Chapter 9: Pariah and Protector (Part 2)
Satel's car sped along the street and Bathory followed. He stayed several blocks behind it, zipping along the walls of the buildings, but followed it through every turn it made through the city grid. Worrying, he knew that time was running out.
"Aphelion, I'm going to be honest. I don't know what I can do. Should I just head out of the city now?"
[NEGATIVE, MY MASTER - YOU HAVE NOT CONSIDERED ALL THE RESOURCES YOU HAVE]
"Oh, I have thought about Yautja, if that's what you were going to say. And he is not going to like this."
[THERE IS A HIGH CHANCE THAT HE WILL OFFER HIS ASSISTANCE - I BELIEVE THAT HE CAN BE OF DEFINITE USE]
Bathory watched the car activate its lights and blast through the intersections. If it didn't stop at all, it would arrive at the station with Arci in tow within ten minutes. If ever there was a chance to save the boy, it would be while he was still in the car. But Bathory didn't know how much he could do if the car kept up its speed - it would first need to be stopped.
Hoping for the best, Bathory contacted Yautja. He tried to sound in control.
"Yautja, what are you doing at the moment?"
"Gah, it's seriously scary to have a voice appear in your brain out of nowhere."
"Alright, well, what are you doing now?"
"I'm at home. Efra and I are watching a movie."
Bathory sighed. The car turned onto the highway and sped off even faster. "Well, I kind of need your help." From the pause, he knew Yautja was probably considering and then already dismissing him.
"With what?" the older man asked.
"Alright, brace yourself, I know you're not going to like this. A few minutes ago, Arc...uh...Murder and I went to deal with Negati. It didn't work. He was captured and now he's being driven to the South station, and we need to help him out."
"Why? I told you that kid's plan would fail."
"Yautja, he knows where you live. He knows who you are, and he knows who I really am. He will rat us out if he gets locked up. If you don't help, then you might as well leave town right now along with me." Once again the conversation froze, but when Yautja returned, he sounded much more worried.
"You're right. You're right. Damn it! I'm getting up - what do you want me to do?"
Bathory imagined the possible route of Negati and Satel's car. The shortest path would be to get off the highway and travel straight to the station - going nearby the Crawmer apartment as they did. "You're going to need to get in your car and cut them off. Grab the AMF generator as well."
"Is that necessary? I'd rather use it on something better than freeing this kid."
"The TSAB got a limiter onto him. Not only will it drain him, but it acts like a beacon as well. The bureau will always know where he is as long as that's on him. We need the field to jam it for as long as it can so we have some extra time, and we'll need a way to unlock it, or else the bureau will have a straight shot to just apprehend Ar...Murder again."
"Fine, fine, I got it. Running down to my car now. So what exactly am I doing?"
"Go up the street and wait for the car to come by, and block it. I'll deal with it once it's stopped."
"Alright, but this better work. If we can't get that limiter off him, I'm just killing him myself."
"Don't even joke about that. This will work." Bathory's head lowered as he kept soaring along. "...At least, it better" he muttered.
In the car, Arci shrunk away from the Lieutenant. His back to the door, he wished he could melt away from Negati as she confronted him.
"Alright, listen to me," she said. She grabbed the boy's shoulders and leaned in, pressing her head against his. "You are in a very bad place right now. You're not the first person to try to take my life. You didn't even do the best job." With that, she slammed him against the window and leaned back in. "You are an idiot. An absolute idiot, you know that? And you're a liar! Like hell your name is 'Murder' - tell me what it really is before I put you in a coma."
Arci slammed his eyes shut. "It really is that, I swear! I'm not lying."
"Here, I'll figure it out myself" responded Negati. She removed her hands from Arci's shoulders and shoved the boy, forcefully reaching into his pockets to find an identification card. She grabbed it and held it up, ready to smugly read off a different name, but froze dumbfounded at the name on the card - Murder Caliente.
"Bullshit. Bullshit!" she yelled again, tossing it behind her. She reached for Arci again, and he flailed his arms in an attempt to push her off him. Negati held her left arm up, and again lines of pulsing red formed on it. She fired a blast of energy at Arci, and he first reflexively tried to block it with a shield, causing his locked linker core to burn in his chest. Right after that, it burned again from the impact of the attack. Arci screamed and tried to telepathically call for Bathory. Instead of the message getting out, that was blocked as well and it just bounced around in his mind. All in all, the boy had no control over the situation.
