Day 3 of containment. David is locked into a room with only a canister of compressed oxygen, a fridge, dirty magazines and a two-stage door to keep him company. He's sitting inside a submarine, which is being repurposed as a medical ward. Once every four hours David is visited by medical personnel.
Internally, David was calm, but not focused.
"Ew, it's growing on the walls…"
Deep, glowing, indigo deposits formed around the ceiling and the edges of the floor around that room. He was sweating blue now. Even then, David's blood pressure is slowly returning to normal, and eventually no traces of the foreign chemical remained in his blood stream.
After being cleared to return, a cleaning crew came in to disinfect the ship in case it needed to be used again. The cleaning and toilet water were treated as hazardous materials; the fluids were desalinized, leaving the offending material and the urine's solids deposited at the base of the container.
Everyone was making orders for the next shipments to come in. Ayrton ordered a motorcycle, Redjacket a snowmobile. The boss gave orders for the employees to not order any assault weapons or hazardous chemicals as it was decided that a UN peacekeeping force was to be sent on site.
For someone like Ayrton, this means that he might meet up with some old friends.
"You know, if you wanted something that hits as hard as a rifle, you could have gotten one, right?"
Ranger asked the question as Ayrton was polishing his revolver. In .44 magnum, using specialized rounds and metallurgy of his own design, it applies as much kinetic energy as Ranger's scout rifle. Normally, such rounds only end up being comparable to an assault rifle.
"You're just mad that I can fire the thing without breaking my wrists, miss. Seriously, a bolt-action rifle? I can't do any follow-up shots if I miss with that thing."
Positioning the gun in his hands, he takes aim at targets set up in a makeshift range. Using a piece of cardboard with a target painted on it, it's basically shooting rounds into the mountain.
POP. POP.
In less than a second, he fired two rounds into the cardboard. Highly accurate, but terribly imprecise, the two rounds landed in the bottom-left corner of the mark, the first in the outermost ring, and the second one inch closer to the bullseye.
BANG! PCHUCK! BANG!
In less than a second, two rounds, one after the other, landed straight in the center of the target.
"At least my gun is smaller!" Ayrton's pride in his craftsmanship is obviously hurt by the results.
"You? Wanting a smaller gun? How uncharacteristic."
"Chug! Chug! Chug!"
It was the fifth beer that Ayrton swallowed. He's locked in a drinking contest with Takeshi Minata, who already downed a shot of sake (rice wine). Takeshi was halfway in finishing his beer, but then he puked.
The crowd around the table responded with loud, uproarious cheers.
"Already giving up, little man?"
"Dude, I already had a drink before this…"
"What's that? More beer?!"
Ayrton followed that up by downing Takeshi's beer, then taking the drinks of two other people and pouring it down his throat. He's totally, indisputably drunk.
Elsewhere, Ranger was shaking her head in disgust. She never liked alcohol. It smells bad, did bad things to her parents, and just gives her bad memories.
She knows that he's still shaken up about what happened in the previous mission. However, part of her wishes that he didn't solve his psychological problems the way he does.
Five days ago…
Ayrton, Takeshi, Edward, Ranger, and Redjacket were heading out to an unknown location. A drone returned beforehand to confirm that passage was possible.
Immediately Ayrton set out to obtain air samples for analysis. Four hours is enough time to get multiple samples before heading home, and he doesn't want to spend another minute past that. Immediately, he noticed that the place they ended up in was somewhat cold. Not as cold as Antarctica, but cold enough.
"Wow, back to freezing my balls off. Also, there seems to be people over there."
Looking over the hillside, Ranger immediately went prone, uncocked the bolt to her rifle, and stared out through her scope. People were walking outside. Ladies wearing dresses, young men in overalls or shorts, and only a few wearing actual winter coats. Just as interesting as their cold resistance is the fact that none of them have backpacks, purses, or anything to carry, well, stuff.
One of them heading to a shop grabbed a device out of her pocket and materialized what appeared to be a cup of coffee, then sat down and read through the contents of another device, most likely a phone.
Recording as much useful information as she could, she sent hand signals for Redjacket to spot her.
Redjacket instead shaken her head, and motioned Edward and Takeshi over to spot for the two of them, Takeshi only once finished with his post-entry responsibilities.
