The Heist, Part 1
The following events take place between Sunday, 1:42 PM and Monday, 2:15 PM
…
Sunday, 4:02 PM
The situation at Marsters was bad, and only looked to get worse.
Just yesterday, news had broken out that a local business was really a front for a powerful criminal organization. That in itself would be worthy of a few raised eyebrows and shaken heads insofar as the general public was concerned, maybe the occasional debate about the laxness of the marshals for allowing such a thing to occur under their noses as well as lamentations about the general rise of corruption these days. But it was soon learned that these specific criminals had direct ties to a particularly nasty group of leechers and had been distributing their product throughout the city.
That had garnered a lot more attention. Criminals were one thing, but leechers were a special sort of scum.
Then, before the shock had time to fully set in, someone had pointed out that the same scandalous bundle of documents that had blown the operation wide open also pointed to direct links between the criminals and the Militia, indicating that the marshals were only too aware of what was going on and were well paid to look the other way.
Once word of that got around, the reaction was all but inevitable.
The first angry protestor showed up in front of Starlight Motors within fifteen minutes. Within three minutes, that one became twelve. Within an hour, their number had reached over a hundred and was steadily growing.
The marshals responded quickly (perhaps too quickly) and immediately set to work quarantining the whole block off and trying to get the crowd to disperse. They saw some success with the former and managed to clear the area directly around Starlight Motors. As for the latter…not so much.
It was a powder keg in foundry. Before too long, protests had spread throughout the city, gathering around the Milita's office, around town hall, around several other completely innocent businesses that were now unfortunately under suspect of being fronts as well. The marshals sweated, the protestors yelled, the politicians barricaded themselves in their offices while making phone call after phone call, begging for someone to come in and restore sanity.
And near the back of the crowd that had formed around Starlight Motors, a girl with dour eyes and her hands wrapped around a bottle of alcohol glowered. She watched as discontent grew, as the shouting grew louder and the marshals more nervous. She actually was a frequent customer of Starlight Motors. Her swifter was something of a hobby of hers, and there was no better source for parts in town.
Furthermore, about seventy years ago, she had spent about two months caged up in a tiny little basement with needles sticking out of her skin and her soul literally sucked into small bags until the place had been raided and she had been rescued. As such, she was taking all of this a little personally.
She looked down at the bottle in her hand. The situation was moments away from erupting into chaos. All the fuse needed was a spark, and the crowd would make the quick transition into a mob. Her face hardening, she took a quick swig from the bottle. Then she pulled out a greasy rag and stuffed it down the bottle's throat. Then she pulled out a lighter.
But before she could light the rag's tip, a hand closed over hers, shutting off the lighter. Looking up, she saw her roommate shaking her head at her. "No," her roommate said. "That's not the way."
The girl growled. "Why not? Why the hell not? They deserve it, and you know-"
"That's not what I meant. I mean you're doing it wrong. A Molotov cocktail? That'll get shot down and extinguished before it even clears the crowd. You want to send them a message?" Her roommate's finger started glowing. She touched it to the bottle, which was then transformed, becoming a bottle-shaped device made from platinum and topaz. A proper fuse now stuck out where the rag used to be. "Then think a little bigger."
The girl stared down at the bomb in her hands. Then she grinned and set the fuse alight. Once it was properly burning, she drew her hand back and threw.
…
Sunday, 9:34 PM
Cold water flowed from the sink's faucet. After Mami cupped her hands under the flow and splashed it onto her face. It had been days since she had the opportunity to clean up, and now it seemed like every square centimeter was coated with dirt, grease, and sweat.
As she pumped hand soap into her palms and mixed it into a lather, she happened to glance up and see her face in the mirror. She did not like what she saw staring back at her.
The last few days had not been kind. Her face was drawn thin, her cheeks gaunt and her eyes sunken and hollow. Her flowing, golden hair, usually tied back in a loose ponytail or in twin spiral tails should she feel like dressing up, clung tightly to her scalp and skin in matted, sweat-soaked locks. She couldn't remember the last time she had looked so bedraggled, so tired, so beaten.
So empty.
Mami looked back down at her suds-filled hands. She was wearing a pale green sweater and a heavy pair of camouflage pants, taken of course from the Persephone Protectorate. While they were perfectly functional, they served as a grim reminder of everything Mami had just been through, of what she had become, and of what she had done.
I sold my friends.
Slowly, Mami brought the suds to her face and kneaded them into the layers of dirt and grease. She pulled out a handful of paper towels from a nearby dispenser and dampened them under the faucet.
I fell in with leechers.
Pressing the towels to her face, she scrubbed away at the filth. The bottom of the sink was turning dark.
I attacked a wayhouse.
Mami kept scrubbing. The paper towels turned into blackened shreds, so she grabbed more, dry ones this time, and kept scrubbing.
I shot children.
Her scrubbing was starting to become frantic. Tears were leaking from her eyes, mixing with the mess in the sink below.
I sold my friends. I fell in with leechers. I attacked a wayhouse. I shot children. Oh God, why can't I just die?
"You planning on taking off a layer of skin there? Because if so, there are easier ways to do it."
Mami paused. It was true, her cleaning frenzy had left her skin raw, and if she still had blood she might have started bleeding from a couple of places. Swallowing, she set the paper towels aside and pulled out a small plastic bottle of pills. Shaking a couple out, she gulped them down and closed her eyes, waiting for them to take effect.
