*** Chapter 3 ***
The seemingly endless ocean shimmered far below, stretching out of sight beyond the horizon and reflecting the blazing sun in glittering sparkles. There were no clouds in the sky. If it wasn't for the air conditioning thoughtfully provided by the jetliner, Sylia reflected, they'd be roasting like sausages in an oven.
Instead, she was cool and comfortable, cradled in the decadent upholstery of the First Class section. Priss sat to her right, carefully avoiding looking out the window; while her lover was unquestionably brave, Sylia knew, she also was uncomfortable with heights. It was one of her quirks, something that Sylia loved her for, rather than in spite of.
The hostess came by, offering fresh drinks with quiet courtesy; Priss accepted a refill while Sylia demurred. Their section was nearly silent, as it had been most of the trip. The sole other passenger in First Class, a cheerfully hung-over businessman from Germany, if Sylia placed the accent correctly, was two rows ahead and against the window on the other side, and had achieved unconsciousness shortly after the flight took off.
"Long flight," Priss commented, toying with her drink. Ice clinked in her glass.
Sylia regarded her, smiling, and nodded. "Almost over, though."
Priss inhaled deeply, as if to say something, then scowled and drummed the fingers of her free hand on her armrest.
Sylia bit back her laugh and covered Priss's hand with her own. "Relax," she said. "The wings won't fall off, and even if they did, my carryon has an emergency suit in it."
Priss narrowed her eyes and glared. "Not funny," she groused.
Sylia patted her hand.
"Besides," Priss continued, now that the ice had been broken, "that wasn't what I was thinking about."
"I know," Sylia replied softly. "I know, Priss. And... I'm sorry. I don't know what else to say, what else I can say." As if to punctuate her words, the plane lurched slightly as it passed through a pocket of minor turbulence. "I should have seen it. I should have known."
"Don't," Priss said, her hand gripping Sylia's. "Don't you ever fucking apologize to me for who you are, dammit." Sylia blinked as Priss's eyes bored into her own from mere inches away. "I'm not mad at you, Sylia. I don't think I ever was." Priss bit her lip and looked away. Sylia opened her mouth to respond, but Priss wasn't finished.
"I was scared, okay?" Priss grimaced. "You went away without me and then when you came back, it was like you weren't really there. Like you didn't really come back after all, and I was just dreaming. And I realized something. You don't need me. Not... not the way I need you."
"Oh, Priss--" Sylia began, but the singer put a finger to her lips.
"Shut up a minute and let me say this, before this damn buma liver thing processes all that alcohol and I clam up again." Priss shook her head irritably, and Sylia realized for the first time that Priss's refills counted easily in the double digits.
"You don't need me," Priss repeated. "And when you get right down to it, I don't need you. I'll survive. But it won't be living, not the way I want it to be. You've shown me what I was missing, and if I didn't love you for it I'd be really pissed off." She shrugged. "But I do, and I'm not, and that's all there is to it."
Priss paused long enough to slam down the last of the drink she was holding, shuddered, and locked her gaze on Sylia again. "The bitch of it is, Nene was right," she said. "I was not being me. I was so scared I'd lost you that I was pretending nothing was wrong. As if doing that would suddenly make it all better. Like a stupid teenager." Priss snorted. "Oh, now that I've had time to think about it, I'm not pissed at you. Well, not much. I'm pissed at me."
Priss let go of Sylia's hand long enough to run her fingers through her hair. "I hate feeling stupid. You make me feel dumb all the time, you know that?"
"I what?" Sylia stared, stricken.
Priss sighed. "You're the brains, I'm the brawn. We both know that. And I'm not saying I'm actually stupid. It's just... look, if we were discussing food, or motorcycles, or how Hendrix wasn't really all that good, but had enough skill and stage presence to make everyone think he was that good, I'd run rings around you. Fact." Priss shrugged again. "But when we talk about tactics, or suit maintenance, or what the level three diagnostics (whatever the hell those are) have to say, at best I can grunt in the right spots and wipe the drool off my chin." Priss cracked a crooked grin. "'S'okay, I'm used to it. Doesn't bother me anymore. But this... this bugged me, because both of us shoulda been smarter about it."
She rotated her head on her shoulders. Sylia recognized it for what it was -- the same habit Priss had before she charged into a fight.
"Water under the bridge, though," Priss continued. "Over with, right? Right. All we can do is make sure it doesn't happen again." She smiled, a dark, ferocious grin that suddenly had Sylia wondering what the singer had in mind. "So here it is. I'm not going to let you go off by yourself again. That's it. Simple. Direct. Just the way I like it."
Sylia blinked. "You're right. That IS simple." Smiling, she leaned forward, putting her lips closer to Priss's. "Now why didn't I think of that?"
"Hm. Too much high-powered thinking going on, I bet," Priss replied. "That's why you need me, to pull your genius back down to earth."
"My hero," Sylia whispered. Priss closed the distance between them; their lips met. Sylia found herself suddenly wondering about the feasibility of joining the mile-high club. And then--
"This is your captain speaking. Please fasten your seatbelts and return all tray tables to their upright positions. We're on final approach to Panau International Airport. Local time is three thirty-seven P.M., and it's a balmy twenty-eight degrees outside. Please have your passports ready for customs."
***
In Paragon City, the sound of gunfire was depressingly common, especially in places like Kings Row. Most of the time, people didn’t even bother calling the police any more. But when particle weapons blew the side off an abandoned warehouse to reveal dozens of cutting edge war machines, even Paragon citizens paid attention.
Last time the Praetorian Clockwork had appeared in Kings Row, they had mostly avoided any civilians that didn’t attempt to fight back, focusing mostly on costumed heroes, police and military, and general property damage. These ones were much more aggressive, firing on anything that they saw. They were also much less coordinated, swarming up along King Garment Works like a mob, but never even bothering to turn towards Freedom Plaza.
The lead elements of this mob were climbing over a pile of burning shipping crates when a salvo of gunfire tore at them. Where the bullets hit, ice began to form, freezing up joints and shorting out circuitry. Their charge briefly halted, the Clockwork at the front of the mob began searching for a target, soon locking onto a figure in blue power armor as it darted overhead with a boost of jump jets. Several of the machines, voices distorted even more then normal by whatever had made them abandon their hiding place, managed to match the figure to one in their database of Powers Division personnel. “A-AGGRESSOR IDENTIFIED: BOLVERK SABRE.”
For her part, Noel didn’t reply verbally, instead raising a pair of massive hand cannons and opening fire again. A fine mist formed around her weapons, following a trail to her target, a Heavy Clockwork in the center of the group. The temperature plummeted and the wind picked up around it, a miniature snow storm appearing around the androids. “CAUTION REEEECOMENNN - AGRESSSSS-” The voices vanished into static as the Clockwork fired wildly on Bolverk, particle beams chewing apart nothing but rooftop tiles as she booster-jumped away. She was landing behind a parked car as the drones vocal systems managed actual words again, just in time to finish their statement with a single word; “TREASON.”
Flinching slightly as their unknowing accusation hit her, the young heroine readied her pistols. “Just Clockwork. Easily done,” she reassured herself, just before another Knight Sabre joined the fight, sprinting past the car and leaping towards her first target, tearing into a Dismantler with two brutal looking curved blades. The Clockwork screeched, stumbling back as the pink-haired teenager spun, hamstringing two more.
“Just like they teach you,” she smirked, then staggered as a particle beam clipped her.
“Justice!” Bolverk called out as the girl rolled with the blow, sliding across the gravel, and came up swinging, carving into another Clockwork foolish enough to get too close.
“Don’t worry, I’m fine!” she replied, a faint burn vanishing from her cheek even as she cut her current targets arm off at the elbow. The machine transformed its right arm to plasma cannon mode and tried to take aim, but Bolverk was faster, firing a precise shot that shattered the machines head. “Like I said before,” the girl added as Bolverk stepped out from behind cover, firing both her hand cannons into the mob, “I’m not that durable, but I can put myself back together fast.”
Over the next few minutes, the two young women tore apart the front of the mob, Noel using her cryokinesis to freeze and blind her targets, Ayaka diving into brawls with faith in her sword skills and regenerative abilities. The resulting noise and violence drew the attention of most of the Clockwork, doing a remarkable job of confining the Praetorian machines to an area that had already been evacuated. Any androids that failed to go to the bright, loud target didn’t last long, with several other heroes watching the perimeter and picking off anything wandering off.
“You know, there’s something about mindless killer robots,” Justice commented, before booster-dashing across the street, ending in a crouch on the other side of a trio of now bisected Clockwork. “No holding back, no lives but your own to worry about, just good, clean fun.”
“You have a rather interesting definition of fun, Miss Sayjou,” Bolverk replied as she emptied a clip into another set of drones that had gotten too close. Although she had to admit, she was enjoying the sensation of a good workout.
Justice sighed, shaking her head. “You don’t need to be so formal. I told you before, call me-” the sudden shriek of rending metal caught her attention. The top of a shipping container arced through the air like a giant, demented boomerang. Justice leaped to the side, but not quite fast enough, feeling a painful crunch in her abdomen as her breath rushed out of her from the edge of the lid clipping her at just about stomach height.
Noel’s HUD lit up with an alarm as she boost jumped over the next piece of flying rubble: the shipping container that the lid had come from. Tracing the trajectory back, she felt a cold sweat break out on her back as her HUD quickly identified the source: three War Walkers, which had apparently activated in one of the many piles of massive scrap that had once been portal generators during the initial attack on King’s Row during the opening shots of the Praetorian War.
The three units engaged their own boosters, sending all three towards the two Sabres in a single jet-assisted bound. Pavement shattered and the entire neighborhood shook as all three landed simultaneously, bringing up arm-cannons that Noel’s mind dispassionately identified as having nearly twice the yield of anything else in the Warworks arsenal.
Underneath the training and social awkwardness, Noel was really an observant girl, and so it was that she had the precise words that applied in this particular situation, having heard them from a variety of sources over her short life.
“...oh shit.”
***
“You know, I must admit to some slight irritation,” the silver haired man said as he crossed his hands behind him, looking over the two women currently shackled to the wall. “I had hoped that my shock troopers would have been more effective. That said, at least one of you is at the far end of the skill spectrum, so I suppose that miscalculations do happen,” Largo admitted.
Kuro resisted the urge to grimace at the slight. Her own skills were only marginally developed by the necessity of relying on herself for repairs: high risk missions that would give her a proper workout were by extension dangerous in terms of damage to her equipment... damage she was ill-equipped to rectify without help she couldn’t ask for. It would’ve raised too many questions about why her powers and her registered abilities had so many... differences.