"Same air composition, just colder and lower pressure. Blue particulate remains in samples."
Ranger acknowledged Ayrton's status by instructing him to take soil samples as well.
"Uzume, there's another spacetime distortion near the Planeptune-Lowee border!"
"I have an escape button! Everyone hold on while I get it out!"
"Hey, Mr. Hayter?"
"You could just call me Snake."
"I don't want to freak you out but, are you sure that you are floating the right way?"
Home Security, sitting at his computer, is tracking Snake Hayter's GPS coordinates. Since leaving Otori Caves Snake decided to air-mail himself with a balloon. Due to high winds he was floating not towards Lowee, but instead back towards Planeptune.
Munching on blanc manju ordered online, he already tried to contact Nepgear or Histoire. The weather is not at all helpful on that front.
Noticing his phone ring, he put it on speaker.
"Purple Sister, is that you?"
"I noticed that you were calling me. What do you need?"
"Do you see a balloon towing a cardboard box somewhere behind you? That's where our camera equipment is. Snake needs some help getting to you guys because there's high winds blowing him out to Planeptune. Also, I think we have too little footage for anything useful."
"Goodness!"
Out in the distance, a box, spinning 72 rotations a minute, attached to a beige-colored balloon, could be seen with an antenna. The tip of that antenna is pulsing a green light.
Flying back, Nepgear grabbed the box and towed it towards the rest of the group.
"Snake, are you ok?"
The box opened up, revealing a man in his 50s with a red eyepatch and a bandanna.
"Lo le lu lihhi…"
Just as quickly as he said that, the sound of fluid exiting an open pipe came out of his mouth, for the contents of his lunch returned to the presence of oxygen. Ramen noodles and an energy drink.
Then the particulate landed on a Chocopi, minding their own business.
Assuming that the goddesses dumped poop on it, it shaken off the puke and started flying after them, making very angry noises. However, it was fat, slow, and inevitably unable to reach their height. Eventually getting tired out, it landed face-first in a lake.
Thirty years beforehand, the following events transpired.
Sanna Arnatsiaq, a young lady in her mid-twenties, came back after a round of hunting to her camp. Capturing a polar bear, she had hauled it on a dogsled for the rest of her family to eat.
She wanted to move to the city to take up higher education, but with her brother dead at fifteen, her dad crippled, and her sister being only twelve, she was the only one capable of bringing protein to the rest of the family. Her family was rather traditional but since her brother's death she had been expected to take up the responsibility of hunting game.
She quickly became good with a rifle, wielding it as deftly as she did a sewing needle. It was an old Lee-Enfield No. 4, considered obsolete to the Canadian Rangers because of their lack of replacement parts. It was passed down from her grandfather, who was a volunteer in the unit.
"You know, if you moved to the city, we wouldn't have anyone to take care of us."
Her mother's words echoed inside her head every time she returned home. Over the hillside, she could make out the nearby city, which housed an airport. The sky has been dark for at least two weeks already, in the total absence of clouds. Only the aurora and the stars lit up the sunless sky.
However, there was one thing odd about this trip home. There was no smoke emanating out of the chimney. Two bodies laid out, frozen, on the ground. Five, no six, heavily armed men wearing camouflaged helmets were approaching the house.
Sensing something's wrong, she takes aim with her scope.
They wore armor that had no resemblance to any Canadian unit. One of them wielded an AN-94, but the other five had M4 carbines. Each of them used the same armor, but the one using the AN-94 used a lot more camouflage. Their insignia was tiny, grey, and written in a language she doesn't understand.
Just then, a missile breached the waters downriver from the city. It helped itself to destroying the largest building there, built for telecommunications and the only link to the outside world. A submarine emerged and fired off a salvo into the skies, which soon littered the arctic metropolis with flames.
Prone near the base of a tree, she observed one of the armed men approach the door.
The enemy's rifle pointed into the house, she had to take her first shot.
Ranger was re-cocking her rifle when she received a nudge from Edward. Snapping back to reality, she looked back at him, and he was pointing to a formation of colorful objects in the sky.
One of them was Purple Heart.
Pulling her rifle into the underside her body, she motioned to Edward to get everyone into hiding.
