The Heist, Part 4
Monday. 12:32 PM
Hindsight is a nasty bitch sometimes.
Through hindsight, we are able to look back on our actions and see things that really ought to have been clear from the beginning. Flawed logic, poor decisions, emotional outbursts, and even variables that were unknown at the time all become evident, and any number of problems that could have been avoided are now depressingly real.
Even worse, there is no way to avoid it. It doesn't matter how smoothly a plan might have gone, or how good the ultimate outcome might be, there will always be things that could have gone better, and the way to have made them go better will always be staring at you right in the face.
Most people are able to accept this, others are not. And then there are those for whom just about everything worked out perfectly, but there is still just one little detail that went wrong. And because of that one little detail, everything was rendered moot. They were so close to succeeding and succeeding spectacularly, but because of on oversight, one mistake, it didn't matter. They still failed, and all due to something that could have been easily avoided.
Annabelle Lee was suffering under the weight of all kinds of hindsight. On the one hand, her plan was going swimmingly. Even random chance seemed to be working in her favor for once. She had managed to correctly predict Mami Tomoe's betrayal and outsmart her, something that had been all kinds of satisfying. She had managed to locate and subdue both Kyoko Sakura and Oktavia von Seckendorff without much fuss. And thanks to whoever those panicking gangsters were, not even the Brothel was standing in her way. The path had already been cleared for her! And to top it off, that ugly looking giant had saved her the trouble of beating up Kyoko Sakura for her as well! Not that it wouldn't have been fun to do it herself, but she was running on something of a clock.
Unfortunately, though she and Nikki had managed to secure every prize they had set out to get, and though they had managed to find a working communications array that would allow them to call to be whisked away to their reward, she had come to realize her biggest mistake: while separating the Tomoes and lying about the second backup generator made taking them down much easier, it also left her short one captive. Which in turn meant that in order to acquire Charlotte Tomoe, she had to sit tight and pray that The Twins wouldn't screw up.
That alone was nearly unbearable.
Annabelle Lee frowned at the little communicator in her hands. She smacked it a couple times. It retaliated by hissing more static at her. It had been doing that a lot lately. Like most of their equipment, she had taken it from the Persephone Protectorate and had been using it to communicate with the other members of her team. Except now it didn't seem to want to do its damned job. She had gotten one quick exchange with Nie right after taking the office, long enough to tell her where she and Nikki were waiting, but things had gone screwy immediately after, so she hadn't been able to get an update from her about Charlotte Tomoe.
Sighing, she let it drop and continued to wait. She was in one corner of the office she and her sister had commandeered. Nikki was covering the door, which was to say she was literally clinging to the small strip of wall between the top of the door and the ceiling with two knives in hand poised to plunge into the head of the first sap to try to come inside without properly announcing themselves. And judging by the look in her eyes, she would like it very much if someone tried.
The desk had been shoved closer to the door so as to provide some cover should someone start shooting but not enough to actually block it. On the floor was their reasons for being there. Kyoko Sakura lay face up, her face twisted into a grimace of disbelief and annoyance. Between her eyes was a smoking hole. Oktavia von Seckendorff was sprawled out on her face, hands splayed to either side. Every now and then her tail would give a little twitch. And Mami Tomoe was on her side, eyes shut tight. She might have been sleeping, if it weren't for the gashes in the back of her head and hands and the hole over her nose.
Three down, one to go. And without that one, they were dead in the water. That had been the deal, after all. And one did not make deals with Reibey and not deliver in full.
"Come on," Annabelle Lee muttered, her arms twitching. Then she frowned. Mami Tomoe was starting to stir.
Her hand snapped up, and she squeezed the trigger. Mami Tomoe twitched once and lay still.
"Come on," she said again, turning her attention toward the door. "Come on, come on, come one-"
"Someone's coming, ticky-ticky!" Nikki said suddenly.
Annabelle Lee's head snapped up. What Ticky Nikki lacked in cognitively she made up for with incredibly acute senses. "Is it them?"
"Who?"
"The Twins!"
Nikki's face fell. "Are they coming? Can we leave first?"
Good Lord, she had forgotten already. "No! We want them to come here!"
"But why? Nikki doesn't-"
"Nikki," Annabelle Lee seethed. "Shut up, and tell me if-"
Then that someone arrived and started knocking frantically. "Annabelle Lee!" Arzt hissed from the other side of the door. "Open up!"
Sighing in relief, Annabelle Lee shooed Nikki away from the door. "About time!" she snapped as she yanked the door open. "What took you two so-"
Then she blinked when she saw who greeted her. She did a quick headcount.
"Wait," she said, her ghostly heart sinking into her stomach. "Where is Charlotte Tomoe?"
Despite their disdain for their so-called "leader," the question still made The Twins glance guiltily at each other. "Well, you see…" Arzt began, agitatedly scratching the back of her neck.
"About that…" Nie said.
"Things went a bit…dicey."
"Wasn't our fault! Totally random chance!"
"But we still…"
"…kinda sorta…"
"…lost her."
Annabelle Lee took a deep breath. Hindsight was laughing at her again, and she did not blame it one bit.
…
Monday, 11:55 AM
As predicted, the underground entrance to the Brothel's headquarters was under guard. Four thuggish looking human women stood around the door, all of them carrying the same sleek weapons that the guards in the alley had been armed with.
However, these were not the cold killers Annabelle Lee had promised, Mami could see that at once. They wore the same mismatched outfits that the ones in the alley had, and from their poise it was clear that they were no professionals. Oh, they looked dangerous enough, sure. Even with the element of surprise and all of her firepower, Mami did not fancy tangling with them. After all, they had all had magic of their own, and probably fewer reservations about using it.
But they also looked scared. Nervous. On edge. In fact, only one was bothering to do any actual guarding, and judging by the way her eyes were darting around the dim tunnel and how tightly she was gripping her rifle, she looked like she was one trick of the mind away from shooting up the place. The other three were standing between her and the door and were having a hushed but very animated argument.
Mami was crouched behind a large concrete block, still hidden within the shadows of the tunnel. Annabelle Lee hunkered down next to her, frowning as she watched the altercation. "Okay, what is going on?" the thin girl muttered, more to herself than Mami.
"Who are they?" Mami whispered to her. "They're not with the Brothel, are they?"
"Hell no. But they are carrying Brothel hardware, just like those twits outside."
Mami glanced at her. Then she summed up a musket. The air hummed as she did so, but fortunately none of the guards noticed. "So, who are they?"
"Again, no idea. Local gang, probably."
"Why are they here?"
"If I knew I'd tell you," Annabelle Lee snapped. She leaned back against the block and craned her neck back, trying to hear. "Though if you ask me, the Brothel's currently under new management. Must've barged in and taken over when everything went to shit."
Mami frowned. "That…doesn't reflect well on the Brothel, does it? Being taken down by amateurs."
"Eh, a good surprise attack gets the best of anyone." Then a sallow smirk spread over her bony features. "But hey, this actually works out for us. Means they'll be easier to take down, and if the Brothel's been that much inconvenienced, it also increases the chances of your buddies still being around."
"But surely the Brothel will retaliate? I mean, they know what's going on, right?"
"Oh, they know," Annabelle Lee said. "In fact, ten to one that's what those four are so nervous about, the idiots. They seriously didn't attack this place without knowing-"
Suddenly the argument reached a crescendo, and two of the guards stormed away into the tunnel. Mami and Annabelle Lee froze as they passed by, but they disappeared into the dark without noticing the intruders.
Of the two remaining guards, the one that they had been arguing without frantically yelled after them to come back. "Where are you going?" she all but screamed. "Hey! You can't leave! Brooklyn said we had to…Hey, come back! You can't leave us to fight the Brothel…"
Then the scared looking guard that had not taken part in the conversation shot her a panicked look. She then threw down her rifle and ran after the other two, leaving the remaining guard standing stupefied.
"What?" she said. "Bernadette? Bernie! Wait, don't go!" She started to run after her. "Please, you can't leave me now, not when-"
Before Mami could stop her, Annabelle Lee lunged out of hiding. The guard barely had time to recognize that she was being attacked before two steel blades plunged into her throat.
