*** Chapter 2 ***
“...and after they managed to get Reichsman on his way back to the Zig again, Echo confirmed with me that she’d been contacted after the fight by...something... as well. None of the others mentioned noticing anything like that,” Ifrit said as she sliced carrots for dinner.
Nene leaned back in her chair as she considered the story about how her wife’s day had gone. “Keep an eye out for someone calling himself Ramiel-”
“Will he be a giant shapeshifting D8?” Ifrit asked.
“No, he looks human enough,” Nene said, not favoring that joke with a response. “He showed up a while back to talk with me. He’s a Mender. And he did it shortly after I noticed my powers were getting stronger somehow,” Nene said, before adding a qualifier. “Without my armor.”
“You mean the Incarnate craze that everyone’s running into but nobody’s talking about that much,” Ifrit said, getting a nod from Nene. Enough of their own family had run into parts of it of late for it to not be much of a surprise.
“We’ve all noticed the power levels going up lately. It was small at first, but....” Nene shrugged. “And of the group you mentioned, you and Lisa are the only ones I can think of that haven’t run into that power spike yet. It’s possible this Well thing thought that non-Incarnates managing to take down a supercharged one that fast was worth its notice.”
Ifrit glanced at Nene, before chuckling as she chopped up another carrot. “Thank you, dear, for making random small talk about how my day had been much more serious and concerning than I had intended it to be.”
Nene laughed herself, a little nervously. “Well, sorry. Thinking’s what I do. At least my day was fairly normal? Reinstalling operating systems and teasing Priss at lunch. I’m afraid that’s the highlight.”
The front door opened, and Alice came in, pulling off her boots and placing them in the rack. “I smell food,” the catgirl commented.
“That you do, but there’s a wait,” Ifrit warned her, then looked over at Nene again. “What was that about teasing Priss?”
Seizing on a more mundane topic with vigor, Nene turned back towards her laptop as Alice headed for her bedroom, already stripping out of her body armor. “Just the usual stuff. I went out for lunch with her and Linna today, and Priss spent most of the time bitching and moaning, mostly about Sylia and that new kid she’s teaching. Linna and I responded in the traditional manner of course. It was almost too easy.”
The fae sighed, closing her eyes for a moment. “Nene.”
“What? It’s what we do. She moans, we tease. If the roles are reversed, she’d do the exact same thing.” Pausing, Nene gained a far away look in her eyes as she remembered many moments in her past. “Actually, she has done the exact same thing. Quite often. Especially on this very subject back in Mega-Tokyo.” She got another sigh for her effort, but Ifrit was smiling again, so she counted that as a success. “Anyway, arguing aside, she was a lot more cheerful by the time we were done.”
Finishing with the carrots, Ifrit placed them in a pot and turned to consider Nene. “So, she was really irritated?”
“Well, yeah? When isn’t she when she’s being teased?” Nene responded, quite reasonably. “It’s Priss.”
“This is a point,” Ifrit conceded, before continuing. “But still, she was irritated, genuinely so, before you started teasing her. Priss isn’t that high maintenance...and Sylia’s as bad as you can be when she gets working on a project. It’s why they’re good for each other...just like me, Priss is capable of doing other things when Sylia’s busy. But if she’s so busy that even Priss is complaining... well, what would I do in the same situation?” Ifrit asked, stoking the heat of the stove a little with her powers.
“You’d drag me away whether I wanted to or not, and then make sure I wanted to afterwards,” Nene chuckled.
“Exactly. Except Priss still feels awkward about that sort of thing. She’s not as... direct.”
“Priss... isn’t direct,” Nene said, raising an eyebrow skeptically.
“Not around Sylia. You’ve noticed it yourself,” Ifrit pointed out. “She’ll tell a Troll on her front lawn to fuck off while not wearing her armor, but she gets adorably shy whenever it comes to Sylia or their relationship, like she’s afraid she’ll offend the woman. As if Sylia isn’t fully aware of Priss’s general attitude.”
Nene blinked, before frowning slightly. “Y’know, I’d have thought even Priss had limits to that sort of thing.”“With anyone else, she would’ve reached them by now, I think,” Ifrit said. “But she really does love Sylia, so naturally she’d try to make allowances... it’s just in this case, Sylia really is just too busy to see it. If you and I are a bit busier than usual due to the Praetorians, what do you think someone with Sylia’s workaholic streak would be like?” she wondered, glancing over at her wife.
“... and now it’s my turn to thank you for turning an entertaining diversion into something I feel bad about. Thanks, hon,” Nene noted with a rueful smirk.
“I try,” Ifrit said innocently.
“Anyway, message received. I’ll look into it,” Nene said, typing another few keystrokes before setting her code to compile. “Incidentally, have you been hanging around Sachie a bit more lately? That sounds like the kind of thing she’d say... with more words, admittedly.”
“We all have our own specialties,” Ifrit said as she checked on the roast. “Ours just happen to run along similar lines in the social realms.”
“That was incredibly vague and unhelpful as an informative answer.”
“I know.”
***
“How reliable is this intel?” Kuro’s ‘customer’ asked. The dark-skinned Sabre managed a considerable feat of willpower by not tracing a blade into existence with her powers just to stab the blonde woman across the table from her. It wasn’t entirely the Gauche’s fault that she was a mentally screwed up nutcase behind the good looks.
The two Sabres’ mutual interaction had started as part of Utena’s operation to attempt to track down what had caused a group of Council robots to go rogue a week ago. The “operation” was rather loose on organization, and so Kuro had wound up on the same patrol as the other woman mostly by coincidence.
Gauche Sabre, real name Nanami according to her, had proven to be a receptive audience to Kuro’s gripes about how the operation had been run, admitting that she’d rather be doing her own hunting than chasing down a supposed cause for a few broken robots. When Kuro’d pressed further over the next week or so, she’d slowly teased out a few more details.
Gauche had been part of a testing cadre in the Scimitar program, and decided to break out along with her friends much like many of them did. The oversight for their particular facility had apparently been rather pragmatic and sent a Power Tank after them. The escape had resulted in the brutal deaths of Nanami’s entire team, the last of whom sealed a door to keep the Tank from pursuing Gauche while leaving herself behind as a sacrifice to slow it down. Nanami had escaped with the armor on her back, no names to assign blame to besides Crey, and (in Kuro’s opinion) a veritable motherload of psychological issues. Including but not limited to survivor’s guilt, PTSD, and suicidal inclinations, if Kuro’s psych eval training held up.
Naturally, the blonde had eventually joined up with Chang’s group of “special cases” who were more interested in seeing Crey burn than seeing any kind of justice for the greater populace, and while Kuro could sympathize, something kept her from considering that level of violent disregard for the consequences worth any gains made by taking Crey out of the picture permanently. The needs of the many outweighed the needs of the few, but the math on who was the many and who was the few when it involved a global corporation like Crey was fuzzy in Kuro’s opinion. It might be that the many needed Crey intact and providing services more than the Sabres needed vengeance and safety from them.
After all, that’s why you took the deal that got you out, isn’t it, Kuro? she noted to herself. She’d accepted a supposed “deep cover assignment” by Crey’s Scimitar branch specifically to counter any such revenge-minded monsters that Crey’s abuse created, hence the ‘inside joke’ of her own nom de guerre. That someone assigned to hunt down rogues would essentially also counter Crey’s own smear campaign against the Sabres by taking out the ones that were genuinely unstable and dangerous (and thus more useful to Crey’s PR alive) was an irony Kuro cherished. She still wasn’t sure why the Crey scientist that’d detected her budding sentience had offered her the deal rather than just wipe her brain outright. Guilt? Regret? Any way you sliced it, it didn’t matter now.
“Reliable enough,” she said, not reacting to the implied slight on her skills. Gauche didn’t know about her inside contacts at Crey and didn’t need to. “Director Giacamo Rizonno, formerly a minor member of one of the families associated with the Family, before he showed promise in other fields. Joined up with Crey and never looked back, though he definitely brought some of his relations’ ruthlessness to his own style of oversight in the projects he was assigned to. Promoted to head of the Nerva branch for his competence in ensuring you were the only escapee of your own attempt,” Kuro said, noting the fire that licked to life in Gauche’s eyes at that addendum. “He’s recently been assigned to something codenamed Memento, which is more innocuous sounding than what the project’s probably about. Crey’s egotistical, but at least intelligent enough not to name an important development something blatant like “Operation Götterdämmerung” or whatever. You’d need an ego that could blot out the sun to basically hang a “Hey! Shoot here first! Big evil plot here!” sign on your pet project. And he’s not part of the development staff as much as he was tapped for running security. Probably due to the aforementioned ruthlessness in ensuring deniability is maintained,” she said.
“So where is he at?” Gauche asked, practically chomping at the bit in impatience as Kuro watched. The woman suppressed a mental sigh. The blonde could at least be less bloodthirsty in her approach. As it was, Rizonno was likely to get away when Gauche did something stupid like going after him directly. It meant Kuro wouldn’t have to dirty her hands directly in putting down the little mad dog, but at least Gauche could have the courtesy of taking out her target before she was killed in the attempt. As it was, Kuro was probably going to have to hold her hand all the way to ensure that both birds were flying in the way of her stone when she threw it.
That said, Kuro’s aim was just a bit better than average.
“Don’t thank me, this is just business, alright?” she said aloud. “You can count on me calling in this favor later.” If she botched the job and Gauche survived, anyway.
“As long as Giacomo’s dead, I don’t care,” Gauche said with a disturbing equanimity. Kuro would’ve liked to know what she was going to pay in exchange for something like that were she in the yellow Sabre’s place. “Any price is worth putting him in the ground.”“Good, because I’m not cheap,” Kuro responded evenly, crossing her arms.
Gauche nodded, before glancing at her again and...smiling, just slightly. The expression transformed her from “good looking” to genuinely beautiful and made Kuro almost regret the fact that whatever woman would’ve worn that expression more often was long dead, killed as surely as Gauche’s partners at that facility over a year ago. ”Thank you, Counter,” she said. “This means a lot to me. Even if it’s just a job to you, I appreciate you being willing to help me. Most people would see it as just a grudge. Even Oni.”
Kuro shrugged uneasily. She found the concept of Reika Chang objecting to someone’s personal grudge as not worthy rather hilariously hypocritical, given the entire reason Chang Heavy Industries had been founded in Paragon, but she wasn’t about to say so when Gauche was probably bugged. “You’re welcome. Just remember it’s not charity. Once we pin him down, he gets put down, then we escape. No rescues. No crazy rampages to take it out on the facility. No abrupt decisions to commit suicide now that your sole purpose in life is done with. You commit seppuku after you pay me back.”
Gauche nodded again, the smile fading into a determined expression. “Deal.”
The quiet gratitude in that statement almost made Kuro feel guilty about the fact she was going to leave the broken woman to die at Crey’s hands after they took out the worryingly competent man responsible for breaking her in the first place.
Almost.
***
“Sylia, we need to talk. I know you’re taking the situation with Praetoria seriously, and you should, and I’m glad you’re working so hard - no, that’s no good. Sylia, I’m not trying to demean your work, you’re definitely the right sort of person to be helping Praetoria, and I’ll be behind you all the way - dammit!”
Frowning, Priss started pacing back and forth across the bedroom again, mumbling under her breath. She’d been at it for nearly an hour, trying to work up the courage to head down to the workshop and try to talk to Sylia. Instead, the usually fearless woman was doing nothing but working herself into a panic. Her frustration at Sylia’s obsession was almost completely forgotten now, replaced by a simple, terrifying thought.
Sylia Stingray had found herself a cause to fight for and a true evil to oppose, and Priss was unsure of where she fit into that cause.
Biting her lip, Priss dropped onto their bed. Closing her eyes, her hand brushed across the mattress, passing from her side into Sylia’s, the part of the bed that had been painfully empty since the day nearly eight months ago, when a train carriage had fallen through a hole in reality, taking Sylia with it, and leaving her wondering at the fate of the woman she loved.
She’d been confident at first. Sylia was a survivor. She’d survived being dropped into another reality before, thrived in fact. It was only a matter of time before the Sabres’ leader found her way home.
