Act VIII: Nine Years Later, Chapter IV: The Reta Corps

2031

Suppose you met a chubby kid in elementary school and were just naturally compelled to make fun of him for his size, and then someone else would pick up on it and from there, a chain of bullies and jerks were to routinely pick on the poor bastard. You'd think he would grow up to be at least ten times his current size, right? Well, that's not at all how it went for Simon Sharp, the younger brother of the late Samantha Sharp and the only sibling of this generation.

It was when her body had been brought back to the Dadetown morgue for proper identification that had him turn it all around. He found a fiery motivation of a sort, getting off of his ass and turning to the exercises and weight-lifting sessions little by little until the excess fat in his body burned away to reveal a firm six-pack, and strong muscles on his arms and legs, perfectly reconstructing himself physically. But with all that work done, he knew he was just beginning. The very next step would have been a lot harder, but the shared details on Sam's remains suggested that she had become one of those phenos somehow, and a few leaked statement file from the old Patriot Division had suggested she was working with them, giving the firm meaning she had died a heroine. The next step was in her name, a sense of blood honor and nothing more; Simon Sharp was foolishly setting his sights on playing the deadly games the disillusioned Lemy had played blindly, not considering his own safety or well-being for the mission.

Simon started playing with pistols, learning how to load and unload clips, testing the aiming techniques and the art of its melee power. Short distance targets, perfecting his accuracy and then pushing the distance to get better. Once he felt confident in himself with a weapon class, he advanced to the next class, but only went as far as to the automatic rifle.

But his agenda had not exactly went unnoticed in the end. It was both Lincoln Loud and Lemy themselves who had come knocking, courtesy of Lincoln. The reason for their visit was due to Lincoln checking in on the relatives of the dead from both sides after it was brought up in a conversation. The likelihood of a vengeful relative of one of the hundreds of phenos, or a spiteful figure related to a fallen Vial or Kapacity Korp affiliate was just as certain as a crime carried out by a pheno. It was the responsibility of the duo to take upon themselves and clean up their way while Luna and the rest of the girls, reinstated Patriot members, worked around the clock to fight high-level threats and preserve the peace in evolving society. The connections Allie had when she and Lemy were a duo were made to good use by Lincoln, although Lincoln had expressed wishing the sentient being LK stuck around to help them. It'd have been so much easier. In fact, everything would have been so much easier with the virtual being guiding them.

The day the pair had come at the Sharp residence to collect him. With Lemy having turned over a new leaf, Lincoln recognized the consideration of turning Simon into one of them, a secretive force that operated quickly, often having to race authorities if not race from, and that meant no milling around, especially when they intervene in Patriot matters, and where there was Patriot business, the twins weren't far behind. And again, the twins weren't the only zoomers around. The next time Lincoln was pitted against the Lynn doppelganger, he'd be ready, but Lemy hoped to talk "Nyla" out of her mission to kill Lincoln before they had a rematch- and not to forget that Lincoln was above claiming the underaged. Case in point, Allie was fish food in the northwest.

Back to Simon, the blond boy was reluctant to go with the pair but had been given an ultimatum; he turn back and continue a normal life and place in society or walk down the road, but not of his own will. And more than anything, to avenge his fallen sister and the scarring it left in the Sharp family tree, he accepted. Maybe it would prove to be good for him, to ally up and gain support. To the naked eye, the three looked like a really odd group, being a trio of different ages.

Not too far from the trio, a potential fourth member had already been causing up quite the commotion, getting a reputation via the papers, mentions here and there online, and sooner or later they'd be caught in no time. This candidate had been acting solo, taking the fight to small-time pheno criminals that eluded APF officers. This meant the vigilante had their own connections and moved just as fast, a worthy soldier fit to throw in with Lincoln's group of shoot-em-up wild westerners in a concrete jungle.

This was a few months after Simon had been recruited, and in the time he stepped in right to the moment they cornered the mystery fighter, he had been trained in new tactics and creatively adapted the old ones he foolishly felt he had honed flawlessly. It was on him, but he then understood that he was cocky and arrogant to a degree, with a firm push from the pair.

The three had their guns to the ghost fighter, seeing them in a ski mask and black clothing, details of which had not been shared on the papers. Why, this person was good enough to hand an indirect compliment, but a true impressive act would be to disarm themselves and leave with the crew. What came on that night was the masked fighter had perceived them as menaces nonetheless and attempted to flee, but Lincoln had to step in with his abnormal strength and knock the fighter out. They were tied up and taken away in a black van, driven by, you guessed it, Bobbie Fletcher.

Bobbie Fletcher's involvement with them had kicked off in a race with the Black Knight, who turned out to be a computer genius when not behind the wheel. He introduced her to his friend he met as far back as to childhood, but her honed ability to assemble and deduce just who Lincoln really was and the lengthy history attached had Bobbie question Clyde's honesty- a start of a realistic partnership, imperfect and nerve-rattling. Of course, she was promised absolutely nothing else but lumps of cash sealed in mail envelopes placed on a timely basis in the glove compartment, so she had no ground to complain in those areas. The only grievance she had was with Lincoln and his carelessness in taking in angry kids like he was Batman creating a team of Robins, but with guns.

It was a sort of a dream not properly developed, if anything, if he were to label it anything. A bunch of misguided kids lost in a complicated, massive world full of danger in many forms, and such kids-

Are you in the business of killing kids, Lincoln?

The dreadful illness that so universally infected all living organisms had finally caught up to him, to wear him down and leave him tired. Even with that special boost that transcended him beyond your average physical limitations, it was not, and nor ever, enough to counter the one-way aging process. He was slipping away from his prime era, running slower and not able to carry on through the day without so much as a nap or two somewhere in the day. The scheduled nap, derived from fatigue, had taken him by force and leave him to slumber in the van, which would come to be a regular occurrence.

