"Well then..." Koko, now brought up to speed on the Syndicate, leaned back in the armchair she was seated on. They were all back at the Darkwood residence, dressed proper, but otherwise focused on the task at hand regarding the secret organization. The camera crews weren't present, having left by the time they'd all gone to the beach. "Sounds to me like you could use my help."
"They're not to be trifled with, Koko." Valmet reminded her aloud, but Koko knew what she was doing.
"So they're a big secret organization. Tobias knows their methods, seeing as how he was the one that taught them in the first place. And if I'm a target, I have you guys for the shootouts, remember?"
"You're right, and a word of warning; They're not just here in LA." Tobias nodded once. "From what we've already gathered, they're operating in several major countries. It's going to be a tough task of getting what we need to take them down."
"I'm aware, Tobias." Koko smirked at him. "But I've got friends with plenty of power. And I alone have access to Jormungand, remember?"
"You have a point." Tobias nodded. "In that case, welcome to the family. All of you." He smiled. "Seeing as they failed to attack you while vulnerable, they'll try to get you from behind next. Keep track of all documents, codes, the works. You shouldn't need a reminder about being discreet, but these bastards were taught by me; So I'll say it like this... These bastards are in the shadows of the ones pulling the strings from the shadows. Be careful, Koko."
"Control the ones controlling everything, huh?" Koko smirked, impressed by the descriptive analogy. "Excellently worded, and I will, believe me."
"One more thing; If you have a valuable contact, or someone that can be used against you as bait or ransom, make sure they're safe. We're basically dealing with the Baba Yega at this point."
"The boogeyman, huh?" Lehm suddenly chuckled. "I once knew a guy that went by that name."
"I do too." Tobias nodded with a smirk, although nobody noticed his use of the present tense.
"Alright then, we'll get out of your hair, unless you need us for anything else." Koko stood up, Jonah already on his feet beside the chair the entire time.
"I'll call you if something comes up. For now, just hunker down and be careful." Tobias shook her hand as she called out her goodbye to everyone else scattered throughout the house.
With that, she and her crew were gone, and Tobias smirked suddenly, pulling out his phone to make a call. "Hello, Walter? My apologies for the untimely call...Oh, that's excellent. I was wondering if I could speak to Seras..."
"Good, things are coming along nicely." Valentine commented to Zyke, his assistant, after the report that he'd just recited from near the workshop's door. "And what about my project for the T-15?"
"It failed, sadly." Zyke reported from the document. "The Arm Launcher failed during the first firing attempt. Your father was the one testing it, so there are no proveable injuries to report."
"Alright, scrap the concept. My last one's almost ready for testing." Valentine wasn't pleased by the failed design, but he had run out of ideas for it, so it had been a Hail Mary test anyway. "Is Odin on the base?"
"No sir." Zyke shook his head.
"Then call my father in." Valentine ordered, and Zyke stepped out to go retrieve the man personally.
"Is it that sonar thing you were working on?" Sheva had been sitting on his wheeled stool the whole time - she'd been with him the entire day, curious about his job with the BSAA - so she was curious about why Tobias was needed as an alternative to Odin.
"Exactly." Valentine nodded as he installed the very device onto the master T-15 prototype he'd had for months now. This was the last upgrade before he did the final presentation for the current T-13's to be updated to the new T-15's. "And my dad's taller than us, so he'll wear it to test the sonar's system with the mask's targeting HUD."
"How tall is your dad?" Sheva asked, since she and Valentine were both only 5'6", while everyone except for Sherry and Tabitha were taller. Sherry and Tabitha were both just a hair's breadth under 5"4".
"Six seven." Tobias came through the workshop's door as he spoke. "So what'd you need?"
"Put the T-15 on, I want to test the final upgrade I just installed." Valentine indicated the small touch screen panel on the left arm - he planned to make all suits have two - and explained what it was for. "That's a sonar system designed to detect the T-Virus within a 50 meter range. It connects to the mask's targeting HUD, which you've already tested out."
