"Keep up, Aiko!" Nanami called after her, the yellow armored woman darting through a closing door and hitting the control on the other side to open
it for her companions before trashing it when the remaining three got through and sealing the door shut. The four girls continued through the facility as
Nanami cursed that they'd been armed so deeply inside the facility. They still had another four rooms to go before the final blast gate, and ten minutes,
probably, before the authorization to seal it came down.
All these things in mind, Nanami practically threw Keiko through the next door as she tried to speed her up, praying as much as someone born without the
concept of it could that they'd make it in time.
***
"Do you know how I came to become head developer of this project, Miss Wong?" Project Lead and General Director Giacamo Rizonno asked as he adjusted
his gloves again, watching the flight of the four armored figures from the central security checkpoint where he and his assitant had rushed upon the news of
another breakout.
"You replaced Director Kinsey when he lost a fully combat capable and presumably conditioned pair of Scimitars last month, as well as a captured piece of
Nemesis hardware," Irene Wong answered, desperately hoping her discomfort with this situation didn't show.
"Indeed. You see, Director Kinsey was a stingy bastard, and didn't believe in throwing away components. Thus, he attempted to capture escaping
hardware without damaging it. It was this weakness that led to such escapes as what led to his removal," Rizonno noted, continuing to adjust his gloves.
"He didn't have the right mindset to write off unsalvageable components as such." He leaned over one monitor worker's shoulder. "Release
a tank. Full power authorized."
Irene resisted the paling she knew was coming. These four were barely combat trained. Against a full power authorization Power Tank?
Giacamo glanced at her. "When debugging a malfunctioning computer, you don't engage in stinginess, Miss Wong. If a component is irrevocably damaged,
you toss it out and make a new one," he noted, looking back at the monitors. "We've never successfully reprogrammed a rogue. Not once. Thus, the
fault is clearly terminal, and must be replaced entirely."
A speaker came online as an image was shown of the Power Tank making his way towards where the blast doors were finally slowly sealing. "Agent Michaels is
in the field, Director."
"Excellent," Giacamo nodded. "Agent Michaels. This is Director Rizonno. The four escaping pieces of hardware are defective." Irene did pale
this time as she saw where he was going. "Destroy the heads. Try to save the rest undamaged."
"Yes, sir," the speaker noted, as Irene stared at the screens and silently willed the escapees to run faster.
***
Nanami glanced up as she heard the grinding noise that indicated the blast doors finally beginning to close. Through the upcoming doorway, she could see the
wheels turning, slowing bringing the massive pieces of battleplate into place and sealing them in with Crey security.
She came seconds away from death as a concentrated burst of plasma shot across the doorway as they exited it. The sniper shot took Yuuko off at the neck, the
rest of her tumbling to the side like a puppet with its strings cut and collapsing in a heap. Keiko let a cry of grief slip from her lips before Nanami
savagely jerked her forward, grabbing Aiko as well. "We can't stop! If we stop, we're dead! She'd want us to get out of here, so keep
moving!" she growled, drawing her weapons as Keiko prepared her own katana and Aiko looked back, clearly looking for something to grab with her own
gravity projectors to keep it from taking out another one of them.
The doors were shutting faster as gravity and their massive weight aided in the process, but Nanami paled as a gunmetal and red form leapt from the spot where
it'd taken out Yuuko, landing in front of them. Energy crackled around the Power Tank's hands, and a blast of explosive energy ripped across the floor.
Nanami and Keiko were quick enough to jump it, but Aiko wasn't so lucky, tripping and skidding to her shoulder. Nanami glanced back and turned as she
realized the other girl was still alive, running back as Keiko took a ready stance and dived at the tank with a thoughtless lack of caution that was inspired
by mixed rage at the murderer of her friend and protecting the two remaining as Nanami pulled Aiko to her feet.
The fight was a mismatch, Keiko armed with a similarly durable weapon that she'd only used in a handful of training sims against the Power Tank defended by
the heaviest armor Crey produced and armed with the full discretional power supply that Crey outfitted its private security troops with but only allowed the
Countess's personal bodyguard to utilize. Keiko dodged a pair of blows surrounded in crackling plasma as she moved up to slice under the armor's
armpit, drawing sparks and a growl of irritation from the tank. She sidestepped him, bringing the blade up again to slash across his chest when he abruptly
switched from melee to ranged power generation, the high powered blast coming at her with less than a split second to react.