With a savage grin cutting around her face, Annabelle Lee grabbed the guard by the back of her head and shoved her further into her blades. Then she held her there as her victim fell to her knees with a wet-sounding gurgle.
"Stop!" Mami cried. She tried to pull the ex-Void Walker off of her. "Stop it, she's already-"
Then she froze in place. Her eyes dipped down to see the two razor-sharp points pressing against her own neck.
"Shut up," Annabelle Lee hissed. "Do you want to bring them back?" She jerked back her other arm, the one she had used to kill the guard, and the limp body fell off her blades and toppled to the ground.
Though she remained perfectly still and was careful not to let the words move her throat too much, Mami still managed to mumble out, "You didn't have to do that."
Annabelle Lee didn't say anything, though the look she shot her conveyed plenty of disdain. She withdrew her blades and turned her attention to the door.
Setting down her bag, the former Void Walker pulled out a rectangular steel box set with a row of red lights. She attached it to the wall next to the door and flipped it on. "Okay, good news," she said as she worked. "Looks like these guys didn't change any of the system's settings. Probably just shut it off the same way we're going to and turned it back on. Nifty."
"So what's the bad news?"
"Bad news is that we're done here, which means we have to wait and pray that the other two teams come through." There was a large, rusted metal box nearby, likely containing some kind of heavy machinery. Annabelle Lee appropriated it for their new cover. Mami followed. "And we kind of got the lion's share of competence on this team."
"I'm flattered," Mami said dryly.
"Hey, you're a good fighter. You annoy the hell of out me, but you're a good fighter. Ain't no shame in admitting that. Now, sit tight for a bit. I gotta take care of something."
Annabelle Lee slipped out and floated back into the darkness of the tunnel. Mami remained where she was, shooting anxious glances over to the imposing steel door. Somewhere beyond it, her friends were waiting. Mami wasn't sure if they were up to the task of actually rescuing them, so she put the question from her mind and instead focused on preparing to actually do it.
Okay. So when (and not if. When) they actually got inside, they were going to have to move quickly. Mami couldn't afford to skimp on the magic, so at the first sign of resistance, she was going to have to go guns blazing. Hopefully they would only have to deal with more of these gangmembers rather than the Brothel itself. It still wouldn't be easy, but at least they would have a better chance of succeeding against a gaggle of frightened amateur criminals rather than highly trained mercenaries already prepared for a siege.
Once they located Kyoko and Oktavia, they were going to have to make for the nearest exit. If they were in the prison, then that meant doubling back and coming out the way they came. If they were somewhere else, there were exits above ground, though with the riots going on and the marshal blockade nearby, that option was far from preferable. But then, nothing about this situation was preferable, so they would have to make due.
And as for Annabelle Lee and the rest of the former Void Walkers, well, hopefully they would have been dealt with by then. The thought of what she was going to have to do turned Mami's stomach, but good heavens, what choice did she have?
Suddenly Annabelle Lee was back. "Okay, now we just have to wait," she said, sliding in next to Mami.
"All right," Mami said. "What did you need to do?"
"Cut off that dead guard's head," Annabelle Lee said.
Mami started. "What?"
"Hey, it takes longer to grow a new head than it does to close up those little cuts I gave her. Or do you want her becoming a problem again in about five minutes?"
"But…but that's inhumane!"
The smile Annabelle Lee favored with told Mami exactly how little she cared. "How? She's dead already, so she didn't feel a thing." She cracked the joints in her fingers and entwined them behind her head as she slouched down lower. "Besides, you wanna talk inhumane? Go complain to whoever made this fucking afterlife in the first place and its stupid-ass rules. By rights dead should mean dead, not just temporarily out of commission." She sighed. "Damn, I should've told Arzt to bottle up some of that green shit of hers. It would have made it a lot easier."
Mami frowned uneasily. While she knew that Annabelle Lee was right from a logical standpoint, and she also knew that with her impending betrayal she really was in no position to throw stones about doing morally questionable things in service to the greater good, it still felt horribly wrong to mutilate a fallen foe like that. However, it was too late to do anything about it. It was just another stain on her soul. With all the ones already there, who would notice another one?
Something piqued her curiosity though, enough to take her attention away from her conscience. Mami glanced over to Annabelle Lee, who was slouching back and staring up at the ceiling. Her perpetual scowl seemed more trouble than usual, if the way her brow kept ruffling and smoothing out and her mouth kept twitching.
Mami hesitated, wondering if this was a good idea. One way or another, Annabelle Lee wasn't going to be her problem for much longer, so it really didn't matter. But this was one thing she had to know.
Sighing in defeat, Mami turned her to unlikely ally and said, "Would you mind terribly if I asked you a question?"
Annabelle Lee quirked an eyebrow. "You just did," she said. "And yeah. I'd mind."
Mami turned away and said nothing.
A few moments passed by, and then Annabelle Lee groaned. "Well, if you're going to pout…"
"Why do you want to go back to Oblivion so badly?"
Judging by the way her nose wrinkled, the question was not one she appreciated. "Y'know, if you're gonna bother me with personal questions, can they at least not be stupid?"
"No, I'm being serious," Mami pressed. "Why do you want to die?"
Annabelle Lee straightened up. "For real? You really wanna know?"
Mami nodded. "Something bad happened to you, didn't it?"
"Is this gonna be one of those psychoanawhatever heart-to-hearts? Because if so, I will cut you."
"It just doesn't make any sense to me," Mami said, shaking her head.
"Oh?" Annabelle Lee quirked an eyebrow. "Let me guess. Before we rolled around and fucked everything up for you, you had a real nice and comfy life. Nice home, cute wife, lovely town, and you just can't fathom why anyone wouldn't want the same thing, to live forever in your little slice of Heaven."
Mami's eyes narrowed. "Yes, I did have a nice life, and I do regret losing it. But even with it gone, that doesn't mean I want to give up on life entirely. There are so many ways to start over and build something-"
"Oh, shut up."
"I'm sorry?" Mami said, blinking in surprise.
Sighing, Annabelle Lee said, "Look, how long have you been dead?"
Mami frowned in puzzlement. Why would she want to know that? "Do you mean in this world or the previous?"
"This one."
"A little over seven years," Mami said with a shrug.
"That's it?" Annabelle Lee grinned in a mocking manner. "Really?"
Mami shrugged again. "I know I was luckier than most, but-"
"Luckier?" Annabelle Lee snorted. "Luck? You call that luck? It was a damned miracle!" She snickered. "Hey, remember Etherdale? Remember all those wild girls, how crazy they were? Did you know that, statistically speaking, you are more than four times more likely to end up like them than you are to wind up at a place like Freehaven? "
Mami wasn't surprised. Even as sheltered and protected and she and Charlotte had been, they had still heard tales of the afterlife's darker corners. "And is that what happened to you?"
A bit of color touched Annabelle Lee's thin cheeks. She stared long and hard at Mami, her lips edging up into a snarl. For a moment, Mami thought that maybe she had pushed too far and her "partner" was going to answer her question with violence. Her back stiffened, and she tightened her grip on her musket, reflexively readying herself for a fight.
However, it never came. Instead of attacking her, Annabelle Lee merely looked away. She still spoke though. "Tell me something, Mami Tomoe. Say none of this happened. Say Kyoko and Oktavia never entered your lives. Or hell, if they did, we didn't come with them. Say you just went on the way you were. What would happen?"
"What are you talking about?" Mami said in bewilderment.
"Well, you were happy, right?"
Something told Mami that she was probably going to prefer the expected fight to this line of questioning. "Of course I was!"
Annabelle Lee glanced back at her, an unfriendly smirk on her face. "And you love you wife, don't you?"
"Yes, I do!" Mami said without hesitation. "More than anything!"
"Cool." Then Annabelle Lee twisted around to look Mami in the eye, her ugly smirk growing longer. "So, who's the oldest person you know?"
"What?"