"Hey Negati, can you try not to make him pass out?" said the driver. "I don't really want to have to explain how that happened."
"Oh, it's fine," said the domineering woman. "I'll do only as much as you require me to." She said that last part through gritted teeth, staring daggers at Arci. "Well, I guess if 'Murder' really is your name, then fine. Not like you could possibly get your way out of this. So, now that that's answered, help me out a little more and tell me who your accomplice was."
Arci's mouth ran before he could stop it. "No, I can't!"
Negati shoved him down harder than ever, causing him to fall back onto the backseats. The Lieutenant pressed her knee into Arci's stomach and stared straight down at him. "Oh, I think you can, and you will," she said. "Do you have any idea what sentence you're looking at?"
Arci stammered "D...d...decades in jail?"
"Decades?" Negati laughed loudly and looked at her fellow officer. "Decades, Satel. He thinks that's it."
Satel chuckled as well. "Where is this kid from, Midchilda?" He rolled his eyes. "Actually, on Midchilda they'd probably recruit him for this."
Negati looked back at her victim. "Ohh, that was almost cute. But you need a reality check. I have a sentence for you, and I'm thinking longer than decades. I'm thinking the rest of your life."
"The rest of my life?" asked Arci. "But...but I..."
"So that's too harsh, huh? Well, maybe I'll help you out a tiny bit if you help us out. Tell me who your partner was."
Bathory. Bathory Kardenis! Just say Bathory! Arci wanted nothing more than to get the officer on top of him to back off a little bit. But he knew he couldn't betray the one person who really wanted to help him out like that.
"He never told me his name! I don't know it. I really don't."
"I know you do. I know you do you little shithead!" Negati began to let her anger out on the boy. She brought her fist back and struck him right below his eye, then immediately brought her arm back again. Arci turned his head and pushed it into the seat, screaming in his head to Bathory, to Yautja, to any allies he could think of to help him. None of those messages got out, though, and the Lieutenant struck him several more times.
"Negati!" shouted the driver. Hearing this, she quit her assault and Satel continued. "Please don't do this in the back of my car. Just wait a few more minutes."
Negati took several deep breaths, adhering to Satel's words. She finally released her knee from Arci's chest. "Alright. I'll wait. But soon as we get back," she said, pointing at the boy, "it will be you, me, and NO ONE ELSE. You are telling me everything, you hear me? Because I know how much you're hiding."
Far behind the three, Bathory continued following them. Assuming that Yautja would make good on stopping the car, he was figuring out what to do then.
"Aphelion," he asked, "what's my current mana at?"
[YOU ARE AT 47 PERCENT OF YOUR CURRENT MAXIMUM AMOUNT - HOWEVER, THAT AMOUNT IS NOW ONLY 85 PERCENT OF YOUR TOTAL POTENTIAL]
"Don't care about that last part right now. So I've got around half left?" he said to himself. Looking away and thinking, he mumbled to himself about how he wished he had another cartridge to use, and that after this he should ask Yautja for more. Turning back to his device, he asked it a question. "Do you think that's enough for a P.M.D.R?"
[I AM STRONGLY AGAINST USING THAT, MY MASTER - WITHOUT ANY SUPPORT, YOU DO NOT HAVE ENOUGH POWER TO USE IT EFFECTIVELY]
"True, true. I was just throwing that out there. Besides, I haven't done one of those since, well, since I was an officer - it would probably come out really unfocused. Guess that settles it - I'll just do an O.B. on the car instead."
[EVEN WITH THAT, YOU WILL HAVE VERY LITTLE ENERGY LEFT TO DEFEND YOURSELF WITH]
"I'm not planning on doing any fighting after this. Even if it means I go all-out, it's the attack I'll use. I need do the best I can to turn this around."
The squad car turned off the highway and was now on a long, straight shot to the station. Bathory looked across the city at where he hoped Yautja was.
"Yautja, the car's coming up to your position."
"I know - I can hear it. Those sirens are LOUD."
"So I'm guessing you're ready, huh? Alright, I'll set my end of this up."
"And I just need to stop it, right? And then what will happen?"
"You'll see if it works," said Bathory. He ended pursuit of the car, breaking off to the left to get in position.