To her credit, she did as her training had driven her to do, bringing the blade around in an arc to parry the explosive plasma unloaded at her at close range.
Unfortunately, all this accomplished was that the upper third of her sword was vaporized a second before the blast took her head and the upper portion of her
collar and shoulders off, propelling her corpse several feet backwards from the concussive impact.
The tank turned to see the remaining two already running for the exit, now a mere twenty feet from closing. Squaring himself, he broke into a run after them,
before grunting as a bolt of pure force hit him in the chest, slowing his progress as a variety of items vanished from around him, before appearing in mid air
and flying directly at his face. He energized his gauntlets as he beat the wreckage aside, steps slowing as he seemed to gain wait, before unloading another
plasma burst into the latest piece and detonating it, the concussion driving the others off target and disturbing the concentration of his attacker. He leapt
forward towards the pink armored figure as the yellow one turned in time to see his approach.
Nanami had all of a split second to realize both she and Aiko were already dead before she grunted in pain as a sledgehammer blow caught her in the chest,
propelling her through the closing blast doors as they slammed closed, and sealing Aiko in with their pursuer....and the rest of Crey security as well, as
they'd have critical minutes to get out alternate entrances to pursue her...
***
Inside, Aiko stared defiance at the tank even if he couldn't see her face, the last low power blast having disabled her suit's systems after the power
feedback from overclocking them to produce the effects that'd gotten Nanami out alive. She looked up at him before he took her by the throat and lifted her
into the air.
"That was pretty cute, you little bitch..."
"Go...to...hell...." she spat, copying a phrase she'd only heard one of her trainers mention to his coworker a few days earlier. She didn't
know what it meant, but it seemed appropriate.
"I'm gonna enjoy this, bitch," he growled, energy coallescing about his fist as he drew it back.
***
Nanami winced as she saw a fist sized dent appear in the armor plate of the door behind her, ignoring the stinging in her eyes or the choked off sobs she
couldn't restrain as she ran....and ran and ran and ran....
She didn't even notice as she exited the facility into free air for the first time. She ran. She ran and grieved because she knew that her final remaining
friend would not have survived the fury of her captors at her escape when it carried so much risk for their superiors that would flow downhill onto them.
***
Irene made it to the nearest restroom before she felt the bile rise in her throat, and managed to lock the stall door behind her before her stomach rebelled
and she unloaded her lunch into the toilet bowl. She heaved again, and then again, and then a couple times after there was nothing left to come out, before
finally sagging against the stall wall and pushing the button to cause the toilet to flush.
She'd known, intellectually, that the rogues...the Sabres...were hunted. It was standard corporate policy, and she'd seen the recovery teams go out and
come back in, usually empty handed. She'd developed scrambler protocols to throw them off the trail, in fact, to activate in the Rogues' suits to
prevent Crey from tracking them.
From the sounds of things, she wasn't alone in that reaction to the director's brutal change of priorities. Again, intellectually, she understood it.
Rogues could be lethal for project leads, as several "replaced" ones demonstrated. And to Crey, trashed Rogues were less dangerous than live, escaped
ones....
Irene, however, thought differently. She'd talked with some of the Sabres. With the Original Four they were based off of. These weren't just machines,
they were people. This was even more insane than the Protector project, and that was merely artificially implanting
powers.
There was a standing order to reduce the workload and send folks home early when Irene got back to her workstation, an expression of "care" for
anyone disturbed by seeing three young women's lives snuffed out in front of them. Irene just shut hers down with standard security procedures and made her
way home. Listless waves were exchanged with coworkers, and she actively shuddered as she walked between the two Power Tank guards outside.
Rather than go back to her apartment, Irene hailed a taxi, heading for her family's old home. A quick exchange of additional pay and request to "keep
subtle" meant Crey's generic tracking wouldn't trace her back to the Chang villa.
