raz
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((OOC: RP by @raz (Aiko) @Gunhand4171 (William) @Gles (Molli) @Megabirb (Rio) @Nameless (Sif) @Sunny D (Morgana) and @Ametheliana (Aratani)))
20日1月YE 47
Funky City
Nepleslia
Dusty beams of neon light sliced across the seventh floor apartment through old metal slat shades affixed permanently half-open atop the street facing window, casting broken and erratic silhouettes from the traffic-jammed ground level where colorful storefronts, cafes, bars, and other more seedy sensations attracted anonymous masses beneath the Nepleslian megacity's towering hundred-and-a-half-plus story habitation blocks. It was a big room that used to be some kind of office space, but was now more like an expansive studio hangout ringed with worn out seats, tables stacked high with the week's trash and contraband, and a number of huge televisions to hold the attention of even the most zeeted ganger. Of which there were about a half dozen in various states of awareness there today alongside the YSS Kaiyō II's away team, watching cheap mutant girls dance around in vibrant colors on volumetric screens plastered to the walls between hits of whatever else got them off.
Aiko and William stood at the business end of a wide, messy hardwood desk adorned with a bong and stacks of paper collected in green file folders that tracked the decades the further down the stack you looked. Proper documentation for the Twenty Eight Gumtree gang's legitimate businesses, of course. Across from them was a slim man—having a well toned body and as tall as William but a third the weight—whose skin was quite nearly as orange as a tangerine and latticed with greenish veins that showed through up through the translucent top layers of his flesh. He wore mirrored pince-nez glasses so dark purple they appeared almost black from most angles that his scrunched brow seemed to have grown to envelop in a manner that kept them on his face more than his pointy aquiline nose or any mechanism of the accessory. This villain had on matte blue patent leather pants with a thick trench coat to match and not much else, and stood up very straight except for the very top of his back where his shoulders rolled forward to let his arms hang lazily to the front of his stance. The man's bald pate was ringed with greasy white locks that stuck together unevenly and shot down straight to his jawline, giving him the air of some kind of narcotics monk.
"Then our deal is complete, Mister Yoldeen," Aiko said, reaching her hand out to shake the marmalade man's and finish up with this portion of their quest. Her long black hair covered her mostly exposed back from sight, but that didn't keep the couple of slightly mutated Nepleslian gangbangers keeping close watch on her and William from trying to stare through it and see the perfect Nekovalkyrja form her shiny black leotard teased when she'd strode into their domain some time before. Aiko's legs, more modestly covered with a pair of baggy black hakama pants that were bloused into jika tabi riding boots, still drew their wicked gazes as they loomed closer.
The head honcho in his navy coat reached one of his long arms out to meet Aiko's hand and shook it, passing off a data stick into the princess' palm. Within its records, the device held information on—and the location of—the Star Army team's next lead: an abandoned PNUgen facility buried beneath Funky City's crust so many years before Yamatai and Nepleslia split that it lay even further below the crime infested lower city zone they currently found themselves in. A mission undertaken based on information Uesu had shared with Captain Hoshi and Task Force 282 that promised to unlock old bioengineering secrets that could help turn the tide against the Mishhuvurthyar.
Aiko had led her comrades here in secret today. Kaiyō, in orbit above, had been permitted into Nepleslian space for joint exercises with Battlegroup Havoc. And while that occurred, the stout Star Army squad came down to run this true mission. While not quite undercover with complex cover stories this time, the team didn't advertise their presence or identities due to the sensitive nature of their objective. Though William and his Berserkers had fought several times now alongside Uesureyans, many Nepleslian citizens and factions still held their old Emperor Kitsurugi Uesu in contempt.
"Not quite," the lanky orange Yoldeen replied, smiling a set of spiny shard implants dripping with his viscous, drug-affected saliva. He kept Aiko's hand in his grip and scratched her wrist with the tip of his unkempt right index fingernail. "I think the IPG will pay me more for a Ketsurui princess," he added, still not letting go even as Aiko tried to pull away, looking at William next as he held her. "And you! Shouldn't have come with 'em, catlover. It's gonna embarrass your daddy so bad!"
Behind William and Aiko, the other Kaiyō crew could see the two gangers standing guard draw pistols and take aim. The other five Gumtrees in the room hadn't stirred yet, though they watched, likely too hopped up (or down) to see the scene unfolding as anything different than the adver-drama shows they invested most of their lives in.
It was already a horrible surprise to find out the Kaiyo's next assignment lay in the smoggy, industrial megahellhole that was Funky City. Though Molli was born and raised there, it never truly felt like a home to her with its violence and garish excess. With all that had happened that led to her fleeing on an outbound ship as a wanted woman so many years ago, the prospect of returning wasn't exactly thrilling. But soldiers obeyed their superiors if they wanted to stay on duty, and wanted women didn't let the truth of their circumstances slip to those they wanted to keep as friends. That the "joint exercise" was just a smokescreen for another delve into an underground base didn't come as a surprise to Molli whatsoever -- she was getting used to that level of subterfuge by now.
For her part, Molli chose to wear her sleek bodysuit with a puffy jacket and sturdy running shoes as she accompanied the princess and William. The city was a nightmare of close-quarters combat, so cutting down on anything that could get caught on terrain or grabbed was ideal. The jacket, on top of being fashionable, was just poofy enough to mask the bulging pistol that sat snugly in Molli's shoulder holster. It was a minimalist set-up, if a tad revealing, judging by the occasional whistle from a grungy ganger whose eyes wandered to the soldier's backside.
Most were more interested in Aiko, however, for obvious reasons. Besides looking stunning in her pristine, un-Nepleslian perfection, she commanded an aura of power that none could ignore. Molli knew from the moment they strode into this skeezy joint that some chem-huffing moron would get a bold idea they'd be tempted to act on the longer they stayed. All that mattered was when, and Molli's crimson eyes scanned the room, awaiting the moment the pin dropped with a hand twitching towards the holster inside her jacket. The stench of their onlookers got stronger as a few inched closer to her officers.
Yoldeen was just like any other wannabe bigshot that managed to sink his greasy claws into a scrap of the city: more balls than brains, and keen to take the quickest path to the top, risk be damned. Even if he'd known just how dangerous it was to threaten a Yamatain princess, he'd have still tested his luck. That's how life was in Funky City -- the brave burned bright and fast, because anything was better than being slowly choked into an ignoble grave.
Molli wasn't feeling particularly impressed by his bravery, however. Once Yoldeen made his betrayal known, the Nepleslian acted swiftly. In a flash, her hand vanished into the jacket and withdrew a stubby pistol that she raised into the air and fired. It was a semi-auto that fired metal cartridges like in the good old days, and more importantly, it made an ear-splitting, attention-grabbed bang. Seizing the element of surprise, Molli strode forward and jammed the barrel of her pistol to the back of one of the gunmen's heads. "If ya don't git yer skuddin' paw offa her," Molli growled, "Th'Gummers're gonna be another wanted t'be, but couldn't."
In the years since she'd naturalized as a Yamataian citizen, Molli hoped she could forget what it was like to act like a slummer. Standing here, gun in hand, neck-deep in a ganger drug den, she realized that the instinct of a survivor hadn't left her at all. It was all coming back to her like a bad habit, or a toxic addiction.
William was also surprised that the next mission took them into Nepleslian space, though not nearly the same as the visceral reaction Molli had. The ID-SOL had suggested once or twice to his friends that they should come to Nepleslia. Though he definitely didn't mean for it to turn into a work thing...
For his part, William wore a black trench coat, ballistic vest, black cargo pants and combat boots. The final article he wore as a ballistic half face mask in the shape of a skull. The mask was armored, but also had built in comms and a rebreather. The mask wasn't a perfect disguise, but it was very versatile. For this outing, he was packing revolvers in his underarm holsters, and his katana on his hip. As they walked through the neon lit streets, the marine stuck to Aiko like glue. His own training as the princess's retainer coming back into sharp focus. He fought to keep his eyes straight ahead and not deck any of the locals who leered at the Kaiyo crew.
He stayed silent during the meeting, but he watched Yoldeen cautiously. Things had gone okay so far, that was until the gang banger had made them. Molli was quick to react, but William was hot on her heels. In a flash, William was up with katana in hand and sliced the blade in an upward arc, aiming to slice the arm Yoldeen's was holding Aiko with off at the elbow. A revolver appeared in his other hand and he leveled it at Yoldeen's head. "Too bad you won't get the chance to tell them." He sneered, before he fired.
The news that their next assignment would see them heading to Nepleslia had filled Rio with an electrical current of excitement. Her first time to Nepleslia and Funky City. Somewhere new to see and learn about. Rio hoped that she would have a chance to grab a souvenir or two at some point while team was on planet.
For her part, Rio had sought to be as inconspicuous as the blue skinned Neko could be. Quickly bought once they had gotten planetside Rio had picked up a simple t-shirt, a brown leather bomber jacket, jeans and riding boots. She had also grabbed a newsboy cap to wear as well instead of pinning up her hair as she usually did. Having followed Molli's example, Rio had opted to carry her radiant pistol in a shoulder holster underneath her jacket for this mission. Her service pistol was discreetly holstered in the back of her waist and hidden underneath her shirt and jacket.
Rio's excitement for getting to travel somewhere new faded as the crew ventured into the deeper levels of the city. That excitement completely died when they had entered the den the den they currently found themselves in. The entire place and its inhabitants caused her nose to wrinkle in disgust. The worst of it was the smell to Rio. The NMX base had smelled better than this dump.
Like the rest of the squad, Rio had stayed silent for the duration of the meeting. Once things went sideways though Rio was right behind Molli and Will. As she hopped up from her seat Rio pulled her radiant from underneath her jacket. In a single swift movement Rio took aim at the head of the gunman behind Aiko and fired almost in time with Will's own shot.
Another sneaking mission to find a hidden complex. The idea itself brought Sif back to her first mission. She didn't know what to expect at the time, but now she was more prepared, and after getting a rundown on what kind of place they were stepping foot in, she thought up her most daring outfit yet. Three nekovalkyrja waltzing into a crime den, that was already looking like trouble. It turned heads, raised questions perhaps. In an attempt to lower their profile, Sif decided to integrate her Candy Festival costume into her disguise, mainly the cloak, cowl and the mask. The latter two to hide that she's a Nekovalkyrja --and to add a bit of mystique-- the former to hide most of the equipment she carried. Though one need not worry of it getting snagged as it was secured in a way to make it easy to come undone.
In a dangerous environment, one must also be perceived as dangerous. The image of the herald of pestilence surely fit that requirement. But a mask and a cape only spoke of hidden agendas. Signs of being battle tested was important to the look as well. Fortunately they had just came into possession of a number of "salvaged goods" from the NMX they retrieved in the prior mission. Rio's radiant pistol being one of them. Sif carried the same, strapped to her side. If they were to get disarmed, it'd look bad for Yamatai when a number of Nekovalkyrjas carrying Yamataian weapons were found sneaking around. The fewer issued gear carried, the better.
That brings about the rest of Sif's ensemble. She was wearing some combat boots purposefully left out in the sun for a few days to be bleached. Her bottoms were dark urban-pattern camo pants with knee and shin guards weathered to look worn. Her top was a plain green t-shirt underneath a ballistic vest with three NMX combat knives stowed on each side, though currently covered by the unbuttoned denim jacket. Her NMX-issued combat gloves looked the newest, though she sanded out the markings.
On her back, she also carried her impaler rifle from the previous mission, currently hidden under the cloak.
When they were making their way through the seedy corner of the city, the mask served to hide her scrutinizing eyes as she studied the punks and ne'er-do-wells they passed. Inside the meeting room, she stayed at the rear, by the door, arms confidently folded as she leaned against the frame, though the tip of her finger was on the hilt of a knife with the other hand ready to draw the radiant pistol at a moment's notice.
To think such a place could exist, Sif was equal parts concerned and enthralled. She could sense the tension in the air as Aiko spoke with the dealer. She was calm and collected as always, despite being in such an enclosed space surrounded by goons that could turn hostile at any moment. And when that moment came at Molli's gunfire, and William's slice and shoot maneuver, Sif sprung to action as well.
She took one of her knives and quickly aimed to dig it into the area around the shoulder and the neck of the thug to her left, who moved to unholster his pistol in response to Molli's shot. In the same breath, she drew the radiant pistol and at first aimed it at the guy sitting across the one she just stabbed, but upon seeing that he was in a world of his own, she instead shifted her aim towards the thug right behind him and squeezed the trigger.
Morgana slouched against the crumbling brick wall, her mirrored aviators glinting like twin slashes of neon as the sickly glow from the slatted blinds cut across the room. The bodysuit clinging to her was all sharp lines and cold purpose—matte black, sculpted to her figure, with panels smooth as silk across her chest and stomach, and ribbed textures running along her sides. Between the panels, faint orange neon strips pulsed softly, the dying ember of a cigarette in a room gone cold. The fabric caught what little light there was, shimmering faintly like oil on wet asphalt. Over it all hung a bomber jacket that had lived a few too many lives. Frayed seams, scuffed leather, and a patchwork of corporate insignias told stories of places that no longer existed, of deals gone sour in Funky Town’s back alleys. It hung from her body loosely.
She watched the scene unfold, her expression unreadable behind the lenses, giving a barely audible sigh as the situation instantly deteriorated. With a slight tilt of her head, she rolled her eyes just enough for a shard of green to peek over the top of her shades. The players in this little drama were predictable, their tension building like a cheap lazor pop track before the drop. She flexed her wrists, revealing a silver holowatch which gleamed in the filtered neon. A quick swipe of her hand over its faintly glowing interface made the air shimmer around her like heat haze.
From her jackets inside pocket, she drew a matte black NSP—sleek, unmarked, and lethal. She held it one-handed, the weapon leveled lazily at the closest goon like it was an afterthought. The moment the silhouette of her target filled her sights; she pulled the trigger. Then she was in motion. Her body uncoiled like a serpent, fluid and fast, the bomber flaring around her as she slid toward a stack of overturned tables firing as she moved.
“Chusa,” Morgana called out, her voice steady as she settled into cover. “Your knack for being recognized, despite your best efforts, is... notable."
Twenty Eight Gumtree Gang Block
The emergency sirens that always punctuated Funky City's constant thrum of life and death on Nepleslia went unnoticed. That constant presence to remind the low city criminals that another gang carrying a badge and government authority was there to always oppose them, and quickly became part of the megacity's background pulse to anyone who spent more than five minutes on the Democratic Imperium's capital world. Easily ignored until those flashing lights were right on top of you.
William's heavy revolver blast sent Yoldeen bursting through his office's slatted windows, taking the tall but wiry-light mutant right off his feet and down onto the streets below. It was just as the red and blue lights of a dozen NPF squad cars rolled up to the building's façade, replacing the pink and green neon shadows that usually lit the area. Yoldeen's body thumped down onto one of their hoods, which forced the up-armored police hovercar to the ground in a plume of dust and shattered glass that twinkled like rain against the city block's strobing spectacle.
On their quick initiative, the other Kaiyō crew made quick work of their targets. Only the strung-out guy Sif had spared and the other dude Molli initially held up remained, the latter of whom spun around to face her with a maniacal grin on his scaly, segmented mutant face. He'd brought his pistol up to his temple and immediately fired, splattering his own brains all over the room behind William.
"Never," Aiko replied to Morgana as her eyes darted to the scratch Yoldeen had etched into her wrist. Less incredulous than matter-of-fact, the princess knew she was impossible to recognize without her signature bellflowers set above her right ear. "This must have been a setup. The IPG is beneath contempt for good reason."
Even with the half dozen cop cars blasting lights and sirens outside, the office was suddenly dominated by an orangey hue as its volumetric displays came to life. A humanoid visage animated in ascii characters, doubtlessly Yoldeen's likeness down to his ugly little glasses recognizable even in the text-based video, cackled through the clutch of screens that surrounded the Star Army soldiers.
"No shit, bitch!" the digitized gang leader declared. "Now the Sky Marshal's gotta pay for a new clone, too! Big payday with NPF backup right on time, huh? Y'all don't even know how networked the Twenty Eights are, we got all the—"
As the smog and noise from outside flooded into the office through the newly shattered window after Yoldeen's betrayal, Rio's ears rang for several moments then quickly faded. She had no real experience with ballistic weapons in a such a small environment. She had know them to be loud, but it was much louder than she had expected. quietly she pulled her hat further down on her head, covering her ears in the hope that it would help muffle any future encounters.
The explosion of violence that erupted all around Molli was all too normal by this point, despite her hope that they'd be able to go longer without getting shot at. She had been the first to draw, but that hope kept her finger off the trigger; it was the biggest sign that she'd forgotten how life was in the slums, and it made the Nepleslian feel utterly inept. As Yoldeen's body shattered the massive office windows and let the rust-scented smog in, Molli froze as her target spun to face her. His pistol raised, and the soldier gasped at what seemed like a fatal mistake -- only for blood to splatter across her face from the explosive impact of his suicide. Was he grinning because he'd seen Molli's hesitation and known her weakness before the end?
With the shock wearing off, the blaring sirens, all the louder thanks to the broken window, snapped Molli back to reality. The sounds of the NPF could never be forgotten, unfortunately, and Molli had always learned to steer clear of the noise if she wanted to keep from catching a bullet -- or a made-up fine. When the room became bathed with the orange hue of Yoldeen's distasteful likeness, Molli gripped her pistol tightly, as if expecting him to materialize in person and start shooting at them.
"Perfect ex-e-cution," Sif proudly said to herself with a voice slightly muffled by the plague doctor mask, surprised that her maneuver worked as smoothly as it did, as well as being pleased that everyone was still in one piece. The tremors in her hand as she ripped the knife off of the body was barely noticeable but it was there, a mix of adrenaline and nerves that she has still yet to fully tame. No, wait, can't lose character now. She thought and shook her head and tapped the tip of the knife gently at the side of her mask before she retreated back into the mindset of a battle-hardened mercenary staring down the ruthless forces of an entrenched enemy.
The digitized visage of their most gracious host appeared as the sound of the cops' arrival broke the momentary lull from the gunfight, his gloating largely ignored when Aiko's orders were set. Even if he didn't confirm Aiko's hunch at a setup, the timing was too close to be anything but. Maybe except for a very keen police force, which was highly unlikely given the sorts of people they brushed past on the way here.
"Faelan-shoi," Aiko said, speaking calmly even as Yoldeen continued his tirade unabated. She had a rosy blush smeared across her pale cheeks, looking very flushed despite her determined attitude. "Access the building's systems wirelessly and find us a route out. Dictate directions while we move. They should have a garage with transport on the upper levels. Wil, you make us any walls she needs. The rest of you, on me!"
Seventh Floor Corridor
With that, Aiko beelined toward the office's door that led out onto a very dingy but otherwise plain apartment hallway beyond and flung open the door. Beyond, thresholds lined the corridor every ten feet or so, and at the end lay a central staircase that provided the Gumtree Gang Block access up and down the twelve stories. Far down there, a cop kitted out with a ballistic helmet and riot shield spearheaded a group of police coming up from the ground floor. The princess had already unholstered her NSP and was marching counter to them with it raised and ready.
"Cease and desist, intruder!" he announced from a chest mounted mini-megaphone while loosing shots from his Zen .357 service pistol without delay.
They whizzed past the princess and she froze for a moment. And then she ducked and skittered to the floor, holding both hands over her ears while making herself small against the hallway's corner.
"Ah'm with her," Molli grumbled, jabbing a thumb in Morgana's direction. "Yeh're kinna..." Molli gestured vaguely with her arms as she appraised Aiko, whose larger than life presence always stuck out in her mind, "...Reconizzble." It didn't seem far-fetched that the squad of Yamataians might have immediately landed on someone's radar as soon as their boots hit the concrete.
"Bet 'e thought they'd get 'im a new meatsuit..." Molli said, lightly kicking the leg of the dead man at her feet, now understanding his willingness to turn a gun on himself. The ruminations were short-lived, as Aiko's orders came as swift as her ensuing movements. Molli followed close behind the princess, but her metal eyes widened in surprise at the squad that mobilized down the hall. They were firing on Aiko's position; it seemed that taking prisoners wasn't on the agenda today.
Much as Molli didn't care for killing people that were just doing their jobs, she couldn't just stand there and let Aiko stay in danger again. "Keep yer noggin down!" Molli barked as she dove down the hallway, then thrust her metallic right arm outward. With a sharp click, the glowing red limb detached and flew through the threshold, propelled by miniature aether thrusters that gave the anti-gravity some push. Through a camera feed in her metal eyes, Molli guided her arm toward the vanguard of the police unit and aimed to deliver a solid punch right into his shield.
When the squad split and mobilized, Sif put away the knife and pistol to bring out the impaler rifle. One look and anyone could see that it was nice and clean. Anyone who looked at the pistol beforehand might have also noted the same. In short, it was clear how much care Sif put into these weapons, which was in contrast with her more road-weary ensemble.
Navigating the building behind Aiko and Molli, Sif remembered one important thing any battle-tested veteran should know, hallways are deathtraps. Many faceless foes have fallen to the protagonists' effective use of the funnel it creates, and many deuteragonist have been injured in similar instances. Coming face-to-face with the shield-bearer, Sif mused how nice it would have been if she thought to bring one.
As Aiko took cover and Molli fired off her arm, Sif, channeling the character she envisioned for this operation, dropped to a knee, leaned down as low as she could without being prone and trained her sights at the the officer's feet and let out a burst of blue laser beams, taking great care to not accidentally hit the two people ahead of her.
William stood, replacing the spent bullet as Yoldeen's body fell. When he reappeared on the screens, the marine groaned. "You have to be kidding me... Can he shut the hell up already?"
The thought that this fuster-cluck could be anything IPG related greatly concerned William. They were supposed to be on his side. He would have to run this up the flag pole. All the way to his father if he had to. Now though? They had bigger problems.
Turning to Aiko, he nodded. "I'll back her up." Pulling his data jockey from a pocket, he jacked his cyberware into the module and began searching for a way into the buildings network. At the same time, he was deploying firewalls to keep himself and Morgana safe.
When the officer yelled and began firing, he took note of Aiko's response. It was not like the warrior princess of Yamatai to hide when the aether started flying. Something wasn't right. Moving next to her he yelled into the hall. "You are interfering with an NSMC operation! Cease and desist now or it's your ass!" As he did, he checked Aiko over. Specifically, he tried to gauge the cut on her arm that Yoldeen left.
The reappearance of Yoldeen's ugly mug and grating voice brought Rio back into focus. "I doubt he is capable of doing so. If we see him again we should help him do so. permanently. Along with whoever told him who we really are!" growled Rio in response to Will's complaint towards Yoldeen's yapping as she took a quick peek out the shattered window at the large number of police hovercar.
Seeing Will checking on Aiko, Rio took a running start and dove through the fire to cross the doorway. Rio's momentary delay meant that she was following Will as he entered the hall. Muffled from inside the office, the report of the advancing officer's service pistol was painfully loud to Rio in the tight, echoing hallway.
"Was the Chusa hit?" Rio hollered, trying to yell over the deafening noise as she joined them.
Sif's shots skittered and sang whizzing across the hard concrete just a couple millimeters beneath the brownish grey low pile carpet that had covered this building's floors for so long their original color was unknowable, plinking up into the charging policeman's aegis even as the NPF officer's pistol shots impacted into the plaster covered walls around her and the others. In their body armor, neither the cop on point nor his comrades now advancing in column behind him seemed to have been injured—though perhaps Sif had contributed to the inaccuracy of the police fusillade as her rounds skipped around at their feet.
A moment later Molli's rocket fist slammed into the metal riot shield's facing, making clean contact right in its center of gravity. The cop wielding it held his ground at first, pushing forward to counter the super punch's force. He held Molli's prosthetic weapon there for a few seconds in counterbalance, wrestling with the fist's wild propulsion as it shifted around scraping sparks across his shield in an attempt to get through it. And then finally, Molli's arm pushed hard enough to shift the policeman backward even with his solid stance, first sliding him backward and then toppling him into the cops crowding in though the stairwell in back of him. They made for an ugly pile of armor and man as they scrambled around while Molli's first returned to her unimpeded on automatic recall.
Aiko blinked up at William, who had her wrist in his grasp, as if coming out of a daze. Her scarlet eyes traced the ID-SOL's gaze down to her wrist. The scratch Yoldeen had given her was now a black line surrounded by a throbbing, hot pink aura that traced her web of veins out across her pale arm just under the surface of her skin.
"My body is attempting to develop immunity," the princess said to her Nepleslian friend. Aiko's face darted over to some dusty chunk of debris floating down through the air, looking too surprised to see it while her stare tracked it down to the floor beside her. "This process will take some time to correct. Whatever he did is potent. Forgive my inability while we exfiltrate."
Aiko closed her eyes and took deliberate breaths to slow down her hurried respiration. Meanwhile, William's mindware showed him the building's layout. Morgana would see the same via her access if she tried. It was an old official zoning record, but nonetheless showed a garage on level 11 that took up almost the entire floor. Other than the stairwell ahead, now teeming with NPF officers tangled up with each other as they flooded in, there was no regular access. But the schematics showed the walls were thin and lacked any reinforcement on the building's interior, and that there existed two thin one-meter-wide spaces between this block and those nextdoor that ostensibly contained some sort of ancient fire escape ladders that had been sealed in whenever the adjacent buildings were constructed.