While technological progress was bizarrely uneven in the afterlife, the pharmaceuticals were far beyond anything that the world of the living could produce. The treatments were more effective, and thanks to the fact that they were dealing with souls rather than meat, side effects were easier to control and prevent. Samizayn was one of the most effective emotional stabilizers available, and thus one of the most commonly used medications for the newly arrived still suffering from PTSD and other related disorders. You didn't even need a prescription for it, and in fact most integration bureaus gave it out for free. Mami had been on it fairly constantly her first year in, and still took regular doses to keep certain lingering problems under control. Though she had lost practically all of her belonging in the fight against the Void Walkers, the Persephone Protectorate's pharmacy was extraordinarily well-stocked, and it had been more than happy to provide her with several months' worth, as well as a few other, harder to get medications as well.
While Mami was grateful, the fact that she was accepting drugs from a leeching organization felt like a knife-twist in her gut. She knew that the pills they had given her were not actually made from anyone's soul vapors, but still…
In time, her arms stopped shaking and her breathing slowed. The horrible feeling in her chest remained though. Samizayne didn't actually make you feel better, it just helped you clear your mind and keep those emotions in check. "All right," she said. "I'm ready."
"About time," Nie Blühen Herze snapped. "If you have to break down sobbing, you could have done it back at the base."
Keeping her face steady, Mami turned to face the Void Walkers' glowering sharpshooter, whom Annabelle Lee had instructed to chaperone her to the small diner's bathroom to ensure that she didn't run off or rat them out. She at least had kept herself reasonably well-groomed. Of course, she wasn't burdened with the same heavy conscience that Mami was. "Let's just go back," Mami said wearily.
"Fine by me, we've been here too long anyway." With that, Nie folded her arms and tilted her head toward the restroom's swinging door, indicating that Mami had to go first. Once she did, the smaller girl followed, her pistols holstered in plain sight on either side of her overalls.
…
Monday, 2:32 PM
Bullets ripped through concrete and metal like teeth through bread. Mami threw herself to the ground and covered her head as chunks of the wall exploded out with puffs of debris directly over her.
"Mami!" Charlotte was already up and grabbing her by the arm. "Hurry up!"
She was right. The mystery girl had started up her mini-gun again, and though she couldn't see them from where she was, she really didn't need to. She just had to spread her range of fire and they would be chewed up.
Mami and Charlotte ran for a nearby corner as the hallway behind them was torn apart. Turning it, they found their first bit of good luck: a stairway leading down. They half-stumbled, half-fell to a point halfway down and huddled as bullets whizzed above their heads.
"Who is that girl?" Charlotte yelled as she covered her head.
"I don't know!" Mami shouted back. "Bad news. Annabelle Lee looked scared of her."
Charlotte's face darkened. "Yeah, where is that scumbag anyway?"
"Back with the others, I suppose." Mami pulled out Annabelle Lee's map and checked their position. Another stroke of luck: they were near a set of vents that would take them back into the Brothel's control room.
"Okay, let's go," she said. The mystery girl had stopped firing for the time being, which wasn't good news. At least when she was shooting they had a good idea of where she was.
"Are you sure you're up for this?" Charlotte said. "I mean, you've got to be near your limit."
"Better break it then." Mami waved a hand, and a tangle of ribbons squeezed together, forming perfect copies of both her and Charlotte. A wave of fatigue hit her as she did so, so she pulled out a syringe of SolBlanc and jabbed it into her arm. The feverishness it brought would compromise her ability to move effectively, but so would soul depletion.
Pulling out a couple of muskets, she took a deep breath and prepared for battle.
…
Sunday, 9:35 PM
Charlotte stood at one side of the door to the diner's restroom, back against the wall, arms folded, and gaze boring into Arzt Kochen's eyes. For her part, the syringe-handed Void Walker was content to mirror her pose and return the stare. They had been standing like that ever since Mami and Nie had walked into the restroom.
Thanks to certain trust issues they had with their new "allies," Mami's request to use the restroom and clean herself up had come with complications. Annabelle Lee didn't want her out of her sight on the grounds that Mami might use the scrap of privacy to report them to the authorities. And Charlotte had instantly objected to the demand that Mami have a chaperone, on the grounds that advantages might be taken and ambushes enacted. After much debate during which Mami's discomfort grew and grew, it was eventually decided that Charlotte and The Twins would go with her, with two people in the restroom and two standing outside. Charlotte had then pointed out that that left Annabelle Lee free to report the Tomoes to whoever she wanted.
"For what?" Annabelle Lee had said with a laugh. "If we wanted to screw you over like that, we could've done it at the base."
Charlotte didn't have an answer for that, which annoyed her greatly.
She would have preferred it if she could be in the restroom with her wife, but obviously that wasn't going to fly. And so here she was, staring across at the jerk that had tried to impale her in the neck, while the identical jerk that had shot at her a bunch of times was alone with Mami.
Thus far, neither of them had blinked. Charlotte's eyes were very tired, but she wasn't about to give in first.
She shifted her weight and slipped her hands into her pockets. After about a second, Arzt did the same.
Quirking an eyebrow, Charlotte drew up one leg and rested her heel against the wall she was leaning against. Again, Arzt did so as well.
Well, okay. This was a whole new level of petty. Charlotte tilted her head first to one side, and then the other. She watched as Arzt copied her movements exactly. Then she rolled her eyes, only for Arzt to do so in turn.
"Simone says put your hands on your head," Charlotte said.
Here Arzt broke the chain, as what Arzt did with her syringe hand was not as Charlotte instructed, but did make Charlotte hope that no actual children were nearby to see the gesture that she made with those twisted fingers of hers.
