You can’t quit until you try...
You can’t live until you die…
You can’t tell the truth until you learn to lie…
You can’t breathe until you choke.
You’ve got to laugh when you’re the joke.
There’s nothing like a funeral to make you feel aliiiiiive!
Just open your eyes!
Just open your eyes and see that life is beautiful!
Will you swear on your life,
That no one will cry…
At my funeral?
I know some things that you don’t.
I’ve done things that you won’t.
There’s nothing like a trail of blood to find your way back home.
I was waiting for my hearse;
What came next was so much worse!
It took a funeral to make me feel aliiiiiiiiive!
- Sixx A.M., Life Is Beautiful
****
“So you’ll be fine on your own for a week or so?” Pete noted, leaning against the doorway, a small pack hanging over his shoulder filled with a variety of assorted gear for his trip.
Brightsky gave him a look, closing the map she’d been going over and walking up to him. “Honestly. I think I can be left to my own devices for at least that long. I promise, no wild parties with Syn hiring strippers or anything of the like until you’re back to enjoy it as well,” she smirked, chuckling at the expression that got. Stepping closer, Bright kissed him briefly, before breaking it and smiling. “Don’t worry. I’ve got plenty to keep myself occupied. Just get going. The sooner you do, the sooner I can welcome you home again,” she noted with a soft smile.
Pete smiled back, patting her on the shoulder as he stood away from the door. “Good point. Take care, Bright. I’ll see you when I get back.”
Bright watched as Pete stepped out of the building, switching to his Cyberman costume and zooming off at high speed. Truth be told, she was grateful for his absence.
After all, it was getting harder to hide her preparations.
Going back over to the table, she opened the map case again, going over the road routes from the Rikti War Zone, out to the city limits, cross referencing them with Vanguard compounds outside Paragon City proper. If the transport left at about 1300 hours…
She pulled out her phone as it buzzed, picking up. “Hello?”
“Hey there, Bright. Take a guess at what li'l ole me managed to...ah...stumble across.”
“You have the…”
“Yep. All neat and tidy and no one th'wiser. Looks like go time’s in 'bout a week or so. We’ll know more when th' time comes.”
***
So we're agreed," Gaussian noted, glancing around the table with a glare that suggested he might just break it barehanded at the next objection. Dark Watcher was the worst, with his vaguely worded suggestions that the second in command of Vanguard wanted the Rikti spy released... on a technicality, of all things, without Vanguard being able to ascertain anything about what parts of their security she may have jeopardized. In addition to what they already knew, of course.
It had been about a week since Inyme W’tin had turned herself in, simultaneously giving enough evidence to prove her confession true and simultaneously deny them any detailed knowledge about how much she really knew. Interrogation had proved fruitless, and aside from hints that the registered hero Purrfect Archer was somehow important enough to W’tin to risk revealing just how weak their psi-dampeners were compared to her powers, Gaussian had found nothing new, particularly due to Dark Watcher’s insistence that neither W’tin nor Archer be touched in the course of the investigation. Viewing the tapes, Gaussian could agree about leaving the young heroine and a member of Vanguard herself alone, if only to save whoever had to inform W’tin of it a potentially traumatizing experience, but the Rikti had proven resistant to everything Gaussian’s kid gloved hands could throw at her otherwise.
Which was why he’d argued to send her to a specialist within Vanguard. His own interrogators were used to POWs and defectors, not a politically sensitive(and that was the only thing Gaussian could think of that’d tie his hands thus) prisoner like W’tin. To his surprise, the Watcher had agreed, and in the face of no other opposition, Gaussian nodded.
“I’ll write up the orders within the hour. Honestly, the sooner she’s away from the frontlines the better anyway.”
***
It was a tired Nene Romanova that made her way into the house that afternoon. Tracking Alice had proven impossible whenever she vanished every so often these days, and Utena and Anthy had refused to say a word about where she had gone. Nene didn’t think that anything was amiss, really, but given all the emotions running high over the last week, it seemed like she’d failed again.
The house itself was silent and empty. Alice, of course, was missing. Sammy was off on some private errand. Ifrit, Nene had sent off to waste her anger on something, anything away from the base and home, where her instincts would continue to smolder over the flame of Inyme’s supposed betrayal despite Nene’s logic.
Walking through the house, Nene ran a hand over a small photo on the mantelpiece. A group image….Inyme sitting with Alice to one side, Nene and Ifrit on the other, and Sammy sprawled out on ground in front of the two couples. Thanksgiving, that’d been. Before the truth had come out. Before complications… A simpler time.
Heading up the stairs, Nene blinked as she noticed Alice’s door was open. Stepping in, she glanced around. From the looks of it, Alice’d taken another catnap while she’d been at work and left again before she’d come home. Nene sighed, rearranging the bed for when Alice would return, before she felt her foot bump up against something. Bending down, she reached under the bed and pulled out a knapsack which’d been hidden by the blankets. As she opened it, Nene browsed through the contents, and she felt her heart sink a little. Photos, a stuffed animal, a few scraps of paper….mementos, really. She’d done her research as well as Alice had, if not better. She recognized the girl’s biological parents. The trip to the RWZ early on made sense too, now. She’d gone to visit her home….her old home.
A part of Nene told her to be logical. Alice hadn’t been avoiding her adoptive family since that day…she was just still trying to piece together how she felt since Inyme’d shattered what she knew for certain about her life. But most of Nene couldn’t help but wonder why they’d been shoved under the bed where Nene or Ifrit were unlikely to find them. She wanted to believe it was a coincidence, but…
Taking a deep breath, she placed them back in the knapsack, returning it to where she’d found it. As tired as she was, she needed something to take her mind off things until she could find Alice and talk to her about it. Touching her watch, she summoned her armor, stepping out of the room and hopping out a retracting skylight as she leapt out into the city.
***
Inyme winced as light came into the cell again, looking up at the officers that came in. She couldn’t read them through their helmets, but their presence in such numbers meant she was being moved, and that meant only a few things. Then one of them unlocked her cuffs and she docilely accepted the mobile restraints, walking out of the cell and towards the front of the base. Checking her mental diagram of the base, she realized she was heading for the vehicle bay, off the secondary hallways. Which suggested wherever they were going wasn’t connected to the teleport grid.
As the possibilities flashed through her mind, she suppressed an expression of surprise as she saw the broad brimmed hat and dark trenchcoat that identified the second in command of Vanguard. As she was led into the heavy landmover and secured, she looked at him with suspicion, the dark skinned man saying nothing until he sat down across from her as they shut the door.
“Now then, Miss W’tin….I think we need to have a talk,” he said. “Mostly because, if I’ve read this situation right, a few things are about to happen. Some of them dangerous. And I’m going to need your cooperation so we can both get what we want out of this.”
Inyme gave him a skeptical look and the Watcher leaned back across from her. “First things first, we can start on how I knew about the fact you were a Rikti since a couple months after you got here…”
Inyme’s eyes widened, and her shock only grew as he continued…along with a tiny spark of hope.
***
“It’s go time, Bright,” Syndesis’s voice noted.
Brightsky nodded. “They’re using the expected route?”
“Yep. Probably don’t expect anyone but them an' the Rikti knows who they’re transportin', so they ain't too worried 'bout evadin' pursuit.”
“Well, thank heaven for small favors,” she noted, before looking up as she got a text. “…dammit.”
“What?”
“Code C. I guess I’ll have to hurry if I’m going to get this done before he gets back,” she noted, folding up the maps and strapping on her goggles.
“Right. This the part where you tell me t'stay out fer my own good?”
“Syn, you don’t need this. They might go light on me. They'll probably just throw you back into prison if you helped. I’m not taking you, or anyone, down with me in the off chance they disagree with my reasons,” she clarified, frowning.
“Uh huh. Sure. I’ll stay out of yer little FUBAR out there then, if it means that much t'ya. ‘Sides. You’ll need someone t'break you out if they toss you in the Zig.”
Despite the gravity of the situation, Bright chuckled. Just like her. “Somehow, I think that’s unlikely, but thanks for the thought,” she noted, hanging up and jumping out the window.
***
Nene blinked as the comm screen in the Legendary base’s main briefing room came up with an incoming call. She’d mainly been bouncing through the base to the teleport pads, but no one was on duty today except the answering service which would decide if the message was important enough to be shot up the chain of command. As it was, Nene hit the answer button -- and blinked as Alice showed up.. “…Alice?”
“Oh, uh…hi mum. Listen I know this is gonna sound crazy, but I’m headed for the RWZ now. I’m going to talk to Inyme….I need to talk to her. I know you, or Aunt Priss or a dozen others would try to try to stop me, but....trust me. Please. One way or another, I have to get this settled. Once and for all," she finished, looking her adoptive mother in the eye steadily.
Nene blinked, realizing once again that, as much as she'd worried about her, as much as this change had briefly sent her little girl into a tailspin, Alice was tough. She could handle herself as well as any ot them. Better than some. She considered telling her no for a split second, rejected the thought, and then nodded. “Of course, honey,” she said softly.
“Thanks. Love you, bye!” Alice said, before hanging up. Nene stood there for a moment, before a sense of hearing and gut instinct honed by avoiding other ADP officers as she'd sifted through the file room where she really wasn't supposed to be able to access alerted Nene as she heard someone quickly turn the other way before walking by the door. She immediately called up the security cameras, seeing William Bishop from their fisheye view as he stopped, then immediately made for the teleporter room.
Nene blinked in confusion, before she recalled Bill’s history…and it all clicked into horrific sense.
“Oh, shit,” she cursed as she turned and darted for the teleporters herself.
***
“We’ve just left Paragon City limits, sir,” the Vanguard officer in the front of the truck noted, leaning back into the passenger compartment. The Dark Watcher nodded, leaning back against his seat as Inyme processed the information, before looking up sharply as she caught a hint of a thought.
“What’s about to happen?”
That drew a chuckle from the dark-skinned man, as he looked up at her. “You are a sharp one, if you picked that up despite my trying not to worry you. Simply put, this is the prime location for an ambush. Which is why I expect a certain young lady to arrive just about now. Hopefully, I won’t have to get involved, but somehow, I doubt we’re that lucky.”
***
Jay Stewart was looking forward to getting out of town for a few days, away from all the craziness that Paragon City seemed to attract. This business trip should be nice and quiet, he noted as his car pulled towards the massive alloy doors that formed the main exits in the War Walls. No more villains, no more Rikti invasions, no zombies eating my lunch while I run for the nearest shelter…
Two seconds later, a flying white streak shot by his car so close he instinctively swerved to the side to avoid being hit. Several other cars reacted similarly, resulting in a four lane traffic jam as the ground-skimming form of Brightsky rocketed by at just sub-sonic speeds, stopping briefly to swipe her card through the main gate’s controls, authorizing a Rikti threat-induced lockdown. The guard in question only got a look at her Vanguard ID before he nodded, shaken, and hit the alarm. Brightsky smiled grimly at him before darting through the doors as the massive gates began shutting and sealing.