"So this is just a detection system? Nothing else?" Tobias asked as he donned and deployed the suit in the nearly second nature process. The mask connected over the top of his head with a series of sliding plates until the HUD engaged in his view and the sonar reported their two active T-Virus presences almost immediately. "System's online, it's highlighting your entire body with a blue outline."
"Good, it should be." Valentine checked the wrist panel for a moment and moved to his data tablet to record the successful test for himself. "It checks all biological matter within range, and once it has confirmed something has the T-Virus, it'll show that it's a carrier without further scanning."
"This reminds me of the spotting mechanic in that crime game your sisters love so much... Payday 2." Tobias was already familiar with the various upgrades to the T-15, so he disengaged the suit and put it back onto the workbench. "Except that the game's version only makes the target outlined for a few seconds each time they're tagged."
"That's where I got the idea." Valentine replied, finally pleased with the success. "And, once more samples are put into the detection system's database, it can detect more than just the T-Virus. I already have samples from Yuuki and Sherry, for the C and G Viruses, of course."
"Cross reference our compiled samples from all known biological weapons, get that intel into the detection system as soon as you can. Once that's done, we can start mass producing these finished suits to our soldiers."
"So how'd the test for the Arm Launcher go?" Sheva asked, since Tobias was spotless thanks to his regeneration.
"It blew up in my face, but I had Ice Skin, so nothing painful." Tobias replied. "Premature detonation when I loaded the grenade."
"It's so... Big."
Several days later, Sheva and Valentine were standing in the shipyard - currently they were in the ship's command deck - where the Nightfall was being built. All around them were crews working at a breakneck pace to build the massive battleship. Most of the ship was already complete, but as per Valentine's orders, two things were being left out of the ship for security reasons, one of which was the Magno-Core itself.
Valentine smiled at her comment as she gently traced her organic fingers along the main navigation assembly, where he himself would pilot from if he wasn't in the seat he was in right now, shamelessly admiring Sheva's ass.
"I actually wanted it to be about 50 meters longer than it is now, but it wasn't in the cards or the budget." Valentine replied. "What else do you think about it?"
"Will you always be the one piloting it?" Sheva asked, sounding expectant.
"I'm the only one that can." Valentine replied. "I really meant it when I said the ship can't get up into the air without me on board."
"So why did you make it like that?" Sheva suddenly turned around, her expression slightly dejected.
"So that the ship couldn't be stolen or sabotaged. It's a failsafe." Valentine replied, and that seemed to get Sheva out of her saddening thoughts.
"How did you do the failsafe?" Sheva asked as she straddled his legs right in the captain's chair. Her voice took on a special, husky quality as she spoke, the one that she knew Valentine really liked.
"Oh, a few tricks here and there. Little bit of magnetism. Y'know, the usual." Valentine teased her before kissing her cheek. "You do know the ship's still being worked on right? Even here in the command deck..."
"But it isn't right now." Sheva countered, likewise kissing him. The idea of having sex right in the captain's chair aboard his ship, with construction crews still working on it, and with the risk of getting caught, it was really arousing Sheva, and she wanted to act upon it before it drove her nuts on the way back home. "Oh, c'mon, it's your ship, let's give it a dirty little secret..."
"WHERE THE FUCK IS THE STUPID BOX?!" Yuuki shouted lividly as she ran from what could be accurately called 'too many' zombies as she played Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 alongside her sister and two Spiderlings in an endurance run of all the easter eggs of the game. They were currently stuck on the easter egg for Zetsubo No Shima, and Yuuki was the last one alive... without any ammo.
"It's over by the plane. You're going the right way!" Rachael encouraged as Yuuki ran past even more zombies, grabbed a very useful Gobblegum, and made it to the box, used the Gum, and got...
"FUCK!" Yuuki got a terrible weapon, the Pharo, which was literally buyable from the wall only a few feet away for a cheaper price, but bullets were bullets at this point, so she spun around with the atrocious SMG already spitting lead at the zombies, making enough points to try again for a different gun, but she had to run after using the box, then come back and got her favourite assault rifle in the game, the Man-O-War and her face lit up with sadistic glee as she ditched the Pharo for a REAL gun. "FUCK YEAH!"
