AN: This chapter was all over the place. I won't make any excuses. I will upload the fourth, and final chapter next month. Sorry for the inconvenience.
Mercury, Sol System
July 18th, 3927
Crystal Tokyo was a city. Within that city dwelt the rightful ruler of earth. And, the guardians of every single planet in the Sol system were loyal to this rightful ruler. However, at the close of the 21st centaury there had been opposition to this Queens rule. There were those who preferred another path. This disparate group fled into the stars.
At the dawn of the 36th centaury, Mercury found them. Or rather, she found what was left of them.
This off shoot of humanity had sacrificed the very things that made them human. They put children on the battlefield. And they turned Orphans into cybernetic monstrosities.
Some how, by giving up everything, this minute faction had held off two ancient alien empires. This fragment had done the impossible over and over again. And after careful consideration of their battle-tested capabilities Ami had a realization.
She pitied them.
"Lady M-", started some one. Mercury spun around. Her left hand shot to her hip, right by the extended pocket that stored her auxiliary pattern knife. But, the moment she saw who was standing at the door, all of her combat readiness evaporated. Only to be replaced by mild concern.
Nashwa had found the red room.
"Mizuno. You can call me Mizuno", responded Ami quickly. She tried to hide any discomfort written on her face. But, she knew that Nashwa had seen too much, or perhaps she'd seen just enough.
Nashwa was certainly seeing a lot. This was the first time she'd seen Ami out of Sailor form. So, this was the first time that she'd actually seen her face without interference from the Sailor Suits glamor mechanism.
She thought that Ami was good looking. Ami was beautiful, actually. And she was a specific kind of beautiful. She was beautiful like a Greek statue in a Terran museum. Her eyes were a very certain shade of blue. And her features were soft. Untouched by time. She'd stopped aging at 20 jut like all the Terrans from Crystal Tokyo.
"Lady Mizuno, when was the last time you ate?"
The Princess, and supreme commander, of Mercury paused. Her stomach responded before she could. It rumbled seismically. That made Ami blush. Nashwa could make out some red in the leaders pallid cheeks.
"It's been a while."
"How long?", asked Nashwa with some trepidation.
"A week, or maybe a month. I can't really remember. I'll eat something in bit"
"You'll eat something right now", cut in Nashwa. And as soon as those words came out of her mouth she started to regret them. The woman standing before her had built the economy, military, and health care system of an entire world. And right now, Nashua Malivnosky, a second rate agent from Pakistan was chastising this legend.
Truth be told though, it felt so cathartic to talk to her boss like this. She wanted to push her luck. She wanted this living legend to eat, and sleep, and be okay. Maybe that would untie the knot of fear, and concern, and other stuff festering in her gut.
"I'm fine", responded Ami.
"You're not", pressed Nashwa, "And you need to get out of here. You need to do something that's not work or missions or eating yourself up like a coywolf stuck in a trap"
Mercury paused, and then nodded in concession to this assessment.
"You're right, I'll head down to the lower levels and synthesize-"
"You should go into the city", rattled of the nervous lab assistant.
"The city?", asked Ami.
"Yes!", Nashwa half said half yelled. That knot in her chest was getting tighter. She didn't want to get fired over telling her boss they should take a lunch break. She did want to see the Woman who rescued her actually rest for 5 seconds, and maybe have a little fun. "The city", she continued, "is bustling, its alive, and diverse, and I think that going there will clear your head"
"Clear my head", Mecury whispered back.
In the red room, surrounded by things that were designed for war, Mercury fixed her gaze on Nashwa. There was a glimmer in the scientist's eyes. A hint of something that Nashwa had seen in the Scavenger Predators of her hometown. Hunger, in the Scientists eye's she read hunger.
"Well," Nashwa forced out of her tightened vocal cords.
"We should go then", finished Ami.
Nashwa blinked, hard.
"We?"
Lorek, Batarian Space
May 29th, 2227
"You're nervous"
"I've just got a sort of feeling about these things", replied Mr. Taylor.
"Relax", said Sha'ira. She tried to put a hand on Mr. Taylor. He flinched away. "Worrying won't make the shuttle land any faster"
"Its not the journey I'm worried about". Jacob flexed his right hand. A corona of blue light burst between his fingers, and lingered. "It's what'll happen when we get there"
Their Shuttle lurched, knocking both of them to the right. Mr. Taylor hit into a hard surface and Sha'ira hit into him. The Shuttle doors opened.