***
“Zulu Golf Niner, this is Convoy Control. We have an incoming bogey punching at just near supersonic, over. Prepare for potential interception.”
Major Scott Hearns nodded as he booted up the systems in his cockpit, sending the message down the line to Anders over in Zulu Golf Tango. “This is Zulu Golf Niner, confirming. Weapons free and ready, we are deploying.”
The two large trucks that were escorting the prison transport abruptly opened their top decks as a pair of Vanguard Warhammer-class heavy assault suits deployed from their stationary locked positions, weaponry and targeting sensors coming online, their torsos swiveling to meet the incoming potential threat.
***
“Registered Hero Brightsky, this is Convoy Delta Nine Control. This is restricted airspace. Please alter your flight path. Repeat, please alter your flight path.”
Brightsky ignored them, flying inbound. The longer they took trying to get her to break off, the longer it would be before the HVAS opened fire.
“Registered Hero Brightsky, this is Convoy Delta Nine Control. Abort your current flight path. Repeat, abort. You are on an interception path with a prison transport. Abort.”
One minute to intercept.
“Registered Hero Brightsky, abort your flight path! This is restricted airspace, and if you do not respond, we will open fire!”
Thirty seconds….twenty….ten…
“Registered Hero Brightsky, this is your final warning. Acknowledge and change course or you will be fired upon!”
Impact.
***
Zulu Golf Tango’s transport shook as the inbound flier hit it dead on, moving faster than anticipated. Anders released the clamps holding the HVAS in place to prevent the transport from rolling, even as the impact knocked them both off the transport’s deck and onto the ground around the highway. Brightsky didn’t take the time to stop and follow up on this, banking and rolling back into the air as plasma bursts and energy fire scoured the air from Zulu Golf Niner’s weapons, followed by tear gas grenades. Jinking and rolling, she slammed into it next, causing the forward transport to spin and squeal as its driver tried desperately not to jackknife. The prison transport’s driver slammed the brakes hard to avoid a collision even as Brightsky shot off into the distance, coming back around for another pass.
***
Inyme lurched, having not thought to brace herself like the Watcher apparently had, as the officer in front came back in.
“Sir, we’re under attack!”
“Resist as best you can. I’ll be joining you shortly,” the Watcher replied evenly, getting a shaky nod from the officer. Inyme could tell he was shaken and didn’t know why in the hell a registered hero and member of Vanguard was attacking them, but the Watcher seemed to be in control, so it wasn’t out of hand yet.
The Watcher meanwhile looked back over at Inyme. “Stay in here. Don’t get involved. I anticipated this, and frankly, in the mood she’s in, I don’t think my men can take her. So I’ll have to buy you some time,” he said, a portal opening in front of him. “Just stay alive. You’re more important than I think you have any idea about.”
Then he stepped through and was gone.
***
Pete stepped out of the Zulu Base portal, and immediately knew something was wrong. The Vanguard officers waiting for him weren’t the ones he’d take this mission on at the behest of, he didn't see the scientists that he'd requested to look over the dimensional tunneling hardware he'd managed to sneak out of the Rikti base, and every one of the men in front of him looked grim, with at least one looking outright angry. “Can I help you folks?” he asked conversationally.
“Yes, actually. You can tell us why the hell your woman just attacked a supposedly classified and top secret prisoner transfer after she cut off all land based methods of reinforcing its guard detail!” Officer Angry growled.
Pete blinked for a second, mind racing as he tried to catch up. “What?”
Officer Grim beside him frowned. “As of twenty minutes ago, registered hero Brightsky engaged a Rikti alert to seal the War Walls against exterior incursion, locking down the only ground route out of Paragon, then proceeded to engage the security detail around a prisoner transfer to Vanguard Central Headquarters in New York. At present, we’re aware that she’s engaged both the escort’s HVAS detail and troopers on the ground. That the exit time and route were kept top secret is, of course, a given. So we’re rather concerned about just what she’s trying to do,” he noted.
Pete winced, but not because of what they’d told him. The last week flashed by in rapid speed, various details sticking out. He’d thought something was odd. He should have seen it coming when the word had come down about Inyme. But she’d acted so normal otherwise that it just hadn’t occurred to him that she’d actually attack a Vanguard facility in an attempt to kill the woman.
Dammit, Sam. I thought you were past this.
“….right. I think I have an idea. I’ll be right back,” he noted, swapping to another costume and sliding his visor into place.
“Now, wait one second, here!” Angry started. “We can’t just let you tear of-“
Cyberman didn’t hear the rest. He was halfway across Peregrine, on a bee-line for the ferry back to the mainland as he remotely queried the Vanguard systems for where exactly Bright’s little altercation was. He hoped he was in time…
***
The RWZ stank. Not just the burning fumes and unnatural chemicals and the charred scent of burning flesh that anyone who recognized it could almost always detect on the wind. No. The RWZ stank of Rikti. It always had, ever since their mothership had crash landed here. Not that Bill had been prowling its lengths back then. Not before the pre-rumblings of a second Rikti War had brought him into this city and away from his cabin far away from all the craziness.
But now….now he was crossing it again, and this time not with yet another lethal confrontation with the Rikti hordes as the cause. Alice. That’s what it came down to. Cheerful, always smiling, probably better with a bow than he was on one of her good days. The girl that’d wormed her way into his heart without even trying in a way that almost made the pain of that day go away. Who made him remember that there was something more to this world than vengeance and hunting down every one of those blasted Rikti bastards till none of them were left. And then she’d been betrayed by them too. Not killed, thank God. If she had been, Bill was fairly certain he wouldn’t have stopped until either the Rikti race was dead or he was, likely the latter. But harmed just the same. In a way that he didn’t know how to work with. He’d never been good at that sort of thing with his older daughter. And this was a hundred times more complicated than that. Until she’d inadvertently given him something he could do.
She was going back to the Rikti that’d tricked her. Given her feelings in the matter, it wasn’t surprising she still didn’t know how she felt. But going back? That obviously wasn’t logic at work. Inyme’d been a Rikti. They were all telepaths. They got in your head and changed you. Clearly, this was Inyme’s doing. One last desperate attempt to get her out of Vanguard custody by using Alice as a shield and accomplice. Which meant he’d have to stop Alice before she got in the Rikti’s grasp again, before Inyme had a chance to exert her hold even further.
As he thought this, senses honed from decades of tracking experience warned him as a red armored figure landed in front of him with a thud that was almost too quiet for how much mass had just been catapulted over a distance that Bill expected had included hundreds of yards. He’d hoped to avoid this.
“Bill, I think we need to talk,” Nene Romanova, Net Sabre, noted, standing dead in between him and his target destination.
***
As Cyberman shot along the upper roads of Skyway, he absently noted that, even if this didn’t work, backup was on the way. He’d sent a message about the situation to the base as he’d headed across Talos, and gotten a receipt that the situation’d been noted. He wouldn’t be alone.
If Brightsky wasn’t in the mood to listen to reason, he’d probably not have a chance alone.
As he ran, however, he noticed an upcoming speedster behind him. A quick glance identified it as Syndesis, and Cyberman considered for a moment as she closed the distance between them that she might be coming to try to pull Bright out of the fire as well. Syn was one of Brightsky’s closest friends, regardless of her origin. And, for that matter, regardless of the fact neither would admit it openly, even if the way they interacted made it at least fairly obvious. He'd thought so, at least, but not everyone saw the same things. More importantly, she was also a bit more pragmatic than Bright’s tendency to leap into things first and plan later.
Cyberman was about to wave her over when Syndesis accelerated, hitting him from behind just as a turn came up. In fact, if he didn’t know better, it had to have been planned. Especially as they went off the edge, impacted the roof of the tram station a floor down, rolled off with momentum, hit the ground again, bounced through a fence, and promptly slammed to a stop against a concrete wall on the bottom floor of Skyway’s multi-layered architecture, about 70 yards down and 300 yards forward of where they’d started. Reacting without thinking, Cyberman’d rolled to shield Syndesis from the worst of the damage, but he still winced as her bones popped and snapped with the impact against him instead of the ground before they finally slid to a stop.
Intellectually, he’d always known Syn was tough. That her regenerative powers were considerable. Now, as he staggered to his feet, he saw firsthand proof in a way that he never had before, as Syndesis pulled herself up from the ground, bones knitting and realigning as he watched, until she barely looked as if she’d taken a scratch, except for her clothing. All in about five seconds.
“Sorry ‘bout that,” she smirked at him. “But I know where you’re going, and I’m afraid I can’t allow ya to go charging off at the moment.”
***
"Samantha, I think we need to talk," a calm, even voice noted beside her. She jerked, even as a portal opened up between herself and the HVAS she was on a collision course for. A second later, she was about two miles away from the stranded prisoner convoy, looking at the dark reflective glasses of the second in command of Vanguard. The Dark Watcher didn't seem at all threatened by her at the moment, and part of Brightsky's mind tried to remind her of exactly why that was. The Dark Watcher had been part of the original Freedom Phalanx, and the rumors about his combat prowess certainly suggested he hadn't achieved that lofty position by chance, the same being suggested about his current rank in the Vanguard. Of course, worse was that he didn't fight that often in public....leaving the question about just what he could do a bit hazy.
"What's there to talk about? You're letting her go. You're letting a spy with intimate knowledge of our defenses go free. I know how the system works. If we don't charge her for espionage, she'll be out in a couple months. And I know that you're pressing for that. Did she even get to you with her little defector act?"
"You don't know the entire situati-"
"I know enough. Enough to know that Vanguard isn't going to do what needs to be done. So that leaves me to do it. Even if it's against people I respect," she said, eyes invisible behind her omnipresent shades, before she turned and bolted towards the convoy.
The Dark Watcher sighed slightly as she left. He'd hoped to talk her out of this. But it seemed he'd have to play for time after all. As Brightsky neared the convoy, he gestured.
Brightsky had been expecting this trick again and rolled as a portal opened in front of her. More began to open as she did, taxing her skills to maneuver between them and maintain her momentum. She dodged another, but missed one opening in front of her path that she was dodging into, winding up yet again on the other side of the roadway from her target. Growling in irritation, she took off again, this time heading for the black cloaked man hovering in midair. She couldn't get at the convoy like this, so she'd have to take out the source of the interference first.
Dark Watcher felt his age as he saw Brightsky hurtle towards him. He'd known her father, albeit distantly. He'd seen her grow up during the first war. He'd seen to many like her grow up during the first war. He should've seen it coming. Should've prevented Nemesis from doing what he'd done. But he hadn't. The past was in the past. Which left him here, in the present, cleaning up the mess. As she closed, he concentrated on his powers, even as he mentally wished for the rest of the group to hurry and arrive. He wasn't as young as he used to be and holding off Brightsky without hurting her was going to require considerable skill.
