Hermione felt an intense pain on her shoulders as she was thrown towards the wall, or rather, as the alien that held her in a death grip was thrown towards the wall. The source of their motion was a snarling, half-naked Satsuki Kiryuin, whose bizarre-looking outfit's tall shoulder pylon had slammed into the Xenomorph in a violent charge. Set within the pauldron was a dark space that hosted what appeared to be a glowing eye, which was equally as angry as the outfit's wearer. Together, all three collided with the lift doors, which buckled off of their tracks. The creature that called itself Nui released its skeletal fingers from Hermione's shoulders, and as soon as it did, a smaller, equally forceful hand bunched up the front of her uniform and pulled her back to the other side of the room. Her new captor was the once-professional looking Satsuki, now clad in what appeared to be poorly-fitting bondage. The chief of Regulations dropped her on the floor and took a few steps forward, her sword held out towards the stunned creature. Her tall shoulder armor possessed vents that glowed a bright blue, which Hermione deduced to be some form of propulsion, like a jet; but she couldn't get over the fact that the number one enforcer of the dress code was waltzing into danger in something that treated a single piece of string as underwear.
"Are you all right, Mrs. Granger?"
"I'm fine," gasped Hermione. "But what are you wearing?"
"What I always do," Satsuki replied sharply. "Prototype Anti-Life Fiber Weapon, Kamui Junketsu. Its appearance may be alarming, but it is necessary."
"When is letting everything hang out necessary?"
"When Satsuki Kiryuin commands it to be." Hermione noticed that the small white hairclips her supervisor was never seen without had been replaced by thin, tapered white horns. "I came as quickly as I could. The soldiers had cameras sending a feed to me in their helmets, so as soon as they arrived, I knew the situation was dire. I was in the middle of one of Artemis' staff meetings, and he would not let me leave. He has grown suspicious of me as of late."
"Suspicious? Of you?" Hermione asked, standing up. She saw that the creature was beginning to recover on its side of the room, and realized their conversation could not carry on much longer.
"It is a complicated story," muttered the Chief of Regulations, before shooting off towards the distant Xenomorph at a speed that would do much more than a mile in one minute and thirty-five seconds. She engaged the creature in a battle of speed and precision, her night-black katana parrying the claws of certain death and spraying sparks when it clashed with the Blue Scissor Blade. Hermione kept a nervous watch on their fight as she subtly moved towards the fallen Elite Four. She could not begin to imagine what might happen if she let Satsuki's favorite officers die. She drew her wand again, tracing a circle around their bodies.
"Vulnera Sanentur Magnus!"
It was a clever, recent spell, one intended for use if another Wizarding War were to break out. The gashes across the stomachs of all four began to close instantly, though it did little to the dark stains on their uniforms. Jakuzure placed a hand to her gut in amazement.
"It's gone," she whispered, impressed by the wound's absence. "Even if it is a little sore."
"We owe you one, Mrs. Granger," said Sanageyama.
Inamuta revised a few entries on his PDA. "We must assist Lady Satsuki in defeating Nui."
"Right, but let's think ahead while we've got the chance. We can't rush in without a plan and nearly get ourselves killed again," warned the witch. "Hoka, what kind of data have you collected?"
"All kinds," he noted smugly.
Oh, Satsuki! It's been too long since we saw each other last, giggled the voice of Nui inside of Satsuki's head.
"You're not on the ship's charter," scowled the young woman, repelling a stab from the creature's spiny tail. "So why are you here? Is this mother's doing?"
You would like to hear about maman, non? I know you loved her dearly!
"A dog that has been fed lies knows not what love is," she snarled, plunging Secret Sword Bakuzan towards the inside of the creature's lobe-like collar. A backhand knocked the weapon off-target, and Satsuki pulled it back to prepare for another attack. "Tell me what you are doing on my ship, killing innocents."
I'm having fun, fun, fun! Wouldn't you like to know why? Hee-hee, I'm not telling, not in a thousand years, Satsuki. I'll stitch my lips together if I have to.
"Your silence only tells me that my intuition is correct. You can send a message to mother that she will not be safe for long." She then swung her sword in an upward slash, but was blocked by a now hand-held Scissor blade, gripped by fingers that were progressively less alien.
"She's switching back, Lady Satsuki," warned Jakuzure as Hermione and the investigators rushed to flank their ally. The alien creature gurgled as its horrifying features shrunk into the more innocent ones of Nui Harime, still bearing a lightning-bolt scar over her now-milky eye.