"Who is," Annabelle Lee said, enunciating every syllable. "The oldest. Person. You know?" When Mami still looked confused, she clarified, "In our years."
"I…" Mami frowned as she thought. Come to think of it, most of the people she knew in Freehaven weren't much older than a hundred, and she had a feeling that Annabelle Lee was shooting for significantly more years than that. And there really was only one person that fit that bill. "Well, I know someone who's about four hundred years old, and-"
"And is she happy?"
"I'm…not sure," Mami admitted. The person she was referring to was the former dockmaster, the one Virginia had replaced. She had retired long before Mami and Charlotte had arrived, and they had met her only on a couple of occasions, neither of which could be described as being very friendly. "We don't really talk much."
Closing her eyes, Annabelle Lee let out a soft snort. "Let me guess: not a whole lot of people talk to her. She doesn't have any close friends, she doesn't socialize much, and when you see her, she's pretty distant most of the time, yeah?" When Mami's silence confirmed her guess, she pressed on. "Probably has a pretty short temper too. Not a whole lotta patience in the tank, yeah?"
Mami remained silent.
Annabelle Lee snickered. "Do you want to know why?"
"I-"
"See, human beings aren't exactly made for this sort of life. We're designed to be mortal. We're supposed to die. Some sooner than others, yeah, but sooner or later, all of us kick it. Eighty years or so, give or take. That's what we're supposed to have. We were never supposed to live forever like this, never aging, never really dying, never hurting for long. It's just not the way we work." She laughed again. "I mean, bloody fucking hell. That one bird that supposedly wished this place into existence, like a fuckton whatever years ago? God, did she fuck up. I mean, sure, she probably had the best intentions and all, but goddamn."
Mami slowly shook her head. "I'm not sure I understand your point."
"My point?" Annabelle Lee straightened up to glower at her. "My point is that we're not supposed to be here! We are quite literally not fucking equipped to handle living forever! Because sooner or later it gets to you! Sure, if you get lucky and end up in a nice place like you did it'll seem pretty damned heavenly at first. But sooner or later it breaks down. It stops being fun. It gets old."
"But-"
"So you move. You go to a new place and get a new job. You start your life over. And lo and behold, things are great again! I mean, most people are lucky enough to build one kind of paradise, but you've made two! Pat yourself on the back."
Annabelle Lee slowly clapped her palms together in mock applause. Then she lowered them and said, "You wanna know how long before that gets old as well? Maybe about half as long this time. So you try again. And again. And again. Each time, you get bored more and more quickly. And soon you just get tired of starting over. It's not fun anymore. The excitement's gone. It's boring."
She paused for a few moments to let that sink in. When Mami didn't provide her with any sort of answer, she said, "So you take to wandering. Go out and see the world. Leave the trappings of civilization behind and have an adventure. I mean, it's a great big afterlife out there, with pieces from thirteen different planets! You're sure to have a wonderful time!"
Another pause. Another bout of silence.
"Well, there are about three different ways that can go," Annabelle Lee said with a shrug. She held up a hand and started counting off points on her fingers. "First, you go and have fun. Spend a few hundred years seeing all there is to see. Then you're bored again. You've seen it all and you've done it all. There is literally nothing left for you to do. Well, tough luck. You're still here. You can't die, can't leave, and things just keep going and going and going and going until the boredom and pointlessness of it all drives you completely mad. Then it keeps going for a bit longer, just to rub it in. So, then what do you do?"
Mami turned away and sighed.
"The second way isn't so nice." Though Mami couldn't see Annabelle Lee's face, she could practically hear the smirk. "You get a real good look at the afterlife's ugly side. Etherdale, for instance. Leechers. Covens. People with power who don't mind using it to ruin others. And that's just a small taste. Hell, Etherdale was downright tame when compared to some other places. I mean, you know what a dockengaut meat slave is, right?"
Mami didn't look at her, but she still said, "I do."
"Then you know that there are literally organizations that kidnap people off the street just to sell them to those creepy, skittering bastards. And there they stay, getting eaten alive every day only to regenerate and get eaten again. Over and over and over and-"
And with that, Mami had heard all that she cared to hear. "All right, I get your point," she growled.
"No, you really don't," Annabelle Lee said coldly. "Because I haven't made it yet. And it's that you get to see all that ugliness, live and in living color. And you just can't handle it. You're not used to it. You don't want to be used to it. So it breaks you. You lose your mind, lose your will to keep going, and just give up. You're done. Except you're not, not really. Because you're still stuck here. And well, you know how that story goes."
"What's the third way?" Mami said in a small voice.
"Third way is that you get caught by something ugly," Annabelle Lee said. There was a mocking casualness to her voice. If it weren't for the vile subject matter, she sounded like she was simply discussing the weather. "Like a leecher or a dockengaut, become a witch or a wild girl or something like that, and just stay in that Hell forever, helpless and hopeless. But forget that, and let's focus on the other two. Now, you're either bored or broken or both, and you're just done with it all." She poked Mami in the shoulder. "So, what do you do?"
Mami sighed. She knew the answer to that one at least. "You go to Oblivion."
"That's right," Annabelle Lee nodded. "You go to Oblivion, because she's the only way out. Except there's something of a waiting list, one that's roughly about two hundred years long. You finally seeing the picture I'm painting for you?"
"You're saying that trying to make a life here is pointless, because we all end up going to Oblivion anyway," Mami said.
Annabelle Lee shrugged. "Only about seven percent make it to their first millennium. And less than one percent see their second. Sooner or later, we all break, and those last few centuries are pure misery. All paths lead to Oblivion." She laid her head back and stared up at the concrete ceiling. "I wanted to skip all that. Didn't want to end up lying around in some room somewhere, thinking, 'You know, if I had joined the Void Walkers two hundred years ago, I'd be done by now.' I wanted to get it over with."
When one examined Annabelle Lee's viewpoint from an objective standpoint, there really was a lot of truth to it. If an individual's existence was meant to be finite, and the process of ending that existence was long and miserable, getting it over with as soon as possible did sound logical.
And yet, Mami still found her stomach twisted by the thought. Because no matter how logical Annabelle Lee's reasoning might be, that didn't change the fact that she had been presented with a second chance and had thrown it away without a second thought. "You didn't even try," she said.
"Try what?"
"To make it work."
Unfortunately, Annabelle Lee looked more amused by Mami's accusation than anything. "Tell me something, Mrs. Tomoe. Do you love your wife?"
Mami was silent for a long time before answering. And when she did, though she spoke calmly and did not raise her voice, there was no mistaking the hostility. "Be very, very careful with your words."
"Nah, I'm being serious." Annabelle Lee leaned in closer than Mami would have liked. "Do you love Charlotte? Like, is she everything to you? Does she complete you? Is she your partner in every sense of the word?"
Mami looked the former Void Walker right in the eye. "Yes. Yes I do. And yes she is."
"Bet'cha you two are real happy together."
Mami's thumb started wandering up and down the muzzle of her musket. "What are you getting at?"
"Do you want to know the divorce rate past a hundred years?" Annabelle Lee said. She actually giggled. "Eighty-two percent."
Mami had to look away then, because if she didn't, she might have to cave Annabelle Lee's face in. "Stop talking."
"At two hundred it's ninety-nine point seven," Annabelle Lee continued, ignoring the command entirely. "And do you know why? It's because no matter how perfect two people might be for each other, no matter how much they love one another, we aren't meant to stay in love that long. It like violates our programming." Annabelle Lee turned her head and spat. "So even if by some deranged miracle we get out of this and you two get to rebuild your lives, there will come the day you will get sick of seeing her face."
Mami blinked. She turned to look at her companion, her eyes blank.
Then she struck Annabelle Lee across the face.
Annabelle Lee's head snapped to one side and she almost fell over. Rubbing the spot where Mami had slapped her, she turned back, her ugly smirk now a grin of triumph. "Smack me all you want. But one day you will be wearing something black and skimpy, counting down the years until the mindless drivel your life has become is finally over. And when you are, know that I got there first. I skipped to the end, and you'll wish that you did what I did your first day in."
