"Repercussions"
August 25, 2020
The three girls who detonated the explosion earlier had gathered near the once entrance. One, light-brown haired individual was blankly staring at the building whilst the other two were having a lively conversation. They had no particular topic and seemed to bound into new ones constantly. Their directionless and pointless conversation came to a halt when the light-brown haired girl shook her head suddenly and turned to them.
"…I'm sorry… I can't see anymore…" a defeatist peep came from the detached girl. She hung her head in disappointment until the older, paler of the two girls came and placed her hand on her shoulder.
"It's ok Rikou. We don't want you pushing yourself. BODY CLEAR is harsh; if you can't see, you can't see." The girl twisted her blonde locks, tilted her red beret and poked her tongue out in a comical gesture. Rikou's saddened expression brightened to what could be described as a smile. It certainly wasn't genuine, however.
"Yeah! You're, like, super good at, uhh, doing… uhh, tracking stuff! Yeah, that's it! We super need you Rikou! Don't go pushing yourself! I, like, won't let you have any more of this super stuff, even if you begged and cried!" The chestnut-brown haired girl cheered in a convoluted manner, confusing her listeners and herself. By the end of her cheer she was fiddling with a capsule she was throwing earlier and waggled her finger.
"Saiai… even I know that's your nitrogen, not my BODY CLEAR… You can't trick me there…" A lethargic chuckle sounded from Rikou as she saw through Saiai's prank. The girl blushed and let out a defeated laugh. Her forced laugh was soon joined by genuine laughs from Frenda and Rikou. At the end of their fun, Frenda asked a more serious question to Rikou, who was now out of her self-induced slump.
"So Rikou, is he dead? He must be, right? There's no way there is still oxygen left in there. I want, well, we should get out of here. This balcony isn't looking too safe anymore." Frenda asked Rikou whilst demonstrating the source of her worry about the stability of the balcony.
Near the collapsed entrance was a rather large hole in the steal-meshed walkway. Massive pieces of debris made the aforementioned hole and the falling cinder had caused damage to the support structures below. Frenda only shifted her body weight slightly and the entire balcony shifted with an irony roar. Saiai squealed and tried to brace herself between invisible walls.
"…Most likely, but you read the report on this guy. We should make sure he is…" Rikou's worried opinion was interrupted by the sounds of the shifting steel and another poorly repressed squeal from Saiai. Rikou jolted and Frenda's blonde eyebrows pushed her eyes shut.
"I'll take that! Let's go before we take a ride to the ever-so-soft concrete below us!" Frenda commanded, regaining her balance and adjusting her beret. She rushed the reluctant Rikou and more than willing Saiai then followed after them holding a piece of white chalk on the wall. She drew the line all the way from the facility entrance to the beginning of the walkway, careful for it to be connected the whole time.
But to makes sure the line of chalk was connected, she had to backtrack several times. Each time she did, the screech of steel shifting made itself present, petrifying the two girls who were watching their friend from the solid footing below.
Sweat beads multiplied on her forehead each second as the swaying motions of the structure became greater. Frenda was a no further than five metres from the flight of stairs that would bring her to the ground below when she pressed the chalk too hard onto the wall. The fragile white piece snapped and fell through the meshed steal to the concrete twenty feet below. A horrified, defeated face switched glances between the chalk and the equally horrified teammates.
The two girls cried to the devastated girl to give up whatever compulsive action she was committing and to come down. Their voices fell on deaf ears, of course.
Frenda searched her pockets and removed a roll of white tape. She attached the end of the white tape to the end of the chalk lines and slowly continued down the stairs, making sure the tape stayed connected to the chalk. She would place the tape on the wall at intervals, though struggled at times as the walkway swayed with the wind. It was acting like a pendulum on the wind, the remaining intact support structures have probably been stressed too far from the constant movement; it was only a matter of time before it fell.
Frenda slowly made her way down the flight of stairs until her feet planted firmly on the ground. The second her red flats clapped with the surface below, she snapped the tape off and stuck it to the wall. A satisfied face was interrupted by a tackling hug from Saiai.
"…Don't let your explosive compulsions control you… Shizuri would have killed you…" said Rikou, who performed a delicate karate-chop on the classy lady's head. Between the shame of being chastised and pain of a guillotine hug, Frenda remained speechless for moments before pushing the clingy girl away and pulling out a box of strike matches.
Frenda struck a match against the concrete and the red head lit in a blaze. Careful not to let the wind blow it out, Frenda moved the small fire towards the white line she had just laid. Covering the match from the wind with one hand, she began a countdown.
"Frenda special, 'Improvised-Detonation-Line'! In three, two, one…!"
On the signal of one, she moved the lit match to the line and jumped back. The white substance alit with a burning passion and quickly rushed up the tape. The small fire was incredibly quick as it raced up the wall; it left a trail of black soot behind it. The sound it created was equivalent to a small hissing noise from a baby snake. Frenda's eye's gleamed with the passion of a thousand suns.
Ka-BOOM! BOOM-BOOM-BOOM!