But then days turned into weeks, which turned into months. Months in which Priss woke up on one side of an empty bed, trying to suppress the fear that perhaps she’d found something she couldn’t overcome. Months of keeping up the brave face for everyone to see, even her family, because Priss Asagiri didn’t show weakness to anybody. Anybody except the woman she was terrified she’d never see again, that is.
And then, at long last, Sylia came back, from Praetoria of all places. That first night, she’d simply passed out in their bed, exhausted from six months of survival in an Orwellian city of telepathic police. Priss hadn’t manged to sleep at all that night, simply holding her, terrified that the dream would end and the woman would vanish again. The following day neither of them had left the house, both of them working to recover from their ordeals, simply talking, remaining close, indulging themselves...
… and the next day, Sylia continued her crusade, heading down into the workshop to prepare, and Priss found herself dealing with the sort of obsession her lover hadn’t had since before they met. She hadn’t been exaggerating to Nene and Linna. She’d only spoken to the woman at meals for the past two months, and even then, Sylia had been distracted, working on a laptop or PDA, usually responding to comments from Priss with one or two word answers at best.
It was beyond frustrating. It was actually terrifying. Even if she’d returned to Paragon City, Sylia Stingray was drifting away from her, and there was nothing Priss could do about it. A sob almost managed to escape the tight grip on her throat, and Priss curled up on the bed, utterly miserable.
***
“So, what do we have so far?” Utena said, looking over the map Juri had spread out across the dining room table of their apartment.
“Three separate examples at the moment. Council Zeniths here at a storage bunker at 32nd and Calico in Steel. A cargo ship had a hidden crate of Raider Jumpbots sitting in port at Talos, and a minor riot in Founder’s Falls that turned out to consist entirely of Nemesis automatons,” Juri said, tossing an amused look over her shoulder at where Anthy was working on her roses across the room. The dark skinned woman simply smiled back, not responding.
“So why are three separate packs of robots going crazy and attacking everything in sight?” Utena said. “None of them went far from where they activated and PPD managed to stop the second and third attacks without any hero assistance. If you were going to use it as a distraction, you’d do it all at once.”
Juri nodded. “We have several groups on patrol to see if any more turn up, but at present, there’s nothing streetside to suggest where to look next. We just have to wait until there’s another bit of chaos, it seems.”
“That sounds familiar,” Nene said as she stepped into the place. “Reminds me of back home... what I remember of it anyway,” she said. “We were like firefighters more than anything. Get a report off the ADP that some buma’d gone rogue, run off to stop it, get some sleep in parts between.”
“All that and holding down a real life job and a real secret identity. Sounds exhausting,” Utena said, tossing a can of pop to the redhead as she sat down.
Nene grabbed it out of the air and opened it, taking a long drink. “God, you’re a lifesaver.”
“Long day?” Juri asked from her spot beside the table, nursing a wineglass.
“Something like that. Work’s doubled since the Praets hit. Villains hitting areas that’re vulnerable due to lack of PPD presence, gang presence increasing. Got blackmailed into attending this “Citizens for a Greener Galaxy” rally instead of the Captain. Gordon’s a sneak. And isn’t it a little early in the day for wine?” Nene said, glancing at the other redhead.
“For one thing, it is never too early for wine,” Juri said archly with a quirk of a smile “And for the the other, it’s nearly six.”
Nene groaned, draping her head over the back of the chair as Utena laughed. “This day is going too fast. I’m going to join the Menders so I actually have sufficient time in a day to get everything done.”“Yes, because that wouldn’t be abuse of the position,” Utena laughed.
“It’d be a merciful bit of philanthropy for my schedule,” Nene sighed. “Anyway, you said you got one of the heads intact?”
“Yeah, it’s right in the closet,” Utena said. “Hey, Chu-chu! Bring out your roomie, could you?”
The necktie-wearing Rikti monkey made a chittering noise that somehow sounded like a rude gesture to Nene’s ears as Utena stuck her tongue out at him. Nonetheless, Chu-Chu hopped back into the hall, before returning shortly with a dented Jumpbot head, its neck cleanly severed.
“Mmm, smooth cut. Your work?” she asked, glancing at Utena.
“I figured you’d want at least one of them intact,” the pinkette said with a shrug.
Nene nodded, inspecting the neatly sliced neck stump, the cables inside visible as if someone’d shown her a cross section. Impressive, for someone going for a beheading in a heated battle. “Yeah, that’ll help. With luck, this thing doesn’t have a data dump built in to protect the sensitive bits. Or whatever activated it scrambled the ordinary functions. Either way, I’ll find out soon.”
“Will you be staying for dinner?” Anthy asked as she stepped into the room. “Utena’s preparing some stir fry and tomatoes.”“Nah, got one more stop for the day, I think,” Nene said with a sigh. “Though it sounds lovely. Bring some to the next staff meeting. I’ll put on weight at the rate we keep eating takeout when trying to plan the new patrol routes.”
“You don’t gain weight, but the point is taken,” Utena laughed.
“And besides, it’s nice to see your taste for the finer things in life extending,” Juri added.
“Geeze, ganging up on me, all of you,” Nene said with a laugh as she picked up the head and slid it into her bag.
“We do it because we care,” Anthy smiled.
***
Nene didn’t bother knocking or announcing her arrival as she entered Sylia and Priss’s home. It was habit more then anything else really. She’d visited often enough over the years that it didn’t strike her as unusual in any way.
What was unusual was the mess inside. Sylia had always put in a rather impressive effort of maintaining a tidy home, no matter how hard she was working. Priss never used to, but during Sylia's time in Praetoria, the woman had at least tried, out of a determination to have the home looking suitable for when Sylia returned. Now there was clothing on the couch, some music sheets and coffee mugs scattered over the coffee table, and the carpet was in dire need of a vacuum. Frowning, the redhead checked the kitchen, and caught sight of dishes stacked up in the sink.
Off the top of her head, Nene couldn’t remember a time when the Stingray household had been this messy, and her conversation with Ifrit came back to her. The fae was right. Something was seriously wrong here. A scowl began to form on her face as she kept looking around ahead of breaking into the workshop levels and giving Sylia a piece of her mind.
She was moving down the hallway when an odd noise caught her attention. Pausing, she glanced in the direction of the bedroom door. The noise repeated, and Nene blinked. That sounded like a....
Before she had any time to consider it further, she stepped forward and opened the door.
Inside, Priss looked up in horror, curled up on the bed. Nene took in the wide, red-rimmed eyes, the utterly miserable look on her face, the slumped shoulders, and then she was moving. Before Priss could manage anymore more then a small, shocked squeak (another sign of how off-balance the singer was), Nene was on the bed next to her, putting an arm over her shoulder. “I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “I didn’t realize how bad it had gotten.”
Stiffening, Priss looked at her, the embarrassment on her face warring with anger over the criticism Nene’s comment implied. Even with as messy as things had gotten, the woman would jump to defend Sylia almost instinctively. A moment later, however, her shoulders slumped again, her eyes closed, and she leaned against Nene as the sobs finally escaped.
“You know,” Nene said, once the other woman had finished. “This is not doing my reputation as the young, irresponsible one of our little quartet any favors.”
Priss managed a half-laugh at the joke, before looking up at her. “Why’re you here anyway?”
“In part because Ifrit would start giving me The Look if I didn’t check up on you,” Nene said reasonably. “And partially because she had a point. Though I have to say, you look like hell.”
“Gee, thanks,” Priss said, wiping at her eyes.
“Personally, I’d recommend dragging Sylia out of her lab kicking and screaming if you need to. Especially screaming, under the right circumstances...” Nene started, looking thoughtful.
“Nene...” Priss growled, as Nene shook her head at her.
“Really, Priss, what’s the deal? You’re not nearly pugnacious enough lately.”
“I thought you had all the answers already, Miss Nene 'Has Everything Under Control' Romanova,” Priss said irritably.
“I have guesses, but most of those are about cause and effect. What I don’t know is why you’re taking this shit,” Nene said, turning slightly so she could look at the other woman. When Priss gaped at her, Nene started counting points off on her hands. “You’re not seeing Sylia much lately. She’s working most of the day, not with you at night, and then she’s out on the front lines the rest of the time. She’s obviously either oblivious to your presence or ignoring you. You wouldn’t take this from a boyfriend, so what makes Sylia different?”
“You know what makes her different!” Priss practically snarled. “She’s... you know why,” she said, the fire dimming a little. “And I know why she’s busy. I know what she’s doing. It’s a good thing. She’s helping people. I’m just one person. I... I can wait.”
“Ennnnnnnnh! Wrong!” Nene said, poking Priss in the chest, bringing a small sound of protest from the singer. “It doesn’t matter that much to her. I got to see photos from the time you were attacked last year when that failsafe Nano had installed on her hijacked her. Sylia nearly killed the girl with her bare hands. No precision slashes and stabs. She just kept punching her until she stopped moving. Because what she felt for you overrode what she would’ve done normally. It made her angry. Whatever you think this cause of hers is, do you think she cares about it more than you?”
“Maybe,” Priss wavered. “You haven’t been here, Nene. You haven’t seen what she’s been like since she got back. It’s... it’s like back in Megatokyo. She’s on a Mission again, and it took essentially being dumped here in Paragon and finding out she wasn’t even the real Sylia Stingray to break her out of the last one. I don’t think I’m that persuasive.”
“So you’ve tried persuading her to stop?” Nene wondered. Priss looked back at her, slightly confused.
“Well, I’ve tried talking to her. She just sort of responds without actually talking to me. It’s like talking to Sachie.”
“If that’s your best comparison, you really need to look at this closer,” Nene said. “Have you outright tried to break the daze she’s in working all the time? Interrupt her? Distract her?”“Well... no...”“Kissed her while she’s not expecting it? Sat down on her workbench wearing nothing but a ribbon? Tied her down to the bed while she’s asleep? Physically taken the tools out her hands and thrown her over your shoulder? C’mon, Priss. I can’t believe you think you need written permission to be affectionate with your lover,” Nene said, as Priss colored again, this time a bit more in anger.
“It’s more complicated than that!”
“No, it isn’t,” Nene shot back. “You love her. You want to be with her. You haven’t been in weeks. This isn’t a one way street. Your needs are important too. Has she actually told you that she’s too busy for you?”“Well...no...”
“Then you don’t even know if she’s blowing you off or just that deep in the mission objective place that she doesn’t realize the time and hasn’t figured out how long she’s been at it. If it’s the former, you’ve got issues you need to work out. If it’s the latter, then the only way you get her to notice the situation is by making her notice,” Nene said firmly. “You don’t sit off here, winding yourself up over ‘might be’s or ‘could be’s. You go down, talk to her, and find out what IS.”
Priss stared at her, before Nene sighed. “Right, and to make sure that you do it, I’m going with you. But first, take a shower and get dressed. We’re not trying to scare Sylia out of her work rut.”
Nene was expecting the pillow that hit her in the face, but didn’t bother dodging it. It hid her smile as Priss stalked off for the bathroom, muttering under her breath about ‘busybody redheaded brats’.
***
“Right, this is your stop,” Janus said as the mini-sub breached the surface. “Welcome to the scenic Nerva Archipelago. Now get off my boat before the Spiders get ideas.”
“You’re all heart, Janus,” Counter chuckled as she finished sealing her helmet. Checking over her armor’s containment, she nodded mentally to herself. The external oxygen canisters would provide her with enough air to get to the edge of Primeva, and from there down to the underwater dock that serviced Crey’s main facility. Once inside, her cloak would keep her undetected. Her partner for this op, on the other hand...
Gauche, however, had demonstrated somewhat surprising stealth for someone whose armor was bright yellow. And she was fast. Assuming that Counter’s usual AV loop generator kept the main security cameras occupied, the two of them should have no trouble infiltrating the facility. Especially since the first thing Counter had done had been to paint one of Gauche’s suits in black and gray camouflage.
A small engine drone, almost like a torpedo but without the warhead, propelled them towards the underwater cavern, before drifting into the depths silently, to await Counter’s signal to return when she escaped later. The red and black Sabre went up first, slowly glancing about the underwater dock for security and then submerging again when her helmet recorded the positions of the various riot guards. Apparently the facility hadn’t been upgraded to fully armored security yet. Lucky for her.