"Oh, très bien! Everybody can have fun together! Isn't this exciting, Satsuki?"
Satsuki looked back at Hermione, who gave her a succinct nod. It was mutually understood that a plan was now in motion. All Satsuki needed to do was continue as she had been, and listen for further instructions. Her subordinates would handle the rest.
"It's exciting, Harime. Because we are going to send you back to Hell, where you belong."
The Elite Four drew their collapsible weapons, and rushed to surround the pigtailed girl, who daintily spun her Blue Scissor Blade around her pinky finger.
"Mon-Mignon Prêt-à-Porter," said Nui, as the room suddenly filled with an uncountable number of herself, all smiling and spinning their Scissor Blades. The original winked her functional eye, and the clones began their attack. Satsuki and the other investigators began to tear into their foes, but Hermione was left stunned. How was she supposed to fight hundreds of Nui, when they couldn't manage even one? She ducked to the floor to avoid several oversized purple razors.
Inamuta performed a flat-handed strike into the shoulder of one of the clones, causing it to explode in a shower of red filaments.
"Mrs. Granger, they're made of single Life Fibers," he called. "They are weak to high temperatures."
"They're not the only ones scared of flames," smiled the witch, carving a tongue of flame into the air with her wand. "Incendio!"
The blast caused ten Nui clones to wither away, curling at the edges like burnt paper. Hermione turned her wand on the others surrounding her, making sure to avoid her compatriots with the fiery death. Gamagori's whip tore each clone apart with one lash, while Sanageyama's rapid shinai strikes disabled them just as quickly. Jakuzure's knives were slow, but no less effective, but Satsuki's swordplay won the prize for sheer numbers of the clones destroyed, each slash annihilating thirty or more at once. Within a minute, they had cleared all of them out.
"That wasn't very effective," observed Hermione aloud.
"She usually uses it as a distract- Curly, look out!"
Hermione did not have time to look out, as she had only just heard Jakuzure when the black claws closed around her face, lifting her upward. The creature had suspended itself from an open vent by its tail, clearly a behavior invented by the girl inside its mind. It twisted Hermione's head up so that she could look into its greedy, dripping jaws, which also provided her a convenient view of Satsuki's flying kick as it knocked its newly-prehensile tail's grip loose. The alien crashed to the floor with Hermione in tow, but was thrown back by another kick before any damage could be done.
"Bloody hell, that was close," Hermione gasped.
"Indeed," growled Satsuki. "I would not want to lose an agent such as yourself."
"And having a boss that can get their hands dirty is a plus, too," chuckled the witch. "Our plan will work as long as she's morphed. You, Uzu, and Ira- rush her. Nonon, stay with Hoka, like we discussed. Get into position, now!"
Jakuzure exchanged a glance with Inamuta. "On it, Curly!"
The two circled around the Xenomorph, which began to turn towards them until a lash across the face from Gamagori's whip caught its attention.
"THAT'S IT, YOU FOUL MONSTER, NUI! TRY AND CHALLENGE THE IRONCLAD RULES UPHELD BY REGULATIONS, AND YOU WILL TASTE THE WHIP OF DISCIPLINE!"
Nui pulled her six-fingered hand back from her face wet. Pale-green blood dripped from her domed head into a smoking puddle on the floor. She let out an awful shriek before charging towards the huge boy, but was halted by the appearance of Satsuki and Sanageyama, who rushed in front of their whip-wielding ally.
"You think you're real special, 'cause you can see with no eyes! Well, I can do the same thing! I'll land every hit on you, without looking!" roared Sanageyama, firing off a series of Men-Dou-Kote strikes into the creature's carapace, his eyes closed.
"It's good to see you're keeping your Shingantsu sharp," smiled Satsuki between her own flurry of slashes. "Are your senses too good to drink tea, still?"
"Lady Satsuki, I'd always drink tea for you."
Hermione's role was simple. She extended her wand in front of her.
"All right, out of the way!"
Gamagori, Sanageyama, and Satsuki leapt out of the way, leaving only the Xenomorph in Hermione's firing lane. The witch spun her wand into a spiral in the air, and called out her spell.
"Flippendo!"
The Knockback Jinx did exactly as it was supposed to, flinging the alien backwards through the air. Its trajectory flung it straight towards the waiting Inamuta and Jakuzure.
"After you, Nonon," smiled the boy.
"Whatever, four-eyes. JAKUZURE SOUND BARRIER!"
The girl's incredibly loud force field halted the creature's fall, leaving it hanging in midair above their heads, its back exposed.