Kou, her sister's loyal bodyguard, let her in immediately. She vaguely heard him talking into his radio, probably having noticed the state she was in, but
Irene didn't care. She walked through the halls, quickly finding her sister waiting for her in the inner garden. The sound of the deer-scare gently going
'doink' in the background as it filled with water relaxed her for a moment as she leaned against Reika, the elder Chang not saying anything as she
embraced her sister, letting Irene cry softly on her shoulder for a long moment that she didn't have the presence of mind to measure. She didn't speak
again until Irene's shoulders stopped trembling, letting her gain her composure. "What happened?"
"I....y-you know the project I work on...why I do it?"
"To help those girls escape, if you can."
"I didn't manage to help three today. They...they died, Reika. It was awful. They just....killed them in front of us. There wasn't any question of
recapturing or reprogramming them. The tank just..just..." She stopped, unable to say anymore withour risking her stomach rebelling again. "I
couldn't help them at all..."
Reika considered, wheels turning in her mind as she held her sister comfortingly. "....perhaps...it's time you did more," she noted, finally
accepting that this request wouldn't be the selfish endangering of her younger sister she'd worried it was when it'd first occurred to her...
Irene looked up at her sister, eyes still red. "What could I do?"
Reika's eyes were hard, a hardness that Irene remembered when a young girl of sixteen had taken over the Chang family and its assorted holdings in the face
of a "convenient" tip off of Tsoo gangsters to where their parents had been only days after a merger had been sealed that would deprive Crey
Industries of a valuable technical source in battle armor development, the company already bloodied by the theft of their initial Cryo-Tank prototype a month
earlier. "You can help me with a private project....I call it Project Oni..."
***
"Director Rizonno," Hopkins rumbled as the man in question stepped into the room, somewhat nervous, but not as terrified as the last time the
Countess's private enforcer had done this.
"Mr. Hopkins," he nodded respectfully, taking the offered chair. "I must admit my fault in the recent escape. I should've detailed more
security to apprehend the defects before the one escaped."
Hopkins actually chuckled. "Director, you've done better than any of your predecessors in preventing three escapes in progress. You have nothing to
fear."
Giacamo relaxed slightly as Hopkins nodded, leaning forward. "In fact, you're being promoted for your initiative. You'll be moving to our Nerva
office within the week..."
---
"Oh, silver blade, forged in the depths of the beyond. Heed my summons and purge those who stand in my way. Lay
waste."
it for her companions before trashing it when the remaining three got through and sealing the door shut. The four girls continued through the facility as
Nanami cursed that they'd been armed so deeply inside the facility. They still had another four rooms to go before the final blast gate, and ten minutes,
probably, before the authorization to seal it came down.
All these things in mind, Nanami practically threw Keiko through the next door as she tried to speed her up, praying as much as someone born without the
concept of it could that they'd make it in time.
***
"Do you know how I came to become head developer of this project, Miss Wong?" Project Lead and General Director Giacamo Rizonno asked as he adjusted
his gloves again, watching the flight of the four armored figures from the central security checkpoint where he and his assitant had rushed upon the news of
another breakout.
"You replaced Director Kinsey when he lost a fully combat capable and presumably conditioned pair of Scimitars last month, as well as a captured piece of
Nemesis hardware," Irene Wong answered, desperately hoping her discomfort with this situation didn't show.
"Indeed. You see, Director Kinsey was a stingy bastard, and didn't believe in throwing away components. Thus, he attempted to capture escaping
hardware without damaging it. It was this weakness that led to such escapes as what led to his removal," Rizonno noted, continuing to adjust his gloves.
"He didn't have the right mindset to write off unsalvageable components as such." He leaned over one monitor worker's shoulder. "Release
a tank. Full power authorized."
Irene resisted the paling she knew was coming. These four were barely combat trained. Against a full power authorization Power Tank?
Giacamo glanced at her. "When debugging a malfunctioning computer, you don't engage in stinginess, Miss Wong. If a component is irrevocably damaged,
you toss it out and make a new one," he noted, looking back at the monitors. "We've never successfully reprogrammed a rogue. Not once. Thus, the
fault is clearly terminal, and must be replaced entirely."
A speaker came online as an image was shown of the Power Tank making his way towards where the blast doors were finally slowly sealing. "Agent Michaels is
in the field, Director."
"Excellent," Giacamo nodded. "Agent Michaels. This is Director Rizonno. The four escaping pieces of hardware are defective." Irene did pale
this time as she saw where he was going. "Destroy the heads. Try to save the rest undamaged."