***
"You heard what she said! She wants to see her alone!" Nene said as she bounced along behind Bill, taking what shots she could as they presented themselves. Unfortunately, he leaped over her electric fences without so much as a passing glance, and even draining his kinetic energy didn't slow him for long. She could possibly slow him down a lot more with....but no. She wasn't going to open fire on him. Not for this. Not like this.
Bill remained silent as he continued running. The wreckage of the Rikti War Zone gave him cover as he dodged Nene's various attempts to contain him. He understood her reasoning. He felt it himself. A part of him was proud of Alice. For bouncing back from the setback that she'd been presented with. A part of him was all too willing to believe she was going to confront the Rikti one last time, to let her know she had no hold on her before she came home.
But Alice was smarter than that. He knew she was. She would know what the Rikti were capable of. What Inyme was capable of. She wouldn't expose herself to this kind of danger if the Rikti traitor didn't have some kind of hook into her. It wouldn't be the first time that Bill had had to explain to a younger daughter something that she disagreed with for her own good. With luck, she'd thank him later. If not, he'd survive. So long as she did.
Nene growled behind her helmet even as she managed to siphon off a little extra speed. Giving up on staying behind him, she crouched and leapt forward, landing on a rooftop with years of practiced skill before jumping again, and again, and again. She knew he could hear her doing so. But while he had his tracking skills, she had her own, watching the glowing dot of his medicomm beacon change course as she did. Following him, she waited for the right moment, an open stretch of ground as they got closer to the crater, before leaping forward and landing in front of him. Now, she knew she had to do it.
Electricity leapt forward about his feet, snaring him for a crucial instant before it came to life again in concentrated bolts, a sphere of crackling ionization appearing around Bill as he was finally stopped. She landed, breathing hard, before looking up to face him. "That's....enough. We're going....to talk...this out...."
Bill felt himself growl in frustration as the electric cage crackled about him. He knew she could do it. In fact, he'd been expecting it earlier. But she'd held off till she could corner him in the open and had zero chance to miss. But even as the electricity sizzled about him, sapping his strength and holding him immobile, he grimaced, gritting his teeth as he pulled another arrow free. All he had to do was hit the gauntlets she was wearing....the ones controlling the tesla cage. One quick shot at this range would be easy, especially as she stared, dumbstruck, at him as he raised the bow and drew it back. One quick shot, and he'd escape, and she wouldn't be able to capture him again without going back for repairs. He'd get to Alice first. She began to react to the impossibility before her even as he took aim, closing one eye quietly. Her hands came up, but instead of lightning, he felt his arms weaken again as her powers sapped his strength. A part of him flinched as he let the arrow free too early, before he had time to adjust its trajectory towards its target. And he gaped in horror as Nene's head snapped back, the sharp crack of splintering transparisteel ringing through the air.
***
Alice's heart quickened in her chest as she caught sight of the front entrance of the Vanguard base, diving through the teleporter and coming to a stop in front of one of the sentries. "Inyme....the Rikti prisoner....I need to speak with her...." she panted.
The guard looked at her for a moment before consulting his datapad, before recognizing her. "Uh, I'm sorry, Miss Romanova, but she's already been transfered."
"Transfered? Where?" Alice's heart seemed to freeze in her chest for the long seconds that it took the man to check the details.
"She was being transfered out of Paragon, in order to keep her safe. They left about an hour ago and...."
Alarms blared as both of the duo's heads snapped up at the sound of a voice coming over the loud speakers. "Unknown metahuman is attacking Prison Convoy Bravo. Unknown metahuman is attacking Prison Convoy Bravo. Scramble all available mobile units to reinforce the convoy. Scramble all available mobile units to reinforce the convoy.."
Alice darted past the guard as he blinked, not knowing whether to stop her or not, before deciding that answering the scramble order was more important right now. As he headed for the chopper bays, Alice glanced at the holographic map showing the location of the convoy and headed for the Paragon City exit portal.
***
In hindsight, this should've been obvious as well, given Bright, Cyberman noted to himself as he ducked another punch launched at his head by Syndesis as the two ran up and down Skyway's massive streets, heading for the off ramp that led to Steel Canyon and the city limits themselves. Syndesis was playing up her durability for all it was worth. She'd already forced the issue by ramming him into a few cars. If she were any less durable than she was, she'd be a pulp smeared across the highway by now. As it was, even with his advanced construction, Cyberman was beginning to feel the wear and tear, and Syndesis didn't seem to so much as flinch when she collided with him again. He was faster than her, but inside city limits, without an emergency clearance, he was limited to the given speed limit for heroes, which meant that Syndesis could keep up with ease.
"Why are you doing this? We're on the same side!" He yelled over the slipstream as she came closer again.
"I ought t'say the same thing!" she yelled back. "I'm helping YER girlfriend. We're dealing wit' Rikti! Like we're supposed ta! Even if the others don't see it, you know her! Why ain'tcha helpin' us?!" she shouted back.
"We're heroes! We're supposed to uphold the law!"
Syndesis turned, her hair whipping in the wind. She smiled nastily.
"Hero? Maybe you are, tin man. Me, I just break stuff. But if yer talkin' serve and protect...'ey, one less alien freak THIS good at gettin' inta our ranks, safer everyone'll be, right?"
Her eyes flashed beneath the tinted lenses of her goggles. "Least that's what Bright says. And 'ey, I can get behind that reasoning!"
Cyberman grimaced as he processed that. In a certain point of view, it made sense. Inyme had gotten very deep in without being detected, and suddenly giving herself up was highly suspicious....but he'd become a hero to protect people. To ensure that they got justice, not vengeance. And he knew Brightsky well enough to know that "justice" wasn't what was motivating her now.
Syndesis pulled over again, shoving her shoulder into his as he overcorrected, sending both of them off the edge of the highway. This time, however, he was ready, and landed running at the same time as she did, though he'd lost precious minutes that it'd now take to get back up to the top of the highway.Syndesis had shown exactly what she'd do if he attempted to jump it when she'd grabbed onto his leg with her hands and some kind of....tendrils....and dragged him back down with her own body weight to a bone cracking crash at the bottom.
Smashing through barricades, darting around cars, they sped along the highways. Reaching the upper stretch, Cyberman swerved to the side as Syndesis approached, luring her into overcommitting and slaming face first into a Tesla Prince that'd been standing in the middle of the highway. At the speeds they were traveling at, Syndesis barely had time to prepare, but the Clockwork exploded as she ripped through it, trailing red and black blood for a moment as her injuries healed themselves, but putting her back a couple hundred yards as Cyberman accelerated to the limit of what he could manage in the city limits. A little above, in fact, but he couldn't go to the point of breaking the sound barrier here. The collateral damage to other drivers....
He blinked as he saw another accelerating form, brilliant white, heading this way. As he did, he pulled to the side, blocking it from Syndesis's view as he pretended to swerve to prepare for her upcoming attack. As she did, Cyberman realized that, even as limited as he was right now, there was one advantadge he still had. Syndesis, for all her speed, had a reaction speed just slightly above human norm, unlike his own lightning reflexes. She relied on being able to take damage rather than avoid it....and damage wasn't what he needed right now. Which was why he jumped as the oncoming blur came closer. Syndesis's eyes looked up to follow him, before she heard the oncoming form and looked down, just in time to see the white and checker-patterned metal speedster hurtling towards her in the opposite direction at the same max speed, fists crackling with energy.
"Paragon Special Delivery!" Thrust SSC announced as her energized fist hit Syndesis in the gut at a relative acceleration of about the speed of sound. The kinetic transfer of the energy-laden punch hit her about as hard, and even as he came back to the ground, Cyberman heard ribs shatter at the impact as Syn was brutally clotheslined. The other speedster folded up and over Thrust's armored fist, before hitting the pavement facefirst and rolling, losing speed all the while as Cyberman opened the gap. He'd consider what to do about Syndesis later. Right now, he had to get to where Bright was, and fast.
Thankfully, if there was anything he was, it was fast.
***
Bill stared, frozen even as the electrical cage shorted out, at the prone red form for a second, before he heard a groan of pain and Nene forced herself to her feet. Where a reflective purple visor had been, the entire assembly had been snapped clear off by the arrow, and Bill could see it with the blunt end lying near the severely damaged piece of armored glass a few feet away. But for the moment, his attention was rooted onto the blue eyes now revealed in the helmet, which stared at him with rock hard determination.
"Now are you willing to talk? You see it, don't you? You're having this much trouble holding me off....are you willing to risk having to do the same with Alice? Do you really want to breach her trust that badly?"
"It's for her own good. That godDAMNED Rikti is in her head! And I will not see her turned into a puppet of those alien monsters. Not while I can prevent it," he noted, deadly serious, as Nene's eyes narrowed.
"Alice can choose for herself what's for her own good now. She's grown up. As much as we care about her. As much as we're afraid for her, we have to let go. It's hard. I want to take her in and protect her from everything too. I've barely known her for a year, and already I want to tuck her into bed and lock all the doors to keep the bad things away. But she's grown up. She's her own woman. She gets to make her own choices."
Nene pushed away the images of the broken picture frames she'd found earlier as she straightened herself and prepared for combat again, eyes blazing.
"I know you care about Alice. I know you only want what's best for her. But this is her life. Her decision. And she is my daughter and I will be lying broken, bleeding, and unconscious on the ground before I let anyone deny her the right to that!"
Bill considered the woman standing in front of him. He knew that, in a fight between them, he'd win. They'd done it before in the arena as part of the cross-training their two supergroups had arranged. He knew she knew it as well. But here she was, standing in front of him, essentially daring him to take her down to get to Alice.
And, a small part of his mind noted, she was right. He knew Alice. Even if she wasn't influenced by the Rikti, he'd have to take her down as well to force her to go away from the Rikti...and she'd hate him for it. He'd thought he could do it anyway. For her sake. Endure it. But looking at Nene ahead of him, a trickle of blood rolling down the side of her head from what he could see of it through her missing visor, he wondered if he could even do as much to her. Could he? In anger? Hadn't he thought that he had to do anything to protect Alice? He'd.....
Slowly, he shouldered his bow, as Nene waited, still apparently alert for a trick. She needn't have bothered. He couldn't do it. Couldn't force himself to harm both her and Alice in the process of trying to save the girl from something she might not even need saving from. Not when he wasn't sure....but....the Rikti....no. No, he couldn't.
Nene watched as Bill relaxed, and in fact the life seemed to drain out of him, the older man suddenly looking centuries older than he was. Silently, he turned from her, and she started breathing again as the golden light of an Ouroborus portal opened in front of him. She wanted to say more....to try to console him....but somehow, as he stepped into that column, she knew it wasn't her place to say anything. Not yet, anyway.
***
Brightsky barely kept herself from growling with irritation as she unloaded another fusillade of kicks and punches that hit empty air. Not because she wasn't getting near her target, but quite the opposite. There just happened to be a number of portals to other empty air between her and her target.