Nodding, he rushes over to Ayrton to get winter camouflage on him.
Takeshi, the portal beacon, and Lillie Redjacket were already draped in snow.
Even then, in less than thirty seconds, everyone is invisible.
Nepgear caught up to Uni, Noire, Uzume, and Neptune, with Snake Hayter in tow. Fortunately for them, the box wasn't stained with his earlier accident.
They landed at the border city to Lowee, Snowfac Metropolis. A large, frozen factory-like building sits at the northern side of the border, and a set of three biodomes sit on the southern side. East there lies a saltwater river, and west lies a mountain range.
It's the most northern city of Planeptune's mainland, and contrasting with the more obviously Planeptune south, the northern half looks Lastation in origin, and holds an enormous cloud server. It's one of Nepgear's favorite cities, but it also has the highest police presence in Planeptune. Not even the capital has as much law enforcers as it. Because of this, it has the lowest crime rate. Despite that, the crimes are usually extremely expensive and even more violent.
This city never existed before Uzume was sealed.
"This city is new. Did Blanc build this?"
"No. Uranus probably did."
Purple heart turned her head to face Uzume.
"This place was here before I was born, and for some reason was always part of Planeptune since."
Hearing an explosion, a group of rampaging robots migrated into the biodomes in the south. One of them created a small gravitational distortion, pulling in loose debris, and then rocketed at high speeds only to get peppered to death by a group of militarized police armed with rifles. Some even carried plasma shotguns. One of them blasted a malfunctioning drone that was circling the biodome like it was some mutated racetrack. Even with the efforts of the police, the damage done to the northernmost dome was enough to winterize it.
"And that's the reason, huh?"
Noire's deadpan remark earned her a frown from Uzume and Nepgear. Nepgear started to protest.
"Noire, do you know what it's like to have a place which nobody else likes but you and the people who live in it? Taking care of this place by ourselves is impossible and they never wanted us to try."
"I don't like this place either, but it's rich in manufacturing, resources, and tourism from other parts of the nation, so it uses that wealth to fund its local police force. I feel like those proceeds are just bribes to make us look the other way, but they never caused problems for anyone else, so I don't really care."
Neptune's remark left Purple Sister looking downcast.
"Neptune, can you hold this for us?"
Grabbing the balloon, Purple Heart obliged.
"Of course, Nepgear."
Immediately Nepgear accelerated off to the city.
Flying behind the other four CPUs, Uni was scanning the ground for anything unusual.
No yellow stains, no scary armed men in gas masks, not even a fire.
This is more boring than doing paperwork. Catching up to the others, she turned to Uzume.
"Can you get Histoire to check where the dimensional rift should appear?"
Uzume nodded, pressed a button, and pointed in the direction of the mountain range.
Uni decided to fly off in that direction.
"Uni, are you seriously trying to take point? Wait up!"
Looking back, she could see Noire accelerating behind her.
105 minutes to extraction.
The research team, face-down in the snow, can feel the CPUs presence. Heat, strong winds, the snow melting off their backs…
"Shit."
Ranger, noticing the new development, opened the camera feed. They are still hidden, but the amount of snow hiding their bodies is dramatically less than before.
For the survival of her crew, she needed to do something to draw their attention away.
She was the only one that didn't bury herself to hide from the CPUs. Instead, hidden in a tree, her camouflage blending in with the white, but ultraviolet-dark leaves, she leaped off into the snow bank approaching the city. Wasting no time, she takes aim at a series of robots in the distance, and fires.
She missed, but that doesn't matter. She makes a run for the metropolis in the distance.
She landed her shot perfectly, hitting the enemy in the back of their neck, instantly killing him.
Sanna knows that these soldiers are hostile not only to her, but to her family and country. Their presence meant death to the two bodies strewn on the ground in front of her, and the last family member is probably doing all they can to stay alive.
One of the soldiers pulled the pin of a grenade. Rebolting her rifle, Sanna responded by taking him out next. Crumpling to the ground, the other four made a dive to take cover from the resulting explosion.
Two of them were not so lucky, and their bodies were knocked back by half a meter, indisputably dead.
