Down in sub-level of the headquarters' western wing was the training area, nestled far away from just about everything still in use. Makoto had to scan his ID to get Toko and Komaru through a single metal door with a vertical rectangular window in order to reach even the "gym" portion of the training area — one of two gyms that the base had previously contained, and the only one still intact after the events of the Final Killing Game. In the gym, the floor was more than 3/4 covered with cushioned mats for physical combat training and sparring purposes. This large room had a vaulted ceiling and racks along the walls that contained staffs, kendo swords, pellet-launching handguns that fired small balls of baby powder, and other safety-minded combat equipment for practice use.
Turning left from the middle of the gym allowed the group to reach a larger roll-up door made of reinforced steel. After another scan of Makoto's ID card, the door began to lift and reveal the combat test range. Komaru let out a low whistle when she saw everything: a 35-square-meter room of solid steel walls tightly covered with an interlaced Faraday cage tightly pressed against the walls and ceilings. Only the concrete floor was left totally uncovered by the cage mesh. The floor's only other notable characteristic was how it appeared to be carved into squares, causing it to resemble a life-sized chessboard where every space was the same gray color.
In comparison, the ceiling was 100% covered with the interlaced Faraday wiring, and along the walls the cage mesh only stopped in a few small areas. The most obvious of these were the series of four meter-wide holes on the far opposite wall, each of them about four meters up. There was also a long, short indentation along the left-hand wall that was as high as half a meter and as long as three adults laying end-to-end; Makoto initially suspected it was just a quirk rather than anything practical.
"Well... interesting setup," Toko observed with what might've been sarcasm.
"I uh, I think the holes on the far wall dispense the test-bots," Makoto suggested as he pointed as the openings.
Upon following his hand, Komaru noticed a large flat-screen monitor affixed to the wall right below the central pair of holes. Right in front of that was sleek standing desk with a keyboard and mouse resting on top of it, both of them wireless. "Hey, that must be where we get things started!" Komaru said as she took off for the opposite side of the room.
It took her a few seconds to sprint over to the other side. Makoto and Toko opted to merely jog. Upon reaching the far wall, Komaru stepped right past the desk holding the keyboard and promptly began poking various points on the large screen, earning no response in return.
"Uh, Komaru?" Toko said delicately. "You should probably use the keyboard."
Komaru looked down at the keyboard and frowned. "This is the Future Foundation! You know, with the Future?! I thought it'd be all touchscreen controls or whatever! Ugh." She looked at Toko and asked, "Hey, do you want to drive, Toko? I know you like old-fashioned stuff."
"No way," Toko said as she folded her hands up into her armpits. "I'm allergic, remember?"
Makoto eyed the older of the two curiously. "Um, what is it that you're allergic to?" he asked.
"Oh, Toko's allergic to technology," Komaru explained matter-of-factly. "So I guess I'm up!"
Makoto looked at his sister in disbelief. Does... does she actually believe that? he thought. He looked over at Toko with a furrowed brow, shooting her a glare that demanded explanation; she only shook her head vigorously in response, slamming the door on any hope of clarification. A good-natured but bewildered chuckle escaped from Makoto. "You two are... heh, something else," he said with genuine amazement.
Komaru looked at the monitor as she typed. "It looks like we need some kind of member login," she announced.
"I've got it," Makoto responded. He stepped up to the keyboard as his sister stepped aside and quickly entered a user name and password. Once he struck Enter, the screen changed to show a two fields on the right: a numeric field for "Waves" as well as a a drop-down selection containing 1, 2, 3, and 4 next to "Opponents in Each Wave." On the left side of the screen was the large image a grinning robotic face, which was labeled with the words "Your Opponents" over it. The robot's head had a thin, barred vent where its "mouth" would be, giving it the impression of a toothy grin. The eyes that curved into an upward slant that ended in a point looked vaguely familiar to Makoto...
"Look!" Komaru cried excitedly. "The robots are Jet Jaguar!"
"Uuhhhh, I don't think that's what they were going for," Makoto said back, suppressing a laugh. "I think it's supposed to kind of resemble a Monokuma's expression without triggering any bad flashbacks. So both eyes are shaped sort of like the one red eye, and the mouth vent is similar to Monokuma's grin, except now it's all the way across... "
"Nooo," Komaru insisted with exasperation. "It's totally Jet Jaguar! Just step back and look at, like, the whole face!"
Makoto rolled his eyes at his sister. "The head's not even pointy," he countered.
"What in hell is a jet jaguar?" Toko asked with only mild interest.
Makoto looked at her sheepishly. "Ah, Komaru went through a bit of a kaiju phase back in middle school. He's a robot from an old Godzilla movie."
Komaru began to rock back and forth, hopping lightly as she sang, "Jet Jaguar! Jet Jaguar! That's Jaguar! We are all amazed at the courage you dis-plaaay." She assumed a fighting pose and began to box the air as she continued, "Godzilla and Jaguar, they punch, punch, PUNCH!"
"Please stop," Toko interrupted, deadpan. "I'm sorry I asked."