“Still, I hadn’t planned on relying on brute force alone,” Largo said. “Numbers also play a factor into my plans. As you know, I imagine, given the data you accessed. Really, did you think you’d go unnoticed, rummaging about in my network like that?”
While Gauche just glared impotently at their captor, Kuro abruptly paled as the meaning of the words sank in. Largo laughed. “Yes, you do understand, don’t you?” He tapped the side of his head meaningfully. “There was nothing in that network you could have done without my knowing. That said, your futile attempts have given me someone who can appreciate the scope of what I’m about to do,” he chuckled. “So, what’ll it be? I’m insane? I’ll never get away with it? The heroes will stop me?”
A wet splat interrupted him as Kuro managed to hack up a bloody blob of saliva, which almost landed on the villain’s shoes. Privately, she blamed the tearing pain from somewhere lower in her chest for throwing off her aim at the last second.
Largo gave her a mildly irritated look. “Defiance, as expected. But at least you could be a little more sanitary about it.”
“Sorry to disappoint. I’m a little distracted,” Kuro said, as beside her, Gauche began to giggle, before breaking out into uncontrollable laughter.
Largo’s attentions quickly focused on the blonde as she continued to laugh. “I must express considerable curiosity at what’s so funny in your current state.”
Gauche reined in her laughter, giving the villain a smirking glance that was somewhat pitying and predatory at the same time. “Why should we worry? You’re already dead. You captured us alive because you felt the need to gloat to someone about your “unbeatable” plan. If you’re that wrapped up in your own superiority and need for acknowledgement, we don’t need to do a thing. You’ll screw yourself over long before anything we could do. You’re pathetic.”
Kuro blinked through pained confusion as she looked over at her cellmate, before cringing as she looked back at Largo and noticed actual anger on the man’s face for the first time. He began to raise his hand...but stopped rather than continue through. His face smoothed itself, regaining its composure as mismatched eyes centered on the two women. “Clever...but if you’re hoping to set off some failsafe in case your vitals deactivate, I’m going to have to disappoint you,” he said, stepping back. “Besides, if I did that, you’d miss the pleasure of watching your partner here die slowly from the internal damage she sustained during capture.”
Kuro saw Gauche’s head whip towards her at that line, even as she found herself go slightly cold at Largo’s confirmation of what she’d suspected already. Largo’s smirk returned as the villain took in their reactions. “It’s quite certain, really. I’ve probably the most extensive knowledge of your construction of anyone on this planet. After all, I’m the only one who still retains the knowledge of what Crey was working with when they blindly stumbled about trying to replicate my work.”
Kuro stared at him openly at that comment. As much information as she’d been able to find had always portrayed the initial four Sabres as being something recovered from offworld. For Largo to be claiming credit for their construction...
“Indeed, I’ve something of a personal knowledge of what it takes to cause one of you to... cease function,” he chuckled. “I almost wish my timetable could accommodate watching you expire. It’d be interesting to see how you’d react. Peacefully passing away is hardly the style of any of you, but there’s nothing in this cell for you to use to repair yourself... aside from your friend,” he said, glancing at Gauche.
Kuro’s mind began racing at that comment, but she shut it down. Largo wouldn’t have suggested it if it wasn’t already anticipated... which meant that it’d be useless. She just glared at him instead.
Largo shook his head. “It’s always interesting to see what few points you self-styled vigilantes seem to hold desperately to in order to tell yourself you’re better than the things you fight. Still, we’ll see how long that holds up as death comes calling. In the meantime, I have an appointment,” he said, turning away. “Good day, ladies.”
With a dull thud, the cell’s security door settled back into place and sealed, leaving the two alone in the dark again.
***
Priss slid the glass aside and exited onto the balcony, where Sylia stood framed by the setting sun, her hair gently swaying in the breeze. She came up behind the other woman and wrapped her arms around her, resting her chin on Sylia's shoulder. The two of them looked out over the beach of white sand and black rocks, to the deep blue of the ocean, dotted here and there with fishing ships and speedboats.
"Hey," Priss said quietly.
Sylia smiled and turned her head slightly. "Hello."
"So when are we going out?"
Sylia blinked. "I -- what?"
Priss squeezed her lover a bit more tightly and grinned. "I know you. You're standing out here enjoying the sun and the breeze and watching the boats and patiently waiting for the right time to get to work."
Sylia chuckled. "You're too perceptive sometimes, you know that?"
"I know."
Sylia turned halfway, getting her arm around Priss's waist, and sighed. "In about an hour," she admitted. "Our contact is supposed to meet us outside a local club."
"What's the deal with this place, anyway?" Priss asked, looking over the railing and down the side of the hotel. They'd obtained a room on the twentieth floor, just four floors shy of the top and called a suite on the brochures. As rooms went, Priss supposed it wasn't bad; but then, she'd lived in a trailer in the Hollows before getting together with Sylia, so what did she know?
"You didn't read Nene's file."
Priss snorted by way of response.
"Panau is an independent and rapidly developing nation," Sylia said in the precise tones she always acquired when delivering a briefing. "As these go, it was fairly typical. The government used to be peaceful and friendly to outside interests, until the current leader -- Pandak Panay -- showed up. He's the son of the former president and the rumor is that he killed his father to gain power. He's declared himself dictator and cut diplomatic relations with most foreign powers. Panau's sole legal export of note is oil, from massive deposits discovered here during the war, so there are a lot of foreign interests." Sylia shrugged. "In addition, there's a thriving drug trade, and at least three different factions who all claim to be the rightful rulers, but Panay controls the military. They're all trying to keep it from outright war because they depend on tourism." She turned to Priss. "What name did Nene put on your passport?"
Priss blinked at the sudden topic change. "Testarossa. Her idea of a joke, I guess."
"Hm. Yes, that does sound like her." Sylia nodded. "In any event, it's a good thing she did. Japan invaded Panau at one point, and there's a lot of hostility still. Your usual name might have made things difficult."
Priss grunted. "Yeah, maybe a little." She frowned. "Okay, I get it's a big explosion waiting to happen. So what are we doing here?"
"Besides taking a vacation?"
"Oh, we'll be taking a vacation," Priss said firmly. "I plan on seeing you in a bikini on that sand down there tomorrow morning."
"Panay's forces have suddenly become much more effective," Sylia replied, flushing lightly at Priss's jab. "And intelligence operatives have vanished -- from all sides. The entire island, practically overnight, seems to have been purged."
"Arachnos? Or Crey?" Priss wondered. Sylia shook her head.
"No." She smiled crookedly. "My contacts were, ah, just as surprised as we were."
"That still doesn't explain why we're here," Priss pressed on doggedly. "You. Me. The Sabres. What's our connection?"
Sylia was silent for a long while. Sensing her mood, Priss waited patiently.
"A burst of telemetry from an Arachnos power armor suit was intercepted by a Tsoo listening post," Sylia finally said. "They didn't know what they had, so they passed it up the chain. A strike team from Ms. Chang's group stumbled across it while conducting operations in Independence Port." Sylia's distaste was evident.
"Our liaison," Sylia continued, making Priss chuckle -- the Sabre leader was almost painfully uptight about maintaining Irene's cover -- "our liaison with said group spotted something familiar in the visual data feed and forwarded me a copy." Sylia took a deep breath and let it out slowly, then reached into the pocket of her tailored slacks and produced a printout. Priss glanced at it and sucked in a sharp breath.
It was a still-frame captured from the viewpoint of a helmet camera, grainy and blurred by motion, but easily recognizable and intimately familiar to both women for all of that. Blue armor on a humanoid frame, with glowing red eyes; two of them were in the shot, though one was in the process of exploding as the distinctive red of Arachnos energy bolts tore through it.
"Are those...?"
"Yes," Sylia replied.
Priss forced her hand to unclench and noted with what she thought was admirable calm the crushed section of balcony railing left behind. "This is bad, Sylia."
"It might not be," Sylia cautioned. "Nene ran some analysis on it and there are many differences between these and... buma. And we know that parallels exist between here and MegaTokyo anyway."
"I guess so..." Priss replied doubtfully.
"We'll just have to make contact and see."
***
In many ways, Noel was more familiar with the War Walkers than most Paragonians. She was native to the dimension from which they came, and had assisted Silicon and Interrogator Kang in acquiring substantial data on the entire Warworks project to broadcast about Praetoria in an attempt to weaken support for the war on Primal Earth. However, her experience was intellectual at best. The War Walkers she’d seen had been silent statues sitting in construction lines. Their armaments and capabilities had been words on a dataslate rather than reality.
But as the three Walkers pivoted towards Justice, arm-mounted cannons beginning to hum ominously, something in the back of Noel’s brain clicked. The binary fight-or-flight decision that she’d seized up on shifted in one direction as her body remembered the training she’d undergone and both her pistols came up...only to aim at where Justice was staggering to her feet. A pair of bolts shot out, hitting Justice in the back before the cold around them spread and swelled, freezing around the pink haired girl in a rapidly expanding layer of ice that shifted with the smaller Sabre’s movements. A few seconds later, the armor was abruptly tested as all three War Walkers fired.
With a pained yell, Justice was thrown down the street, ice and armor fragments trailing along behind her, coming to a stop nearly thirty feet from where she started, but the Praetorian girl’s quick thinking had saved her from almost certain death. Landing next to her, Noel knelt down, wincing behind her helmet at the unnatural angle that Justice’s left arm was bent, but the injured girl just seemed rather irritated. “What the heck just shot me?” she demanded. “That really... oh. Ah... Oh dear,” she finished as the War Walkers moved in closer.
“Come on,” Noel said insistently, pulling the smaller girl up by her good arm. “We need to move!”
“That’s probably a good idea,” Justice agreed. “Wow. They’re bigger then the Vanguard trainers said they are,” she added, looking up at the War Walkers as they took aim again.
Just before Noel could fire her boosters and hope Ayaka wouldn’t throw her off course too much, a tall figure seemed to just appear between them and the giant mechs. Then the world exploded into a storm of light and noise, the particle cannon fire splashing off the woman in front of them, tearing apart their surroundings but leaving them unharmed.
When the smoke cleared, Noel stared in surprise as the woman who she’d been assigned to train under lowered her left arm from the defensive pose she’d assumed, the emitters on the Vanguard shield she carried humming ever so slightly from the strain. As the sword hilt in her in her right hand powered up, generating a gleaming blue blade of light, Neko Romanova walked slowly towards the three mechs.