Mami returned that sneer with a cold look. "Except you won't."
Annabelle Lee's head snapped back again, though this time it seemed that Mami had done more damage with her words than she had with her hand. "Excuse me?"
"You won't have left," Mami said softly. "You'll still be here. Reibey banished you, remember?"
Annabelle Lee inhaled sharply, her eyes going wide. Her neck tensed up as her jaw squeezed tightly shut. A violent tremble began around her hands, and squeezing her fingers into fists did little to offset it.
It was plain that Mami's observation had hit Annabelle Lee where it hurt, and for a moment she had an instinctive urge to apologize. What she had said had been true, and Annabelle Lee had needed reminding of that fact. That didn't change the fact that she had just deliberately attacked a broken girl at her weakest point.
But she didn't. Maybe she should have; it might have changed what was to come. Probably not. At any rate, Annabelle Lee had had no reservations about cruelly going after Mami's marriage. So Mami just stared right back at her and didn't say anything.
And then the lights when out.
Immediately after they were back, only now they were the dull, pulsing red lights used to signal an emergency. Somewhere an alarm was wailing for help. Startled, Mami and Annabelle Lee both jerked out of their stand-off and turned to look at the door, which was now open ever so slightly.
Mami took a deep breath. "Well, that's our cue."
"Right," Annabelle Lee muttered. She straightened up, shouldered her pack, and popped the blades on both arms. "Let's get this over with then."
…
Monday, 12:26 AM
Despite the rough spots she had gotten into (drugged, kidnapped, smacked around, electrocuted, shot, spaceship crash, and anything involving Ticky Nikki), Oktavia was aware that she had gotten off relatively lighter than her more mobile friends. Hell, Kyoko had died at least once, and there was also that ridiculous beating Annabelle Lee and her cronies had put Mami and Charlotte through. In comparison, Oktavia really didn't have much cause to complain.
In a way, it made sense. Her lack of legs limited what she was able to contribute to fights, which made her a lower priority whenever the bad guys showed up. Her tail was as much of a defense as it was a handicap. And oh boy, did that piss her off.
Oktavia wanted to fight. She wanted to stick up for herself, to defend her friends as much as they defended her. She didn't want to be the helpless princess needing to rely on others for protection. She wanted to be the knight, the one shouldering the heavy work and helping to protect others. Which was, according to Kyoko, a trait she shared with her predecessor, Sayaka Miki.
Oktavia wasn't really sure if she agreed though. From what she could tell, Sayaka was driven less from compassion and altruism and more from a selfish desire to prove herself. Supposedly, she had wanted to be the hero as a way to shield her fragile self-esteem, which had led to her downfall. Oktavia didn't really feel like she had anything to prove. She just wanted to carry her fair share of the load, and it galled her that her friends had gotten hurt on her behalf.
But looking back, maybe she had more in common with Sayaka than she was really willing to admit. The girl's notorious hotheaded nature had certainly carried over. And from the look of things, it really didn't matter which part of her psyche had motivated her to overcompensate and butt her way into problems. Because in the end, it still made her the target of an angry Brooklyn McNally.
Two gloved fists the size of grapefruits came down on her stomach, and Oktavia suddenly found herself catching up on her backlog of missed beatings. All air was instantly driven from her body with a pained gasp, and she had just enough time to regret her foolishness before losing the ability to form coherent thoughts.
It hurt. A lot.
Fortunately, Brooklyn was too blinded by rage to hold back and make it count, and things sort of lost focus after the third punch. The next thing Oktavia knew, she was coming to and wanting to go back. She hurt all over. Even breathing was painful.
Good thing I don't got a mirror, she thought hazily. Probably a big purple mess right now.
The upside though was that Brooklyn wasn't hitting her anymore, so any pain she was feeling now was as much as she was going to get. Goodie. That didn't change the fact that the big idiot had more than filled up the tank.
Soon after that she noticed that her position hadn't changed much. She was still on the ground of that big, messed up control room, which meant that Brooklyn hadn't saw fit to send them back to that storage closet. She also noticed that the lights were all weird: dim and red and pulsing like a heartbeat. There was also a screeching siren, and boy did her head ever noticed that one.
Someone was moving nearby. Coughing, Oktavia gingerly rolled over onto her back, which seemed to be the least bruised part of her. Squinting, she saw a weirdly shaped person standing over her, one with more arms than seemed strictly necessary and a nose so long that it was downright comical.
Even in her addled state, Oktavia recognized the inhuman figure. "Ki-Kisa?" she croaked out.
The avian mercenary glanced down at her. "Oh," she said, sounding surprised. "You're awake. That was fast."
Oktavia tried to straighten up, but her arms were still tied. Just as well. Her stomach hurt too much to allow for that to happen. "Wha-wha…"
"What is happening?" Kisa shrugged. "Well, the security system is down, which is usually the precursor to an attack. Most of our unwanted freeloaders have displayed greater sense than their moronic leader and have fled. Good for them. And as for me, I need to liberate the rest of my coworkers and take our leave."
Oktavia choked. All that had happened while she was out? "Kyoko," she rasped out. "Where?"
Kisa smiled. Then she pointed.
Oktavia craned her neck to see. About three different points in her head and shoulders screamed obscenities at her, but she ignored them. Because there, on the other side of the room, Kyoko was up. She was unbound. And she was fighting for her life against a very angry Brooklyn.
The giant was roaring wordlessly while swinging that big hammer of hers, smashing every last bit of equipment to pieces. Kyoko was doing a good job of avoiding being smashed, but only just. Her game plan seemed to be to dance around just out of range, daring Brooklyn to keep swinging at her, and dart in as soon as an opening presented itself. Thus far, it didn't seem that one had, though that didn't keep the redhead from stopping the constant torrent of taunts and barbs that she was letting loose.
Oktavia's eyes boggled. When in the hell had this happened?
"She took Brooklyn's assault on you very poorly," Kisa said, calmly answering her unspoken question. "The alarms went off soon after. I was able to free myself in the ensuing chaos, and since Brooklyn is an active detriment to any sort of escape plan, I also freed your friend to keep her busy. Thus far, she had done a magnificent job of doing just that."
That she was, but that didn't change the fact that this was a fight that Kyoko couldn't win. Brooklyn was just too big and too fast, and Kyoko was drained from her long imprisonment. In the end, it could only end in with multiple parts of Kyoko's body completely caved in.
"She's gonna kill her!" Oktavia said desperately.
"Probably," Kisa said with a shrug. "Here's hoping she can delay that part for a long while. Farewell, scientifically impossible fish-mammal hybrid."
The veeky-whatever turned to leave, and Oktavia had a sudden panic attack. "Wait!" she said, slurring through swollen lips. "You can't!"
"Can, will, and am." Kisa started to walk away.
Ignoring the surge of pain that the sudden movement brought her, Oktavia lurched after her. "Look, cut me free too! I can help distract Brooklyn too!"
She might have been speaking to a statue on a conveyor belt for all the good it did her. Kisa walked from the room without a look back.
And with that, Oktavia was left alone.
Well, no. Not entirely alone. Kyoko and Brooklyn were still there, but neither were paying any attention to her. Which, as Oktavia realized as she watched them fight, was the whole point.
Despite the incredible danger she was in, Kyoko did not stop talking. Insults. Taunts. Sarcasm. As labored as her every breath was, each one came with something intended to infuriate Brooklyn. And it was working spectacularly.
Kyoko was trying to keep Brooklyn's attention on her and off of Oktavia. She was trying to protect her the only way she knew how. And that knowledge brought a healthy helping of horror. After all, the last conversation they had had ended with Oktavia telling Kyoko to go to hell. Granted, she had been tired, scared, cranky, and psychologically programmed to respond poorly to being referred to by her "old" name, but upon reviewing that exchange, Oktavia had to admit that she had maybe overreacted by a fair amount. And given that Kyoko was pretty much her only friend left and essentially sacrificing herself for Oktavia (not the first time either, if one thought about it), it did mean that Oktavia was seriously regretting the things she had said.