Komaru slumped with silent disappointment, leaving Makoto to giggle to himself for a moment before turning his attention back to Toko. "Fukawa-san?" he asked. "About how many robots do you think you—I mean, she will need to carve through?"
"P-probably 10 at least," Toko responded uncomfortably. "Maybe a couple more."
"Is twelve fine, then?" Makoto suggested. Toko semi-nodded, so he set the "Waves" field to 3 and the "Opponents in Each Wave" field to 4. He then dragged the mouse cursor slowly around the screen until he found the small "Advance Request" button in the bottom-right corner and clicked it.
The next screen contained three more drop-down fields underneath "Set Opponents' Weapon Strength," "Choose Number of Players," and "Choose Player Weapons."
"Opponents' weapons?!" Makoto read aloud, sounding nervous.
"Oh, I remember this! Nakajima-san said that the robots can fire little zaps of electricity. The higher the level, the more they hurt."
Makoto leaned forward slightly to look at some tiny text he noticed next to the drop-down. "Hmmm... 'Higher Numbers Have Stronger Physical Affects.' Yeah, that confirms it." From there, Makoto clicked that drop-down field to find a selection of numbers from "0" to "9."
"Well, how do we know what any of these are going to feel like?" Toko asked.
"I... I dunno," Komaru admitted.
"I bet '0' means they won't shoot at all," Makoto guessed.
"She won't want it to be too easy," Toko advised him. "But we don't want to risk having one of the higher settings be similar to a stun gun, either. Then we'd just flip back and forth every time I get hit." Toko sighed and looked away, clearly irritated by the entire conversation. "Just set it to '1,'" she said in exasperation.
He did so. "About what you said... are we going to use your stun gun trick to bring her out?" Makoto asked.
"That's not a good idea," Toko replied. "The effect of the stun gun is temporary, after all. The stronger the charge, the longer she sticks around, but there's still a time limit on it - as soon as the 'stun' wears off, I'll just flip back to whichever personality I was before."
Toko walked over to Komaru and held out her hand, which contained what appeared to be a folded thumb-sized piece of paper. "If we want to ask questions and actually have time to get the answers, we'll need to do something that lasts longer."
Komaru took the small paper and discovered that it was actually a stack of three separate packets. Reading the text printed on the tiny papers, Komaru verbalized what they were as she realized it: "Pepper? These are packets of pepper?"
"Yes," Toko confirmed. "Tear one open and hold it up to my nose, or sprinkle it out into your hand and throw it at my face — just do whatever you need to do to get me to sneeze."
"And do it again when it's time to switch back?" Makoto inquired.
Toko only nodded, her eyes drifting to the floor.
Having now returned her attention to the monitor, Komaru was moving the mouse as she selected 1 under "Choose Number of Players." She paused when she reached the "Choose Player Weapons" drop-down. "Hey," she began, "Do you guys think this is asking what we brought into the test floor, or is it asking us what we them to give us?"
"It's the second one," Makoto clarified.
"I don't need anything," Toko told her friend.
"Yeah, but still... " Komaru said with hesitation. After a pause, she selected Hacking Guns from the drop-down menu. Two more fields appeared beneath it: "Number of weapons" and "Refined type." On the former, Komaru chose 1, and under the latter field, she selected Handheld/Pistol. She clicked "Advance Request" once more.
"Why'd you ask for that?" Toko demanded with irritation.
"In case you need backup, silly!" Komaru answered happily.
A clattering cra-bret-chshhhhh sound announced the arrival of a hacking gun directly to the group's left. Evidently, it had shot out of the leftmost opening in the wall and then landed on the floor.
"That's cool as heck!" Komaru said with enthusiasm. She quickly jogged over and snatched the gun up from the ground, smiling proudly at it.
Makoto looked back at the screen to see an overhead view of the concrete floor around them. "Hey, it looks like we can change the layout," he noted. When he the mouse cursor over any of the squares that made up the checkerboard-style concrete floor, the image showed that part of the floor lit up. Clicking such a square made that square rise from the ground like a small pillar or column. After clicking one twice, Makoto saw that they could also extend to a second level of height, but a third click simply lowered them back down.
"You two might want walls," Toko offered. "For cover."
"Good idea!" Komaru said.
Accordingly, Makoto moved the cursor around the screen and clicked two adjacent columns in each of the four corners, setting up four small walls of two-square widths. Once finished, he clicked "Advance Request."
They all felt the room shaking and rumbling as the screen flashed the words "TERRAIN SHIFTING." Slowly, the pillars of concrete rose from the ground in each corner of the room, just as Makoto had designated. The adjustment came accompanied with the obnoxious scrrrrrrrunn sound of concrete scraping against concrete.
After the shaking and the snoise stopped, the three looked at each other for a second. All of them then checked the monitor to see the words "SESSION BEGINS IN 28 SECONDS" - which quickly became 27, 26, 25...
"Get behind the back walls!" Makoto ordered the group. Nobody disgreed, with both his sister and her best friend heading back towards the side of the room they entered from, then racing behind the newly "grown" concrete walls there.