"Yes, sir," the speaker noted, as Irene stared at the screens and silently willed the escapees to run faster.
***
Nanami glanced up as she heard the grinding noise that indicated the blast doors finally beginning to close. Through the upcoming doorway, she could see the
wheels turning, slowing bringing the massive pieces of battleplate into place and sealing them in with Crey security.
She came seconds away from death as a concentrated burst of plasma shot across the doorway as they exited it. The sniper shot took Yuuko off at the neck, the
rest of her tumbling to the side like a puppet with its strings cut and collapsing in a heap. Keiko let a cry of grief slip from her lips before Nanami
savagely jerked her forward, grabbing Aiko as well. "We can't stop! If we stop, we're dead! She'd want us to get out of here, so keep
moving!" she growled, drawing her weapons as Keiko prepared her own katana and Aiko looked back, clearly looking for something to grab with her own
gravity projectors to keep it from taking out another one of them.
The doors were shutting faster as gravity and their massive weight aided in the process, but Nanami paled as a gunmetal and red form leapt from the spot where
it'd taken out Yuuko, landing in front of them. Energy crackled around the Power Tank's hands, and a blast of explosive energy ripped across the floor.
Nanami and Keiko were quick enough to jump it, but Aiko wasn't so lucky, tripping and skidding to her shoulder. Nanami glanced back and turned as she
realized the other girl was still alive, running back as Keiko took a ready stance and dived at the tank with a thoughtless lack of caution that was inspired
by mixed rage at the murderer of her friend and protecting the two remaining as Nanami pulled Aiko to her feet.
The fight was a mismatch, Keiko armed with a similarly durable weapon that she'd only used in a handful of training sims against the Power Tank defended by
the heaviest armor Crey produced and armed with the full discretional power supply that Crey outfitted its private security troops with but only allowed the
Countess's personal bodyguard to utilize. Keiko dodged a pair of blows surrounded in crackling plasma as she moved up to slice under the armor's
armpit, drawing sparks and a growl of irritation from the tank. She sidestepped him, bringing the blade up again to slash across his chest when he abruptly
switched from melee to ranged power generation, the high powered blast coming at her with less than a split second to react.
To her credit, she did as her training had driven her to do, bringing the blade around in an arc to parry the explosive plasma unloaded at her at close range.
Unfortunately, all this accomplished was that the upper third of her sword was vaporized a second before the blast took her head and the upper portion of her
collar and shoulders off, propelling her corpse several feet backwards from the concussive impact.
The tank turned to see the remaining two already running for the exit, now a mere twenty feet from closing. Squaring himself, he broke into a run after them,
before grunting as a bolt of pure force hit him in the chest, slowing his progress as a variety of items vanished from around him, before appearing in mid air
and flying directly at his face. He energized his gauntlets as he beat the wreckage aside, steps slowing as he seemed to gain wait, before unloading another
plasma burst into the latest piece and detonating it, the concussion driving the others off target and disturbing the concentration of his attacker. He leapt
forward towards the pink armored figure as the yellow one turned in time to see his approach.
Nanami had all of a split second to realize both she and Aiko were already dead before she grunted in pain as a sledgehammer blow caught her in the chest,
propelling her through the closing blast doors as they slammed closed, and sealing Aiko in with their pursuer....and the rest of Crey security as well, as
they'd have critical minutes to get out alternate entrances to pursue her...
***
Inside, Aiko stared defiance at the tank even if he couldn't see her face, the last low power blast having disabled her suit's systems after the power
feedback from overclocking them to produce the effects that'd gotten Nanami out alive. She looked up at him before he took her by the throat and lifted her
into the air.
"That was pretty cute, you little bitch..."
"Go...to...hell...." she spat, copying a phrase she'd only heard one of her trainers mention to his coworker a few days earlier. She didn't
know what it meant, but it seemed appropriate.
"I'm gonna enjoy this, bitch," he growled, energy coallescing about his fist as he drew it back.
***
Nanami winced as she saw a fist sized dent appear in the armor plate of the door behind her, ignoring the stinging in her eyes or the choked off sobs she
couldn't restrain as she ran....and ran and ran and ran....