Right in front of them, only about a yard or so ahead, the first door to the Kaiyō team's left swung open with enough force that the dust and gunsmoke now filling the corridor's air swirled about like murky grey eddies in one of Funky City's toxic sewer pipes. The sudden slam heralded something far more lazy: some buzzcut Nepleslian man in striped boxer shorts, a heather blue t-shirt, and a ratty terrycloth robe that looked kind of yellowish green despite having once been white. His average frame sauntered out with a Zen submachinegun in hand, held low at the hip in both hands, and an NPF badge that hung from a ball chain lanyard around his neck.
"Gumtrees are this detective's beat!" the guy bellowed down toward the stairwell, sloppily turning to walk and meet his colleagues. "I'm the law here!" he added, letting rip a burst of .357 police ball at the invading cops, who were only just recovering from Molli and Sif's attack. They began returning fire, striking the apparent detective in his shoulder as he continued unabated to greet them.
Molli's soundscape had been drowned out by the boom of several repeated ballistic retorts in a confined space, and in their wake came a high-pitched drone that informed the soldier she most assuredly had some form of hearing damage. It made it practically impossible to hear what anyone had to say, and in the moment Molli realized just how terrifying it felt to be so close to violence without the cushion of a Mindy, or even basic body armor. She concentrated on her arm to remain productive to the team, and it was to her satisfaction that firing it off had the intended effect -- a messy pile-up that could buy them some time. She turned onto her side in order to receive her returning limb, which she slotted back into its port with a rough click.
Molli was considering firing it off again when the door ahead of her was thrown open, and its occupant emerged from the dusty haze in naught but his jammies, an automatic weapon, and the intent to start blasting. While most of the seasoned members of the crew were taking cover, this crazy son of a skiz was marching right towards the squad willing to loose a volley. It was a scene almost as comical as it was incredibly frightening. Though Molli had serious doubts that this 'detective' was the real deal, the thought of using a third party as cover for an exfil wasn't comfortable, and so she extended her cybernetic arm and allowed it to detach once more.
Unlike the rocket-propelled punch, it floated through the air at a more measured pace, until its digits seized upon the nape of the 'detective's' neck. "Get DOWN ya sketchy IDJIT!" Molli screamed over the gunfire as she tried to encourage the man to take a knee, hopefully before the rest of his body was filled with lead.
Creased close, the Shoi's amethyst eyes caught the inadequate light of the hallway in tiny fractals between her dark lashes. The look on Koizumi Aratani's face perfectly telegraphed her feelings about the developing situation. Skin scrunched up between her tethered brows in an uncomely squint. Her mind was focused on her fingers—not her own expression—that were working the Type 39 Zen AR she held, switching the firing mode over to its secondary plasma stream. She took two heavy steps towards the jumbled pile, angling to avoid spewing the blue stream on the shield Molli had driven into. Instead, she concentrated below it on the mound of footsoldiers as they recovered.
Used to providing support as she did on Urtullan by dropping in when mecha or armors needed repairing, the Shoi had been surprised to be pulled aside for the mission. She didn't have the rapport the away team had with one another but also anticipated the only way to gain such would be joining along on a full mission like this one. So, she had hung back in the room and let the others do the talking as she observed. But now that combat was happening, her natural inclinations kept her from staying in the shadows any longer.
Her silvery white hair whipped behind her, catching on the ridges of the bullet vest she wore snugly beneath a tight fitting shirt with a stylized Nepleslian-style dragon on its chest. There were a few leather bracelets on her wrist and one of the triangular charms on them glowed a familiar teal. Baggy lavender cargo pants meant she had extra magazines and extra cells for the ZARCNAM as well as a few surprises, like the grenades that sloshed around with each of the two steps she took towards the NPF pile.
"Got an exit strategy, boss?" Aratani asked over her shoulder, thinking she was yelling back to Aiko and cheekily using the name of their ship's AI in the process. Truly, though, the question would be directed to William after his assessment of the Ketsurui royal and with his knowledge of the building's layout.
"Over these lumps or through them?" Putting extra panache on the third word out of her mouth, she had directed her attention back to the NPF.
William's arrival slightly threw off Sif's aim, her margin of fire being forced narrower due to his bulky frame, but that did get her to notice that he was off to assist Aiko. Up until that point, Sif had thought things were still going their way, but it seemed the princess was out of commission. How dire the issue was wasn't clear from her vantage point, and she felt the dread building. "Scheiße!" she cursed in Abwheran, picking herself up off the ground while the cops were knocked back into a pile thanks to Molli's disembodied arm. Sif took position right in front of Aiko and William, serving as cover for them with her body armor as well as to gain some ground and a clearer shot without any friendly obstructions.
Though the last part of that idea quickly got scrapped as a party of one jumped into the fray through a door that burst open, whose form did little to inspire any form of confidence or hope, and rather evoked the image of a sleazy neighbor. Though the badge suggested he was more of a sleazy alcoholic who happened to land a job in the police department thanks to nepotism before departmental corruption took hold; a shell long withered away by his vices, underworld debts and perhaps a lost Lenore, looking for purpose at the end of a needle or at the bottom of a bottle.
Sif's aim locked in to his chest. Had he turned just a millisecond slower or if Sif had a faster reaction time, she would have introduced him to NMX munitions, but him turning towards the cops marked him neutral, an enemy of her enemy, at best. Yet, he remained an obstruction to her line of fire, which elicited a grunt of frustration from behind the plague mask as she couldn't, in good conscience, just shoot through him, and neither could she adjust her position, which would have meant leaving William and Aiko exposed.
But seeing Molli's hand attempting to push the stranger down a little, Sif had hope that it would work and leveled her gun once more, ready to fire what was left in the battery once there was an opening, ready to pull out her secondary once the gun was fully discharged.
William cursed as he took in the wound. "I know you aren't a fan of this, but I need to do it." The ID-SOL said, cradling Aiko in one massive arm. He knew Aiko didn't like being touched or anything of the sort, however the situation necessitated William's transgression. Shielding her body with his own, he slid his sword back into his sheath and held his revolver in his free hand.
"She's been poisoned." He replied to Rio. Turning back to Aratani he nodded. "Let these idiots fight themselves. We have bigger problems." He marked the spot with his mindware, flagging the old fire escape in everyone's HUD. "Fighting withdraw! I'll clear the way. Once its open I'll cover you all." William ordered as he moved towards the thin wall that hid the fire escape. "Sorry again about this." He whispered apologetically, shielding Aiko with his other arm. With a roar, he slammed a massive combat boot into the wall.
With her head partially leaned around the corner to get a better glimpse of the situation, "Is it always so chaotic on Nepleslia?!" Rio mentally asked herself after having witnessed the alarming arrival of the NPF 'detective'. She wasn't sure if he really was one but that didn't matter as much as him incidentally providing the team with covering fire. She half wondered if yet another party might also join into the hallway fight at this point. The situation had clearly gotten out of hand in a very short amount of time.
Upon hearing that Aiko had been poisoned Rio's head snapped back around the corner to quickly as William gave his orders. As soon as he began to move with Aiko, Rio peeled off the corner to join them, radiant pistol at the ready for anymore unexpected entrances. "Understood. I'll take point as soon as the wall is breached." she called out. Once they reached the marked wall Rio would position herself just to the side, pistol in both hands and held close to her body, ready to charge through the wall as soon as it was opened.
Morgana leaned against a wall for cover as she examined the building schematics on her wrist watch. She was looking at the elevator shaft, working out the logistics of getting Willaim and Molli, the Neplesians being without an ICS and her not trusting an elevator under combat conditions it was a conundrum. The revelation that Aiko was incapacitated put pay to that idea, though William beat her to an alternative.
"Not a great idea for you to be both on rear guard duty and carrying the Commander." She said approaching William. "Give her here, I'll carry her." she said holding out her hand.
Kicking drywall typically resulted in little more than a leg shaped hole and getting awkwardly stuck, but William was a large man with a large foot and so his ID-SOL sized boot ripped down from where he raised it near chest height all the way to the floor and tore a good Nekovalkyrja-sized passageway for the team to crouch through. Rio went in first, taking point as she'd intended, and Sif remained in position to cover the makeshift doorway. He would struggle to slip between the jagged hollow himself, especially having picked Aiko up, and needed to let her pass on her own two legs before bullying his way into the next room. Thankfully, his brief squeeze made the hollow a little bigger for the rest of the squad who'd follow him in.
Molli's disembodied prosthetic successfully grabbed onto the supposed detective's collar, tugging backward at his ragged robe like a cat pulling its kittens out from a toxic Nepleslian sewer pipe. He quickly fell on his ass and dug his off hand's fingers into the hard floor, trying in vain to find purchase on the thin carpet as if he expected to be pulled away by whatever unknown force had put him down. Now three wounds deep on his upper torso, the detective finally peered backward and saw the Kaiyō crew absconding.
"Suspects on foot, I need backup!" he shouted, laying back down into the floor with Molli's bionics still attached to his robe and then taking aim at the Star Army team. "They're gonna get the supplies! I'm taking the shot!"
The blue plasma stream from Aratani's ZARCNAM meanwhile rushed over the downed detective, now clear of fire from both sides, and impacted into the ground just in front of the regrouping riot cops. A beam mighty enough to take on power armors, it quickly destabilized the deck under them. That first officer who'd been punched back by Molli tripped and fell as the concrete ground beneath him turned molten and dripped away through the ceiling of the level one story down. His riot shield clattered to the floor, and the abused officer only caught his fall in time to paw around in an attempt to save himself from sinking any deeper than his armpits. The other incoming cops immediately to his rear stopped shooting for a second to stabilize themselves and help him up while even more of their fellows continued to push up behind them and take what marginal shots they could.
The Donut Room
When Rio moved through from the hallway, tungsten lights flickered to life and bathed the room with an ugly yellow tint. The space was about fifteen feet long by ten feet over to a darkened window that looked out only into conduit-works and mold, and was packed full of various crates with a single workbench over to the right corner opposite where William created the entrance (itself only two feet away from a perfectly usable door). A rifle, pair of pistols, a grenade, and some tools sat on the workbench—which was affixed with a small vise—next to a caged 5-gun weapons locker, and what appeared to be crates of ammo were stacked around it.
But the majority of the rest of the room was filled to the ceiling with yellow cardstock boxes about a foot long and 3 inches square. Through a clear plastic window on each box, Rio could immediately see rows upon rows of chocolate glazed donuts. The only labelling appeared to indicate "HUMANITARIAN RING PASTRY: SHELF STABLE" in thin stencil lettering.
"I can walk, you both must remain ready to fight in my stead," Aiko said to Morgana and William, wandering into the room with an uncharacteristic levity in her step considering the raging fight that had erupted. She approached one row of the amber snack stacks and ran her right finger a millimeter above their surface as if to somehow take stock of them for a moment too long. "Odd."
Then, the princess snapped her gaze away to survey the room, choosing quickly to glide over to that darkened window and thrust it open.
"This way, right?" Aiko asked, and then with little regard for what dangers may lurk, she thrust her head through to take stock. With just as much speed, she soon reeled back as if stung by a hornet. "Nnh! Too bright!" she spat, rubbing both fists into her eyes. "But clear for you, Rio-san."
What Aiko had seen had been naught more than a pinprick of sun where the joined roofing that sealed the old fire escape cavity had fallen away, but that had apparently been enough for her to tolerate in this state. Within the cramped space was a rusty old series of ladders and varied tubing that carried coolant and water and electricity, as well as a thick humidity that bled from its walls. There was trash, too, and the passageway they'd have to take smelled disgusting with some hint of sweetness to it that seemed to waft up from below, probably due to dead rodents or a stashed victim somewhere on the lower levels.
Even from her prone position on the ground, Molli could feel the sheer, overwhelming heat of the ZARCNAM's plasma stream overhead. Its molten energy left a lingering warmth on her back that, ironically, made the scrappy Nepleslian's blood run cold. They don't believe in zitchin' overkill on Yamatai?! Molli thought in a panic, though she let out a relieved sigh to see the self-professed detective had gone down before said plasma stream evaporated him from the waist up. That relief quickly turned to shock when he faced the team and leveled his weapon toward them.
She couldn't believe her eyes, but the degree of stupidity one had to have to turn away from the people who just shot you and aim at the ones who weren't was pretty believable in every part of town. "ARE Y'OUTTA YER FLARKIN' MIND?!" Molli screamed, like an angry cat whose kitten decided to pull a gun on its mother after it'd pulled it out of a toxic Nepleslian sewer pipe, "SHOOT TH'OTHER GUYS!" Molli had a feeling that the words of a 'perp' wouldn't carry much weight with this whack job, and so she set her arm to grab the front of the man's gun as she scrambled to her feet and sprinted after the team through the makeshift exit William's boot made. The last one in, she withdrew her arm -- with or without the crazed gunman's weapon -- and entered with her pistol raised and ready to fire.
The room she entered smelled like gunpowder, oil, and anarchy in the making. Weapons and explosives, plus the tools to make, break, or mod them, were a familiar and unsurprising sight. "More bullets 'n people in this friggin' dive..." she mumbled, brushing a metal hand over the weapons on the workbench, before her eyes whirred to focus on the greater prize: the donuts. Molli was quick to help herself to one, taking a huge bite that left chocolate on the sides of her mouth. Despite the adrenaline pumping through her veins and the imminent danger in the wings, there was always time to enjoy a donut.
"Wash duhplah?" Molli asked with a mouth full of food, which she swallowed before continuing, "Do ah hunt fer some shades, Princess?" Her concern for Aiko was palpable in the question; it was odd to see her in a relatively helpless state. The soldier's eyes flitted to Sif and Rio, then to the hole in the wall. "Sif, Rio, gimme ah hand wiv th'hole, ah wanna plugit. Find somefin' heavy." It wouldn't hold for long, but it might buy them a few seconds, at least.
Though Molli was successful in bringing the Nepleslian in his boxers to the ground, allowing Sif to fire over him, this quickly put his attention towards them, screaming something about taking supplies. "He's out of his mind!" Sif declared as she shifted her aim towards him as a challenge. "Pull that trigger and you're a dead man!" she warned. But that threat didn't get acted on as the floor began to collapse as the rest of the team left the corridor and into the room William busted into. Sif followed suit, entering through the hole and took position against the door next to it, setting herself to guard the new entrance for any police presence, taking this short lull in the action to pat herself down for any damage as well as reloading her impaler rifle. No one was going to get the jump on her or the team.
She looked around the room to find anything heavy, and her eyes fell upon the workbench. That was so far the only thing likely heavy enough, but by itself, it wasn't going to plug the hole. "Stack the crates over here," she said, taking one last peek through the hole before she began pushing the crates to the hole. "See if we can get the workbench over here to brace this."
Before William could debate carrying Aiko with Morgana, Aiko made the decision for them. Luckily, he managed to widen the makeshift door as he pushed his massive frame through it.
Once inside he covered the entrance while everyone else retreated into the room, firing off shots with his revolver into the approaching combatants. After they had all made it inside, he took Sif's advice and moved to the workbench. He took the rifle and slung it over his shoulder, pocketed the grenade, and grabbed extra ammo for the rifle. Once that was done he swept the bench clear, and hoisted the bench into the air. "Coming through." He grunted as he moved to brace Sif's makeshift barricade.
Morgana let out a long exhale as Aiko forged ahead, and turned her attention to Sif's project. As the equipment upon the workbench wobbled around as it was dragged into place the grenade upon it caught her eye. She casually walked over and picked it up, scrutinizing it with a fierce intensity as the chaos around her continued.
Fire Escape
"Sif, don't get too carried away." Morgana said thoughtfully, lifting up one of the crates and placing the grenade under it so the crates weight was pressing on the spoon. She then pilled the pin before retreating into the fire escape. "If they see we've trapped our exit they'll move more cautiously, hopefully." She added with a slightly defeated sigh. "Then again residents of this area don't seem to have the best survival instincts."
As she was moving the crates, Sif could already feel that the barricade wasn't going to last long, even with the hefty workbench supporting it. However, with Morgana's addition of a booby trap, being fragile was its strength. Now was the time to vacate however. No point in staying to see if the trap works first hand, not unless she wanted to experience the mission as an after-action report. Though the moment the police began breaking down the door, that future felt so close.
Any change in Aiko's state of mind was lost on Aratani. Unlike the rest of the away team, Aratani didn't have a year's worth of missions with the Kaiyo XO to have gotten to know the Ketsurui and so mistook the Chusa's demeanor to be the tone she was setting for this mission. Even the Nepleslian was helping herself to some of the bountiful quantity of donut. Finding herself in agreement that a mission out of mechs and armors could use a little informal quirkiness, Aratani stuffed a pastry into her own mouth before following Rio and then Morgana out the window.
It would have been easy for the Neko-born Shoi to simply float up and to their destination on the eleventh floor, but given the circumstances Aratani believed them in, she took a more peculiar strategy to the same route. Monkey climbing along the bars below the first ladder in her path, she hopped up and onto it, doing a half turn as she did to be on its outer ledge. When the bars looked too rusty to hold, her body swung on the stable bar she still held once and then twice before she released her grip and hugged her body towards the conduit piping on the wall.
There was not a lot of vertical space in those old enclosed area forgotten to time until now, but she made use of what little room there was with each movement. Skittering up the wall with her hands holding the old pipes and the toes of her feet planted along them as well, she looked down towards the window she had come from some floors below to be sure her team was able to abscond.
The donut was still sticking out of Aratani's mouth, the chocolate glaze melting into her cheeks where it pressed into the edges of her maw.
The Donut Room
"Fffffh! Not so fast!" the drugged-up detective fumed through his teeth, keeping a firm grasp on his pistol even as Molli's mechanical limb attempted to disarm him.
He absolutely would not let go, and slid on his skivvies all the way to the improvised path William had created moments before. With a solid thud, his noggin caught on the threshold's jagged entrance when Molli's arm passed it and returned to her, forcing him to finally release his determined hold on the gun. Luckily for the detective, his body remained outside in the hallway when the Kaiyō's ID-SOL Marine hefted up the metal workbench with his gargantuan strength and placed it back down to block the way with a thunderous rumble that belied the ease with which William had crossed the room. Along with Sif's, the heavy table was more than enough to plug the hole.
With her arm recalled and firmly attached to her shoulder, Molli found herself whole. As had Sif upon her quick check for any wounds. No one seemed injured as far as they could tell, the team fortunate thus far to have avoided catching any lead from the police gunfire. And for a few seconds there was peace. Just enough time for Aratani and Molli to have pilfered a couple of donuts, each from a separate box.
The cakes were about as bland as their "shelf stable" labels suggested. Dry and mealy despite their waxy chocolate frosting, the donuts felt to the two Star Army girls like biting into soft suede that dragged across their teeth and somehow created a thirst provoking suction within their mouths as they chewed. If either Molli or Aratani cared to notice, they'd have seen a cylindrical grey wrapper stuffed down the middle of the donuts behind that first one in each of their boxes. It'd clearly been no matter for Aratani, whose mind was rightly locked into escaping as she discarded the rest of her donuts and proceeded upward through the dark, damp crawlspace.
It said a lot about Molli's low standards for Nepleslian cuisine when a stale donut was the most appetizing thing she remembered eating on the planet. That being said, the ensuing dryness in the roof of her mouth made Molli immediately regret her foolish decision to stop for a snack in the middle of mortal danger. Worse still, the soldier had a mortifying realization that she hadn't come prepared with anything to drink. Tossing the donut aside, Molli grimaced at the box she'd looted as though it'd betrayed her and noticed a grey wrapper in the box.
Soon enough the momentary calm was shattered when the armor clad cops outside, finally recovered from the setbacks foisted upon them by the Kaiyō squad, slammed into the storage room's door. Though locked, their well-trained NPF breaching drills shook the wall to its baseboards and sent a square of dust echoing off around the shut entryway's buckling latches. They didn't even bother with the hole in the wall that Sif and William had blocked up, nor yet trigger Morgana's carefully placed grenade trap.
A sudden boom shook the room with enough violent force that it felt like her bones were chattering, sending the box clattering to the ground. With seconds to react, Molli snatched the wrapper off the ground and scrambled through the window, right as heavy footsteps thundered in. Any later, and she likely would've been reduced to paste from their concentrated fire.
"Come!" Aiko beckoned the others, one leg already raised and hooked over the forgotten window that allowed them to ascend. She had her eyes shut, ostensibly because of the overwhelming brightness she'd seen in the dark crawlspace, but still managed to move unimpeded thanks to her body's skin vision. "Now!"
Sif heeded Aiko's command to egress, but she'd be the last one to get out of that room, reasoning that she's better off as the rear guard covering their tracks with her equipment. She was the second biggest target of the group, following William, and he's definitely the more valuable member to be on the frontline.
"I'll cover our six," Sif said, placing her body in between the door and the window while the others got out. "I hope the padding on this outfit keeps the blast force minimal," she thought, eying the grenade under the crate in case they did try breaching the barricade.
Fire Escape
The princess and Rio—and hopefully the others—just behind her, Aratani swung and climbed using her momentum and Nekovalkyrja agility to trailblaze as quickly as she could. It was musty and damp in this place, and the rotten steel of the ladders dripped and shuddered each time they had any force applied. At every level, when one of the Star Army team stood or hung for too long, the old gangways would screech and slip down a few inches, only sturdy again when they wedged lopsided between the Gumtree apartment block and the larger building next door.
"This is too much," Aiko said, huffing steamy breaths of the humid tunnel's tainted atmosphere as she hurried right on Aratani's tail. "The air here is too sultry, we must get out soon or we risk succumbing to the influence of its vapors."
Of course there was no such threat other than the unnatural stink of decomposing Nepleslia in all of its glory, at least not outside of Aiko's perception. But the princess seemed to have an urgent need, and her labored respiration only made the tight escapeway more stifling as excess heat sloughed off her affected form in steamy waves. It would only be a fleeting discomfort, though, as their destination lay only a few feet ahead.
As the doors buckled, William also leapt through the windows and grabbed ahold of the fire escape. Outside, the mask he wore filtered the Nepleslian air easily. He'd grown accustomed to it since his time here, but he had grown up in Yamatai so the mask was a welcomed reprieve. He had his reservations about using the fire escape once he saw its condition. William was a big man, and the fire escape was already groaning with a bunch of Nekovalkyrja on it.
"If I die because this thing breaks, I'm gonna be super pissed." William muttered as he climbed.
Rather than risk adding her comparatively meager weight to the ladder, Morgana drifted up the shaft silently. Her ICS to push her along, drifting behind the Neko’s, her lips thinning as she watched them make the perilous climb.She scrunched her nose at the vile scent, and then further furrowed her brow at Aiko’s comment. For a moment it looked as though her face was collapsing in on itself.
“Sultry… is an interesting choice of adjective.” Morgana said, lifting up her bracelet in the leading Neko’s direction and scanning her vitals.
The muggy smog that oppressed the air was a welcome change for Molli, whose lungs had grown so accustomed to the toxicity that she barely paid it any mind. Dirty air would probably kill her in the future, but the gunmen hot on her tail meant skipping the long queue to the great beyond sooner. So Molli climbed the rusty metal ladder that shook in a most uncomfortable matter, her movements swift and efficient, but not nearly as graceful as the nekovalkyrja gracefully assailing the bars like trained gymnasts. She struggled to keep her balance during moments where the metal frame seemed to buckle under the weight of its many occupants, but hesitating was out of the question.
Molli just had to hope that someone would catch her if the fire escape collapsed. Thankfully, it wasn't a long climb before their destination came into view, its waymark flashing in her cybernetic eyes like a beacon of hope. She was the fourth to pass through the threshold, pistol drawn and held at the ready. The grey wrapper was safely pocketed in her jacket, to be examined when they weren't under threat of imminent death.
As soon as the squad was out of the window, it was time for Sif to follow suit. She was shielded from the majority of the rotten air thanks to her mask, which was stuffed with floral-scented cotton, though she could still detect the corrosiveness of pollution which each breath. "How could people stand to live like this," she found herself wondering before climbing up after the team. And she was not confident at all with the structural integrity of the ladders, electing to recite a simple mantra to herself: Please don't break.
And then Sif heard it, a snap as she pulled herself up a rung. For a blessing, she had yet to shift her full weight on it, and her grip remained firm as she momentarily studied the piece of metal in her left hand, seeing the fresh shine of unoxidized metal where it snapped and found that the step was well on its way to retirement. She tossed it aside, making sure to completely miss the platform below and continued climbing, the missing step making the ascent slightly awkward, though the experience did slow her down just a little, worried that that was the 'lucky' break.
Leading the ascent, Aratani emerged into a dark concrete room though a full-sized doorway. Ready to speak but still with that donut in her mouth, Aratani chomped into the sweet ring where she had been holding it—then promptly opened her mouth so the food could drop to the ground. Her tongue was out a little and she simply licked the outer glazed edge of the remaining ring, lapping up the so-so chocolate before dropping the mealy, detestable rest of it on the ground, embedded wrapper and all.
Rather than a window-to-nowhere like back on level seven, the doorway opened up from the fire escape side when she pulled high a galvanized steel roll shutter that was painted in a light gray. There was a series of locked transformer boxes along the wall here painted in the same neutral tones as the retracting shutters and a strip of dim, harsh light very unlike the tungsten bulbs in the donut room. Across from where the Star Army team entered, there was another threshold, its door ajar enough to let in a sliver of radiance from beyond.
Aiko came through next, crawling on her hands and knees to clear the door before resting on her elbows to take in the cool, comparatively fresh air beneath the canopy of her dark hair. Looking very sweaty, she tugged at the high turtleneck collar on her shiny leotard to cool off.
"Scout forward, we must keep moving," the princess ordered as Rio arrived next.