Once they'd taken cover, Makoto leaned around the right side of the southwestern wall to see the screen on the other side of the room still counting down. 14, 13, 12...
"It's time!" he told his sister. "Use the pepper!"
"10 SECONDS TO SESSION START" announced a computerized voice. "10, 9... "
Komaru quickly ripped open one of the packets and held it over towards Toko. "Um, take a whiff I guess!" she said.
"See you soon," Toko said with a weak smile. She inhaled sharply... and slammed her eyes shut as she sneezed loudly.
When she opened her against a second later, they were dark red.
"SESSION START" the voice announced."
"Eh?" was the only reaction from Toko's body. She reached into her skirt, seemingly pulling two pairs of her custom "genoscissors" out of nowhere, and then she jumped around the wall and charged forward.
Komaru peeked around the left-side edge of their pillar-wall to see four robots had dropped from the openings on the opposite side of the room. Their heads were like the "Jet Jaguar"-style skulls she'd seen on the monitor, but their bodies were thinner and more humanoid. They also seemed to be made up of random scrap metal that reminded Komaru of the "Junk Monokumas" she'd battled in Towa City. However, here the scrap was all either gleaming silver or tarnished gray.
Genocide Jack was still running at the group of robots when the second from the left raised the vice-grip that amounted to its right hand. As it lifted, said "hand" began to glow with blue light.
"Is that their weapon?" Makoto wondered aloud. Komaru looked to her right to see that he was watching the battle from the opposite edge of the wall.
Komaru didn't know the answer at first. Instead, she stayed focused on Jack. She watched the killer perform a front-flip just a short distance from the two rightmost robots, then stab downward with both scissors as she landed. Both robots broke into two vertical halves, falling apart.
The next one over to her left seemed to be charging its hand up for something. The light glowed brighter. A high-pitched hhhrrrrmmm reached the ears of both Naegis. Genocide Jack stood and turned to face the cause of the sound, but she was moving slowly...
"TOKO!" Komaru yelled.
The warning was unnecessary. Jack burst forward, shoving the genoscissors through the robot's "chest." At the same time, the thing fired a high-speed ball of light out of its right hand with a reverberating vrum. It widely missed its mark thanks to Genocide Jack's extremely close proximity, instead hitting the wall on the right side of the room with a fizzle.
While Genocide finished ripping the head from the next-to-last robot, Makoto found himself looking at the point where the energy had hit the wall. Despite being dissipated by the Faraday cage across the wall, it still left large black scorch mark on the metal behind the cage. "That's the lowest power setting?!" Makoto exclaimed in disbelief.
Komaru followed Makoto's line of sight to see the scorch on the wall. Immediately, she felt a knot in her stomach. "Maybe we understood the scale wrong?" she suggested. Makoto frowned, saying nothing.
Jack didn't have to go to the fourth robot. Instead, it ran to her. She jumped to her left and then, after it ran by, she threw a pair of scissors through the back of its head. It fell forward and crumbled to pieces.
As it fell apart, she stood still and panted with either exertion or excitement. The pair of genoscissors still in her right opened and closed, snip-snipping at nothing. Then, the woman slowly turned around, revealing her unfurled tongue and bloodshot eyes to her spectators.
"Fuka... uh, Genocide Jack?" Makoto called out carefully.
The next thing he knew, she was sprinting right at him. "In the fleeeeeessssh!" she wailed.
Makoto turned and ducked behind the pillar-wall again. "Wait!" he called out to her. "Just slow down and let me tell you why we needed-"
Grabbing the corner of the rightmost pillar, Jack swung herself around the side and threw herself directly at Makoto, shoving him against the wall.
Komaru gasped. "Toko, NO! Let him go!" she cried.
Genocide Jack held Makoto by the neck with her left hand, then shoved her scissors into the wall so hard that they actually embedded a few millimeters in. Yet even with Genocide's hand around his throat, Makoto still managed to breathe with a little bit of effort. He glanced at the scissors sticking out from the concrete to his left, then back to Fukawa's other persona. Faintly, Makoto thought he could hear some kind of beeping from the other side of the wall.
"Real good to see ya, Mack Daddy," she hissed. "You're lookin' cuter than ever in that business getup."
"He-hello, Jack," Makoto said faux-casually. He felt sweat beading upon his forehead as she leaned in close to him. Yet even in this life-threatening scenario, he was distracted by the sounds coming from the other side of their two-pillar barrier. In addition to a regular beep, he could hear a soft whirrrrr.
Jack licked her lips with her overly long tongue before continuing, "If we're bein' real with each other, I'm starting to get into that other name the press put on me. Syooooo. Syo! It's got authenticity, if you get me."
"I... ah, I don't really care what you call yourself," Makoto responded, trying his best to sound confident and unphased. He swallowed again before continuing, "I just want to ask you a couple of questions."
"We weren't trying to trick you or anything!" Komaru insisted. "We just wanted to give you a chance to get some stress out, and then... talk."