Eventually, one of the guards made a mistake. Stepping past one of the Crey microsubs, he stepped out of view of his fellows, as well as in range of the water. There was a squeak and a yelled curse as he slipped on a leaked patch of oil from a small hole shot into the minisub, followed by a tremendous splash. A few of the other guards laughed as they looked at where the first was crawling out of the water. None of them noticed as Counter and Gauche slipped out of the water on the opposite side. Counter flickered into invisibility while Gauche simply blurred towards the nearest concealable position.
While the guards poked fun at their most unfortunate member, the two Sabres slipped past, moving deeper into the facility. A quick stop in one of the restrooms was an easy enough fix to render the two women dry so as to not leave wet splotches on the floor, before they made their way carefully towards one of the data centers. Sliding a contact probe out of her gauntlet, Counter attached it to a rear mounted USB port and then stepped back. Data began streaming over her and Gauche’s HUDs as Counter began surfing the internal network.
“It looks like he’s still here. No record of him leaving...and it’s not a huge facility, so finding him shouldn’t be too hard,” she murmured into her throat mike. Gauche grunted in reply, which Counter took as a reassuring sign, at least. No rabid frothing yet. Still, something bugged her. This entire operation was too easy. Even if this was a low priority project, why the lack of security guards?
This continued to bug Counter until a beep announced that her facial recognition program had found a match for Rizonno. She pulled up the feed, which showed the scientist talking with a man in a suit that didn’t seem to be Crey agent standard. Counter frowned as she tried to place the man. Silver hair wasn’t exactly a common attribute...
“..-ou understand the need for privacy of course. As much as these new weapons will do well with you in charge of testing them, I do not think that Crey would appreciate finding out that we plan to topple their rule of the financial world. Let alone what the heroes would do if they were to find out,” the suited man was saying.
“Indeed. Your weapon designs are incredible, Mr. Largo. But the upgrades you plan, these... apex weapons. They will take time to mass produce. Much less the H-class models. We will have to maintain strictest secrecy if your planned operation is to have any hope of success,” Rizonno replied, sounding pensive.
“The timetable is flexible. Every day, week, and month we remain undetected, the more deeply my prelude will worm its way into Paragon, paving the way for our army. The code already has an 88.54% infection rate. By the time we launch the strike, it will have achieved complete saturation of every potential point for reinforcements.”
Counter disabled the video feed as she began scanning files, brushing off the impatient protests from Gauche nearby. Whatever this was, it wasn’t a Crey op. Her database pulled up the name while she continued to shuffle through the facility’s files.
Maximilian Largo.
The man was wanted for countless crimes up to and including mass homicide and terrorism. If he was involved, this could potentially blow up much larger than she’d anticipated. And from the sounds of their conversation, he’d only gotten Rizonno here to offer him a job developing more weapons. Scanning the files, Counter found herself marvelling at the level of egotism. Nearly every system in the base was interconnected, allowing her access to almost anything now that she’d breached their security. They should at least have sealed off the mainframes, but even they seemed to have connections she could access.
Finally, she found it.
Under the file-head marked Memento (full name Project Memento Mori), there were plans for some new type of satellite....with a massive energy weapon mounted onto it. At present, one had been launched already, with another two to be added within the week.
Next to it were schematics for some new type of combat machine, though the term “machine” was too simplistic. The “biomechanical uniform machine androids” were far more effective than any pure machine would ever be, and almost immune to any kind of hacking attempt or virus due to their independent intelligence. The only thing that controlled them was something called the Overmind Control System. Wherever this O.M.S. was, however, wasn’t included in the files. Half the schematics were even missing, merely detailing how to build receivers to access its transmissions.
Orders were inside for construction of a massive tanker that would be filled with these new machines, and then moved to Paragon. Once there, a beachhead would be established around the central control repeater in Steel Canyon. Counter’s memory immediately called up the image of the massive tuning fork-shaped sky scraper that had been under construction for the last few months. From the look of the plans, the entire building wasn’t necessary, but had been used to conceal the central broadcast tower. However, the repeater seemed designed to broadcast separately from the OMS, which didn’t make sense unless there was a second set of receivers...
Counter almost jumped out of her skin as a Crey agent walked into the data center with her, but signalled for Gauche to remain still in her concealed place in a nearby closet. The man began accessing the terminal, but seemed unaware of her presence. However, Counter blinked when the man pulled up the video of Largo and Rizonno again.
“Of course, premature revelation of our plans could jeopardize everything,” Largo was saying. “We’ll have to be certain not to allow any spies to infiltrate this facility before the attack is launched.”
What was this agent doing? Was there another spy here already?
“Thankfully, if none of them are any better than the current little fly on the wall observing us, then we have nothing to fear,” Largo said, turning to look directly at the camera. “Dispose of her.”
“Yes, Master Largo,” the agent said, before turning around towards Counter. Counter traced her bow into one hand as she fired a bolt directly at the man’s face... only to blink behind her helmet as the shot hit dead on... and simply smashed through the man’s glasses. He grinned at her, before his eyes glowed blood red and he practically exploded out of his suit, revealing a massive body of blue artificial steel and muscle.
Counter bolted out of the way of the first lunge, managing to scramble out of the door as the bioroid followed her, keeping pace easily with her power assisted stride. Counter ducked around another corner, before sliding down to her knees as she passed a certain closet....and a red energy blade sliced through the door at neck level, taking the combat machine charging behind her’s head off before it even realized the danger. The bioroid crumpled into a heap that Counter hopped backwards over as it slid past her.
“We need to get out of here, now,” Counter said.
“What about-” Gauche started to protest.“He doesn’t matter. Not anymore,” Counter said. “This thing is bigger than any of us, and we have to get the intel out.”
Gauche growled under her breath, before Counter pointed an arrow at her. “You want to get yourself killed trying to take out your own personal demon, that’s your business. But you won’t have me backing you up. I have bigger priorities than just petty revenge. Truthfully, in all the chaos, you might do me a bit of good, leading them away. But then again, I might need you if more of these monsters come after us. So pick really quickly.”
Gauche stared at her for a long moment before twirling a blade in hand and driving it point first into the machine’s chest just as it began to force itself upwards again. Orange fluid geysered out of the wound as the bioroid went still once more.
“Fine. But you owe me. When this is over, we come back and finish the job,” Gauche hissed.
Counter shrugged. “Fine by me. Let’s go.”
That decided, the two ran towards the hangar, as Counter hoped that the supposed promise there wouldn’t get her killed in the end.
***
“I really can’t do this. I mean, maybe we should just leave a note or something,” Priss said as she came out of the bedroom, clean and dressed, but more together than she had been earlier.
“We’re not leaving a note, sending her a text, or hoping she checks her email,” Nene said. “And I don’t trust myself to be able to outhack Sylia’s own personal hardware, assuming she was even dumb enough to leave it connected to anything outside of her workshop, which strikes me as incredibly unlikely.” The redhead glanced at her friend and then sighed, before taking Priss’s hand. “So, are you going to walk, or am I dragging you?”Priss favored her with a glance that was equal parts incredulous and insulted, which was a better reaction than indecisive panic, at least. Still, the singer’s confidence wasn’t anywhere near what Nene considered normal for her (which would be ‘suicidally overconfident’ in most other people), and Nene wasn’t going to lose momentum. “Right. Henderson?”“Yes, Miss Romanova?” the voice of the apartment’s AI caretaker spoke up.
“Where’s Sylia hiding?”
“Miss Stingray is in the workshop, where she has been mostly undisturbed for most of the evening.”
“Did she put up the ‘do not disturb’ sign?”“Not to my knowledge, Miss. For one thing, Miss Asagiri is with you, and--”
“Thank you, Henderson!” Priss interrupted, as Nene broke out giggling at the singer’s bright red face.
“Seriously, Priss, you’re as bad as Sammy lately,” Nene said. “Now c’mon. Or I’ll tase you and drag you down there. Which would make waking you up to talk to Sylia very inconvenient for me.”
Priss peered at the hacker suspiciously as they walked down the hallway from the living room and Nene hit a button at the elevator at the end. “You wouldn’t do that.”“Maybe not. I might just use some ancient ninja nerve pinch,” she said serenely as the elevator descended.
While Sylia and Priss only really occupied the top three stories of the penthouse Sylia had bought and renovated, she’d also had a second elevator installed that led down to her home workshop... the only problem being that in order to prevent people from teleporting in by hijacking the grid, Sylia’d been forced to rely on a purely physical elevator. Going down twenty stories to get to the workshop generally meant that Sylia was more likely to do her work at the Silky Doll or her other, other workshop in Riot Base’s latest expansion. Besides the training grounds and the suit hangar, the “Sabre Sector” as some of the other Riot Force members had dubbed it had a set of small living quarters mostly intended to host new Sabres that had just escaped and had nowhere to live just yet. And Nene suspected that Sylia’d been crashing there a few times in the last couple of weeks as well. Similarly, the “Sabre Cave” would have similar provisions, if only because Sylia wouldn’t want to take a ten minute elevator ride up and down every time she wanted food or to use the restroom.
As they exited the elevator, Nene did a quick scan of the bunkroom and bathroom, finding Sylia in neither. Those areas dismissed, she grabbed a hesitant Priss by the arm again, dragging her forward into the main lab.
“Sylia, you in here?” Nene called as she walked forward.
“In here,” Sylia replied, stepping out of the workshop, wiping off her hands. Despite the mess upstairs, she seemed to not have changed all that much. Nene had hung around gearheads. Mackie was one, her sister-in-law was one, and more than a few heroes she knew were as well. Even when working with small components like their suits used, there was still grit and grime that could get on you. How Sylia managed to do the same thing while only managing a few artful smudges that just accented how much neater the rest of her looked, Nene would never understand.
“We’ve got a bit of a crisis, Sylia,” Nene began.
“Crisis? What sort of crisis?” Sylia said, glancing between the two of them.
“A personal one. Namely, I’m suspending your leadership for an indefinite time period,” Nene said calmly.
“What?” Sylia replied, equally calmly.
“WHAT?!” Priss blurted, much less calmly.
“It’s come to my attention that your work schedule is starting to resemble certain pre-Paragon standards, and as such, I’m revoking your command responsibilities and authority in order to get you to take a break.”
Sylia frowned at her. “Nene, this isn’t a very good joke. I’m not anywhere near like I was back in Megatokyo. I’ve been sleeping and taking meals in between work and time at home --”
“When’s the last time you and Priss had some time to yourselves?” Nene interjected.
“Just today. We discussed her music, over lunch,” Sylia said simply.
“Sylia... that was Tuesday,” Priss managed.
Sylia blinked. “Ah...”
“Last Tuesday.”
“More importantly,” Nene said, not one to lose momentum once she had it, “when was the last time the two of you had sex?”
Sylia turned to her. “I’m not sure how that’s any business of yours, Nene,” the Sabre leader said, a hint of censure in her tone.
“Humor me,” Nene said. “Then I’ll leave it alone.”“Well, it was...” Sylia said, trailing off as Nene and Priss watched their leader expertly and efficiently sift through her memory for the proper response. After a few moments, she frowned a little. “Well... the night after I got back from Praetoria.”
“Sylia, that was two months ago,” Nene pointed out. “And yeah, we’ve had Praetorian problems since then, but I don’t think that the Hero Sandwich crew are going celibate because of them. And before you start with the ‘they weren’t in Praetoria and so they don’t know how much of a problem the place is’ excuse, I have it on good authority that Valles and Lynna barely made it out of the shower the night after they got back before the two of them were all over each other, and I don’t think they have any signs of slowing down... well, new redheaded roommate aside, that is. Frankly, given how much that version of Rhea’s acting like she’s sleep deprived on the weekends, either she’s being kept up by their bedroom antics or joined in by now. Not sure which,” Nene said, before waving a hand in dismissal of the line of thought.
“Anyway, tangents aside, you have a problem. Specifically, you have a problem with problems. You like to solve them. You become extremely hyper-focused on solving them. And worse, you multitask well, so even when you’re forgetting something, you’re managing so many other things simultaneously that you tend to forget that you have limits to how much you multitask. And yes, normally, I’d expect Priss to complain louder too if she was feeling neglected, but she’s being strangely timid, and you’re being far too predictably focused, and so I get to be the blunt one,” the redhead finished, taking a breath after the extended rant.