“Here we go,” Purrfect Shield said calmly, and then she seemed to teleport again, slamming her shield into the face of the lead War Walker so hard the machine actually staggered back. Balancing herself on the Walker’s shoulder, she stabbed her blade down into the joint, seeking out the hydraulics. Something inside groaned and let out a small cloud of smoke as the arm went limp, and then one of the other machines swung a clumsy metal fist at her. The woman took the blow on her shield, but was still knocked into the air and away from the trio.
“Girls, put some distance between you and them,” she ordered, landing in a crouch. “I’ll deal with this.”
Not being the sort of girl that disobeyed orders anyway, Noel finished pulling Ayaka to her feet and helped her limp away. “I think I’m bleeding internally,” the pink-haired girl commented, leaning against the other Sabre. “I hate when that happens. Leaves me stiff for days.”
Noel’s eyes widened behind her helmet, staring at Justice in disbelief. “You’re very casual about that,” she managed after a moment.
“I’m a regenerator,” she replied with a wave of her hand. “It’s what I do. It can be annoying. So,” she continued much more cheerfully. “Those are War Walkers. Big things. Mean guns too.”
“They’re made to match the most powerful superhumans known,” the other girl said. “Can... do you think your teacher will be alright?”
Justice waved her hand again. “Don’t worry. She’s a veteran.Taken on things a lot meaner then those war mechs too. She’ll be fine!” Both girls were so focused on putting some distance between them and a fight that had suddenly moved well out of their weight class, they didn’t really notice the explosions behind them. They also didn’t notice Neko, now smoking slightly, skid back down the street as two of the War Walkers opened fire on them again.
Regaining her balance, the catwoman glared at the three mechs. The one she’d been targeting was now missing a cannon, and had a limp to go with its damaged shoulder, but it was still more then capable of fighting back, and that still left the other two. She’d never been too fond of admitting when she was outmatched, but right now, she had to admit the reports were accurate. The IDF had designed even the standard War Walkers with enough weapons, armor and strength to allow them to go one-on-one with even Incarnates. She could take one of them and win, although she’d be hurting a bit. Three of them at once? She’d do some damage, but very soon she’d be reduced to a red smear on the sidewalk.
The lead War Walker seemed to pause, before it reached down, ripping a chunk of asphalt broken loose and turning. Neko glanced to one side just in time to see a small group of people who’d somehow gotten caught up in the chaos of the battle when she hadn’t been looking. Neko broke into a sprint a second later, instinct telling her a second before it happened exactly what the War Walker’s target was. Spinning in place, Neko barely managed to brace herself in time to catch the piece of rubble, concrete cracking beneath her feet for the split second of impact as she pushed, deflecting the impromptu projectile up and over the trio of people behind her. She let out a breath as the rubble bounced along the street behind her, before coming to a stop safely... then promptly stiffened as a massive shape abruptly cast her in shadow.
In a handful of seconds, several things happened.
Neko realized that the reports had understated the level of tactical acumen the War Walkers possessed if one of them had successfully baited her this badly out of position, while the War Walker’s fist began its ponderous yet impossibly fast descent. Neko began to raise her shield to try to ward off the blow even as she tensed for the bone-shattering impact about to happen, only for a man from the group behind her to step around her. Neko began to yell for him to stand back, before he simply put a hand forward... and caught the War Walker’s fist as simply as someone reaching out to deflect a beach ball lobbed at their face. Concrete shattered under his feet, but the man failed to notice, even as Neko finally had a moment to identify the facial features she’d been too hurried to notice before. The War Walker actually stopped for half a second as core-deep programming stuttered over the person now preventing it from attacking.
Marcus Cole glanced over his shoulder at Neko. “Do you mind?”
Neko gave a small, incredulous laugh. “Be my guest.”
That short exchange over with, Marcus shoved the armored fist aside and out of his way, and shot forward to deliver an echoing uppercut to the chin of the multi-story war machine, sending it briefly into the air before it toppled backwards onto the already abused street, the sound of armor plate hitting asphalt echoing outwards as the ground shook for the second time with the impact of several tons of War Walker.
“Does this sort of thing happen a lot?” one of the two people still behind Neko, a black haired woman with waist length straight hair, a turtleneck sweater, and baggy black jeans asked her companion, a slim blonde in a t-shirt and shorts who was already pulling a belt and scabbard out of her backpack and buckling it on.
“More often than you’d think, unfortunately,” Megan Duncan said, even as she slipped a mask around her eyes. The dark haired girl chuckled, even as green fire flickered about her hands, a series of runes tracing themselves before the pavement ripped open again, a series of hissing inhuman shapes crawling out of the rent in the earth.
Neko shook her head slightly. “You don’t have to ruin your day off, you know. I had it handled,” she said with chuckle.
“Sure you did, Neko,” Ms. Liberty said with a grin, before darting in as a crack of thunder announced Statesman’s second punch connecting with the downed Walker as the other two began opening fire, their brief lockup at targeting Marcus Cole solved for them by his changing into costume. Statesman was most definitely a threat they recognized.
“Desdemona, am I right?” Neko said, glancing at the dark haired woman next to her. Desdemona nodded, a hint of hesitance in her eyes. “Good to meet you. I’ve heard good things,” Neko continued. “If you don’t mind, a couple of my students were dealing with some less dangerous Clockwork until these things woke up. Could you check on them for me? Assuming your demons don’t need you here to assist,” she said, even as one of the larger hellspawn crawled onto the Walker now slowly pushing itself to its feet, brimstone laden fire spraying into the machine’s optics from its skeletal maw.
“No, I can do that,” Desdemona said, seeming relieved about something, before heading in the direction that Neko pointed out to her.
The catwoman looked back to the chaos erupting as Statesman, Liberty, and the demons continued to batter at the first War Walker, which was beginning to show signs of strain. She smiled, even as the other two moved in to support their battered companion. Maybe this wouldn’t hurt so much after all.
***
Ah, Panau at night, reflected Priss. I've never been here before but it still feels like home.
The international melting pot that was Panau City pressed in around them. They stood on a street corner, backlit by garish neon and bare incandescent bulbs dangling like Christmas lights from awnings. The air was balmy, with an occasional cool breeze, and only served as a backdrop for the incessant hum of motor traffic drifting by. Priss gnawed absently on the fried-something-on-a-stick she'd acquired from one of the innumerable street vendors and watched Sylia watch traffic go by.
"Is he late?" she said finally, removing the well-worn stick and regarding it critically for any remaining tasty bits.
"Marginally," Sylia replied. A passing car slowed, the driver waving currency through the open window; Sylia ignored him until he sped up again and drove away.
"At least we've got fireworks," Priss said philosophically, jerking her chin at the flashes of light and sound over the city's business district. She blinked and looked again. Those were certainly impressive fireworks, especially since she wasn't aware of any particular holiday Panau was celebrating today...
The top three floors of a downtown skyscraper vanished in an incandescent fireball, and Priss revised her estimate of the situation very rapidly.
"Remember, Priss, without our suits we're not nearly as tough," Sylia said from her side, and Priss realized she'd instinctively dropped into a half-crouch, preparing to leap into the fight. She rose and straightened her miniskirt and halter-top combo, grimacing.
At the end of the street, a military jeep skidded sideways around the corner, blue light whirling, and gunned its engine for all it was worth. Behind it a motorcycle rounded the same corner, then suddenly flipped end for end as its unfortunate rider was ejected. The soldier screamed as he flew out of sight.
The jeep screeched and shuddered to a halt next to them, and a swarthy, stocky, well-built Latino man stood, one foot on the running board. "You the Sabres?" he called out in a friendly fashion.
Priss and Sylia exchanged a look. "Scorpion?" Sylia responded, a little dubiously.
"That's me," the newcomer replied. "Get in, chicas. Gonna be noisy here real soon."
"I'll drive," Sylia said as Priss climbed into the passenger seat. Scorpion shrugged and vaulted into the back, crouching against the roll bar.
"Punch it already!" he exclaimed. "We got choppers incoming!"
"Choppers?" Priss inquired, craning her head to look at their passenger as they peeled out away from the curb..
Scorpion shrugged. "They don' like me much right now."
***
"This ain't about oil," Scorpion said dismissively, waving his bottle of beer by way of emphasis.
It was some time later. Priss sat on a folding lawn chair, her feet resting on a fifty-gallon oil drum lying on its side. Beside her, Sylia perched comfortably on an ancient Army camp cot, leaning back against the wall of the shipping container Scorpion called home at the moment.
The escape from Panau's military had been … interesting. Between Sylia's driving skills, Priss's willingness to engage in fisticuffs, and the truly bizarre antics of their host, they'd managed to cross half the island and destroyed more property than Priss had believed possible. Now, they were holed up in dense jungle.
In a shipping container. With cheap beer resting on ice in a styrofoam cooler.
Priss had to admit, it was somewhat... nostalgic.
"There's a new player on the scene," Scorpion continued. "Dunno who he is, dunno what he's got in mind. But he's cozy with Baby and the Panau military has been vanishing all the other players all over the place." He gulped down the last and chucked the bottle into a bin in the corner.
"What does that have to do with this?" Sylia asked, skimming the photo she'd shown Priss earlier across to Scorpion, who caught it and scanned it quickly.
"Ah, yeah. Those." He grimaced. "I was around for this. Arachnos cadre, tryin' to train up the natives. Usual routine. Then it all went to hell." He nodded at the picture. "This poor sap got nailed by Zeus."
"Say what?" Priss blinked.
"Lightning. Least, looked like lightning. Crackling blue and white death from above, pow!" Scorpion smashed a fist into his palm. "Just came outta nowhere and smashed his getaway flyer. Burnt out my satphone from three klicks out, too. Never seen anything like it."
Priss and Sylia exchanged a look. Scorpion glanced back and forth between them.
"You chicas know something."
"Can you tell us where he is?" Sylia leaned forward.
Scorpion nodded slowly. "Yeah. He's with Baby Panay. He's always with Baby."
"Show us."
***
As far as things went, Kuro honestly didn’t think she’d ever had a situation quite this bad. Imprisoned by a villain? She’d been born in Crey confinement. Stuck in a prison cell without access to her armor? Anyone who made the mistake of assuming she was a helpless norm was in for a nasty surprise if they got close.
Unfortunately, most of those situations hadn’t also happened while she was bleeding to death internally. Kuro supposed this might be making her a little testy. Which was probably why she snapped when Gauche asked how she was.
