Part 3: TONE IT DOWN ALREADY!

-CAMP HEBRON, DAUPHIN COUNTY; 18:42-

Somehow, Phantom Task made it all the way to the interior of Pennsylvania undetected. Chelsea had it in mind to find a good place with barely anyone working, so she relied on Silvia to navigate the team to such a place. Thankfully, they found an abandoned camp to nest for the night. Once she stopped near a table, Silvia turned the car off and opened the auto doors. "Okay, everyone," Chelsea woke them up, "We'll rest here until we decide our next move..."

Everyone woke up groggy. "Don't patronize me, woman..." Cecilia groaned.

"You patronized yourself..." Madoka grunted, trying to get Autumn off her legs.

Sokoto yawned and stretched his body, unknowingly planting a fist and a foot on Cecilia's and Autumn's faces. Chelsea and Silvia barely managed to escape the ensuing chaos.

Fifteen minutes later...

"Can't we go just one day without something repeatedly screwing our psyches like a two-dollar whore?!" Chelsea screamed at all of them.

"Nope!" Sokoto cheerfully said, "We're on the run, remember?"

"THAT'S EXACTLY WHY YOU SHOULD TONE IT DOWN ALREADY!" Chelsea bellowed, then calmed herself down, "Look, we need to wait until things settle down before we start to cause ruckus again. If we can find out the extent of the damage we caused, we can form a plan that won't get us killed."

"But how?" Madoka asked, "If we link up anywhere, we'll be discovered within a heartbeat."

"Then, I guess we'll just have to rely on our instincts..." Autumn sur-

"This is the fishing rod?..." Cecilia was questioning the giant pole she had.

"Or a transfer basket between gathering points," Sokoto was juggling two baskets.

"DON'T YOU DARE IGNORE ME, YOU BEGOTTEN ANUS SCUM!" Chelsea gave up and hibernated in the van.

Thirty minutes later, everyone was off exploring the camp. Madoka and Autumn used the time allotted to gather firewood and food, while Cecilia and Sokoto were off gathering random materials to stash in the trunk. Sokoto was scouring the ground for anything worth using as a mudball when he stumbled across a triangular building.

"Whoa...what happened to it?..." Sokoto mumbled.

"Don't know..." Silvia fizzled to his shoulder using one of the few remaining power lines, "But from the looks of it, it's been ransacked."

"How can you tell?"

"Well, if you go around back..." they went to the rear of the building and found a big gaping hole that provided a picture of the carnage that wrecked the halls. Pews chopped in half, pulpits thrown haphazardly, windows and walls cracked, and a gigantic cross that apparently penetrated the roof and stuck the landing.

"Yeah...ransacked...got it..." Sokoto stepped in to survey the damage. He crossed the platform and got to the center, where the cross was stuck in the ground, and not five feet from it did he begin to have memories of crashing a prayer service five years ago, to hilarious results. The group leaders actually thought he was with the elementary group and shoehorned him into an egg-in-the-face competition, where each correct verse gave you an egg to throw at whoever you wanted. Needless to say, things got out of hand, and escalated into an egg-fight. For reasons still unknown they kept him for the rest of the camp, then brought him back to their church, where he ducked out before the leaders figured out what really happened.

"Oh no..." Sokoto decided to call someone else to the service, "Hey, Cecilia! Come check this out!"

Cecilia was nearby making a clothesline, "Huh? Hey, what'd you find?" Once she stepped in, however, "HUH?!" She swore she went to Hell, because she visualized an angel of death standing before her, emitting a fiery aura that surrounded the cross, "PLEASE HAVE MERCY ON ME! ID NEVER MEANT ALL THOSE THINGS I SAID I WAS FAR TOO INTO MY ARROGANCE I BEG YOUR FORGIVE-"

"JUDGEMENT HAS ALREADY BEEN PASSED," Sokoto and Silvia said in their unified, distorted voice, "YOUR SOUL MUST BE CLEANSED."

"YAAAAAAAAAAAAAA~" Cecilia nearly fainted before seeing Sokoto throw water on the fire and withdrew his IS.

"BAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAA!" Sokoto lost it, "We got you good, cross nut!"

"You can't go wrong with manipulating the-" Silvia was interrupted by a charged laser, "-nuts..."

"HOW...DARE...YOU..." Cecilia lost it with her rifle, "I KILL YOU!" She was about to fire, but then she took one look at the giant cross, which she immediately recognized as the pillar acting as a beacon of light for the summer camp she attended twice, once when she was 13, and again before her final year at the Academy, "Oh my...what...happened?..."