With Aratani having taken point for their ascent up the fire escape, Rio instead fell in close behind Aiko. Using her inertial control Rio propelled herself upwards through the tangle of gangways that made up this long forgotten passage, using only the most minor touch of a hand or foot to guide herself along. The entire time she kept a close eye on the princess, openly concerned with her current state as Rio watched the waves of steam roll off of Aiko.
Arriving at the lip of the eleventh floor fire escape, Rio grabbed a hold of the railing with her off hand and swung herself onto the platform. A quick glance showed there was little to see in their current location. It was all a bland and downright depressing sight. With Aratani and Molli following Aiko's orders to keep moving, Rio took the time scrutinize the locked transformers for any type of labeling that might indicate what each did. With luck one of them might aid them in their escape from the current situation. The transformer boxes Rio inspected appeared to be just that. Regular, old electrical transformer boxes, likely for just this level. With nothing special about them she left it at that.
Peering into the crack in the door, Aratani could see a garage on the other side. It took up most of the rest of level eleven from what she could see, with only the building's smooth concrete retaining pillars and some vehicles breaking up the empty space. She wasn't afforded a full view, but could spy a few hover cars of various makes and models plus some hoverbikes. A trio of gangers clad in acid wash jeans and studded leather sauntered past her sightline carrying SMGs and clubs, and her Nekovalkyrja ears could hear chatter from others she couldn't see.
Now joining the others, Sif was pleased to see a door leading to the next room rather than having to crawl through the window again. Sticking to her chosen role unless asked otherwise, she posted herself at fire escape door, looking downwards to see if the cops were coming.
Molli knew better than to question Aiko in defiance of her orders, despite her growing concern for the princess urging her to put the mission on pause and check if she was alright. The Nepleslian curtailed that urge, nodded, and strode toward the door that was slightly ajar and letting in light. Alongside Aratani, Molli peered through, before clasping a hand over her mouth to stifle her breathing. Even if the gangers weren't working with the police, unknowns usually got robbed or shot if they were caught on someone's turf. The vehicles were a promising sight, at least.
"Will, can ya mell th'fire escape?" Molli asked their ID-SOL bruiser whenever he managed to enter the room, stamping her foot on the metal floor for emphasis. She hoped the effort would slow their pursuers for a few more precious seconds.
It was touch and go, but the ID-SOL managed to reach the eleventh floor. After clambering inside and helping the last few stragglers up, he turned to Molli. "Mell?" He asked, puzzled. Stamping her foot did get the point across however. Turning back to the fire escape, he pressed his foot against the side of the ladder and pushed it away from the building. The muscles in his thigh and calf bulged from the strain as he tried to send the old fire escape plummeting to the ground below.
"Ah've worked on Nep cars since ah could holda wrench," Molli whispered to Aratani, her eyes glowing in the dark and illuminating a focused expression. "We pick one're two, 'n ah ken graft th'circs all canny-like, get us out fast." She glanced toward Aiko for a moment, "Ah think we better flatline these guys," Molli jerked her head toward the door, "They'll shoot firs' anyways, buncha styhe-headed gonks. How d'ya wanna do it?"Ready to speak but still with that donut in her mouth, Aratani chomped into the sweet ring where she had been holding it—then promptly opened her mouth so the food could drop to the ground. Her tongue was out a little and she simply licked the outer glazed edge of the remaining ring, lapping up the so-so chocolate before dropping the mealy, detestable rest of it on the ground, embedded wrapper and all.
The engine-lover that Aratani was, she didn't need to hear Aiko's orders twice. Moving forward meant moving into the garage and with Molli's qualifications fresh in her mind, the Shoi concocted a plan. She pulled away from the ajar door so that her words would be heard by only those intended for them.
"You'll need some time to hot wire something," she said to Molli. "Let's you and me go on ahead avoiding those three goons and whoever else might be in there. Those behind, cover us and create a distraction. Unless you got any better ideas, that is!"
Despite her invitation for better ideas, Aratani took a cat-like step towards the slightly open door to peek in to the garage and commence positioning herself and Molli.
"They got their backs to us," she said after she looked through then turned so that her flat chest and tummy wouldn't knock open the already slightly agape gateway as she sidled past it.
Morgana found her way into the middle of the pack, looking down at her bracelet again for additional readings from beyond the door. "If it’s just the three of them I’d suggest dynamic entry. Preferably before those below disturb the grenade." Morgana said silently over the telepathic NekoNet.
Eleventh Floor Garage
Uninterrupted by walls, doors, plumbing, furniture, and everything else that packed the lower levels, this eleventh floor was a rather cavernous expanse once Aratani moved in and saw it—and occupied far more gangsters than the three she'd seen passing from the sheltered electrical room. Over a dozen (maybe even two) were gathered around variously occupying their time with cigarettes or crude conversation.
Crouching down, Aratani's lavender cargo pants looked to be taking careful steps while in reality she was hovering an almost imperceptible bit off of the ground to avoid the sound of her footfalls alerting one of those in the garage. Ss she absconded away from the group, she found cover behind the first vehicle she could. Waving her hand at Molli, she made it clear that she wanted to keep moving and create some distance between them and the fire escape.
Aratani took a quick gander past the hover cars and retaining pillars that she hid behind before darting to the next. Finally, the silver haired Neko turned to Molli and pointed her finger towards the butt end of the vehicle she was ducked by as if to indicate that they had acquired their target.
Some of the Gumtree gangers squatted over near a big red van with lime green flames painted on its side throwing some kind of blinking baubles rattling onto the grey pavement. A couple others milled about, their eyes glazed over and rocking from side to side while staring transfixed into some flames flickering out of a 55 gallon barrel filled with burning debris. All of them were armed in some way, be it with a pistol tucked into their waistband, a rifle sloppily slung, or a spiked bat close at hand.
And one lowlife in particular stepped out from behind the shade of a wide pillar and rounded the front of the car beside which Aratani had chosen to crouch. It was quite a nice vehicle she'd picked, all things considered; a big boxy hover sedan with glossy midnight blue paint that looked black from certain angles, and sporting far more elegant lines and angles than most of the other vehicles that were collected in the garage. It could probably hold five of them comfortably, and the Kaiyō's complement stood at seven. At least for the moment.
With one hand deep in his left pocket, the goon was upon Aratani before either of them knew it and he walked straight into her huddled form. He yowled and hopped up, ejecting the keys he'd been digging his pockets for straight up into the air as his hands reeled from the surprise.
"They're here!" the astounded asshole shouted in a voice that betrayed the content of his character just when his keychain hit the floor beside his scuffed black crocodile skin boots. He drew a Little Killer from the right pocket of his white jean jacket while a chorus of racking slides and shuffling shoes clattered in reply and broke the relative calm that had persisted until then. Aratani had seen him coming, though, so had a split second's time before the pocket pistol was levelled at her face.
The Donut Room
The armored riot cops made quick work of the door with their pressing mass, and stormed in to find the empty room. It was clear where their prey had escaped to up the escape shaft, and they soon filled the room between the crates, lockers, and stacks of dull yellow cardboard donut boxes. Sif could see one of their helmeted heads poke through and appear far below from where she watched. But, far too bulky in their gear to follow up the narrow passageway, the policemen didn't pursue the Star Army team and instead called in the update to dispatch and their comrades surrounding the building.
They didn't even notice Morgana's grenade trap when one of them kicked the dense little bomb in passing. It rolled around for a second, bouncing and catching between their feet while the squad filed in, and finally tumbled to rest near the cache of shelf stable donuts with four seconds left on its fuse.
Eleventh Floor Garage
There were a few things Aratani truly loved in life. In short order, she loved being in the bowels of mech and designing them, her samurai girlfriend Tokuko, and combat. She could get along fine doing just about anything else required of a Star Army soldier, but in those three areas she truly shone. And it was time for her to find the joy of the last item on that list.
She barely had the will to do anything else right now. Responding to Morgana to verify what the scientist's bracelets life scanner would tell her—that there were plenty of bodies on this side of the door to the fire escape—seemed so banal compared to dealing with the threat in front of her. But she did just that just as she engaged.
Aratani jutted out both her hands faster than the fumbling man in front of her could blink. Her right went to the wrist of the hand holding the gun, palming it with an open hand. At the same time, her left aimed to smack into the Little Killer itself and grab into the short muzzle. Pressure and counter pressure meant to disarm the gun from the man before it was leveled at her. Her hope was to be able to grab it with that left hand and turn it on him.
"Momo, the keys!" Artani whistled out Molli's callsign as quietly as she could over the recent clatter of the rest of the garage.
Molli had reservations about the feasibility of staying unseen in a brightly lit garage occupied by gangers. She was intimate with gang culture from growing up around it; there were always more scum than what you first saw. In the slums, gangs lived or died more by the number of triggermen than individual competence. Regardless, it was no use complaining or hesitating, and the Nepleslian sidled right after Aratani, pistol drawn, and crouched low to make herself less visible. Molli was practically Aratani's shadow, if her shadow couldn't float, wasn't as graceful, and had ugly little horns poking out from her bangs. Each piece of cover she ducked behind was a temporary reprieve, and each momentary dash to the next made Molli's heart pound with the fear of being caught out in the open.
She was halfway to the vehicle Aratani chose: an ugly looking sedan that would've undoubtedly been tricked out under the hood in some way, when one of the gangers chose the worst moment to amble right into her neko comrade. In the cavernous garage, the man's booming clarion call might as well have been a military alarm with how his voice reverberated, echoing a frightening warning signal that invited a slew of clicks, clacks, and squeaking shoes on pavement. Molli didn't realize how quickly she'd leveled her revolver at the man Aratani reacted to, and it took her a second to register the finger on its trigger and depressurize it. She'd come far since signing on with Star Army a year ago -- she hadn't hesitated to try and take that man's life.
But there were some shots you took, and others you didn't, and putting aside the risk of hitting her comrade, Aratani clearly had him covered. Molli abandoned all pretense of stealth and sprinted the rest of the distance to the sedan, snatched the keys the man Aratani chose to wrestle with dropped, and made to open the driver's side door and leap inside. It was a mighty assumption to think that guy owned this car just because he walked near it, but Molli tried the keys nonetheless, and was fully prepared to pry open a panel full of wires if it didn't work.
William groaned when he heard the sound of slides racking. "This after action report is gonna suck." He muttered as he turned back towards the garage. He looked back towards Sif and Morgana. "Protect her. I'm gonna buy time." The Captain ordered, motioning to Aiko. He unslung the GP-1 assault rifle from his back, flipped the fire sector to full auto, and stepped out into the open.
"Let's get this over with, shall we?!" The ID-SOL bellowed. Aiming first at the flaming barrel he depressed the trigger. The staccato report reverberated around the garage as William aimed back and forth. In a matter of seconds he had emptied the first magazine. He flung the empty one with a flick and slammed a fresh magazine home. Tucking the rifle under his arm, he continued to let loose salvo after salvo as he drew his revolver with his free hand. Targeting multiple combatants at once wasn't all that difficult with his cybernetics. His revolver quickly adding its booming report to William's explosive symphony.
Rio was making her way back across the room when it seemed trouble had found the squad once more.Following the faint cry from the startled ganger and William's own violent entrance to the parking garage, Rio quickly slipped into the room behind him. As she took cover behind one of the cars in the garage Rio fired off several snap shots from her Radiant, adding it's distinctively orange plasma to the mix of fire the Gumtree gangers now found coming their way.
Aratani managed to slap the angry pistol between her two hands and point its barrel away from her face just when the surprised Gumtree had pulled the trigger, directing its payload into the oily concrete floor a few feet in front of the rapidly advancing Molli. She didn't manage to wrangle the little holdout gun, though, and it fell harmlessly to the ground. Now disarmed, the villainous valet turned tail and slid on his flat butt across the sedan's waxed hood rather than stay to fight Aratani, and disappeared from view somewhere on the car's opposite side—taking cover just there or crawling away was impossible for the Star Army team to know from where they stood.
The whole garage's assembly of Gumtree gangsters was dashing toward Aratani's position from all sides. William immediately found targets, catching two out of a trio in the face and neck with his initial rifle fire as they charged Aratani with machetes and makeshift cast iron pipe clubs. The third among them wisely darted to the deck and rolled away behind the bulk of a bare silver pickup hovertruck with a wavy half circle pattern all over it, no doubt from the angle grinder used to laboriously free it of whatever color it was previously painted. The tall ID-SOL Marine took a return shot from some energy weapon in his chest, but it didn't seem to slow him any just yet. His suppressing fire forced the gang members advancing in the sector to the front half of the sedan (to the left of the room where the team had emerged) to halt where they were and shoot from cover.
One of Rio's Radiant bolts caught an assailant advancing on William from his right, who was coming up upon him with a Zen .45 extended out in one hand. The NMX heat gun melted a two inch void straight though his firing arm, causing the ganger's gun to fall free with his hand still attached. In disbelief, he stopped and ogled his new stump with an ugly, befuddled frown on his wide-eyed face and then pulled a wicked flip knife from his belt and leapt the remaining two meters toward William—obviously assisted by some kind of bionic robot leg enhancements—in order to drive the pointy blade into the ID-SOL's meaty right shoulder.
Safe for now despite being right at the forefront of the action, perhaps because the Gumtrees didn't want to hurt this particular vehicle or maybe because they simply hadn't seen her, Molli successfully entered the sedan's driver seat and activated its ignition. The car roared to life with a sharply popping rumble that almost immediately died down to a pleasantly robust growl that droned on beneath the crackling firefight. Immediately it levitated into an idle position about an inch above the garage's floor, ready for Molli to drive it away. Dark forest green velvet bench seats and rich burlwood facings with chrome silver instruments decorated the sedan's interior while the back cabin had two plush rows facing each other and a thin table between them. A control panel with a radio tuner and a few mystery buttons sat to the right of the steering wheel, and a really sweet dashboard panel with 7-segment numbers glowed to life before Molli's eyes.
Back in the utility room, Aiko had managed to creep over to the threshold and pull herself up one hand above the other on the doorframe. She peeked out from behind her black fingernails with her eyes still squinted shut, relying on the same skin vision she'd managed with for some time now. Beneath deep breaths and a glistening sheen of sweat that coated her pale flesh, the princess watched the fight eagerly for two seconds and then zipped out, beelining toward Aratani and the sedan in a low run with both of her arms trailing limply behind her like some kind of manga shinobi.
"Ignemar-hei, Faelan-shoi: Byrne-hei has secured transport," Aiko both said aloud and transmitted wirelessly as she moved. "Stand clear your position and join her. We are leaving!"
Can't believe they gave me a medal for stealth, thought Molli as she jumped from the impact of the sedan's owner sliding across the hood of the car he was about to lose. The gangers had betrayed them, Aiko was infected with some kind of virus, the police were hot on their tails, and now a garage full of gun-toting chrome monkeys were milliseconds from filling their bodies full of superfluous holes. If this wasn't a textbook example of a 'bad to worse' operation, Molli didn't know what was.
To her relief, the key turned in the ignition, and the sedan thrummed to life with a powerful hum from its undoubtedly tricked out engine. Molli gripped the wheel tightly and recalled what her dad taught about cars like this in their garage. Front-engine family units like this were heavy on the wheel, prone to whipping out of control on tight turns, loud as all hell, and slow on the grav-lift. Not an ideal ride by any means, but with the sound of gunfire all around her, they didn't have the luxury of choice.
Wrenching the wheel to the side, Molli floored both pedals, causing the engine to roar over the gunfire. She hoped to knock over its former owner with a sharp, stationary turn. Her metal arm detached, snaked its way to the door in the back, and threw it open for Aratani and Aiko. "I'm gunnin' it!" she shouted, and once her arm re-attached itself and both women were (hopefully) inside, the Nepleslian released the brake and shot through the garage like a bullet. Molli hadn't drove a Nepleslian-made car in years, but the muscle memory hadn't left her -- she swerved throughout the crowded garage toward the room she and the others were pinned down in, hand slamming on the horn to warn Rio and William to get out of the way or get turned into roadkill. All the while, she kept her head low to avoid catching a bullet to the skull.
The order was clear. Protect Aiko. Whatever got her feeling strange, it effectively took her out of commission. Who knows how bad it was going to get. When Aiko crawled over to the threshold, Sif was quick to take position on the opposite side of the entryway. Aiko wasn't in any condition to fight, and with guns blazing right outside the room, Sif wasn't feeling so sure that Aiko should be peeking out like she was. But before she could utter a word of caution, or even lift her hand up to gently urge her to stand back, Aiko darted off.
"Don't just run off!" Sif called out as she chased after the princess. Well, there was no time for caution now. With the majority of the fire going towards William, at least Aiko wouldn't be an immediate target, but for how long until they refocused? When she joined Aiko at the door, she managed to catch a glimpse of the group that meant to charge at Aratani's position, but one ducked out when it got too heated, but they were still there, and they could still flank. She had to fix that.
"Aratani! Keep her covered!" Sif called out, as she charged past them both, gritting her teeth for what might be an incoming painful experience. Even if the armor she had was not just for show, if a bullet hit the mark, she was still going to feel it. Pinpointing the survivor of the initial charge, Sif jumped onto the back of the pickup, landing on her padded knees and the side of her leg bracing the remaining momentum which she used to gently tip herself over the side as she unleashed a 10-shot burst to the gangster from the Impaler rifle, landing crouched on her feet just as she let go of the trigger.
Taking the lackey's place in cover, Sif scanned for any lucky targets for the remaining 10 shots, prioritizing those closest to Aratani and Aiko.
The cool white lights of the garage bleached out Aratani's silvery hair and made it take on a blindingly white sheen. She had ducked her head and her face went into her white fringe's shadow and her focus was momentarily on the contents of her pants. She dug into one of her cargo pockets and moved to the sedan with a loping swagger. Rummaging in her pockets didn't deter her from taking a quick leap into the car and opening a window.
Stolen Sedan
By the time Molli was burning proverbial rubber streaks into the squeaky floors of the parking garage, she had popped her torso out of the back window and procured a pair of grenades simultaneously. The more deadly Novacorp gravitic claymore she held securely while pulling the pin out of a smokescreen grenade. She lobbed the smoke grenade in between the car and the door to the fire escape, trying to obfuscate the rest of her team's pathing as Molli swerved ever nearer to them.
Sif's rally to protect the princess didn't change Aratani's course of action. Sure, the raven-haired Chusa was a high value target, but Aiko had also garnered an unprecedented two Order of the Blazing Sun medals and recaptured Hanako's World. If Sif wanted to believe that she was incapable despite it all, she could go ahead and do so and Aratani wouldn't stop her. But, hopefully, she would do so in the sedan and not out of it. Aiko had, after all, called for Sif to join up in the vehicle after her own evasive dash to the sedan.
Little did the Shoi know that the Ketsurui was less than combat-ready, even if her orders were sound from Aratani's perspective.
"Get in, cuz!" Aratani yelled out to Sif, having already absorbed some of the gangster's lingo by some sort of osmosis of being in their vicinity.
"Don't run them over, Momo!!" Aratani thumped on the roof and used Molli's callsign as she sat sidled on the window, not knowing if her words could be heard over the weapon's fire she was looking out for or not.
Molli maneuvered the massive hovering sedan expertly, turning it on a dime in the limited space available to bring it closer to her waiting friends. More of the Gumtree mafiosi closed in even despite losing a few; they still numbered around twenty bodies, so the Star Army squad's handful of takedowns only fueled the gangsters' drive to capture the meddling soldiers. Six rushed at William unabated by Sif's covering fire while another half dozen leapt at the armored Neko girl squatting in her newly-secured pickup truck perch. Another three slid up to Aratani at the window and grabbed her by either arm just after she tossed her 'nades, doing their best to drag her from the vehicle. Although the Yamataians truly formed an elite unit with even the greenest among them hardened by experience in battle, they were nonetheless on the cusp of being overwhelmed by a flood of rats.
Then they all felt it—the Kaiyō crewmen and gangers alike—a split second's sensation of quaking beneath their feet that even shocked up through the atmosphere to vibrate the stolen sedan's glossy panels. The ceiling closed from above a moment later while the whole building roared like a hellstorm's gale as everyone felt themselves in freefall before sudden darkness.
The Donut Room
Morgana's grenade trap detonated where it had rolled beside the stack of donut boxes, each package hiding within it a stick of smuggled plastic explosive shoved through the hollow pastries. There were over 100 yellow cardstock boxes stored in that room on the seventh floor, and the grenade provided enough impact force to detonate the plastique nearest to it and cause a chain reaction. The squad of riot police was instantly vaporized by the blast.
Outside, a huge gout of fire mushroomed out from the low-rise building's façade. Windows and neon signs for as far as the eye could see down the block and vertically up across the towering Nepleslian heights shattered as the shockwave expanded, and all of the police cars swarming outside were quickly hollowed out by the blast. Although the seventh and sixth and eight floors impressively funneled the explosion outward and flat, the Twenty Eight Gumtree apartment block sank two whole stories in the blink of an eye. Flame and debris rained down over the street not only from the destroyed building but from higher above where secondary damage chained off in other buildings that weren't quite up to code as a result of the initial eruption.
Ruined Garage
The gangster's knife sunk into William's shoulder as he charged. However, despite the cry of pain the assailant was suspecting, all he received in return was a sneer and a massive fist straight into his jaw. As the thug flew, William reached up to grab the knife but it was in that moment that his world quite literally fell out from under him.
The adrenaline made the tips of her fingers feel like it was touching a faulty wire as Sif emptied the battery of her gun. With the swarm approaching her, she could only take down three with what she had, and reloading was going to take too long. So she shunted the weapon behind her as if throwing it to the side, but the sling kept it on her person, secure at her back underneath the cloak. From her side, she took a knife in each hand, normal grip on the right and a reverse grip on the left.
"DANCE WITH THE HERALD!" Sif cried as she met their charge. The numbers were not on their side, but something at the back of her mind just kicked in, as if her chosen persona possessed her.
As one of the gangsters swung down with what looked to be an electric baton, Sif dug the knife on her left hand through the thug's lower arm, right in between the radius and the ulna, then twisting the knife to lock her grip on him so she could maneuver the body somewhat to block off some of the thugs, all the while she brutally stabbed the side of the thug, aiming for the kidney and the lung, no less than three thrusts a second.
It was not her intention to be sadistic, but it was going to guarantee that this one wasn't going to get up when she released him. And indeed he just slumped down, unable to hold himself up anymore from the shock. However she felt something sharp hit her back as a thug on her right hit her with a spiked weapon. She swiped her knife his way, which caused him to jump back, letting her see the smug look on his face but also the confirmation that his weapon did draw blood. It looked like a meat tenderizer with galvanized nails welded on its face. His smugness turned into a wince however as blood started to leak from his chest. She managed to get him, but it was only a flesh wound, not enough to dissuade him.
And then the next thing she knew, she heard a great blast accompanied by a sudden quake. She couldn't exactly see what happened next as dust and corroding air covered everything. But she felt herself falling then bouncing off solid concrete as a roar assaulted her ears.
Stolen Sedan
Despite the sudden and overwhelming violence, the sedan was still active and floating a few inches above the ground. Equipped with proximity sensors, the vehicle had done its best to stay between the ground and the roof. Though unsuccessful, getting pressed earthward all the same, the car's compensators worked to dampen the impact.
In the back seat, Aiko blinked awake and gasped in the harsh air filled so thick with concrete dust and smoke that it felt like she was drinking it into her lungs. And for a heartbeat, the princess felt clear and refreshed. Right before the toxin battling against her Eihei countermeasures slammed a tickling wooziness behind her eyebrows that made her slump back down onto the sedan's plush velvet bench. Still, as she began hacking up volumes of particulate from that first reflexive breath, she recognized there was more to do.
First tugging at Aratani's waistband, Aiko pulled the Shoi in from where she'd been caught hanging out the window. Then she crawled forward, lurching a few times when she miscalculated where the car's deck was, and reached over the driver's seat to find Molli. The princess gently wrapped her arms around Molli's shoulders and laid her hands loosely across the Nepleslian girl's sternum.
"Byrne-hei," Aiko said in a small voice, not quite a whisper, speaking directly beside Molli's right ear. She could feel the Jôtô Hei was still alive and breathing beneath her touch. "We have been afforded a clear path."
A clear path was visible indeed. Beside the pickup where Sif had taken cover, the upper floor was caved in to form a sort of ramp up to open sunlight. For her part, Sif had been thrown clear several meters when the building came down. William, Rio, and Morgana, too, had avoided much injury due in large part to their genetically engineered toughness and lay relatively close to the getaway vehicle. Molli, the squad's only natural born soldier, was lucky to have been in the car. The pickup truck and a few hoverbikes seemed intact, too, but most of the other vehicles in the garage had been crushed or flipped.
"You must wake up and drive us away once we collect the others," Aiko urged softly to Molli. She squeezed around the girl's neck to try and rouse her. "Ganbare!"
Something exhilarating in Aratani had been pushed further and made electric when the Nepleslian men began to grapple with her arms. It felt like every circuit in her body was opening up and ready to fight. And then, the explosion hit the building from the inside out. All of the momentum was drained out of her and whatever charge she was building was depleted when the car hit the garage floor and her body was knocked around in the impact.
Half of her body had been out of the car and she was left mostly unprotected by the sedan unlike Molli and Aiko. Still, it could be as bad as it was for the gangsters that had been grabbing at her, now splayed on the rubble and dust unmoving. If she had lost consciousness, she didn't know. The girl could tell her neck and back were self-repairing, though, as nanomachines flooded the hemosnyth there. As she took stock of her body, she immediately became aware of some nearby tinkling bells that thundered ever nearer to her. She looked around, whipping her head in a way that her neck immediately told her was not acceptable to do a second time, and realized it was simply ringing in her ears and not some new threat.