“How do you think I’m doing?! I’m bleeding to death in a prison cell while a megalomaniac heads to Paragon with a strike team of thousands of killer robots, with enough preparation in place to let him topple an entire section of the city. Plus he’s got orbital support and who knows what else I didn’t get to see before he found us. But I can’t get word out because I didn’t do the smart thing and jump into the ocean when I had the chance. Sticking around to save you when it’s clear you’ve got a death wish is probably the stupidest thing I’ve ever done, especially since you would’ve wrapped up all my problems if you’d died anyway,” she spat.
Gauche glared at her from her position, her face angering in an instant. “Oh, would that be so convenient for you? I asked for your help with this. I didn’t put a gun to your head to force you to do this! You didn’t have to if you didn’t want any 'problems' to deal with!”
“No, I did, because no one else would,” Kuro growled back. “You’re everyone’s problem. I’ve seen the records. More fatalities during arrests than anyone else in the Sabres. Probability estimation suggests you’re going looking for Crey to kill off. And I saw your file before you told me your story. You got out, but none of your friends did. And so now you’re one of two things. A mad dog cutting up Crey until they put you down, or someone wanting anyone to put her out of her misery so she can join the dead, because she doesn’t think there’s any point in staying living. The only reason I took this mission is because the one you say killed your friends sounded like a dangerously competent member of Crey, and so eliminating him weakened them. And because maybe you’d get your wish in the process, and save us all a lot of hassle!”
“So what if I want revenge?” Gauche asked, glaring at the other woman. “Like that’s such a big deal? There’s plenty of so-called 'heroes' that do the same thing!”
Kuro was far too injured to restrain her snort of disgust at the shallow self-justification. “But they don’t go looking for trouble. They don’t go leaving triple digit bodycounts. They don’t make themselves out to be some crazy, homicidal extremist who causes everyone else to have to bend over backwards covering for them so that people not so insane don’t have people expecting them to snap the same way! Your example is splashing shit all over everyone else in the Sabres, which is exactly what Crey wants.” She glared daggers at the blonde as she hung from the manacles holding her against the wall, the words coming out like an unstoppable flood now that she’d uncorked the dam.
“We don’t all have open identities. Most of us don’t, in fact. It’s a survival measure given what Crey could potentially do. But the only reason people accept that is because most of us help people. But you aren’t interested in helping. All you do is kill people on your way to your supposed revenge. You’re not someone people want to make exceptions for, and you’re damaging the Sabres’ reputation across Paragon with everything you do. Silicon and her command group think you may be salvageable. Oni and hers think you’re at least a usable weapon in her little crusade. But none of them have found what I did. They don’t know that you’re a time bomb ticking down. Unless someone cuts the wi-”
Kuro’s cold evaluation was cut off as a racking cough nearly doubled her over, black flecks of blood decorating the floor in front of her. “You’re a cancer who’s only concerned with your goals and your revenge, not anyone else. And I’m the only one who was willing to do what was necessary and cut you out. Except now I’ve failed. Either Largo’s beaten and you’re rescued when they find this base, or Largo wins and it doesn’t matter if he kills you or not because he’s even worse.”
Kuro barely felt the stare of her fellow prisoner as she slumped forward. “I could get out of this cell myself, but it doesn’t matter. He’s right. I’m dying already. The amount of feeding it’d take to repair this level of damage... I don’t have the strength left to take out someone well enough to get that kind of drain going. So I get a slow, lingering, painful death with you for company while the villain goes to enact a plan I could stop if I could get out of here.”
Kuro stared at the floor and the flecks of her own blood on it for a long while as the cell descended into silence. Carefully controlling her breathing, she focused on keeping the spasms of pain in her chest as much under control as she could. Maybe this mission wasn’t done yet. If she just assumed the others would survive without the intel on what was coming, maybe she could prevent the worst of the damage. Kuro hadn’t been boasting when she said she could get out of this cell alone. A small materialization could cut the shackles, and she could finish off Gauche before she died. Certainly, her own reputation would be smeared when the bodies were found, but Kuro would be dead by then and thus beyond caring.
“You could kill me, couldn’t you?”
The voice was soft yet audible in the stillness of the cell, but Kuro’s head jerked up to stare at the source of it like she’d heard a gunshot. Gauche’s eyes were downcast, but something about her face....
Kuro had been trained in reading facial cues since before she was breathing under her own power. If anything, the blonde woman looked... relieved. As if she’d finally figured out something that had been puzzling her for a long time.
“What do you mean?” Kuro asked, eyes narrowing as she examined the statement for a trap.
“You could escape those manacles, and use me to repair yourself, like he said,” Gauche said softly. “He said it because he must’ve known what you were really here to do. He expected you to react like you did... and that I’d do anything but help you after that. Even if you broke free, I’d resist, and we’d both end up dead, accomplishing nothing but fighting each other.”
“Well, he was obviously rather intelligent if he figured that out. It doesn’t make it any better,” Kuro said. Maybe if she could keep Gauche talking, the other woman wouldn’t see the strike coming. One clean shot at her head...
“Unless I let you.”
And then Kuro’s carefully arranged scenario froze mid-stride. “What?”
“You were right, really. I haven’t been doing anything with my life. The others would be disappointed in me,” Gauche said. “A day ago, I would’ve been angry at them for daring to be. I was going to avenge them, after all. I was fighting so hard just to take down the man that had been responsible for their deaths. I never considered that they hadn’t stayed behind because they wanted him dead. They probably never knew his name, or that he existed. They just wanted me to live. They died so that I could go on...and I wasted that. I could’ve thrown away the suit, lived my life, found someone and be happy...but I was too angry and hurt. I pushed away people that could’ve been friends. I broke off what could have been more than friends, because I felt it was just too hard. Hiding the pain and focusing on killing him was easier. Because then it wouldn’t matter. I’d have accomplished what I needed to, and I could just let go...”
She looked up at Kuro, and Kuro blinked at the certainty in the blonde’s eyes. “But now I understand why my friends did what they did. They did it because they knew that if they were going to die, it was going to be for a reason. To accomplish something. Just like it will be for me.”
“...what does that mean?” Kuro said, even as she felt a slight glimmer of suspicion and hope in equal measure. It didn’t make sense. This girl’s psych report was completely at odds with this. There was no way she was going to...
“Use my blood to repair yourself. You can get out of the cell and get ahold of my suit to escape here with it. If they have teleporters, you may even get to Paragon before he does,” Gauche said softly. “I won’t fight you. I just have one request for you to carry out, since you’ll owe me.”
“...what’s that?” Kuro asked, even as she felt something heavy in her chest.
“Finish what I couldn’t. And after that... don’t kill yourself by not living. There’s no life in being a machine, however well equipped for your job,” she said softly.
Kuro considered the offer, even as her mind raced over the cues, verbal, visual, and otherwise that could indicate a trap. Everything in her said that the offer was sincere. It was the perfect solution...
Why did she suddenly feel reluctance to do it? Hadn’t she been ready to do just this to deal with Gauche a moment ago? Why did she hesitate now?
Was it just because now Gauche was asking her to, instead of Kuro dealing with a violent dog that needed to be put down?
“Please. It’s okay, I’ve got people waiting for me,” Gauche said gently. “I think.”
Kuro felt something slide into place in her mind, like the cocking of a pistol as a round loaded into the chamber. “...deal.”
Light flickered into being around her hands as two small blades of short-lived energy slipped into her palms, slicing the manacles open. Kuro deftly slid her hands free as the materialization released. She couldn't afford to maintain them; she had to preserve as much of her limited energy as possible, for self-repair systems fighting a losing battle. Resisting the rising gorge in her throat that would bring about another coughing fit, Kuro grunted as she realized how weak she felt. Slowly, she crawled across the floor until she was able to lift herself up by using Gauche’s shoulders as hand holds. The blonde looked at her, before moving her head to the side and closing her eyes.
In that moment, Kuro felt what must have driven several of the rogues she’d put down to insanity. The pain in her chest burned, even as she looked at the easy solution to make the hurting stop. Gauche was sacrificing herself willingly, but would Kuro have been able to resist, had she found a passing Crey guard instead? Or if the pain was worse, anyone at all?
Artificial connections bridged as her canines extended, and Kuro bit down, programming she’d never known she’d had taking over to guide her through the process. She shut down her sense of taste as it did, not wanting to taste the hot iron of the inevitable spillover as her damaged systems cried for her to drink deep of what they needed to repair themselves. The pain in her chest eased as nanomachines received a new influx of raw material and energy to work with, rebuilding with renewed speed and energy. Her limbs felt stronger as the flow coursed through her body, renewing exhausted muscle clusters and damaged tissue. Kuro’s estimates of her own capabilities rapidly increased as the life giving liquid she drank down rejuvenated her body with every second of exposure.
But more importantly to the dark skinned woman, she kept her eyes and ears open. She saw Gauche’s face tighten slightly in initial pain, and heard the gasp that accompanied the bite. She felt the body her arms were wrapped around for support begin to sag deeper and deeper as Kuro’s systems drew out the very fluids required to sustain itself. Saw Gauche’s skin take on an unnatural pallor. Kuro knew that this was killing her as surely as the blonde had known it would when she suggested it.
After a moment’s longer, Kuro broke off, taking a deep breath as Gauche sagged against her. A quick flicker of thought brought a blade to one hand that sliced away the manacles holding the blonde, who fell even more heavily against Kuro as the darker woman supported her.
“Y-you should go...” she wheezed, no longer sounding quite so healthy. Kuro almost thought she could hear the death rattle waiting to sound behind that sickly voice. “They’ll be coming s-soon.”
“Maybe,” the dark-skinned woman said, lowering Gauche to the floor gently. “But they won’t be here for a few minutes at best.”
“S-still a risk. Why aren’t y-you going?” Gauche croaked, now exhausted beyond the ability to do much more than speak.
“So you won’t be alone, when it happens. I’ve always thought dying alone would be rather awful,” Kuro said, using her free hand to brush a fleck of blonde hair from the other woman’s face. Her earlier estimate had been accurate. Nanami truly was beautiful when her face wasn’t screwed up in a scowl of anger.
“Oh,” she said. “Y-you’d do that?”
“Yes. But hush now. I’ll take care of everything. You can rest,” Kuro said, watching as the other Sabre nodded feebly, her body relaxing.
Twelve minutes and forty seven seconds later, the grip on Kuro’s hand finally lapsed, the dark Sabre’s regular breathing the only sound intruding on her ears in the prison cell that somehow seemed colder than it had been. Carefully, Kuro rose to her feet as her mind once more wrapped itself in the steel and quicksilver of her evolving plan of action, sealing away what might have happened in those twelve minutes for a later date. She had a mission to complete.
Time to go.
***
---
"Oh, silver blade, forged in the depths of the beyond. Heed my summons and purge those who stand in my way. Lay
waste."