Jack/Syo raised an eyebrow at Komaru with either suspicion or curiosity. A ragged exhale came from her mouth.
Komaru turned her head to the left and stepped backwards, suddenly distracted by the same noises Makoto had been hearing. "S-sorry for interrupting," she said, "But I just need to-"
She cut herself off when she saw a pair of knee-high, torso-width yellow robots with large plows in front of them driving around at the other end of the range, gathering the remains of the first four robots and pushing them towards the left wall. Small red warning lights blinked on top of each one, and they ran around on four wheels apiece, working to shove the refuse into a half-meter-high opening on the left part of the room. It seemed the indentation that had previously been there had now opened up, presumably to let these maintenance robots do their jobs.
"What is it, Komaru?" Makoto choked out.
"There's a couple of little... like, bulldozers or something," she attempted to explain. "Makoto, they're pushing the broken robot parts over to a gap in the left wall. I think they're cleaning up?"
"Amazing!" Genocide Jack chuckled. "I mean, it must be fuckin' amazing, considering you're more interested in your construction toys than me!" She squeezed Makoto's neck harder. Makoto began sputtering and starting to turn red. Komaru found her attention ripped back to her companions and she stared anxiously, trying to get her bearings and figure out what to say...
"Please!" Komaru began anxiously. She struggled for a moment as she tried to get her bearings before continuing, "C-can't we just call you Toko?" With that, she smiled at the serial killer as warmly as she could muster.
Jack's face relaxed, as did her hand. Makoto gasped as the color returned to his own visage, then he coughed a few times. Good work, Komaru, he thought privately. Makoto knew that, since both of Toko's personalities shared feelings, Komaru's kindness towards Genocide Jack was making her feel whatever the "Normal Toko" typically felt towards her best friend.
Komaru continued, "The whole Jack or Syo thing is... it's pretty ridiculous. I mean, whoever you are is still a part of her, right? That is... you're a part of what makes Toko be Toko!"
Fukawa's body turned both its eyes onto Komaru. "You can get away with callin' me that, Komaru," she said before returning her attention to Makoto. "Mack Tonight, on the other hand, needs to be a little more formal." She cocked an eyebrow suggestively. "Don't want anybody gettin' the wrong idea about our re-lay-shon-sheep, right babe?!"
"Uhhh... sure," Makoto said uncertainly. He felt a little clammy, but attempted to push the conversation forward anyway. "Look, what can you tell me about Celestia Ludenberg?"
Jack yanked her scissors out of the wall with a rough jerk. Next, she released her grip on Makoto and stepped back a bit, causing Komaru to heave a huge sigh of relief. "Gee, lemme seeeeeee..." Genocide pondered calmly as she scratched her scalp with the tip of her scissors. "Goth chick, fake hair, lied a lot? And still dead!" she said gleefully. She unleashed a delighted cackle at the end of her brief spiel.
"Ehhh, haha, that's... all true," Makoto said back awkwardly. With his right hand, he rubbed the spot where she had been grabbing his neck mere moments earlier. "But I was really asking more about your connection to Ludenberg-san. Was there any kind of relationship between she and you — that is to say, Ludenberg-san and Fukawa-san?"
Genocide Jack's eyes narrowed into a thin red line. She spun the scissors in her hand around on one finger as she said, "Well, we were both chicks in the same class. Ya might say we had some things in common, then." Her eyes went wide and wild once more. "Also, she liked pretend dead guys, and I like real dead guys! Heehee!"
Komaru stepped closer to the other two. "There wasn't a more personal connection between you two, then?" she pressed.
Jack turned and looked at the teenager with half-lidded eyes. She slurped her tongue back into her mouth. "And just who in the shit told you that?" she demanded.
With the killer's attention off of him at last, Makoto stood up straight again and stepped away from the wall. "I'm going to take that as a yes," he said with a half-smile.
"Watch your mouth, pretty boy!" Jack snapped. "You don't know Syo about this or me! Even if Sad-Eyes Sally was sweet on the gambler, that doesn't mean I gave one solitary poop-nugget about her ass."
The loudspeaker in the walls announced: "10 SECONDS TO NEXT WAVE. 10, 9, 8... "
"It sounds like Wave 2 is almost here," Makoto said calmly. He eyed Jack with a curious look and asked, "Think you can handle more of those robots?"
"I don't even need to 'think' to handle those chumps," she scoffed. Quickly crouching and facing her left, the jumped up and charged at the left-hand wall beside the concrete pillars before rebounding off of it and around the corner.
"NEXT WAVE START," the system declared.
As Makoto and Komaru peered around the same ends of their pillar-wall as they did previously, they saw that the next set of four robots had already fallen from the openings in the opposite wall. As they stood upright, Makoto noticed that two of Jack's targets — the ones on the outside edges of the line — were having trouble raising their heads to face their attacker. The heads bobbed awkwardly as they stood up, looking rather like they were balancing atop the end of a Slinky. It took a couple of seconds before Makoto saw them tilt just right to reveal that what he initially thought was just a shadow on half of their faces was, in fact, black paint covering one side. Moreover, there was a splotch of red paint sprayed over the eye on that same half.