Sylia looked from her to Priss, before she frowned slightly. “Priss... I... is Nene..”“Yes,” Priss said shortly, before the rest just came pouring out from behind the dam she’d been keeping in place for weeks now. “I know you’re concerned about everything, Sylia, and I know it’s important, and hell, Noel’s a good kid and she deserves someone to help her get out of the whole Big Brother is watching paranoia, but dammit, I think I’m worth a little time too!”
“You are, Priss, just...” Sylia said, trying to get a word in edgewise as the level to which she’d managed to be oblivious became clear.
“Just what?” Priss said. “Just what, Sylia? Just Noel is more important? Praetoria is more important? Should I just... just get out of the w--”
Priss's train of thought was obviously and abruptly interrupted by Sylia, who appeared to Nene to teleport from where she had been standing to pull Priss into a kiss that left no possibility of misinterpretation. The singer's eyes fluttered and closed. "(All lines are busy,)" Nene muttered under her breath, trying not to laugh and spoil the moment. "(Please try your call again later.)"
“Never,” Sylia said as Priss’s slow blinks indicated she was finally beginning to realize the kiss had ended a couple seconds ago. Though the dark haired woman was still holding her tightly. “Never think that any of that is more important to me than you. Or anything else.”
“Anyway, as I was saying,” Nene said, getting a startled jump out of both women. “As second in command, I’m temporarily relieving you of your duties. Since that puts me in charge, I’m assigning both of you to a mission someplace...tropical.” Truthfully, Nene was a little reluctant to interrupt the situation she’d just incited, but she did have something else to accomplish here.
Sylia raised an eyebrow while Priss just looked at her, puzzled. “Wait, what? Where?”
Nene declined to tease her on not keeping up. It’d be cruel to the poor girl when her brain was just collecting itself from the surrounding walls and crawling back into her skull after that kiss. “Just what I said. Indigo was calling us, something about some sort of weapons testing they’ve picked up rumors about from her agents in the South Pacific. Between Praetorians and other junk, she doesn’t have any eyes in the region. So the two of you are going to scenic Panau Island as a pair of tourists. The plane set to deliver you was scheduled for a couple weeks from now, but I moved your reservations up. It’ll help improve your cover and give you lots of time to not spy on the government,” Nene said with a meaningful smirk.
Sylia looked at her for a moment, before sighing and shrugging her shoulders. “Well, as the coup de tat has already happened, I guess I’ve no other recourse but to accept your terms,” she said with a faint smile. “I’m sorry you have to get dragged down in this with me, Priss.”Priss was still blinking every so often as she looked between the two, before shaking her head and chuckling. “Nene, you’re a busybody little redheaded brat.”
Nene gave her a look, which got another short laugh.“But thank you.”“Better,” she said. “And you’re welcome. Now pack your bags.”Sylia nodded, before glancing back at her. “Also, about Noel...”“It’s handled.”“And the S--”“Handled.”
“You didn’t even let me f--”“Handled! Sylia, you keep your day planner notes in three separate backed up locations. Just toss me your passcode and I’ll make sure it’s handled,” Nene laughed. “Go.”
Sylia laughed softly. “All right. We’re going.”“And make sure not to look like spies while you’re there!” Nene said as they stepped into the elevator.
***
What had seemed like a short job was rapidly becoming a lengthy nightmare as Counter and Gauche ran through the hallways, the sound of pounding footsteps always behind them. Counter dove as she reached another door, hitting the ground in a roll that allowed her to send an explosively overcharged bolt of plasma back at one of the pursuing bioroids. Its head snapped back, but Counter knew the shot had only stunned it. A second shot hit a door control, sending it slamming down... before it stopped.
Counter hissed in irritation, but the lowered door bought them time as the bioroids had to cut through them or wrench them open again. The things’ sheer size was working against them in most cases. But for some reason, it seemed almost all her well-honed tricks for manipulating pursuit weren’t working. And were being turned back against them in some cases. Doors would slam shut in front of them, herding them into paths of fire, forcing Counter and Gauche into fights they weren’t prepared to handle, or simply preventing them from using straightaways to gain distance on the bioroids behind them. Similarly, they seemed to open up paths of clear terrain for their enemies. Someone was in the system, controlling the facility like a chessboard.
Behind her, Gauche slid to a stop a moment before a bioroid tore out of a corner, taking its hand off with one blade as she spun around to remove the other. However, the creature opened its maw wide, revealing the barrel of the nasty particle cannon Counter had had too many close calls with. The black and red Sabre fired just as the machine did, blue white fire scouring Gauche’s shoulder as Counter’s own bolt took the creature in the mouth, detonating the weapon and blowing its artificial brain all over the back of the wall behind it in a spray of tangerine gore.
A brief shake of her head informed her Gauche wasn’t seriously injured, at least not in a way that’d slow them down, and Counter felt herself almost feeling optimistic about their chances as they finally spotted the dock ahead of them. Then her hopes sank as she saw several of the bioroids waiting for them... including one in bright red coloration that seemed to be built slightly differently. Counter doubted that’d be a good thing for them.
“I count six... even odds,” Gauche spoke up, as Counter blinked and glanced over at her. The yellow Sabre’s armor was showing through in several places, close calls with weapons fire having melted the waterproof paint that had been camouflaging her. But more notable was her stance. No weariness. Just determined.
Counter figured she’d had worse inspirations for action. “Looks like. Just a little further then.”“Once they’re all dead.”
“Ain’t that the truth.”
< Fate/Stay Night: Realta Nua OST - Mighty Wind >
Counter’s vision telescoped outward to catch the image of one of the bioroids’ eyes, firing a shot that sent a bolt of condensed energy, briefly given shape by her powers into a single arrow of searing white light, straight at it. The mechanical monster wasn’t going to be taken out so simply, but Counter grunted in satisfaction as its left eye burst. She pulled back for another shot. Three this time, the most she could get off before they reacted and started shooting and she’d have to get closer.
Gauche surged forward, and Counter took her presence into account, sending two bolts directly over her shoulders into the eyes of the bioroid ahead of her. The beast roared, blind, a second before Gauche flicked a switch on the hilt she was carrying, shifting its blade shape from a straight longsword into a downward edged dagger. Her other sword shifted as well, gaining the long curve of a katana as she ran in close, slicing the blinded bioroid from its nonexistent groin to its armored pectorals. Orange fluid sprayed.
Counter closed in, flickering in and out of view as her cloak switched frequencies to evade their detection, throwing off their aim. Magplates engaging on her boots, she shifted left, running up the wall beside her as her bow shifted into a curved blade of energy she’d only need for a split second...long enough to slash out the other eye of the half-blinded bioroid she’d targeted initially. Landing, she pumped more of her energy reserves into the blade, extending it and enhancing the heat of the edge. Her limited materialization powers couldn’t hold that shape for long, but it was long enough as she whirled in a circle, the blade taking the ankles out from under three of the bioroids just as Gauche leapt over her initial target, the red leader’s heavier plasma beam boiling through it to chase her and punching through a wall past that, going deeper into the facility.
Five left.
Gauche whirled in place, the bioroid lurching back to avoid her and losing its bottom jaw in the process. Counter didn’t even bother forming the bow she used to focus her aim, instinct taking over as she snapped off a shot, taking it in the roof of its mouth, punching through deep into its skull.
Four.
Gauche used the suddenly poleaxed bioroid as a platform, jumping over its collapsing body to slice at another which darted out of the way rather than give her a clear target. It lost several fingers and a chunk of its palm in the process as Gauche tried to adjust her aim. An explosive bolt from Counter threw another’s aim off, the blue particle beam punching through the ceiling above.
Another snapped out a pair of bayonets over its wrist as it slashed at her, Counter’s cloak taking a pair of vertical rents and ruining its stealth capability as the finely tuned garment’s projectors were damaged. Counter turned around, peppering the thing’s face with shots as Gauche forced another to backpedal lest it lose a leg. Counter jumped to the side as the air around her heated a few seconds ahead of the lead bioroid’s heat cannon incinerating where she’d just been standing. Gauche took a quick slice at it’s arm, only for the beast to absently raise an armored forearm, blocking the blow. Counter ran behind another of the smaller machines, ducking under a floor shattering punch while Gauche backflipped, a Crey mini-submarine rapidly gaining a gaping hole in its center as the water behind it flash-evaporated.
However, the thickness of the red bioroid’s armor gave Counter an idea. Slowing, she let one of the blue ones draw a bead on her, opening fire a second later... as she ducked behind the red commander. The particle beam scoured a hole in the monster’s armor, though not deep enough to significantly impair it. The machines backed up as they detected the likely plan of action of the two women. Counter ducked around another punch as she snapped a shot off, pinging one of the blue machines in eye. Gauche was there this time, and as Counter ran as fast as she could to avoid the red machine’s follow up shot at her, the yellow Sabre bounded forward, putting her longer blade through the bioroid’s chest. A shot from another bioroid forced her into a vertical leap, slicing the blade up and out , bisecting the upper half of the machine’s torso.
Three
Counter unloaded as many shots at one as she could, distracting it as bolts hit it repeatedly, leaving dings and gouges in its armor. Gauche ran in close, leaving deep rents in the armor before she leapt over another particle beam strike and jammed her long blade through the bioroid’s throat. Twisting, she pushed off, taking the bioroid’s head off as she did.
Two
The red commander began to charge up its weapon before it flinched back from a blast from Counter, it’s aim thrown off. The final blue bioroid had about five seconds to react before a large burning hole carved through the left side of its torso. Groaning metal echoed through the hangar as the machine collapsed to one side around the former location of a majority of its mass.
One
< Henry Jackman - X:Men: First Class Soundtrack - Sub Lift >
The red beast roared in frustration as it charged after Gauche, slamming a piece of mooring machinery aside while the yellow Sabre darted out of range. Counter leaped on top of another minisub to bounce an explosive bolt of the commander’s back before jumping again as it opened its arm, a trio of particle beam cannons riddling the sub with holes.
Gauche jumped up to slash at it, the machine pulling its exposed arm out of the way as she did, while Counter ricocheted a shot off the nearby wall into its face. The monster, blinded, lashed out savagely, but Counter was already moving. Jumping up and over the wreckage thrown its way, she ripped her own optical cloak off her shoulders, wrapping it around the red bioroid’s face. It turned, the cloak already sizzling as the cannon burned through it, but the temporary loss of vision was all that Counter needed, as she was out of its path of fire and the commander had no idea which way to pivot the blast. A single bolt shot through the cloak, hitting the heat cannon and scrapping it as the last of the cloak burned away, the bioroid resorting to tearing it off with its bare hands...and looking up as it felt a shadow descending on it from above.
Gauche came down on it, blades back in longsword configuration as she jammped both of them down the bioroid’s throat through the wreckage of the heat cannon. Orange liquid spouted out of the machine’s mouth before Gauche let her momentum pull her down its front, cutting the machine’s entire front armor plate open from the inside out and coating her in its artificial nutrient fluids. With a sickening gurgle, the machine staggered a step forward as Gauche ripped her blades out and turned, stabbing expertly into the cut she’d just made to drive both blades, point first, out its back. Wires sparked and sizzled as smoke emerged from where she’d hit its main power core. Withdrawing them, she jumped back as the shuddering heap that had seconds ago been a powerful combat machine fell face forward in a puddle of its own artificial blood.
“Well done.”
Counter whirled at the unexpected voice at the same time as Gauche, but it was already too slow to get out of the way. Air rippled between her and the silver-haired man that had just entered the hangar. She felt her ribs compress and snap as an invisible truck slammed into her chest, propelling her across the room into a nearby wall.
Gauche was about to leap at him when Largo glanced in the direction of several of the bioroid corpses she was standing about. There were a series of shrill beeps as the intact power cores remotely set themselves to overload and exploded around her, giving her no way to dodge.
***
When the dust settled, Largo looked over the wrecked hangar. Both of the Sabres seemed to still be alive, despite the damage he’d just inflicted, which was just as well. The suits could be useful replacement parts. He glanced behind to the pair of bioroid guards just walking in. “Remove the armor and throw them into the holding cells. We can’t afford to fall behind schedule.”
“Yes, Master Largo.”
***
Last edited by OpMegs on 22 Aug 2011 04:28, 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."