The seemingly endless ocean shimmered far below, stretching out of sight beyond the horizon and reflecting the blazing sun in glittering sparkles. There were no clouds in the sky. If it wasn't for the air conditioning thoughtfully provided by the jetliner, Sylia reflected, they'd be roasting like sausages in an oven.
Instead, she was cool and comfortable, cradled in the decadent upholstery of the First Class section. Priss sat to her right, carefully avoiding looking out the window; while her lover was unquestionably brave, Sylia knew, she also was uncomfortable with heights. It was one of her quirks, something that Sylia loved her for, rather than in spite of.
The hostess came by, offering fresh drinks with quiet courtesy; Priss accepted a refill while Sylia demurred. Their section was nearly silent, as it had been most of the trip. The sole other passenger in First Class, a cheerfully hung-over businessman from Germany, if Sylia placed the accent correctly, was two rows ahead and against the window on the other side, and had achieved unconsciousness shortly after the flight took off.
"Long flight," Priss commented, toying with her drink. Ice clinked in her glass.
Sylia regarded her, smiling, and nodded. "Almost over, though."
Priss inhaled deeply, as if to say something, then scowled and drummed the fingers of her free hand on her armrest.
Sylia bit back her laugh and covered Priss's hand with her own. "Relax," she said. "The wings won't fall off, and even if they did, my carryon has an emergency suit in it."
Priss narrowed her eyes and glared. "Not funny," she groused.
Sylia patted her hand.
"Besides," Priss continued, now that the ice had been broken, "that wasn't what I was thinking about."
"I know," Sylia replied softly. "I know, Priss. And... I'm sorry. I don't know what else to say, what else I can say." As if to punctuate her words, the plane lurched slightly as it passed through a pocket of minor turbulence. "I should have seen it. I should have known."
"Don't," Priss said, her hand gripping Sylia's. "Don't you ever fucking apologize to me for who you are, dammit." Sylia blinked as Priss's eyes bored into her own from mere inches away. "I'm not mad at you, Sylia. I don't think I ever was." Priss bit her lip and looked away. Sylia opened her mouth to respond, but Priss wasn't finished.
"I was scared, okay?" Priss grimaced. "You went away without me and then when you came back, it was like you weren't really there. Like you didn't really come back after all, and I was just dreaming. And I realized something. You don't need me. Not... not the way I need you."
"Oh, Priss--" Sylia began, but the singer put a finger to her lips.
"Shut up a minute and let me say this, before this damn buma liver thing processes all that alcohol and I clam up again." Priss shook her head irritably, and Sylia realized for the first time that Priss's refills counted easily in the double digits.
"You don't need me," Priss repeated. "And when you get right down to it, I don't need you. I'll survive. But it won't be living, not the way I want it to be. You've shown me what I was missing, and if I didn't love you for it I'd be really pissed off." She shrugged. "But I do, and I'm not, and that's all there is to it."
Priss paused long enough to slam down the last of the drink she was holding, shuddered, and locked her gaze on Sylia again. "The bitch of it is, Nene was right," she said. "I was not being me. I was so scared I'd lost you that I was pretending nothing was wrong. As if doing that would suddenly make it all better. Like a stupid teenager." Priss snorted. "Oh, now that I've had time to think about it, I'm not pissed at you. Well, not much. I'm pissed at me."
Priss let go of Sylia's hand long enough to run her fingers through her hair. "I hate feeling stupid. You make me feel dumb all the time, you know that?"
"I what?" Sylia stared, stricken.
Priss sighed. "You're the brains, I'm the brawn. We both know that. And I'm not saying I'm actually stupid. It's just... look, if we were discussing food, or motorcycles, or how Hendrix wasn't really all that good, but had enough skill and stage presence to make everyone think he was that good, I'd run rings around you. Fact." Priss shrugged again. "But when we talk about tactics, or suit maintenance, or what the level three diagnostics (whatever the hell those are) have to say, at best I can grunt in the right spots and wipe the drool off my chin." Priss cracked a crooked grin. "'S'okay, I'm used to it. Doesn't bother me anymore. But this... this bugged me, because both of us shoulda been smarter about it."
She rotated her head on her shoulders. Sylia recognized it for what it was -- the same habit Priss had before she charged into a fight.
"Water under the bridge, though," Priss continued. "Over with, right? Right. All we can do is make sure it doesn't happen again." She smiled, a dark, ferocious grin that suddenly had Sylia wondering what the singer had in mind. "So here it is. I'm not going to let you go off by yourself again. That's it. Simple. Direct. Just the way I like it."
Sylia blinked. "You're right. That IS simple." Smiling, she leaned forward, putting her lips closer to Priss's. "Now why didn't I think of that?"
"Hm. Too much high-powered thinking going on, I bet," Priss replied. "That's why you need me, to pull your genius back down to earth."
"My hero," Sylia whispered. Priss closed the distance between them; their lips met. Sylia found herself suddenly wondering about the feasibility of joining the mile-high club. And then--
"This is your captain speaking. Please fasten your seatbelts and return all tray tables to their upright positions. We're on final approach to Panau International Airport. Local time is three thirty-seven P.M., and it's a balmy twenty-eight degrees outside. Please have your passports ready for customs."
***
In Paragon City, the sound of gunfire was depressingly common, especially in places like Kings Row. Most of the time, people didn’t even bother calling the police any more. But when particle weapons blew the side off an abandoned warehouse to reveal dozens of cutting edge war machines, even Paragon citizens paid attention.
Last time the Praetorian Clockwork had appeared in Kings Row, they had mostly avoided any civilians that didn’t attempt to fight back, focusing mostly on costumed heroes, police and military, and general property damage. These ones were much more aggressive, firing on anything that they saw. They were also much less coordinated, swarming up along King Garment Works like a mob, but never even bothering to turn towards Freedom Plaza.
The lead elements of this mob were climbing over a pile of burning shipping crates when a salvo of gunfire tore at them. Where the bullets hit, ice began to form, freezing up joints and shorting out circuitry. Their charge briefly halted, the Clockwork at the front of the mob began searching for a target, soon locking onto a figure in blue power armor as it darted overhead with a boost of jump jets. Several of the machines, voices distorted even more then normal by whatever had made them abandon their hiding place, managed to match the figure to one in their database of Powers Division personnel. “A-AGGRESSOR IDENTIFIED: BOLVERK SABRE.”
For her part, Noel didn’t reply verbally, instead raising a pair of massive hand cannons and opening fire again. A fine mist formed around her weapons, following a trail to her target, a Heavy Clockwork in the center of the group. The temperature plummeted and the wind picked up around it, a miniature snow storm appearing around the androids. “CAUTION REEEECOMENNN - AGRESSSSS-” The voices vanished into static as the Clockwork fired wildly on Bolverk, particle beams chewing apart nothing but rooftop tiles as she booster-jumped away. She was landing behind a parked car as the drones vocal systems managed actual words again, just in time to finish their statement with a single word; “TREASON.”
Flinching slightly as their unknowing accusation hit her, the young heroine readied her pistols. “Just Clockwork. Easily done,” she reassured herself, just before another Knight Sabre joined the fight, sprinting past the car and leaping towards her first target, tearing into a Dismantler with two brutal looking curved blades. The Clockwork screeched, stumbling back as the pink-haired teenager spun, hamstringing two more.
“Just like they teach you,” she smirked, then staggered as a particle beam clipped her.
“Justice!” Bolverk called out as the girl rolled with the blow, sliding across the gravel, and came up swinging, carving into another Clockwork foolish enough to get too close.
“Don’t worry, I’m fine!” she replied, a faint burn vanishing from her cheek even as she cut her current targets arm off at the elbow. The machine transformed its right arm to plasma cannon mode and tried to take aim, but Bolverk was faster, firing a precise shot that shattered the machines head. “Like I said before,” the girl added as Bolverk stepped out from behind cover, firing both her hand cannons into the mob, “I’m not that durable, but I can put myself back together fast.”
Over the next few minutes, the two young women tore apart the front of the mob, Noel using her cryokinesis to freeze and blind her targets, Ayaka diving into brawls with faith in her sword skills and regenerative abilities. The resulting noise and violence drew the attention of most of the Clockwork, doing a remarkable job of confining the Praetorian machines to an area that had already been evacuated. Any androids that failed to go to the bright, loud target didn’t last long, with several other heroes watching the perimeter and picking off anything wandering off.
“You know, there’s something about mindless killer robots,” Justice commented, before booster-dashing across the street, ending in a crouch on the other side of a trio of now bisected Clockwork. “No holding back, no lives but your own to worry about, just good, clean fun.”
“You have a rather interesting definition of fun, Miss Sayjou,” Bolverk replied as she emptied a clip into another set of drones that had gotten too close. Although she had to admit, she was enjoying the sensation of a good workout.
Justice sighed, shaking her head. “You don’t need to be so formal. I told you before, call me-” the sudden shriek of rending metal caught her attention. The top of a shipping container arced through the air like a giant, demented boomerang. Justice leaped to the side, but not quite fast enough, feeling a painful crunch in her abdomen as her breath rushed out of her from the edge of the lid clipping her at just about stomach height.
Noel’s HUD lit up with an alarm as she boost jumped over the next piece of flying rubble: the shipping container that the lid had come from. Tracing the trajectory back, she felt a cold sweat break out on her back as her HUD quickly identified the source: three War Walkers, which had apparently activated in one of the many piles of massive scrap that had once been portal generators during the initial attack on King’s Row during the opening shots of the Praetorian War.
The three units engaged their own boosters, sending all three towards the two Sabres in a single jet-assisted bound. Pavement shattered and the entire neighborhood shook as all three landed simultaneously, bringing up arm-cannons that Noel’s mind dispassionately identified as having nearly twice the yield of anything else in the Warworks arsenal.
Underneath the training and social awkwardness, Noel was really an observant girl, and so it was that she had the precise words that applied in this particular situation, having heard them from a variety of sources over her short life.
“...oh shit.”
***
“You know, I must admit to some slight irritation,” the silver haired man said as he crossed his hands behind him, looking over the two women currently shackled to the wall. “I had hoped that my shock troopers would have been more effective. That said, at least one of you is at the far end of the skill spectrum, so I suppose that miscalculations do happen,” Largo admitted.
Kuro resisted the urge to grimace at the slight. Her own skills were only marginally developed by the necessity of relying on herself for repairs: high risk missions that would give her a proper workout were by extension dangerous in terms of damage to her equipment... damage she was ill-equipped to rectify without help she couldn’t ask for. It would’ve raised too many questions about why her powers and her registered abilities had so many... differences.