Half-silver, half-black faces. One red eye apiece. Those pre-existing grins. Makoto felt something in his stomach sink. Can't be good, not good, this isn't okay, he thought rapidly, his mind streaming warnings to him unbidden.
By now, Genocide Jack had already made it to the center two robots and was slicing them up, but Komaru was focused on the unusual skulls atop the outliers. "Guess you were right about them going for a Monokuma look," she said glumly to her brother. "So much for Jet Jaguar."
Genocide Jack finished annihilating the two central test-bots in time to see the two bobble-head pseudo-kuma robots closing in both from sides. She quickly backflipped away, causing Komaru to shake her head in disbelief. It always felt bizarre to see her bookish friend become so inexplicably nimble and athletic in her other personality.
"Jack!" Makoto screamed. "Stay back — Those two are different!"
Genocide Jack went into a defensive pose with a pair of scissors in each of her hands. "Pipe down, Nae-naggy!" she shouted back. "Already on top of it!" She threw both scissors, aiming each at one of her opponents' heads. As she spun backwards and away, the scissors made contact right between their respective sets of eyes, and-
A deafening BWA-OOOOOM shook the room as both test-bots exploded into balls of flame, knocking Genocide Jack off of her feet and a couple of meters through the air as she was hit by the shockwave.
Both Komaru and Makoto were knocked to their knees. They instinctively covered their ears and shut their eyes.
Byakuya Togami jumped up from Kirigiri's desk when he felt the explosion. Despite the rumbling that rattled the foundation in the aftermath, he swiftly and smoothly moved to the door of her office and flung it open.
"What in the blazes was that?!" he demanded of the employees, most of whom were bracing themselves at their own desks.
The muffled answer came from beneath a nearby desk: "It sounded like an explosion, sir."
Byakuya ground his teeth. "Get out from under that desk and find the source!" he ordered.
"Togami!" a female voice called. Byakuya turned to his left to see Asahina in the doorway to the former barracks.
She pointed down the hall to her right. "Seemed to come from the northwest corner," she informed him.
In a split-second, he understood. "There's nothing down there except training!" Byakuya moved quickly to the door. "Step aside and follow me," he ordered Asahina.
She did so, moving briskly to fall in line behind him as he stepped out of the barracks ran in the direction she'd pointed. "What do you think's going on?" she asked.
Before he could respond, his phone rang. Still running, Byakuya reached into his jacket pocket and checked the caller. Kirigiri, it said. Naturally he tapped the screen to accept it, then put the phone to his right ear.
"This is Togami," he said.
Hina could only hear silence for a few seconds. "Yes, I'm headed towards the training area. That seems to be the most likely source."
The pair rounded a corner. Hina almost skidded into a wall, but she easily recovered.
Still on his phone, Byakuya stated flatly, "You should know that Fukawa and both of the Naegis are in there."
Hina's jaw fell, and her pace slowed significantly. "What?!" she demanded.
Pulling the phone away from his head, Byakuya looked at her with a withering glare. He said, "I wasn't talking to you."
"B-but-" Hina muttered. Concern was etched into her face.
"I'll see you there," Byakuya said into his phone. Returning his attention to Hina, he told her, "Kirigiri is sending security forces ahead of us."
Hina transitioned then and there from concern to determination. "And Kirigiri-chan?" she asked expectantly.
Byakuya smirked, clearly understanding her implication. "Yes, she's on her way as well."
Hina managed to crack a tiny smile. "Figured," she said coolly.
Komaru opened her eyes and stumbled to her feet. She saw the overhead sprinklers were raining down on the spot where the explosion occurred, and also noticed Fukawa groggily laying back on her elbows.
"TOKO!" Komaru exclaimed. She ran over to her friend, helping her up.
"Now they ain't even playin' fair," Genocide Jack commented as she stumbled upright.
"You're still Genoci-" Komaru started.
"Didn't get knocked out," Jack interrupted, blowing her off.
Makoto stepped out from behind the pillars and looked over towards the blackened parts of the floor where the last two robots had been. Even though the debris they left behind was blown down to smithereens, the left wall's indented section still flipped open to allow the two bulldozing maintenance robots to enter and begin their work of dutifully cleaning up the specks of remains.
"This isn't right," Makoto said.
"Oh? Ya think?!" Jack snapped.
"Nakajima-san said they should all be the same," Komaru interjected. "She didn't mention any bomb-headed ones."
Makoto nodded. "I think everyone in the building would've heard these explosions before now if those were something normal."
"Then... what the heck is happening?!" Komaru demanded.
Makoto shook his head. "Nothing good, that's for sure. But right now, we should just focus on staying alive and doing what we came here for."
"This is the Future Foundation's headquarters!" Komaru shouted. "This place is supposed to be safe!"
"The old branch heads thought so, too," Makoto said sadly. Then, he shook his head. "We can worry about why this is happening later." As he headed for the main door to the test range, he called back, "Genocide Jack? Something you said before this doesn't make sense. You said you didn't feel anything for Ludenberg-san, even if Fukawa-san did?"