"This must be our stop", commented Sha'ira.
Jacob peered out at their "stop". It looked like a partially frozen tidal plane. Off in the distance there was a snow capped jagged rock. Atop that rock was an armored figure. The armored figure was waving at them.
Sha'ira leapt out of the shuttle. It was a 6-meter fall. Two meters above the Frozen sediment a blue aura encapsulated her. She landed gently.
Jacob followed suit. His body generated a field as he hit the Mudflat. This churned up some ice, sand, and a little snow. None of that fazed him. With three fluid steps he closed the distance between the Matriarch and himself.
"They just had to meet us on the cold side of the planet. Any colder and my light suit might stop working. Why'd they want to meet us out here?"
"Because", started Sha'ira, "they put the base somewhere even more inhospitable".
"You really know how to get a Mercs hopes up", groaned Mr. Taylor, "next you'll be telling me that I don't get paid"
"You will get paid, and you will live through this. Now lets get a move on. Before our Batarian friend gets worried"
Mercury, Sol System
July 18th, 3927
Powerful sturdy block like skyscrapers reached towards a sky few would ever see. Bustling packs of scared students raced down the wide streets. Soldiers in tan uniforms stood on balconies. And in every direction, defense turrets jutted out menacingly.
"I can't believe you designed all of this."
"Well, I only put in the infrastructure. There's more to a city then its buildings and anti air installations. The families who have lived here for generations are the ones who really built this city", replied Ami modestly.
" I think the buildings are pretty amazing. We didn't have anything like this back in Chitral"
"I hope you'll never need buildings like this on earth", murmured Ami, "Their foundations reach down to the crust of 20th century Mercury. "
"That deep?"
Ami, who was still a bit nervous about being outside of her Laboratory with only a black wig for a disguise, suddenly grabbed onto her assistants hand and squeezed it tightly.
"Yes", the scientist whispered.
Alas her stomach had no appreciation for shyness, or subtlety, and at that very moment it let out a noise that could've startled a Hydra.
Ami turned a bright shade of red and murmured something along the lines of " lets just get to a restaurant"
Nashwa steered them towards a restaurant that she vaguely recognized. She'd definitely seen it in Crystal Tokyo that one time she was there. Definitely.
Lorek, Batarian Space
May 29th, 2227
The heavily armored figure extended a hand to Sha'ira, "I'm glad that you arrived safely."
"So am I", replied the Asari with a grin. "My traveling companion didn't think we'd make it"
Jacob glared at his employer, but he kept his mouth shut.
Sha'ira was either oblivious to Jacobs behavior, or unwilling to acknowledge it. She accepted the Batarians out stretched hand. And without missing a beat she warmly declared, "I look forward to working with you. Thank you for letting me join your team. "
"I'm glad you're the one they sent", replied the fully armored figure in a neutral tone that betrayed nothing.
The wind picked up. Sending a flurry of snow around the group. Sha'ira ingnored it. All of her attention was focused on the Batarian. The Batarian Captain tightened her grip on Sha'Ira's hand. And Mr. Taylor turned his head to the side as his right hand inched towards a gun he carried on his hip. "You hear that?", he asked.
Moments before the gunfire started.
Mercury, Sol system
July 18th 3927
The restaurant was . . . busy.
Idle chatter filtered in and out. Ami picked up bits of conversations. A university student complained about her grades. Some academic mentioned Venesian currency manipulation.
"There's such a long line", commented Nashwa.
"Certainly"
Most of the people in the immediate area were ineligible for the draft, Ami noted. Academics, researchers, and a few clusters of individuals who lacked any sort of visible augmentations. There was such amazing diversity of expression here. Smiles, scowls, sleep deprived grins, and –
"We should probably get in line now. Before it gets any worse."
Those words, which came from Nashwa, snapped Ami out of her trance. Ami wearily glanced at the line. It was a very long line. She looked at Nashwa. The Terran Lab assistant looked anxious.
Ami took this information and ultimately concluded, "Yes, we probably should."
Lorek, Batarian Space
May 29th, 2227
Sha'Ira's wrist broke. The chest of the heavily armored "Batarian Captain" broke open. Revealing a hundred bloodstained teeth. The creature pulled her closer, adrenaline rushed through her, and she unleashed a singularity into the creature's wet slavering maw.