“Still, I hadn’t planned on relying on brute force alone,” Largo said. “Numbers also play a factor into my plans. As you know, I imagine, given the data you accessed. Really, did you think you’d go unnoticed, rummaging about in my network like that?”
While Gauche just glared impotently at their captor, Kuro abruptly paled as the meaning of the words sank in. Largo laughed. “Yes, you do understand, don’t you?” He tapped the side of his head meaningfully. “There was nothing in that network you could have done without my knowing. That said, your futile attempts have given me someone who can appreciate the scope of what I’m about to do,” he chuckled. “So, what’ll it be? I’m insane? I’ll never get away with it? The heroes will stop me?”
A wet splat interrupted him as Kuro managed to hack up a bloody blob of saliva, which almost landed on the villain’s shoes. Privately, she blamed the tearing pain from somewhere lower in her chest for throwing off her aim at the last second.
Largo gave her a mildly irritated look. “Defiance, as expected. But at least you could be a little more sanitary about it.”
“Sorry to disappoint. I’m a little distracted,” Kuro said, as beside her, Gauche began to giggle, before breaking out into uncontrollable laughter.
Largo’s attentions quickly focused on the blonde as she continued to laugh. “I must express considerable curiosity at what’s so funny in your current state.”
Gauche reined in her laughter, giving the villain a smirking glance that was somewhat pitying and predatory at the same time. “Why should we worry? You’re already dead. You captured us alive because you felt the need to gloat to someone about your “unbeatable” plan. If you’re that wrapped up in your own superiority and need for acknowledgement, we don’t need to do a thing. You’ll screw yourself over long before anything we could do. You’re pathetic.”
Kuro blinked through pained confusion as she looked over at her cellmate, before cringing as she looked back at Largo and noticed actual anger on the man’s face for the first time. He began to raise his hand...but stopped rather than continue through. His face smoothed itself, regaining its composure as mismatched eyes centered on the two women. “Clever...but if you’re hoping to set off some failsafe in case your vitals deactivate, I’m going to have to disappoint you,” he said, stepping back. “Besides, if I did that, you’d miss the pleasure of watching your partner here die slowly from the internal damage she sustained during capture.”
Kuro saw Gauche’s head whip towards her at that line, even as she found herself go slightly cold at Largo’s confirmation of what she’d suspected already. Largo’s smirk returned as the villain took in their reactions. “It’s quite certain, really. I’ve probably the most extensive knowledge of your construction of anyone on this planet. After all, I’m the only one who still retains the knowledge of what Crey was working with when they blindly stumbled about trying to replicate my work.”
Kuro stared at him openly at that comment. As much information as she’d been able to find had always portrayed the initial four Sabres as being something recovered from offworld. For Largo to be claiming credit for their construction...
“Indeed, I’ve something of a personal knowledge of what it takes to cause one of you to... cease function,” he chuckled. “I almost wish my timetable could accommodate watching you expire. It’d be interesting to see how you’d react. Peacefully passing away is hardly the style of any of you, but there’s nothing in this cell for you to use to repair yourself... aside from your friend,” he said, glancing at Gauche.
Kuro’s mind began racing at that comment, but she shut it down. Largo wouldn’t have suggested it if it wasn’t already anticipated... which meant that it’d be useless. She just glared at him instead.
Largo shook his head. “It’s always interesting to see what few points you self-styled vigilantes seem to hold desperately to in order to tell yourself you’re better than the things you fight. Still, we’ll see how long that holds up as death comes calling. In the meantime, I have an appointment,” he said, turning away. “Good day, ladies.”
With a dull thud, the cell’s security door settled back into place and sealed, leaving the two alone in the dark again.
***
Priss slid the glass aside and exited onto the balcony, where Sylia stood framed by the setting sun, her hair gently swaying in the breeze. She came up behind the other woman and wrapped her arms around her, resting her chin on Sylia's shoulder. The two of them looked out over the beach of white sand and black rocks, to the deep blue of the ocean, dotted here and there with fishing ships and speedboats.
"Hey," Priss said quietly.
Sylia smiled and turned her head slightly. "Hello."
"So when are we going out?"
Sylia blinked. "I -- what?"
Priss squeezed her lover a bit more tightly and grinned. "I know you. You're standing out here enjoying the sun and the breeze and watching the boats and patiently waiting for the right time to get to work."
Sylia chuckled. "You're too perceptive sometimes, you know that?"
"I know."
Sylia turned halfway, getting her arm around Priss's waist, and sighed. "In about an hour," she admitted. "Our contact is supposed to meet us outside a local club."
"What's the deal with this place, anyway?" Priss asked, looking over the railing and down the side of the hotel. They'd obtained a room on the twentieth floor, just four floors shy of the top and called a suite on the brochures. As rooms went, Priss supposed it wasn't bad; but then, she'd lived in a trailer in the Hollows before getting together with Sylia, so what did she know?
"You didn't read Nene's file."
Priss snorted by way of response.
"Panau is an independent and rapidly developing nation," Sylia said in the precise tones she always acquired when delivering a briefing. "As these go, it was fairly typical. The government used to be peaceful and friendly to outside interests, until the current leader -- Pandak Panay -- showed up. He's the son of the former president and the rumor is that he killed his father to gain power. He's declared himself dictator and cut diplomatic relations with most foreign powers. Panau's sole legal export of note is oil, from massive deposits discovered here during the war, so there are a lot of foreign interests." Sylia shrugged. "In addition, there's a thriving drug trade, and at least three different factions who all claim to be the rightful rulers, but Panay controls the military. They're all trying to keep it from outright war because they depend on tourism." She turned to Priss. "What name did Nene put on your passport?"
Priss blinked at the sudden topic change. "Testarossa. Her idea of a joke, I guess."
"Hm. Yes, that does sound like her." Sylia nodded. "In any event, it's a good thing she did. Japan invaded Panau at one point, and there's a lot of hostility still. Your usual name might have made things difficult."
Priss grunted. "Yeah, maybe a little." She frowned. "Okay, I get it's a big explosion waiting to happen. So what are we doing here?"
"Besides taking a vacation?"
"Oh, we'll be taking a vacation," Priss said firmly. "I plan on seeing you in a bikini on that sand down there tomorrow morning."
"Panay's forces have suddenly become much more effective," Sylia replied, flushing lightly at Priss's jab. "And intelligence operatives have vanished -- from all sides. The entire island, practically overnight, seems to have been purged."
"Arachnos? Or Crey?" Priss wondered. Sylia shook her head.
"No." She smiled crookedly. "My contacts were, ah, just as surprised as we were."
"That still doesn't explain why we're here," Priss pressed on doggedly. "You. Me. The Sabres. What's our connection?"
Sylia was silent for a long while. Sensing her mood, Priss waited patiently.
"A burst of telemetry from an Arachnos power armor suit was intercepted by a Tsoo listening post," Sylia finally said. "They didn't know what they had, so they passed it up the chain. A strike team from Ms. Chang's group stumbled across it while conducting operations in Independence Port." Sylia's distaste was evident.
"Our liaison," Sylia continued, making Priss chuckle -- the Sabre leader was almost painfully uptight about maintaining Irene's cover -- "our liaison with said group spotted something familiar in the visual data feed and forwarded me a copy." Sylia took a deep breath and let it out slowly, then reached into the pocket of her tailored slacks and produced a printout. Priss glanced at it and sucked in a sharp breath.
It was a still-frame captured from the viewpoint of a helmet camera, grainy and blurred by motion, but easily recognizable and intimately familiar to both women for all of that. Blue armor on a humanoid frame, with glowing red eyes; two of them were in the shot, though one was in the process of exploding as the distinctive red of Arachnos energy bolts tore through it.
"Are those...?"
"Yes," Sylia replied.
Priss forced her hand to unclench and noted with what she thought was admirable calm the crushed section of balcony railing left behind. "This is bad, Sylia."
"It might not be," Sylia cautioned. "Nene ran some analysis on it and there are many differences between these and... buma. And we know that parallels exist between here and MegaTokyo anyway."
"I guess so..." Priss replied doubtfully.
"We'll just have to make contact and see."
***
In many ways, Noel was more familiar with the War Walkers than most Paragonians. She was native to the dimension from which they came, and had assisted Silicon and Interrogator Kang in acquiring substantial data on the entire Warworks project to broadcast about Praetoria in an attempt to weaken support for the war on Primal Earth. However, her experience was intellectual at best. The War Walkers she’d seen had been silent statues sitting in construction lines. Their armaments and capabilities had been words on a dataslate rather than reality.
But as the three Walkers pivoted towards Justice, arm-mounted cannons beginning to hum ominously, something in the back of Noel’s brain clicked. The binary fight-or-flight decision that she’d seized up on shifted in one direction as her body remembered the training she’d undergone and both her pistols came up...only to aim at where Justice was staggering to her feet. A pair of bolts shot out, hitting Justice in the back before the cold around them spread and swelled, freezing around the pink haired girl in a rapidly expanding layer of ice that shifted with the smaller Sabre’s movements. A few seconds later, the armor was abruptly tested as all three War Walkers fired.
With a pained yell, Justice was thrown down the street, ice and armor fragments trailing along behind her, coming to a stop nearly thirty feet from where she started, but the Praetorian girl’s quick thinking had saved her from almost certain death. Landing next to her, Noel knelt down, wincing behind her helmet at the unnatural angle that Justice’s left arm was bent, but the injured girl just seemed rather irritated. “What the heck just shot me?” she demanded. “That really... oh. Ah... Oh dear,” she finished as the War Walkers moved in closer.
“Come on,” Noel said insistently, pulling the smaller girl up by her good arm. “We need to move!”
“That’s probably a good idea,” Justice agreed. “Wow. They’re bigger then the Vanguard trainers said they are,” she added, looking up at the War Walkers as they took aim again.
Just before Noel could fire her boosters and hope Ayaka wouldn’t throw her off course too much, a tall figure seemed to just appear between them and the giant mechs. Then the world exploded into a storm of light and noise, the particle cannon fire splashing off the woman in front of them, tearing apart their surroundings but leaving them unharmed.
When the smoke cleared, Noel stared in surprise as the woman who she’d been assigned to train under lowered her left arm from the defensive pose she’d assumed, the emitters on the Vanguard shield she carried humming ever so slightly from the strain. As the sword hilt in her in her right hand powered up, generating a gleaming blue blade of light, Neko Romanova walked slowly towards the three mechs.