"Happened to what?" Sokoto asked.

"This..." Cecilia absorbed everything as she walked further into the sanctuary, "This place, it's supposed to be a haven for-WOO!" She tripped over... "Oww...*GULP*" ...a Bible, clearly torn in half, "Uh...someone wanna explain to me what the heck is going on?..."

"Well.." Sokoto said, "We know this place was ransacked from the outside and inside, so there had to have been some haters disguised as lovers..."

"Ransacked?!" Cecilia was not told any of this, "So then...this whole camp..."

"Oh, it's worse than that," Silvia pulled up several archived articles.

"Wait, how are you doing that? And...won't we get caught?!"

"Relax. These are landline connections. Easily manipulated." During the brief kerfuffle, Silvia snuck out of the church to attach herself from one of the few transformers to give her a connection strong enough to get what she needed and come right back without being detected. "Oh...uh, Cece, remember that part about the debate and the election?"

"Yeah..."

"Well," Silvia wished she hadn't, "This was discussed in that debate."

Holographic images projected from Sokoto's bracelet. Images depicting angry mobs of women, and images depicting angry mobs of men. Slander graffitied on numerous walls and tables, MANSPLAINER, SLUT, MAKE YOURSELF A SANDWICH, FHRITP, and that's just nice ones. Then, more images of people throwing flamings alcohol bottles and chairs into the window, wrecking the walls of many cabins and sanctuaries. One very vulgar image depicted a woman throwing a used tampon in the pool used for baptism. Many more images depicted people burning everything, resulting in a mass arrest, as well as the camp's shutdown. Through these digital holographic images, Sokoto and Cecilia were finally able to understand what happened.

"So, the people that dunked me in that pool..." Sokoto whispered, "Were they..."

"Yeah," Silvia responded, "about fifteen months ago-"

"Don't say it..." Cecilia shot a look at him.

Sokoto ran back to the baptism pool and removed the wood covering the bottom of the pool. Cecilia walked to the cross and examined the back of its arms.

Two words, scribbled angrily in red paint:

HYPOCRITE HUSSIES

Cecilia backed away in horror. Silvia fizzled to her shoulder. "What... happened here?..." she just gasped in disbelief, "Why was no one told of this?..."

"They were..." Silvia said, "But everyone just called it a scare tactic..."

Sokoto just stared in awe. He experienced something like this throughout his travels, but he never came across something this bad. Just how deep a hole was the world in? He decided to investigate the rest of the camp to get the full picture. He stepped outside and deployed his legs and arms, "Hey, Sil! I'm borrowing these for a bit!"

"No, don't-" Too late. He dashed off into the wilderness, "...oh...why me?..."

"Just leave him be," Cecilia said, "Let's just see if dinner's ready..."

"Yeah..." Silvia sat on Cecilia's head as they made their way to the campsite.

"Say, what did he mean by, "dunk him in the pool"?"

"Oh...he's been here before. But the leaders here confused him for a guy that needed baptism and pulled him in."

"WHAT?!" Cecilia stared at the pool, then back at Silvia, "Well, he's doing a hell of a job spreading the revelation..."

Madoka and Autumn were off gathering food and firewood, when they each came across a pile of debris with some choice markings on them. They examined the pile further and found several pieces of clothing, belongings, and treasures. Autumn started to question this camp's original purpose, while Madoka just grabbed all she could find. Then, she saw Sokoto dash across the lake, jump up, and dive right in to see what he could find. Sokoto had to deploy the body armor and goggles to get a clear view and pull himself deeper in the lake. And what he saw could be best described as a potential real estate opportunity for Jason Voorhees and his mother to make a killer investment on.

-21:33-

"Like, hundreds of hundreds of bones just piled up on the floor of the lake," And he had no problem turning this into scary story night, "and there were fish still gnawing on their eyeholes. And if that wasn't bad enough, there was people's blood on some of the wood we found. Like, this was murder on a pretty nasty scale. This being a religious camp and all, you gotta expect some higher entity getting absolutely pissed."

Cecilia, Chelsea, and Autumn all huddled together trying to ward off any resulting evil from storytime, while Madoka and Silvia kept munching on her food, eagerly awaiting the punchline.

"And if I know ghosts like I think I do..." Sokoto mused, "If Aokigahara is anything to go by, I'll bet there are spirits still waiting to get their fill, since they so clearly died before their appointed time." Stare at Madoka's shoulder...