When the Ketsurui pulled her in, Aratani had reached out behind her as if reflexively trying to catch herself. She looked from the deep green bench seat at the black-haired form as Aiko fumbled to the front to aid Molli. Something about the soft of the velvet on her cheek brought immediate relief to the Shoi and she pressed her palms into it as if to lift herself up, then thought better of it. Her index finger pushed into the plush of the forest green velvet and smoothly bent to stroke against it like an inch worm, feeling solace in the soft, smooth texture.
"Ganbare!" She had heard the last of Aiko's quiet vociferations and woozily repeated the concluding word. In her shell-shocked state she spoke with both a finality and feebleness that truly underscored the importance of Molli's cognizance and henceforth capability.
Molli found relief in the knowledge that she hadn't let her skills behind the wheel atrophy in the years spent away from Nepleslia, but that was near-instantly countermanded by the resurging memories of a typical Nep ganger's utter regard for his own life and limb. They swarmed the Kaiyo like leeches, undoubtedly realizing that a squad of Nekovalkyrja and an ID-SOL were world-class prisoners; tickets to better lives on a planet where there were very little good lives to go around. If they were captured, Molli was certain that the only fate that awaited her was a bullet to the back of the head, wherein her organs and cybernetic implants would be passed around the black market -- the Yamataian arm was definitely more valuable than the rest of her body. That's just how little native Nepleslian lives mattered on their own planet.
Didn't fight m'way off jus' to die like everyone else, thought Molli, whose stubborn determination instilled in her the courage needed to roll down a window and lean out for a better shot at the lower half of one of the men grappling Aratani. But then she felt the vibrations, powerful enough to shake the floating metal she sat in, and Molli let instinct take over and pull her back into the vehicle. It was fortunate that she'd done that, because the thunderous boom that plunged them into darkness sent her flying headfirst into the sedan's roof, before slamming face first into the steering wheel, throwing the Nepleslian's mind into the abyss of unconsciousness, where stinging pain was her sole companion. Dust and debris flew through the open driver's side window and the now-shattered windshield, coating Molli's unconscious form in dust like a coat of paint.
Fortunately, Molli's concussion hadn't driven her consciousness too deeply into darkness; Aiko's quiet encouragement and sudden squeeze of her neck was the stimulus that pulled Nepleslian back to the waking realm with a gasp. Molli hissed from her startled awakening, which sent a wave of pain throughout her body. Her head was pounding, and she could taste copper in her mouth. Diagnostics reports flashed through her metal eyes, reporting on injuries to the skull and displaying laceration sites across the girl's body. She closed the reports with thought.
"Wuh..." Molli coughed up dust, "Puh...Princess...?" In her concussed state, Molli's mind wandered to places that weren't appropriate, where ill-fitting thoughts distracted her from the current situation and made her body tense up. She'd dreamed about something like this after their first mission together, but Molli hadn't been covered in blood, dust, and glass in those fantasies, and Aiko definitely wasn't drugged out of her mind. Even as she came to her senses, it was hard to shake how Aiko's breath on her cheek was about the only pleasant thing in Molli's current situation. "A-Ah know, lemme just..." she muttered, unsure if she should try to shake Aiko off, or if she even wanted to.
Molli pulled down the roof mirror, which was only partially broken, to inspect herself. Shards of glass, presumably from the windshield, had flown inward, with some becoming embedded in her face and torso, where streams of crimson blood fell steadily -- at least none landed in her eyes. Molli's precious bodysuit bore plenty of damage from the glass, being tattered at the arms, with a few glass pieces tearing unflattering holes in its midsection, nearly turning it into a two-piece outfit. If Aiko's hands wandered even a little, she would've felt a slight prickle of glass and sticky blood beneath her fingertips.
Glancing to her left and right, Molli could see the smoke and dust pouring into the car still, clouding what remained of the garage in a choking, impenetrable miasma. With a click, Molli's eyes toggled to thermals, and what she saw almost made her want to look away. Dozens of still bodies, their heat gradually fading, lined the garage; people they'd killed in the blink of an eye. Molli wasn't a religious sort, but even she closed her tear-stricken eyes and prayed that innocent people hadn't gotten caught up in this destruction. She reached for the sedan's wheel and slammed down on the middle, which made the horn blare throughout the garage, and made Molli's headache throb even more painfully. It was a clarion call through the fog, a beacon that would hopefully guide the Kaiyo's crew toward her.
Ruined Garage
The ID-SOL groaned as he regained consciousness. At first William was confused as to why it was so dark, but he then realized it was dark because there was a slab of concrete ontop of him. Reaching up to his shoulder he found the knife again and pulled it out. With that out of the way, he pushed the slab up and off of his frame. He coughed as he sat up looking around the ruined garage.
"Well that sucked." William deadpanned, to no one in particular. With a groan and the popping of joints, William stood.
Sif didn't know how long she was out. It could just have been minutes, or it could have been hours. The lack of rumbling and sound of trickling debris at least signaled that the building has settled to its new collapsed state. The scent of iron was strong around her, piercing through the floral scent stuffed in her mask. When her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she saw why. Blood. A pool of it right under her.
Sif pushed herself up, leaning more heavily to her left side as a sharp pain kept her from fully utilizing her other arm. She picked herself up before lightly collapsing farther away from the blood pool. It seemed like she was the lucky one. There were some bodies strewn about, unlucky enough to either get crushed or impaled by the debris. She took off the mask for a moment, checking for any damages on it before a sharp pulse of pain behind her right shoulder reminded her that she should be checking herself for any damage first. Running her hand over where she got hit, she felt the problem. Most of the damage was already mending, but a Nekovalkyrja body could only do so much while a foreign body, namely a galvanized nail from the meat tenderizer, was still stuck inside.
Clink. Clink. Clink.
The sound of three bent nails picked from Sif's shoulder was the only sound she could make out in this tomb. She could see that a part of the ceiling had collapsed to make a lean-to tent structure, just big enough for her to pace around. "How deep did I fall?" she asked aloud, hoping that a response might come.
Already Sif could feel her injury getting better, but she had to find everyone else. "First thing's first... Where the heck am I?" She picked up her mask again, straightened out the beak and wiped the dust out of the lenses. The right lens had three main cracks running from the edge where she must have hit her head on the concrete, but the surfaces on the front and back were both still smooth. She took a moment to lament how cool it would look displayed in her room before she donned the mask again. There was an immediate relief when she started breathing in the floral scents rather than the corroded slum air. The city could do for some filters or air recyclers. It's hard to imagine breathing this on a daily basis.
Then she heard it, the sound of a horn calling out. That had to be them, right? If they were still around, then it couldn't have been over an hour since the collapse. Of course, there was also the chance of them also waking up after an unwanted nap just now. No, now wasn't the time for theories, she had to find a way out. Standing at the center, she scanned the room until she was able to see a gap in one of the walls. She walked over to it but she stopped for a second, looking back at the small cave, her eyes scanning the floor. She walked off to pick up the nails and stowed them away in a side pocket, then she attempted to squeeze herself out of the rubble to a more open part of the collapse.
Sif patted her sides and her hands found her Impaler, still looking to be in good condition, though with a need for some polishing. She plugged a new battery in and intently watched it as it charged. The damage was superficial, it was still safe to operate. She was down two knives, and while she considered making a quick search for them, she decided that she couldn't waste any more time. The sound of the horn called to her through the rubble. She carefully clambered up the debris, looking to get as high as possible, hoping that wherever she ended up, she wasn't cut off from the rest. Fortunately, she didn't end up too far from the last place she remembered being, appearing from behind the ramp to the surface.
Sif waved to the others below and called out. "Didn't keep you waiting, did I?" She winced for a second, but attempted to hide it. With the adrenaline wearing down, she could feel the soreness all over her body make themselves known.
Even as Rio continued trading fire with several gang members from behind the car she had chosen as her cover, she knew that the other side must of looked like a cratered moon and she was thankful that the parked vehicle she had chosen as cover was sturdy one. Something had to give soon and the thought of failure briefly flashed through her mind as she took a look around the garage for the rest of the team. Of course Rio had not expected the building to be what finally gave. Briefly she felt the quake of the explosion below them before she was dropped into darkness.
Curled up behind the car-turned-cover when the building had suddenly dropped from under and around them, Rio had escaped serious injures thanks to its presence. In the collapse a slab of concrete landed atop her cover and herself. Wedged between the top of the car and the broken floor, the slab had come to rest over Rio rather than on top of the young neko. Once more the sturdy vehicle had proven itself. Despite this, Rio's head throbbed as she awoke with a start, reflexively sucking in a big breath of chunky, dust choked air. Taking stock of herself in the darkness underneath the slab, she realized the throbbing of her head came from a deep cut to the left side of her forehead, likely from flying debris. While blood still ran down her face, she could already feel the itch of it beginning to heal. Rio otherwise seemed to be okay, somewhat protected as she had been by the fallen slab.
Moving to one of the intact hoverbikes, William left a wake of dust that wafted off his wide back like a chalky grey cape. He looked the bike over for any damage then started powering it up. Better he took one of the bikes and let the others take the getaway car.
After making a quick search on the ground around her that turned up her radiant, Rio crawled from underneath the concrete slab and into the dust choked air of the now destroyed garage. The garage looked completely different and almost alien now thanks to the airborne dust and destroyed vehicles, but she just could make out the light of an exit through the swirling dust as well as hear a blaring horn close by. With a thought Rio brought up the squad link and enabled a visual IFF box, thin blue squares and names popping into her vision marking the others. She rarely used visual functions, preferring her sight uncluttered, but under the circumstances she needed to know where the rest of the squad was located. With the visual IFF up Rio could now tell that Molli, Aiko and Aratani were all in the direction of the blasting horn while she could see Sif and William's icons up a moving around.
Picking her way through the wreckage Rio smiled to herself when she heard Sif's voice. She shouted in reply over the horn, "Maybe a little! That's Molli honking! We have to go!"
Stolen Sedan
When she finally reached the car Rio dropped into the backseat like dead weight, not caring too much about who or what else might be in them. "Everyone okay in here? Ingemar-Hei should be right behind me." she says with a tired groan.
"Drive!" Aiko encouraged Molli, her voice still hushed and close to the Nepleslian wheelgirl's ear long enough to say it before she slipped back into the passenger area. The princess' arms and fingers stuck on Molli's shoulders like twin snakes slithering off until Aiko had slumped down to lay on the ash-soaked velvet, leaving emerald paths cut in the concrete dust that covered the sedan's interior.
The back of Aiko's right hand came to a rest on her own forehead and then flopped off when she tilted her gaze from the ceiling over to Rio. She gave a quick smile and fleeting thumbs-up to Aratani's excited repetition, and then her fingers went limp again.
"We seem to be little worse for wear," Aiko said, answering Rio's question. Morgana followed the blue Neko girl a second after and joined them in the getaway car. "Are you still in the fight, Yoshida-kun? You say Sif-hei is on your heels—it will be a long walk for her if she is not," the princess added with a hint of reflective reverie on her tongue.
With that, and presumably the car moving forward on her order, Aiko thrust a hand down into the flowing black folds of her pleated ninja pants and produced her gold plated communicator from the garment's depths. Aiko's other left hand flicked the data card she'd been given by Yoldeen moments prior to his betrayal, rolling the device through each of her knuckles once and then inserting it into her device. It must have been held there, pressed against her wrist or palm with a finger since back then. A heartbeat later, Aiko pressed her screen a few times and swiped toward the dashboard on the other side of the bench she lay upon.
"Our destination," Aiko announced, letting Molli in the driver's seat and all the rest know. The map information had instantly loaded into the sedan's navigation computer, and a black screen sitting offset from the driver's seat displayed a green wire-line map of Funky City around them with routing directions shown as a white band through the skyscrapers and airbridges. "Now get some space between us and these police."
Molli continued to blare the horn, all while watching attentively for any signs of movement from friend or foe alike. Unless one of those gangsters had a metal skeleton, however, Molli didn't see a non-neko, non-ID-SOL surviving what they subjected this apartment to. In the distance, an engine's roar -- hoverbike from the sound of it -- made Molli jump, and she fumbled around for her pistol. Unfortunately, in the smoke and darkness, it was impossible to tell where the gun landed, and all of the glass embedded in her body would do more damage if she tried to search the floor of the driver and passenger seats. For now, she was effectively unarmed.
Their position was compromised, Molli knew how quickly the badges responded to violence against their own, having no illusions that the SWAT team survived what the local media would undoubtedly call an act of terrorism. She couldn't stay parked here, honking a horn, forever. Just as she was about to floor the pedal, a moving thermal signature came into view from above, one that her IFF flagged as a friendly. Sif's familiar voice was ambrosia, instilling the fearful, wounded Nepleslian more courage she'd need to hold on despite the blood loss. Like flowers, more friendly signatures sprouted, with Rio's sluggish and ungraceful flop into the car being especially welcome. It seemed like the only one who wasn't making their presence known was Morgana, and so Molli was tempted to wait for a little while longer...
But the princess's voice urged the Nepleslian to do otherwise, and if a drug-addled Aiko felt they were in danger, Molli knew it was worse than what she could've imagined. Luckily, Morgana chose the perfect moment to pile in after Rio, which just left Sif. If there was anyone Molli wasn't willing to leave behind, it was her.
The sedan rose up to Sif's perch, before spinning around so the passenger side door could open up for her. "Get in!" Molli said, her voice hoarse and weak from the dust in her throat and her blood pooling in the seat by the second. "Y'di'n't...y'di'n't call shotgun, but ah'm...given it to ya anyway," she grinned wearily.
Looking on from the ramp, the way down looked a bit treacherous. Not that she didn't have any confidence in her agility, but the way things were looking the car was headed up there anyway. While she saw Rio and Morgana entering the car, and heard the sound of another machine roaring up, her mind thought of the other Nepleslian with them, fairly confident that none of the gangsters would be brazen enough to make their presence known right after that collapse.
Sif wasted no time in hopping inside the car, being offered the shotgun seat, which behind the mask made her face light up, recognizing the term from one of her novels. Her blood-drenched visage was on display for the short moment she was illuminated by the car's headlights. Plopping her rear down in the passenger seat, she pulled the door back closed.
"Sorry about the blood, most of it isn't mine," she let out a chuckle, as she spoke, preempting what worry might have been felt for her and turning it towards Molli. Wasn't hard to imagine where the glass shards came from, but she was still holding strong. With a mix of worry and teasing, Sif gestured with an open palm in a circular motion towards her own face saying, "You got a little something around this area."
A bit of extra visual checks showed much more damage. She wouldn't push however, not wanting to delay their extraction since the lit dashboard with a wireframe map was already set to their destination, though that was her best guess at the moment. They needed to get out and fast before any more surprises show up, but she took it upon herself to keep a close eye on Molli.
"Girls love scars," Molli countered, though she expected the Kaiyo's cutting edge medical team would buff out any facial scars, so to speak. They'd have to pump in a lot of blood, too, with the way things were going. "Ah'm gonna be th'talk o'tha ship...when we get back." Maybe she'd keep a few, just to impress people. That was if they got out of this in one piece, anyway. "Shoulda wore a mask too," Molli said, finally allowing herself to lament the somewhat preventable nature of her facial mangling.
Funky City Skyways
Stolen Sedan
"Hold on tight!" Molli said before she turned the sedan around once more and floored the pedal in earnest, rocketing the car through the dusty smog and into the comparatively normal and less excessive Funky City cityscape smog. She followed the coordinates Aiko set out for her...mostly. Molli knew plenty of these streets by memory, even after being away for so long, and instinct took the vehicle down narrow alleyways and through civilian markets that savvy street racers often cut through to gain an edge against their rivals. It brought them to their destination faster, and made it less likely that they'd run into officers that relied on their dashboard nav systems to take them everywhere. Win-win.
The crew would've had time to talk along the way, but Molli wasn't much for words with her injuries and the need to focus on the road. She still spared Sif the occasional glance, and was relieved to see her injuries were healing up as expected. "Canyae look fer m'six shoota? Think ah dropped it... Ent th'end'a th'world if it fell out, but...ah...feel kinna nekit wiv'out it," she said to the masked neko. The drive also afforded Molli the opportunity to start picking a few pieces of glass out of her body, which she did with the precision and care of her metal limb. Each plucked shard came with a wince and a new bloodstream that made Molli resemble a living fountain, but she found it preferable to just leaving them in there.
"Canae believe ah'm gonna get uglier..."
"True, I always saw the appeal," Sif responded with a light chuckle. "It's like a story written in braille, or hieroglyphs depending on whether you're touching or just looking, right?" Her head tilted slightly to communicate the wide smile she had hidden behind the mask. Leaning back but not sinking as far as she could, she took time to rotate her injured shoulder slowly to check her mobility. A bit of pain still met her, but she'd be able to hold a gun straight while in the car and should be alright in a few minutes.
The neko didn't dally when Molli asked her to find her gun. Sif looked down and felt around under her seat before scanning underneath Molli's area, equally peppered with glass but a lot bloodier. "Wait, I think I see it," she said, bracing herself against the dashboard as she bent down low to reach out underneath the driver's seat. Her finger tips just about reached the gun's grip and slowly brought it closer with quick flicks of her fingers until she could grab it, ignoring the gnawing on her shoulder.
"Got it!"
Sitting back up, she made sure to click the safety on before pinching the grip and the barrel with both hands, flicking and wiping off shards of glass and blood that stuck to the weapon. She opened the chamber to check for any debris, pointing the gun straight down and between her legs on instinct. Then when she made sure all the moving parts moved as they should, she grabbed the mid section of her cloak and gave it a good, meticulous but quick wipe down before she held the gun by the barrel and handed it over to Molli. "Almost as good as new!"
"And don't worry about it. As they say, knights in shining armor never had their mettle tested!"
Listening to Molli and Sif's back and forth made Aratani like them more, but she had nothing to contribute and stayed quiet. She bit her bottom lip and sucked in air, listening to them but also her body's natural rhythms. The pumping of restorative hemosynth fluid had slowed to a trickle and she splayed her hand out in front of her, then the other one. Feeling good herself contrasted with the princess' demeanor, though.
Watching Aiko's fingers move the data card over her knuckles after just flopping from her forehead limply, Aratani seemed to be clueing in. For the first time, the Shoi noticed something was not quite right with Aiko.
"Chusa-sama, are you wounded?" Aratani asked, then turned to the bloodied driver to ask, "She get hit?"
Part of Aratani cursed at her equally uncouth and uncool line of questioning. Molli and Sif had just been bantering about how beat up the Nepleslian had gotten and Aratani was ignoring that and honing in on someone else.
Awkwardly, she added to Molli, "Showing it off less than you are if she did."
"We all got hit, Koizumi-kun," Aiko said in way that sounded sagely and cryptic as if she were the healed veteran of some trench war from eons long past talking about some sort of figurative scars every soldier carried—rather than the steely Star Army officer she actually was—because she figured Aratani was asking about the explosion's aftermath. The princess assumed Aratani had heard William explain the situation earlier, and didn't think to reiterate it in her current state.
"True," Aratani said, letting the word run for longer than usual.
Though William had spoken near her, she was taking in the donut-filled room rather than the quick utterances of her comrade at the time. Surely something the Shoi could work on was doing so, but for now Aiko's confirmation about taking a hit in the explosion helped to focus the white-haired cornflower panel. She pulled her Zen AR's sling so that her hands cupped it in their grasp before peeking out the window, ready to shoot down pursuers or, perhaps worse, any awaiting presence outside of the garage.
Molli placed the revolver back in her shoulder holster with a grateful smile, "Yer th'best, Siffy," she said. It was hard to ignore the neko's pained movements, though, and Molli found herself stealing glances at her erstwhile companion with a concerned expression. "Jus' take it easy, alrigh'? Let yer healin' do its thing." It was a bit rich to lecture a bio-engineered killing machine that could probably take on ten normal Nepleslians like her with both arms tied behind her back, but Molli never liked to see others pushing themselves. "Cannae share m'braille scars wiv ya if ya bite th'dust," she smirked, having found something oddly poignant in Sif's poetic description of something as outwardly ugly as facial scars.
Molli pointedly stared ahead as they passed through yet another airbridge clogged with traffic. The neon lights shone through the car in a kaleidoscope of headache-inducing colors, advertisements of all kinds that beckoned for their attention. Molli long grew disinterested in gazing at those holographic projections as a kid, they were just distractions now. They looked more appealing than addressing Aratani's remark, but she couldn't let that comment slide -- she was too proud, and all too willing to defend herself.
"Next time, ah'll put th'drivin' on hold t'play doctor," Molli snapped back, her grip tightening on the steering wheel as she tensed up, "She ent dead." And whatever damage she took was nothing to the hemosynth that was likely patching up the worst of the damage. It was more than Molli could say about her own body, but she didn't dare say so. After all, she was the one who insisted on being treated like an equal despite her physical and mental inferiority. Using that as a defense would just be hypocritical, even if it was true.
Rio never actually answered Aiko's question. She instead sat silently in the backseat, mostly listening and watching. In the car she felt drained, slightly unfocused and the cut on her head had given her a terrible throbbing headache. The mission had pretty much been compromised from the start, they had already been involved in two separate gunfights and had a building fall on top of them. Was it a setup or just pure bad luck? Either way the longer she thought about it, the more agitated Rio felt herself becoming.
It was the talk of Molli's injuries that made Rio finally stir and practically force her way over the center console into the front of the vehicle. "She can't enjoy them if you end up bleeding out while in that seat." snapped the unusually agitated neko as her own half bloody face appeared between Molli and Sif. "We should stop. I don't think we are in...good shape Chusa." commented Rio as she took a moment to look back at Aiko.
"Negative," Aiko responded to Rio straightaway, before taking a long pause to stare at the sedan's sooty headliner. Her vibrant scarlet irises shot back and forth upon her sweaty face like she was watching something squiggle around in her vision; in reality the princess was silently listening to the conversation around her on a poison-affected delay, imagining a scene she couldn't really see. "I expected a chase, but Molli-kun seems to have guided us safely away. Better to recoup on the move than abandon our mission."
And indeed the battered Gumtree limousine, now more a jalopy than anything remotely luxurious, hadn't yet attracted a tail. The strength of Molli's street knowledge combined with the unintentional shock-and-awe wrought by Morgana's grenade trap left the Star Army squad with a clear getaway, and the Yamataians soon soared high and fast above Funky City's skyscrapers and their crowded lower maze of neon pathways. Only the stolen car's lack of any windshield—nor any windows at all following the explosion's concussion—impeded their progress any.
Anything above 25 miles per hour made verbal communication impossible as Nepleslia's smoggy breeze buffeted the sedan's ruined interior. Going 75 necessitated any non-wireless communications be yelled a few inches from someone's ear. But the drive from then on was otherwise somewhat pleasant as the late afternoon faded toward twilight and filled the horizon before them with the sunset's saturated gradient from pink and orange above that transitioned down to mellow yellows and toxic greens closer to the polluted surface. It was a view only seen here on Nepleslia, and Aiko, eventually able to sit upright without the synthetic Nekobane assaulting her senses, took in the novel sight while watching William at their flank on his motorbike.
The trip continued for about an hour and a quarter more. Around 90 miles later, the map had directed Molli far west from where they'd started over to near the Uesureyan Fields. Not the familiar and oft-visited base of the same name on planet Yamatai but rather another installation here on Nepleslia that'd been so named when both sister factions were part of one empire that spanned unbroken across the known Kikyo Sector of its age. That old base—heavily guarded and now the jurisdiction of the SMoDIoN—lay across a river routinely described as "nasty," and was off in the distance from where the Kaiyō crew ended up. At Molli's hand, their sedan descended down toward the fluorescent surface city glowing ever more brilliant like a big, garish beacon in the fog as the sunset faded into a gray evening gloom.
"Find somewhere quiet," Aiko had instructed Molli when they were below the highest reaches of the skyscrapers once again. Their target destination was within a 500 meter zone of interest. "As quiet as this place is able," she clarified, knowing that nearly every one of Funky City's blocks were packed and lively beneath the bright lights and bustle at all hours of the day.
Soon thereafter, the sedan and William's hoverbike were both parked in a relatively unused lot. Inside an open chain-link fence topped with spiraling barbed wire, it was mostly filled with industrial-sized garbage like stacks of corrugated aluminum, thin cast iron pipes, and then a few cars that looked like they'd been there at least a week. Mammoth brown sided high-rises surrounded the miniscule cutout between them, and the lower street façade nearby was sleepy so far as a Nepleslian megacity was concerned, mostly filled with foot traffic between a few bars, cafes, and other shops. Electric neon still lit up the place well enough here, but not so bright as day like some other places on this planet were, still allowing shadows to linger once off the main street sidewalks.
By now, everyone's bodies felt better having been given some time away from intense action and buildings collapsing atop them. Even the squad's two Nepleslians, assaulted by the acrid and polluted skies above their homeland, gained somewhat measure of a second wind. Such a break was something that soldiers could only dream of in wartime, so the Star Army crew could count themselves fortunate that they were merely undertaking an undercover recon mission on an allied world rather than assaulting a Mishhuvurthyar position elsewhere.
Aiko was the first out of the stolen sedan when it landed. Her movements were far less lethargic than they had been, and she appeared to have gained back her unwavering determination in every step. The princess surveyed the area as the others disembarked, taking in her surroundings as a matter of observational habit.
Chandler Park District, Funky City
"We need to find a particular establishment," Aiko said, wirelessly forwarding the intel from her computer brain to the others. "Take a breath and collect yourselves," she continued, wanting everyone to get comfortable and settled in the new locale even though they'd had an hour to calm down. "Procuring hydration is the first priority, however. Ignemar-hei: you will take point. Stow the mask. It is somewhat too conspicuous for this district."