The Dark Watcher could feel his own endurance being taxed as he cast portal after portal, always shifting, always moving. An oblong at head height to avoid a right cross. A small one in front of his solar plexus to intercept a crane kick. A pair of ovals to avoid a pair of axe kicks that would hit with enough force to crush a small car. She was going all out and he knew that even the impervium plate underneath his clothing wouldn't stop the kinetic transfer of the impacts if she connected. The shock and pain was likely to cause him to lose focus, and while he didn't quite think she'd kill him, she'd definitely make sure he was out of the fight before moving on. And he didn't know how close they were, so he obviously couldn't risk that just yet. Brightsky was on top of her game: a Security Level 50 hero with almost a decade's worth of experience. Inyme had been here barely over a year and wasn't even wearing combat armor. Even if her powers hadn't gotten rusty in the meantime, she'd be smashed to a pulp before long.
That in mind, he dodged another hammerblow, creating a portal beneath Brightsky and lifting it upward, a trick he'd reserved to give himself some breathing room. If her flightspeed was constant, he had about thirty seconds to catch his breath before she came at him again.
***
"Cyberman!" a familiar voice called out over the com as he ran down the highway, heading for the city limits.
"I'm a little busy...." he started to respond as Purrfect Archer appeared on his HUD.
"Yeah, I know, but you're not going to be able to get through that way! Brightsky sealed off the blast doors before she headed outside!"
"She wh- of course she did," he grimaced. As he saw Alice bouncing towards him in several prodigious leaps, he considered his options. Even the best jumper couldn't get all the way over the War Walls, and opening the blast doors would take too long. And going through them, well that wasn't even...an....option...
Reaching back into his pack, he pulled out the device he'd secured while patrolling the Shadow Shard. The average person recognized the War Walls going down during a Rikti attack as their dropships breaking through. However, the actual science behind it was much more advanced. While Rikti ground forces could be warped about with relative ease without the War Walls interfering, that wasn't because they used a different frequency or anything from the dropships, but rather because of the relative amplitudes. Jamming all Rikti teleportation within the city limits would similarly jam all teleportation period. And given the city's dependence on medicomm, especially during the height of the first Rikti War, as well as the variety of teleporting heroes, that option was impractical. Instead, the War Walls generated a field that blocked higher amplitude teleportational events. The dropships needed these higher "bands" to move from the RWZ to the surrounding city, due to their significantly larger mass. Since nothing human would be teleporting through those bands, jamming them across the city was a fairly elegant solution. However, the Rikti had discovered around the time of the second Rikti Invasion that the War Walls' interference could be broken by a specialized wave disruptor that broadcast a counter wave to the interference generated by the War Walls. It took a lot of power to punch through, potentially explaining why the only one known in Paragon was mounted within the mothership itself, but Vanguard intel had suggested the Rikti were woworking on smaller versions to mount in their dropships that would allow them to punch through War Walls at will at any time. Cyberman had been brought in to stop this, and retrieved one of the disruptors in hopes of refining the War Walls' functionality to perhaps lock the Rikti back into the RWZ for the immediate future.
"Alice! I need you to fire something at the War Walls!"
"What? Why?"
"It'll cause a disruption in them that'll let us get outside! However, it'll only be open for a second, so I need you to hop on!"
"Uh....okay...."
A quick hop, skip, and a jump later and Alice's legs were wrapped around Cyberman's torso from behind as his own arms locked them in place. Alice, to her credit, didn't so much as flinch as she lined up the arrow on the walls, waiting for his signal as they bounced across several rooftops to get the elevation necessary.
"Now?" she asked as they came to an edge.
"Not yet....."
Alice gulped slightly as they leapt off the edge towards the War Wall, the energy curtain flickering ominously in front of them. "Now?"
"Not yet!"
They reached the apex of the leap Cyberman could sustain with a passenger and began descending, the wind whistling around them. Alice held her bow steady despite it, eye on the walls now without any other distractions. "Now?"
"Couple more seconds.....NOW!"
Alice released the arrow, which shot ahead with its improvised payload. Hitting the War Wall, it sparked and shuddered before exploding, the wall making a dull moaning noise as a rupture in the energy curtain appeared. Alice ducked forward against Cyberman as they slipped through the rapidly closing hole, before the pair landed on the road, Cyberman opening up to full throttle now that they were out of the city limits. "Find Inyme! Keep her safe!" he noted as he let Alice hop off. "I'll deal with Brightsky!"
"Right!" Alice noted, seeing smoke in the distance and bounding for it.
***
The Watcher heard the vague explosive noise of the War Walls disrupting for a split second, and felt grim satisfaction in the back of his mind. Cyberman had figured on exactly the way to bypass the most demanding obstacle to getting out here, which was why the Watcher'd arranged for him to be assigned to that particular interception mission. Now that he was here, he just had to hold off a little bit longe-
His breath came out in an explosive gasp as Brightsky turned an axe kick into a straight thrust for his sternum faster than he could react, his focus having been lead into looking up by her pattern as she switched to attacking from below. As he felt his armor take the blow and began falling to the ground, he noted that the girl had pattern recognition...but then, she'd always been good.
***
Brightsky watched the Watcher fall, making certain he was out of the fight for the moment. She'd heard the implosion too, and assumed it was Vanguard being creative in bringing in reinforcements. As it was, she made a streaking line towards the prison transport, reaching forward and punching off the lock on the rear doors as she swung them wide open. In the back of the trailer, the Rikti prisoner cowered, covering her face as Brightsky stepped inside. "You've caused a lot of people a lot of trouble...but that's going to end right here and now," she noted, hands clenching into fists. She got a step closer before the "cowering" Rikti immediately stiffened, Brightsky getting a split-second look at an all too human look of determination before her hand came out. Bright avoided it easily, but a part of her brain noted that the girl wasn't trying to punch her, just as the air literally vibrated between them as she threw all of her flight capability against the blow that was coming.
"Sorry, I don't feel like dying today," Inyme noted with quiet intensity before she shunted the full measure of her telekinesis against Brightsky at near point blank range.
***
Cyberman saw the white streak head into the trailer and blanched as he realized he was too late to stop her from doing what she was about to do, until he saw the same white streak exit the trailer through the roof at high speed in a parabolic arc, landing in a heap a few yards away. As he ran closer, he saw Bright's visible anger on her face at maximum magnification, and then his eyes widened as her hands came up, utilizing powers that he'd known she had, but that she didn't display due to liscense restrictions. The white bolts of energy shot forward as he ran towards her, hitting the transport with a concussive blast that flipped it over a few times before it came to a rest on its side about twenty feet from where it'd started, a strangled shout of non-articulate grief audible from behind him even as he forced himself to put Alice out of his mind and concentrate on Bright who was still very much a threat to Inyme's safety.
Brightsky forced herself to her feet, about to charge forward to make sure the job was done when a hand caught her by the shoulder. Reacting on instinct, she came around in a complete circle, one booted foot snapping her unknown pursuer's head to the sidewith unconsidered force. Brightsky started to follow up before she froze, looking at the man she'd just attacked. "....P-Pete?!"
Cyberman rolled his head back into position as he looked at her, and Brightsky felt her face burning at the disappointed expression on his face. "If I'd been anyone else, that might've snapped my neck," he noted evenly, causing a fresh burst of emotional confusion to slip into Bright's mind.
"I...I didn't mean t-"
"No, you didn't, but you could have. As angry as this whole situation has you, you could've lashed out and killed someone innocent. Someone else innocent, for that matter."
Bright stared for a moment as her eyes narrowed behind her goggles. "Like hell that Rikti thing is "innocent!" You know what she did! They were going to let her go!"
"Did you ever stop to think if that might be because she didn't do anything wrong that they could punish?" he replied evenly.
"She's a Rikti! A Rikti spy! We can't let her just get away!" Bright snarled back.
Cyberman looked at her again, his frown only slightly more pronounced. "Bright...Sam...this isn't you."
"What the hell is that supposed to mean?!" she shouted back at him, as confusion warred with anger openly in the back of her mind.
"It means you're a hero. Just like your father was. And even if the Rikti killed him, do you really think that this kind of thing is what he'd want you associating with his memory? Becoming a murderer?" he asked, quietly intent.
Bright started to make a retort as he spoke, before Cyberman used the two hammerblows that she'd been trying to ignore over the course of this whole impulsive plan.
"I...but they..."
"I know. They took so many things away from you...but not who you are. At least, not unless you go through with this," he said.
Bright wavered as the quiet reason applied with laser precision warred with the grief-mired rage that she hadn't felt this openly since immediately after her father'd died.
"Don't do this, Sam. It's not you. Let's just....go back home," Pete said softly, before her resistance crumbled entirely and she leaned against him, emotions completely in a state of helter-skleter mess.
"....okay. Damn it....okay."
***
Pain. That was what greeted her upon her exit from a temporary bout of unconsciousness. Inyme didn't know WHAT particularly had hit the trailer, but she hadn't been remotely secured when it did. Feebly, she forced herself to her hands and knees even as she felt broken ribs slide about in ways nature hadn't intended in her chest. Her left ankle screamed as she tried to put weight on it and she collapsed to the ground with a strangled sob, spitting up blood from where she'd bitten the interior of her mouth during one collision. The ringing in her head suggested a concussion of some kind, possibly even a fracture, but she had to get out of the trailer. Even if it exposed her, another barrel roll like that would probably put her in even worse condition. Crawling as she forced down the agony, Inyme pulled herself across the wall that'd suddenly become the floor, looking at the subtle crack of light between the doors. Odd shadows were cast from the jagged hole in the roof that she wouldn't trust herself climbing out of in her condition, and she choked down a scream as she pushed herself up somewhat to lean against the doors.
So total was her concentration on this task that she didn't notice when the wedged door shook itself free, merely anticipating the pain as she fell forward...and was caught by a pair of careful arms that supported her weight gently. She blinked, looking up through the haze as she caught sight of a familiar shock of purple hair and concerned...no...terrified green eyes. "Alice...you're here....I'm s-sorry...."
"Don't worry about it. It's okay. It's going to be okay," Alice said, holding her carefully, the other woman's pain screaming in her head, making her aware of the grievous condition Inyme was in. "There's an ambulance coming, just hold on."
"Hurts....and I'm...so tired...."
"I know it does, but you've got to hold on, Inyme. You have to stay with me..."
"S-sorry....so...tired...." she repeated. But....I'm...so happy...you're here... she 'pathed at Alice as her eyes surrendered to their heaviness and slid closed, Inyme going limp in her arms.
"Inyme? Inyme! INYME!"
[Akatsuki No Kuruma, Gundam SEED DESTINY ED 2]
***
Author's Note: Special thanks to Spud, Uni, and MD for being my usual sounding boards, as well as Acyl for some last second Syndesis accent coaching. Epilogue coming soon. Just....so tired. *ded*
Last edited by OpMegs on 18 Apr 2009 12:46, edited 1 time in total.
---
"Oh, silver blade, forged in the depths of the beyond. Heed my summons and purge those who stand in my way. Lay
waste."