"What?" Madoka asked before connecting that stare to his story. She turned around and looked at the mass of trees, thinking that someone was watching their every move.

No one dared to make a sound, except for Sokoto, who took this moment of distraction to sneak up behind the three scaredy-mice, deploy his headgear and wings without making a sound, and shout with a distorted voice, "INTRUDER!"

Chelsea, Cecilia, and Autumn freaked and tried to whack the entity with giant logs.

"Hey, take it easy!" Sokoto retracted his IS and avoided the heavy attacks, "It's just me!"

"The hell kind of mood whiplash are you trying to bring upon us?!" Cecilia griped.

Sokoto laughed and crossed his arms, "It's all in the name of good spirit, af-"

"DON'T SAY SPIRIT!" Chelsea punched him into the lake.

"AAAAAH! What'd you do that for?!" Cecilia nagged on her.

"Oh, shit..." Chelsea prepared for the worst. She looked at the spot where he sunk. He rose from the surface, color scheme changed to putrid olive, with a skull for a helmet, and someone's femur for a sword. "YAAAAAAAAAAAA~" Chelsea screamed when he rushed towards her and stopped short of the bone touching her throat.

"That wasn't very nice..." Sokoto said. When he touched the bone to Chelsea's neck, she fainted and slipped into slumber.

"Good God, man..." Autumn muttered.

"God, indeed," Madoka said, "I still can't wrap my head around why this camp suffered like that."

"I have an idea..." Cecilia thought, "I remember a certain verse in the book of Galatians:

So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith,for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise."

"So, your point?" Madoka asked.

"So...these people may have been killed because of their equal treatment toward men and women," Autumn guessed.

"I'm afraid so..." Silvia confirmed, "They didn't take too kindly to the fact that God called his people to reach all people, regardless of gender."

"So, that's why this camp became just a rotten landfill?" Madoka surveyed the rest of the lake.

"Yeah. There have been attempts to cover it up, but after the truth came out, they tried to pin the blame on another religious group," Silvia ran through countless articles, "And thus started a major debate about the limitations of what citizens here call the First Amendment."

"The heck is that?" Sokoto asked.

"In layman's terms, you can say whatever you want, and the federal government can't do jack-squat," Silvia turned to a rare article concerning the overall impact of the IS, "Or, at least, that's what I think it's supposed to be..."

"Don't tell me..." Cecilia quickly skimmed over the article's main points, "They turned the IS into a sociopolitical tool..."

"Yes, they did," Silvia said, "And not just here, it's everywhere. Since only women can operate an IS, women tried to bend society to their will. Too quickly. Conflicts erupted on a small scale, easily shunted by public opinion, and the fact that the fate of the world was literally in the palm of the females. It went on like this until the first male pilot emerged. Hence why everyone in the entire world freaked out whenever they see someone with a flat chest and a bulging crotch riding around in a skimpy battle suit."

"Was that last part really necessary?" Autumn whined.

"When you consider what we're up against," Silvia explained, "any form of morale-boosting humor is welcome."

"But that was just confusing at best..."

"Well, it didn't change my feelings one bit," Sokoto said, "It only added on to my laundry list."

"Huh?" Madodka couldn't believe what she just heard. The fact that Sokoto was staring Lady Death in the soul and still no change in his eyes, "Are you even listening to all this?!"

"Well, yeah. And what I got from all this is, not only do we have to find out what happened to Claire and Charlie, we need to find out who twisted the IS into something it wasn't meant to be and how."

"Oh my god..." Cecilia rubbed her head, "Are you guys even Phantom Task anymore? Look at us! We're just a bunch of runaways! We're constantly scatterbrained, walking towards Buckingham Palace with a giant cactus lodged up our backsides and nary a clue what we're even doing out here!"

"So, your point?" Autumn tossed in some wood and decided to engage Cecilia in a verbal battle/

"So, can we start thinking about how to survive, instead of just causing mayhem every step of the way? So we don't get killed?!"

"And what have you been doing exactly?"

"What?"

"Ever since we roped you into our little...clique, you've had your share in public chaos, with the latest being that shot out of the hotel."

"Well...that was just to make sure we don't die."

"Survival, huh? So far, you've literally said you'll join us, and you shot that one pilot full of energy. Not to mention that one scuffle with your maid at that one airport..."

"That has nothing to do with you!"