Komaru nodded vigorously in agreement with her brother. "Right! I call shenanigans on that," Komaru said. "The two of you share your emotions, so you had to feel something for her if the other Toko did!"
Jack worked her genoscissors nervously, punctuating her response to Komaru with a rapid snip-snip. "I've told both of you before: I'm not into chicks."
Makoto was at the main entrance door now. He scanned his ID at the wall's security station, but it sounded a bzzzt that clearly indicated rejection. "No way out," he muttered to himself.
"Maybe we just can't leave before the session is over?" Komaru suggested hopefully.
Makoto looked over at her and smiled. "You're probably right," he told his sister, doing his best to remain optimistic. Turning towards Genocide Jack, he pointed his finger accusingly and added, "But you've got that wrong! Whether you're suppressing your feelings unconsciously or just lying about them, Komaru's correct either way: There's no way one half of you was involved with Ludenberg-san without the other half caring about it."
"HA!" Genocide Jack blurted. "You still don't have any proof that there was ever anything between my mopey half and Wednesday Addams in the first place!"
"This isn't a trial," Makoto said calmly. "We're just asking a few questions. For now, just... can you both get along this back wall? And Komaru: Ready your hacking gun, please."
Komaru was the first to move as she was told. Jack groaned, but followed along behind her. "Giving up the cover?" Jack asked sarcastically. "Pretty damn dumb."
Makoto's eyes glinted with conviction as he said, "I want us to have distance on our side. As soon as the next four enter the room, you two can start throwing your scissors or shooting your gun to blow them up."
"Keeping us as far from the explosions as possible!" Komaru chimed in, smiling with approval.
Makoto then reached into his pants pocket. "Also, if it's really evidence that you want... "
He pulled his cell phone out and moved his fingers across the screen, quickly pulling up a photo. He turned the phone around and showed it to Genocide Jack, putting her face-to-face with the picture of Toko and Celestia snuggling cheek-to-cheek atop a snowdrift — or at least, Makoto's second-generation photo of the actual picture.
Genocide Jack cocked her head sidewalks and unfurled her tongue to let it flap free of her mouth once more. "Well ho-leeeee crap," she said with what sounded like some kind of admiration. "I guess Mama Naegi didn't raise no fools, eh?! You came armed for discourse. Good on ya!"
"Does that mean you admit to your feelings for Ludenberg-san?" Makoto asked carefully.
"I don't admit anything of the kind," Jack said with her arms defiantly held at her sides. "But I'll give ya this: My other, lamer self was in a relationship with her."
Komaru scratched her head and looked confused. "You had a relationship, but no feelings?"
Jack lifted her scissors and pointed them at Komaru for emphasis, albeit not threateningly. "She had feelings. I had disgust. I'm still not into chicks, but the Frowny Fukawa sure was."
"So you're just gonna stick with suppressing your nature?" Makoto inquired as a half-smile emerged on his face.
Genocide Jack turned and growled at him threateningly, then stepped towards him once. Makoto backed up a step, his face falling instantly. Then Jack took another forward, and he took two more back.
"S-sorry?" he offered.
"Listen, hope-bag," Jack said angrily. "My counterpart is a classic case of closeted cooch-lover! I mean, not only is her romantic obsession a sterling stallion that's entirely unattainable to her, and not only does she carry around some major daddy issues, but she also has so many repressed feelings and emotions that she made me - her polar opposite of awesomeness - just to cope with 'em! And as her opposite, what do I do? Chase down hot guys an' gut 'em! It only makes sense that my other side would want to chase down girls."
Komaru had a frown on her face as she tried to take this in. "W-wait," she asked nervously, "You think Togami-kun is unattainable?!"
Makoto noticed that the maintenance robots had to do a lot more passes to clean up all of the tiny pieces of debris from the most recent "wave," which was giving the three of them a little extra time to talk. Even so, they were getting close to wrapping their work up.
"Only for Clinical Depression's poster girl," Jack clarified. "To think that that lesbo thought she ever had a chance with Master Sweet Cheeks! Man, that was really grindin' my gears. Everybody can see that out of the two of us, I'm the only one that can get the master's motor runnin'!"
"I don't buy it!" Makoto announced. "Science has long proven that sexual preference is based on genetics, not life experience and learned behavior. So if the Toko we all care about is bisexual or whatever, the same would have to go for both her personalities!"
"Well, 'I don't really care what you believe,'" Jack retorted, echoing Makoto's own statement from earlier. She then giggled hysterically at her own retort.
"10 SECONDS TO NEXT WAVE," the system announced again. "10... "
"How many shots do you have?" Makoto asked Komaru quickly.
"They only gave me 12," Komaru said while looking at the readout on her hacking gun. "Stingy."
"Maybe you guys can make the robots fall into each other?" Makoto offered. "You know, cause a chain reaction?
"Leave it to the pros," Jack said with disdain.
