting someone like me to come sniffing after his tracks. And once I had his trail, it was easy to figure out who did
it."
"Which means....who, Nene?" Sylia asked patiently, before getting a twitch from Nene of recognition.
"Sorry. Doctor Paul Summerfield, one of Crey's problem children. He's rumored to have absconded with a few things here or there from time to time,
but he's so good at it no one can nail down his methods. Well, no one aside from yours truly," Nene preened.
"You have an addresss?"
"Yeah," she said, bringing it up. "Most people would hide their ill gotten gains elsewhere, but Summerfield....nah....he's gonna keep it
right at home...."
***
So, let me see if I've got this straight," Knight of the Peace said, helmet currently under one arm as he looked over the compound, a high-end
personal estate on the outer edge of Steel Canyon. "You want to infiltrate that." Land in the reclaimed
sections of Paragon City fully considered under control in the aftermath of the Rikti War was expensive, typically belonging to corporations that wanted to
make certain their facilities were secure, or for vital portions of the city's infrastructure. Certain examples, like Terra Volta, were big enough targets
that even the best PPD efforts couldn't keep them entirely secure. But here, far from anything that the criminal element couldn't raid from less well
protected segments of the city, the city was relatively safe. Safe enough that one Doctor Paul Summerfield had decided to build his summer home. Which, for a
summer home in the safe part of town, was fairly well protected. Crey security in plainclothes patrolled the grounds as well as a large series of close circuit
cameras.
"Yes. And quietly. I firmly expect this to explode once we get inside," Silicon said, matter-of-factly. "At which point, PPD will find that a
warrant was issued for a search and potential seizure of illegal materials. No evidence will be attached, it was a pure misfile, but the search itself will
come across several incriminating items," she said.
Knight of the Peace frowned at the description. "You hacked the PPD?"
"He has one of my girls. And he is holding her as his personal property. If possible, I will follow the niceties of the law, but these identities can
vanish in an eyeblink if necessary. I will not allow him to hold her any longer." Her tones were flat and hardened, and Knight suddenly became very aware
that his younger sister(and what an odd concept that still was) had possibly not guessed at the level of dedication this woman had to her teammates when
she'd offered her assistance in locating them.
"Right....and why exactly are you telling me this? You obviously intend to go in alone," he frowned.
"I cannot assume that most groups will find our hero liscenses sufficient protection from assumption that we are not, in fact, criminals. The Legendary
are one of two such groups that presumably have access to our total story and I believe..." Hope, she didn't say out loud, but right now, it
didn't matter. "...will allow us to walk away."
"You're honestly planning to blaze through this regardless of who you go up against," he noted, not without a little awe.
"I will not leave her behind," she said softly. A ways away, the other two glanced at their leader with a
questioning. "Under any circumstances."
"....all right then. I'll do what I can....assuming you don't do any more than you say you're going to."
Silicon cocked her helmet at him, once, then shrugged. "Fair enough."
Then all three of them moved as if on some invisible signal and jumped.
***
"Primary entryway has been breached!"
"Hall A-1 forces all down, send backup!"
"Protector corp 8 reports total energy loss! Field systems are down and cryonic weapons unresponsive!"
"What the hell are these people?!"
***
"Warriors, from another world," Doctor Summerfield chuckled as he considered the imagery. "It seems that your comrades are here to rescue you
from my clutches, my dear. However futile their efforts may be."
Summerfield didn't see the almost imperceptible twitch in his latest acquisition at his statement. He was too busy looking over the three that had simply
given him the perfect excuse to acquire them for his collection. Linna's eyes crossed as her internal subroutines began tangling on the logical snarl of
his infallible opinion labeling the invaders as her "comrades" who were trying to "rescue" her from him. Summerfield, for his part, was too
busy considering the alterations he'd have to make after these three were brought down to adjust them to Linna's level.
Truthfully, that was all there was to it. What Crey wanted was, in his not-so-humble but still rather educated opinion, impossible. They wanted absolute
control over what was a remarkable, nay, miraculous piece of engineering which replicated a human mind in all its infinite eccentricities to the last neuron.
While Crey had developed reliable mind control, the most effective adjustments took weeks of hard core programming and overwriting to get results, and a
talented psion with proper experience could take them apart eventually. Crey wanted a mass produceable, quickly replenishable source of cannon fodder with the
intuitive intelligence and flexibility of a living being and the hard locked loyalty of a machine. And while his analysis, before he gave up on the idea
entirely, of this fourth one...Linna...suggested such a goal was indeed possible, the expense to produce the software and hardware necessary, as well as model
the synthetic brain through every step of development, would bankrupt the company. His method he'd used on Linna simply eliminated the calculation for
self-identification, thus imprinting her on him in a simple master-slave engram that her drastically more limited cerebral function under this masking program
was capable of understanding. Crey wanted reliable enforcers on the cheap, but like so many others over the years, they failed to understand the simple concept
of "you get what you pay for".
None of which mattered to him. He had no interest in their penny-packet battlesuits, but the dolls inside....masterpieces. He'd shove a few handy bodies
into them later and suitably have his private security detail dispose of them in a manner that would make identification impossible. After all, why would Crey
suspect him of wrecking the armor and leaving the interiors intact?
And behind him, Linna twitched again.
***
"We're almost to the interior and WHAT THE HELL IS THA-DUCK!" Nene said eloquently as all three Sabres ducked just as a gigantic metal coil
snapped about at chest height, smashing through decorative columns like the fist of an angry god.