Within minutes, her team was alive again, and already grabbing Gum and guns for the spawning horde.
"So what's the next step we gotta do for the easter egg? Is it the plant that Yuuki was doing before we all died?" Rachael asked the team members, who had the age old walkthrough of the easter egg at hand, and they both affirmed their current progress.
"It should've grown by now, I did the last bucket on it." Yuuki reported over the heavy throb of her Man-O-War in her headset. "Whoever's got a gun, it's near the bunker entrance, go check. I'm still defending."
"On my way!" Their younger teammate ran off, since he already had what he needed. A few seconds later, he reported the plant was indeed fully grown. "Next step is... Shoot the plane down to drop the cog for the elevator... Plant should do it by itself when the plane flies overhead." He read from the walkthrough as they all got themselves back into fighting shape with Perks, the Shield, good guns, all the other fun stuff they needed for the final battle at the end of the easter egg.
"We'll just leave it to do that, I'm gonna try and get me back my baby." Rachael was still fighting with the RNG of the box, stubbornly trying to get her favourite gun in the entire game, the Gorgon, a big .50 calibre HMG that she absolutely fell in love with. "Fuckin' Box keeps giving me back the damn KT-4... Shit, this is the ELEVENTH time! GIVE ME BACK MY DAMN GUN YOU FUCKTARDED CRATE!"
The stream chat broke into laughter at her shouting, groaning as she got basically every single gun except for the Gorgon until she ran out of points, stuck with her own Man-O-War and the KT-4 as she ran away from the growing horde at the plane.
"I am not going into that boss fight without my gun, you can kiss my ass until I have it." Rachael grumbled, baring her fangs slightly as they all just worked together to get more points, waiting for their plant - which was basically an organic mortar - to shoot down the plane that passed overhead every single round.
Every time she had enough points, Rachael ran to the box and tried to get the Gorgon, but it took her fifteen attempts until she suddenly screamed in delight, snatching up her heavy machine gun, replacing the KT-4, and hauled some serious ass back to where she'd been getting points to get more to Pack-A-Punch the weapon into Athena's Spear.
"Someone's having fun..." Their other teammate, a quieter man a few years older than them, chuckled in amusement as he heard the heavy throb of the machine gun tearing through the hordes of zombies. "I see a Double Points... Got it!"
With that, Rachael soon had the necessary points to upgrade her weapon, and promptly did so, passing their plant mortar just as it fired at the passing plane and blew it out of the sky, dropping the vital last cog that they needed to repair the elevator that lead to the boss battle.
"Where does the cog land?" Yuuki asked, then quickly spun around to grab it from nearby. "Alright, get your drink on, get some balls in your mouth, fist your guns, and meet me at the elevator. And hurry... the fuck... up!" Yuuki gave the command to gather for the final fight. She had her Man-O-War Pack-A-Punched to become the Dread Armada, and she was carrying the upgraded KT-4 (Which she'd already had, but it ran out of ammo earlier) - the Masamune - which was essential for the whole easter egg.
"I'm ready!" Rachael returned, all Perked up, loaded for war with her Athena's Spear and her own Dread Armada, with the very valuable Phoenix Up Gobblegum at the ready, and shortly after, their teammates joined them in the elevator and they proceeded to the boss fight.
"Alright, now that I can spare a legitimate glance at the chat, we're gonna try and do this fight, then that'll be it for Zombies for tonight. Tomorrow's a morning stream, we have to work at noon." Yuuki gave the announcement as their characters conversed back and forth during the ride down. "But when we get home, we may or may not have a bit of a surprise planned for the artists and writers. No spoilers~!" Yuuki taunted them by blowing her face camera a coy kiss, just as the elevator arrived at their destination and they pushed forward. "It might involve a certain pair of cyborgs... or a pair of regenerating headaches. I can't say..." Yuuki teased before the cutscene started and she brought her full focus back to the game.