Charlotte sighed. Arzt did too, only louder.
Finally the door opened and their annoying little game was forgotten. Mami came out, looking a little less distraught as she did when she had come in, as well as a little neater.
"Hey," Charlotte said, giving her a quick hug. "Did she behave?"
"Of course I did," Nie said, stepping out as well. She linked arms with her twin. "If anything you should be inquiring about her behavior."
"I'm fine," Mami assured her. "She didn't try anything."
"And why would she?" Arzt said, nestling her head against Nie's shoulder. "Distrust us all you wish, but at least credit us with the intelligence not to backstab you in such an obviously stupid place."
Charlotte frowned at them, though not because of their snippiness. Those two's posture seemed a bit…unusually intimate for supposed sisters.
"Yes, what is it?" Arzt said.
"Nothing," Charlotte said, shaking her head. "Come on, let's just get this over with."
Annabelle Lee and her psychotic sister were sitting at a corner booth of the diner. Ticky Nikki had claimed the entire basket of rolls for herself and was gleefully skinning off their outer crust in a manner that could only be described as sadistic. As for Annabelle Lee, she had foregone using the wraparound bench and had pulled up a chair to the table and was sitting with her back to the dining room. She did not look at all well. During the whole trip there, she had kept her eyes closed and her jaw clamped shut. And since the other four of their party had departed for the restroom, she had been hunched over the table with her face in her hands and seemed to be on the verge of losing her breakfast.
As Charlotte, Mami, and The Twins approached, Nikki looked up from her torture of baked goods. Her face fell when she realized that by positioning herself in the corner, she was going to be surrounded on all sides by people she disliked. With a disgusted snort, she quickly scampered under the table to stand behind Annabelle Lee's chair and look out toward rest of the group with a snarl on her face. Doing their best to ignore her, Mami and Charlotte passed by on Annabelle Lee's right and The Twins on her left as they sat down at opposite ends of the booth, with as much space between them as possible. Charlotte was fairly certain that Nikki growled at them as they passed her, though that may have been directed at The Twins. She didn't seem to like them much.
Annabelle Lee looked up as they arrived. "Oh, there you are," she grumbled. She didn't look much recovered. "Took you bloody long enough."
"My apologies," Mami said. "It's been a long time since I've had the chance to clean up."
"She broke down crying," Nie said with a sneer.
Charlotte's eyes narrowed.
"Yeah, well, I don't care," Annabelle Lee muttered. "You're here now, so let's get this going already. Nikki, if you're gonna be on this side, grab a chair. And not one that already has someone sitting in it."
As her sister skipped off to comply, Arzt took the time to look her comrade up and down. "Are you doing okay, Annabelle Lee? You seem a bit on the nauseated side."
"I'm fine," Annabelle Lee growled.
"Are you?" Sitting on the edge of the bench, Arzt leaned over and said, "Are things getting a little tight in here? Feeling a little trapped? Because you do seem-"
The tips of Annabelle Lee's blades slid out of their sheathes, just enough to make their presence known. "Arzt, keep that up, and I swear to you I will peel your face right off," Annabelle Lee promised. Arzt smirked but she said nothing.
Charlotte and Mami exchanged a glance. It was growing increasingly clear that relations between their new "allies" were far from harmonious, and there was probably more tensions between the two sets of sisters than between all four of them and the Tomoes.
Then a sharp screeching sound cut into their thoughts and caused all of them to wince. Ticky Nikki nonchalantly walked up to the table, one hand dragging a chair behind her, its wooden feet scraping across the tiled floor. How she had managed to find an empty one in this crowd, none of them could say. She set it in place and crawled into its seat, where she sat on her haunches with her hands resting on her knees.
Rolling her eyes, Annabelle Lee said, "All right, now that we've gotten that out of our systems, let's get to this." She pulled two flat discs out of her jacket pocket and set them on the table.
Charlotte frowned at them. "Are those what I think they are?"
"Seeing how I'm not a mind-reader, I have no fucking idea." Annabelle Lee tapped the tops of the discs, and blue lights lit up around their edges. Almost immediately the air around them grew hazy for a split-second before returning to normal. "But these should keep people from eavesdropping."
The place that they had chose for their strategy session was a small diner on the edge of Marsters, the city where Kyoko and Oktavia were allegedly being kept. Given everything that was going on, the place was filling up quickly as the scared and the angry sought out somewhere to exchange news and gossip. The holovids overhead were all turned to the news and each one was surrounded by a gaggle of grim-faced spectators. The crowd was actually working in their favor, as with so many groups gathering to whisper together, no one was giving them a second look.
Actually getting there had been a bit of a problem, seeing how the wayhouse had yet to arrange for transports to come in and start evacuating. However, the Void Walkers were now in possession of more goodwill than they probably even needed, and it hadn't taken much for them to arrange for the remaining gunship to take the six of them to the nearest shuttle station. And from there, they had simply bought tickets.
Once they actually got there, however, a problem had shown up. The unrest that Janelle had alluded to had already erupted into violence, and even from the edge of town they could see the smoke rising.
Though Charlotte knew that it wasn't their fault, as she listened to the sounds of fighting coming from far away and watched the proceedings on one of the diner's holovid, her gut had twisted itself into knots. After all, though it had been for less than a week, she had been a card-carrying member of the organization responsible for this chaos.