"Then, why did you leave?"

"Well...ugh..."

"Wow... that's rough," Madoka commented. She turned to Sokoto, who was sifting through the debris from a destroyed cabin.

"Yep...thought so," he said as he rummaged through wood, blooded metal, and numerous other garbage, when Silvia fizzled behind him, "Oh, hey! Come to do a little treasure hunting?"

"Well, more like intel gathering," Silvia said. She gave him a minute to find something worth keeping before she came out with it, "How many did you kill?"

"Huh?" Sokoto blinked his eyes, "Well, that came outta nowhere. I guess...a lot."

"What do you mean, a lot?"

"Well, a lot of stuff happened. People harassing people, families getting torn apart...I just couldn't do nothing. It wouldn't be proper."

Silvia got a little worried. How on earth could he just say that so nonchalantly, when he was on the frontlines of these problems? "What exactly happened before I was awakened?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well... I saw that Japan got split in three. And that you are wanted by almost half the world. So, what exactly were you doing before Canada?"

Sokoto stopped what he was doing and sat down. Then, he told his story, "Before I became the renegade, and the bane of all existence, I was running around the world, living life with the sanity of a rocket. I didn't stay in one place because there was a ton of things to do. So, I talked to everyone, did everything."

"And if you came across someone that, say, wanted to dominate everyone they saw?..."

"Oh, I'd prank the hell out of them!"

"Was it prank? Or...kill?"

"Depends on the person."

"Oh man, you definitely can't do that, onii-chan!"

"What? What's the problem?"

"What's the problem?!" Silvia freaked, "I get that people do bad things, but not even they deserve to die! Or see their friends die!"

"I thought that at some point, but let's be real. Messages of peace and love come off as cliche, nowadays. They hear that blah, and it just washes over them like a gentle morning breeze against a mountain. They don't hear it because they've heard to too much to the point of numbness."

"But that doesn't mean that they won't listen, does it? Do people tone out that easily?"

"All too often. If there's one thing I've learned, it's that subtlety only affects so many people, even if it's done correctly. If you wanna truly change people's minds, it's gotta be done through shock and awe. Anything else, and they'll give you the nasty."

"What..." Silvia just got an earful. She had many questions, not just about Sokoto's true purpose in life, but of humanity as well. Questions she wanted to ignore as she knew they were irrelevant to the tasks at hand, but couldn't because holding off on the questions would no doubt come back to bite their noses off. "Man, what do I do?"

"The only thing we can do," Sokoto stood up and decided to continue exploring the camp for...ahem, any possible signs of a haunting, "One thing at a time."

Silvia followed Sokoto along the trail and search for anything worth a distraction.

Back at the lake, Madoka found Cecilia at a dock, staring at the center. Madoka thought to walk away, but some unknown corner of her heart suddenly took over her conscience, drawing her to Cecilia's side and sitting down mere inches from her hair. She didn't know what to say to someone who the renegade himself wooed over to their side. She initially thought of just kicking her over, but then she was reminded of a certain...three-way she took part in. She had no choice now. If she wanted to open up to Sokoto, THE RIGHT WAY, this was her best chance to practice. She swallowed her pride and muttered, "So, what's it to you?"

Like a classic social dumbass.

"Nothing you could understand..." was what Cecilia said.

Madoka was tempted to take that as an insult, but quickly restrained herself, "Get the wind knocked outta you, huh?"

"Maybe..."

Madoka was losing patience, so she went out with it, "Look, I don't know what you're really up to, but you can just drop the act."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, what do you see in Sokoto?"

Cecilia moved her head up a bit and stared at the mist clouding the stars, "Just for a split second, I saw into those eyes...they reminded me of him..."

Uh-oh...Madoka had that same thought. She can't let Cecilia know. "Really? The fate of our world hangs in the balance, and you bargain for one pipsqueak?"

"That's not it..." Cecilia got agitated and stood up, staring down the center of the lake, "When I was with Ichika, I gave him a part of myself...I was reminded of him by the renegade, that's all. He still has a part of me with him. I just want to know if he'll give it back."

"Oh?" Madoka was genuinely curious, "I thought you still had a thing for him."

"I could say the same for you."

"What would I do with you?"

"Not be such a prick, for once."

"That ain't gonna happen," Madoka still kept talking, determined to get to the bottom of Cecilia's sudden mood swing, "So, what got you?"