Well, the only to do now was to make up for them. Maybe Kyoko considered her important enough to put herself in grave danger to protect, but as Oktavia felt the same way about her, she wasn't really interested in meekly accepting the sacrifice.
Okay, first she had to do something about the ropes binding her arms together. True, she couldn't exactly move around much without her wheelchair, but even a crawl was better than this. After that, she could provide some long-range support. After all, Brooklyn could hardly crush anyone if she had a half-dozen train wheels coming at-
Wait.
Wheels.
Oktavia rolled onto her stomach. More pain flared up from her bruises, bringing tears to her eyes. Squeezing them shut, she grimaced and held her arms up the best she could. A moment later, a glowing wheel appeared in the air directly over her arms. It started to spin faster and faster until it was whirring like a buzzsaw. Then, moving with extreme carefulness, she slowly lowered it until it had sliced enough of the ropes away to free her arms. Once that was done, Oktavia was able to roll over and pull the binds around her tail.
Once she was free, Oktavia eased herself back around and took a deep breath. Okay, it was time to unleash a little rolling thunder. She held up her hands, ready to fill the sky with round, spinning agents of pain.
Unfortunately, there was no one to hurl them at. In the time it had taken her to free herself, Kyoko and Brooklyn's fight had taken them out of the room and into the adjoining hallway. Oktavia could still hear them battling, but she could no longer see them.
She took a deep breath and thought. Okay, so if she wanted to help Kyoko, she was going to have to find her first. And to do that, she would have to do something about the whole lying on the floor thing.
All right, crawling around on her elbows was straight out. It was way too darned slow, and she didn't relish the thought of dragging her bruised abdomen all over the floor. Rolling was also a no-go, for similar reasons. So what did that leave her with?
Well, wheels.
Another wheel materialized on the floor right next to her, lying flat like a giant coin. Taking a deep breath, Oktavia eased herself onto to it, wincing every time her weight came down on one of her bruises, which was far too often for her liking. Once she was on it, she gripped the edge with her fingers and gave a short mental command.
At her behest, the wheel lifted off the ground and hovered in midair, supporting her weight without difficulty.
Oktavia had to grin. Her powers may be random as heck, but they were incredibly cool sometimes.
Concentrating the best she could, Oktavia maneuvered her floating disc towards the door. It wasn't as easy as it looked. The wheel obeyed her every command, but it was unable to take her personal limitations into consideration, so she had to be careful about how she phrased them in her mind, else it might shoot off too quickly and cause her to lose her grip or tilt in a manner that would send her sliding off. It didn't help that the edge she was clinging to was wafer-thin and razor-sharp, which meant that she had to beware of cutting her fingers, or that the surface of the wheel itself was perfectly smooth, which meant no traction or-
Then Oktavia sighed. Wow, she really was pretty stupid sometimes. A thought, and the wheel's circumference thickened and rounded out. Another, and the surface became noticeably rougher, enough to give her body something to adhere to.
Okay, she could travel, and do so quickly. Next order of business was to find Kyoko. Oktavia floated her way through the hallway, her way lit only by the pulsing red lights. That freaking alarm was still playing merry havoc with her headache, but she ignored it the best she could. Which wasn't much, unfortunately.
Kyoko's battle with Brooklyn seemed to have taken them far and wide, as Oktavia was reasonably sure those dents and gouges in the walls and floor had not been there before. Worryingly though, she could no long hear them yelling, which was probably a very bad sign. Oktavia swallowed and tried not to think about coming across her friend's crushed remains splattered all over the floor.
Then she rounded a corner and nearly fell off her wheel. Halfway down the hallway in front of her was the door to the storage room that Brooklyn had been keeping them in. The Brothel's people were filing out one by one in a neat, orderly row. They all looked rather put out, but ultimately unworried about their situation.
Oktavia quickly retreated back and watched from around the corner. Fortunately they were going in the opposite direction. Where, Oktavia didn't know. Out, presumably. So long as they did so without her and Kyoko, they could go wherever they wanted.
Finally the last of them left, with Kisa bringing up the rear. The avian alien was speaking in hushed tones to a dumpy looking brunette human, but as she entered the hallway, something made them both pause.
And then they looked back.
Oktavia quickly moved back further, out of sight. She didn't know the first thing about whatever species Kisa was, so she didn't know how good her sense of smell was, or her hearing for that matter. And heck, maybe she could detect Oktavia's presence through magic. She was a witch, after all.
Oktavia waited as long as she dared. When she could stand it no longer, she risked inching forward and peeking out. She caught the briefest glimpse of Kisa and her human companion rushing to catch up with the rest of their colleagues at the other end of the hallway. They rounded a corner and disappeared.
Breathing out a sigh of relief, Oktavia moved forward again. Logically she ought to be going in a different direction than the Brothel members, but she wanted to check something.
She glanced into the storage room and smiled. Sure enough, her wheelchair was still there, lying where Brooklyn had tossed it. And from the look of things, all of the bags were still there, unspoiled. Awesome.
It took some tricky maneuvering and a lot of pained groans, but she managed to get the wheelchair upright and her butt in its seat. Once that was done, she fused a magical train wheel to each of her chair's mundane steel wheels. And just like that, she was full mobile.
Oktavia turned the chair around toward the storage room's entrance and peeled out like an excited teenager behind the wheel of their first noisy hotrod. Which, in a sense, she kind of was. She zoomed back the way she came and found the trail of destruction that Kyoko and Brooklyn had left behind.
"Okay, hang on, buddy," Oktavia whispered. "I'm coming to save-"
Then as silent as a pouncing cat, something dropped from the ceiling.
The next thing Oktavia knew, something was sitting on the back of her neck with its legs wrapped tightly around her throat. Squealing in surprise, she reached up to swat it off, but it was already jabbing two needle-points into her neck.
Then a terrifyingly familiar voice mewed out, "It's sushi time, fishy!"
Oktavia froze, her breath catching in her throat. No. Not her.
And then the stabbing began.
…
Monday. 12:46 PM
"When you got crippled and couldn't walk anymore, did anyone care?"
Kyoko couldn't have scored a finer hit if she had thrust a barbed spear straight up through Brooklyn's sternum and twisted. The maddened giant literally froze in place, nothing moving save for the twitching of her flesh and the sickly greenish sweat that was dripping off of her in rivulets. Her heavy warhammer, now raised all the way over her head, stopped dead as if suddenly encased in concrete. It didn't even so much as tremble.
Brooklyn's eyes were the size of duck eggs and shot through with so many veins that the original color was all but obscured. In an odd moment of curiosity, Kyoko found herself wondering if the veins in one's eyes were really there, only filled with soul gas, or if like most everything else they were just for show. Probably the latter. The shock in them was real enough though. Apparently Kyoko's jab had been poignant enough to pierce straight through the withdrawals playing merry havoc on Brooklyn's already addled thought process. "What?" the giant said in a guttural whisper.
Well, she had picked her mark and aimed true. The only to do now was to keep shooting. Hoisting herself up on her elbows and doing her best to ignore her throbbing head and her body's insistent demands that she lay down now and let the darkness claim her, Kyoko looked Brooklyn right in the eyes and smirked. "Did they? It must've been painful, being a lonely cripple that nobody even cared to visit. Everything hurting so bad that you could scream, and no one even sent a card, did they? What was it? Car accident? Fall out of a tree? Or did you get beaten so badly that you-"
Her probing must have hit a real tender spot, because at that moment Brooklyn's already bulging eyes found it within themselves to expand another few centimeters. Her face turned dark purple and she let out an unearthly scream of rage and hate.
And down came the hammer.
Fortunately, Kyoko was no longer there to meet it.
It was a close thing though. Her pain and fatigue had dulled her reflexes, so she barely managed to roll out of the way before it caved her chest in. Even so, she felt the whisper of its passing on her back. Staggering onto all fours, she scampered away as quickly as her battered body would allow, which wasn't much at all. All the while, she kept expecting to feel the cold kiss of the hammer. One blow, and she would be done.