But more pressing was the plight of their friends. Even if Kyoko and Oktavia were still in town as Janelle had hypothesized, they were still being held at the same building that had become the epicenter of these people's anger. And should it be overrun, they seriously doubted that the mob would be able to distinguish actual Brothel employees from those that were there against their will. Either way, the clock was ticking.
"Where did you get those?" Mami asked, indicating the discs.
"Guess," Annabelle Lee grunted. She pulled out a handful of maps, which were of the old-fashioned two-dimensional variety printed on simple paper. She spread them out over the table.
"All right, here's where we're headed: Starlight Motors," she said, indicating a city map. A specific building had a yellow circle drawn around it, about two kilometers from the diner. "Pretty much your standard garage. They do repairs, sell parts and supplies, let you come in and tinker around for a bit of a fee, that sort of thing. Also, they're there to disguise the fact that most of the building and a fair chunk of the underground area is taken up by the local Brothel headquarters.
Frowning, Mami shuffled through the maps. They were surprisingly…thorough. "And where did you get these?"
Annabelle Lee sighed. "From the Persephone Protectorate. Duh. Or what's left of them. Seems that Lily kept real close tabs on what her clients were up to, up to and including semantics for their little hideaways. Very thorough ones at that. One would think she was paranoid or something."
"And they just gave these to you?" Charlotte said.
Annabelle Lee shot her a look. "Maybe you weren't paying attention and missed the part where I literally saved all of their-"
"Her-umph!"
They all glanced over to Arzt, who was holding her fist in front of her mouth and looking meaningfully at Annabelle Lee. Annabelle Lee looked irritated, but she amended, "-where we literally saved all of their asses? It's amazing what gratitude will get for you."
"Assuming one actually is capable of the emotion," Nie muttered, folding her arms.
Shaking her head, Annabelle Lee pulled out a detailed schematic of Starlight Motors' construction and place it on top of the pile of maps. "Okay, getting back on track, here's what we got to do to get in."
…
Sunday, 6:21 PM
One simple toss, and Kyoko was flung into the storeroom. With her legs and arms bound as tight as they were, there was little she could do except bounce along the floor like a sack of angry potatoes.
Squirming around, she was able to move her body toward the door just in time to see Brooklyn hurl Sayaka in as well. The mermaid's arms were also, as was her tail. There seemed to be little point to doing that save for pettiness, which really wasn't improving Kyoko's opinion of their new captor.
Sayaka took the fall with less grace than Kyoko, which is to say none at all. At least she had somewhat of a softer landing, as Kyoko was there to provide cushioning for her last bounce.
"Ow," Sayaka mumbled into Kyoko's stomach. Kyoko would have agreed had not the wind just been knocked out of her by tumbling mermaid.
Over at the door, Brooklyn hoisted Sayaka's wheelchair up, bags and all, and threw it in. Two of the tied-up Brothel goons had to roll out of the way to avoid getting hit. It crashed against the wall and fell to the floor, one of its wheels dented.
"Fucking cripple," Brooklyn muttered, and slammed the door.
Kyoko took a deep breath, forcing the air down. Then she said, "Get off of me."
Sayaka muttered something angry sounding and rolled onto her back. "Wow," she said. "You know, I don't think she likes me."
"Yeah, I noticed. Are you okay?"
Sayaka looked down at her stomach. The flesh was whole, though the tear in her shirt remained. "Could be better," she said. "They shot me."
"Yeah," Kyoko said, casting a glare at their fellow prisoners. For their part, the Brothel's staff seemed content to just sit against the wall and act like they weren't there. "They did."
Sayaka said nothing. Kyoko looked at her. The blue-haired mermaid was lying flat on her back, eyes staring at the ceiling.
With her arms bound behind her back the way they were, Kyoko had to carefully maneuver up onto her elbows to sit up, or at as close as she could manage. She turned to glower at the person most at fault for their current predicament, at least the one currently in the room.
That six-limbed pterodactyl alien (Kyoko could not remember her name or species) was pretty much hogtied and lying on the ground next to a set of shelves, her face a blank mask.
"Well, this is a fine mess you guys got us in," Kyoko snapped.
…
Sunday, 1:42 PM
If the Persephone Protectorate's base had been still as the grave before, Annabelle Lee's announcement killed what little emotion remained and squashed it flat. Even though she didn't rise from her crouch or move the aim of her musket away from Annabelle Lee's chest, Mami still gawked openly at the quartet of Void Walkers while her wife stared bug-eyed as well. For their part, the Void Walkers didn't rush to offer any sort of explanation. They just stayed where they were, waiting for a response.
Mami and Charlotte turned their heads to look at one another. Charlotte's face twisted up in bewilderment. She tilted her head toward the Void Walkers and shrugged. Shaking her head, Mami looked back to Annabelle Lee, who seemed amused by their confusion.
Taking a deep breath, Mami said slowly, "I'm terribly sorry, but could you repeat that?"
Annabelle Lee smirked. "Shocker, huh? Okay, here it is: we want to help the two of you rescue Kyoko Sakura and Oktavia von Seckendorff from the Brothel before anything bad happens to them, up to and including being sold off to Oblivion, and then help you escape with them to go wherever I don't care." She shrugged her skinny shoulders. "And then we all go our own way and try to forget that we ever had the misfortune of meeting."
Again the gathering fell silent. Somewhere in the distance, one of the workers sneezed.
Then Charlotte said, "Y'know, either you think we're a couple of complete idiots, or you all are a bunch of complete idiots. And honestly, I'm not sure which one I prefer."
Sighing, Arzt put her hands on her hips, gave an exaggerated roll of her eyes, and said to Annabelle Lee, "I told you so."