"NEXT WAVE START," the voice in the walls finished.
When the next four of them fell from the chutes on the far side of the room, Komaru immediately started firing. She unleashed two truth bullets before Makoto reached over and shoved her hacking gun downwards.
"What?!" she asked, annoyed.
"Don't waste your shots!" Makoto advised her. "Wait until they're standing, at least!"
"It's the last wave anyway!" Komaru countered. "Why would I save my bullets?"
"Better safe than sorry," he warned. Makoto gritted his teeth nervously, eyeing the four robots as they stood up. This time, all four of them had those suspiciously heavy skulls that were painted to resemble Monokumas.
Makoto pulled his hand away from the hacking gun. With an irritated grunt, Komaru lifted it, aimed carefully, and fired. The first shot sailed harmlessly between the two robots on the left. Her second brushed the left arm of one robot, which knocked off some of the scrap metal it was made from but accomplished little else.
The entire line began to advance, with two of them — the one on the far right and the second from the left — each raising a hand to charge up their shots. Genocide Jack stepped forward and tried to fling, two, then four pairs of her scissors at the robots, aiming for their heads... but the swaying, bobbing motion caused by the excess weight in those heads caused all the scissors to miss their targets.
"Grrrrrah!" she roared. "I hate long-distance relationships, heh-heh." After a quick glance round, Genocide Jack ran for the two-pillar wall on the back-right side of the room.
"Where you are you going?!" Makoto yelled.
"The high ground, Fun Size!" she shouted in response. Jack leapt for the concrete pillars with a pair of scissors in each hand, embedding them into the sides. From there, she began scaling the pillars using the genoscissors like mountain picks.
As Komaru shot off three more truth bullets, she managed to hit the second robot from the left square in its head, knocking him off-balance right when it was about to shoot. The robot toppled backwards as the electricity discharged from its hand. The shot went high, crashing into the cage wiring that covered the ceiling. As the 'bot hit the ground, it exploded with another deafening BWA-OOOM, and the far-left robot was caught in the fireball, setting off yet another explosion.
Komaru shut her eyes and covered her ears once more. Makoto's hands also went to his ears, but he kept an eye open to watch the the remaining two robots. Through the haze of the explosion, he saw that the far-right bot was now aiming his glowing hand directly at Komaru.
In a second, it fired.
"Komaru!" he cried. "Watch out!"
He was about to dive towards her when she opened her eyes and quickly dove towards him instead, shoving them both onto the ground.
The near-miss of the electrical shot caused her hair stand on end, but otherwise it did no harm as it smacked the rear wall.
"Hey, numbnuts!"
The voice was Genocide Jack, who now stood atop the two-pillar wall on the back-right side of the room. As the pseudo-kuma bots looked up to regard her, she rained down a short shower of scissors on them, throwing six pairs total.
BWA-BWA-OOOM; the two exploded into rapid succession, the shockwave knocking Genocide Jack back off of her perch. As she fell, she flipped backwards and smoothly landed on her feet.
Komaru was still on top of Makoto when the reverb from the explosions faded from her ears, and the flames began to be doused by the overhead sprinkler system. She groaned. "Uuuugh. My ears are ringing," she griped.
"And you're heavier than you look," Makoto teased her.
She frowned ad she pushed herself to her feet. "That's all muscle, by the way," she assured him with a wink. Makoto merely chuckled slightly as he stood up.
Komaru turned her attention back to Genocide Jack, who looked annoyed as she brushed herself off from the latest round of combat. "Can I ask you something else?" Komaru ventured. "I'm still kind of confused."
Genocide Jack shrugged. "It's your dime, honey."
Komaru nodded, taking this as approval. "It's just... how can you know for sure that Toko — regular Toko, I mean — was dating this Ludenberg-san if you never felt any emotions about it?"
Makoto beamed at his sister with pride. "I'm glad we're on the same page," he said approvingly. "I thought the same thing."
Genocide Jack's mouth turned downwards. Her tongue went limp. She exhaled slowly, letting out a soft groan that made her sound like a deflating balloon. "I don't like people who don't know when to quit," she grumbled.
"Just admit it!" Komaru said encouragingly. "If you can admit that you felt the same love for Ludenberg-san, you'll feel better!"
"Love isn't the word I'd use," Jack fired back. "But fine, then. I got some uncomfortable feelings when I saw her picture in my room — our room. Eventually, I even went and confronted the silly emo about what she was doing to me and Toko."
Makoto's face lit up in anticipation. "A-and?" he said expectantly.
"And she gave me some spiel about Toko and her being kindred souls or some damn thing," Genocide said dismissively. Then, Jack put on a melodramatic, fakey East-European accent as she imitated, "'Ve both understand da value of secrets, da power of lies, and ve both know such dahrkness. Toko-chan brings out my truuuuuuth'." Genocide Jack cackled maniacally after that, letting out a derisive snort. "Made me sick, if we're gettin' real here. I was ready to stab the crap out of her pasty butt right there for dragging my body into gaytown, which means I was gonna break some totally new ground!"