20日1月YE 47
Funky City
Nepleslia
Dusty beams of neon light sliced across the seventh floor apartment through old metal slat shades affixed permanently half-open atop the street facing window, casting broken and erratic silhouettes from the traffic-jammed ground level where colorful storefronts, cafes, bars, and other more seedy sensations attracted anonymous masses beneath the Nepleslian megacity's towering hundred-and-a-half-plus story habitation blocks. It was a big room that used to be some kind of office space, but was now more like an expansive studio hangout ringed with worn out seats, tables stacked high with the week's trash and contraband, and a number of huge televisions to hold the attention of even the most zeeted ganger. Of which there were about a half dozen in various states of awareness there today alongside the YSS Kaiyō II's away team, watching cheap mutant girls dance around in vibrant colors on volumetric screens plastered to the walls between hits of whatever else got them off.
Aiko and William stood at the business end of a wide, messy hardwood desk adorned with a bong and stacks of paper collected in green file folders that tracked the decades the further down the stack you looked. Proper documentation for the Twenty Eight Gumtree gang's legitimate businesses, of course. Across from them was a slim man—having a well toned body and as tall as William but a third the weight—whose skin was quite nearly as orange as a tangerine and latticed with greenish veins that showed through up through the translucent top layers of his flesh. He wore mirrored pince-nez glasses so dark purple they appeared almost black from most angles that his scrunched brow seemed to have grown to envelop in a manner that kept them on his face more than his pointy aquiline nose or any mechanism of the accessory. This villain had on matte blue patent leather pants with a thick trench coat to match and not much else, and stood up very straight except for the very top of his back where his shoulders rolled forward to let his arms hang lazily to the front of his stance. The man's bald pate was ringed with greasy white locks that stuck together unevenly and shot down straight to his jawline, giving him the air of some kind of narcotics monk.
"Then our deal is complete, Mister Yoldeen," Aiko said, reaching her hand out to shake the marmalade man's and finish up with this portion of their quest. Her long black hair covered her mostly exposed back from sight, but that didn't keep the couple of slightly mutated Nepleslian gangbangers keeping close watch on her and William from trying to stare through it and see the perfect Nekovalkyrja form her shiny black leotard teased when she'd strode into their domain some time before. Aiko's legs, more modestly covered with a pair of baggy black hakama pants that were bloused into jika tabi riding boots, still drew their wicked gazes as they loomed closer.
The head honcho in his navy coat reached one of his long arms out to meet Aiko's hand and shook it, passing off a data stick into the princess' palm. Within its records, the device held information on—and the location of—the Star Army team's next lead: an abandoned PNUgen facility buried beneath Funky City's crust so many years before Yamatai and Nepleslia split that it lay even further below the crime infested lower city zone they currently found themselves in. A mission undertaken based on information Uesu had shared with Captain Hoshi and Task Force 282 that promised to unlock old bioengineering secrets that could help turn the tide against the Mishhuvurthyar.
Aiko had led her comrades here in secret today. Kaiyō, in orbit above, had been permitted into Nepleslian space for joint exercises with Battlegroup Havoc. And while that occurred, the stout Star Army squad came down to run this true mission. While not quite undercover with complex cover stories this time, the team didn't advertise their presence or identities due to the sensitive nature of their objective. Though William and his Berserkers had fought several times now alongside Uesureyans, many Nepleslian citizens and factions still held their old Emperor Kitsurugi Uesu in contempt.
"Not quite," the lanky orange Yoldeen replied, smiling a set of spiny shard implants dripping with his viscous, drug-affected saliva. He kept Aiko's hand in his grip and scratched her wrist with the tip of his unkempt right index fingernail. "I think the IPG will pay me more for a Ketsurui princess," he added, still not letting go even as Aiko tried to pull away, looking at William next as he held her. "And you! Shouldn't have come with 'em, catlover. It's gonna embarrass your daddy so bad!"
Behind William and Aiko, the other Kaiyō crew could see the two gangers standing guard draw pistols and take aim. The other five Gumtrees in the room hadn't stirred yet, though they watched, likely too hopped up (or down) to see the scene unfolding as anything different than the adver-drama shows they invested most of their lives in.
It was already a horrible surprise to find out the Kaiyo's next assignment lay in the smoggy, industrial megahellhole that was Funky City. Though Molli was born and raised there, it never truly felt like a home to her with its violence and garish excess. With all that had happened that led to her fleeing on an outbound ship as a wanted woman so many years ago, the prospect of returning wasn't exactly thrilling. But soldiers obeyed their superiors if they wanted to stay on duty, and wanted women didn't let the truth of their circumstances slip to those they wanted to keep as friends. That the "joint exercise" was just a smokescreen for another delve into an underground base didn't come as a surprise to Molli whatsoever -- she was getting used to that level of subterfuge by now.
For her part, Molli chose to wear her sleek bodysuit with a puffy jacket and sturdy running shoes as she accompanied the princess and William. The city was a nightmare of close-quarters combat, so cutting down on anything that could get caught on terrain or grabbed was ideal. The jacket, on top of being fashionable, was just poofy enough to mask the bulging pistol that sat snugly in Molli's shoulder holster. It was a minimalist set-up, if a tad revealing, judging by the occasional whistle from a grungy ganger whose eyes wandered to the soldier's backside.
Most were more interested in Aiko, however, for obvious reasons. Besides looking stunning in her pristine, un-Nepleslian perfection, she commanded an aura of power that none could ignore. Molli knew from the moment they strode into this skeezy joint that some chem-huffing moron would get a bold idea they'd be tempted to act on the longer they stayed. All that mattered was when, and Molli's crimson eyes scanned the room, awaiting the moment the pin dropped with a hand twitching towards the holster inside her jacket. The stench of their onlookers got stronger as a few inched closer to her officers.
Yoldeen was just like any other wannabe bigshot that managed to sink his greasy claws into a scrap of the city: more balls than brains, and keen to take the quickest path to the top, risk be damned. Even if he'd known just how dangerous it was to threaten a Yamatain princess, he'd have still tested his luck. That's how life was in Funky City -- the brave burned bright and fast, because anything was better than being slowly choked into an ignoble grave.
Molli wasn't feeling particularly impressed by his bravery, however. Once Yoldeen made his betrayal known, the Nepleslian acted swiftly. In a flash, her hand vanished into the jacket and withdrew a stubby pistol that she raised into the air and fired. It was a semi-auto that fired metal cartridges like in the good old days, and more importantly, it made an ear-splitting, attention-grabbed bang. Seizing the element of surprise, Molli strode forward and jammed the barrel of her pistol to the back of one of the gunmen's heads. "If ya don't git yer skuddin' paw offa her," Molli growled, "Th'Gummers're gonna be another wanted t'be, but couldn't."
In the years since she'd naturalized as a Yamataian citizen, Molli hoped she could forget what it was like to act like a slummer. Standing here, gun in hand, neck-deep in a ganger drug den, she realized that the instinct of a survivor hadn't left her at all. It was all coming back to her like a bad habit, or a toxic addiction.
William was also surprised that the next mission took them into Nepleslian space, though not nearly the same as the visceral reaction Molli had. The ID-SOL had suggested once or twice to his friends that they should come to Nepleslia. Though he definitely didn't mean for it to turn into a work thing...
For his part, William wore a black trench coat, ballistic vest, black cargo pants and combat boots. The final article he wore as a ballistic half face mask in the shape of a skull. The mask was armored, but also had built in comms and a rebreather. The mask wasn't a perfect disguise, but it was very versatile. For this outing, he was packing revolvers in his underarm holsters, and his katana on his hip. As they walked through the neon lit streets, the marine stuck to Aiko like glue. His own training as the princess's retainer coming back into sharp focus. He fought to keep his eyes straight ahead and not deck any of the locals who leered at the Kaiyo crew.
He stayed silent during the meeting, but he watched Yoldeen cautiously. Things had gone okay so far, that was until the gang banger had made them. Molli was quick to react, but William was hot on her heels. In a flash, William was up with katana in hand and sliced the blade in an upward arc, aiming to slice the arm Yoldeen's was holding Aiko with off at the elbow. A revolver appeared in his other hand and he leveled it at Yoldeen's head. "Too bad you won't get the chance to tell them." He sneered, before he fired.
The news that their next assignment would see them heading to Nepleslia had filled Rio with an electrical current of excitement. Her first time to Nepleslia and Funky City. Somewhere new to see and learn about. Rio hoped that she would have a chance to grab a souvenir or two at some point while team was on planet.
For her part, Rio had sought to be as inconspicuous as the blue skinned Neko could be. Quickly bought once they had gotten planetside Rio had picked up a simple t-shirt, a brown leather bomber jacket, jeans and riding boots. She had also grabbed a newsboy cap to wear as well instead of pinning up her hair as she usually did. Having followed Molli's example, Rio had opted to carry her radiant pistol in a shoulder holster underneath her jacket for this mission. Her service pistol was discreetly holstered in the back of her waist and hidden underneath her shirt and jacket.
Rio's excitement for getting to travel somewhere new faded as the crew ventured into the deeper levels of the city. That excitement completely died when they had entered the den the den they currently found themselves in. The entire place and its inhabitants caused her nose to wrinkle in disgust. The worst of it was the smell to Rio. The NMX base had smelled better than this dump.
Like the rest of the squad, Rio had stayed silent for the duration of the meeting. Once things went sideways though Rio was right behind Molli and Will. As she hopped up from her seat Rio pulled her radiant from underneath her jacket. In a single swift movement Rio took aim at the head of the gunman behind Aiko and fired almost in time with Will's own shot.
Another sneaking mission to find a hidden complex. The idea itself brought Sif back to her first mission. She didn't know what to expect at the time, but now she was more prepared, and after getting a rundown on what kind of place they were stepping foot in, she thought up her most daring outfit yet. Three nekovalkyrja waltzing into a crime den, that was already looking like trouble. It turned heads, raised questions perhaps. In an attempt to lower their profile, Sif decided to integrate her Candy Festival costume into her disguise, mainly the cloak, cowl and the mask. The latter two to hide that she's a Nekovalkyrja --and to add a bit of mystique-- the former to hide most of the equipment she carried. Though one need not worry of it getting snagged as it was secured in a way to make it easy to come undone.
In a dangerous environment, one must also be perceived as dangerous. The image of the herald of pestilence surely fit that requirement. But a mask and a cape only spoke of hidden agendas. Signs of being battle tested was important to the look as well. Fortunately they had just came into possession of a number of "salvaged goods" from the NMX they retrieved in the prior mission. Rio's radiant pistol being one of them. Sif carried the same, strapped to her side. If they were to get disarmed, it'd look bad for Yamatai when a number of Nekovalkyrjas carrying Yamataian weapons were found sneaking around. The fewer issued gear carried, the better.
That brings about the rest of Sif's ensemble. She was wearing some combat boots purposefully left out in the sun for a few days to be bleached. Her bottoms were dark urban-pattern camo pants with knee and shin guards weathered to look worn. Her top was a plain green t-shirt underneath a ballistic vest with three NMX combat knives stowed on each side, though currently covered by the unbuttoned denim jacket. Her NMX-issued combat gloves looked the newest, though she sanded out the markings.
On her back, she also carried her impaler rifle from the previous mission, currently hidden under the cloak.
When they were making their way through the seedy corner of the city, the mask served to hide her scrutinizing eyes as she studied the punks and ne'er-do-wells they passed. Inside the meeting room, she stayed at the rear, by the door, arms confidently folded as she leaned against the frame, though the tip of her finger was on the hilt of a knife with the other hand ready to draw the radiant pistol at a moment's notice.
To think such a place could exist, Sif was equal parts concerned and enthralled. She could sense the tension in the air as Aiko spoke with the dealer. She was calm and collected as always, despite being in such an enclosed space surrounded by goons that could turn hostile at any moment. And when that moment came at Molli's gunfire, and William's slice and shoot maneuver, Sif sprung to action as well.
She took one of her knives and quickly aimed to dig it into the area around the shoulder and the neck of the thug to her left, who moved to unholster his pistol in response to Molli's shot. In the same breath, she drew the radiant pistol and at first aimed it at the guy sitting across the one she just stabbed, but upon seeing that he was in a world of his own, she instead shifted her aim towards the thug right behind him and squeezed the trigger.
Morgana slouched against the crumbling brick wall, her mirrored aviators glinting like twin slashes of neon as the sickly glow from the slatted blinds cut across the room. The bodysuit clinging to her was all sharp lines and cold purpose—matte black, sculpted to her figure, with panels smooth as silk across her chest and stomach, and ribbed textures running along her sides. Between the panels, faint orange neon strips pulsed softly, the dying ember of a cigarette in a room gone cold. The fabric caught what little light there was, shimmering faintly like oil on wet asphalt. Over it all hung a bomber jacket that had lived a few too many lives. Frayed seams, scuffed leather, and a patchwork of corporate insignias told stories of places that no longer existed, of deals gone sour in Funky Town’s back alleys. It hung from her body loosely.
She watched the scene unfold, her expression unreadable behind the lenses, giving a barely audible sigh as the situation instantly deteriorated. With a slight tilt of her head, she rolled her eyes just enough for a shard of green to peek over the top of her shades. The players in this little drama were predictable, their tension building like a cheap lazor pop track before the drop. She flexed her wrists, revealing a silver holowatch which gleamed in the filtered neon. A quick swipe of her hand over its faintly glowing interface made the air shimmer around her like heat haze.
From her jackets inside pocket, she drew a matte black NSP—sleek, unmarked, and lethal. She held it one-handed, the weapon leveled lazily at the closest goon like it was an afterthought. The moment the silhouette of her target filled her sights; she pulled the trigger. Then she was in motion. Her body uncoiled like a serpent, fluid and fast, the bomber flaring around her as she slid toward a stack of overturned tables firing as she moved.
“Chusa,” Morgana called out, her voice steady as she settled into cover. “Your knack for being recognized, despite your best efforts, is... notable."
Twenty Eight Gumtree Gang Block
The emergency sirens that always punctuated Funky City's constant thrum of life and death on Nepleslia went unnoticed. That constant presence to remind the low city criminals that another gang carrying a badge and government authority was there to always oppose them, and quickly became part of the megacity's background pulse to anyone who spent more than five minutes on the Democratic Imperium's capital world. Easily ignored until those flashing lights were right on top of you.
William's heavy revolver blast sent Yoldeen bursting through his office's slatted windows, taking the tall but wiry-light mutant right off his feet and down onto the streets below. It was just as the red and blue lights of a dozen NPF squad cars rolled up to the building's façade, replacing the pink and green neon shadows that usually lit the area. Yoldeen's body thumped down onto one of their hoods, which forced the up-armored police hovercar to the ground in a plume of dust and shattered glass that twinkled like rain against the city block's strobing spectacle.
On their quick initiative, the other Kaiyō crew made quick work of their targets. Only the strung-out guy Sif had spared and the other dude Molli initially held up remained, the latter of whom spun around to face her with a maniacal grin on his scaly, segmented mutant face. He'd brought his pistol up to his temple and immediately fired, splattering his own brains all over the room behind William.
"Never," Aiko replied to Morgana as her eyes darted to the scratch Yoldeen had etched into her wrist. Less incredulous than matter-of-fact, the princess knew she was impossible to recognize without her signature bellflowers set above her right ear. "This must have been a setup. The IPG is beneath contempt for good reason."
Even with the half dozen cop cars blasting lights and sirens outside, the office was suddenly dominated by an orangey hue as its volumetric displays came to life. A humanoid visage animated in ascii characters, doubtlessly Yoldeen's likeness down to his ugly little glasses recognizable even in the text-based video, cackled through the clutch of screens that surrounded the Star Army soldiers.
"No shit, bitch!" the digitized gang leader declared. "Now the Sky Marshal's gotta pay for a new clone, too! Big payday with NPF backup right on time, huh? Y'all don't even know how networked the Twenty Eights are, we got all the—"
As the smog and noise from outside flooded into the office through the newly shattered window after Yoldeen's betrayal, Rio's ears rang for several moments then quickly faded. She had no real experience with ballistic weapons in a such a small environment. She had know them to be loud, but it was much louder than she had expected. quietly she pulled her hat further down on her head, covering her ears in the hope that it would help muffle any future encounters.
The explosion of violence that erupted all around Molli was all too normal by this point, despite her hope that they'd be able to go longer without getting shot at. She had been the first to draw, but that hope kept her finger off the trigger; it was the biggest sign that she'd forgotten how life was in the slums, and it made the Nepleslian feel utterly inept. As Yoldeen's body shattered the massive office windows and let the rust-scented smog in, Molli froze as her target spun to face her. His pistol raised, and the soldier gasped at what seemed like a fatal mistake -- only for blood to splatter across her face from the explosive impact of his suicide. Was he grinning because he'd seen Molli's hesitation and known her weakness before the end?
With the shock wearing off, the blaring sirens, all the louder thanks to the broken window, snapped Molli back to reality. The sounds of the NPF could never be forgotten, unfortunately, and Molli had always learned to steer clear of the noise if she wanted to keep from catching a bullet -- or a made-up fine. When the room became bathed with the orange hue of Yoldeen's distasteful likeness, Molli gripped her pistol tightly, as if expecting him to materialize in person and start shooting at them.
"Perfect ex-e-cution," Sif proudly said to herself with a voice slightly muffled by the plague doctor mask, surprised that her maneuver worked as smoothly as it did, as well as being pleased that everyone was still in one piece. The tremors in her hand as she ripped the knife off of the body was barely noticeable but it was there, a mix of adrenaline and nerves that she has still yet to fully tame. No, wait, can't lose character now. She thought and shook her head and tapped the tip of the knife gently at the side of her mask before she retreated back into the mindset of a battle-hardened mercenary staring down the ruthless forces of an entrenched enemy.
The digitized visage of their most gracious host appeared as the sound of the cops' arrival broke the momentary lull from the gunfight, his gloating largely ignored when Aiko's orders were set. Even if he didn't confirm Aiko's hunch at a setup, the timing was too close to be anything but. Maybe except for a very keen police force, which was highly unlikely given the sorts of people they brushed past on the way here.
"Faelan-shoi," Aiko said, speaking calmly even as Yoldeen continued his tirade unabated. She had a rosy blush smeared across her pale cheeks, looking very flushed despite her determined attitude. "Access the building's systems wirelessly and find us a route out. Dictate directions while we move. They should have a garage with transport on the upper levels. Wil, you make us any walls she needs. The rest of you, on me!"
Seventh Floor Corridor
With that, Aiko beelined toward the office's door that led out onto a very dingy but otherwise plain apartment hallway beyond and flung open the door. Beyond, thresholds lined the corridor every ten feet or so, and at the end lay a central staircase that provided the Gumtree Gang Block access up and down the twelve stories. Far down there, a cop kitted out with a ballistic helmet and riot shield spearheaded a group of police coming up from the ground floor. The princess had already unholstered her NSP and was marching counter to them with it raised and ready.
"Cease and desist, intruder!" he announced from a chest mounted mini-megaphone while loosing shots from his Zen .357 service pistol without delay.
They whizzed past the princess and she froze for a moment. And then she ducked and skittered to the floor, holding both hands over her ears while making herself small against the hallway's corner.
"Ah'm with her," Molli grumbled, jabbing a thumb in Morgana's direction. "Yeh're kinna..." Molli gestured vaguely with her arms as she appraised Aiko, whose larger than life presence always stuck out in her mind, "...Reconizzble." It didn't seem far-fetched that the squad of Yamataians might have immediately landed on someone's radar as soon as their boots hit the concrete.
"Bet 'e thought they'd get 'im a new meatsuit..." Molli said, lightly kicking the leg of the dead man at her feet, now understanding his willingness to turn a gun on himself. The ruminations were short-lived, as Aiko's orders came as swift as her ensuing movements. Molli followed close behind the princess, but her metal eyes widened in surprise at the squad that mobilized down the hall. They were firing on Aiko's position; it seemed that taking prisoners wasn't on the agenda today.
Much as Molli didn't care for killing people that were just doing their jobs, she couldn't just stand there and let Aiko stay in danger again. "Keep yer noggin down!" Molli barked as she dove down the hallway, then thrust her metallic right arm outward. With a sharp click, the glowing red limb detached and flew through the threshold, propelled by miniature aether thrusters that gave the anti-gravity some push. Through a camera feed in her metal eyes, Molli guided her arm toward the vanguard of the police unit and aimed to deliver a solid punch right into his shield.
When the squad split and mobilized, Sif put away the knife and pistol to bring out the impaler rifle. One look and anyone could see that it was nice and clean. Anyone who looked at the pistol beforehand might have also noted the same. In short, it was clear how much care Sif put into these weapons, which was in contrast with her more road-weary ensemble.
Navigating the building behind Aiko and Molli, Sif remembered one important thing any battle-tested veteran should know, hallways are deathtraps. Many faceless foes have fallen to the protagonists' effective use of the funnel it creates, and many deuteragonist have been injured in similar instances. Coming face-to-face with the shield-bearer, Sif mused how nice it would have been if she thought to bring one.
As Aiko took cover and Molli fired off her arm, Sif, channeling the character she envisioned for this operation, dropped to a knee, leaned down as low as she could without being prone and trained her sights at the the officer's feet and let out a burst of blue laser beams, taking great care to not accidentally hit the two people ahead of her.
William stood, replacing the spent bullet as Yoldeen's body fell. When he reappeared on the screens, the marine groaned. "You have to be kidding me... Can he shut the hell up already?"
The thought that this fuster-cluck could be anything IPG related greatly concerned William. They were supposed to be on his side. He would have to run this up the flag pole. All the way to his father if he had to. Now though? They had bigger problems.
Turning to Aiko, he nodded. "I'll back her up." Pulling his data jockey from a pocket, he jacked his cyberware into the module and began searching for a way into the buildings network. At the same time, he was deploying firewalls to keep himself and Morgana safe.
When the officer yelled and began firing, he took note of Aiko's response. It was not like the warrior princess of Yamatai to hide when the aether started flying. Something wasn't right. Moving next to her he yelled into the hall. "You are interfering with an NSMC operation! Cease and desist now or it's your ass!" As he did, he checked Aiko over. Specifically, he tried to gauge the cut on her arm that Yoldeen left.
The reappearance of Yoldeen's ugly mug and grating voice brought Rio back into focus. "I doubt he is capable of doing so. If we see him again we should help him do so. permanently. Along with whoever told him who we really are!" growled Rio in response to Will's complaint towards Yoldeen's yapping as she took a quick peek out the shattered window at the large number of police hovercar.
Seeing Will checking on Aiko, Rio took a running start and dove through the fire to cross the doorway. Rio's momentary delay meant that she was following Will as he entered the hall. Muffled from inside the office, the report of the advancing officer's service pistol was painfully loud to Rio in the tight, echoing hallway.
"Was the Chusa hit?" Rio hollered, trying to yell over the deafening noise as she joined them.
Sif's shots skittered and sang whizzing across the hard concrete just a couple millimeters beneath the brownish grey low pile carpet that had covered this building's floors for so long their original color was unknowable, plinking up into the charging policeman's aegis even as the NPF officer's pistol shots impacted into the plaster covered walls around her and the others. In their body armor, neither the cop on point nor his comrades now advancing in column behind him seemed to have been injured—though perhaps Sif had contributed to the inaccuracy of the police fusillade as her rounds skipped around at their feet.
A moment later Molli's rocket fist slammed into the metal riot shield's facing, making clean contact right in its center of gravity. The cop wielding it held his ground at first, pushing forward to counter the super punch's force. He held Molli's prosthetic weapon there for a few seconds in counterbalance, wrestling with the fist's wild propulsion as it shifted around scraping sparks across his shield in an attempt to get through it. And then finally, Molli's arm pushed hard enough to shift the policeman backward even with his solid stance, first sliding him backward and then toppling him into the cops crowding in though the stairwell in back of him. They made for an ugly pile of armor and man as they scrambled around while Molli's first returned to her unimpeded on automatic recall.
Aiko blinked up at William, who had her wrist in his grasp, as if coming out of a daze. Her scarlet eyes traced the ID-SOL's gaze down to her wrist. The scratch Yoldeen had given her was now a black line surrounded by a throbbing, hot pink aura that traced her web of veins out across her pale arm just under the surface of her skin.
"My body is attempting to develop immunity," the princess said to her Nepleslian friend. Aiko's face darted over to some dusty chunk of debris floating down through the air, looking too surprised to see it while her stare tracked it down to the floor beside her. "This process will take some time to correct. Whatever he did is potent. Forgive my inability while we exfiltrate."
Aiko closed her eyes and took deliberate breaths to slow down her hurried respiration. Meanwhile, William's mindware showed him the building's layout. Morgana would see the same via her access if she tried. It was an old official zoning record, but nonetheless showed a garage on level 11 that took up almost the entire floor. Other than the stairwell ahead, now teeming with NPF officers tangled up with each other as they flooded in, there was no regular access. But the schematics showed the walls were thin and lacked any reinforcement on the building's interior, and that there existed two thin one-meter-wide spaces between this block and those nextdoor that ostensibly contained some sort of ancient fire escape ladders that had been sealed in whenever the adjacent buildings were constructed.
Right in front of them, only about a yard or so ahead, the first door to the Kaiyō team's left swung open with enough force that the dust and gunsmoke now filling the corridor's air swirled about like murky grey eddies in one of Funky City's toxic sewer pipes. The sudden slam heralded something far more lazy: some buzzcut Nepleslian man in striped boxer shorts, a heather blue t-shirt, and a ratty terrycloth robe that looked kind of yellowish green despite having once been white. His average frame sauntered out with a Zen submachinegun in hand, held low at the hip in both hands, and an NPF badge that hung from a ball chain lanyard around his neck.