Annabelle Lee shot her a brief look of irritation but continued to address the Tomoes. "Yeah, okay. So I admit: you don't have a lot of reasons to trust us."
"Yes," Mami said coldly. Her trigger finger was starting to move up and down her musket's trigger in almost a caressing manner. "And let's start with the fact that you're Void Walkers working on Reibey's orders and work on to the part where you assaulted us in Cloudbreak and tried to kidnap Kyoko and Oktavia for yourself, which also broke the Compact in the process."
Charlotte folded her arms. "Call us crazy, but we're not really seeing the upside of trusting a bunch of war criminals."
"We're not the ones with 'leechers' on our résumé, sweetie-pie," Nie retorted with a sickeningly smug smile.
Mami's finger started to shake, and she had to move it a few centimeters away from the trigger to avoid an accident.
Then Ticky Nikki, who had visibly growing more and more impatient as the talk when on, broke in with a loud, "Why are we talking to them again, ticky-ticky? Nikki thought we hated them!"
Annabelle Lee shot her a warning look. "Nikki, I told you to be quiet."
"But Nikki's bored and it stinks here!" her sister whined.
Pinching the bridge of her long nose, Annabelle Lee sighed and said, "Nikki. Seriously. Shut up."
"She has a point though," Nie said, her nose wrinkling. "Good God, did they build this place over a septic tank?"
Annabelle Lee clapped her hands loudly. "Hey! Everyone! Shut up until we're done here, okay?" When nobody challenged her, she turned back to the Tomoes. "Anyway, fine. Guilty as charged for most of that. Aggravated assault? Sure. Attempted kidnapping? Got us there. And you can go ahead and throw in sabotage and property damage while you're at it, and there's probably a couple other misdemeanors I can't think of, whatever. But you're wrong about that first and last part."
Mami blinked. "Excuse me?"
"She means the part where you accused us of being Void Walkers and breaking the Compact," Arzt explained.
Mami frowned in puzzlement. Some of the pieces started to come together in her mind. "Wait, you mean-"
In answer, Annabelle Lee lifted up her right arm and pulled away the sleeve of her jacket. Unsheathing one of the claws on the opposite wrist, she brought it up to lay it on her flesh. Then, after a brief wince of anticipation, she swiped it across, making a small but still noticeable cut.
Purple mist leaked into the sky.
Now that it was explicitly pointed out to her, Mami was able to finish piecing together the puzzle in her head. The soul vapors of Void Walkers were white; everyone knew that. So was their skin. When she had first seen Annabelle Lee at the lighthouse, the girl had been as pale as a marble statue. Now her skin, and those of her comrades, was of a normal pinkish hue.
Seeing the realization on Mami's face, Annabelle Lee slowly nodded, her expression turning grim. "Yeah, after that disaster at the lighthouse, Reibey was not happy. So we were given the boot."
"That hurt," Ticky Nikki said with a wince.
"You were exiled?" Mami said.
"Duh," said Annabelle Lee. "See, here's the thing you're not getting: we were never rivals, you guys and us. This was never personal." Then she frowned. "Well, okay maybe a couple of times, but even so. Reibey had put out the orders to bring in Kyoko if she showed up months ago, and me and Nikki were just the unlucky schmucks to stumble across her first." She tilted her head to The Twins, who were starting to look as bored with the proceedings as Ticky Nikki was. "And after that went to hell, these two twits were the unlucky schmucks he assigned to keep us from fucking up again. That's it. We were just following orders. Could have been any group of Void Walkers sent after you."
Mami's eyes narrowed. "Some of the greatest atrocities of all time were done by people 'just following orders,'" she said.
"You would know, wouldn't you?" Arzt said.
Before either of the Tomoes could retort, Annabelle Lee turned toward her companion, a look of warning in her eyes. "Hey, back off, Arzt. We're past that now." Then to the Tomoes, she said, "And you're missing the point. We weren't out to get you we're some evil boogeywomen that has it in for you. We were just trying to do our job."
"Then why attack us at Cloudbreak?" Charlotte demanded. "Why still try to kidnap our friends?"
"Isn't it obvious?" Annabelle Lee said. "We were trying to get our jobs back! We figured that if we corrected our mistake and got them the goods after all, we could go back. Maybe even get to cut in line a little."
Mami frowned. "Why would you want to go back?"
The looks she got from all four (former) Void Walkers was decidingly on the frosty side.
"Oh, look sweet, innocent little darlings," Nie sneered. "Wait a few decades for the misery to set in. Then you can judge."
Arzt cleared her throat. "Oh, and speaking of which, as bad as we might be, we are in the clear on the whole breaking the Compact thing. Which is more than we can say for you."
Mami started. "What?"
Stepping forward, Charlotte angrily said, "Hey, who do you think-"
"Do you think we're idiots?" Annabelle Lee interrupted. "You spread your story to half the Persephone Protectorate, and they were only all too eager to tell us what you were up to. Breaking into the Withering Lands. Kidnapping a high-ranking Void Walker. If that ain't an act of war, then I don't know what one is. Unless, of course, you've already officially severed yourself from the FLA."
Her chest clenching with dread, Mami exchanged glances with Charlotte. Charlotte winced and looked down at her shoelaces. Neither of them said anything.
"You haven't, have you?" Annabelle Lee said. "Don't want to give up your safety net. Do you honestly still think you're going back?"
Mami took a deep breath. "That still doesn't explain why you want to help us."