You can’t live until you die…
You can’t tell the truth until you learn to lie…
You can’t breathe until you choke.
You’ve got to laugh when you’re the joke.
There’s nothing like a funeral to make you feel aliiiiiive!
Just open your eyes!
Just open your eyes and see that life is beautiful!
Will you swear on your life,
That no one will cry…
At my funeral?
I know some things that you don’t.
I’ve done things that you won’t.
There’s nothing like a trail of blood to find your way back home.
I was waiting for my hearse;
What came next was so much worse!
It took a funeral to make me feel aliiiiiiiiive!
- Sixx A.M., Life Is Beautiful
****
“So you’ll be fine on your own for a week or so?” Pete noted, leaning against the doorway, a small pack hanging over his shoulder filled with a variety of assorted gear for his trip.
Brightsky gave him a look, closing the map she’d been going over and walking up to him. “Honestly. I think I can be left to my own devices for at least that long. I promise, no wild parties with Syn hiring strippers or anything of the like until you’re back to enjoy it as well,” she smirked, chuckling at the expression that got. Stepping closer, Bright kissed him briefly, before breaking it and smiling. “Don’t worry. I’ve got plenty to keep myself occupied. Just get going. The sooner you do, the sooner I can welcome you home again,” she noted with a soft smile.
Pete smiled back, patting her on the shoulder as he stood away from the door. “Good point. Take care, Bright. I’ll see you when I get back.”
Bright watched as Pete stepped out of the building, switching to his Cyberman costume and zooming off at high speed. Truth be told, she was grateful for his absence.
After all, it was getting harder to hide her preparations.
Going back over to the table, she opened the map case again, going over the road routes from the Rikti War Zone, out to the city limits, cross referencing them with Vanguard compounds outside Paragon City proper. If the transport left at about 1300 hours…
She pulled out her phone as it buzzed, picking up. “Hello?”
“Hey there, Bright. Take a guess at what li'l ole me managed to...ah...stumble across.”
“You have the…”
“Yep. All neat and tidy and no one th'wiser. Looks like go time’s in 'bout a week or so. We’ll know more when th' time comes.”
***
So we're agreed," Gaussian noted, glancing around the table with a glare that suggested he might just break it barehanded at the next objection. Dark Watcher was the worst, with his vaguely worded suggestions that the second in command of Vanguard wanted the Rikti spy released... on a technicality, of all things, without Vanguard being able to ascertain anything about what parts of their security she may have jeopardized. In addition to what they already knew, of course.
It had been about a week since Inyme W’tin had turned herself in, simultaneously giving enough evidence to prove her confession true and simultaneously deny them any detailed knowledge about how much she really knew. Interrogation had proved fruitless, and aside from hints that the registered hero Purrfect Archer was somehow important enough to W’tin to risk revealing just how weak their psi-dampeners were compared to her powers, Gaussian had found nothing new, particularly due to Dark Watcher’s insistence that neither W’tin nor Archer be touched in the course of the investigation. Viewing the tapes, Gaussian could agree about leaving the young heroine and a member of Vanguard herself alone, if only to save whoever had to inform W’tin of it a potentially traumatizing experience, but the Rikti had proven resistant to everything Gaussian’s kid gloved hands could throw at her otherwise.
Which was why he’d argued to send her to a specialist within Vanguard. His own interrogators were used to POWs and defectors, not a politically sensitive(and that was the only thing Gaussian could think of that’d tie his hands thus) prisoner like W’tin. To his surprise, the Watcher had agreed, and in the face of no other opposition, Gaussian nodded.
“I’ll write up the orders within the hour. Honestly, the sooner she’s away from the frontlines the better anyway.”
***
It was a tired Nene Romanova that made her way into the house that afternoon. Tracking Alice had proven impossible whenever she vanished every so often these days, and Utena and Anthy had refused to say a word about where she had gone. Nene didn’t think that anything was amiss, really, but given all the emotions running high over the last week, it seemed like she’d failed again.
The house itself was silent and empty. Alice, of course, was missing. Sammy was off on some private errand. Ifrit, Nene had sent off to waste her anger on something, anything away from the base and home, where her instincts would continue to smolder over the flame of Inyme’s supposed betrayal despite Nene’s logic.
Walking through the house, Nene ran a hand over a small photo on the mantelpiece. A group image….Inyme sitting with Alice to one side, Nene and Ifrit on the other, and Sammy sprawled out on ground in front of the two couples. Thanksgiving, that’d been. Before the truth had come out. Before complications… A simpler time.
Heading up the stairs, Nene blinked as she noticed Alice’s door was open. Stepping in, she glanced around. From the looks of it, Alice’d taken another catnap while she’d been at work and left again before she’d come home. Nene sighed, rearranging the bed for when Alice would return, before she felt her foot bump up against something. Bending down, she reached under the bed and pulled out a knapsack which’d been hidden by the blankets. As she opened it, Nene browsed through the contents, and she felt her heart sink a little. Photos, a stuffed animal, a few scraps of paper….mementos, really. She’d done her research as well as Alice had, if not better. She recognized the girl’s biological parents. The trip to the RWZ early on made sense too, now. She’d gone to visit her home….her old home.
A part of Nene told her to be logical. Alice hadn’t been avoiding her adoptive family since that day…she was just still trying to piece together how she felt since Inyme’d shattered what she knew for certain about her life. But most of Nene couldn’t help but wonder why they’d been shoved under the bed where Nene or Ifrit were unlikely to find them. She wanted to believe it was a coincidence, but…
Taking a deep breath, she placed them back in the knapsack, returning it to where she’d found it. As tired as she was, she needed something to take her mind off things until she could find Alice and talk to her about it. Touching her watch, she summoned her armor, stepping out of the room and hopping out a retracting skylight as she leapt out into the city.
***
Inyme winced as light came into the cell again, looking up at the officers that came in. She couldn’t read them through their helmets, but their presence in such numbers meant she was being moved, and that meant only a few things. Then one of them unlocked her cuffs and she docilely accepted the mobile restraints, walking out of the cell and towards the front of the base. Checking her mental diagram of the base, she realized she was heading for the vehicle bay, off the secondary hallways. Which suggested wherever they were going wasn’t connected to the teleport grid.
As the possibilities flashed through her mind, she suppressed an expression of surprise as she saw the broad brimmed hat and dark trenchcoat that identified the second in command of Vanguard. As she was led into the heavy landmover and secured, she looked at him with suspicion, the dark skinned man saying nothing until he sat down across from her as they shut the door.
“Now then, Miss W’tin….I think we need to have a talk,” he said. “Mostly because, if I’ve read this situation right, a few things are about to happen. Some of them dangerous. And I’m going to need your cooperation so we can both get what we want out of this.”
Inyme gave him a skeptical look and the Watcher leaned back across from her. “First things first, we can start on how I knew about the fact you were a Rikti since a couple months after you got here…”
Inyme’s eyes widened, and her shock only grew as he continued…along with a tiny spark of hope.
***
“It’s go time, Bright,” Syndesis’s voice noted.
Brightsky nodded. “They’re using the expected route?”
“Yep. Probably don’t expect anyone but them an' the Rikti knows who they’re transportin', so they ain't too worried 'bout evadin' pursuit.”
“Well, thank heaven for small favors,” she noted, before looking up as she got a text. “…dammit.”
“What?”
“Code C. I guess I’ll have to hurry if I’m going to get this done before he gets back,” she noted, folding up the maps and strapping on her goggles.
“Right. This the part where you tell me t'stay out fer my own good?”
“Syn, you don’t need this. They might go light on me. They'll probably just throw you back into prison if you helped. I’m not taking you, or anyone, down with me in the off chance they disagree with my reasons,” she clarified, frowning.
“Uh huh. Sure. I’ll stay out of yer little FUBAR out there then, if it means that much t'ya. ‘Sides. You’ll need someone t'break you out if they toss you in the Zig.”
Despite the gravity of the situation, Bright chuckled. Just like her. “Somehow, I think that’s unlikely, but thanks for the thought,” she noted, hanging up and jumping out the window.
***
Nene blinked as the comm screen in the Legendary base’s main briefing room came up with an incoming call. She’d mainly been bouncing through the base to the teleport pads, but no one was on duty today except the answering service which would decide if the message was important enough to be shot up the chain of command. As it was, Nene hit the answer button -- and blinked as Alice showed up.. “…Alice?”
“Oh, uh…hi mum. Listen I know this is gonna sound crazy, but I’m headed for the RWZ now. I’m going to talk to Inyme….I need to talk to her. I know you, or Aunt Priss or a dozen others would try to try to stop me, but....trust me. Please. One way or another, I have to get this settled. Once and for all," she finished, looking her adoptive mother in the eye steadily.
Nene blinked, realizing once again that, as much as she'd worried about her, as much as this change had briefly sent her little girl into a tailspin, Alice was tough. She could handle herself as well as any ot them. Better than some. She considered telling her no for a split second, rejected the thought, and then nodded. “Of course, honey,” she said softly.
“Thanks. Love you, bye!” Alice said, before hanging up. Nene stood there for a moment, before a sense of hearing and gut instinct honed by avoiding other ADP officers as she'd sifted through the file room where she really wasn't supposed to be able to access alerted Nene as she heard someone quickly turn the other way before walking by the door. She immediately called up the security cameras, seeing William Bishop from their fisheye view as he stopped, then immediately made for the teleporter room.
Nene blinked in confusion, before she recalled Bill’s history…and it all clicked into horrific sense.
“Oh, shit,” she cursed as she turned and darted for the teleporters herself.
***
“We’ve just left Paragon City limits, sir,” the Vanguard officer in the front of the truck noted, leaning back into the passenger compartment. The Dark Watcher nodded, leaning back against his seat as Inyme processed the information, before looking up sharply as she caught a hint of a thought.
“What’s about to happen?”
That drew a chuckle from the dark-skinned man, as he looked up at her. “You are a sharp one, if you picked that up despite my trying not to worry you. Simply put, this is the prime location for an ambush. Which is why I expect a certain young lady to arrive just about now. Hopefully, I won’t have to get involved, but somehow, I doubt we’re that lucky.”
***
Jay Stewart was looking forward to getting out of town for a few days, away from all the craziness that Paragon City seemed to attract. This business trip should be nice and quiet, he noted as his car pulled towards the massive alloy doors that formed the main exits in the War Walls. No more villains, no more Rikti invasions, no zombies eating my lunch while I run for the nearest shelter…
Two seconds later, a flying white streak shot by his car so close he instinctively swerved to the side to avoid being hit. Several other cars reacted similarly, resulting in a four lane traffic jam as the ground-skimming form of Brightsky rocketed by at just sub-sonic speeds, stopping briefly to swipe her card through the main gate’s controls, authorizing a Rikti threat-induced lockdown. The guard in question only got a look at her Vanguard ID before he nodded, shaken, and hit the alarm. Brightsky smiled grimly at him before darting through the doors as the massive gates began shutting and sealing.