"I must admit, I'm quite impressed. I thought this confrontation unlikely, to say the least," the vox-modded voice of what could only be the
rather narcissistic owner of the house said, emitting from the dull finish of the faceplate of a massive combat armor. One fist ended in a sinister looking
blaster cannon, while the coil from before was actually a twitching tail that glowed ominously at its tip.
"But I certainly won't pass up the opportunity. I'm a collector of rarities, you see. This armor is the last remaining piece of Doctor
Quaxitrain's work for Crey, at least until Crey can evade Arachnos's scrutiny again and begin producing them. But none will have the good doctor's
handiwork firsthand into them like this. One can almost understand why Black Scorpion tried to kill him to keep such a piece of art for himself."
The Sabres split up almost immediately, circling the armor with clear practice. The Deathstinger pivoted almost playfully before leaping forward. Sylia ducked
hammerblow from an armored fist before sidestepping a plasma blast. The tail, however, came out of nowhere, and she grunted as she was sent skidding down the
highway. Slow...too slow. Even boomers tended to limit themselves to a normal number of limbs.
Summerfield annihilated another stretch of hallway with another energy barrage that Priss weathered despite herself, before closing in on him. Two blows that
would've splintered concrete simply resounded off his armor with a heavy thud. Priss, however, blinked. "He's hollow!"
"Hollow?"
"There's not someone in that suit. That's for sure. Too much weight, not enough give!!"
"Oh my, am I given away?" the mocking voice noted, sidestepping to bring that tail around, another thunderbolt, aimed at Nene this time.....before
abruptly slumping forward and faceplanting on the floor.
Nene sniffed slightly. "This is why you don't operate defense by remote control with something I took apart and put back together when I was
six," she noted.
Priss gave the prone armor a kick, taking the head off and revealing sparking wires and circuitry, before they moved on, Sylia looking back to Nene. "So,
where to?"
"Almost there. Signal's emanating from just ahead...."
***
Summerfield was not having a good day when the door broke down and three very angry looking (if body language was any indication) women in power armor. Which
lead to a rather awkward tableau.
Doctor Summerfield was immediately in the middle of the room near his control unit. Behind him, he was aware that Linna was still standing there, waiting for
his orders. His emergency exit was immediately behind her, so perhaps throwing her to them would delay them long enough for him to escape, and call down the
whole of Crey Security in order to trap them before they got away.
Linna was still standing stock still, not quite comprehending the whole situation, as the same logical paradox from earlier was drawing more and more of her
processor cycles without the integral fuzzy logic and floating wave flux designs that her higher level functions would've used to sort it out without
problem.
Sylia was evaluating the scene for immediate tactical problems, considering the possibility of recessed weapons emplacements, and calculating the nearest Crey
response team's transit time from one of their central hubs to this area in her head, giving her an ETA on how quickly they needed to remove Linna and be
gone before the cavalry arrived.
Priss and Nene, for their part, were looking at Linna, and sharing much the same thought, though Nene was the first to actually say it.
"....Linna, what the hell are you wearing?"
Somehow, the question, linked to the voice that she recognized despite the vocal modifications of the synthesizer, caused a single snap in Linna's
processor fits, as she identified the women as her friends....and then the whole slipshod architecture that'd been holding her up came crashing down.
"What she's wearing is of no importance. Simply put, you will let me escape, or I will order her to destroy herself, which would be a waste, but I
like my freedom," Summerfield began. "So if you'd all just lower your weapons, I'll be on my wa-"
"Perverted bastard!" Linna snarled, before bringing her leg up and then back down across his head, dropping
the smug looking younger scientist in a single blow.
"Linna?" Sylia asked, worried about a potential trap.
"Hey, uh, Sylia, can we get out of here? I....really, really need to get out," she said, shivering, and not just because of the cold from the
abbreviated ensemble that might've been a maid costume had it had enough fabric to be recycled into a t-shirt to its name.
"Right, let's go."
***
"Linna?" Nene asked as they made their way quickly through the relatively clean sewer system that Sylia'd mapped out for their escape.
"Yeah, Nene?"
"Um...I don't think you meant to kick that high when you clocked him," she noted, sounding embarassed.
"...what?"
"There's nothing under that skirt," Priss clarified from the other side with her typical bluntness.
Linna went bright red from head to toe as Nene started babbling.
"....not that that's anything to be ashamed of! I mean, you look really nice if you're into that sort of cosplay fetish thing, and it's not
like you have a bad body or anythi-"
"Nene....please shut up. I don't think my brain can process you hitting on me," Linna groaned.
"....WHAT?!"
***
"They're clean away?" Knight asked as Katie looked at her gizmo and fiddled with it a touch.
"Yep, looks like."
"Time to cover their tracks then. If you'd do the honors?" he asked.
Katie grinned, before pulling out the Typhoonotron 6900 Kai EX's control unit. Sure, it'd burn out in about five minutes, but with weather control, all
you really needed was that opening spark. Of course, three weeks later when the rain had yet to let up, there'd be awkward questions, but for now, Katie
was positive this would work as she threw the switch.
"Abracadabra, alakazoo!" she said, just before the clouds immediately began swirling and then dumped the city's most torrential rainfall it'd
seen in years on top of their position.
"...you overdid it."
---
"Oh, silver blade, forged in the depths of the beyond. Heed my summons and purge those who stand in my way. Lay
waste."