"Oh, right. That. See, here's the thing. While we were acting independently, our little brawl in Cloudbreak was kind of visible." She shot a brief look toward Nie and Arzt, who seemed unconcerned with her ire. "And once word starts getting around, it won't take long for people to start making certain assumptions. Reibey's probably spent this whole time doing damage control, and it wouldn't take a genius to figure out exactly who was responsible for his bad week. So insofar as us getting to go back, that's pretty much shot all to hell." Leaving the other three over by the wall, Annabelle Lee floated forward to look Mami in the eye. "Face it, Mami. None of us are going home."
Mami stared back. "Then…"
Then Annabelle Lee's smug smirk melted away. The already sharp lines of her face hardened, and her eyes darkened with rage. When she spoke, her voice was calm, quiet, and filled with seething anger. "Over fifty years of misery, down the fucking drain. Did you know the average time it takes a Void Walker to work their way into being released is around two hundred? That light at the end of the tunnel was the only thing that kept me going, kept me counting down the days until I got out of here. And now it's gone. Erased. Done. One bad week, a couple of dumb mistakes, and I'm trapped here forever. We're trapped here." Her right eye was starting to twitch, and she seemed to be keeping her voice from rising to a yell through sheer will. "Which…hasn't been doing good things for our overall temperament, and may have aggravated our anger management issues."
For her part, Charlotte didn't seem intimidated. "We have more than a few of our own. Just so you know."
Annabelle Lee's right-arm claws popped out with a metallic cry.
Mami immediately somersaulted back and landed in another crouch, musket refocused. Charlotte skipped back as well, putting distance between her and Annabelle Lee, eyes wary and ready for a fight.
However, Annabelle Lee didn't seem interested in starting one. Instead of attacking them with her claws, she held them up and turned them back and forth, letting them catch the sun. "Now, you see these? Top of the line hardware, quality construction. Way better than my old claws." A bit of her smirk came back. "Guess where I got them?"
As their knowledge of popular munitions suppliers were a little lacking, the Tomoes just stared.
Sighing, Annabelle Lee dropped her arm. "The Brothel."
"WHAT!" Mami shouted out. She didn't lose her cool like that often, but when she did, she did so with gusto.
Annabelle Lee let her claws slide back into their sheath. "The Brothel's the best weapons manufacturer on the market. After we decided to make one last grab for your friends, we knew we needed the best equipment we could get. So we pooled together all the money we had, made some purchases, arranged for transport, and-"
"You were working for these assholes all along?" Charlotte interrupted her.
Annabelle Lee gave her a disparaging look. "When did you forget how to listen? No, we weren't working for or with them at all! We bought some stuff from them and had them arrange to make our job a little easier, with transport, new identities, security layouts, that sort of thing. We were just one of hundreds of customers they probably had that day."
Mami glowered. "You still haven't gotten to the point."
"The point?" Annabelle Lee's anger heated back up. "You want me to get to the point? Fine. Here's the point. They took our money so we could pull this off. That job was our last chance, everything was riding on it! And now it's gone. So if they think they can just come in and take Kyoko Sakura and Oktavia von Seckendorff away and sell them to Reibey on top of that, they got another think coming. If we don't get what we want, then they don't get what they want. And Reibey doesn't get what he wants. Either we're the ones to deliver your stupid friends or no one is. And since we can't do that and literally have nothing left to lose, then at least we can have the satisfaction of knowing no one else profited out of this."
"Revenge?" Mami blinked. Insofar as motives went, it was a classic, but so simple that it came as a surprise. "You're after revenge?"
"Why the hell not?" Annabelle Lee demanded. "Nothing else seems to be working out for us. And if helping you two jackasses save your braindead friends before Reibey gets his paws on them and the Brothel gets paid, then so, so long as it pisses them off."
Charlotte stared. "Do you really expect us to believe you?"
Annabelle Lee sneered. "You'd be amazed how little I expect from you. But I can also tell you this: there is no one else here you can go to for help. Everyone from the Persephone Protectorate is using every last drop of willpower just to keep from losing their minds, and everyone from the wayhouse has their hands full trying to pull their own shit together. Nobody here cares about your friends. And as for Janelle's idea about waiting for the Marsters Militia to sort things out? Forget it. Unlike her, I'm not on the verge of a total breakdown. So I was able to catch a few more points from that info dump than she did. And one point that stuck out was that the marshals over there are all in the Brothel's pocket."
"What?" Mami said, her chest seizing up "Are you serious?"
"Duh," Annabelle Lee said in contempt. "Did you really expect anything else? That's what powerful criminal organizations do! So when it comes down to it, they'll do all they can to protect the Brothel, not stop them. You literally have no one else to turn to. You don't know the first time about pulling off any sort of rescue."
Charlotte's eyes narrowed. "And you do?"
"More than you do, china-doll. So I know you hate us and don't trust us. Fine. We deserve it. But ask yourself: what other options do you have? We may not like each other, but for once we can all get what we want the same way. Otherwise, you can go ahead and kiss Kyoko Sakura and Oktavia von Seckendorff goodbye, because in a few days, no one is ever going to see them again."
…
Sunday, 4:32 PM
In any other situation, Kyoko would have found the weapon she and Sayaka had constructed together to be impressive, creative, and downright cool. In fact, she did think that it was all those things. There was no point in being humble; what they had created was awe-inspiring.