***
“Zulu Golf Niner, this is Convoy Control. We have an incoming bogey punching at just near supersonic, over. Prepare for potential interception.”
Major Scott Hearns nodded as he booted up the systems in his cockpit, sending the message down the line to Anders over in Zulu Golf Tango. “This is Zulu Golf Niner, confirming. Weapons free and ready, we are deploying.”
The two large trucks that were escorting the prison transport abruptly opened their top decks as a pair of Vanguard Warhammer-class heavy assault suits deployed from their stationary locked positions, weaponry and targeting sensors coming online, their torsos swiveling to meet the incoming potential threat.
***
“Registered Hero Brightsky, this is Convoy Delta Nine Control. This is restricted airspace. Please alter your flight path. Repeat, please alter your flight path.”
Brightsky ignored them, flying inbound. The longer they took trying to get her to break off, the longer it would be before the HVAS opened fire.
“Registered Hero Brightsky, this is Convoy Delta Nine Control. Abort your current flight path. Repeat, abort. You are on an interception path with a prison transport. Abort.”
One minute to intercept.
“Registered Hero Brightsky, abort your flight path! This is restricted airspace, and if you do not respond, we will open fire!”
Thirty seconds….twenty….ten…
“Registered Hero Brightsky, this is your final warning. Acknowledge and change course or you will be fired upon!”
Impact.
***
Zulu Golf Tango’s transport shook as the inbound flier hit it dead on, moving faster than anticipated. Anders released the clamps holding the HVAS in place to prevent the transport from rolling, even as the impact knocked them both off the transport’s deck and onto the ground around the highway. Brightsky didn’t take the time to stop and follow up on this, banking and rolling back into the air as plasma bursts and energy fire scoured the air from Zulu Golf Niner’s weapons, followed by tear gas grenades. Jinking and rolling, she slammed into it next, causing the forward transport to spin and squeal as its driver tried desperately not to jackknife. The prison transport’s driver slammed the brakes hard to avoid a collision even as Brightsky shot off into the distance, coming back around for another pass.
***
Inyme lurched, having not thought to brace herself like the Watcher apparently had, as the officer in front came back in.
“Sir, we’re under attack!”
“Resist as best you can. I’ll be joining you shortly,” the Watcher replied evenly, getting a shaky nod from the officer. Inyme could tell he was shaken and didn’t know why in the hell a registered hero and member of Vanguard was attacking them, but the Watcher seemed to be in control, so it wasn’t out of hand yet.
The Watcher meanwhile looked back over at Inyme. “Stay in here. Don’t get involved. I anticipated this, and frankly, in the mood she’s in, I don’t think my men can take her. So I’ll have to buy you some time,” he said, a portal opening in front of him. “Just stay alive. You’re more important than I think you have any idea about.”
Then he stepped through and was gone.
***
Pete stepped out of the Zulu Base portal, and immediately knew something was wrong. The Vanguard officers waiting for him weren’t the ones he’d take this mission on at the behest of, he didn't see the scientists that he'd requested to look over the dimensional tunneling hardware he'd managed to sneak out of the Rikti base, and every one of the men in front of him looked grim, with at least one looking outright angry. “Can I help you folks?” he asked conversationally.
“Yes, actually. You can tell us why the hell your woman just attacked a supposedly classified and top secret prisoner transfer after she cut off all land based methods of reinforcing its guard detail!” Officer Angry growled.
Pete blinked for a second, mind racing as he tried to catch up. “What?”
Officer Grim beside him frowned. “As of twenty minutes ago, registered hero Brightsky engaged a Rikti alert to seal the War Walls against exterior incursion, locking down the only ground route out of Paragon, then proceeded to engage the security detail around a prisoner transfer to Vanguard Central Headquarters in New York. At present, we’re aware that she’s engaged both the escort’s HVAS detail and troopers on the ground. That the exit time and route were kept top secret is, of course, a given. So we’re rather concerned about just what she’s trying to do,” he noted.
Pete winced, but not because of what they’d told him. The last week flashed by in rapid speed, various details sticking out. He’d thought something was odd. He should have seen it coming when the word had come down about Inyme. But she’d acted so normal otherwise that it just hadn’t occurred to him that she’d actually attack a Vanguard facility in an attempt to kill the woman.
Dammit, Sam. I thought you were past this.
“….right. I think I have an idea. I’ll be right back,” he noted, swapping to another costume and sliding his visor into place.
“Now, wait one second, here!” Angry started. “We can’t just let you tear of-“
Cyberman didn’t hear the rest. He was halfway across Peregrine, on a bee-line for the ferry back to the mainland as he remotely queried the Vanguard systems for where exactly Bright’s little altercation was. He hoped he was in time…
***
The RWZ stank. Not just the burning fumes and unnatural chemicals and the charred scent of burning flesh that anyone who recognized it could almost always detect on the wind. No. The RWZ stank of Rikti. It always had, ever since their mothership had crash landed here. Not that Bill had been prowling its lengths back then. Not before the pre-rumblings of a second Rikti War had brought him into this city and away from his cabin far away from all the craziness.
But now….now he was crossing it again, and this time not with yet another lethal confrontation with the Rikti hordes as the cause. Alice. That’s what it came down to. Cheerful, always smiling, probably better with a bow than he was on one of her good days. The girl that’d wormed her way into his heart without even trying in a way that almost made the pain of that day go away. Who made him remember that there was something more to this world than vengeance and hunting down every one of those blasted Rikti bastards till none of them were left. And then she’d been betrayed by them too. Not killed, thank God. If she had been, Bill was fairly certain he wouldn’t have stopped until either the Rikti race was dead or he was, likely the latter. But harmed just the same. In a way that he didn’t know how to work with. He’d never been good at that sort of thing with his older daughter. And this was a hundred times more complicated than that. Until she’d inadvertently given him something he could do.
She was going back to the Rikti that’d tricked her. Given her feelings in the matter, it wasn’t surprising she still didn’t know how she felt. But going back? That obviously wasn’t logic at work. Inyme’d been a Rikti. They were all telepaths. They got in your head and changed you. Clearly, this was Inyme’s doing. One last desperate attempt to get her out of Vanguard custody by using Alice as a shield and accomplice. Which meant he’d have to stop Alice before she got in the Rikti’s grasp again, before Inyme had a chance to exert her hold even further.
As he thought this, senses honed from decades of tracking experience warned him as a red armored figure landed in front of him with a thud that was almost too quiet for how much mass had just been catapulted over a distance that Bill expected had included hundreds of yards. He’d hoped to avoid this.
“Bill, I think we need to talk,” Nene Romanova, Net Sabre, noted, standing dead in between him and his target destination.
***
As Cyberman shot along the upper roads of Skyway, he absently noted that, even if this didn’t work, backup was on the way. He’d sent a message about the situation to the base as he’d headed across Talos, and gotten a receipt that the situation’d been noted. He wouldn’t be alone.
If Brightsky wasn’t in the mood to listen to reason, he’d probably not have a chance alone.
As he ran, however, he noticed an upcoming speedster behind him. A quick glance identified it as Syndesis, and Cyberman considered for a moment as she closed the distance between them that she might be coming to try to pull Bright out of the fire as well. Syn was one of Brightsky’s closest friends, regardless of her origin. And, for that matter, regardless of the fact neither would admit it openly, even if the way they interacted made it at least fairly obvious. He'd thought so, at least, but not everyone saw the same things. More importantly, she was also a bit more pragmatic than Bright’s tendency to leap into things first and plan later.
Cyberman was about to wave her over when Syndesis accelerated, hitting him from behind just as a turn came up. In fact, if he didn’t know better, it had to have been planned. Especially as they went off the edge, impacted the roof of the tram station a floor down, rolled off with momentum, hit the ground again, bounced through a fence, and promptly slammed to a stop against a concrete wall on the bottom floor of Skyway’s multi-layered architecture, about 70 yards down and 300 yards forward of where they’d started. Reacting without thinking, Cyberman’d rolled to shield Syndesis from the worst of the damage, but he still winced as her bones popped and snapped with the impact against him instead of the ground before they finally slid to a stop.
Intellectually, he’d always known Syn was tough. That her regenerative powers were considerable. Now, as he staggered to his feet, he saw firsthand proof in a way that he never had before, as Syndesis pulled herself up from the ground, bones knitting and realigning as he watched, until she barely looked as if she’d taken a scratch, except for her clothing. All in about five seconds.
“Sorry ‘bout that,” she smirked at him. “But I know where you’re going, and I’m afraid I can’t allow ya to go charging off at the moment.”
***
"Samantha, I think we need to talk," a calm, even voice noted beside her. She jerked, even as a portal opened up between herself and the HVAS she was on a collision course for. A second later, she was about two miles away from the stranded prisoner convoy, looking at the dark reflective glasses of the second in command of Vanguard. The Dark Watcher didn't seem at all threatened by her at the moment, and part of Brightsky's mind tried to remind her of exactly why that was. The Dark Watcher had been part of the original Freedom Phalanx, and the rumors about his combat prowess certainly suggested he hadn't achieved that lofty position by chance, the same being suggested about his current rank in the Vanguard. Of course, worse was that he didn't fight that often in public....leaving the question about just what he could do a bit hazy.
"What's there to talk about? You're letting her go. You're letting a spy with intimate knowledge of our defenses go free. I know how the system works. If we don't charge her for espionage, she'll be out in a couple months. And I know that you're pressing for that. Did she even get to you with her little defector act?"
"You don't know the entire situati-"
"I know enough. Enough to know that Vanguard isn't going to do what needs to be done. So that leaves me to do it. Even if it's against people I respect," she said, eyes invisible behind her omnipresent shades, before she turned and bolted towards the convoy.
The Dark Watcher sighed slightly as she left. He'd hoped to talk her out of this. But it seemed he'd have to play for time after all. As Brightsky neared the convoy, he gestured.
Brightsky had been expecting this trick again and rolled as a portal opened in front of her. More began to open as she did, taxing her skills to maneuver between them and maintain her momentum. She dodged another, but missed one opening in front of her path that she was dodging into, winding up yet again on the other side of the roadway from her target. Growling in irritation, she took off again, this time heading for the black cloaked man hovering in midair. She couldn't get at the convoy like this, so she'd have to take out the source of the interference first.
Dark Watcher felt his age as he saw Brightsky hurtle towards him. He'd known her father, albeit distantly. He'd seen her grow up during the first war. He'd seen to many like her grow up during the first war. He should've seen it coming. Should've prevented Nemesis from doing what he'd done. But he hadn't. The past was in the past. Which left him here, in the present, cleaning up the mess. As she closed, he concentrated on his powers, even as he mentally wished for the rest of the group to hurry and arrive. He wasn't as young as he used to be and holding off Brightsky without hurting her was going to require considerable skill.