"Gumtrees are this detective's beat!" the guy bellowed down toward the stairwell, sloppily turning to walk and meet his colleagues. "I'm the law here!" he added, letting rip a burst of .357 police ball at the invading cops, who were only just recovering from Molli and Sif's attack. They began returning fire, striking the apparent detective in his shoulder as he continued unabated to greet them.
Molli's soundscape had been drowned out by the boom of several repeated ballistic retorts in a confined space, and in their wake came a high-pitched drone that informed the soldier she most assuredly had some form of hearing damage. It made it practically impossible to hear what anyone had to say, and in the moment Molli realized just how terrifying it felt to be so close to violence without the cushion of a Mindy, or even basic body armor. She concentrated on her arm to remain productive to the team, and it was to her satisfaction that firing it off had the intended effect -- a messy pile-up that could buy them some time. She turned onto her side in order to receive her returning limb, which she slotted back into its port with a rough click.
Molli was considering firing it off again when the door ahead of her was thrown open, and its occupant emerged from the dusty haze in naught but his jammies, an automatic weapon, and the intent to start blasting. While most of the seasoned members of the crew were taking cover, this crazy son of a skiz was marching right towards the squad willing to loose a volley. It was a scene almost as comical as it was incredibly frightening. Though Molli had serious doubts that this 'detective' was the real deal, the thought of using a third party as cover for an exfil wasn't comfortable, and so she extended her cybernetic arm and allowed it to detach once more.
Unlike the rocket-propelled punch, it floated through the air at a more measured pace, until its digits seized upon the nape of the 'detective's' neck. "Get DOWN ya sketchy IDJIT!" Molli screamed over the gunfire as she tried to encourage the man to take a knee, hopefully before the rest of his body was filled with lead.
Creased close, the Shoi's amethyst eyes caught the inadequate light of the hallway in tiny fractals between her dark lashes. The look on Koizumi Aratani's face perfectly telegraphed her feelings about the developing situation. Skin scrunched up between her tethered brows in an uncomely squint. Her mind was focused on her fingers—not her own expression—that were working the Type 39 Zen AR she held, switching the firing mode over to its secondary plasma stream. She took two heavy steps towards the jumbled pile, angling to avoid spewing the blue stream on the shield Molli had driven into. Instead, she concentrated below it on the mound of footsoldiers as they recovered.
Used to providing support as she did on Urtullan by dropping in when mecha or armors needed repairing, the Shoi had been surprised to be pulled aside for the mission. She didn't have the rapport the away team had with one another but also anticipated the only way to gain such would be joining along on a full mission like this one. So, she had hung back in the room and let the others do the talking as she observed. But now that combat was happening, her natural inclinations kept her from staying in the shadows any longer.
Her silvery white hair whipped behind her, catching on the ridges of the bullet vest she wore snugly beneath a tight fitting shirt with a stylized Nepleslian-style dragon on its chest. There were a few leather bracelets on her wrist and one of the triangular charms on them glowed a familiar teal. Baggy lavender cargo pants meant she had extra magazines and extra cells for the ZARCNAM as well as a few surprises, like the grenades that sloshed around with each of the two steps she took towards the NPF pile.
"Got an exit strategy, boss?" Aratani asked over her shoulder, thinking she was yelling back to Aiko and cheekily using the name of their ship's AI in the process. Truly, though, the question would be directed to William after his assessment of the Ketsurui royal and with his knowledge of the building's layout.
"Over these lumps or through them?" Putting extra panache on the third word out of her mouth, she had directed her attention back to the NPF.
William's arrival slightly threw off Sif's aim, her margin of fire being forced narrower due to his bulky frame, but that did get her to notice that he was off to assist Aiko. Up until that point, Sif had thought things were still going their way, but it seemed the princess was out of commission. How dire the issue was wasn't clear from her vantage point, and she felt the dread building. "Scheiße!" she cursed in Abwheran, picking herself up off the ground while the cops were knocked back into a pile thanks to Molli's disembodied arm. Sif took position right in front of Aiko and William, serving as cover for them with her body armor as well as to gain some ground and a clearer shot without any friendly obstructions.
Though the last part of that idea quickly got scrapped as a party of one jumped into the fray through a door that burst open, whose form did little to inspire any form of confidence or hope, and rather evoked the image of a sleazy neighbor. Though the badge suggested he was more of a sleazy alcoholic who happened to land a job in the police department thanks to nepotism before departmental corruption took hold; a shell long withered away by his vices, underworld debts and perhaps a lost Lenore, looking for purpose at the end of a needle or at the bottom of a bottle.
Sif's aim locked in to his chest. Had he turned just a millisecond slower or if Sif had a faster reaction time, she would have introduced him to NMX munitions, but him turning towards the cops marked him neutral, an enemy of her enemy, at best. Yet, he remained an obstruction to her line of fire, which elicited a grunt of frustration from behind the plague mask as she couldn't, in good conscience, just shoot through him, and neither could she adjust her position, which would have meant leaving William and Aiko exposed.
But seeing Molli's hand attempting to push the stranger down a little, Sif had hope that it would work and leveled her gun once more, ready to fire what was left in the battery once there was an opening, ready to pull out her secondary once the gun was fully discharged.
William cursed as he took in the wound. "I know you aren't a fan of this, but I need to do it." The ID-SOL said, cradling Aiko in one massive arm. He knew Aiko didn't like being touched or anything of the sort, however the situation necessitated William's transgression. Shielding her body with his own, he slid his sword back into his sheath and held his revolver in his free hand.
"She's been poisoned." He replied to Rio. Turning back to Aratani he nodded. "Let these idiots fight themselves. We have bigger problems." He marked the spot with his mindware, flagging the old fire escape in everyone's HUD. "Fighting withdraw! I'll clear the way. Once its open I'll cover you all." William ordered as he moved towards the thin wall that hid the fire escape. "Sorry again about this." He whispered apologetically, shielding Aiko with his other arm. With a roar, he slammed a massive combat boot into the wall.
With her head partially leaned around the corner to get a better glimpse of the situation, "Is it always so chaotic on Nepleslia?!" Rio mentally asked herself after having witnessed the alarming arrival of the NPF 'detective'. She wasn't sure if he really was one but that didn't matter as much as him incidentally providing the team with covering fire. She half wondered if yet another party might also join into the hallway fight at this point. The situation had clearly gotten out of hand in a very short amount of time.
Upon hearing that Aiko had been poisoned Rio's head snapped back around the corner to quickly as William gave his orders. As soon as he began to move with Aiko, Rio peeled off the corner to join them, radiant pistol at the ready for anymore unexpected entrances. "Understood. I'll take point as soon as the wall is breached." she called out. Once they reached the marked wall Rio would position herself just to the side, pistol in both hands and held close to her body, ready to charge through the wall as soon as it was opened.
Morgana leaned against a wall for cover as she examined the building schematics on her wrist watch. She was looking at the elevator shaft, working out the logistics of getting Willaim and Molli, the Neplesians being without an ICS and her not trusting an elevator under combat conditions it was a conundrum. The revelation that Aiko was incapacitated put pay to that idea, though William beat her to an alternative.
"Not a great idea for you to be both on rear guard duty and carrying the Commander." She said approaching William. "Give her here, I'll carry her." she said holding out her hand.
Kicking drywall typically resulted in little more than a leg shaped hole and getting awkwardly stuck, but William was a large man with a large foot and so his ID-SOL sized boot ripped down from where he raised it near chest height all the way to the floor and tore a good Nekovalkyrja-sized passageway for the team to crouch through. Rio went in first, taking point as she'd intended, and Sif remained in position to cover the makeshift doorway. He would struggle to slip between the jagged hollow himself, especially having picked Aiko up, and needed to let her pass on her own two legs before bullying his way into the next room. Thankfully, his brief squeeze made the hollow a little bigger for the rest of the squad who'd follow him in.
Molli's disembodied prosthetic successfully grabbed onto the supposed detective's collar, tugging backward at his ragged robe like a cat pulling its kittens out from a toxic Nepleslian sewer pipe. He quickly fell on his ass and dug his off hand's fingers into the hard floor, trying in vain to find purchase on the thin carpet as if he expected to be pulled away by whatever unknown force had put him down. Now three wounds deep on his upper torso, the detective finally peered backward and saw the Kaiyō crew absconding.
"Suspects on foot, I need backup!" he shouted, laying back down into the floor with Molli's bionics still attached to his robe and then taking aim at the Star Army team. "They're gonna get the supplies! I'm taking the shot!"
The blue plasma stream from Aratani's ZARCNAM meanwhile rushed over the downed detective, now clear of fire from both sides, and impacted into the ground just in front of the regrouping riot cops. A beam mighty enough to take on power armors, it quickly destabilized the deck under them. That first officer who'd been punched back by Molli tripped and fell as the concrete ground beneath him turned molten and dripped away through the ceiling of the level one story down. His riot shield clattered to the floor, and the abused officer only caught his fall in time to paw around in an attempt to save himself from sinking any deeper than his armpits. The other incoming cops immediately to his rear stopped shooting for a second to stabilize themselves and help him up while even more of their fellows continued to push up behind them and take what marginal shots they could.
The Donut Room
When Rio moved through from the hallway, tungsten lights flickered to life and bathed the room with an ugly yellow tint. The space was about fifteen feet long by ten feet over to a darkened window that looked out only into conduit-works and mold, and was packed full of various crates with a single workbench over to the right corner opposite where William created the entrance (itself only two feet away from a perfectly usable door). A rifle, pair of pistols, a grenade, and some tools sat on the workbench—which was affixed with a small vise—next to a caged 5-gun weapons locker, and what appeared to be crates of ammo were stacked around it.
But the majority of the rest of the room was filled to the ceiling with yellow cardstock boxes about a foot long and 3 inches square. Through a clear plastic window on each box, Rio could immediately see rows upon rows of chocolate glazed donuts. The only labelling appeared to indicate "HUMANITARIAN RING PASTRY: SHELF STABLE" in thin stencil lettering.
"I can walk, you both must remain ready to fight in my stead," Aiko said to Morgana and William, wandering into the room with an uncharacteristic levity in her step considering the raging fight that had erupted. She approached one row of the amber snack stacks and ran her right finger a millimeter above their surface as if to somehow take stock of them for a moment too long. "Odd."
Then, the princess snapped her gaze away to survey the room, choosing quickly to glide over to that darkened window and thrust it open.
"This way, right?" Aiko asked, and then with little regard for what dangers may lurk, she thrust her head through to take stock. With just as much speed, she soon reeled back as if stung by a hornet. "Nnh! Too bright!" she spat, rubbing both fists into her eyes. "But clear for you, Rio-san."
What Aiko had seen had been naught more than a pinprick of sun where the joined roofing that sealed the old fire escape cavity had fallen away, but that had apparently been enough for her to tolerate in this state. Within the cramped space was a rusty old series of ladders and varied tubing that carried coolant and water and electricity, as well as a thick humidity that bled from its walls. There was trash, too, and the passageway they'd have to take smelled disgusting with some hint of sweetness to it that seemed to waft up from below, probably due to dead rodents or a stashed victim somewhere on the lower levels.
Even from her prone position on the ground, Molli could feel the sheer, overwhelming heat of the ZARCNAM's plasma stream overhead. Its molten energy left a lingering warmth on her back that, ironically, made the scrappy Nepleslian's blood run cold. They don't believe in zitchin' overkill on Yamatai?! Molli thought in a panic, though she let out a relieved sigh to see the self-professed detective had gone down before said plasma stream evaporated him from the waist up. That relief quickly turned to shock when he faced the team and leveled his weapon toward them.
She couldn't believe her eyes, but the degree of stupidity one had to have to turn away from the people who just shot you and aim at the ones who weren't was pretty believable in every part of town. "ARE Y'OUTTA YER FLARKIN' MIND?!" Molli screamed, like an angry cat whose kitten decided to pull a gun on its mother after it'd pulled it out of a toxic Nepleslian sewer pipe, "SHOOT TH'OTHER GUYS!" Molli had a feeling that the words of a 'perp' wouldn't carry much weight with this whack job, and so she set her arm to grab the front of the man's gun as she scrambled to her feet and sprinted after the team through the makeshift exit William's boot made. The last one in, she withdrew her arm -- with or without the crazed gunman's weapon -- and entered with her pistol raised and ready to fire.
The room she entered smelled like gunpowder, oil, and anarchy in the making. Weapons and explosives, plus the tools to make, break, or mod them, were a familiar and unsurprising sight. "More bullets 'n people in this friggin' dive..." she mumbled, brushing a metal hand over the weapons on the workbench, before her eyes whirred to focus on the greater prize: the donuts. Molli was quick to help herself to one, taking a huge bite that left chocolate on the sides of her mouth. Despite the adrenaline pumping through her veins and the imminent danger in the wings, there was always time to enjoy a donut.
"Wash duhplah?" Molli asked with a mouth full of food, which she swallowed before continuing, "Do ah hunt fer some shades, Princess?" Her concern for Aiko was palpable in the question; it was odd to see her in a relatively helpless state. The soldier's eyes flitted to Sif and Rio, then to the hole in the wall. "Sif, Rio, gimme ah hand wiv th'hole, ah wanna plugit. Find somefin' heavy." It wouldn't hold for long, but it might buy them a few seconds, at least.
Though Molli was successful in bringing the Nepleslian in his boxers to the ground, allowing Sif to fire over him, this quickly put his attention towards them, screaming something about taking supplies. "He's out of his mind!" Sif declared as she shifted her aim towards him as a challenge. "Pull that trigger and you're a dead man!" she warned. But that threat didn't get acted on as the floor began to collapse as the rest of the team left the corridor and into the room William busted into. Sif followed suit, entering through the hole and took position against the door next to it, setting herself to guard the new entrance for any police presence, taking this short lull in the action to pat herself down for any damage as well as reloading her impaler rifle. No one was going to get the jump on her or the team.
She looked around the room to find anything heavy, and her eyes fell upon the workbench. That was so far the only thing likely heavy enough, but by itself, it wasn't going to plug the hole. "Stack the crates over here," she said, taking one last peek through the hole before she began pushing the crates to the hole. "See if we can get the workbench over here to brace this."
Before William could debate carrying Aiko with Morgana, Aiko made the decision for them. Luckily, he managed to widen the makeshift door as he pushed his massive frame through it.
Once inside he covered the entrance while everyone else retreated into the room, firing off shots with his revolver into the approaching combatants. After they had all made it inside, he took Sif's advice and moved to the workbench. He took the rifle and slung it over his shoulder, pocketed the grenade, and grabbed extra ammo for the rifle. Once that was done he swept the bench clear, and hoisted the bench into the air. "Coming through." He grunted as he moved to brace Sif's makeshift barricade.
Morgana let out a long exhale as Aiko forged ahead, and turned her attention to Sif's project. As the equipment upon the workbench wobbled around as it was dragged into place the grenade upon it caught her eye. She casually walked over and picked it up, scrutinizing it with a fierce intensity as the chaos around her continued.
Fire Escape
"Sif, don't get too carried away." Morgana said thoughtfully, lifting up one of the crates and placing the grenade under it so the crates weight was pressing on the spoon. She then pilled the pin before retreating into the fire escape. "If they see we've trapped our exit they'll move more cautiously, hopefully." She added with a slightly defeated sigh. "Then again residents of this area don't seem to have the best survival instincts."
As she was moving the crates, Sif could already feel that the barricade wasn't going to last long, even with the hefty workbench supporting it. However, with Morgana's addition of a booby trap, being fragile was its strength. Now was the time to vacate however. No point in staying to see if the trap works first hand, not unless she wanted to experience the mission as an after-action report. Though the moment the police began breaking down the door, that future felt so close.
Any change in Aiko's state of mind was lost on Aratani. Unlike the rest of the away team, Aratani didn't have a year's worth of missions with the Kaiyo XO to have gotten to know the Ketsurui and so mistook the Chusa's demeanor to be the tone she was setting for this mission. Even the Nepleslian was helping herself to some of the bountiful quantity of donut. Finding herself in agreement that a mission out of mechs and armors could use a little informal quirkiness, Aratani stuffed a pastry into her own mouth before following Rio and then Morgana out the window.
It would have been easy for the Neko-born Shoi to simply float up and to their destination on the eleventh floor, but given the circumstances Aratani believed them in, she took a more peculiar strategy to the same route. Monkey climbing along the bars below the first ladder in her path, she hopped up and onto it, doing a half turn as she did to be on its outer ledge. When the bars looked too rusty to hold, her body swung on the stable bar she still held once and then twice before she released her grip and hugged her body towards the conduit piping on the wall.
There was not a lot of vertical space in those old enclosed area forgotten to time until now, but she made use of what little room there was with each movement. Skittering up the wall with her hands holding the old pipes and the toes of her feet planted along them as well, she looked down towards the window she had come from some floors below to be sure her team was able to abscond.
The donut was still sticking out of Aratani's mouth, the chocolate glaze melting into her cheeks where it pressed into the edges of her maw.
The Donut Room
"Fffffh! Not so fast!" the drugged-up detective fumed through his teeth, keeping a firm grasp on his pistol even as Molli's mechanical limb attempted to disarm him.
He absolutely would not let go, and slid on his skivvies all the way to the improvised path William had created moments before. With a solid thud, his noggin caught on the threshold's jagged entrance when Molli's arm passed it and returned to her, forcing him to finally release his determined hold on the gun. Luckily for the detective, his body remained outside in the hallway when the Kaiyō's ID-SOL Marine hefted up the metal workbench with his gargantuan strength and placed it back down to block the way with a thunderous rumble that belied the ease with which William had crossed the room. Along with Sif's, the heavy table was more than enough to plug the hole.
With her arm recalled and firmly attached to her shoulder, Molli found herself whole. As had Sif upon her quick check for any wounds. No one seemed injured as far as they could tell, the team fortunate thus far to have avoided catching any lead from the police gunfire. And for a few seconds there was peace. Just enough time for Aratani and Molli to have pilfered a couple of donuts, each from a separate box.
The cakes were about as bland as their "shelf stable" labels suggested. Dry and mealy despite their waxy chocolate frosting, the donuts felt to the two Star Army girls like biting into soft suede that dragged across their teeth and somehow created a thirst provoking suction within their mouths as they chewed. If either Molli or Aratani cared to notice, they'd have seen a cylindrical grey wrapper stuffed down the middle of the donuts behind that first one in each of their boxes. It'd clearly been no matter for Aratani, whose mind was rightly locked into escaping as she discarded the rest of her donuts and proceeded upward through the dark, damp crawlspace.
It said a lot about Molli's low standards for Nepleslian cuisine when a stale donut was the most appetizing thing she remembered eating on the planet. That being said, the ensuing dryness in the roof of her mouth made Molli immediately regret her foolish decision to stop for a snack in the middle of mortal danger. Worse still, the soldier had a mortifying realization that she hadn't come prepared with anything to drink. Tossing the donut aside, Molli grimaced at the box she'd looted as though it'd betrayed her and noticed a grey wrapper in the box.
Soon enough the momentary calm was shattered when the armor clad cops outside, finally recovered from the setbacks foisted upon them by the Kaiyō squad, slammed into the storage room's door. Though locked, their well-trained NPF breaching drills shook the wall to its baseboards and sent a square of dust echoing off around the shut entryway's buckling latches. They didn't even bother with the hole in the wall that Sif and William had blocked up, nor yet trigger Morgana's carefully placed grenade trap.
A sudden boom shook the room with enough violent force that it felt like her bones were chattering, sending the box clattering to the ground. With seconds to react, Molli snatched the wrapper off the ground and scrambled through the window, right as heavy footsteps thundered in. Any later, and she likely would've been reduced to paste from their concentrated fire.
"Come!" Aiko beckoned the others, one leg already raised and hooked over the forgotten window that allowed them to ascend. She had her eyes shut, ostensibly because of the overwhelming brightness she'd seen in the dark crawlspace, but still managed to move unimpeded thanks to her body's skin vision. "Now!"
Sif heeded Aiko's command to egress, but she'd be the last one to get out of that room, reasoning that she's better off as the rear guard covering their tracks with her equipment. She was the second biggest target of the group, following William, and he's definitely the more valuable member to be on the frontline.
"I'll cover our six," Sif said, placing her body in between the door and the window while the others got out. "I hope the padding on this outfit keeps the blast force minimal," she thought, eying the grenade under the crate in case they did try breaching the barricade.
Fire Escape
The princess and Rio—and hopefully the others—just behind her, Aratani swung and climbed using her momentum and Nekovalkyrja agility to trailblaze as quickly as she could. It was musty and damp in this place, and the rotten steel of the ladders dripped and shuddered each time they had any force applied. At every level, when one of the Star Army team stood or hung for too long, the old gangways would screech and slip down a few inches, only sturdy again when they wedged lopsided between the Gumtree apartment block and the larger building next door.
"This is too much," Aiko said, huffing steamy breaths of the humid tunnel's tainted atmosphere as she hurried right on Aratani's tail. "The air here is too sultry, we must get out soon or we risk succumbing to the influence of its vapors."
Of course there was no such threat other than the unnatural stink of decomposing Nepleslia in all of its glory, at least not outside of Aiko's perception. But the princess seemed to have an urgent need, and her labored respiration only made the tight escapeway more stifling as excess heat sloughed off her affected form in steamy waves. It would only be a fleeting discomfort, though, as their destination lay only a few feet ahead.
As the doors buckled, William also leapt through the windows and grabbed ahold of the fire escape. Outside, the mask he wore filtered the Nepleslian air easily. He'd grown accustomed to it since his time here, but he had grown up in Yamatai so the mask was a welcomed reprieve. He had his reservations about using the fire escape once he saw its condition. William was a big man, and the fire escape was already groaning with a bunch of Nekovalkyrja on it.
"If I die because this thing breaks, I'm gonna be super pissed." William muttered as he climbed.
Rather than risk adding her comparatively meager weight to the ladder, Morgana drifted up the shaft silently. Her ICS to push her along, drifting behind the Neko’s, her lips thinning as she watched them make the perilous climb.She scrunched her nose at the vile scent, and then further furrowed her brow at Aiko’s comment. For a moment it looked as though her face was collapsing in on itself.
“Sultry… is an interesting choice of adjective.” Morgana said, lifting up her bracelet in the leading Neko’s direction and scanning her vitals.
The muggy smog that oppressed the air was a welcome change for Molli, whose lungs had grown so accustomed to the toxicity that she barely paid it any mind. Dirty air would probably kill her in the future, but the gunmen hot on her tail meant skipping the long queue to the great beyond sooner. So Molli climbed the rusty metal ladder that shook in a most uncomfortable matter, her movements swift and efficient, but not nearly as graceful as the nekovalkyrja gracefully assailing the bars like trained gymnasts. She struggled to keep her balance during moments where the metal frame seemed to buckle under the weight of its many occupants, but hesitating was out of the question.
Molli just had to hope that someone would catch her if the fire escape collapsed. Thankfully, it wasn't a long climb before their destination came into view, its waymark flashing in her cybernetic eyes like a beacon of hope. She was the fourth to pass through the threshold, pistol drawn and held at the ready. The grey wrapper was safely pocketed in her jacket, to be examined when they weren't under threat of imminent death.
As soon as the squad was out of the window, it was time for Sif to follow suit. She was shielded from the majority of the rotten air thanks to her mask, which was stuffed with floral-scented cotton, though she could still detect the corrosiveness of pollution which each breath. "How could people stand to live like this," she found herself wondering before climbing up after the team. And she was not confident at all with the structural integrity of the ladders, electing to recite a simple mantra to herself: Please don't break.
And then Sif heard it, a snap as she pulled herself up a rung. For a blessing, she had yet to shift her full weight on it, and her grip remained firm as she momentarily studied the piece of metal in her left hand, seeing the fresh shine of unoxidized metal where it snapped and found that the step was well on its way to retirement. She tossed it aside, making sure to completely miss the platform below and continued climbing, the missing step making the ascent slightly awkward, though the experience did slow her down just a little, worried that that was the 'lucky' break.
Leading the ascent, Aratani emerged into a dark concrete room though a full-sized doorway. Ready to speak but still with that donut in her mouth, Aratani chomped into the sweet ring where she had been holding it—then promptly opened her mouth so the food could drop to the ground. Her tongue was out a little and she simply licked the outer glazed edge of the remaining ring, lapping up the so-so chocolate before dropping the mealy, detestable rest of it on the ground, embedded wrapper and all.
Rather than a window-to-nowhere like back on level seven, the doorway opened up from the fire escape side when she pulled high a galvanized steel roll shutter that was painted in a light gray. There was a series of locked transformer boxes along the wall here painted in the same neutral tones as the retracting shutters and a strip of dim, harsh light very unlike the tungsten bulbs in the donut room. Across from where the Star Army team entered, there was another threshold, its door ajar enough to let in a sliver of radiance from beyond.
Aiko came through next, crawling on her hands and knees to clear the door before resting on her elbows to take in the cool, comparatively fresh air beneath the canopy of her dark hair. Looking very sweaty, she tugged at the high turtleneck collar on her shiny leotard to cool off.
"Scout forward, we must keep moving," the princess ordered as Rio arrived next.
With Aratani having taken point for their ascent up the fire escape, Rio instead fell in close behind Aiko. Using her inertial control Rio propelled herself upwards through the tangle of gangways that made up this long forgotten passage, using only the most minor touch of a hand or foot to guide herself along. The entire time she kept a close eye on the princess, openly concerned with her current state as Rio watched the waves of steam roll off of Aiko.