The final two pushed themselves up off the ground. It was enough time for the hunter to ready her rifle for the next shot. However, she can only get rid of one. The other fired his AN-94 at her position, forcing her to take cover. Then, one anomalous shot silenced the last man.
Looking back up, she can see her father, wielding a Colt Canada C19 rifle.
And he looked like he was in the middle of passing out.
Rushing over to her house, she can see her mother and sister, shot to death by unknown forces, their bodies shot in the back and fallen opposite the direction of the river.
Running upstairs, she sees the bodies of two more people, wielding AK-74s and having the same, absurd insignia as the ones outside. Their armor was lighter in weight, but darker in color, being white with streaks of grey and green in the mix.
"That was a submarine division from the Russian federation."
Her father breaking the silence, he motioned over to the dead bodies outside the house.
"The Russian Federation's military mostly consists of conscripts unable to get higher education. These guys were especially stupid, trying to pull a false flag operation by wielding NATO-style weapons."
Tears forming in his eyes, he looked at his wife and his other daughter.
"They wanted to silence us; they murder my sweet girls… I don't want this kind of life anymore."
Looking at what is now his only daughter, he hands her the rifle.
"There isn't enough life in that rifle for what comes up ahead. It's strong and has great pride in it, but there's no replacement parts or ammo anymore. Take one of the M4s and follow me."
Following her dad into the basement, she discovers diving gear.
"Happy birthday, Sanna."
Tears filling her eyes, she puts on the wetsuit.
FOOM.
Uni and Noire turned their heads towards the noise. It's rather quiet at their distance, as Neptune and Uzume remained none the wiser, but the Lastation sisters noticed a figure heading towards Snowfac Metropolis. Upon closer inspection, it's a masked person sprinting to the city.
"Target spotted!"
Uni's reaction got Noire moving at full speed to the human individual.
"Stop right there! Hands in the air, turn around and face me slowly!"
Feigning deafness, Ranger continued to sprint.
Uni followed up with warning shots.
Ranger flipped around, then taken a shot at the gunner CPU.
"How dare you! Volcano Dive!"
Noire shifted her speed downwards, plunging straight towards her human opponent.
("This is how she plans to kill me. Alright, close my distance, change my movement pattern and…")
Fully stopping herself, then diving underneath Black Heart, Ranger dodges the first attack.
("Dangerous as hell but dumber than bricks. Get rid of the gunner first.")
FOOM.
Executing a dodge roll, she fires at Uni again. Black Sister attempts to dodge, but gets clipped on her wing, destabilizing her flight and sending her to the ground.
"Shit! Uni!"
Her sword melted the snow it lodged itself into. Pulling it out, she makes a break towards Uni.
Ranger made a break for the city.
Yellow mist formed around the spot Noire and Uni were fighting. The weather suddenly turned into a blizzard, picking up the dust and dispersing it throughout the region.
Now Neptune and Uzume changed course to the Lastation sisters. Getting caught in the breeze however, they found that they can't maintain their transformations. Losing HDD, Uzume landed feet-first in a tree, while Neptune landed face-first in the snow.
Neptune picked herself up and opened her pocket service to get a pair of sweatpants. Unfortunately, Uzume didn't have any winter gear and climbed down shivering.
"Virus? Why would a weather event have virus?"
"Neptune, stop breaking the fourth wall and look over there."
Neptune shaken off the snow from her hoodie. The wind didn't take long to dissipate, but they were left grounded. Uzume pointed towards the
They see a house, surrounded by several men dressed up, from their perspective, similarly to soldiers from one of Uni's war games. They didn't have gas masks, were armed with wooden and plastic assault rifles, and wearing winter camouflage. On their shoulders were badges written in a language that the CPUs didn't understand, and in front of them lied three bodies, all dressed in brown parkas.
One of those bodies was hanging outside the top floor's window. Limp, holding a dark red rifle, several bullet holes could be made out from his face.
The three bodies reanimated and attempted to maul the six soldiers. One of the gunmen got struck in the neck. Blood that flickered between crimson red and golden yellow sprayed out.
The other five responded by shooting the three zombies. Hit parts of their bodies sprayed the same fluid out into the white snow.
After the zombies were destroyed, the soldiers turned to face the CPUs…