“...and after they managed to get Reichsman on his way back to the Zig again, Echo confirmed with me that she’d been contacted after the fight by...something... as well. None of the others mentioned noticing anything like that,” Ifrit said as she sliced carrots for dinner.
Nene leaned back in her chair as she considered the story about how her wife’s day had gone. “Keep an eye out for someone calling himself Ramiel-”
“Will he be a giant shapeshifting D8?” Ifrit asked.
“No, he looks human enough,” Nene said, not favoring that joke with a response. “He showed up a while back to talk with me. He’s a Mender. And he did it shortly after I noticed my powers were getting stronger somehow,” Nene said, before adding a qualifier. “Without my armor.”
“You mean the Incarnate craze that everyone’s running into but nobody’s talking about that much,” Ifrit said, getting a nod from Nene. Enough of their own family had run into parts of it of late for it to not be much of a surprise.
“We’ve all noticed the power levels going up lately. It was small at first, but....” Nene shrugged. “And of the group you mentioned, you and Lisa are the only ones I can think of that haven’t run into that power spike yet. It’s possible this Well thing thought that non-Incarnates managing to take down a supercharged one that fast was worth its notice.”
Ifrit glanced at Nene, before chuckling as she chopped up another carrot. “Thank you, dear, for making random small talk about how my day had been much more serious and concerning than I had intended it to be.”
Nene laughed herself, a little nervously. “Well, sorry. Thinking’s what I do. At least my day was fairly normal? Reinstalling operating systems and teasing Priss at lunch. I’m afraid that’s the highlight.”
The front door opened, and Alice came in, pulling off her boots and placing them in the rack. “I smell food,” the catgirl commented.
“That you do, but there’s a wait,” Ifrit warned her, then looked over at Nene again. “What was that about teasing Priss?”
Seizing on a more mundane topic with vigor, Nene turned back towards her laptop as Alice headed for her bedroom, already stripping out of her body armor. “Just the usual stuff. I went out for lunch with her and Linna today, and Priss spent most of the time bitching and moaning, mostly about Sylia and that new kid she’s teaching. Linna and I responded in the traditional manner of course. It was almost too easy.”
The fae sighed, closing her eyes for a moment. “Nene.”
“What? It’s what we do. She moans, we tease. If the roles are reversed, she’d do the exact same thing.” Pausing, Nene gained a far away look in her eyes as she remembered many moments in her past. “Actually, she has done the exact same thing. Quite often. Especially on this very subject back in Mega-Tokyo.” She got another sigh for her effort, but Ifrit was smiling again, so she counted that as a success. “Anyway, arguing aside, she was a lot more cheerful by the time we were done.”
Finishing with the carrots, Ifrit placed them in a pot and turned to consider Nene. “So, she was really irritated?”
“Well, yeah? When isn’t she when she’s being teased?” Nene responded, quite reasonably. “It’s Priss.”
“This is a point,” Ifrit conceded, before continuing. “But still, she was irritated, genuinely so, before you started teasing her. Priss isn’t that high maintenance...and Sylia’s as bad as you can be when she gets working on a project. It’s why they’re good for each other...just like me, Priss is capable of doing other things when Sylia’s busy. But if she’s so busy that even Priss is complaining... well, what would I do in the same situation?” Ifrit asked, stoking the heat of the stove a little with her powers.
“You’d drag me away whether I wanted to or not, and then make sure I wanted to afterwards,” Nene chuckled.
“Exactly. Except Priss still feels awkward about that sort of thing. She’s not as... direct.”
“Priss... isn’t direct,” Nene said, raising an eyebrow skeptically.
“Not around Sylia. You’ve noticed it yourself,” Ifrit pointed out. “She’ll tell a Troll on her front lawn to fuck off while not wearing her armor, but she gets adorably shy whenever it comes to Sylia or their relationship, like she’s afraid she’ll offend the woman. As if Sylia isn’t fully aware of Priss’s general attitude.”
Nene blinked, before frowning slightly. “Y’know, I’d have thought even Priss had limits to that sort of thing.”“With anyone else, she would’ve reached them by now, I think,” Ifrit said. “But she really does love Sylia, so naturally she’d try to make allowances... it’s just in this case, Sylia really is just too busy to see it. If you and I are a bit busier than usual due to the Praetorians, what do you think someone with Sylia’s workaholic streak would be like?” she wondered, glancing over at her wife.
“... and now it’s my turn to thank you for turning an entertaining diversion into something I feel bad about. Thanks, hon,” Nene noted with a rueful smirk.
“I try,” Ifrit said innocently.
“Anyway, message received. I’ll look into it,” Nene said, typing another few keystrokes before setting her code to compile. “Incidentally, have you been hanging around Sachie a bit more lately? That sounds like the kind of thing she’d say... with more words, admittedly.”
“We all have our own specialties,” Ifrit said as she checked on the roast. “Ours just happen to run along similar lines in the social realms.”
“That was incredibly vague and unhelpful as an informative answer.”
“I know.”
***
“How reliable is this intel?” Kuro’s ‘customer’ asked. The dark-skinned Sabre managed a considerable feat of willpower by not tracing a blade into existence with her powers just to stab the blonde woman across the table from her. It wasn’t entirely the Gauche’s fault that she was a mentally screwed up nutcase behind the good looks.
The two Sabres’ mutual interaction had started as part of Utena’s operation to attempt to track down what had caused a group of Council robots to go rogue a week ago. The “operation” was rather loose on organization, and so Kuro had wound up on the same patrol as the other woman mostly by coincidence.
Gauche Sabre, real name Nanami according to her, had proven to be a receptive audience to Kuro’s gripes about how the operation had been run, admitting that she’d rather be doing her own hunting than chasing down a supposed cause for a few broken robots. When Kuro’d pressed further over the next week or so, she’d slowly teased out a few more details.
Gauche had been part of a testing cadre in the Scimitar program, and decided to break out along with her friends much like many of them did. The oversight for their particular facility had apparently been rather pragmatic and sent a Power Tank after them. The escape had resulted in the brutal deaths of Nanami’s entire team, the last of whom sealed a door to keep the Tank from pursuing Gauche while leaving herself behind as a sacrifice to slow it down. Nanami had escaped with the armor on her back, no names to assign blame to besides Crey, and (in Kuro’s opinion) a veritable motherload of psychological issues. Including but not limited to survivor’s guilt, PTSD, and suicidal inclinations, if Kuro’s psych eval training held up.
Naturally, the blonde had eventually joined up with Chang’s group of “special cases” who were more interested in seeing Crey burn than seeing any kind of justice for the greater populace, and while Kuro could sympathize, something kept her from considering that level of violent disregard for the consequences worth any gains made by taking Crey out of the picture permanently. The needs of the many outweighed the needs of the few, but the math on who was the many and who was the few when it involved a global corporation like Crey was fuzzy in Kuro’s opinion. It might be that the many needed Crey intact and providing services more than the Sabres needed vengeance and safety from them.
After all, that’s why you took the deal that got you out, isn’t it, Kuro? she noted to herself. She’d accepted a supposed “deep cover assignment” by Crey’s Scimitar branch specifically to counter any such revenge-minded monsters that Crey’s abuse created, hence the ‘inside joke’ of her own nom de guerre. That someone assigned to hunt down rogues would essentially also counter Crey’s own smear campaign against the Sabres by taking out the ones that were genuinely unstable and dangerous (and thus more useful to Crey’s PR alive) was an irony Kuro cherished. She still wasn’t sure why the Crey scientist that’d detected her budding sentience had offered her the deal rather than just wipe her brain outright. Guilt? Regret? Any way you sliced it, it didn’t matter now.
“Reliable enough,” she said, not reacting to the implied slight on her skills. Gauche didn’t know about her inside contacts at Crey and didn’t need to. “Director Giacamo Rizonno, formerly a minor member of one of the families associated with the Family, before he showed promise in other fields. Joined up with Crey and never looked back, though he definitely brought some of his relations’ ruthlessness to his own style of oversight in the projects he was assigned to. Promoted to head of the Nerva branch for his competence in ensuring you were the only escapee of your own attempt,” Kuro said, noting the fire that licked to life in Gauche’s eyes at that addendum. “He’s recently been assigned to something codenamed Memento, which is more innocuous sounding than what the project’s probably about. Crey’s egotistical, but at least intelligent enough not to name an important development something blatant like “Operation Götterdämmerung” or whatever. You’d need an ego that could blot out the sun to basically hang a “Hey! Shoot here first! Big evil plot here!” sign on your pet project. And he’s not part of the development staff as much as he was tapped for running security. Probably due to the aforementioned ruthlessness in ensuring deniability is maintained,” she said.
“So where is he at?” Gauche asked, practically chomping at the bit in impatience as Kuro watched. The woman suppressed a mental sigh. The blonde could at least be less bloodthirsty in her approach. As it was, Rizonno was likely to get away when Gauche did something stupid like going after him directly. It meant Kuro wouldn’t have to dirty her hands directly in putting down the little mad dog, but at least Gauche could have the courtesy of taking out her target before she was killed in the attempt. As it was, Kuro was probably going to have to hold her hand all the way to ensure that both birds were flying in the way of her stone when she threw it.
That said, Kuro’s aim was just a bit better than average.
“Don’t thank me, this is just business, alright?” she said aloud. “You can count on me calling in this favor later.” If she botched the job and Gauche survived, anyway.
“As long as Giacomo’s dead, I don’t care,” Gauche said with a disturbing equanimity. Kuro would’ve liked to know what she was going to pay in exchange for something like that were she in the yellow Sabre’s place. “Any price is worth putting him in the ground.”“Good, because I’m not cheap,” Kuro responded evenly, crossing her arms.
Gauche nodded, before glancing at her again and...smiling, just slightly. The expression transformed her from “good looking” to genuinely beautiful and made Kuro almost regret the fact that whatever woman would’ve worn that expression more often was long dead, killed as surely as Gauche’s partners at that facility over a year ago. ”Thank you, Counter,” she said. “This means a lot to me. Even if it’s just a job to you, I appreciate you being willing to help me. Most people would see it as just a grudge. Even Oni.”
Kuro shrugged uneasily. She found the concept of Reika Chang objecting to someone’s personal grudge as not worthy rather hilariously hypocritical, given the entire reason Chang Heavy Industries had been founded in Paragon, but she wasn’t about to say so when Gauche was probably bugged. “You’re welcome. Just remember it’s not charity. Once we pin him down, he gets put down, then we escape. No rescues. No crazy rampages to take it out on the facility. No abrupt decisions to commit suicide now that your sole purpose in life is done with. You commit seppuku after you pay me back.”
Gauche nodded again, the smile fading into a determined expression. “Deal.”
The quiet gratitude in that statement almost made Kuro feel guilty about the fact she was going to leave the broken woman to die at Crey’s hands after they took out the worryingly competent man responsible for breaking her in the first place.
Almost.
***
“Sylia, we need to talk. I know you’re taking the situation with Praetoria seriously, and you should, and I’m glad you’re working so hard - no, that’s no good. Sylia, I’m not trying to demean your work, you’re definitely the right sort of person to be helping Praetoria, and I’ll be behind you all the way - dammit!”
Frowning, Priss started pacing back and forth across the bedroom again, mumbling under her breath. She’d been at it for nearly an hour, trying to work up the courage to head down to the workshop and try to talk to Sylia. Instead, the usually fearless woman was doing nothing but working herself into a panic. Her frustration at Sylia’s obsession was almost completely forgotten now, replaced by a simple, terrifying thought.
Sylia Stingray had found herself a cause to fight for and a true evil to oppose, and Priss was unsure of where she fit into that cause.
Biting her lip, Priss dropped onto their bed. Closing her eyes, her hand brushed across the mattress, passing from her side into Sylia’s, the part of the bed that had been painfully empty since the day nearly eight months ago, when a train carriage had fallen through a hole in reality, taking Sylia with it, and leaving her wondering at the fate of the woman she loved.
She’d been confident at first. Sylia was a survivor. She’d survived being dropped into another reality before, thrived in fact. It was only a matter of time before the Sabres’ leader found her way home.