Back in the car, as it sped along, Negati seemed content just sitting down, leaning back against the back door of the car, watching Arci as he retreated into the other corner.
"Hey Satel," she asked, "so can you get the two of us a room?"
"Well, depends on the situation. Does this kid know details about anything that could happen soon? Maybe his friends are doing something big tomorrow. If so, we'd really love to know that now."
"Hmm, good point." Negati kicked Arci and he looked over at her. "You know all about something like that, don't you?"
"N...n...no...I don't..." Arci stammered.
Negati kept lightly kicking him. "Oh, I think you do...I think you do..." She gazed over at her fellow Lieutenant. "Hey, can you also make sure the cameras are turned off? Maybe they have another malfunction."
The adult male looked in the backseat and simply humored her. "Sure, why not. Strange how much that's been happening recently."
"Yeah. Really unfortunate..." she said, trailing off as she looked back at Arci. She leaned in again and peered straight into his eyes. "...for you", she finished. Arci's heart raced and he felt paralyzed.
Satel turned back to see a brown car rolling slowly into the intersection ahead of him. His nerves jolted, and he pressed down on the brakes. "Hold on!" he yelled, even as Arci and Negati continued traveling and slammed into the back of the front seats. The car squealed loudly, almost screaming as it tried to stop in time. As the brown car in front of it slowly rolled to a stop, Satel's car grinded to a halt less than a foot away.
Satel looked back up as he pushed himself off of the steering wheel, and Negati climbed back onto the seats. "The hell was that?" she asked, and Satel slammed on the horn. He watched the other driver pound on his own steering wheel before looking at the other car. Satel shot daggers at the man he almost hit.
In the other car, Yautja had simply put the car in neutral. He pressed down on the gas pedal repeatedly, not going anywhere. He rolled the driver-side window down and shouted "It's jammed!"
It's not like he could be heard over the two voices that were screaming at him. Looking at the two officers staring through the windshield and shouting in a cacophony, Yautja opened his door and banged it against the front of Satel's car. He did that multiple times, showing that he couldn't get out.
Negati sighed. "Satel, can you let me out? I'll go deal with this. And to think I was already pissed enough before..."
"Sure," said the driver, pressing a button and unlocking the back left door. Negati grabbed the handle and looked one more time at the overwhelmed boy sitting next to her.
"You," she said, "Don't do a thing. Don't move, don't speak, just sit there, alright? I'll be right back." She turned the handle and went to open it, but froze at what she saw approaching her.
Bathory sped along the street, coming as fast as he could up to the intersection. "Aphelion, set up," he yelled, and the emission ports began to glow. As all of them readied to shoot, he screamed "Orion Burst!"
Just like when he used that attack on the highway, Aphelion shot several homing shots out that flew out in every direction before homing back in on the car with Satel, Negati and Arci. It's not like the stopped car was escaping, but the shots would still all add to the impact. Still a few blocks away from the car, Bathory launched himself into the air and began to flip forwards. He landed on his feet, sliding down the road, rapidly approaching the group.
Negati watched the small shots begin homing back in on the car. "Satel," she shouted, "back up now! It's an ambush!"
In a small amount of time, several things happened. First, Bathory shouted "Fire!" and a large beam of green energy shot out of Aphelion at the car. Satel threw the car in reverse, and slammed his foot down on the pedal. The car started going backwards, but it didn't start early enough to avoid the blast. The large beam and the other shots hit the side of the car right in the middle, launching it into the air along the street Yautja came from and flipping it over. As the attack ended and the car began to skid on its roof along the road, Bathory came to a halt himself, ending right next to Yautja's car.
Everything was dead quiet as the parties involved recovered. Finally, it was Yautja who picked his jaw up off the floor.
"Hoooooooleeeeeeeeeey shit" he said, getting out of his car.
Bathory stumbled over to the overturned vehicle, the sirens playing an experimental tune as they slowly died. The mage fell forwards, bracing himself against the near side of the car. He felt completely drained and would have welcomed a rest, but he had to make sure his attack worked. "Arci? Arci, you there?" he asked. Thankfully, despite all that happened, the voice he wanted to hear began to speak.
"Yeah, I'm here. Can you help me out?"
Bathory saw the boy's arm reaching out of the broken window, and the winded mage pulled Arci out. He got up, incredibly shaken from all that had happened to him. "What about them?" he asked.
"Who?"