The best way to describe it would be as a glowing cylinder of train wheels that stretched from one wall to the other, joined together by a framework of spear shafts and armored by shield plates. One end was fixed firmly against the back wall, while the other, the one facing the door, was coated with tiny spearheads, giving it teeth. Eight more spear shafts stuck out from the thing's body to the ceiling, walls, and floor, anchoring it in place.
Yeah, this was cool, but Kyoko was too tired and too hungry to do much admiring. The two of them had already exhausted a lot of magic in their previous escape attempts, and putting their battering ram together had taken up even more. She really didn't like that little provision of the afterlife. Back when she was alive, using too much magic just put her in a bad mood, and since being tired and hungry also put in her a bad mood, it wasn't much of a trade-off.
Okay, so there was also that part about turning into a mindless abomination, but she hadn't known about that at the time.
Either way, Kyoko was now very tired, and very, very hungry. They had been fed some of that tasteless sludge earlier that day, but it hadn't been nearly enough, and there had been none since. How it had gotten into the cell without them noticing, Kyoko didn't know. One moment she had turned around to argue with Sayaka, the next two bowls of the stuff had been sitting on the table. Sayaka had insisted that Kyoko take part of hers, as she was the one using the most magic and would have to do most of the fighting once they got out. Kyoko, who had already been cranky, had not appreciated being pitied, and told her as such. Another argument had followed, and in the end Kyoko had to grudgingly eat half of Sayaka's share before the glowering mermaid would even touch it.
The extra portion hadn't done much though. The sludge was probably nutritious, but not at all filling, and any extra calories were long since spent. A shiny sheen of sweat now coated her forehead and darkened her shirt, and she was finding it hard to focus.
"Okay, you ready?" she said to Sayaka. She was struggling to keep from breathing hard, but it wasn't easy.
Sayaka nodded. "Yeah." She looked up and flashed what had probably been intended to be an enthusiastic smile. "Let's do this!"
The mermaid's smile looked too strained to be comforting, but Kyoko didn't feel like pointing that out. "Okay," she muttered, and waved a hand. A little more energy left her, and a wall of shields leapt up to protect them. "Let it rip."
The toothed wheel started turning like a drill bit, and the cylinder extended toward the door.
"Now!"
Their makeshift drill bit lunged forward. Kyoko and Sayaka both winced in anticipation of the backlash that had destroyed all of their previous attempts.
And then the lights went out.
The drill slammed into the door and cut right through. Kyoko and Sayaka were so surprised that the drill continued on into the hallway and started cutting into the far wall before Kyoko screamed, "Okay, okay, kill it!"
Their thingamajig vanished.
"What happened?" Sayaka said. "Who turned the lights-"
Then the room was filled with dim, red light, and somewhere in the distance an alarm started to wail.
"Ain't questioning it, let's go," Kyoko said. She scrambled to her feet and ran Sayaka toward the door. A few immensely satisfying kicks knocked the rest of it away, and they were out.
Outside, everything was made of dark metal rather than dull plastic, and everything was bathed in red. Kyoko had no idea what was going on, but she wasn't going to stick around to find out.
"Okay," she said, looking around. "Which way did we come in?"
"How should I know?" Sayaka said. "I wasn't paying attention."
"Damn it." Picking a direction at random, Kyoko set off, huffing as she pushed the wheelchair forward.
"Wait, wait, wait!" Sayaka called.
Kyoko froze. "What, what?"
In answer, Sayaka snapped her fingers. Two of her magical train wheels superimposed over her wheelchair's wheels. She rolled forward a bit under her own power and grinned. "Okay, sweet. It works. Let's go!"
Kyoko stared at her. She opened her mouth to point out that she was just going to drain even more magic that way, but then decided against it. Kyoko really was the one who was going to do most of the fighting, and it made sense for her to keep her hands free.
With Kyoko leading the way, the two of charged through the halls, Kyoko with her spear at the ready and Sayaka followed by a spinning train wheel hovering just over her shoulder. Despite her fatigue, Kyoko was grinning. Her body may not produce adrenaline anymore, but the phantom sensation was the same, and the promise of violence always had a way of getting her blood pumping, even if it was just in the metaphorical sense now. Her tiredness was no longer a concern, and she was ready for anything.
Unfortunately, they were ready for her too.
As they rounded the corner, Kyoko was only able to briefly glimpse a tight cluster of black-clad bodies before someone yelled, "More of them coming this way!" and shots rang out.
Kyoko yelped and stumbled back, hastily throwing up shields to keep her body from being ridden with holes. To her dismay, they shattered when struck. Whatever hardware these guys were carrying, it packed a real punch.
"Back, back, back!" she hollered as she scampered back the other way. Unfortunately, either Sayaka had been paralyzed with shock (unlikely) or she had not worked out how to work the reverse, because she ended up sitting frozen in plain sight with her arms thrown protectively over her head. Kyoko seized the back of her wheelchair and hauled her back into cover.
"Shit, that was close," she panted as she leaned against the wall, her hand clutching at her chest. "Are you okay?"
"No," Sayaka grimaced. Her face was contorted with pain as she clutched at her right arm and her stomach. Kyoko winced when she saw the blue vapor whispering through her fingers.
"Damn, this ain't good," she muttered as she grabbed Sayaka's wheelchair and pulled it back down the hall. "Okay, hang on. You'll heal up soon, and we'll just go back and-"
"Grenade!" someone screamed, and then there was an ear-popping bang and light and smoke exploded out of the hallway they had just fled. People started shouting and shooting, though thankfully none of it at them.
Then someone started laughing. Loudly. It was rough, guttural, and full of violent glee. "FORE!" the laugher cried, and there came the meaty smack of metal striking flesh.