But then days turned into weeks, which turned into months. Months in which Priss woke up on one side of an empty bed, trying to suppress the fear that perhaps she’d found something she couldn’t overcome. Months of keeping up the brave face for everyone to see, even her family, because Priss Asagiri didn’t show weakness to anybody. Anybody except the woman she was terrified she’d never see again, that is.
And then, at long last, Sylia came back, from Praetoria of all places. That first night, she’d simply passed out in their bed, exhausted from six months of survival in an Orwellian city of telepathic police. Priss hadn’t manged to sleep at all that night, simply holding her, terrified that the dream would end and the woman would vanish again. The following day neither of them had left the house, both of them working to recover from their ordeals, simply talking, remaining close, indulging themselves...
… and the next day, Sylia continued her crusade, heading down into the workshop to prepare, and Priss found herself dealing with the sort of obsession her lover hadn’t had since before they met. She hadn’t been exaggerating to Nene and Linna. She’d only spoken to the woman at meals for the past two months, and even then, Sylia had been distracted, working on a laptop or PDA, usually responding to comments from Priss with one or two word answers at best.
It was beyond frustrating. It was actually terrifying. Even if she’d returned to Paragon City, Sylia Stingray was drifting away from her, and there was nothing Priss could do about it. A sob almost managed to escape the tight grip on her throat, and Priss curled up on the bed, utterly miserable.
***
“So, what do we have so far?” Utena said, looking over the map Juri had spread out across the dining room table of their apartment.
“Three separate examples at the moment. Council Zeniths here at a storage bunker at 32nd and Calico in Steel. A cargo ship had a hidden crate of Raider Jumpbots sitting in port at Talos, and a minor riot in Founder’s Falls that turned out to consist entirely of Nemesis automatons,” Juri said, tossing an amused look over her shoulder at where Anthy was working on her roses across the room. The dark skinned woman simply smiled back, not responding.
“So why are three separate packs of robots going crazy and attacking everything in sight?” Utena said. “None of them went far from where they activated and PPD managed to stop the second and third attacks without any hero assistance. If you were going to use it as a distraction, you’d do it all at once.”
Juri nodded. “We have several groups on patrol to see if any more turn up, but at present, there’s nothing streetside to suggest where to look next. We just have to wait until there’s another bit of chaos, it seems.”
“That sounds familiar,” Nene said as she stepped into the place. “Reminds me of back home... what I remember of it anyway,” she said. “We were like firefighters more than anything. Get a report off the ADP that some buma’d gone rogue, run off to stop it, get some sleep in parts between.”
“All that and holding down a real life job and a real secret identity. Sounds exhausting,” Utena said, tossing a can of pop to the redhead as she sat down.
Nene grabbed it out of the air and opened it, taking a long drink. “God, you’re a lifesaver.”
“Long day?” Juri asked from her spot beside the table, nursing a wineglass.
“Something like that. Work’s doubled since the Praets hit. Villains hitting areas that’re vulnerable due to lack of PPD presence, gang presence increasing. Got blackmailed into attending this “Citizens for a Greener Galaxy” rally instead of the Captain. Gordon’s a sneak. And isn’t it a little early in the day for wine?” Nene said, glancing at the other redhead.
“For one thing, it is never too early for wine,” Juri said archly with a quirk of a smile “And for the the other, it’s nearly six.”
Nene groaned, draping her head over the back of the chair as Utena laughed. “This day is going too fast. I’m going to join the Menders so I actually have sufficient time in a day to get everything done.”“Yes, because that wouldn’t be abuse of the position,” Utena laughed.
“It’d be a merciful bit of philanthropy for my schedule,” Nene sighed. “Anyway, you said you got one of the heads intact?”
“Yeah, it’s right in the closet,” Utena said. “Hey, Chu-chu! Bring out your roomie, could you?”
The necktie-wearing Rikti monkey made a chittering noise that somehow sounded like a rude gesture to Nene’s ears as Utena stuck her tongue out at him. Nonetheless, Chu-Chu hopped back into the hall, before returning shortly with a dented Jumpbot head, its neck cleanly severed.
“Mmm, smooth cut. Your work?” she asked, glancing at Utena.
“I figured you’d want at least one of them intact,” the pinkette said with a shrug.
Nene nodded, inspecting the neatly sliced neck stump, the cables inside visible as if someone’d shown her a cross section. Impressive, for someone going for a beheading in a heated battle. “Yeah, that’ll help. With luck, this thing doesn’t have a data dump built in to protect the sensitive bits. Or whatever activated it scrambled the ordinary functions. Either way, I’ll find out soon.”
“Will you be staying for dinner?” Anthy asked as she stepped into the room. “Utena’s preparing some stir fry and tomatoes.”“Nah, got one more stop for the day, I think,” Nene said with a sigh. “Though it sounds lovely. Bring some to the next staff meeting. I’ll put on weight at the rate we keep eating takeout when trying to plan the new patrol routes.”
“You don’t gain weight, but the point is taken,” Utena laughed.
“And besides, it’s nice to see your taste for the finer things in life extending,” Juri added.
“Geeze, ganging up on me, all of you,” Nene said with a laugh as she picked up the head and slid it into her bag.
“We do it because we care,” Anthy smiled.
***
Nene didn’t bother knocking or announcing her arrival as she entered Sylia and Priss’s home. It was habit more then anything else really. She’d visited often enough over the years that it didn’t strike her as unusual in any way.
What was unusual was the mess inside. Sylia had always put in a rather impressive effort of maintaining a tidy home, no matter how hard she was working. Priss never used to, but during Sylia's time in Praetoria, the woman had at least tried, out of a determination to have the home looking suitable for when Sylia returned. Now there was clothing on the couch, some music sheets and coffee mugs scattered over the coffee table, and the carpet was in dire need of a vacuum. Frowning, the redhead checked the kitchen, and caught sight of dishes stacked up in the sink.
Off the top of her head, Nene couldn’t remember a time when the Stingray household had been this messy, and her conversation with Ifrit came back to her. The fae was right. Something was seriously wrong here. A scowl began to form on her face as she kept looking around ahead of breaking into the workshop levels and giving Sylia a piece of her mind.
She was moving down the hallway when an odd noise caught her attention. Pausing, she glanced in the direction of the bedroom door. The noise repeated, and Nene blinked. That sounded like a....
Before she had any time to consider it further, she stepped forward and opened the door.
Inside, Priss looked up in horror, curled up on the bed. Nene took in the wide, red-rimmed eyes, the utterly miserable look on her face, the slumped shoulders, and then she was moving. Before Priss could manage anymore more then a small, shocked squeak (another sign of how off-balance the singer was), Nene was on the bed next to her, putting an arm over her shoulder. “I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “I didn’t realize how bad it had gotten.”
Stiffening, Priss looked at her, the embarrassment on her face warring with anger over the criticism Nene’s comment implied. Even with as messy as things had gotten, the woman would jump to defend Sylia almost instinctively. A moment later, however, her shoulders slumped again, her eyes closed, and she leaned against Nene as the sobs finally escaped.
“You know,” Nene said, once the other woman had finished. “This is not doing my reputation as the young, irresponsible one of our little quartet any favors.”
Priss managed a half-laugh at the joke, before looking up at her. “Why’re you here anyway?”
“In part because Ifrit would start giving me The Look if I didn’t check up on you,” Nene said reasonably. “And partially because she had a point. Though I have to say, you look like hell.”
“Gee, thanks,” Priss said, wiping at her eyes.
“Personally, I’d recommend dragging Sylia out of her lab kicking and screaming if you need to. Especially screaming, under the right circumstances...” Nene started, looking thoughtful.
“Nene...” Priss growled, as Nene shook her head at her.
“Really, Priss, what’s the deal? You’re not nearly pugnacious enough lately.”
“I thought you had all the answers already, Miss Nene 'Has Everything Under Control' Romanova,” Priss said irritably.
“I have guesses, but most of those are about cause and effect. What I don’t know is why you’re taking this shit,” Nene said, turning slightly so she could look at the other woman. When Priss gaped at her, Nene started counting points off on her hands. “You’re not seeing Sylia much lately. She’s working most of the day, not with you at night, and then she’s out on the front lines the rest of the time. She’s obviously either oblivious to your presence or ignoring you. You wouldn’t take this from a boyfriend, so what makes Sylia different?”
“You know what makes her different!” Priss practically snarled. “She’s... you know why,” she said, the fire dimming a little. “And I know why she’s busy. I know what she’s doing. It’s a good thing. She’s helping people. I’m just one person. I... I can wait.”
“Ennnnnnnnh! Wrong!” Nene said, poking Priss in the chest, bringing a small sound of protest from the singer. “It doesn’t matter that much to her. I got to see photos from the time you were attacked last year when that failsafe Nano had installed on her hijacked her. Sylia nearly killed the girl with her bare hands. No precision slashes and stabs. She just kept punching her until she stopped moving. Because what she felt for you overrode what she would’ve done normally. It made her angry. Whatever you think this cause of hers is, do you think she cares about it more than you?”
“Maybe,” Priss wavered. “You haven’t been here, Nene. You haven’t seen what she’s been like since she got back. It’s... it’s like back in Megatokyo. She’s on a Mission again, and it took essentially being dumped here in Paragon and finding out she wasn’t even the real Sylia Stingray to break her out of the last one. I don’t think I’m that persuasive.”
“So you’ve tried persuading her to stop?” Nene wondered. Priss looked back at her, slightly confused.
“Well, I’ve tried talking to her. She just sort of responds without actually talking to me. It’s like talking to Sachie.”
“If that’s your best comparison, you really need to look at this closer,” Nene said. “Have you outright tried to break the daze she’s in working all the time? Interrupt her? Distract her?”“Well... no...”“Kissed her while she’s not expecting it? Sat down on her workbench wearing nothing but a ribbon? Tied her down to the bed while she’s asleep? Physically taken the tools out her hands and thrown her over your shoulder? C’mon, Priss. I can’t believe you think you need written permission to be affectionate with your lover,” Nene said, as Priss colored again, this time a bit more in anger.
“It’s more complicated than that!”
“No, it isn’t,” Nene shot back. “You love her. You want to be with her. You haven’t been in weeks. This isn’t a one way street. Your needs are important too. Has she actually told you that she’s too busy for you?”“Well...no...”
“Then you don’t even know if she’s blowing you off or just that deep in the mission objective place that she doesn’t realize the time and hasn’t figured out how long she’s been at it. If it’s the former, you’ve got issues you need to work out. If it’s the latter, then the only way you get her to notice the situation is by making her notice,” Nene said firmly. “You don’t sit off here, winding yourself up over ‘might be’s or ‘could be’s. You go down, talk to her, and find out what IS.”
Priss stared at her, before Nene sighed. “Right, and to make sure that you do it, I’m going with you. But first, take a shower and get dressed. We’re not trying to scare Sylia out of her work rut.”
Nene was expecting the pillow that hit her in the face, but didn’t bother dodging it. It hid her smile as Priss stalked off for the bathroom, muttering under her breath about ‘busybody redheaded brats’.
***
“Right, this is your stop,” Janus said as the mini-sub breached the surface. “Welcome to the scenic Nerva Archipelago. Now get off my boat before the Spiders get ideas.”
“You’re all heart, Janus,” Counter chuckled as she finished sealing her helmet. Checking over her armor’s containment, she nodded mentally to herself. The external oxygen canisters would provide her with enough air to get to the edge of Primeva, and from there down to the underwater dock that serviced Crey’s main facility. Once inside, her cloak would keep her undetected. Her partner for this op, on the other hand...
Gauche, however, had demonstrated somewhat surprising stealth for someone whose armor was bright yellow. And she was fast. Assuming that Counter’s usual AV loop generator kept the main security cameras occupied, the two of them should have no trouble infiltrating the facility. Especially since the first thing Counter had done had been to paint one of Gauche’s suits in black and gray camouflage.
A small engine drone, almost like a torpedo but without the warhead, propelled them towards the underwater cavern, before drifting into the depths silently, to await Counter’s signal to return when she escaped later. The red and black Sabre went up first, slowly glancing about the underwater dock for security and then submerging again when her helmet recorded the positions of the various riot guards. Apparently the facility hadn’t been upgraded to fully armored security yet. Lucky for her.