Further, further, she urged herself on. Her leaden limbs were starting to awaken, signs of her twenty-second wind finally kicking in. The ghost of her heartbeat pounded on frantically, screaming at her from beyond the grave to move her ass before Brooklyn flattened her.
The next thing she knew, she was already at the other end of the hall, safe and unsquished. That was odd though. She could still hear Brooklyn's enraged screaming and the repeated pounding of her hammer. Panting, Kyoko fell back against the wall and looked back the way she came.
Brooklyn was still where Kyoko had left her, her back to the exhausted redhead while she repeated pounded away at where she had been. "Told me I was nothing!" she shrieked as she slammed her hammer against the floor, deepening the already impressive dent she was creating. "Told me I deserved it! Told me I shoulda died and done everyone a favor!"
She's lost it, Kyoko thought as she stared. Whatever nerve that Kyoko had struck had been a raw one all right. She watched the big nutcase go to work on the floor for a while, wondering what she should do.
Well, the logical thing would be to take advantage of Brooklyn's lack of awareness of her surroundings and walk right up to her and put a spear through the back of her head. Only problem was that she was so out of it that it might not kill her outright, and she would be on Kyoko again.
"But I tried! I tried to do good, to do right by him! It just hurt so much that I had to take something!"
The other logical thing was to just leave the big galumph to her fate. The Brothel was probably going to be there any minute now. Kyoko could just go back and grab Oktavia and go. The rest of Brooklyn's cronies seemed more interested in saving their own skin than protecting their interests.
"But did he care? NO! Just said I was a stupid, fat whore that never did nothing right, a useless cripple!"
Yeah, that was probably the best idea. And Kyoko was in no condition to be picking any more fights. Straightening herself up the best she could, she turned back to where she left her mermaid.
"My own da! He never wanted me, not before and not after! Said he didn't need a daughter that couldn't think for herself, couldn't do anything right!"
Kyoko froze.
…
Monday, 11:03 PM
Charlotte wasn't certain if it was some kind of universal constant, but she was starting to get the sneaking suspicion that when trouble came, its little siblings liked to tag along.
Consider: she was currently sneaking around in an underground tunnel in a city currently being plagued by civil unrest that she had not previously believed possible outside of movies acting as the bodyguard to one of her least favorite people that she was probably going to have to end up executing a preemptive betrayal on so they could sabotage a highly advanced security system and raid the hidden hideout of a group of extremely dangerous mercenaries to rescue friends, one of which Charlotte didn't really even like, that they weren't even completely sure hadn't already been shipped off to the most evil place in the world. And that was not counting the fact that she and Mami had thrown away their wonderful lives in Freehaven to do so. Oh, and they had just gotten over spending a week being mind-controlled by leechers. Fun, fun, fun.
And to top it off, she could not get her stupid helmet to work.
She had nicked it from one of the Persephone Protectorate's equipment piles. Since very few of them had been at all interested in keeping their armor on, it hadn't been difficult to sneak in and grab one. Both she and Mami were already wearing protective undershirts that would, in theory, provide ample protection against bullets and blades. And since Charlotte had been shot more times than she would have liked over the last few days, she had decided that her head needed something a little extra as well. Considering what they had to face, she wanted every edge she could get her hands on.
Unfortunately, while it fit well enough, it just plain refused to turn on. Oh, she could still see through the visor, but in the dim light the tainted goggles were restricting her visibility more than was safe, and there was something wrong with the air filter. Damn it all, why wasn't it doing what she wanted? Back when she was unwittingly a member of the Persephone Protectorate, all she ever had to do was put it on and push a button. But now all she got were clicks and growling murmurs.
Given that Arzt liked Charlotte roughly about as much as Charlotte liked her (not even a smidgen), the beret-wearing blonde had been content to completely ignore her struggles for most of the way down the unusually large subterranean passage. But finally she glanced back and sighed. "What in the world are you doing?"
At that moment, Charlotte had the thing off and was irritably smacking her palm against the inside, hoping a little percussive maintenance would do the trick. It wasn't. "Mind your own business," she snapped back.
"I am," Arzt said. "You're supposed to be covering you, and you can hardly do that if you won't stop fiddling around with that hunk of metal. Now I'll ask you again: what in the world are you doing?"
"What does it look like?" Charlotte demanded. She held the inert helmet out to the blonde jerk. "I'm trying to get this damned helmet to work!"
Arzt raised an eyebrow. "You know, most people just slip them on, and that's that," she said as she folded her arms. "To your credit, you seem to have managed to figure that part out, but I for one cannot see why you feel further fiddling is necessary."
Charlotte sighed. "It's supposed to light up with night vision and a targeting grid! But all I'm getting is a big blob of nothing."
"That's one of the Persephone Protectorate's helmets, correct?" The former Void Walker smirked. "Huh, one would think that proper operation of their equipment would have been included in the new member orientation."
Growling, Charlotte jabbed her thumb against the power button a few more times. "It's supposed to just switch on. But every time I do, it just makes weird clicking noises."
"Maybe it needs the rest of the suit to function."
Which was a surprisingly helpful observation, all things considered. Charlotte considered that for a moment before shaking her head. "No, that wouldn't make any sense. There's got to be times when they'd need the helmets to work on their own."
"Then maybe it's broken. Those covens were rather hard on your equipment, if I recall."
Oh crap, that was right. Odds were something had gotten smashed up inside. "Damn it," Charlotte said, letting her arms drop.
"Just forget the damned thing." Arzt tilted her head to one side and frowned. "Why'd you bring it, anyway?"
"Because I don't want to get shot in the head."
"Nie is at the grocery store."
Charlotte rolled her eyes. "She's not the only one with guns."
"Well, if you cannot get it to work, then it's just going to end up blinding you," Arzt said. "Which makes you a liability, so get rid of it."
Charlotte glowered.
Arzt merely smiled back. "I'm waiting."
With a muttered curse, Charlotte gave up on the helmet and shoved it back into her pack. Then she shouldered it and dourly walked after Arzt, who was already moving
"So hey," Charlotte said after a bit. "I've got a question."
"So hey," Arzt said without breaking stride. "I don't care."
Unfortunately for her, Charlotte had never been one to be deterred when she had something to say. "You and your sister. What's the deal with you two anyway?"
Arzt froze in place, her entirely body just stopping in mid-stride. Then her head slowly turned toward Charlotte, eyes and mouth open in disbelief at her unwanted partner's audacity. "Excuse you?" she squeaked.
Usually at that point, Charlotte would realize that her questioning had gone too far and she would become embarrassed and apologize for accidentally offending whoever she was talking to. However, in this case, she really didn't give a rat's ass about Arzt's feelings, so she kept right on going. "Seriously. Are you macking on your own sister?" she said. It was far from the worst thing about the psychotic clown, but all the malice and nastiness she could at least understand. "Because I knew you were twisted and evil, but that's just gross."
Charlotte had to admit, she did take some satisfaction in exactly how flustered and upset her observation made the other girl. Arzt's face went as pale as probably had been when she had worn Oblivion's colors (or lack thereof) and her mouth started opening and closing like a suffocating fish. "Wha-" she gaped. "Out of all the-" Then she inhaled sharply and let it out through her nose in an aggravated growl. Squeezing her human hand into a fist, she marched up to Charlotte and shoved the flat of her syringe index finger against Charlotte's chest. "Okay, first off, let's get a couple things straight here. That it quite literally none of your business. It isn't even adjacent to your business. That subject and your business aren't even on the same astral plane!" She thrust up her middle finger to join the first. "Second, Nie isn't my sister. So save your assumptions."
Charlotte barked out in laughter. "Are you serious? Aside from the hand thing, you two look exactly the same!"
"So?"
"So that means you're freaking twin sisters!" Though she didn't let up in pressing that particular button, Charlotte still made sure to take Arzt's fingers off of her and put some distance between them. "Hell, you even call yourself The Twins!"
"That's just a gimmicky nickname!" Arzt protested. Despite her obvious rancor, there was an exasperated resignation to her tone that suggested that this was not the first time she had had to make this argument, nor did she expect it to be the last. "We're not actually related by blood, or closest equivalent."