***
"You heard what she said! She wants to see her alone!" Nene said as she bounced along behind Bill, taking what shots she could as they presented themselves. Unfortunately, he leaped over her electric fences without so much as a passing glance, and even draining his kinetic energy didn't slow him for long. She could possibly slow him down a lot more with....but no. She wasn't going to open fire on him. Not for this. Not like this.
Bill remained silent as he continued running. The wreckage of the Rikti War Zone gave him cover as he dodged Nene's various attempts to contain him. He understood her reasoning. He felt it himself. A part of him was proud of Alice. For bouncing back from the setback that she'd been presented with. A part of him was all too willing to believe she was going to confront the Rikti one last time, to let her know she had no hold on her before she came home.
But Alice was smarter than that. He knew she was. She would know what the Rikti were capable of. What Inyme was capable of. She wouldn't expose herself to this kind of danger if the Rikti traitor didn't have some kind of hook into her. It wouldn't be the first time that Bill had had to explain to a younger daughter something that she disagreed with for her own good. With luck, she'd thank him later. If not, he'd survive. So long as she did.
Nene growled behind her helmet even as she managed to siphon off a little extra speed. Giving up on staying behind him, she crouched and leapt forward, landing on a rooftop with years of practiced skill before jumping again, and again, and again. She knew he could hear her doing so. But while he had his tracking skills, she had her own, watching the glowing dot of his medicomm beacon change course as she did. Following him, she waited for the right moment, an open stretch of ground as they got closer to the crater, before leaping forward and landing in front of him. Now, she knew she had to do it.
Electricity leapt forward about his feet, snaring him for a crucial instant before it came to life again in concentrated bolts, a sphere of crackling ionization appearing around Bill as he was finally stopped. She landed, breathing hard, before looking up to face him. "That's....enough. We're going....to talk...this out...."
Bill felt himself growl in frustration as the electric cage crackled about him. He knew she could do it. In fact, he'd been expecting it earlier. But she'd held off till she could corner him in the open and had zero chance to miss. But even as the electricity sizzled about him, sapping his strength and holding him immobile, he grimaced, gritting his teeth as he pulled another arrow free. All he had to do was hit the gauntlets she was wearing....the ones controlling the tesla cage. One quick shot at this range would be easy, especially as she stared, dumbstruck, at him as he raised the bow and drew it back. One quick shot, and he'd escape, and she wouldn't be able to capture him again without going back for repairs. He'd get to Alice first. She began to react to the impossibility before her even as he took aim, closing one eye quietly. Her hands came up, but instead of lightning, he felt his arms weaken again as her powers sapped his strength. A part of him flinched as he let the arrow free too early, before he had time to adjust its trajectory towards its target. And he gaped in horror as Nene's head snapped back, the sharp crack of splintering transparisteel ringing through the air.
***
Alice's heart quickened in her chest as she caught sight of the front entrance of the Vanguard base, diving through the teleporter and coming to a stop in front of one of the sentries. "Inyme....the Rikti prisoner....I need to speak with her...." she panted.
The guard looked at her for a moment before consulting his datapad, before recognizing her. "Uh, I'm sorry, Miss Romanova, but she's already been transfered."
"Transfered? Where?" Alice's heart seemed to freeze in her chest for the long seconds that it took the man to check the details.
"She was being transfered out of Paragon, in order to keep her safe. They left about an hour ago and...."
Alarms blared as both of the duo's heads snapped up at the sound of a voice coming over the loud speakers. "Unknown metahuman is attacking Prison Convoy Bravo. Unknown metahuman is attacking Prison Convoy Bravo. Scramble all available mobile units to reinforce the convoy. Scramble all available mobile units to reinforce the convoy.."
Alice darted past the guard as he blinked, not knowing whether to stop her or not, before deciding that answering the scramble order was more important right now. As he headed for the chopper bays, Alice glanced at the holographic map showing the location of the convoy and headed for the Paragon City exit portal.
***
In hindsight, this should've been obvious as well, given Bright, Cyberman noted to himself as he ducked another punch launched at his head by Syndesis as the two ran up and down Skyway's massive streets, heading for the off ramp that led to Steel Canyon and the city limits themselves. Syndesis was playing up her durability for all it was worth. She'd already forced the issue by ramming him into a few cars. If she were any less durable than she was, she'd be a pulp smeared across the highway by now. As it was, even with his advanced construction, Cyberman was beginning to feel the wear and tear, and Syndesis didn't seem to so much as flinch when she collided with him again. He was faster than her, but inside city limits, without an emergency clearance, he was limited to the given speed limit for heroes, which meant that Syndesis could keep up with ease.
"Why are you doing this? We're on the same side!" He yelled over the slipstream as she came closer again.
"I ought t'say the same thing!" she yelled back. "I'm helping YER girlfriend. We're dealing wit' Rikti! Like we're supposed ta! Even if the others don't see it, you know her! Why ain'tcha helpin' us?!" she shouted back.
"We're heroes! We're supposed to uphold the law!"
Syndesis turned, her hair whipping in the wind. She smiled nastily.
"Hero? Maybe you are, tin man. Me, I just break stuff. But if yer talkin' serve and protect...'ey, one less alien freak THIS good at gettin' inta our ranks, safer everyone'll be, right?"
Her eyes flashed beneath the tinted lenses of her goggles. "Least that's what Bright says. And 'ey, I can get behind that reasoning!"
Cyberman grimaced as he processed that. In a certain point of view, it made sense. Inyme had gotten very deep in without being detected, and suddenly giving herself up was highly suspicious....but he'd become a hero to protect people. To ensure that they got justice, not vengeance. And he knew Brightsky well enough to know that "justice" wasn't what was motivating her now.
Syndesis pulled over again, shoving her shoulder into his as he overcorrected, sending both of them off the edge of the highway. This time, however, he was ready, and landed running at the same time as she did, though he'd lost precious minutes that it'd now take to get back up to the top of the highway.Syndesis had shown exactly what she'd do if he attempted to jump it when she'd grabbed onto his leg with her hands and some kind of....tendrils....and dragged him back down with her own body weight to a bone cracking crash at the bottom.
Smashing through barricades, darting around cars, they sped along the highways. Reaching the upper stretch, Cyberman swerved to the side as Syndesis approached, luring her into overcommitting and slaming face first into a Tesla Prince that'd been standing in the middle of the highway. At the speeds they were traveling at, Syndesis barely had time to prepare, but the Clockwork exploded as she ripped through it, trailing red and black blood for a moment as her injuries healed themselves, but putting her back a couple hundred yards as Cyberman accelerated to the limit of what he could manage in the city limits. A little above, in fact, but he couldn't go to the point of breaking the sound barrier here. The collateral damage to other drivers....
He blinked as he saw another accelerating form, brilliant white, heading this way. As he did, he pulled to the side, blocking it from Syndesis's view as he pretended to swerve to prepare for her upcoming attack. As she did, Cyberman realized that, even as limited as he was right now, there was one advantadge he still had. Syndesis, for all her speed, had a reaction speed just slightly above human norm, unlike his own lightning reflexes. She relied on being able to take damage rather than avoid it....and damage wasn't what he needed right now. Which was why he jumped as the oncoming blur came closer. Syndesis's eyes looked up to follow him, before she heard the oncoming form and looked down, just in time to see the white and checker-patterned metal speedster hurtling towards her in the opposite direction at the same max speed, fists crackling with energy.
"Paragon Special Delivery!" Thrust SSC announced as her energized fist hit Syndesis in the gut at a relative acceleration of about the speed of sound. The kinetic transfer of the energy-laden punch hit her about as hard, and even as he came back to the ground, Cyberman heard ribs shatter at the impact as Syn was brutally clotheslined. The other speedster folded up and over Thrust's armored fist, before hitting the pavement facefirst and rolling, losing speed all the while as Cyberman opened the gap. He'd consider what to do about Syndesis later. Right now, he had to get to where Bright was, and fast.
Thankfully, if there was anything he was, it was fast.
***
Bill stared, frozen even as the electrical cage shorted out, at the prone red form for a second, before he heard a groan of pain and Nene forced herself to her feet. Where a reflective purple visor had been, the entire assembly had been snapped clear off by the arrow, and Bill could see it with the blunt end lying near the severely damaged piece of armored glass a few feet away. But for the moment, his attention was rooted onto the blue eyes now revealed in the helmet, which stared at him with rock hard determination.
"Now are you willing to talk? You see it, don't you? You're having this much trouble holding me off....are you willing to risk having to do the same with Alice? Do you really want to breach her trust that badly?"
"It's for her own good. That godDAMNED Rikti is in her head! And I will not see her turned into a puppet of those alien monsters. Not while I can prevent it," he noted, deadly serious, as Nene's eyes narrowed.
"Alice can choose for herself what's for her own good now. She's grown up. As much as we care about her. As much as we're afraid for her, we have to let go. It's hard. I want to take her in and protect her from everything too. I've barely known her for a year, and already I want to tuck her into bed and lock all the doors to keep the bad things away. But she's grown up. She's her own woman. She gets to make her own choices."
Nene pushed away the images of the broken picture frames she'd found earlier as she straightened herself and prepared for combat again, eyes blazing.
"I know you care about Alice. I know you only want what's best for her. But this is her life. Her decision. And she is my daughter and I will be lying broken, bleeding, and unconscious on the ground before I let anyone deny her the right to that!"
Bill considered the woman standing in front of him. He knew that, in a fight between them, he'd win. They'd done it before in the arena as part of the cross-training their two supergroups had arranged. He knew she knew it as well. But here she was, standing in front of him, essentially daring him to take her down to get to Alice.
And, a small part of his mind noted, she was right. He knew Alice. Even if she wasn't influenced by the Rikti, he'd have to take her down as well to force her to go away from the Rikti...and she'd hate him for it. He'd thought he could do it anyway. For her sake. Endure it. But looking at Nene ahead of him, a trickle of blood rolling down the side of her head from what he could see of it through her missing visor, he wondered if he could even do as much to her. Could he? In anger? Hadn't he thought that he had to do anything to protect Alice? He'd.....
Slowly, he shouldered his bow, as Nene waited, still apparently alert for a trick. She needn't have bothered. He couldn't do it. Couldn't force himself to harm both her and Alice in the process of trying to save the girl from something she might not even need saving from. Not when he wasn't sure....but....the Rikti....no. No, he couldn't.
Nene watched as Bill relaxed, and in fact the life seemed to drain out of him, the older man suddenly looking centuries older than he was. Silently, he turned from her, and she started breathing again as the golden light of an Ouroborus portal opened in front of him. She wanted to say more....to try to console him....but somehow, as he stepped into that column, she knew it wasn't her place to say anything. Not yet, anyway.
***
Brightsky barely kept herself from growling with irritation as she unloaded another fusillade of kicks and punches that hit empty air. Not because she wasn't getting near her target, but quite the opposite. There just happened to be a number of portals to other empty air between her and her target.