Eventually, one of the guards made a mistake. Stepping past one of the Crey microsubs, he stepped out of view of his fellows, as well as in range of the water. There was a squeak and a yelled curse as he slipped on a leaked patch of oil from a small hole shot into the minisub, followed by a tremendous splash. A few of the other guards laughed as they looked at where the first was crawling out of the water. None of them noticed as Counter and Gauche slipped out of the water on the opposite side. Counter flickered into invisibility while Gauche simply blurred towards the nearest concealable position.
While the guards poked fun at their most unfortunate member, the two Sabres slipped past, moving deeper into the facility. A quick stop in one of the restrooms was an easy enough fix to render the two women dry so as to not leave wet splotches on the floor, before they made their way carefully towards one of the data centers. Sliding a contact probe out of her gauntlet, Counter attached it to a rear mounted USB port and then stepped back. Data began streaming over her and Gauche’s HUDs as Counter began surfing the internal network.
“It looks like he’s still here. No record of him leaving...and it’s not a huge facility, so finding him shouldn’t be too hard,” she murmured into her throat mike. Gauche grunted in reply, which Counter took as a reassuring sign, at least. No rabid frothing yet. Still, something bugged her. This entire operation was too easy. Even if this was a low priority project, why the lack of security guards?
This continued to bug Counter until a beep announced that her facial recognition program had found a match for Rizonno. She pulled up the feed, which showed the scientist talking with a man in a suit that didn’t seem to be Crey agent standard. Counter frowned as she tried to place the man. Silver hair wasn’t exactly a common attribute...
“..-ou understand the need for privacy of course. As much as these new weapons will do well with you in charge of testing them, I do not think that Crey would appreciate finding out that we plan to topple their rule of the financial world. Let alone what the heroes would do if they were to find out,” the suited man was saying.
“Indeed. Your weapon designs are incredible, Mr. Largo. But the upgrades you plan, these... apex weapons. They will take time to mass produce. Much less the H-class models. We will have to maintain strictest secrecy if your planned operation is to have any hope of success,” Rizonno replied, sounding pensive.
“The timetable is flexible. Every day, week, and month we remain undetected, the more deeply my prelude will worm its way into Paragon, paving the way for our army. The code already has an 88.54% infection rate. By the time we launch the strike, it will have achieved complete saturation of every potential point for reinforcements.”
Counter disabled the video feed as she began scanning files, brushing off the impatient protests from Gauche nearby. Whatever this was, it wasn’t a Crey op. Her database pulled up the name while she continued to shuffle through the facility’s files.
Maximilian Largo.
The man was wanted for countless crimes up to and including mass homicide and terrorism. If he was involved, this could potentially blow up much larger than she’d anticipated. And from the sounds of their conversation, he’d only gotten Rizonno here to offer him a job developing more weapons. Scanning the files, Counter found herself marvelling at the level of egotism. Nearly every system in the base was interconnected, allowing her access to almost anything now that she’d breached their security. They should at least have sealed off the mainframes, but even they seemed to have connections she could access.
Finally, she found it.
Under the file-head marked Memento (full name Project Memento Mori), there were plans for some new type of satellite....with a massive energy weapon mounted onto it. At present, one had been launched already, with another two to be added within the week.
Next to it were schematics for some new type of combat machine, though the term “machine” was too simplistic. The “biomechanical uniform machine androids” were far more effective than any pure machine would ever be, and almost immune to any kind of hacking attempt or virus due to their independent intelligence. The only thing that controlled them was something called the Overmind Control System. Wherever this O.M.S. was, however, wasn’t included in the files. Half the schematics were even missing, merely detailing how to build receivers to access its transmissions.
Orders were inside for construction of a massive tanker that would be filled with these new machines, and then moved to Paragon. Once there, a beachhead would be established around the central control repeater in Steel Canyon. Counter’s memory immediately called up the image of the massive tuning fork-shaped sky scraper that had been under construction for the last few months. From the look of the plans, the entire building wasn’t necessary, but had been used to conceal the central broadcast tower. However, the repeater seemed designed to broadcast separately from the OMS, which didn’t make sense unless there was a second set of receivers...
Counter almost jumped out of her skin as a Crey agent walked into the data center with her, but signalled for Gauche to remain still in her concealed place in a nearby closet. The man began accessing the terminal, but seemed unaware of her presence. However, Counter blinked when the man pulled up the video of Largo and Rizonno again.
“Of course, premature revelation of our plans could jeopardize everything,” Largo was saying. “We’ll have to be certain not to allow any spies to infiltrate this facility before the attack is launched.”
What was this agent doing? Was there another spy here already?
“Thankfully, if none of them are any better than the current little fly on the wall observing us, then we have nothing to fear,” Largo said, turning to look directly at the camera. “Dispose of her.”
“Yes, Master Largo,” the agent said, before turning around towards Counter. Counter traced her bow into one hand as she fired a bolt directly at the man’s face... only to blink behind her helmet as the shot hit dead on... and simply smashed through the man’s glasses. He grinned at her, before his eyes glowed blood red and he practically exploded out of his suit, revealing a massive body of blue artificial steel and muscle.
Counter bolted out of the way of the first lunge, managing to scramble out of the door as the bioroid followed her, keeping pace easily with her power assisted stride. Counter ducked around another corner, before sliding down to her knees as she passed a certain closet....and a red energy blade sliced through the door at neck level, taking the combat machine charging behind her’s head off before it even realized the danger. The bioroid crumpled into a heap that Counter hopped backwards over as it slid past her.
“We need to get out of here, now,” Counter said.
“What about-” Gauche started to protest.“He doesn’t matter. Not anymore,” Counter said. “This thing is bigger than any of us, and we have to get the intel out.”
Gauche growled under her breath, before Counter pointed an arrow at her. “You want to get yourself killed trying to take out your own personal demon, that’s your business. But you won’t have me backing you up. I have bigger priorities than just petty revenge. Truthfully, in all the chaos, you might do me a bit of good, leading them away. But then again, I might need you if more of these monsters come after us. So pick really quickly.”
Gauche stared at her for a long moment before twirling a blade in hand and driving it point first into the machine’s chest just as it began to force itself upwards again. Orange fluid geysered out of the wound as the bioroid went still once more.
“Fine. But you owe me. When this is over, we come back and finish the job,” Gauche hissed.
Counter shrugged. “Fine by me. Let’s go.”
That decided, the two ran towards the hangar, as Counter hoped that the supposed promise there wouldn’t get her killed in the end.
***
“I really can’t do this. I mean, maybe we should just leave a note or something,” Priss said as she came out of the bedroom, clean and dressed, but more together than she had been earlier.
“We’re not leaving a note, sending her a text, or hoping she checks her email,” Nene said. “And I don’t trust myself to be able to outhack Sylia’s own personal hardware, assuming she was even dumb enough to leave it connected to anything outside of her workshop, which strikes me as incredibly unlikely.” The redhead glanced at her friend and then sighed, before taking Priss’s hand. “So, are you going to walk, or am I dragging you?”Priss favored her with a glance that was equal parts incredulous and insulted, which was a better reaction than indecisive panic, at least. Still, the singer’s confidence wasn’t anywhere near what Nene considered normal for her (which would be ‘suicidally overconfident’ in most other people), and Nene wasn’t going to lose momentum. “Right. Henderson?”“Yes, Miss Romanova?” the voice of the apartment’s AI caretaker spoke up.
“Where’s Sylia hiding?”
“Miss Stingray is in the workshop, where she has been mostly undisturbed for most of the evening.”
“Did she put up the ‘do not disturb’ sign?”“Not to my knowledge, Miss. For one thing, Miss Asagiri is with you, and--”
“Thank you, Henderson!” Priss interrupted, as Nene broke out giggling at the singer’s bright red face.
“Seriously, Priss, you’re as bad as Sammy lately,” Nene said. “Now c’mon. Or I’ll tase you and drag you down there. Which would make waking you up to talk to Sylia very inconvenient for me.”
Priss peered at the hacker suspiciously as they walked down the hallway from the living room and Nene hit a button at the elevator at the end. “You wouldn’t do that.”“Maybe not. I might just use some ancient ninja nerve pinch,” she said serenely as the elevator descended.
While Sylia and Priss only really occupied the top three stories of the penthouse Sylia had bought and renovated, she’d also had a second elevator installed that led down to her home workshop... the only problem being that in order to prevent people from teleporting in by hijacking the grid, Sylia’d been forced to rely on a purely physical elevator. Going down twenty stories to get to the workshop generally meant that Sylia was more likely to do her work at the Silky Doll or her other, other workshop in Riot Base’s latest expansion. Besides the training grounds and the suit hangar, the “Sabre Sector” as some of the other Riot Force members had dubbed it had a set of small living quarters mostly intended to host new Sabres that had just escaped and had nowhere to live just yet. And Nene suspected that Sylia’d been crashing there a few times in the last couple of weeks as well. Similarly, the “Sabre Cave” would have similar provisions, if only because Sylia wouldn’t want to take a ten minute elevator ride up and down every time she wanted food or to use the restroom.
As they exited the elevator, Nene did a quick scan of the bunkroom and bathroom, finding Sylia in neither. Those areas dismissed, she grabbed a hesitant Priss by the arm again, dragging her forward into the main lab.
“Sylia, you in here?” Nene called as she walked forward.
“In here,” Sylia replied, stepping out of the workshop, wiping off her hands. Despite the mess upstairs, she seemed to not have changed all that much. Nene had hung around gearheads. Mackie was one, her sister-in-law was one, and more than a few heroes she knew were as well. Even when working with small components like their suits used, there was still grit and grime that could get on you. How Sylia managed to do the same thing while only managing a few artful smudges that just accented how much neater the rest of her looked, Nene would never understand.
“We’ve got a bit of a crisis, Sylia,” Nene began.
“Crisis? What sort of crisis?” Sylia said, glancing between the two of them.
“A personal one. Namely, I’m suspending your leadership for an indefinite time period,” Nene said calmly.
“What?” Sylia replied, equally calmly.
“WHAT?!” Priss blurted, much less calmly.
“It’s come to my attention that your work schedule is starting to resemble certain pre-Paragon standards, and as such, I’m revoking your command responsibilities and authority in order to get you to take a break.”
Sylia frowned at her. “Nene, this isn’t a very good joke. I’m not anywhere near like I was back in Megatokyo. I’ve been sleeping and taking meals in between work and time at home --”
“When’s the last time you and Priss had some time to yourselves?” Nene interjected.
“Just today. We discussed her music, over lunch,” Sylia said simply.
“Sylia... that was Tuesday,” Priss managed.
Sylia blinked. “Ah...”
“Last Tuesday.”
“More importantly,” Nene said, not one to lose momentum once she had it, “when was the last time the two of you had sex?”
Sylia turned to her. “I’m not sure how that’s any business of yours, Nene,” the Sabre leader said, a hint of censure in her tone.
“Humor me,” Nene said. “Then I’ll leave it alone.”“Well, it was...” Sylia said, trailing off as Nene and Priss watched their leader expertly and efficiently sift through her memory for the proper response. After a few moments, she frowned a little. “Well... the night after I got back from Praetoria.”
“Sylia, that was two months ago,” Nene pointed out. “And yeah, we’ve had Praetorian problems since then, but I don’t think that the Hero Sandwich crew are going celibate because of them. And before you start with the ‘they weren’t in Praetoria and so they don’t know how much of a problem the place is’ excuse, I have it on good authority that Valles and Lynna barely made it out of the shower the night after they got back before the two of them were all over each other, and I don’t think they have any signs of slowing down... well, new redheaded roommate aside, that is. Frankly, given how much that version of Rhea’s acting like she’s sleep deprived on the weekends, either she’s being kept up by their bedroom antics or joined in by now. Not sure which,” Nene said, before waving a hand in dismissal of the line of thought.
“Anyway, tangents aside, you have a problem. Specifically, you have a problem with problems. You like to solve them. You become extremely hyper-focused on solving them. And worse, you multitask well, so even when you’re forgetting something, you’re managing so many other things simultaneously that you tend to forget that you have limits to how much you multitask. And yes, normally, I’d expect Priss to complain louder too if she was feeling neglected, but she’s being strangely timid, and you’re being far too predictably focused, and so I get to be the blunt one,” the redhead finished, taking a breath after the extended rant.