"Oh, nothing..." Cecilia thought out loud, "Just rethinking why I went out of my way to get something that was never going to be mine...That one person who leads you on the wildest adventures and then suddenly snaps at the very last minute...I wouldn't mind it so much were it not for the seething resemblance your man had with that...the man who shanked your woman..."

On the outside, Madoka was visibly unmoved. But on the inside, she knew that they were both being tested. Madoka could tell that Cecilia cleaned up her mind, but the soul...heart...spi-WHATEVER...the way forward was not only missing a few lights, it had no guideposts whatsoever. In a way, Madoka was staring down her past self, the pivotal moment that turned her into Phantom Task's deadliest assassin.

Normally, this would be nostalgic to Madoka, but no...she was scared. Staring at essentially a younger version of herself, what was she supposed to do? If she lets Cecilia go to full on nut-mode, she'll definitely be on everyone's radar. But considering Madoka's relationship with Sokoto, and the charm he seemingly placed on Cecilia, this could go deadly. Like, two yandere girls in a harem deadly. However, if she stops Cecilia from going down that route...that would mean letting go. Letting go of Ichika, of Chifuyu, and...also something she doesn't want to do.

"Oh, great...caught between two invulnerable things ramming my gut..." Madoka muttered.

"You say something?" Cecilia turned her head back.

"Is it really worth it?" Madoka asked, "I'm obsessed over Chifuyu because of something she took from me...is it the same for you?"

"Of course. What else could it be?"

"I mean, Ichika can be a bit dull, but he has to have somebody spell it out for him. That's just the kind of person he is. If I wanted to kill him, I would've shot every single bullet I had, not drag it out with gas and traps. Just like how you should've told him outright that you wanted him to choose you, not drag it out with a harem."

"But why didn't he say anything? Is he really that thick-headed, or just a coward?"

Sharp departure from just ONE MONTH AGO! Yikes...nearly word for word what she originally thought of Ichika before the renegade happened. Madoka has to stop Cecilia from going down her route, if only to save her own sanity.

Speaking of sanity, where's Autumn gone?

She somehow managed to climb atop the giant church and not break a hole in its ceiling. She had to do a lot of thinking about how she would proceed deeper into the "Great American Urban Wilderness". If that was even possible. Within just a few hours time, they'll be continually haunted by something worse than ghosts. Unlike Camp Hebron, Phantom Task failed to kill their targets. Plus, their previous two exposés were very fresh in their minds. "Ugh...what would Squall do?..." she thought out loud. And that was when a thought occurred to her. There's the obvious yet ominous warning from Forte. Sokoto must have ran into her on the way to rescue them. He told Autumn that Forte tried to sway him away from the mission, rather pathetically. They don't know when she'll come. They don't know when Ichika will attack. They don't know what the public will do to them should they come into sight. And worst of all, they don't know what Sokoto would do. Sokoto inherited Squall's will. And yet Sokoto kept that one woman who got into some major shit in his thoughts, resulting in that rescue operation. Even with all those other people who were doing everything they could to make sure he never succeeded. And the one thing keeping him going was the need for redemption. Not for him, but for Phantom Task. Why was he so attached to Phantom Task now? Because Squall captained it? Somehow, they really felt for each other. And he managed to change her heart. Imagine what he could do to them!

"Great...we're gonna have to wing it...wing every fucking thing..." Autumn rubbed her eyes, horrified at the truth. How Phantom Task was reduced to just a bunch of ragtag vigilantes, they're not even qualified to be vigilantes, was painfully obvious. "Oh, what I would give to take that back...but I can't. I gotta act as the mom just to keep everyone together. If that doesn't work..." Then, she looked at her...children.

Sokoto and Silvia were having a discussion about the will of humanity while ghost hunting. Madoka and Cecilia were having a conversation about whether to resume hostile relations with Ichika, with Madoka getting a tad bit visibly disturbed over what she was hearing.

"Uh-huh...family my ass," Autumn slid off the roof and just walked down the dirt road, slowly formulating a plan to keep them under control. In her mind, she prepared herself for the worst, planning on all of them getting separated, but causing enough distractions to regroup. During their travels, they would gather intel from anyone with a stick up their ass. Given the volatile political atmosphere, someone was bound to crack. If there would be chaos, they'd have to use it for cover. If things were tense, they had to snap nerves. "Whew...gonna be a long trip..." she muttered as she made her way back to the van, fully prepared to dive back into the sadistic psychopathic self she hid away. And to bring it out from the others as well.