A rapid succession of high-octane explosions started occurring along the wall where the chalk began and the tape stopped. The explosions continued rampaging along the wall of the facility. The poisonous air from inside the facility seeped out of the newly created holes in the facility as the explosions continued to deafen all in the vicinity. The girls had their ears blocked; bar Frenda who was enjoying every second of the destruction like it was the ballad of Beethoven's Ninth. The creaking walkway was blown over by the initial explosions and crashed onto the ground below, inches before the fence surrounding the centre.
When the explosions finished, silence filled the air. Frenda was reminiscing over the explosions while Rikou looked content seeing Frenda enjoy herself. They were all oddly calm with the voracity of the explosion as it engulfed chunks of the facility. Perhaps they had all gotten used to their friend's obsessive compulsion.
"Super double-barrel shotgun!" announced Saiai as she danced to the black four-wheel drive parked on the curb. She was first to the stationary vehicle and popped open the door with a beaming smile that was shattered in to millions of pieces when she saw the driver staring at her, holding a piece of paper which was then placed onto the passenger seat before she sat down.
It read "Reserved for Miss Takitsubo" and in very small writing, almost fine print was the sentence; "No Saiai – No dibs, no shotgun, no super-shotgun, no dice." In even smaller writing, amazingly, was; "Get you hide in the backseat, kiddo."
"But I super double-barrel shotgun'd!" She pleaded with puppy-dog eyes to no avail. The man's eyes remained unamused and he pointed to the back seat with his thumb.
Utterly gutted, she slammed the open door and reefed the back passenger side door open so hard that it flung back and closed violently, clamping her clumsy fingers in the door. She let out a high pitch squeal, to which the approaching Frenda howled in laughter at. Rikou announced a routine "It's going to be OK" to the bawling girl, which made the victim feel anything but better. The foreigner assisted the child crying crocodile tears into the vehicle then entered the other side and took a seat. She felt something ruffle underneath her skirt when she sat down and pulled it out. It was another piece of paper. She took one glance at it and handed it to Saiai with a cheeky grin on her face.
"For you, love Shiage. You're getting pretty good at this, lackey." Frenda applauded, handing the paper to the child sucking on her wounded hand in the most grotesque way possible, slurping noises and all. She removed the hand from her jaw as it unholy unhinged to make room for the hand to slip out. She snatched the paper from Frenda like a child reluctantly taking candy from the man he jumped into the van with. Frenda was now reluctant to allow her slobbery mits touch her and "freaked out" when she realised what the child had done with them.
"You little grot! Sometimes these pranks of yours go too far! And I take that back, lackey! You only encourage her to get grosser and stupider with them!" Frenda raged, smacking the driver in the back of the head aggressively multiple times. He shied away at the pain and for the first time of the whole ordeal, Rikou let out a small giggle. The driver waved his hands around and his eyes pleaded with Rikou to make the abuse stop. This only made her laugh more. Saiai shed tears of laughter at Frenda's overreaction and abuse directed at Shiage before wiping them away and attempting to read the writing on the new piece of paper.
" "Don't slam ma' wheels' doors, ya' little brat." …What! How did you know! Super how!" Saiai narrated the writings on the paper with an impersonation of Shiage then burst into an inspired and relentless barrage of question. Shiage only shrug off her persistent requests. It was much the same experience as a kid saying "Are we there yet?", except the car was starting, not stopping.
The chestnut brown haired girl poked her head over the centre-console and in between the driver and passenger side seats as the vehicle began to move. She evilly stared at Rikou, mainly at her assets she was jealous of.
Currently, that was the seat she was sitting in. She eyeballed the seat endlessly, to no avail. Catching Rikou's gaze, Saiai gave the dirtiest, hairiest eyeball she could muster. It, as well, ended without success and Rikou just smiled at her comical attempts to psych her out.
Rikou turned to the window and away from the conversation and activities. She stealthy put some white substance on the back of her hand from a similar container Saiai had been demonstrating earlier. Her eyes checked the peripherals to make sure all occupants were occupied before sniffing the substance up her nose. Immediately after, her eyes became blank and she stared off into the distance. The party continued without Rikou's involvement and Shiage was barely allowed to contribute, leading to a possible reason the two sat in the front.
The light-hearted atmosphere did not last much longer, however. The four-wheel drive had traversed about two blocks when Rikou's small voice rebounded from the rolled up window she was facing and penetrated the ears of the automobile's passengers. She had most likely inadvertently seen something just casually looking out the window.
"Shiage… Stop… The laboratory… He's alive…" Rikou said in a bland, cryptic and unappealing tone. She placed her hand on Shiage's shoulder to derive his attention from the road to her in the fastest way possible. The atmosphere in the transport became as dark as its paint job. Frenda immediately started showing worrying signs, her fingers trembled slightly.
"Rikou! Don't say things like that after a job… You're gonna give my perfect legs permanent goosebumps!" She nervously spat and began giggling eerily after spitting out her punishing words. Saiai saw the clear signs of anxiety on her face and she too became worried.