Sylia looked from her to Priss, before she frowned slightly. “Priss... I... is Nene..”“Yes,” Priss said shortly, before the rest just came pouring out from behind the dam she’d been keeping in place for weeks now. “I know you’re concerned about everything, Sylia, and I know it’s important, and hell, Noel’s a good kid and she deserves someone to help her get out of the whole Big Brother is watching paranoia, but dammit, I think I’m worth a little time too!”
“You are, Priss, just...” Sylia said, trying to get a word in edgewise as the level to which she’d managed to be oblivious became clear.
“Just what?” Priss said. “Just what, Sylia? Just Noel is more important? Praetoria is more important? Should I just... just get out of the w--”
Priss's train of thought was obviously and abruptly interrupted by Sylia, who appeared to Nene to teleport from where she had been standing to pull Priss into a kiss that left no possibility of misinterpretation. The singer's eyes fluttered and closed. "(All lines are busy,)" Nene muttered under her breath, trying not to laugh and spoil the moment. "(Please try your call again later.)"
“Never,” Sylia said as Priss’s slow blinks indicated she was finally beginning to realize the kiss had ended a couple seconds ago. Though the dark haired woman was still holding her tightly. “Never think that any of that is more important to me than you. Or anything else.”
“Anyway, as I was saying,” Nene said, getting a startled jump out of both women. “As second in command, I’m temporarily relieving you of your duties. Since that puts me in charge, I’m assigning both of you to a mission someplace...tropical.” Truthfully, Nene was a little reluctant to interrupt the situation she’d just incited, but she did have something else to accomplish here.
Sylia raised an eyebrow while Priss just looked at her, puzzled. “Wait, what? Where?”
Nene declined to tease her on not keeping up. It’d be cruel to the poor girl when her brain was just collecting itself from the surrounding walls and crawling back into her skull after that kiss. “Just what I said. Indigo was calling us, something about some sort of weapons testing they’ve picked up rumors about from her agents in the South Pacific. Between Praetorians and other junk, she doesn’t have any eyes in the region. So the two of you are going to scenic Panau Island as a pair of tourists. The plane set to deliver you was scheduled for a couple weeks from now, but I moved your reservations up. It’ll help improve your cover and give you lots of time to not spy on the government,” Nene said with a meaningful smirk.
Sylia looked at her for a moment, before sighing and shrugging her shoulders. “Well, as the coup de tat has already happened, I guess I’ve no other recourse but to accept your terms,” she said with a faint smile. “I’m sorry you have to get dragged down in this with me, Priss.”Priss was still blinking every so often as she looked between the two, before shaking her head and chuckling. “Nene, you’re a busybody little redheaded brat.”
Nene gave her a look, which got another short laugh.“But thank you.”“Better,” she said. “And you’re welcome. Now pack your bags.”Sylia nodded, before glancing back at her. “Also, about Noel...”“It’s handled.”“And the S--”“Handled.”
“You didn’t even let me f--”“Handled! Sylia, you keep your day planner notes in three separate backed up locations. Just toss me your passcode and I’ll make sure it’s handled,” Nene laughed. “Go.”
Sylia laughed softly. “All right. We’re going.”“And make sure not to look like spies while you’re there!” Nene said as they stepped into the elevator.
***
What had seemed like a short job was rapidly becoming a lengthy nightmare as Counter and Gauche ran through the hallways, the sound of pounding footsteps always behind them. Counter dove as she reached another door, hitting the ground in a roll that allowed her to send an explosively overcharged bolt of plasma back at one of the pursuing bioroids. Its head snapped back, but Counter knew the shot had only stunned it. A second shot hit a door control, sending it slamming down... before it stopped.
Counter hissed in irritation, but the lowered door bought them time as the bioroids had to cut through them or wrench them open again. The things’ sheer size was working against them in most cases. But for some reason, it seemed almost all her well-honed tricks for manipulating pursuit weren’t working. And were being turned back against them in some cases. Doors would slam shut in front of them, herding them into paths of fire, forcing Counter and Gauche into fights they weren’t prepared to handle, or simply preventing them from using straightaways to gain distance on the bioroids behind them. Similarly, they seemed to open up paths of clear terrain for their enemies. Someone was in the system, controlling the facility like a chessboard.
Behind her, Gauche slid to a stop a moment before a bioroid tore out of a corner, taking its hand off with one blade as she spun around to remove the other. However, the creature opened its maw wide, revealing the barrel of the nasty particle cannon Counter had had too many close calls with. The black and red Sabre fired just as the machine did, blue white fire scouring Gauche’s shoulder as Counter’s own bolt took the creature in the mouth, detonating the weapon and blowing its artificial brain all over the back of the wall behind it in a spray of tangerine gore.
A brief shake of her head informed her Gauche wasn’t seriously injured, at least not in a way that’d slow them down, and Counter felt herself almost feeling optimistic about their chances as they finally spotted the dock ahead of them. Then her hopes sank as she saw several of the bioroids waiting for them... including one in bright red coloration that seemed to be built slightly differently. Counter doubted that’d be a good thing for them.
“I count six... even odds,” Gauche spoke up, as Counter blinked and glanced over at her. The yellow Sabre’s armor was showing through in several places, close calls with weapons fire having melted the waterproof paint that had been camouflaging her. But more notable was her stance. No weariness. Just determined.
Counter figured she’d had worse inspirations for action. “Looks like. Just a little further then.”“Once they’re all dead.”
“Ain’t that the truth.”
< Fate/Stay Night: Realta Nua OST - Mighty Wind >
Counter’s vision telescoped outward to catch the image of one of the bioroids’ eyes, firing a shot that sent a bolt of condensed energy, briefly given shape by her powers into a single arrow of searing white light, straight at it. The mechanical monster wasn’t going to be taken out so simply, but Counter grunted in satisfaction as its left eye burst. She pulled back for another shot. Three this time, the most she could get off before they reacted and started shooting and she’d have to get closer.
Gauche surged forward, and Counter took her presence into account, sending two bolts directly over her shoulders into the eyes of the bioroid ahead of her. The beast roared, blind, a second before Gauche flicked a switch on the hilt she was carrying, shifting its blade shape from a straight longsword into a downward edged dagger. Her other sword shifted as well, gaining the long curve of a katana as she ran in close, slicing the blinded bioroid from its nonexistent groin to its armored pectorals. Orange fluid sprayed.
Counter closed in, flickering in and out of view as her cloak switched frequencies to evade their detection, throwing off their aim. Magplates engaging on her boots, she shifted left, running up the wall beside her as her bow shifted into a curved blade of energy she’d only need for a split second...long enough to slash out the other eye of the half-blinded bioroid she’d targeted initially. Landing, she pumped more of her energy reserves into the blade, extending it and enhancing the heat of the edge. Her limited materialization powers couldn’t hold that shape for long, but it was long enough as she whirled in a circle, the blade taking the ankles out from under three of the bioroids just as Gauche leapt over her initial target, the red leader’s heavier plasma beam boiling through it to chase her and punching through a wall past that, going deeper into the facility.
Five left.
Gauche whirled in place, the bioroid lurching back to avoid her and losing its bottom jaw in the process. Counter didn’t even bother forming the bow she used to focus her aim, instinct taking over as she snapped off a shot, taking it in the roof of its mouth, punching through deep into its skull.
Four.
Gauche used the suddenly poleaxed bioroid as a platform, jumping over its collapsing body to slice at another which darted out of the way rather than give her a clear target. It lost several fingers and a chunk of its palm in the process as Gauche tried to adjust her aim. An explosive bolt from Counter threw another’s aim off, the blue particle beam punching through the ceiling above.
Another snapped out a pair of bayonets over its wrist as it slashed at her, Counter’s cloak taking a pair of vertical rents and ruining its stealth capability as the finely tuned garment’s projectors were damaged. Counter turned around, peppering the thing’s face with shots as Gauche forced another to backpedal lest it lose a leg. Counter jumped to the side as the air around her heated a few seconds ahead of the lead bioroid’s heat cannon incinerating where she’d just been standing. Gauche took a quick slice at it’s arm, only for the beast to absently raise an armored forearm, blocking the blow. Counter ran behind another of the smaller machines, ducking under a floor shattering punch while Gauche backflipped, a Crey mini-submarine rapidly gaining a gaping hole in its center as the water behind it flash-evaporated.
However, the thickness of the red bioroid’s armor gave Counter an idea. Slowing, she let one of the blue ones draw a bead on her, opening fire a second later... as she ducked behind the red commander. The particle beam scoured a hole in the monster’s armor, though not deep enough to significantly impair it. The machines backed up as they detected the likely plan of action of the two women. Counter ducked around another punch as she snapped a shot off, pinging one of the blue machines in eye. Gauche was there this time, and as Counter ran as fast as she could to avoid the red machine’s follow up shot at her, the yellow Sabre bounded forward, putting her longer blade through the bioroid’s chest. A shot from another bioroid forced her into a vertical leap, slicing the blade up and out , bisecting the upper half of the machine’s torso.
Three
Counter unloaded as many shots at one as she could, distracting it as bolts hit it repeatedly, leaving dings and gouges in its armor. Gauche ran in close, leaving deep rents in the armor before she leapt over another particle beam strike and jammed her long blade through the bioroid’s throat. Twisting, she pushed off, taking the bioroid’s head off as she did.
Two
The red commander began to charge up its weapon before it flinched back from a blast from Counter, it’s aim thrown off. The final blue bioroid had about five seconds to react before a large burning hole carved through the left side of its torso. Groaning metal echoed through the hangar as the machine collapsed to one side around the former location of a majority of its mass.
One
< Henry Jackman - X:Men: First Class Soundtrack - Sub Lift >
The red beast roared in frustration as it charged after Gauche, slamming a piece of mooring machinery aside while the yellow Sabre darted out of range. Counter leaped on top of another minisub to bounce an explosive bolt of the commander’s back before jumping again as it opened its arm, a trio of particle beam cannons riddling the sub with holes.
Gauche jumped up to slash at it, the machine pulling its exposed arm out of the way as she did, while Counter ricocheted a shot off the nearby wall into its face. The monster, blinded, lashed out savagely, but Counter was already moving. Jumping up and over the wreckage thrown its way, she ripped her own optical cloak off her shoulders, wrapping it around the red bioroid’s face. It turned, the cloak already sizzling as the cannon burned through it, but the temporary loss of vision was all that Counter needed, as she was out of its path of fire and the commander had no idea which way to pivot the blast. A single bolt shot through the cloak, hitting the heat cannon and scrapping it as the last of the cloak burned away, the bioroid resorting to tearing it off with its bare hands...and looking up as it felt a shadow descending on it from above.
Gauche came down on it, blades back in longsword configuration as she jammped both of them down the bioroid’s throat through the wreckage of the heat cannon. Orange liquid spouted out of the machine’s mouth before Gauche let her momentum pull her down its front, cutting the machine’s entire front armor plate open from the inside out and coating her in its artificial nutrient fluids. With a sickening gurgle, the machine staggered a step forward as Gauche ripped her blades out and turned, stabbing expertly into the cut she’d just made to drive both blades, point first, out its back. Wires sparked and sizzled as smoke emerged from where she’d hit its main power core. Withdrawing them, she jumped back as the shuddering heap that had seconds ago been a powerful combat machine fell face forward in a puddle of its own artificial blood.
“Well done.”
Counter whirled at the unexpected voice at the same time as Gauche, but it was already too slow to get out of the way. Air rippled between her and the silver-haired man that had just entered the hangar. She felt her ribs compress and snap as an invisible truck slammed into her chest, propelling her across the room into a nearby wall.
Gauche was about to leap at him when Largo glanced in the direction of several of the bioroid corpses she was standing about. There were a series of shrill beeps as the intact power cores remotely set themselves to overload and exploded around her, giving her no way to dodge.
***
When the dust settled, Largo looked over the wrecked hangar. Both of the Sabres seemed to still be alive, despite the damage he’d just inflicted, which was just as well. The suits could be useful replacement parts. He glanced behind to the pair of bioroid guards just walking in. “Remove the armor and throw them into the holding cells. We can’t afford to fall behind schedule.”
“Yes, Master Largo.”
***
Last edited by OpMegs on 22 Aug 2011 04:28, 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."