“Here we go,” Purrfect Shield said calmly, and then she seemed to teleport again, slamming her shield into the face of the lead War Walker so hard the machine actually staggered back. Balancing herself on the Walker’s shoulder, she stabbed her blade down into the joint, seeking out the hydraulics. Something inside groaned and let out a small cloud of smoke as the arm went limp, and then one of the other machines swung a clumsy metal fist at her. The woman took the blow on her shield, but was still knocked into the air and away from the trio.
“Girls, put some distance between you and them,” she ordered, landing in a crouch. “I’ll deal with this.”
Not being the sort of girl that disobeyed orders anyway, Noel finished pulling Ayaka to her feet and helped her limp away. “I think I’m bleeding internally,” the pink-haired girl commented, leaning against the other Sabre. “I hate when that happens. Leaves me stiff for days.”
Noel’s eyes widened behind her helmet, staring at Justice in disbelief. “You’re very casual about that,” she managed after a moment.
“I’m a regenerator,” she replied with a wave of her hand. “It’s what I do. It can be annoying. So,” she continued much more cheerfully. “Those are War Walkers. Big things. Mean guns too.”
“They’re made to match the most powerful superhumans known,” the other girl said. “Can... do you think your teacher will be alright?”
Justice waved her hand again. “Don’t worry. She’s a veteran.Taken on things a lot meaner then those war mechs too. She’ll be fine!” Both girls were so focused on putting some distance between them and a fight that had suddenly moved well out of their weight class, they didn’t really notice the explosions behind them. They also didn’t notice Neko, now smoking slightly, skid back down the street as two of the War Walkers opened fire on them again.
Regaining her balance, the catwoman glared at the three mechs. The one she’d been targeting was now missing a cannon, and had a limp to go with its damaged shoulder, but it was still more then capable of fighting back, and that still left the other two. She’d never been too fond of admitting when she was outmatched, but right now, she had to admit the reports were accurate. The IDF had designed even the standard War Walkers with enough weapons, armor and strength to allow them to go one-on-one with even Incarnates. She could take one of them and win, although she’d be hurting a bit. Three of them at once? She’d do some damage, but very soon she’d be reduced to a red smear on the sidewalk.
The lead War Walker seemed to pause, before it reached down, ripping a chunk of asphalt broken loose and turning. Neko glanced to one side just in time to see a small group of people who’d somehow gotten caught up in the chaos of the battle when she hadn’t been looking. Neko broke into a sprint a second later, instinct telling her a second before it happened exactly what the War Walker’s target was. Spinning in place, Neko barely managed to brace herself in time to catch the piece of rubble, concrete cracking beneath her feet for the split second of impact as she pushed, deflecting the impromptu projectile up and over the trio of people behind her. She let out a breath as the rubble bounced along the street behind her, before coming to a stop safely... then promptly stiffened as a massive shape abruptly cast her in shadow.
In a handful of seconds, several things happened.
Neko realized that the reports had understated the level of tactical acumen the War Walkers possessed if one of them had successfully baited her this badly out of position, while the War Walker’s fist began its ponderous yet impossibly fast descent. Neko began to raise her shield to try to ward off the blow even as she tensed for the bone-shattering impact about to happen, only for a man from the group behind her to step around her. Neko began to yell for him to stand back, before he simply put a hand forward... and caught the War Walker’s fist as simply as someone reaching out to deflect a beach ball lobbed at their face. Concrete shattered under his feet, but the man failed to notice, even as Neko finally had a moment to identify the facial features she’d been too hurried to notice before. The War Walker actually stopped for half a second as core-deep programming stuttered over the person now preventing it from attacking.
Marcus Cole glanced over his shoulder at Neko. “Do you mind?”
Neko gave a small, incredulous laugh. “Be my guest.”
That short exchange over with, Marcus shoved the armored fist aside and out of his way, and shot forward to deliver an echoing uppercut to the chin of the multi-story war machine, sending it briefly into the air before it toppled backwards onto the already abused street, the sound of armor plate hitting asphalt echoing outwards as the ground shook for the second time with the impact of several tons of War Walker.
“Does this sort of thing happen a lot?” one of the two people still behind Neko, a black haired woman with waist length straight hair, a turtleneck sweater, and baggy black jeans asked her companion, a slim blonde in a t-shirt and shorts who was already pulling a belt and scabbard out of her backpack and buckling it on.
“More often than you’d think, unfortunately,” Megan Duncan said, even as she slipped a mask around her eyes. The dark haired girl chuckled, even as green fire flickered about her hands, a series of runes tracing themselves before the pavement ripped open again, a series of hissing inhuman shapes crawling out of the rent in the earth.
Neko shook her head slightly. “You don’t have to ruin your day off, you know. I had it handled,” she said with chuckle.
“Sure you did, Neko,” Ms. Liberty said with a grin, before darting in as a crack of thunder announced Statesman’s second punch connecting with the downed Walker as the other two began opening fire, their brief lockup at targeting Marcus Cole solved for them by his changing into costume. Statesman was most definitely a threat they recognized.
“Desdemona, am I right?” Neko said, glancing at the dark haired woman next to her. Desdemona nodded, a hint of hesitance in her eyes. “Good to meet you. I’ve heard good things,” Neko continued. “If you don’t mind, a couple of my students were dealing with some less dangerous Clockwork until these things woke up. Could you check on them for me? Assuming your demons don’t need you here to assist,” she said, even as one of the larger hellspawn crawled onto the Walker now slowly pushing itself to its feet, brimstone laden fire spraying into the machine’s optics from its skeletal maw.
“No, I can do that,” Desdemona said, seeming relieved about something, before heading in the direction that Neko pointed out to her.
The catwoman looked back to the chaos erupting as Statesman, Liberty, and the demons continued to batter at the first War Walker, which was beginning to show signs of strain. She smiled, even as the other two moved in to support their battered companion. Maybe this wouldn’t hurt so much after all.
***
Ah, Panau at night, reflected Priss. I've never been here before but it still feels like home.
The international melting pot that was Panau City pressed in around them. They stood on a street corner, backlit by garish neon and bare incandescent bulbs dangling like Christmas lights from awnings. The air was balmy, with an occasional cool breeze, and only served as a backdrop for the incessant hum of motor traffic drifting by. Priss gnawed absently on the fried-something-on-a-stick she'd acquired from one of the innumerable street vendors and watched Sylia watch traffic go by.
"Is he late?" she said finally, removing the well-worn stick and regarding it critically for any remaining tasty bits.
"Marginally," Sylia replied. A passing car slowed, the driver waving currency through the open window; Sylia ignored him until he sped up again and drove away.
"At least we've got fireworks," Priss said philosophically, jerking her chin at the flashes of light and sound over the city's business district. She blinked and looked again. Those were certainly impressive fireworks, especially since she wasn't aware of any particular holiday Panau was celebrating today...
The top three floors of a downtown skyscraper vanished in an incandescent fireball, and Priss revised her estimate of the situation very rapidly.
"Remember, Priss, without our suits we're not nearly as tough," Sylia said from her side, and Priss realized she'd instinctively dropped into a half-crouch, preparing to leap into the fight. She rose and straightened her miniskirt and halter-top combo, grimacing.
At the end of the street, a military jeep skidded sideways around the corner, blue light whirling, and gunned its engine for all it was worth. Behind it a motorcycle rounded the same corner, then suddenly flipped end for end as its unfortunate rider was ejected. The soldier screamed as he flew out of sight.
The jeep screeched and shuddered to a halt next to them, and a swarthy, stocky, well-built Latino man stood, one foot on the running board. "You the Sabres?" he called out in a friendly fashion.
Priss and Sylia exchanged a look. "Scorpion?" Sylia responded, a little dubiously.
"That's me," the newcomer replied. "Get in, chicas. Gonna be noisy here real soon."
"I'll drive," Sylia said as Priss climbed into the passenger seat. Scorpion shrugged and vaulted into the back, crouching against the roll bar.
"Punch it already!" he exclaimed. "We got choppers incoming!"
"Choppers?" Priss inquired, craning her head to look at their passenger as they peeled out away from the curb..
Scorpion shrugged. "They don' like me much right now."
***
"This ain't about oil," Scorpion said dismissively, waving his bottle of beer by way of emphasis.
It was some time later. Priss sat on a folding lawn chair, her feet resting on a fifty-gallon oil drum lying on its side. Beside her, Sylia perched comfortably on an ancient Army camp cot, leaning back against the wall of the shipping container Scorpion called home at the moment.
The escape from Panau's military had been … interesting. Between Sylia's driving skills, Priss's willingness to engage in fisticuffs, and the truly bizarre antics of their host, they'd managed to cross half the island and destroyed more property than Priss had believed possible. Now, they were holed up in dense jungle.
In a shipping container. With cheap beer resting on ice in a styrofoam cooler.
Priss had to admit, it was somewhat... nostalgic.
"There's a new player on the scene," Scorpion continued. "Dunno who he is, dunno what he's got in mind. But he's cozy with Baby and the Panau military has been vanishing all the other players all over the place." He gulped down the last and chucked the bottle into a bin in the corner.
"What does that have to do with this?" Sylia asked, skimming the photo she'd shown Priss earlier across to Scorpion, who caught it and scanned it quickly.
"Ah, yeah. Those." He grimaced. "I was around for this. Arachnos cadre, tryin' to train up the natives. Usual routine. Then it all went to hell." He nodded at the picture. "This poor sap got nailed by Zeus."
"Say what?" Priss blinked.
"Lightning. Least, looked like lightning. Crackling blue and white death from above, pow!" Scorpion smashed a fist into his palm. "Just came outta nowhere and smashed his getaway flyer. Burnt out my satphone from three klicks out, too. Never seen anything like it."
Priss and Sylia exchanged a look. Scorpion glanced back and forth between them.
"You chicas know something."
"Can you tell us where he is?" Sylia leaned forward.
Scorpion nodded slowly. "Yeah. He's with Baby Panay. He's always with Baby."
"Show us."
***
As far as things went, Kuro honestly didn’t think she’d ever had a situation quite this bad. Imprisoned by a villain? She’d been born in Crey confinement. Stuck in a prison cell without access to her armor? Anyone who made the mistake of assuming she was a helpless norm was in for a nasty surprise if they got close.
Unfortunately, most of those situations hadn’t also happened while she was bleeding to death internally. Kuro supposed this might be making her a little testy. Which was probably why she snapped when Gauche asked how she was.
“How do you think I’m doing?! I’m bleeding to death in a prison cell while a megalomaniac heads to Paragon with a strike team of thousands of killer robots, with enough preparation in place to let him topple an entire section of the city. Plus he’s got orbital support and who knows what else I didn’t get to see before he found us. But I can’t get word out because I didn’t do the smart thing and jump into the ocean when I had the chance. Sticking around to save you when it’s clear you’ve got a death wish is probably the stupidest thing I’ve ever done, especially since you would’ve wrapped up all my problems if you’d died anyway,” she spat.