Komaru and Makoto gave each other a look of shared disgust and discomfort, but both of them remained silent.
Jack continued on, "But then Gothic Gertie cut me a deal: She'd help me cover up my escapes off of Hope's Peak's campus to go boy-stabbin' if I'd never talk to her or anyone else about it ever again — just leave the whole issue in the hands of Dour Debbie whenever I'm sleepin', and leave it totally unspoken when I'm awake. So hey, I took the deal figurin' that even if she's telling the truth, I get easy access to loads of prey, and she's lying, that just means I kill my first chick and it's all the same, right?! But lo and behold: the professional liar made good on her word! She showed me a nice bypass for the security gates that led outside the campus gates at night. I never had to lose out on poking holes into hotties again! At least not for the first year, of course."
Makoto's face went from being semi-interested to outright shocked. "But what about the year when we were all trapped inside of Hope's Peak?" he asked in confusion. "And don't you dare tell me you knew a way out of there the whole time!"
Genocide shook her head (and tongue) dismissively. "Nah," she said. "I had to settle for those damn dummies in the school dojo and to start off, those really weren't workin' too well for me. Lucky for me that the kid who wound up bein' a cross-dresser whipped up a little robotics program for us. Someone else had to actually build the arms and legs to make 'em wriggle and writhe the way I like, but it was good enough for me. Don't remember who did that last part. Also don't care!"
Makoto sighed heavily, both in relief from Jack's explanation and in an attempt to focus himself. "Then... " he began, drifting into silent thought. A moment later, he simply said, "of course."
Komaru put a finger to her lips in confusion. "What? What's the 'of course'?"
Her brother didn't get a chance to respond. The announcement started up again: "10 SECONDS TO NEXT WAVE"
"Waitwaitwait, no NO!" Komaru said, pleading to no one in particular.
Makoto's eyes widened as the countdown began. "They're n-not stopping," he stammered anxiously.
"Fine by me," Jack interjected, throwing her hands into a casual shrug.
"Even you can't do this forever," Komaru pointed out.
She scowled and looked down. "I am gettin' low on tools," she admitted.
The countdown hit zero. "NEXT WAVE START." More of the robots fell from the openings in the far northern wall. Makoto swallowed hard.
As the latest group rose to engage them, Komaru ran forward screaming and firing wildly. One, two, three missed shots...
"Komaru!" Makoto yelled. "Keep your distance!"
"Screw that, Sproutly Eggman!" Genocide Jack declared. She ran for the group of robots on the right side of the room, imitating Komaru.
On Komaru's fifth shot, she hit the left-center robot in his chin, knocking him onto what passed for his rear end. He exploded into a fireball that threw Komaru to the ground and also engulfed the robot's companions on either side. The triple explosion sounded off with the rhythm BWA-LO-BWA-BWA-LOOOM.
Jack was also thrown down, but the rightmost robot was not. His raised right arm was just about to ready to fire when Makoto noticed and screamed "FUKAWA!"
Once she got to her feet, she started to dodge by diving to her right — but she was too late. Her left arm and both legs were engulfed in the shot, causing her to crash limply to the ground. Her legs still spasmed involuntarily well after she collapsed onto the floor.
"TOKO, NO!" Komaru screamed as she stumbled her way over to her best friend.
Makoto ran forward to join them.
"What on Earth do you mean that it doesn't work?!" Byakuya bellowed.
In front of him, the muscular, large-built head of security rubbed the stubble of his chin thoughtfully. "I mean just that," he insisted. Shifting his weight atop the pads that lined the gym, he jerked a thumb back at the large metal roll-up door that barred their entry into the testing range. "The security override codes don't work. The damn door isn't openin'."
A growing crowd of Future Foundation associates was appearing behind Byakuya, who was paying no attention to it. Hina, who was standing beside him, was frowning deeply. "What about a battering ram?" she asked the security head. "Do you have one of those?"
"Yes, but it doesn't matter," the security chief replied. "It's a steel ram, and that door is reinforced steel."
"Leave it to me," a voice called above the crowd.
Togami and Asahina spun to face the familiar voice as the crowd parted to allow Kyoko Kirigiri through.
"Kirigiri," Togami began, "We'll likely need an acetylene torch to-"
"There's no time for that!" Kyoko snapped. She growled, "The explosions keep coming. Our friends are in there." Turning her attention to the security chief, she ordered him, "Tell your men to step aside. I'll handle this."
The chief looked the interim leader of the foundation with both annoyance and confusion. "You can't do anything we aren't already doing," he said firmly. "Not to mention that you aren't capable of using our equipment."
With a furrowed brow, Kyoko just hissed, "Step aside, and I'll show you exactly what I'm capable of."
Despite the fact that I knew exactly how this one went, it took me longer than usual to write it out. I apologize for the delay. Here's hoping the turnaround is faster for the next chapter.
I've updated all of the Chapter Titles to reflect a new naming structure that is, I think, more informative about the content than the old structure. Please pretend that these titles were always in place, kthx.
Next Time: A different kind of fight.