Her companion, Mr. Taylor, was struggling against a hail of bullets. His barrier was blinking. He screamed. "Cerberus. All over the damn place"
The creature, which still held Sha'Ira in its grip, raised its other hand. The armored gauntlet morphed into a long wicked blade. This things torso was twisting. Its amored shell broke inwards. Revealing the bright blue ball of energy that Sha'Ira had planted inside it. This ball pulled in what used to organs, what used to be bone, what used to be sinew, and veins, and so much more. A flew of implanted cybernetics and strange runes joined this ad hoc mixture. Soon, most of the creature was gone. However the beast's arm flexed as the rest of it vanished into oblivion. The blade came down heavy. Carried by inextricable force downwards in a deadly arc.
Mr. Taylor lost his kinetic barriers. A few shots tore into his thigh, and a burst of rapid-fire shots hit his shoulder. They chewed up his light armor. The force spun him around. And he saw Sha'Ira stuck in place. Her arm, broken at the wrist, held by a armored hand which was no longer linked to any body. A hands breath from her neck there was a thin blade.
When the blade finally reached Sha'ira it was the length of her pinky finger. And the monsters armored hand, which held her, had vanished into the singularity with the rest of the creature. The tiny little insignificant blade had lost much of it velocity. So the cut it made was only skin deep.
A mere inconvenience, compared to the monomolecular blade jutting from her gut.
"A phantom", she muttered softly.
The blade came out. Sha'ira fell. Her eyes became heavy. She took one last shuttering breath, and smiled.
"Find peace in the embrace of the goddess- you bastards"
Blue light burst from the Asari Matriach. Dozens of half formed mass effect fields burst lose from her. They violently mixed together. Trapping every single Cerburus trooper in an arcing matrix of uneven gravity fluctuations. To state it simply this ripped them all apart.
And the Smiling face of Sha'ira was the last thing a certain phantom would see. Before the gravitational chaos tore it asunder.
July 18th 3927
Ami chomped down on her burger. Her eyes fluttered shut as the flavor hit her. Nutrition paste couldn't hold a candle to this stuff. It was so good!
Nashwa was sitting next to Ami. Her hands were a blur. The massive pile of fries and chicken nuggets that she had arrayed before her was vanishing with alarming speed. She ate like a woman possessed.
There was a third person at the table, a tall handsome brunette. They overheard the two attractive young ladies conversing. And quickly surmised that they must be visitors from one of the other planets. So the tall handsome well-muscled professor figured, 'hey maybe I should pay for their meal', only to discover that these two young ladies had the appetites of a planetary super predator.
"So, is this um . . . you're first time visiting mercury."
Ami looked up from her seventh burger, and replied, "Actually my partner and I spend a lot of time here. For work and other things"
"Oh you're- um together"
"Of course we're together", replied Ami with a shrug, "Kind of have to be"
The Brunette was some what taken aback. 'Have to be?', they wondered. 'An arranged marriage?', they conjectured.
"How did you two meet each other?"
"Well", Ami said, "I needed some help around the lab. So I put up an ad. And she sort of found it"
"My Parents found it", Nashwa cut in, "I knew they needed the money. My whole family was barely getting buy. So I went for it"
"And that worked out for both of you?"
"Yes", replied Nashwa while her left hand snaked its way over to Ami's plate.
"She's the best lab assistant I've ever had", Boasted Ami as two or three burgers mysteriously disappeared from the pile in front of her.
Nashwa blushed. She was caught off guard by this praise and didn't know what to say. So she buried her face into another burger. She was lucky to have such an amazing boss. In her mind, she was the luckiest undercover agent on Mercury.
May 30th, 2227
Lorek, Batarian Space
Mr. Taylor opened his eyes, and he saw darkness. He tried to move his limbs and discovered that he was buried. At the moment he wasn't quite sure whether he was up, down or side ways. So he spit. The saliva went up and came back down. Must be laying on his back then.
Sound. He could hear something. Snow was being compacted. Could that be footsteps?
Silence. The noise stopped, and then a new sound erupted. Something was digging him out.
Light, bright white and blinding, he still couldn't see a thing. His eyes adjusted. Now he could see the barrel of a gun, a big gun. He still couldn't move. Most of his body was still buried under a great deal of snow.
A question, "Are you the Merc that Sha'ira hired?" , coming in as a harsh deep whisper. The voice sounded feminine. It carried a quiet implication. Tell me the truth or I will kill you.