Gauche glared at her from her position, her face angering in an instant. “Oh, would that be so convenient for you? I asked for your help with this. I didn’t put a gun to your head to force you to do this! You didn’t have to if you didn’t want any 'problems' to deal with!”
“No, I did, because no one else would,” Kuro growled back. “You’re everyone’s problem. I’ve seen the records. More fatalities during arrests than anyone else in the Sabres. Probability estimation suggests you’re going looking for Crey to kill off. And I saw your file before you told me your story. You got out, but none of your friends did. And so now you’re one of two things. A mad dog cutting up Crey until they put you down, or someone wanting anyone to put her out of her misery so she can join the dead, because she doesn’t think there’s any point in staying living. The only reason I took this mission is because the one you say killed your friends sounded like a dangerously competent member of Crey, and so eliminating him weakened them. And because maybe you’d get your wish in the process, and save us all a lot of hassle!”
“So what if I want revenge?” Gauche asked, glaring at the other woman. “Like that’s such a big deal? There’s plenty of so-called 'heroes' that do the same thing!”
Kuro was far too injured to restrain her snort of disgust at the shallow self-justification. “But they don’t go looking for trouble. They don’t go leaving triple digit bodycounts. They don’t make themselves out to be some crazy, homicidal extremist who causes everyone else to have to bend over backwards covering for them so that people not so insane don’t have people expecting them to snap the same way! Your example is splashing shit all over everyone else in the Sabres, which is exactly what Crey wants.” She glared daggers at the blonde as she hung from the manacles holding her against the wall, the words coming out like an unstoppable flood now that she’d uncorked the dam.
“We don’t all have open identities. Most of us don’t, in fact. It’s a survival measure given what Crey could potentially do. But the only reason people accept that is because most of us help people. But you aren’t interested in helping. All you do is kill people on your way to your supposed revenge. You’re not someone people want to make exceptions for, and you’re damaging the Sabres’ reputation across Paragon with everything you do. Silicon and her command group think you may be salvageable. Oni and hers think you’re at least a usable weapon in her little crusade. But none of them have found what I did. They don’t know that you’re a time bomb ticking down. Unless someone cuts the wi-”
Kuro’s cold evaluation was cut off as a racking cough nearly doubled her over, black flecks of blood decorating the floor in front of her. “You’re a cancer who’s only concerned with your goals and your revenge, not anyone else. And I’m the only one who was willing to do what was necessary and cut you out. Except now I’ve failed. Either Largo’s beaten and you’re rescued when they find this base, or Largo wins and it doesn’t matter if he kills you or not because he’s even worse.”
Kuro barely felt the stare of her fellow prisoner as she slumped forward. “I could get out of this cell myself, but it doesn’t matter. He’s right. I’m dying already. The amount of feeding it’d take to repair this level of damage... I don’t have the strength left to take out someone well enough to get that kind of drain going. So I get a slow, lingering, painful death with you for company while the villain goes to enact a plan I could stop if I could get out of here.”
Kuro stared at the floor and the flecks of her own blood on it for a long while as the cell descended into silence. Carefully controlling her breathing, she focused on keeping the spasms of pain in her chest as much under control as she could. Maybe this mission wasn’t done yet. If she just assumed the others would survive without the intel on what was coming, maybe she could prevent the worst of the damage. Kuro hadn’t been boasting when she said she could get out of this cell alone. A small materialization could cut the shackles, and she could finish off Gauche before she died. Certainly, her own reputation would be smeared when the bodies were found, but Kuro would be dead by then and thus beyond caring.
“You could kill me, couldn’t you?”
The voice was soft yet audible in the stillness of the cell, but Kuro’s head jerked up to stare at the source of it like she’d heard a gunshot. Gauche’s eyes were downcast, but something about her face....
Kuro had been trained in reading facial cues since before she was breathing under her own power. If anything, the blonde woman looked... relieved. As if she’d finally figured out something that had been puzzling her for a long time.
“What do you mean?” Kuro asked, eyes narrowing as she examined the statement for a trap.
“You could escape those manacles, and use me to repair yourself, like he said,” Gauche said softly. “He said it because he must’ve known what you were really here to do. He expected you to react like you did... and that I’d do anything but help you after that. Even if you broke free, I’d resist, and we’d both end up dead, accomplishing nothing but fighting each other.”
“Well, he was obviously rather intelligent if he figured that out. It doesn’t make it any better,” Kuro said. Maybe if she could keep Gauche talking, the other woman wouldn’t see the strike coming. One clean shot at her head...
“Unless I let you.”
And then Kuro’s carefully arranged scenario froze mid-stride. “What?”
“You were right, really. I haven’t been doing anything with my life. The others would be disappointed in me,” Gauche said. “A day ago, I would’ve been angry at them for daring to be. I was going to avenge them, after all. I was fighting so hard just to take down the man that had been responsible for their deaths. I never considered that they hadn’t stayed behind because they wanted him dead. They probably never knew his name, or that he existed. They just wanted me to live. They died so that I could go on...and I wasted that. I could’ve thrown away the suit, lived my life, found someone and be happy...but I was too angry and hurt. I pushed away people that could’ve been friends. I broke off what could have been more than friends, because I felt it was just too hard. Hiding the pain and focusing on killing him was easier. Because then it wouldn’t matter. I’d have accomplished what I needed to, and I could just let go...”
She looked up at Kuro, and Kuro blinked at the certainty in the blonde’s eyes. “But now I understand why my friends did what they did. They did it because they knew that if they were going to die, it was going to be for a reason. To accomplish something. Just like it will be for me.”
“...what does that mean?” Kuro said, even as she felt a slight glimmer of suspicion and hope in equal measure. It didn’t make sense. This girl’s psych report was completely at odds with this. There was no way she was going to...
“Use my blood to repair yourself. You can get out of the cell and get ahold of my suit to escape here with it. If they have teleporters, you may even get to Paragon before he does,” Gauche said softly. “I won’t fight you. I just have one request for you to carry out, since you’ll owe me.”
“...what’s that?” Kuro asked, even as she felt something heavy in her chest.
“Finish what I couldn’t. And after that... don’t kill yourself by not living. There’s no life in being a machine, however well equipped for your job,” she said softly.
Kuro considered the offer, even as her mind raced over the cues, verbal, visual, and otherwise that could indicate a trap. Everything in her said that the offer was sincere. It was the perfect solution...
Why did she suddenly feel reluctance to do it? Hadn’t she been ready to do just this to deal with Gauche a moment ago? Why did she hesitate now?
Was it just because now Gauche was asking her to, instead of Kuro dealing with a violent dog that needed to be put down?
“Please. It’s okay, I’ve got people waiting for me,” Gauche said gently. “I think.”
Kuro felt something slide into place in her mind, like the cocking of a pistol as a round loaded into the chamber. “...deal.”
Light flickered into being around her hands as two small blades of short-lived energy slipped into her palms, slicing the manacles open. Kuro deftly slid her hands free as the materialization released. She couldn't afford to maintain them; she had to preserve as much of her limited energy as possible, for self-repair systems fighting a losing battle. Resisting the rising gorge in her throat that would bring about another coughing fit, Kuro grunted as she realized how weak she felt. Slowly, she crawled across the floor until she was able to lift herself up by using Gauche’s shoulders as hand holds. The blonde looked at her, before moving her head to the side and closing her eyes.
In that moment, Kuro felt what must have driven several of the rogues she’d put down to insanity. The pain in her chest burned, even as she looked at the easy solution to make the hurting stop. Gauche was sacrificing herself willingly, but would Kuro have been able to resist, had she found a passing Crey guard instead? Or if the pain was worse, anyone at all?
Artificial connections bridged as her canines extended, and Kuro bit down, programming she’d never known she’d had taking over to guide her through the process. She shut down her sense of taste as it did, not wanting to taste the hot iron of the inevitable spillover as her damaged systems cried for her to drink deep of what they needed to repair themselves. The pain in her chest eased as nanomachines received a new influx of raw material and energy to work with, rebuilding with renewed speed and energy. Her limbs felt stronger as the flow coursed through her body, renewing exhausted muscle clusters and damaged tissue. Kuro’s estimates of her own capabilities rapidly increased as the life giving liquid she drank down rejuvenated her body with every second of exposure.
But more importantly to the dark skinned woman, she kept her eyes and ears open. She saw Gauche’s face tighten slightly in initial pain, and heard the gasp that accompanied the bite. She felt the body her arms were wrapped around for support begin to sag deeper and deeper as Kuro’s systems drew out the very fluids required to sustain itself. Saw Gauche’s skin take on an unnatural pallor. Kuro knew that this was killing her as surely as the blonde had known it would when she suggested it.
After a moment’s longer, Kuro broke off, taking a deep breath as Gauche sagged against her. A quick flicker of thought brought a blade to one hand that sliced away the manacles holding the blonde, who fell even more heavily against Kuro as the darker woman supported her.
“Y-you should go...” she wheezed, no longer sounding quite so healthy. Kuro almost thought she could hear the death rattle waiting to sound behind that sickly voice. “They’ll be coming s-soon.”
“Maybe,” the dark-skinned woman said, lowering Gauche to the floor gently. “But they won’t be here for a few minutes at best.”
“S-still a risk. Why aren’t y-you going?” Gauche croaked, now exhausted beyond the ability to do much more than speak.
“So you won’t be alone, when it happens. I’ve always thought dying alone would be rather awful,” Kuro said, using her free hand to brush a fleck of blonde hair from the other woman’s face. Her earlier estimate had been accurate. Nanami truly was beautiful when her face wasn’t screwed up in a scowl of anger.
“Oh,” she said. “Y-you’d do that?”
“Yes. But hush now. I’ll take care of everything. You can rest,” Kuro said, watching as the other Sabre nodded feebly, her body relaxing.
Twelve minutes and forty seven seconds later, the grip on Kuro’s hand finally lapsed, the dark Sabre’s regular breathing the only sound intruding on her ears in the prison cell that somehow seemed colder than it had been. Carefully, Kuro rose to her feet as her mind once more wrapped itself in the steel and quicksilver of her evolving plan of action, sealing away what might have happened in those twelve minutes for a later date. She had a mission to complete.
Time to go.
***
---
"Oh, silver blade, forged in the depths of the beyond. Heed my summons and purge those who stand in my way. Lay
waste."