The Dark Watcher could feel his own endurance being taxed as he cast portal after portal, always shifting, always moving. An oblong at head height to avoid a right cross. A small one in front of his solar plexus to intercept a crane kick. A pair of ovals to avoid a pair of axe kicks that would hit with enough force to crush a small car. She was going all out and he knew that even the impervium plate underneath his clothing wouldn't stop the kinetic transfer of the impacts if she connected. The shock and pain was likely to cause him to lose focus, and while he didn't quite think she'd kill him, she'd definitely make sure he was out of the fight before moving on. And he didn't know how close they were, so he obviously couldn't risk that just yet. Brightsky was on top of her game: a Security Level 50 hero with almost a decade's worth of experience. Inyme had been here barely over a year and wasn't even wearing combat armor. Even if her powers hadn't gotten rusty in the meantime, she'd be smashed to a pulp before long.
That in mind, he dodged another hammerblow, creating a portal beneath Brightsky and lifting it upward, a trick he'd reserved to give himself some breathing room. If her flightspeed was constant, he had about thirty seconds to catch his breath before she came at him again.
***
"Cyberman!" a familiar voice called out over the com as he ran down the highway, heading for the city limits.
"I'm a little busy...." he started to respond as Purrfect Archer appeared on his HUD.
"Yeah, I know, but you're not going to be able to get through that way! Brightsky sealed off the blast doors before she headed outside!"
"She wh- of course she did," he grimaced. As he saw Alice bouncing towards him in several prodigious leaps, he considered his options. Even the best jumper couldn't get all the way over the War Walls, and opening the blast doors would take too long. And going through them, well that wasn't even...an....option...
Reaching back into his pack, he pulled out the device he'd secured while patrolling the Shadow Shard. The average person recognized the War Walls going down during a Rikti attack as their dropships breaking through. However, the actual science behind it was much more advanced. While Rikti ground forces could be warped about with relative ease without the War Walls interfering, that wasn't because they used a different frequency or anything from the dropships, but rather because of the relative amplitudes. Jamming all Rikti teleportation within the city limits would similarly jam all teleportation period. And given the city's dependence on medicomm, especially during the height of the first Rikti War, as well as the variety of teleporting heroes, that option was impractical. Instead, the War Walls generated a field that blocked higher amplitude teleportational events. The dropships needed these higher "bands" to move from the RWZ to the surrounding city, due to their significantly larger mass. Since nothing human would be teleporting through those bands, jamming them across the city was a fairly elegant solution. However, the Rikti had discovered around the time of the second Rikti Invasion that the War Walls' interference could be broken by a specialized wave disruptor that broadcast a counter wave to the interference generated by the War Walls. It took a lot of power to punch through, potentially explaining why the only one known in Paragon was mounted within the mothership itself, but Vanguard intel had suggested the Rikti were woworking on smaller versions to mount in their dropships that would allow them to punch through War Walls at will at any time. Cyberman had been brought in to stop this, and retrieved one of the disruptors in hopes of refining the War Walls' functionality to perhaps lock the Rikti back into the RWZ for the immediate future.
"Alice! I need you to fire something at the War Walls!"
"What? Why?"
"It'll cause a disruption in them that'll let us get outside! However, it'll only be open for a second, so I need you to hop on!"
"Uh....okay...."
A quick hop, skip, and a jump later and Alice's legs were wrapped around Cyberman's torso from behind as his own arms locked them in place. Alice, to her credit, didn't so much as flinch as she lined up the arrow on the walls, waiting for his signal as they bounced across several rooftops to get the elevation necessary.
"Now?" she asked as they came to an edge.
"Not yet....."
Alice gulped slightly as they leapt off the edge towards the War Wall, the energy curtain flickering ominously in front of them. "Now?"
"Not yet!"
They reached the apex of the leap Cyberman could sustain with a passenger and began descending, the wind whistling around them. Alice held her bow steady despite it, eye on the walls now without any other distractions. "Now?"
"Couple more seconds.....NOW!"
Alice released the arrow, which shot ahead with its improvised payload. Hitting the War Wall, it sparked and shuddered before exploding, the wall making a dull moaning noise as a rupture in the energy curtain appeared. Alice ducked forward against Cyberman as they slipped through the rapidly closing hole, before the pair landed on the road, Cyberman opening up to full throttle now that they were out of the city limits. "Find Inyme! Keep her safe!" he noted as he let Alice hop off. "I'll deal with Brightsky!"
"Right!" Alice noted, seeing smoke in the distance and bounding for it.
***
The Watcher heard the vague explosive noise of the War Walls disrupting for a split second, and felt grim satisfaction in the back of his mind. Cyberman had figured on exactly the way to bypass the most demanding obstacle to getting out here, which was why the Watcher'd arranged for him to be assigned to that particular interception mission. Now that he was here, he just had to hold off a little bit longe-
His breath came out in an explosive gasp as Brightsky turned an axe kick into a straight thrust for his sternum faster than he could react, his focus having been lead into looking up by her pattern as she switched to attacking from below. As he felt his armor take the blow and began falling to the ground, he noted that the girl had pattern recognition...but then, she'd always been good.
***
Brightsky watched the Watcher fall, making certain he was out of the fight for the moment. She'd heard the implosion too, and assumed it was Vanguard being creative in bringing in reinforcements. As it was, she made a streaking line towards the prison transport, reaching forward and punching off the lock on the rear doors as she swung them wide open. In the back of the trailer, the Rikti prisoner cowered, covering her face as Brightsky stepped inside. "You've caused a lot of people a lot of trouble...but that's going to end right here and now," she noted, hands clenching into fists. She got a step closer before the "cowering" Rikti immediately stiffened, Brightsky getting a split-second look at an all too human look of determination before her hand came out. Bright avoided it easily, but a part of her brain noted that the girl wasn't trying to punch her, just as the air literally vibrated between them as she threw all of her flight capability against the blow that was coming.
"Sorry, I don't feel like dying today," Inyme noted with quiet intensity before she shunted the full measure of her telekinesis against Brightsky at near point blank range.
***
Cyberman saw the white streak head into the trailer and blanched as he realized he was too late to stop her from doing what she was about to do, until he saw the same white streak exit the trailer through the roof at high speed in a parabolic arc, landing in a heap a few yards away. As he ran closer, he saw Bright's visible anger on her face at maximum magnification, and then his eyes widened as her hands came up, utilizing powers that he'd known she had, but that she didn't display due to liscense restrictions. The white bolts of energy shot forward as he ran towards her, hitting the transport with a concussive blast that flipped it over a few times before it came to a rest on its side about twenty feet from where it'd started, a strangled shout of non-articulate grief audible from behind him even as he forced himself to put Alice out of his mind and concentrate on Bright who was still very much a threat to Inyme's safety.
Brightsky forced herself to her feet, about to charge forward to make sure the job was done when a hand caught her by the shoulder. Reacting on instinct, she came around in a complete circle, one booted foot snapping her unknown pursuer's head to the sidewith unconsidered force. Brightsky started to follow up before she froze, looking at the man she'd just attacked. "....P-Pete?!"
Cyberman rolled his head back into position as he looked at her, and Brightsky felt her face burning at the disappointed expression on his face. "If I'd been anyone else, that might've snapped my neck," he noted evenly, causing a fresh burst of emotional confusion to slip into Bright's mind.
"I...I didn't mean t-"
"No, you didn't, but you could have. As angry as this whole situation has you, you could've lashed out and killed someone innocent. Someone else innocent, for that matter."
Bright stared for a moment as her eyes narrowed behind her goggles. "Like hell that Rikti thing is "innocent!" You know what she did! They were going to let her go!"
"Did you ever stop to think if that might be because she didn't do anything wrong that they could punish?" he replied evenly.
"She's a Rikti! A Rikti spy! We can't let her just get away!" Bright snarled back.
Cyberman looked at her again, his frown only slightly more pronounced. "Bright...Sam...this isn't you."
"What the hell is that supposed to mean?!" she shouted back at him, as confusion warred with anger openly in the back of her mind.
"It means you're a hero. Just like your father was. And even if the Rikti killed him, do you really think that this kind of thing is what he'd want you associating with his memory? Becoming a murderer?" he asked, quietly intent.
Bright started to make a retort as he spoke, before Cyberman used the two hammerblows that she'd been trying to ignore over the course of this whole impulsive plan.
"I...but they..."
"I know. They took so many things away from you...but not who you are. At least, not unless you go through with this," he said.
Bright wavered as the quiet reason applied with laser precision warred with the grief-mired rage that she hadn't felt this openly since immediately after her father'd died.
"Don't do this, Sam. It's not you. Let's just....go back home," Pete said softly, before her resistance crumbled entirely and she leaned against him, emotions completely in a state of helter-skleter mess.
"....okay. Damn it....okay."
***
Pain. That was what greeted her upon her exit from a temporary bout of unconsciousness. Inyme didn't know WHAT particularly had hit the trailer, but she hadn't been remotely secured when it did. Feebly, she forced herself to her hands and knees even as she felt broken ribs slide about in ways nature hadn't intended in her chest. Her left ankle screamed as she tried to put weight on it and she collapsed to the ground with a strangled sob, spitting up blood from where she'd bitten the interior of her mouth during one collision. The ringing in her head suggested a concussion of some kind, possibly even a fracture, but she had to get out of the trailer. Even if it exposed her, another barrel roll like that would probably put her in even worse condition. Crawling as she forced down the agony, Inyme pulled herself across the wall that'd suddenly become the floor, looking at the subtle crack of light between the doors. Odd shadows were cast from the jagged hole in the roof that she wouldn't trust herself climbing out of in her condition, and she choked down a scream as she pushed herself up somewhat to lean against the doors.
So total was her concentration on this task that she didn't notice when the wedged door shook itself free, merely anticipating the pain as she fell forward...and was caught by a pair of careful arms that supported her weight gently. She blinked, looking up through the haze as she caught sight of a familiar shock of purple hair and concerned...no...terrified green eyes. "Alice...you're here....I'm s-sorry...."
"Don't worry about it. It's okay. It's going to be okay," Alice said, holding her carefully, the other woman's pain screaming in her head, making her aware of the grievous condition Inyme was in. "There's an ambulance coming, just hold on."
"Hurts....and I'm...so tired...."
"I know it does, but you've got to hold on, Inyme. You have to stay with me..."
"S-sorry....so...tired...." she repeated. But....I'm...so happy...you're here... she 'pathed at Alice as her eyes surrendered to their heaviness and slid closed, Inyme going limp in her arms.
"Inyme? Inyme! INYME!"
[Akatsuki No Kuruma, Gundam SEED DESTINY ED 2]
***
Author's Note: Special thanks to Spud, Uni, and MD for being my usual sounding boards, as well as Acyl for some last second Syndesis accent coaching. Epilogue coming soon. Just....so tired. *ded*
Last edited by OpMegs on 18 Apr 2009 12:46, edited 1 time in total.
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"Oh, silver blade, forged in the depths of the beyond. Heed my summons and purge those who stand in my way. Lay
waste."