"But that's genetically impossible!"
Arzt sulkily folded her arms and glared daggers. "Oh, are you a geneticist now, in addition to being a seaweed farmer and a leecher?"
"Well, no," Charlotte admitted. "But-" Then she blinked. "Hold up. How the hell did you know what my job is?"
"Simple," Arzt said with a shrug. "When planning this, we did our homework. You should try it sometime."
Charlotte considered pursuing that little nugget of information, but deciding against allowing Arzt to take the offensive. Turning things back to the original subject, she said, "You can't be serious though. There's no way she's not your sister."
Arzt snorted. "You would be the expert, of course."
"It's the only thing that makes sense! Unless they figured out cloning back in the world of the living." Charlotte frowned at the thought. "But that's even more creepy."
Arzt smirked at her. "Maybe we were two young lovers. Her, my pure and beautiful princess. And me, her stalwart knight." She held her hands over her heart and sighted. "And when I fell, her broken heart drove her to wish for my face, so as to take up my mantle and avenge my death!"
Not laughing would take too much willpower, so Charlotte didn't bother trying. "That is the stupidest-" Then her mind again belatedly seized upon another bit of information that Arzt had casually dropped. "Wait, when you fell? You didn't arrive together?"
"If only we had." Pressing the back of her metal hand to her forehead, Arzt sighed dramatically and said, "Alas, we did not meet again until years into my service as a Void Walker. It was then that we resolved to end our existences together, to make up for the death we should have shared." Smiling, she let out a pleased moan at the thought. "Can you imagine it? Holding one another, our blood mixing with our kisses as Death draws us into her arms? Is there anything more romantic?"
Yes, actually. Charlotte could think of several right off the top of her head. "You've got some serious issues," she said.
That brought Arzt's love-struck monologue to a halt. Glowering again, she said, "You know what? For the sake of argument, let's assume you're right, and Nie and I are each other's sisters. So what?"
"Huh?"
"So what?" Arzt demanded again. "It's not like we are capable of breeding, so there's no need to fear polluting the gene pool. And all memories of our previous life are gone, so all traces of us actually being raised as siblings are gone as well. So what does it matter?"
"Well, it's weird!"
Arzt rolled her eyes. "Oh, and like you're the one to talk. Word has it that you and your sweet little thing ended your first kiss with you biting off her head."
Charlotte paused for a moment, letting her mind take a moment to confirm that yes, Arzt had just brought up that subject. "What?" she said in a low, dangerous tone.
Seeing that she had retaken the offensive, Arzt's smirk only grew more malicious. "Like I said. We did our homework. Now, you may ride tall on your high horse and judge our relationship all you want. Call us creepy, nasty, disgusting, unnatural, or whatever you wish. I assure you, we've heard it all before." She away from Charlotte with a haughty toss of her hair. "But at least we didn't start things off with one of us killing the other. Now, if there is nothing else, I'd appreciate it greatly if we returned our focus to the task at hand. That way, we can be quit of each other all the more quickly."
With that, she again started moving forward, humming to herself in a pleased manner. After a moment, Charlotte followed, her eyes burrowing into the spot between Arzt's shoulderblades. Any hesitation she might have had about inevitably turning on these people was now gone.
…
Monday. 12:49 PM
Brooklyn's already frayed mind had snapped; that much was obvious. She continued her relentless pounding of the floor into submission, but now it seemed to be simply because her arms had not been told to stop rather than a deluded belief that Kyoko was still there. In fact, she probably had forgotten Kyoko entirely, if her ravings were any indication.
"No matter what, never good enough! Well, what were you ever good for, huh? Tell me! Tell me! TELL ME!"
Maybe it was her depleted soul playing with her, but Kyoko was transfixed. There was something about the way Brooklyn screamed at a hated face from beyond the grave that pulled at her. And given what she was able to pull out of the giant's babbling, she had a fairly good idea at who that face had belonged to.
With one last scream, Brooklyn hit the floor so hard that a tear slashed through the steel plate. She collapsed to her knees, sobbing loudly, just a lonely, mad giant waiting for her executioners.
"I tried," she cried. "I tried, I tried, I tried. But you never cared."
Kyoko hesitated. Then she slowly approached Brooklyn from behind until they were about two meters apart. Then she said, "Who never cared?"
Brooklyn was silent for a moment, and for a moment Kyoko was certain that her moment of curiosity would treat her like a cat. But instead, Brooklyn remained kneeling and simply whispered, "My da."
Kyoko raised her brow.
"I tried. Tried to…to not make him mad. But he had too much pain. His back hurt him, so it made him mad. And he was bigger than me. It hurt too much. I didn't mean to take them, just wanted the hurting to stop."
It didn't take a genius to figure what it was Brooklyn had taken to deal with her pain.
"That…that just made him angrier. Call me junkie trash. Said I was…that I was worthless, good for nothing."
Kyoko, who had certain opinions about how fathers ought to treat their daughters, felt her lip curl.
Brooklyn turned around then, her vaporshot eyes streaming murky tears. However, she didn't seem to be able to see Kyoko. It was like she was pleading to God. "I tried to get better, to get clean, I swear! But it hurt. It just hurt too damned much."
"And that's when you got crippled," Kyoko guessed.
Brooklyn fell silent, her massive shoulders shaking. "It was an accident," she said at last. "Couldn't take it no more. So I ran. Ran out of the door, yelling at him" She sniffed and wiped her nose with her arm, smeaing mucus over the polluted sweat. "There…there was car. Didn't see it. Was too angry, too…"
Kyoko gritted her teeth. Brooklyn was sort of a monster; she had seen enough of the girl to know that. A violent bully who abused on those weaker than herself (which was pretty much everybody), a coward who broke at the first sign of trouble, and given her addiction to crazy-drops, someone who literally thrived off the suffering of others. How much screaming had she funded, just to feed her high? How much pain had she caused for others to become the queen of her little hill?
Yes, Brooklyn was a monster: cruel, selfish, and violent. But the unfortunate fact of the matter was that most monsters were not born as such. Some were, if the fates were feeling especially unkind, but most monsters were made, created by circumstance. And as someone who had also slipped down a dark and regrettable path due to issues with her father, Kyoko couldn't help but sympathize with the big, stupid thug. After all, it was called a cycle of abuse for a reason.
In fact, Kyoko was so familiar with this sort of story that she knew exactly what had happened next. After all, who else would find a use for a broken, lonely, drug addicted teenaged girl? "And that's when the Incubator came," she said. It wasn't a question.
Brooklyn's face contorted up. "He…he came to me, to my hospital room. Said…said he could give me whatever I wanted. All I had to do was want it, and he would give me…give me strength. Give me power. He could fix me and make me as strong as I wanted."
Well, that explained her freakish size at least. Kyoko would have probably wished for the same thing, in her position. "Then what happened?" she urged.
Brooklyn shivered, but a strange fire started to burn in her wild eyes. Her wet and chapped lips twisted into a ghastly facsimile of a smile. "Then…I went home. Went home an' saw him. Real surprised to see me, he was." She let out a phlegmy chuckle. "Weren't so tough then, were you? You had lots to say then!"
"So you broke him," Kyoko said. She couldn't say that she blamed her.
Brooklyn nodded. "Said I was a useless cripple. Well, who's the cripple now, huh? That back hurts you so much, you oughta be thanking me for snapping it! Can't feel nothing down there now, can you?"
Kyoko backed up a bit. Brooklyn was now laughing, letting out great big ragged huffs that sounded like granite blocks jacking off. She was sweating green, drooling purple, and weeping yellow. Her tongue was swollen up and the same color as her saliva. She was a walking collection of physical perfection, a deadly combination of speed, strength, and size, and it was breaking apart, just like her mind was.