Arriving at the lip of the eleventh floor fire escape, Rio grabbed a hold of the railing with her off hand and swung herself onto the platform. A quick glance showed there was little to see in their current location. It was all a bland and downright depressing sight. With Aratani and Molli following Aiko's orders to keep moving, Rio took the time scrutinize the locked transformers for any type of labeling that might indicate what each did. With luck one of them might aid them in their escape from the current situation. The transformer boxes Rio inspected appeared to be just that. Regular, old electrical transformer boxes, likely for just this level. With nothing special about them she left it at that.
Peering into the crack in the door, Aratani could see a garage on the other side. It took up most of the rest of level eleven from what she could see, with only the building's smooth concrete retaining pillars and some vehicles breaking up the empty space. She wasn't afforded a full view, but could spy a few hover cars of various makes and models plus some hoverbikes. A trio of gangers clad in acid wash jeans and studded leather sauntered past her sightline carrying SMGs and clubs, and her Nekovalkyrja ears could hear chatter from others she couldn't see.
Now joining the others, Sif was pleased to see a door leading to the next room rather than having to crawl through the window again. Sticking to her chosen role unless asked otherwise, she posted herself at fire escape door, looking downwards to see if the cops were coming.
Molli knew better than to question Aiko in defiance of her orders, despite her growing concern for the princess urging her to put the mission on pause and check if she was alright. The Nepleslian curtailed that urge, nodded, and strode toward the door that was slightly ajar and letting in light. Alongside Aratani, Molli peered through, before clasping a hand over her mouth to stifle her breathing. Even if the gangers weren't working with the police, unknowns usually got robbed or shot if they were caught on someone's turf. The vehicles were a promising sight, at least.
"Will, can ya mell th'fire escape?" Molli asked their ID-SOL bruiser whenever he managed to enter the room, stamping her foot on the metal floor for emphasis. She hoped the effort would slow their pursuers for a few more precious seconds.
It was touch and go, but the ID-SOL managed to reach the eleventh floor. After clambering inside and helping the last few stragglers up, he turned to Molli. "Mell?" He asked, puzzled. Stamping her foot did get the point across however. Turning back to the fire escape, he pressed his foot against the side of the ladder and pushed it away from the building. The muscles in his thigh and calf bulged from the strain as he tried to send the old fire escape plummeting to the ground below.
"Ah've worked on Nep cars since ah could holda wrench," Molli whispered to Aratani, her eyes glowing in the dark and illuminating a focused expression. "We pick one're two, 'n ah ken graft th'circs all canny-like, get us out fast." She glanced toward Aiko for a moment, "Ah think we better flatline these guys," Molli jerked her head toward the door, "They'll shoot firs' anyways, buncha styhe-headed gonks. How d'ya wanna do it?"Ready to speak but still with that donut in her mouth, Aratani chomped into the sweet ring where she had been holding it—then promptly opened her mouth so the food could drop to the ground. Her tongue was out a little and she simply licked the outer glazed edge of the remaining ring, lapping up the so-so chocolate before dropping the mealy, detestable rest of it on the ground, embedded wrapper and all.
The engine-lover that Aratani was, she didn't need to hear Aiko's orders twice. Moving forward meant moving into the garage and with Molli's qualifications fresh in her mind, the Shoi concocted a plan. She pulled away from the ajar door so that her words would be heard by only those intended for them.
"You'll need some time to hot wire something," she said to Molli. "Let's you and me go on ahead avoiding those three goons and whoever else might be in there. Those behind, cover us and create a distraction. Unless you got any better ideas, that is!"
Despite her invitation for better ideas, Aratani took a cat-like step towards the slightly open door to peek in to the garage and commence positioning herself and Molli.
"They got their backs to us," she said after she looked through then turned so that her flat chest and tummy wouldn't knock open the already slightly agape gateway as she sidled past it.
Morgana found her way into the middle of the pack, looking down at her bracelet again for additional readings from beyond the door. "If it’s just the three of them I’d suggest dynamic entry. Preferably before those below disturb the grenade." Morgana said silently over the telepathic NekoNet.
Eleventh Floor Garage
Uninterrupted by walls, doors, plumbing, furniture, and everything else that packed the lower levels, this eleventh floor was a rather cavernous expanse once Aratani moved in and saw it—and occupied far more gangsters than the three she'd seen passing from the sheltered electrical room. Over a dozen (maybe even two) were gathered around variously occupying their time with cigarettes or crude conversation.
Crouching down, Aratani's lavender cargo pants looked to be taking careful steps while in reality she was hovering an almost imperceptible bit off of the ground to avoid the sound of her footfalls alerting one of those in the garage. Ss she absconded away from the group, she found cover behind the first vehicle she could. Waving her hand at Molli, she made it clear that she wanted to keep moving and create some distance between them and the fire escape.
Aratani took a quick gander past the hover cars and retaining pillars that she hid behind before darting to the next. Finally, the silver haired Neko turned to Molli and pointed her finger towards the butt end of the vehicle she was ducked by as if to indicate that they had acquired their target.
Some of the Gumtree gangers squatted over near a big red van with lime green flames painted on its side throwing some kind of blinking baubles rattling onto the grey pavement. A couple others milled about, their eyes glazed over and rocking from side to side while staring transfixed into some flames flickering out of a 55 gallon barrel filled with burning debris. All of them were armed in some way, be it with a pistol tucked into their waistband, a rifle sloppily slung, or a spiked bat close at hand.
And one lowlife in particular stepped out from behind the shade of a wide pillar and rounded the front of the car beside which Aratani had chosen to crouch. It was quite a nice vehicle she'd picked, all things considered; a big boxy hover sedan with glossy midnight blue paint that looked black from certain angles, and sporting far more elegant lines and angles than most of the other vehicles that were collected in the garage. It could probably hold five of them comfortably, and the Kaiyō's complement stood at seven. At least for the moment.
With one hand deep in his left pocket, the goon was upon Aratani before either of them knew it and he walked straight into her huddled form. He yowled and hopped up, ejecting the keys he'd been digging his pockets for straight up into the air as his hands reeled from the surprise.
"They're here!" the astounded asshole shouted in a voice that betrayed the content of his character just when his keychain hit the floor beside his scuffed black crocodile skin boots. He drew a Little Killer from the right pocket of his white jean jacket while a chorus of racking slides and shuffling shoes clattered in reply and broke the relative calm that had persisted until then. Aratani had seen him coming, though, so had a split second's time before the pocket pistol was levelled at her face.
The Donut Room
The armored riot cops made quick work of the door with their pressing mass, and stormed in to find the empty room. It was clear where their prey had escaped to up the escape shaft, and they soon filled the room between the crates, lockers, and stacks of dull yellow cardboard donut boxes. Sif could see one of their helmeted heads poke through and appear far below from where she watched. But, far too bulky in their gear to follow up the narrow passageway, the policemen didn't pursue the Star Army team and instead called in the update to dispatch and their comrades surrounding the building.
They didn't even notice Morgana's grenade trap when one of them kicked the dense little bomb in passing. It rolled around for a second, bouncing and catching between their feet while the squad filed in, and finally tumbled to rest near the cache of shelf stable donuts with four seconds left on its fuse.
Eleventh Floor Garage
There were a few things Aratani truly loved in life. In short order, she loved being in the bowels of mech and designing them, her samurai girlfriend Tokuko, and combat. She could get along fine doing just about anything else required of a Star Army soldier, but in those three areas she truly shone. And it was time for her to find the joy of the last item on that list.
She barely had the will to do anything else right now. Responding to Morgana to verify what the scientist's bracelets life scanner would tell her—that there were plenty of bodies on this side of the door to the fire escape—seemed so banal compared to dealing with the threat in front of her. But she did just that just as she engaged.
Aratani jutted out both her hands faster than the fumbling man in front of her could blink. Her right went to the wrist of the hand holding the gun, palming it with an open hand. At the same time, her left aimed to smack into the Little Killer itself and grab into the short muzzle. Pressure and counter pressure meant to disarm the gun from the man before it was leveled at her. Her hope was to be able to grab it with that left hand and turn it on him.
"Momo, the keys!" Artani whistled out Molli's callsign as quietly as she could over the recent clatter of the rest of the garage.
Molli had reservations about the feasibility of staying unseen in a brightly lit garage occupied by gangers. She was intimate with gang culture from growing up around it; there were always more scum than what you first saw. In the slums, gangs lived or died more by the number of triggermen than individual competence. Regardless, it was no use complaining or hesitating, and the Nepleslian sidled right after Aratani, pistol drawn, and crouched low to make herself less visible. Molli was practically Aratani's shadow, if her shadow couldn't float, wasn't as graceful, and had ugly little horns poking out from her bangs. Each piece of cover she ducked behind was a temporary reprieve, and each momentary dash to the next made Molli's heart pound with the fear of being caught out in the open.
She was halfway to the vehicle Aratani chose: an ugly looking sedan that would've undoubtedly been tricked out under the hood in some way, when one of the gangers chose the worst moment to amble right into her neko comrade. In the cavernous garage, the man's booming clarion call might as well have been a military alarm with how his voice reverberated, echoing a frightening warning signal that invited a slew of clicks, clacks, and squeaking shoes on pavement. Molli didn't realize how quickly she'd leveled her revolver at the man Aratani reacted to, and it took her a second to register the finger on its trigger and depressurize it. She'd come far since signing on with Star Army a year ago -- she hadn't hesitated to try and take that man's life.
But there were some shots you took, and others you didn't, and putting aside the risk of hitting her comrade, Aratani clearly had him covered. Molli abandoned all pretense of stealth and sprinted the rest of the distance to the sedan, snatched the keys the man Aratani chose to wrestle with dropped, and made to open the driver's side door and leap inside. It was a mighty assumption to think that guy owned this car just because he walked near it, but Molli tried the keys nonetheless, and was fully prepared to pry open a panel full of wires if it didn't work.
William groaned when he heard the sound of slides racking. "This after action report is gonna suck." He muttered as he turned back towards the garage. He looked back towards Sif and Morgana. "Protect her. I'm gonna buy time." The Captain ordered, motioning to Aiko. He unslung the GP-1 assault rifle from his back, flipped the fire sector to full auto, and stepped out into the open.
"Let's get this over with, shall we?!" The ID-SOL bellowed. Aiming first at the flaming barrel he depressed the trigger. The staccato report reverberated around the garage as William aimed back and forth. In a matter of seconds he had emptied the first magazine. He flung the empty one with a flick and slammed a fresh magazine home. Tucking the rifle under his arm, he continued to let loose salvo after salvo as he drew his revolver with his free hand. Targeting multiple combatants at once wasn't all that difficult with his cybernetics. His revolver quickly adding its booming report to William's explosive symphony.
Rio was making her way back across the room when it seemed trouble had found the squad once more.Following the faint cry from the startled ganger and William's own violent entrance to the parking garage, Rio quickly slipped into the room behind him. As she took cover behind one of the cars in the garage Rio fired off several snap shots from her Radiant, adding it's distinctively orange plasma to the mix of fire the Gumtree gangers now found coming their way.
Aratani managed to slap the angry pistol between her two hands and point its barrel away from her face just when the surprised Gumtree had pulled the trigger, directing its payload into the oily concrete floor a few feet in front of the rapidly advancing Molli. She didn't manage to wrangle the little holdout gun, though, and it fell harmlessly to the ground. Now disarmed, the villainous valet turned tail and slid on his flat butt across the sedan's waxed hood rather than stay to fight Aratani, and disappeared from view somewhere on the car's opposite side—taking cover just there or crawling away was impossible for the Star Army team to know from where they stood.
The whole garage's assembly of Gumtree gangsters was dashing toward Aratani's position from all sides. William immediately found targets, catching two out of a trio in the face and neck with his initial rifle fire as they charged Aratani with machetes and makeshift cast iron pipe clubs. The third among them wisely darted to the deck and rolled away behind the bulk of a bare silver pickup hovertruck with a wavy half circle pattern all over it, no doubt from the angle grinder used to laboriously free it of whatever color it was previously painted. The tall ID-SOL Marine took a return shot from some energy weapon in his chest, but it didn't seem to slow him any just yet. His suppressing fire forced the gang members advancing in the sector to the front half of the sedan (to the left of the room where the team had emerged) to halt where they were and shoot from cover.
One of Rio's Radiant bolts caught an assailant advancing on William from his right, who was coming up upon him with a Zen .45 extended out in one hand. The NMX heat gun melted a two inch void straight though his firing arm, causing the ganger's gun to fall free with his hand still attached. In disbelief, he stopped and ogled his new stump with an ugly, befuddled frown on his wide-eyed face and then pulled a wicked flip knife from his belt and leapt the remaining two meters toward William—obviously assisted by some kind of bionic robot leg enhancements—in order to drive the pointy blade into the ID-SOL's meaty right shoulder.
Safe for now despite being right at the forefront of the action, perhaps because the Gumtrees didn't want to hurt this particular vehicle or maybe because they simply hadn't seen her, Molli successfully entered the sedan's driver seat and activated its ignition. The car roared to life with a sharply popping rumble that almost immediately died down to a pleasantly robust growl that droned on beneath the crackling firefight. Immediately it levitated into an idle position about an inch above the garage's floor, ready for Molli to drive it away. Dark forest green velvet bench seats and rich burlwood facings with chrome silver instruments decorated the sedan's interior while the back cabin had two plush rows facing each other and a thin table between them. A control panel with a radio tuner and a few mystery buttons sat to the right of the steering wheel, and a really sweet dashboard panel with 7-segment numbers glowed to life before Molli's eyes.
Back in the utility room, Aiko had managed to creep over to the threshold and pull herself up one hand above the other on the doorframe. She peeked out from behind her black fingernails with her eyes still squinted shut, relying on the same skin vision she'd managed with for some time now. Beneath deep breaths and a glistening sheen of sweat that coated her pale flesh, the princess watched the fight eagerly for two seconds and then zipped out, beelining toward Aratani and the sedan in a low run with both of her arms trailing limply behind her like some kind of manga shinobi.
"Ignemar-hei, Faelan-shoi: Byrne-hei has secured transport," Aiko both said aloud and transmitted wirelessly as she moved. "Stand clear your position and join her. We are leaving!"
Can't believe they gave me a medal for stealth, thought Molli as she jumped from the impact of the sedan's owner sliding across the hood of the car he was about to lose. The gangers had betrayed them, Aiko was infected with some kind of virus, the police were hot on their tails, and now a garage full of gun-toting chrome monkeys were milliseconds from filling their bodies full of superfluous holes. If this wasn't a textbook example of a 'bad to worse' operation, Molli didn't know what was.
To her relief, the key turned in the ignition, and the sedan thrummed to life with a powerful hum from its undoubtedly tricked out engine. Molli gripped the wheel tightly and recalled what her dad taught about cars like this in their garage. Front-engine family units like this were heavy on the wheel, prone to whipping out of control on tight turns, loud as all hell, and slow on the grav-lift. Not an ideal ride by any means, but with the sound of gunfire all around her, they didn't have the luxury of choice.
Wrenching the wheel to the side, Molli floored both pedals, causing the engine to roar over the gunfire. She hoped to knock over its former owner with a sharp, stationary turn. Her metal arm detached, snaked its way to the door in the back, and threw it open for Aratani and Aiko. "I'm gunnin' it!" she shouted, and once her arm re-attached itself and both women were (hopefully) inside, the Nepleslian released the brake and shot through the garage like a bullet. Molli hadn't drove a Nepleslian-made car in years, but the muscle memory hadn't left her -- she swerved throughout the crowded garage toward the room she and the others were pinned down in, hand slamming on the horn to warn Rio and William to get out of the way or get turned into roadkill. All the while, she kept her head low to avoid catching a bullet to the skull.
The order was clear. Protect Aiko. Whatever got her feeling strange, it effectively took her out of commission. Who knows how bad it was going to get. When Aiko crawled over to the threshold, Sif was quick to take position on the opposite side of the entryway. Aiko wasn't in any condition to fight, and with guns blazing right outside the room, Sif wasn't feeling so sure that Aiko should be peeking out like she was. But before she could utter a word of caution, or even lift her hand up to gently urge her to stand back, Aiko darted off.
"Don't just run off!" Sif called out as she chased after the princess. Well, there was no time for caution now. With the majority of the fire going towards William, at least Aiko wouldn't be an immediate target, but for how long until they refocused? When she joined Aiko at the door, she managed to catch a glimpse of the group that meant to charge at Aratani's position, but one ducked out when it got too heated, but they were still there, and they could still flank. She had to fix that.
"Aratani! Keep her covered!" Sif called out, as she charged past them both, gritting her teeth for what might be an incoming painful experience. Even if the armor she had was not just for show, if a bullet hit the mark, she was still going to feel it. Pinpointing the survivor of the initial charge, Sif jumped onto the back of the pickup, landing on her padded knees and the side of her leg bracing the remaining momentum which she used to gently tip herself over the side as she unleashed a 10-shot burst to the gangster from the Impaler rifle, landing crouched on her feet just as she let go of the trigger.
Taking the lackey's place in cover, Sif scanned for any lucky targets for the remaining 10 shots, prioritizing those closest to Aratani and Aiko.
The cool white lights of the garage bleached out Aratani's silvery hair and made it take on a blindingly white sheen. She had ducked her head and her face went into her white fringe's shadow and her focus was momentarily on the contents of her pants. She dug into one of her cargo pockets and moved to the sedan with a loping swagger. Rummaging in her pockets didn't deter her from taking a quick leap into the car and opening a window.
Stolen Sedan
By the time Molli was burning proverbial rubber streaks into the squeaky floors of the parking garage, she had popped her torso out of the back window and procured a pair of grenades simultaneously. The more deadly Novacorp gravitic claymore she held securely while pulling the pin out of a smokescreen grenade. She lobbed the smoke grenade in between the car and the door to the fire escape, trying to obfuscate the rest of her team's pathing as Molli swerved ever nearer to them.
Sif's rally to protect the princess didn't change Aratani's course of action. Sure, the raven-haired Chusa was a high value target, but Aiko had also garnered an unprecedented two Order of the Blazing Sun medals and recaptured Hanako's World. If Sif wanted to believe that she was incapable despite it all, she could go ahead and do so and Aratani wouldn't stop her. But, hopefully, she would do so in the sedan and not out of it. Aiko had, after all, called for Sif to join up in the vehicle after her own evasive dash to the sedan.
Little did the Shoi know that the Ketsurui was less than combat-ready, even if her orders were sound from Aratani's perspective.
"Get in, cuz!" Aratani yelled out to Sif, having already absorbed some of the gangster's lingo by some sort of osmosis of being in their vicinity.
"Don't run them over, Momo!!" Aratani thumped on the roof and used Molli's callsign as she sat sidled on the window, not knowing if her words could be heard over the weapon's fire she was looking out for or not.
Molli maneuvered the massive hovering sedan expertly, turning it on a dime in the limited space available to bring it closer to her waiting friends. More of the Gumtree mafiosi closed in even despite losing a few; they still numbered around twenty bodies, so the Star Army squad's handful of takedowns only fueled the gangsters' drive to capture the meddling soldiers. Six rushed at William unabated by Sif's covering fire while another half dozen leapt at the armored Neko girl squatting in her newly-secured pickup truck perch. Another three slid up to Aratani at the window and grabbed her by either arm just after she tossed her 'nades, doing their best to drag her from the vehicle. Although the Yamataians truly formed an elite unit with even the greenest among them hardened by experience in battle, they were nonetheless on the cusp of being overwhelmed by a flood of rats.
Then they all felt it—the Kaiyō crewmen and gangers alike—a split second's sensation of quaking beneath their feet that even shocked up through the atmosphere to vibrate the stolen sedan's glossy panels. The ceiling closed from above a moment later while the whole building roared like a hellstorm's gale as everyone felt themselves in freefall before sudden darkness.
The Donut Room
Morgana's grenade trap detonated where it had rolled beside the stack of donut boxes, each package hiding within it a stick of smuggled plastic explosive shoved through the hollow pastries. There were over 100 yellow cardstock boxes stored in that room on the seventh floor, and the grenade provided enough impact force to detonate the plastique nearest to it and cause a chain reaction. The squad of riot police was instantly vaporized by the blast.
Outside, a huge gout of fire mushroomed out from the low-rise building's façade. Windows and neon signs for as far as the eye could see down the block and vertically up across the towering Nepleslian heights shattered as the shockwave expanded, and all of the police cars swarming outside were quickly hollowed out by the blast. Although the seventh and sixth and eight floors impressively funneled the explosion outward and flat, the Twenty Eight Gumtree apartment block sank two whole stories in the blink of an eye. Flame and debris rained down over the street not only from the destroyed building but from higher above where secondary damage chained off in other buildings that weren't quite up to code as a result of the initial eruption.
Ruined Garage
The gangster's knife sunk into William's shoulder as he charged. However, despite the cry of pain the assailant was suspecting, all he received in return was a sneer and a massive fist straight into his jaw. As the thug flew, William reached up to grab the knife but it was in that moment that his world quite literally fell out from under him.
The adrenaline made the tips of her fingers feel like it was touching a faulty wire as Sif emptied the battery of her gun. With the swarm approaching her, she could only take down three with what she had, and reloading was going to take too long. So she shunted the weapon behind her as if throwing it to the side, but the sling kept it on her person, secure at her back underneath the cloak. From her side, she took a knife in each hand, normal grip on the right and a reverse grip on the left.
"DANCE WITH THE HERALD!" Sif cried as she met their charge. The numbers were not on their side, but something at the back of her mind just kicked in, as if her chosen persona possessed her.
As one of the gangsters swung down with what looked to be an electric baton, Sif dug the knife on her left hand through the thug's lower arm, right in between the radius and the ulna, then twisting the knife to lock her grip on him so she could maneuver the body somewhat to block off some of the thugs, all the while she brutally stabbed the side of the thug, aiming for the kidney and the lung, no less than three thrusts a second.
It was not her intention to be sadistic, but it was going to guarantee that this one wasn't going to get up when she released him. And indeed he just slumped down, unable to hold himself up anymore from the shock. However she felt something sharp hit her back as a thug on her right hit her with a spiked weapon. She swiped her knife his way, which caused him to jump back, letting her see the smug look on his face but also the confirmation that his weapon did draw blood. It looked like a meat tenderizer with galvanized nails welded on its face. His smugness turned into a wince however as blood started to leak from his chest. She managed to get him, but it was only a flesh wound, not enough to dissuade him.
And then the next thing she knew, she heard a great blast accompanied by a sudden quake. She couldn't exactly see what happened next as dust and corroding air covered everything. But she felt herself falling then bouncing off solid concrete as a roar assaulted her ears.
Stolen Sedan
Despite the sudden and overwhelming violence, the sedan was still active and floating a few inches above the ground. Equipped with proximity sensors, the vehicle had done its best to stay between the ground and the roof. Though unsuccessful, getting pressed earthward all the same, the car's compensators worked to dampen the impact.
In the back seat, Aiko blinked awake and gasped in the harsh air filled so thick with concrete dust and smoke that it felt like she was drinking it into her lungs. And for a heartbeat, the princess felt clear and refreshed. Right before the toxin battling against her Eihei countermeasures slammed a tickling wooziness behind her eyebrows that made her slump back down onto the sedan's plush velvet bench. Still, as she began hacking up volumes of particulate from that first reflexive breath, she recognized there was more to do.
First tugging at Aratani's waistband, Aiko pulled the Shoi in from where she'd been caught hanging out the window. Then she crawled forward, lurching a few times when she miscalculated where the car's deck was, and reached over the driver's seat to find Molli. The princess gently wrapped her arms around Molli's shoulders and laid her hands loosely across the Nepleslian girl's sternum.
"Byrne-hei," Aiko said in a small voice, not quite a whisper, speaking directly beside Molli's right ear. She could feel the Jôtô Hei was still alive and breathing beneath her touch. "We have been afforded a clear path."
A clear path was visible indeed. Beside the pickup where Sif had taken cover, the upper floor was caved in to form a sort of ramp up to open sunlight. For her part, Sif had been thrown clear several meters when the building came down. William, Rio, and Morgana, too, had avoided much injury due in large part to their genetically engineered toughness and lay relatively close to the getaway vehicle. Molli, the squad's only natural born soldier, was lucky to have been in the car. The pickup truck and a few hoverbikes seemed intact, too, but most of the other vehicles in the garage had been crushed or flipped.
"You must wake up and drive us away once we collect the others," Aiko urged softly to Molli. She squeezed around the girl's neck to try and rouse her. "Ganbare!"
Something exhilarating in Aratani had been pushed further and made electric when the Nepleslian men began to grapple with her arms. It felt like every circuit in her body was opening up and ready to fight. And then, the explosion hit the building from the inside out. All of the momentum was drained out of her and whatever charge she was building was depleted when the car hit the garage floor and her body was knocked around in the impact.
Half of her body had been out of the car and she was left mostly unprotected by the sedan unlike Molli and Aiko. Still, it could be as bad as it was for the gangsters that had been grabbing at her, now splayed on the rubble and dust unmoving. If she had lost consciousness, she didn't know. The girl could tell her neck and back were self-repairing, though, as nanomachines flooded the hemosnyth there. As she took stock of her body, she immediately became aware of some nearby tinkling bells that thundered ever nearer to her. She looked around, whipping her head in a way that her neck immediately told her was not acceptable to do a second time, and realized it was simply ringing in her ears and not some new threat.