"Nui, you stinking asshole, this is it! There's no encore for you!"
Inamuta observed the creature's complex biomechanicals, the myriad tubes and pipes that stretched across its unholy frame. It was sickening- living things should be living, and machines should be machines. He liked his machines just fine as they were. He scrolled through his PDA to the notes he took earlier. Xenomorph XX121 had extraordinarily advanced senses, using a combination of microscopic photoreceptors, echolocation, and a unique organ on its back that could sense minute changes in air displacement. He found it, squarely between the long pipes that jutted from just behind the creature's shoulders. It looked a bit like a feather, but was covered in skeletal nubs and crevices, like the rest of the revolting thing. The sooner it was out of his sight, the better, he resolved. He balled his hand into a fist, and drove it out of the field and into the creature's weak point.
"Barrier finale!" screamed Jakuzure, causing the force field to explode outward before disappearing, tossing the creature to the floor in front of Satsuki, Gamagori, Sanageyama, and Hermione.
"Now, it's just a matter of time," whispered the witch.
"I hope you're right," Satsuki murmured.
The alien stumbled to its feet, gripping its elongated head. Can't… feel… right…
"No, you can't, can you?" said Hermione. "It's because you've just taken a hit to one of your primary sensory organs. A bit like getting poked in the eye."
You… idiots think that… can stop me? hissed Nui's voice from the comically staggering creature. I'll just… change back… before I kill you all!
Slowly, the monster began to metamorphose back into the girl, losing a finger on each hand as her tail retracted into her back. A big blue eye opened on the creature's once eyeless face, while another less-functional one appeared alongside it. Her toes shrunk until she adopted a plantigrade stance, as her dress emerged over her skin, puffing out to its normal size.
"Hee-hee, that didn't work! Want to try again?"
"We won't have to," smirked Hermione. "Give your brain a moment to catch up."
Nui's confident smile turned into a look of confusion. What could they be on about? Her brain? What did that have to do with anything? Her fingers on her left hand felt a little funny, but not her brain. She was going to reply to them when she felt the funniness spread up her arm, and slowly change from an uncertain sensation to one of searing, burning pain. She grabbed her agonized wrist with her other hand, as if to tell it to stop, but it only stung more.
"W-what's happening t-to me?!"
"We figured you out, Nui," the witch explained. "It would be monumentally difficult for anyone to morph XX121 using the Andalite Cube, unless they were able to concentrate on changing their blood vessels before their blood. If one's blood were to change last, they'd end up in a bit of a pickle."
Nui's arm began to swell, turning puffy and nearly as pink as her bows.
"D-Doesn't matter!" she snapped. "I'll st-still kill you all!"
She grabbed her Scissor Blade from the floor, running towards Hermione. Her weak, telegraphed swing was easily repelled by Satsuki's sword. Nui attempted to follow up, but was caught by another pang of pain, now spreading across her chest.
"I wouldn't do that, if I were you. Moving around just makes your heart beat faster, and circulation is not your friend right now." Hermione was not a sadist, but she was very pleased at karma's intervention. The girl dropped to her knees in pain, watching her left fingers split open, the green liquid inside consuming everything it touched.
"M-m-merde!" she swore, as her hand destroyed itself in a bubbling, smoking hiss. The rest of her arm began to burn away in a similar fashion, as her screams became more desperate.
"What's the matter? Does it hurt?" Hermione spat the words toward the killer, moaning in agony on the floor. "You could lose one hundred arms like that, but it wouldn't make up for what you've done. What you feel… those are your own sins! Whether you're crawling in the vents or giggling like an idiot, you're a monster inside. One day, it's going to take away more than your arm."
Satsuki stepped forward. "As much as I would like to kill you, Harime, we will keep you alive a little longer. You neglected to answer my question earlier. Perhaps you can do it with the added persuasion of daily torture."
The Chief of Regulations swung her foot into the bridge of Nui's nose, audibly cracking it. Her outfit then glowed before shifting back into the regal sailor suit Hermione was used to, exposing the AEGIS she carried on her left arm. She typed a few digits into the screen, then looked back up at her underlings.
"Meet me in my office as soon as you can for debriefing. This incident cannot be isolated."
She disappeared in the blue shimmers of the device, leaving them alone with the defeated Nui whimpering on the floor next to the bodies of the Reis. It was an eerie calm after the sickening battle, and none of them dared to break it. Instead, it was shattered by the sounds of the Response crews prying the doors open with laser cutters.