"The other two. The officers." As Arci finished, the sound of a body moving over glass could be heard on the other side of the car. Following that, they both heard Negati quietly speaking.
"Satel...please...can you hear me...hey Satel, please respond."
Yautja, Arci and Bathory went around the car and found the two Lieutenants together, one of them collapsed in the wreckage and the other one lying down outside, holding on to the first person. On her back, Negati slowly looked up at the three people who gathered around her.
"You just won't quit, will you?" she asked. As she began to slip into unconsciousness, she pointed at Arci. Though she sounded hostile, there was a bit of fear behind her words. "When I wake up...you're mine, got that? M...mine..." Her arm dropped and her body was still. Only the slight rise and fall of her chest would tell someone that she was still alive.
"Wh...what about the other one?" Arci asked, and Bathory slowly knelt down. Holding Satel as best he could, he dragged the other Lieutenant out and laid him down next to Negati. He had taken a little bit more of the impact, and though his barrier jacket prevented him from horrible injury, he had gone unconscious from the effects of Bathory's attack and the crash. Both Lieutenants lied there helpless on the ground.
Bathory relaxed, leaned against the car again, and closed his eyes. "Textbook. Absolutely perfect. Thanks, Yautja."
"Yeah," said Arci. He looked at Yautja, obviously fearful. "Thanks so much. I...I'm sorry. I swear I'll never do anything like that again."
Yautja looked at the woman who had been giving him so much trouble. She lied there defenseless, and he saw that he had the perfect opportunity.
"Oh, it's alright, kiddo. This wasn't in vain at all."
He reached for the knife in his pocket and went to deal the killing blow. From the way Yautja had said that, however, Bathory knew what he was about to do.
"No!" he shouted, lunging forward and grabbing onto Yautja's arm. For the second time, he and Yautja were locked in a struggle. "You and that damn knife," Bathory said, putting all his remaining strength into saving Negati.
"She's right there," said Yautja back. Both men were gritting their teeth. "Why can't I?"
"I told you. Killing her will only make everything worse. This city will become completely locked down by the bureau."
"Ten minutes ago you would have let her die. What the hell do you want to do?"
Bathory quickly looked down at the unconscious woman. In the state she was in, and with the directness of Yautja's method of choice, any act seemed so much more wrong than what had been attempted before.
"Just...just NO!" Bathory yelled, winning the struggle and shoving Yautja back. Annoyed, Yautja just put the knife back in his pocket.
"Whatever," he muttered, heading back to his car. "We got the kid back. Job well done."
Bathory walked after him. "Yautja, wait. We can't just leave Arci with the limiter on."
Yautja turned around and stomped back towards the overturned car. "Okay, so what do we do? What do we do with...wait a second..." Intrigued, Yautja approached the kid. "What did you just say his name was? Arci?"
The boy gulped and answered that. "Yes. My real name's Arci. Not lying this time."
"Arci." Yautja rolled the name around in his head a few more times. "Arci, Arci, Arci. I knew it," he said playfully, elbowing the boy in the side. "I knew all along that Murder wasn't your real name."
"Alright, focus" said Bathory. "Once again, the limiter that Arci has on is also a beacon, in case he ever escapes. Like now. We need to get that off of him."
"And once again," said Yautja, "why? He did this to himself; why do I need to tag along?"
"Because I am going to help him," said Bathory, slowly confronting Yautja. "And no matter what you do - even if you head back to your car and drive right back home, I'm staying with him. And once again, he knows everything about you, so you probably don't want him getting a full interrogation."
Yautja looked over at Arci, and his stare of extreme annoyance slowly turned into resignation. "Alright. Alright, I'll save this kid. What first?"
Bathory started coming up with a plan. "We need to activate the AMF device and keep it by us. It won't unlock the limiter, but it will jam the beacon inside it. As for actually removing it from his leg, we can't do it ourselves - it's got several different mechanisms for security. There's a keypad combination on it that we don't know, plus it needs voice and thumbprint recognition from a higher-ranking TSAB officer - probably a Lieutenant or above, I'd say."
The three pairs of eyes all drifted down towards the two unconscious bodies. Finally, Yautja asked "which one do we take?"
"Both" said Bathory.
"Really?" asked Yautja.
"Yes. Trust me on this. I've got a plan. As horrible as it is, and as much as I feel sorry for what we're about to do, I think I know how to get our way."