When the Ketsurui pulled her in, Aratani had reached out behind her as if reflexively trying to catch herself. She looked from the deep green bench seat at the black-haired form as Aiko fumbled to the front to aid Molli. Something about the soft of the velvet on her cheek brought immediate relief to the Shoi and she pressed her palms into it as if to lift herself up, then thought better of it. Her index finger pushed into the plush of the forest green velvet and smoothly bent to stroke against it like an inch worm, feeling solace in the soft, smooth texture.
"Ganbare!" She had heard the last of Aiko's quiet vociferations and woozily repeated the concluding word. In her shell-shocked state she spoke with both a finality and feebleness that truly underscored the importance of Molli's cognizance and henceforth capability.
Molli found relief in the knowledge that she hadn't let her skills behind the wheel atrophy in the years spent away from Nepleslia, but that was near-instantly countermanded by the resurging memories of a typical Nep ganger's utter regard for his own life and limb. They swarmed the Kaiyo like leeches, undoubtedly realizing that a squad of Nekovalkyrja and an ID-SOL were world-class prisoners; tickets to better lives on a planet where there were very little good lives to go around. If they were captured, Molli was certain that the only fate that awaited her was a bullet to the back of the head, wherein her organs and cybernetic implants would be passed around the black market -- the Yamataian arm was definitely more valuable than the rest of her body. That's just how little native Nepleslian lives mattered on their own planet.
Didn't fight m'way off jus' to die like everyone else, thought Molli, whose stubborn determination instilled in her the courage needed to roll down a window and lean out for a better shot at the lower half of one of the men grappling Aratani. But then she felt the vibrations, powerful enough to shake the floating metal she sat in, and Molli let instinct take over and pull her back into the vehicle. It was fortunate that she'd done that, because the thunderous boom that plunged them into darkness sent her flying headfirst into the sedan's roof, before slamming face first into the steering wheel, throwing the Nepleslian's mind into the abyss of unconsciousness, where stinging pain was her sole companion. Dust and debris flew through the open driver's side window and the now-shattered windshield, coating Molli's unconscious form in dust like a coat of paint.
Fortunately, Molli's concussion hadn't driven her consciousness too deeply into darkness; Aiko's quiet encouragement and sudden squeeze of her neck was the stimulus that pulled Nepleslian back to the waking realm with a gasp. Molli hissed from her startled awakening, which sent a wave of pain throughout her body. Her head was pounding, and she could taste copper in her mouth. Diagnostics reports flashed through her metal eyes, reporting on injuries to the skull and displaying laceration sites across the girl's body. She closed the reports with thought.
"Wuh..." Molli coughed up dust, "Puh...Princess...?" In her concussed state, Molli's mind wandered to places that weren't appropriate, where ill-fitting thoughts distracted her from the current situation and made her body tense up. She'd dreamed about something like this after their first mission together, but Molli hadn't been covered in blood, dust, and glass in those fantasies, and Aiko definitely wasn't drugged out of her mind. Even as she came to her senses, it was hard to shake how Aiko's breath on her cheek was about the only pleasant thing in Molli's current situation. "A-Ah know, lemme just..." she muttered, unsure if she should try to shake Aiko off, or if she even wanted to.
Molli pulled down the roof mirror, which was only partially broken, to inspect herself. Shards of glass, presumably from the windshield, had flown inward, with some becoming embedded in her face and torso, where streams of crimson blood fell steadily -- at least none landed in her eyes. Molli's precious bodysuit bore plenty of damage from the glass, being tattered at the arms, with a few glass pieces tearing unflattering holes in its midsection, nearly turning it into a two-piece outfit. If Aiko's hands wandered even a little, she would've felt a slight prickle of glass and sticky blood beneath her fingertips.
Glancing to her left and right, Molli could see the smoke and dust pouring into the car still, clouding what remained of the garage in a choking, impenetrable miasma. With a click, Molli's eyes toggled to thermals, and what she saw almost made her want to look away. Dozens of still bodies, their heat gradually fading, lined the garage; people they'd killed in the blink of an eye. Molli wasn't a religious sort, but even she closed her tear-stricken eyes and prayed that innocent people hadn't gotten caught up in this destruction. She reached for the sedan's wheel and slammed down on the middle, which made the horn blare throughout the garage, and made Molli's headache throb even more painfully. It was a clarion call through the fog, a beacon that would hopefully guide the Kaiyo's crew toward her.
Ruined Garage
The ID-SOL groaned as he regained consciousness. At first William was confused as to why it was so dark, but he then realized it was dark because there was a slab of concrete ontop of him. Reaching up to his shoulder he found the knife again and pulled it out. With that out of the way, he pushed the slab up and off of his frame. He coughed as he sat up looking around the ruined garage.
"Well that sucked." William deadpanned, to no one in particular. With a groan and the popping of joints, William stood.
Sif didn't know how long she was out. It could just have been minutes, or it could have been hours. The lack of rumbling and sound of trickling debris at least signaled that the building has settled to its new collapsed state. The scent of iron was strong around her, piercing through the floral scent stuffed in her mask. When her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she saw why. Blood. A pool of it right under her.
Sif pushed herself up, leaning more heavily to her left side as a sharp pain kept her from fully utilizing her other arm. She picked herself up before lightly collapsing farther away from the blood pool. It seemed like she was the lucky one. There were some bodies strewn about, unlucky enough to either get crushed or impaled by the debris. She took off the mask for a moment, checking for any damages on it before a sharp pulse of pain behind her right shoulder reminded her that she should be checking herself for any damage first. Running her hand over where she got hit, she felt the problem. Most of the damage was already mending, but a Nekovalkyrja body could only do so much while a foreign body, namely a galvanized nail from the meat tenderizer, was still stuck inside.
Clink. Clink. Clink.
The sound of three bent nails picked from Sif's shoulder was the only sound she could make out in this tomb. She could see that a part of the ceiling had collapsed to make a lean-to tent structure, just big enough for her to pace around. "How deep did I fall?" she asked aloud, hoping that a response might come.
Already Sif could feel her injury getting better, but she had to find everyone else. "First thing's first... Where the heck am I?" She picked up her mask again, straightened out the beak and wiped the dust out of the lenses. The right lens had three main cracks running from the edge where she must have hit her head on the concrete, but the surfaces on the front and back were both still smooth. She took a moment to lament how cool it would look displayed in her room before she donned the mask again. There was an immediate relief when she started breathing in the floral scents rather than the corroded slum air. The city could do for some filters or air recyclers. It's hard to imagine breathing this on a daily basis.
Then she heard it, the sound of a horn calling out. That had to be them, right? If they were still around, then it couldn't have been over an hour since the collapse. Of course, there was also the chance of them also waking up after an unwanted nap just now. No, now wasn't the time for theories, she had to find a way out. Standing at the center, she scanned the room until she was able to see a gap in one of the walls. She walked over to it but she stopped for a second, looking back at the small cave, her eyes scanning the floor. She walked off to pick up the nails and stowed them away in a side pocket, then she attempted to squeeze herself out of the rubble to a more open part of the collapse.
Sif patted her sides and her hands found her Impaler, still looking to be in good condition, though with a need for some polishing. She plugged a new battery in and intently watched it as it charged. The damage was superficial, it was still safe to operate. She was down two knives, and while she considered making a quick search for them, she decided that she couldn't waste any more time. The sound of the horn called to her through the rubble. She carefully clambered up the debris, looking to get as high as possible, hoping that wherever she ended up, she wasn't cut off from the rest. Fortunately, she didn't end up too far from the last place she remembered being, appearing from behind the ramp to the surface.
Sif waved to the others below and called out. "Didn't keep you waiting, did I?" She winced for a second, but attempted to hide it. With the adrenaline wearing down, she could feel the soreness all over her body make themselves known.
Even as Rio continued trading fire with several gang members from behind the car she had chosen as her cover, she knew that the other side must of looked like a cratered moon and she was thankful that the parked vehicle she had chosen as cover was sturdy one. Something had to give soon and the thought of failure briefly flashed through her mind as she took a look around the garage for the rest of the team. Of course Rio had not expected the building to be what finally gave. Briefly she felt the quake of the explosion below them before she was dropped into darkness.
Curled up behind the car-turned-cover when the building had suddenly dropped from under and around them, Rio had escaped serious injures thanks to its presence. In the collapse a slab of concrete landed atop her cover and herself. Wedged between the top of the car and the broken floor, the slab had come to rest over Rio rather than on top of the young neko. Once more the sturdy vehicle had proven itself. Despite this, Rio's head throbbed as she awoke with a start, reflexively sucking in a big breath of chunky, dust choked air. Taking stock of herself in the darkness underneath the slab, she realized the throbbing of her head came from a deep cut to the left side of her forehead, likely from flying debris. While blood still ran down her face, she could already feel the itch of it beginning to heal. Rio otherwise seemed to be okay, somewhat protected as she had been by the fallen slab.
Moving to one of the intact hoverbikes, William left a wake of dust that wafted off his wide back like a chalky grey cape. He looked the bike over for any damage then started powering it up. Better he took one of the bikes and let the others take the getaway car.
After making a quick search on the ground around her that turned up her radiant, Rio crawled from underneath the concrete slab and into the dust choked air of the now destroyed garage. The garage looked completely different and almost alien now thanks to the airborne dust and destroyed vehicles, but she just could make out the light of an exit through the swirling dust as well as hear a blaring horn close by. With a thought Rio brought up the squad link and enabled a visual IFF box, thin blue squares and names popping into her vision marking the others. She rarely used visual functions, preferring her sight uncluttered, but under the circumstances she needed to know where the rest of the squad was located. With the visual IFF up Rio could now tell that Molli, Aiko and Aratani were all in the direction of the blasting horn while she could see Sif and William's icons up a moving around.
Picking her way through the wreckage Rio smiled to herself when she heard Sif's voice. She shouted in reply over the horn, "Maybe a little! That's Molli honking! We have to go!"
Stolen Sedan
When she finally reached the car Rio dropped into the backseat like dead weight, not caring too much about who or what else might be in them. "Everyone okay in here? Ingemar-Hei should be right behind me." she says with a tired groan.
"Drive!" Aiko encouraged Molli, her voice still hushed and close to the Nepleslian wheelgirl's ear long enough to say it before she slipped back into the passenger area. The princess' arms and fingers stuck on Molli's shoulders like twin snakes slithering off until Aiko had slumped down to lay on the ash-soaked velvet, leaving emerald paths cut in the concrete dust that covered the sedan's interior.
The back of Aiko's right hand came to a rest on her own forehead and then flopped off when she tilted her gaze from the ceiling over to Rio. She gave a quick smile and fleeting thumbs-up to Aratani's excited repetition, and then her fingers went limp again.
"We seem to be little worse for wear," Aiko said, answering Rio's question. Morgana followed the blue Neko girl a second after and joined them in the getaway car. "Are you still in the fight, Yoshida-kun? You say Sif-hei is on your heels—it will be a long walk for her if she is not," the princess added with a hint of reflective reverie on her tongue.
With that, and presumably the car moving forward on her order, Aiko thrust a hand down into the flowing black folds of her pleated ninja pants and produced her gold plated communicator from the garment's depths. Aiko's other left hand flicked the data card she'd been given by Yoldeen moments prior to his betrayal, rolling the device through each of her knuckles once and then inserting it into her device. It must have been held there, pressed against her wrist or palm with a finger since back then. A heartbeat later, Aiko pressed her screen a few times and swiped toward the dashboard on the other side of the bench she lay upon.
"Our destination," Aiko announced, letting Molli in the driver's seat and all the rest know. The map information had instantly loaded into the sedan's navigation computer, and a black screen sitting offset from the driver's seat displayed a green wire-line map of Funky City around them with routing directions shown as a white band through the skyscrapers and airbridges. "Now get some space between us and these police."
Molli continued to blare the horn, all while watching attentively for any signs of movement from friend or foe alike. Unless one of those gangsters had a metal skeleton, however, Molli didn't see a non-neko, non-ID-SOL surviving what they subjected this apartment to. In the distance, an engine's roar -- hoverbike from the sound of it -- made Molli jump, and she fumbled around for her pistol. Unfortunately, in the smoke and darkness, it was impossible to tell where the gun landed, and all of the glass embedded in her body would do more damage if she tried to search the floor of the driver and passenger seats. For now, she was effectively unarmed.
Their position was compromised, Molli knew how quickly the badges responded to violence against their own, having no illusions that the SWAT team survived what the local media would undoubtedly call an act of terrorism. She couldn't stay parked here, honking a horn, forever. Just as she was about to floor the pedal, a moving thermal signature came into view from above, one that her IFF flagged as a friendly. Sif's familiar voice was ambrosia, instilling the fearful, wounded Nepleslian more courage she'd need to hold on despite the blood loss. Like flowers, more friendly signatures sprouted, with Rio's sluggish and ungraceful flop into the car being especially welcome. It seemed like the only one who wasn't making their presence known was Morgana, and so Molli was tempted to wait for a little while longer...
But the princess's voice urged the Nepleslian to do otherwise, and if a drug-addled Aiko felt they were in danger, Molli knew it was worse than what she could've imagined. Luckily, Morgana chose the perfect moment to pile in after Rio, which just left Sif. If there was anyone Molli wasn't willing to leave behind, it was her.
The sedan rose up to Sif's perch, before spinning around so the passenger side door could open up for her. "Get in!" Molli said, her voice hoarse and weak from the dust in her throat and her blood pooling in the seat by the second. "Y'di'n't...y'di'n't call shotgun, but ah'm...given it to ya anyway," she grinned wearily.
Looking on from the ramp, the way down looked a bit treacherous. Not that she didn't have any confidence in her agility, but the way things were looking the car was headed up there anyway. While she saw Rio and Morgana entering the car, and heard the sound of another machine roaring up, her mind thought of the other Nepleslian with them, fairly confident that none of the gangsters would be brazen enough to make their presence known right after that collapse.
Sif wasted no time in hopping inside the car, being offered the shotgun seat, which behind the mask made her face light up, recognizing the term from one of her novels. Her blood-drenched visage was on display for the short moment she was illuminated by the car's headlights. Plopping her rear down in the passenger seat, she pulled the door back closed.
"Sorry about the blood, most of it isn't mine," she let out a chuckle, as she spoke, preempting what worry might have been felt for her and turning it towards Molli. Wasn't hard to imagine where the glass shards came from, but she was still holding strong. With a mix of worry and teasing, Sif gestured with an open palm in a circular motion towards her own face saying, "You got a little something around this area."
A bit of extra visual checks showed much more damage. She wouldn't push however, not wanting to delay their extraction since the lit dashboard with a wireframe map was already set to their destination, though that was her best guess at the moment. They needed to get out and fast before any more surprises show up, but she took it upon herself to keep a close eye on Molli.
"Girls love scars," Molli countered, though she expected the Kaiyo's cutting edge medical team would buff out any facial scars, so to speak. They'd have to pump in a lot of blood, too, with the way things were going. "Ah'm gonna be th'talk o'tha ship...when we get back." Maybe she'd keep a few, just to impress people. That was if they got out of this in one piece, anyway. "Shoulda wore a mask too," Molli said, finally allowing herself to lament the somewhat preventable nature of her facial mangling.
Funky City Skyways
Stolen Sedan
"Hold on tight!" Molli said before she turned the sedan around once more and floored the pedal in earnest, rocketing the car through the dusty smog and into the comparatively normal and less excessive Funky City cityscape smog. She followed the coordinates Aiko set out for her...mostly. Molli knew plenty of these streets by memory, even after being away for so long, and instinct took the vehicle down narrow alleyways and through civilian markets that savvy street racers often cut through to gain an edge against their rivals. It brought them to their destination faster, and made it less likely that they'd run into officers that relied on their dashboard nav systems to take them everywhere. Win-win.
The crew would've had time to talk along the way, but Molli wasn't much for words with her injuries and the need to focus on the road. She still spared Sif the occasional glance, and was relieved to see her injuries were healing up as expected. "Canyae look fer m'six shoota? Think ah dropped it... Ent th'end'a th'world if it fell out, but...ah...feel kinna nekit wiv'out it," she said to the masked neko. The drive also afforded Molli the opportunity to start picking a few pieces of glass out of her body, which she did with the precision and care of her metal limb. Each plucked shard came with a wince and a new bloodstream that made Molli resemble a living fountain, but she found it preferable to just leaving them in there.
"Canae believe ah'm gonna get uglier..."
"True, I always saw the appeal," Sif responded with a light chuckle. "It's like a story written in braille, or hieroglyphs depending on whether you're touching or just looking, right?" Her head tilted slightly to communicate the wide smile she had hidden behind the mask. Leaning back but not sinking as far as she could, she took time to rotate her injured shoulder slowly to check her mobility. A bit of pain still met her, but she'd be able to hold a gun straight while in the car and should be alright in a few minutes.
The neko didn't dally when Molli asked her to find her gun. Sif looked down and felt around under her seat before scanning underneath Molli's area, equally peppered with glass but a lot bloodier. "Wait, I think I see it," she said, bracing herself against the dashboard as she bent down low to reach out underneath the driver's seat. Her finger tips just about reached the gun's grip and slowly brought it closer with quick flicks of her fingers until she could grab it, ignoring the gnawing on her shoulder.
"Got it!"
Sitting back up, she made sure to click the safety on before pinching the grip and the barrel with both hands, flicking and wiping off shards of glass and blood that stuck to the weapon. She opened the chamber to check for any debris, pointing the gun straight down and between her legs on instinct. Then when she made sure all the moving parts moved as they should, she grabbed the mid section of her cloak and gave it a good, meticulous but quick wipe down before she held the gun by the barrel and handed it over to Molli. "Almost as good as new!"
"And don't worry about it. As they say, knights in shining armor never had their mettle tested!"
Listening to Molli and Sif's back and forth made Aratani like them more, but she had nothing to contribute and stayed quiet. She bit her bottom lip and sucked in air, listening to them but also her body's natural rhythms. The pumping of restorative hemosynth fluid had slowed to a trickle and she splayed her hand out in front of her, then the other one. Feeling good herself contrasted with the princess' demeanor, though.
Watching Aiko's fingers move the data card over her knuckles after just flopping from her forehead limply, Aratani seemed to be clueing in. For the first time, the Shoi noticed something was not quite right with Aiko.
"Chusa-sama, are you wounded?" Aratani asked, then turned to the bloodied driver to ask, "She get hit?"
Part of Aratani cursed at her equally uncouth and uncool line of questioning. Molli and Sif had just been bantering about how beat up the Nepleslian had gotten and Aratani was ignoring that and honing in on someone else.
Awkwardly, she added to Molli, "Showing it off less than you are if she did."
"We all got hit, Koizumi-kun," Aiko said in way that sounded sagely and cryptic as if she were the healed veteran of some trench war from eons long past talking about some sort of figurative scars every soldier carried—rather than the steely Star Army officer she actually was—because she figured Aratani was asking about the explosion's aftermath. The princess assumed Aratani had heard William explain the situation earlier, and didn't think to reiterate it in her current state.
"True," Aratani said, letting the word run for longer than usual.
Though William had spoken near her, she was taking in the donut-filled room rather than the quick utterances of her comrade at the time. Surely something the Shoi could work on was doing so, but for now Aiko's confirmation about taking a hit in the explosion helped to focus the white-haired cornflower panel. She pulled her Zen AR's sling so that her hands cupped it in their grasp before peeking out the window, ready to shoot down pursuers or, perhaps worse, any awaiting presence outside of the garage.
Molli placed the revolver back in her shoulder holster with a grateful smile, "Yer th'best, Siffy," she said. It was hard to ignore the neko's pained movements, though, and Molli found herself stealing glances at her erstwhile companion with a concerned expression. "Jus' take it easy, alrigh'? Let yer healin' do its thing." It was a bit rich to lecture a bio-engineered killing machine that could probably take on ten normal Nepleslians like her with both arms tied behind her back, but Molli never liked to see others pushing themselves. "Cannae share m'braille scars wiv ya if ya bite th'dust," she smirked, having found something oddly poignant in Sif's poetic description of something as outwardly ugly as facial scars.
Molli pointedly stared ahead as they passed through yet another airbridge clogged with traffic. The neon lights shone through the car in a kaleidoscope of headache-inducing colors, advertisements of all kinds that beckoned for their attention. Molli long grew disinterested in gazing at those holographic projections as a kid, they were just distractions now. They looked more appealing than addressing Aratani's remark, but she couldn't let that comment slide -- she was too proud, and all too willing to defend herself.
"Next time, ah'll put th'drivin' on hold t'play doctor," Molli snapped back, her grip tightening on the steering wheel as she tensed up, "She ent dead." And whatever damage she took was nothing to the hemosynth that was likely patching up the worst of the damage. It was more than Molli could say about her own body, but she didn't dare say so. After all, she was the one who insisted on being treated like an equal despite her physical and mental inferiority. Using that as a defense would just be hypocritical, even if it was true.
Rio never actually answered Aiko's question. She instead sat silently in the backseat, mostly listening and watching. In the car she felt drained, slightly unfocused and the cut on her head had given her a terrible throbbing headache. The mission had pretty much been compromised from the start, they had already been involved in two separate gunfights and had a building fall on top of them. Was it a setup or just pure bad luck? Either way the longer she thought about it, the more agitated Rio felt herself becoming.
It was the talk of Molli's injuries that made Rio finally stir and practically force her way over the center console into the front of the vehicle. "She can't enjoy them if you end up bleeding out while in that seat." snapped the unusually agitated neko as her own half bloody face appeared between Molli and Sif. "We should stop. I don't think we are in...good shape Chusa." commented Rio as she took a moment to look back at Aiko.
"Negative," Aiko responded to Rio straightaway, before taking a long pause to stare at the sedan's sooty headliner. Her vibrant scarlet irises shot back and forth upon her sweaty face like she was watching something squiggle around in her vision; in reality the princess was silently listening to the conversation around her on a poison-affected delay, imagining a scene she couldn't really see. "I expected a chase, but Molli-kun seems to have guided us safely away. Better to recoup on the move than abandon our mission."
And indeed the battered Gumtree limousine, now more a jalopy than anything remotely luxurious, hadn't yet attracted a tail. The strength of Molli's street knowledge combined with the unintentional shock-and-awe wrought by Morgana's grenade trap left the Star Army squad with a clear getaway, and the Yamataians soon soared high and fast above Funky City's skyscrapers and their crowded lower maze of neon pathways. Only the stolen car's lack of any windshield—nor any windows at all following the explosion's concussion—impeded their progress any.
Anything above 25 miles per hour made verbal communication impossible as Nepleslia's smoggy breeze buffeted the sedan's ruined interior. Going 75 necessitated any non-wireless communications be yelled a few inches from someone's ear. But the drive from then on was otherwise somewhat pleasant as the late afternoon faded toward twilight and filled the horizon before them with the sunset's saturated gradient from pink and orange above that transitioned down to mellow yellows and toxic greens closer to the polluted surface. It was a view only seen here on Nepleslia, and Aiko, eventually able to sit upright without the synthetic Nekobane assaulting her senses, took in the novel sight while watching William at their flank on his motorbike.
The trip continued for about an hour and a quarter more. Around 90 miles later, the map had directed Molli far west from where they'd started over to near the Uesureyan Fields. Not the familiar and oft-visited base of the same name on planet Yamatai but rather another installation here on Nepleslia that'd been so named when both sister factions were part of one empire that spanned unbroken across the known Kikyo Sector of its age. That old base—heavily guarded and now the jurisdiction of the SMoDIoN—lay across a river routinely described as "nasty," and was off in the distance from where the Kaiyō crew ended up. At Molli's hand, their sedan descended down toward the fluorescent surface city glowing ever more brilliant like a big, garish beacon in the fog as the sunset faded into a gray evening gloom.
"Find somewhere quiet," Aiko had instructed Molli when they were below the highest reaches of the skyscrapers once again. Their target destination was within a 500 meter zone of interest. "As quiet as this place is able," she clarified, knowing that nearly every one of Funky City's blocks were packed and lively beneath the bright lights and bustle at all hours of the day.
Soon thereafter, the sedan and William's hoverbike were both parked in a relatively unused lot. Inside an open chain-link fence topped with spiraling barbed wire, it was mostly filled with industrial-sized garbage like stacks of corrugated aluminum, thin cast iron pipes, and then a few cars that looked like they'd been there at least a week. Mammoth brown sided high-rises surrounded the miniscule cutout between them, and the lower street façade nearby was sleepy so far as a Nepleslian megacity was concerned, mostly filled with foot traffic between a few bars, cafes, and other shops. Electric neon still lit up the place well enough here, but not so bright as day like some other places on this planet were, still allowing shadows to linger once off the main street sidewalks.
By now, everyone's bodies felt better having been given some time away from intense action and buildings collapsing atop them. Even the squad's two Nepleslians, assaulted by the acrid and polluted skies above their homeland, gained somewhat measure of a second wind. Such a break was something that soldiers could only dream of in wartime, so the Star Army crew could count themselves fortunate that they were merely undertaking an undercover recon mission on an allied world rather than assaulting a Mishhuvurthyar position elsewhere.
Aiko was the first out of the stolen sedan when it landed. Her movements were far less lethargic than they had been, and she appeared to have gained back her unwavering determination in every step. The princess surveyed the area as the others disembarked, taking in her surroundings as a matter of observational habit.
Chandler Park District, Funky City
"We need to find a particular establishment," Aiko said, wirelessly forwarding the intel from her computer brain to the others. "Take a breath and collect yourselves," she continued, wanting everyone to get comfortable and settled in the new locale even though they'd had an hour to calm down. "Procuring hydration is the first priority, however. Ignemar-hei: you will take point. Stow the mask. It is somewhat too conspicuous for this district."