She didn't even notice as she exited the facility into free air for the first time. She ran. She ran and grieved because she knew that her final remaining
friend would not have survived the fury of her captors at her escape when it carried so much risk for their superiors that would flow downhill onto them.
***
Irene made it to the nearest restroom before she felt the bile rise in her throat, and managed to lock the stall door behind her before her stomach rebelled
and she unloaded her lunch into the toilet bowl. She heaved again, and then again, and then a couple times after there was nothing left to come out, before
finally sagging against the stall wall and pushing the button to cause the toilet to flush.
She'd known, intellectually, that the rogues...the Sabres...were hunted. It was standard corporate policy, and she'd seen the recovery teams go out and
come back in, usually empty handed. She'd developed scrambler protocols to throw them off the trail, in fact, to activate in the Rogues' suits to
prevent Crey from tracking them.
From the sounds of things, she wasn't alone in that reaction to the director's brutal change of priorities. Again, intellectually, she understood it.
Rogues could be lethal for project leads, as several "replaced" ones demonstrated. And to Crey, trashed Rogues were less dangerous than live, escaped
ones....
Irene, however, thought differently. She'd talked with some of the Sabres. With the Original Four they were based off of. These weren't just machines,
they were people. This was even more insane than the Protector project, and that was merely artificially implanting
powers.
There was a standing order to reduce the workload and send folks home early when Irene got back to her workstation, an expression of "care" for
anyone disturbed by seeing three young women's lives snuffed out in front of them. Irene just shut hers down with standard security procedures and made her
way home. Listless waves were exchanged with coworkers, and she actively shuddered as she walked between the two Power Tank guards outside.
Rather than go back to her apartment, Irene hailed a taxi, heading for her family's old home. A quick exchange of additional pay and request to "keep
subtle" meant Crey's generic tracking wouldn't trace her back to the Chang villa.
Kou, her sister's loyal bodyguard, let her in immediately. She vaguely heard him talking into his radio, probably having noticed the state she was in, but
Irene didn't care. She walked through the halls, quickly finding her sister waiting for her in the inner garden. The sound of the deer-scare gently going
'doink' in the background as it filled with water relaxed her for a moment as she leaned against Reika, the elder Chang not saying anything as she
embraced her sister, letting Irene cry softly on her shoulder for a long moment that she didn't have the presence of mind to measure. She didn't speak
again until Irene's shoulders stopped trembling, letting her gain her composure. "What happened?"
"I....y-you know the project I work on...why I do it?"
"To help those girls escape, if you can."
"I didn't manage to help three today. They...they died, Reika. It was awful. They just....killed them in front of us. There wasn't any question of
recapturing or reprogramming them. The tank just..just..." She stopped, unable to say anymore withour risking her stomach rebelling again. "I
couldn't help them at all..."
Reika considered, wheels turning in her mind as she held her sister comfortingly. "....perhaps...it's time you did more," she noted, finally
accepting that this request wouldn't be the selfish endangering of her younger sister she'd worried it was when it'd first occurred to her...
Irene looked up at her sister, eyes still red. "What could I do?"
Reika's eyes were hard, a hardness that Irene remembered when a young girl of sixteen had taken over the Chang family and its assorted holdings in the face
of a "convenient" tip off of Tsoo gangsters to where their parents had been only days after a merger had been sealed that would deprive Crey
Industries of a valuable technical source in battle armor development, the company already bloodied by the theft of their initial Cryo-Tank prototype a month
earlier. "You can help me with a private project....I call it Project Oni..."
***
"Director Rizonno," Hopkins rumbled as the man in question stepped into the room, somewhat nervous, but not as terrified as the last time the
Countess's private enforcer had done this.
"Mr. Hopkins," he nodded respectfully, taking the offered chair. "I must admit my fault in the recent escape. I should've detailed more
security to apprehend the defects before the one escaped."
Hopkins actually chuckled. "Director, you've done better than any of your predecessors in preventing three escapes in progress. You have nothing to
fear."
Giacamo relaxed slightly as Hopkins nodded, leaning forward. "In fact, you're being promoted for your initiative. You'll be moving to our Nerva
office within the week..."
---
"Oh, silver blade, forged in the depths of the beyond. Heed my summons and purge those who stand in my way. Lay
waste."