Chapter II
[ASG2: Ghauri's Stage]
A few days after the battle at Firmament, Copen and Nori were speeding through the city on Copen's bike. While Copen was entirely capable of driving to the destination by himself he thought in this case it would be good to have Nori handle escape.
He had heard news about how some Adepts had gone into a frenzy after the battle at Firmament and the supposed death of Nova. He had a network for this sort of thing that beat just watching the news and looking for dangerous adepts (Mytyl might as well be doing that anyway when he and Nori weren't home).
His network had told him about a fire that had apparently been started by an adept creating sparks in a room filled with gas. That likely meant an electric adept, maybe even Gunvolt himself? Or maybe the adept that had destroyed his Aix Gear? The rumours said the demon was dead but Copen wouldn't believe that until he saw the body.
Copen was using his back-up equipment today the "White Tiger" jacket was much lighter than the Megante Leon jacket he wore before. In a pocket it held Lola who was in the process of charging (Lola and Mytyl were playing longer than they should have last night) and in the holster on his hip was "Border Mk II" a new pistol that fired homing shots.
They soon reached the destination. while Nori drove right past so as to dodge the emergency crews that had parked there, Copen jumped from the bike and used the White Tiger's thrusters to fly him into the building.
"White tiger, Heat guard mode." He spoke quietly but clearly and the White tiger folded out a helmet for him and sent it's cooling system into it's highest safe setting. It would limit his vision and he only had about fifteen minutes before the coolent runs out but it was better than burning.
Continuing to use voice command he spoke again "White tiger, Target radar" A mode that could only be used with the helmet deployed, it would scan the surrounding areas for Septima. It wasn't perfect by any means, it could be fooled by an adept that knew what they were doing but as the fire would play havoc with the Thermal visor he had to go with what he had.
He started running and dashed into a door to remove it from it's hinges. It led to a stairway which Copen jumped down to a sublevel. His target radar told him there were three signitures, two were of a Septimal level and one was of a Quinary level, a little lower. Either way they were all targets. Regardless of which one started the fire.
Through another door were charred bodies, Copen looked away and continued following the target radar and continued heading deeper into the building that was surprisingly big. After about two minutes he reached the level of the lifewave signals and smashed through the door.
Within the room was an inferno, He could see five people within the room and now he was here he saw the dome that was around two of them. The three outside the dome all wore fire protection gear. One of them, who the target radar said was of the septimal level, wore an orange suit with spikes coming out, possibly a form of glave. The two by his sides were instead wearing a blue suit and they carried energy rifles which were being fired into the dome, however as Copen entered they stopped firing to look around at him.
The two within the dome couldn't be seen clearly as the dome was distorting light. His target radar said the other two adepts were in there so he got a decent picture of what was going on. One of the adepts had attacked the one in orange or the other way around, one of them used some sort of fire based power and lit the room (Which he now saw was a generator room) on fire. The fire had spread through the building causing the current scenario.
The building would only have shown the fire a few minutes ago but it had likely been burning for longer, how was the adept under the fairly small dome still awake, his air likely should have already run out, especially with two of them breathing? Questions for later.
The two blue suited opened fire on him, He used White tiger to shoot into the air before dashing into them and firing Border Mk II to kill them both.
The one in orange seemed to say something but his voice was too muffled by his suit for Copen to make out. Didn't matter anyway.
[ASG2: Boss Battle]
The man's hand reached out but Copen shot away with the thrusters. There was a sudden explosion where the man's hand made contact with only air. At least Copen now knew who had started the fire.
As the man reached out again, Copen sidestepped and dashed into him before firing a few shots, this man's suit was a lot harder however so most of the bullets failed to do much of anything.
The man then started using both hands at once to try and cut off his movement but the white tiger gave Copen effectively unlimited movement so he was able to avoid the explosions and place some shots of his own. If this room had been much smaller the guy might have been able to land a hit but in this room it was unlikely.
Eventually the man's suit had a few holes through which skin, pierced by Copen's bullets, could be seen. The air in the room was heating the bullets and likely giving the man impossible amounts of pain. The man was truely enraged now. Copen's septimal scanner told him something big was coming, it could detect and decode the activation phrases for skills.
"Explode, break, destroy; for that is who I am now; I now forbid all else"
The man was about to use a skill, Copen got ready to dodge by gaining range as the man through his arms wide and cried out "Det End!"
The septimal scanner lit up, the man had balls of septimal energy across the entire room that were about to explode, Copen would have to get away from all of them or disperse them.
He spoke quickly into voice commands "White tiger, snatcher rounds." He heard a noise from the Border Mk II so he knew the command had been used. Now as the man lowered his arms to detonate the spheres of septimal power Copen shot into him, the bullet braking all the spheres that it struck along it's path.
The bullet struck him and his septimal powers vanished ending his skill before it could be fully activated, Copen didn't miss his chance and dashed in to finish the fight. The man dropped and a book appeared and burned to dust. Before it was gone, Copen snatched a piece to make new equipment with.
[ASG1: Formulate the Battle Plan]
The dome dropped revealing the people within. A young child that the target rader said was the level 5 and a man Copen vaguely recognised who was the level 7.
The man looked exhausted and wore a mask with a tank on his back of breathable air and the child was unconscious. Copen turned around then intending to leave these two to be crushed in the building but the man called out "You, You're Copen right?" Copen looked around and the man was pulling the child to his feet
"Yes demon?" Copen inquired, he couldn't wait long as his coolent was running low. Regardless the man spoke quickly "I know you hate us but this boy has done no wrong, please get him out of here."
Copen walked away concidering before pulling Lola out of his pocket and activating her.
"Woah, what? Boss, what's going on?" Her voice came out clearly so Copen gave his orders half-heartedly "Lola, you are to help these adepts escape the fire, this room is likely going to fall in soon and I would rather not fight them here if that is the case."
Lola floated for a moment before replying "Okay boss-man, orders recieved and understood." She flew over to the two adpets and spoke in a joking way "Hello and welcome to Lola express, for your own safety don't stick your arms outside the ride." As Copen left he authorised one of the more expensive EX-weapons "Lazy Gates."
Lola's bits spun quickly and a blue portal appeared in mid-air allowing the man to haul the boy to the surface. Copen raced up the building his own way as he didn't want to overstress the gate as if too much weight was sent through it, it fell apart.
At the surface he met up with Lola who revealed the obvious truth that the moment the adepts were clear they ran off as to not be here when copen arrived.
Elsewhere the man fell to the ground, the boy in his hands was two heavy to carry any further while running. He took the opportunity to call base "Moniqa do you read me? I'm out with the target."
A moment passed then a woman's voice spoke back "I'm reading you Zeno. Good work."
Zeno's laugh could be heard over the link from where Moniqa sat at her personal computer in the apartment that had once belonged to Gunvolt.
"Really Moniqa, you are being overly serious. I mean, it's not like we are a part of Quill any more."
When Asimov, the head of Quill had decended babel tower he had disbanded the organization of Quill, neither of them knew why but it wasn't going to stop them doing the right thing. They had raided their own Quill base for equipment and had used the spare key that GV had left Zeno to use his apartment. They both hoped that GV would come home one day but that seemed unlikely at this point.
"Zeno, if we are going to do this we will do it properly." Moniqa explained.
"Yeah, yeah. Either way I'm on my way back with the kid."
End of chapter
And the second chapter comes.
Note; the adept Copen fought is not canon. Neither is the boy that Zeno saved.