A girl wearing a skintight black suit came flying through the air to painfully smack the wall. As Kyoko gawked, the unlucky human golfball slumped limply to the floor to the floor and lay still.
More of the black-clad gang came into view, trying to fight off whoever had thrown that grenade. Kyoko had to admit that they were good. Despite obviously losing, they were keeping formation and fighting together as a professional unit, with two moving to take cover and fire back while a third held up a shield of liquid silver that morphed and twisted in response to the hits it was taking.
Kyoko disliked them immediately. Even with the knowledge that these were probably the same assholes that were holding them prisoner, they reminded her too much of the Persephone Protectorate.
But their professionalism didn't do them much good. The head of a massive warhammer came down to slam against the liquid shield. The shield's holder cried out in pain as she was slammed to the ground. Another strike and the shield disappeared and she stopped moving.
The two that had taken up position at the corners kept firing, but that was when two sleek, black cords tipped with round weights flew out of the hallway. Before the defenders could respond, the cords had wound around their bodies, pinning their arms to their sides. The cords yanked back, dragging their captives back out of view.
Kyoko gulped. She had no idea what was going on, she just knew that neither of them were in any condition to deal with it.
"Okay, time to go," she said as she started to pull Oktavia's chair back.
And then the shooting stopped, and the other side came into view.
Kyoko had spent a lot of time in the bad side of various towns. Witches tended to be birthed in places of suffering and misery, so it made sense to stick to places where both could be found in abundance. And even when she wasn't actively witch-hunting, one of her favorite ways of blowing off steam was to find the local tough guys and trick them into picking fights with her. The looks on their stupid faces when they realized that their "easy prey" was neither had never stopped being funny. Either way, as a result, she knew thugs and delinquents when she saw them.
These jackasses were definitely that. Granted, they were girls who looked to be in their early teens rather than twenty-something guys, and their outfits were weirder than anything she had seen anyone wear in any back alley, but the smug cruelty on their greasy faces was unmistakable.
But one stood out. Ho boy, did she ever.
She swaggered into view, one hand hauling one of the black wearing guys behind her as if she weighed as much as a pillow with the other casually carrying the warhammer Kyoko had seen earlier over her shoulder. It was longer than Kyoko was tall, with a studded handle painted black and a head the size of a microwave with a toothed plate facing out of one end and a long, cruelly sharp horn jutting out of the other. A stabbing blade stuck out of the other end of the pole.
But as impressive as the weapon was, it was nothing compared to the person that carried it. She might not be nearly as large as that dockengaut Kyoko had run into back at Cloudbreak, but for a human she was huge, about two meters tall with a body that made Kyoko wonder if her wish had been for magical steroids. She wore a tight black shirt and a vest that looked like it was made from leather and steel plates, both sleeveless to show off tattooed arms larger than Kyoko's waist. A pair of blue-and-white camo pants and heavy combat boots covered legs like tree trunks. Her skin was tanned, her light purple hair almost all shaved away save for a thin Mohawk that flopped over her head, and her nose, left ear, and lip were pierced with tiny hoops and studs.
Kyoko's eyes narrowed. Even without her size, it was clear that this was the Head Tough Guy. She carried herself with such smug arrogance that she couldn't be anything else. She also looked like a thug through and through: lots and lots of power, lots and lots of ego, but probably very little working in the brainpan.
The unlucky dope that the big girl was hauling along turned out to be that pterodactyl alien that had been in charge of bringing them here. She certainly didn't look so calm now, as all four hands were desperately trying to grab onto anything.
"Alley-oop," the big girl said, and tossed the alien to the ground. Before she could get up, the big girl lay the head of her warhammer against her temple. The alien froze, though her orange eyes till shone with rage.
"Brooklyn," the alien hissed. "What is this?"
Smirking, the girl now identified as Brooklyn turned her hammer so that the side of the head was now pressing against the alien's temple and laid the pole on the ground. She stood, brought her foot up, and pressed it down on the hammer's head.
"Never showed up for our meeting," Brooklyn drawled out. "So I never got my drops. Felt a little down about that." She crouched down, adding more pressure to her foot. The alien grunted in pain. Brooklyn said in a low voice, "Do you know what happens to people that let me down? Do you?"
Even though she looked like a dinosaur, the pain was still obvious in the alien's face and voice. "Called you," she gasped out. "Explained-"
"Now see, that's where we have a problem," Brooklyn said. "I don't care what sort of bad day you're having. That don't excuse you none. Someone makes a deal with me, they keep it. Otherwise, I get real upset. And when I get upset, people get hurt." She turned to her buddies and called out, "Now don't they, girls?"
This drew laughter and cheers from the others.
"That's right." Brooklyn picked her warhammer off of the alien's head and shouldered it again. "So, as of now, Starlight Motors is under new management. My management, in case that weren't clear. And we ain't leaving until we-"
Then she caught sight of Kyoko and Oktavia.
Damn it.
"Hey," she said, her ugly face twisting up in confusion. She motioned toward the pair with her hammer. "What's up with the cripple?"
…
No, I've never actually seen Resovior Dogs. Probably should though.
Anyway, we be kicking off the new episode. Appropriate that it be today, because Resonance Days is three years old today! Woooooooo!
But anyway, there is an announcement coming up about this story's future, which I'll be making next month with the birthday update. No, RD isn't cancelled, so don't worry. But it does have something to do with a planned hiatus, only this time for a very good reason. I'll go into detail when the time comes.
Until next time, everyone!