"Yeah, super why Rikou? You know better! That kind of talk is, like, super taboo and stuff. Now you've turned this whole trip into a total drama island!" roused Saiai in her light and cutesy voice. It would be hard to take her seriously if the atmosphere hadn't suddenly taken such a plummet into the darkness.
"…I'm serious. His position has changed. We need to go back… Trust me, Shiage?" The light-brown haired girl declared her findings whilst blankly staring into the distance. She turned to only one in the car when she finished; Shiage. Her body language pleaded to the monster of a man. His sharp eyes were dulled by Rikou's plead. Her meek face blunted his disfigured edges.
Shiage pulled the vehicle to the side of the abandoned road and began manoeuvres for a three point turn. The roads around the facility were very thin, slightly larger than a one-way street. With driving finesse and a focused mind, he was able to turn around.
"But you haven't had any more BODY CLEAR, Rikou. How do you…" Frenda began to question, though was stopped halfway through by Rikou's gesture. She was holding a vial used to contain BODY CLEAR that was empty. Frenda shot daggers at Saiai, who cowered away into the back of the seat.
"Don't be mad at her, I stole it when you were being… dangerous… Although you shouldn't have showed me which one was your nitrogen, Saiai…" Rikou teased Frenda whilst denouncing Saiai at the same time. The girl with the blank eyes then suddenly positioned a finger pointing to the sky. "Company" she whispered. Frenda threw her head out of the window in her panicked state.
"There is a helicopter out there, coming this way! Get going, lackey! It certainly isn't friendly!" said Frenda from outside the window. She had put her head out to see what Rikou was gesturing to and saw a large transport helicopter racing to their location, the propellers thumping soundwaves into the ground below. Saiai was making complementary remarks to Frenda's frantic cries, such as "Yeah, see?" and "Yeah, lackey!". Rikou was oddly calm, perhaps she was being ignorant or simply too absent minded from using the BODY CLEAR earlier.
The black four-wheel drive containing the three girls and troll travelled underneath the appearing shadow of the ominous looking helicopter. The dark vehicle traversed the ill kept road with the sound of the blades above beating at a steady pace. As they came to the intersection of the abandoned research centre, a squealing of rubber was heard from behind. Another similar vehicle was hurdling after them at pursuit speed. Shiage slammed the pedal to the floor and raced up the street until they arrived at their destination.
As the vehicle in Shiage's control came to a screeching halt near their destination, Frenda dropped a small explosive out of the door she slightly opened. It rolled and bounced, ticked and flickered until it came to a stop next to the front driver's side wheel of the pursuing van.
The presumably hostile van had turned to a ninety degree angle behind Shiage's vehicle and completely covered the road's width. There was no way they would get past the new arrival and back down the street they just came.
They were ready to fight their pursuers, be they hostile.
However, the backseat occupants began to worry more as they saw the aerial transport's movements. They were professionals, assuming the helicopter circling them would be another deployment vehicle. They would be surrounded and flanked easily by the new threat and their dominance of the terrain. This is also disregarding the dangerous sociopath whom they tried to kill is still alive and probably seeking revenge.
It wasn't looking good, but there certainly wasn't any running.
They were stuck between a rock and a hard place.
Something a troll is used to.
The van's occupants pilled out and took offensive, yet defendable positions in a line around their vehicle and in the broken scenery. They were spaced well, professionally. Clad in clothes as black as the night, the only colour that resonated from them was the fluorescent green hue the goggles they wore produced. No verbal order was given for surrender, yet no shot had been fired. The tension began to build.
Shiage took charge in preparation for the coming fight. He pushed Rikou underneath the dashboard and ordered Frenda to retrieve a stack of weapons from a secret compartment in the floor of the covered tray of the transport. Frenda revealed a large, antique of an assault rifle with a drum magazine and several magazines marked "7.76" and passed them to Shiage. She herself took a smaller handgun and took two magazines that would fit in the weapon.
Saiai fidgeted with her remaining capsule, anxiously awaiting the inevitable. If she were to be placed in a church, she'd look the perfect image of a believer.
But this was a city of science; such thought is forbidden and ridiculed.
"We need'ta take t'e initiative. Frenda, I want ya to open your door, but don't get out. Cover Saiai, alright? Saiai, I need you ta guard Rikou, you know t'e drill. And Rikou…" Shiage spoke orders in such a manner that could only come from experience. Yet when he got to Rikou and looked into her blank eyes with only her body language depicting an element of fear, he smiled and whispered words of advice that she was fond of giving.
"It's going to be OK."
It was customary for Rikou to be the subject of many organisations desires. Her potential power literally knows no bounds. If unlocked, she could well become the world's most powerful entity overnight.
It was for this reason that the current situation was flowing as smoothly as it was.
Frenda, Saiai and Shiage took a collective sigh. The troll cocked the ejection chamber of his weapon. He turned to the blonde locks in the back and smiled:
"Would you do t'e honours?"
"…Gladly"
The sound of a button being pushed was the last recognizable noise before the chaos of battle drowned everything else in a sea of confusion.