"Yes, I am" croaked Mr. Taylor.
The speaker pulled back their gun. Jacob caught a glimpse of them. They were armor. Didn't look like Cerberus. Had a lot of blades strapped to them.
They moved out of his limited window of vision. He lost sight of them. He heard more noise; he heard the sound of armored hands scraping against the snow. They were digging him out.
His legs came free. Snow was scraped off his torso, then his arms, and finally his head. He could move. But he was tired. Everything was sore. He was thirsty. There was red splashed along the back of his thigh.
Jacob flexed his left hand. A corona of blue light flickered, weakly.
This burst of biotic energy caught his rescuer unawares. She aimed her gun, an M76 revenant, at Jacob's head. She held it there for half a second. Only to lower it when she finally realized how torn up the human merc in front of her was.
Suddenly there was a howl. It was an horrible inhuman howl coming from some where off in the distance. Jacobs rescuer turned her head towards the noise. She gripped her weapon tightly. She took a step away from Jacob, stopped, and then took a step back towards him. Quickly, she crouched down to offer Mr. Taylor a hand. He accepted it. She pulled him up.
There was another howl. The thing had become louder, or perhaps it was just closer.
Mercury, Sol system
July 19th 3927
Back at the Laboratory, surrounded by all of her failed experiments, Ami cracked a smile. For she now understood something that had in the past evaded her.
Her fellow sailors did not trust her. She found this out by checking several of the gifts mars had given her. She found Cameras. And, after an even more thorough search she founds something else. A notebook.
It was Nashwa's. The excitable lab assistant had left it in a pile of clutter. Ami flittered through it and learnt a great deal.
Ami put down the notebook. She tried to ignore the Camera's. Pushed aside the revelation that her lab assistant was a crystal Tokyo plant.
Her fellow sailors did not trust her.
How could they? After everything she'd done. Shattering a Sailor Crystal. How could they forgive her for that?
The smile vanished. Ami steadied herself against a table. She bit her lower lip. Recited the Newtons three laws of motion inside her head.
Her tongue tasted blood. She gasped. Gritted her teeth. Her spare hand dug into her own wrist. She focused on the pain. Let the adrenaline take her away. Pull her away from the memories.
"It was pretty stupid of me", muttered Ami, "Trading the soul of an entire world for a few thousand mortal soldiers."
She stared at the ruby red droplets welling up from her wrist. Her smile came back.
"Maybe I'm not that smart after all . . ."
May 30th, 2227
Lorek, Batarian Space
It was upon them. A heaving mass of flesh melded with armor. Batarian and Human bodies formed its bulk. However the creatures maw was unrecognizable. A hundred blood stained teath. Each one was a different shape. All of them were sharp.
"Move. I'll hold it off", yelled Mr. Taylor. His plea fell on deaf ears. His rescuer did not retreat. They stood by his side and unleashed a flurry of machine gun fire.
Tungsten carbide rounds sped their way to the target. The punishing fire removed the creature's right leg. The Beast faltered. Heavy fire tore into its other limbs. Until- its attacker had to reload.
The revenant is a powerful weapon. But it takes time to reload it. And time was on the beast's side. Sinewy tentacles burst forth from its severed limbs. They latched onto the severed parts and pulled them back into place. Every fleshy bit slid, slithered, and writhed to accomplish its gruesome work.
Right when the Revenant was reloaded, right when the beast lunged forwards, right when the howling started up again- Mr. Taylor rose to their feat. They hit the beast with a lift grenade. Reached for the Avenger assault rifle folded at their side. Mr. Taylor added his own firepower to the din. He fired round after round at the temporarily air born monstrosity. He didn't let up until the beast hit the snow, and he had to reload.
Tentacles burst from the monsters back. They raced towards Mr. Taylor. Who activated a biotic barrier and then detonated it.
The Beast was, once more, air borne. Mr. Taylors rescuer emptied a fresh heat clip of revenant ammo into the monstrosity. Jacob used incendiary ammo on it. Fire seared its flesh, and stopped it from regenerating.
They both reloaded and kept shooting until the thing was reduced to malformed bits of charged flesh. And then Jacob took a few pot shots at those pieces. Just to be sure.
"Guess I won't be getting paid," muttered Jacob as he ejected an empty thermal clip from his assault rifle. It hit the snow with a sharp hiss. " Should've taken that job on Omega".