"B-but it wasn't enough," Brooklyn snickered as she started swaying back and forth. Her speech was starting to slur. "You…you hadda have the lass word, did'cha? Shoulda…shoulda broke yer arms. Then…you weren't have gotten dat lucky shot!" Her flushed face contorted with rage, though she kept on laughing. "Lucky shot! Took yer legs away, but you could still sh-shoot! Break me soul gem to pieces! I broke yer back, da! So you broke me heart!"
And so, nobody had won. But then, nobody ever did when Incubators were involved.
Kyoko watched as Brooklyn laughed and cried in her misery and wondered what in the hell she was supposed to do. Her logical side was still insisting that she leave the big idiot for the Brothel to pick off. They were probably already on their way, and if she didn't move her ass already, she and Sayaka would just end up in another cell.
She looked over her shoulder back to where she had left Sayaka and bit her lip. Brooklyn was a loser in every sense of the word. Yeah, she sort of felt sorry for her now, but there was nothing she could do for her now. Hell, if she did manage to escape with Sayaka in tow, it would be a miracle.
No, there was nothing she could do. Sometimes you just had to walk away. With a sigh, Kyoko moved to leave.
Then a hand the size of a ham hock closed around the back of her neck, and Kyoko was reminded why hesitating in bad situations was a really, really stupid idea.
She was lifted fully off her feet and swung around to come face-to-face with a pair of mad, amethyst eyes. "No," Brooklyn seethed, violet slobber now practically pouring out of her mouth. "Not gonna escape me dis time, da. I broke you and you dern't stay broke." She drew her other arm back. "Now I gonna finish the-"
Then her face disintegrated.
At first Kyoko thought that maybe her withdrawals had gotten so severe that it was literally tearing her body apart. Then she heard the gunshots and the sound of metal pinging off the wall, and she realized that someone was shooting Brooklyn's whole head to pieces. Gobs of oily flesh and hair went flying while sickly looking purple vapor billowed up out of her neck like a smokestack. Her arm twitched, and fortunately ended up dropping Kyoko instead of crushing her.
Kyoko hit the ground and was dismayed when she found herself unable to leap back up again. Over her, Brooklyn's massive body swayed back and forth, spewing out soul gas before finally toppling over with a loud thud.
Blinking, Kyoko wiped her eyes free of sweat. Someone was approaching. Even with her blurry vision she could see a figure coming up from behind Brooklyn's prone form, though they made no footsteps.
Then she saw who her rescuer was and realized that how fluid the word "rescued" was.
Annabelle Lee smirked down at her. Even floating like she was, she was still two full heads shorter than Brooklyn would have been and probably didn't weigh a tenth of what the giant did. And yet somehow she managed to be ten times more terrifying.
"Got you," she whispered. She lifted up a surprisingly mundane looking but no less deadly handgun and pointed it at Kyoko's forehead. "At last."
Even as weak as she was, Kyoko still would have liked to have responded with something defiant and profane, but unfortunately Annabelle Lee's trigger finger was faster than her mouth. Darkness claimed her.
…
Monday. 12:45 PM
"Three. You only secured three."
The Matriarch rarely displayed any emotion beyond what Reibey was relaying to her, and the fact that her eyes were always blindfolded meant that gauging any sort of independent reaction from her was a frustrating lesson in futility. On a couple of occasions Annabelle Lee thought that she had detected a hint of individuality in her reactions, something that was not a reflection of her master's thoughts, but those had probably just been tricks of the imagination.
And yet, when Annabelle Lee contacted her and let her know that she and her associates were probably going to deliver fewer bodies than agreed upon, there was something in the Matriarch's voice that set it apart from her usual cool and professional diction. Not much, but it sounded a lot like disappointment.
Annabelle Lee licked her lips. She was trying very hard not to dissolve into a trembling, blubbering mess, but it was an uphill battle. "Uh, yeah. Three. See, The Twins fucked up-"
"Oh, fuck you, Annabelle Lee!"
"-and one of the Tomoes fell into a hole or something, and we didn't have time to fish her out." Annabelle Lee's tried to raise her voice in an attempt to sound optimistic, but just ended up sounding like a chipmunk going through puberty. "B-but one's as good as two in this case, right? I mean, we her on recording and everything! And we also got Kyoko Sakura and Oktavia von Seckendorff. Those were the important ones, right?"
Though the Matriarch's eyes were obscured by her blindfold and her free will was a subject of debate, she still managed convey a worrying amount of displeasure through her sightless glower. "That was not what you promised us. You said you would deliver to us your original targets and two members of the New Life Alliance along with evidence that they were planning on violating the Compact."
"I know, but things went screwy!" Annabelle Lee protested. "This whole city's gone crazy, it's a miracle we got the three that we did!"
"Hold please."
The Matriarch went silent for a few agonizing moments while she mentally convened with Reibey. When she looked up again, Annabelle Lee could swear that there was a hint of a sneer trying to form on her black lips.
"Master Reibey wishes to point out that any difficulties you may have encountered are entirely not his problem. Furthermore, you were the one to approach us with this new arrangement. Therefore, as you have found yourself unequal to the task you placed upon yourself, we see no reason to further involve ourselves with-"
"THEY'RE RIGHT THERE!" Annabelle Lee screamed. She turned to the side and thrust a finger at the center of the room, where Kyoko Sakura, Oktavia von Seckendorff, and Mami Tomoe were all lying motionless. "They're right fucking there! You can grab them and get out in five minutes, and release all of us! We'll be gone! Done! Kapoof! No more embarrassment, no more black marks, no more screw-ups, and you'll have your damned prize! Don't tell me you're gonna just throw it all away just to make a point!"
This time, the Matriarch waited a full second before saying, "Hold please," and bowing her head to confer with Reibey. Annabelle Lee's fingernails dug into her palms as she waited.
Then the Matriarch said, "Stand by. I am sending over an agent to assess the situation."
Annabelle Lee's breath caught in her throat. "What?"
"Any sort of potential transfer from your location will require my physical presence. And given the turbulent condition of your location and the sensitive nature of the situation, I cannot guarantee my safety, nor can I trust any sort of assurance that this is not some sort of trap. Therefore, I am sending over an agent to assess the situation."
"Transfer?" Annabelle Lee leaned forward, her face brightening with glee. "So, does that mean-"
The transmission with the Matriarch abruptly cut out.
Annabelle Lee stared at the empty screen. This couldn't mean that she had succeeded, did it?
"What's going on?" Arzt said in a hushed voice. She and Nie were gripping each other tightly, wearing twin expressions of fear mixed with hope. "What does this mean?"
"I…" Annabelle Lee shook her head. "Well, I think we might actually have a chance of-"
Then the floor warped and twisted around into a vortex. And from that vortex rose the Matriarch's agent.
It wasn't Harlonga, which was a slight relief. However, it was still one of Oblivion's Elite Guards, one that Annabelle Lee knew and feared.
It was a human, and not a particularly physically imposing one at that. She was a slight Asian girl who was short of stature, barely a head taller than Nikki, and slender of limb. Like all Void Walkers, her skin was porcelain white and her hair jet black, which came down on either side of her back in incredibly long twin tails. Also like other Void Walkers, her outfit was completely made from black leathers and fabrics and covered very little. It consisted of only a bikini top and a pair of very short shorts, tied with a studded steel belt. She also had on a pair of knee-high boots and a long, hooded coat that she wore tied at her neck like a cape. In one hand she carried a heavy minigun that someone her size had no right carrying around with such ease, and her icy blue eyes were dull and emotionless, though one blazed with a cold fire.
Nikki and The Twins immediately cowered back at the end of the room. If she weren't technically the leader of the team, Annabelle Lee might have done the same. This particular Elite Guard may not have the reputation for sadism and petty cruelty as Harlonga the dockenguat and Zealand the calliope, but she was not one to suffer fools.
Licking her dry lips, Annabelle Lee said, "Uh, Matoi Kuroi. Hey. L-Long time, no see."
…
Given how many heart-to-hearts there were in this chapter, the author would like to take this moment to remind you that any viewpoints expressed by the characters are simply that of the characters and do not necessarily represent the views of the author. I'll let you figure out which ones I'm talking about on your own.
Until next time, everyone!