And when he slept, he dreamt again; nothing to his likings. Right now, after he and his junior gang had concluded their business with the lone vigilante, his battery had depleted and he was left undisturbed, which annoyed nobody else other than Bobbie.

Did you enjoy killing me, monster? The voice, so eerie and cold but otherwise still attached to Allie Taggart, a puppet whose strings were pulled by a notorious man belonging to what might be considered the greatest conspiracy in all of history. The voice, loose but sharp, determined to judge the killer in the solitude of his own mind. A discomfort when it came, a paranoia when it was hiding. The damn guilt still taking form and leeching off of him, somehow. He had reasoned it time and time again, she was a bad egg who chose the way of the bad egg after being given a second chance, rare redemption he allowed in that instance.

Did you do enough to set me straight? It brought him to jerk about, roll about unjustly in the van, and when the van made turns, he followed suit unbeknownst to himself. Lemy and Simon kept him at bay, setting their feet to keep him at his side, right next to the captured vigilante neither of the three had unmasked yet.

"Dumbass should have buckled in," Bobbie joked.

"Couldn't he take shotgun?" Simon innocently asked. "It would keep him from moving about."

"No, let him do that," Bobbie laughed. "I find it funny, him eating dirt there."

"That's rude-"

Lemy guffawed openly.

"I lost count of how many times he's..." Simon then sighed and shook his head. "My old man has more energy. Hell, I think my grandma does, too."

"Not like we can ditch the bastard," Lemy wished, catching his breath from laughter. "Hoooo, I think a day will come when he slows us down, and we'll have no choice but to ditch him."

"Ditch him or retire him?" Simon asked for clarification.

"I'm not taking another shot at him, so no-"

Bobbie shot her eyes on the front mirror. "You went up against our albino friend?! Are you a suicidal moron?"

Lemy merely rolled his eyes at her. "Pffft, I got the drop on him a few times, just to keep the score known. I had the numbers advantage but-"

"I can't see you winning, honestly," Bobbie admitted. "Glad he's taken you under his wing, but the man isn't too smart or he'd be talking you out of this life. Honestly, he's just raising you to be killed one day, but I hope you two grow some brain cells in those empty noggins of yours, you're young with your entire lives ahead of you and you flushed them down the toilet for revenge."

"Revenge?" Simon reacted in a sarcastic sputter. "Whatever you say-"

"Ooooh, no! Let me try again, because you feel yourself a self-righteous agent with perfect judgment? Ha, give me a break, a kid-" Bobbie snorted. "But I'm gonna lecture you, I'm not your mother, so it's your funeral."

"I couldn't agree more..." Lincoln came to be again, disassociating from yet another infernal nightmare, an atmosphere haunted on a regular schedule by either Allie or Chloe. Moments needed to be killed somehow. Just as he woke, the freshness of the nightmare quickly expired, rotting away, leaving only bits and pieces, but those bits and pieces only ever being nothing else but the peak of the horror of this category. "These kids will learn it the hard way, that's my way. If they insist on experiencing war in real time, they will. Me turning them away will do nothing for them, just like my advice to sway them from this darkness. They're young so they're gonna be stupidly curious and will get themselves killed, so I figured this was the only way. And then, they'll understand and decide to grow old and have a family of their own, end of their fight."

Lemy and Simon remained eerily quiet; the words had some effect if they weren't protesting.

"A very hard lesson, but you're endangering them too, aren't you?" Bobbie showed her disapproval again, scoffing in disgust. "Most of everything you just said makes sense but actually putting them directly in firefights? It'd be so much more better to get them talking with actual veterans with all the right horror stories behind them."

"Words are words, they do not work for me," Lincoln expressed. "Just like they do not work for this bunch. They shall not leave until they beg for it. Until then, there is work to be done, and work they shall get to!"

"Don't overwork them, they're still kids!"

"They no longer have the privilege to be treated as such. And, we don't pay you to run your mouth. Don't like it? Take off..." Lincoln sulked. "I told Clyde the specifics, a non-chatterbox."

"Fine, yeah... I see know that the only real kid here..."

Now

"...Is you."

Simon maintained perched on the laundromat rooftop, flat on his stomach with the company of the silent, cold sniper rifle. The scope and its crosshairs, focused on the building directly opposite from him, constantly directing to the front red oak door to its windows, the only clear entry/exit points for the target to use. The only hidden one was on the other side, in the form of a fire escape that led to the two-way alley. This side was already covered by the fourth member of their secret unit, the one and only Gordon LeBlanc, the only member of the four of black descent, and if you were around Patanu102, you'd be familiar with the character. I think that was his correct name, but I'm going on hunch and shit memory. And if you didn't know him, mister Gordon LeBlanc could be described as one of those jocks who partook in lacrosse, which required him to have high grades, otherwise he'd be booted off the team. Too much work, most of the subjects were tough or flat-out boring, or perhaps both, but he excelled. His hair had been quite long back in those days, but he was reduced to a buzzcut after his

Gordon LeBlanc was in a better position, burrowed in a "borrowed" Geek Squad van, monitoring the alleyway with the two cameras watching both ends inward. So far, no progress of finding the current target, but every five to ten minutes would see a beggar or passerby trying to use a shortcut. The lack of action, for the past half hour, dulled him to the brim. He grew hungry by then, but all he had was a Cliff bar to keep him as full as he could get. To be fair, he and Simon had rushed this after chasing the target right into the building. "Hey, anything happening?"

Simon disconnected his finger from the trigger, hand moving to his left ear where the Lobelink had occupied, pressing upon it. "No activity, man's holed himself in, unless he made a secret tunnel underneath. If so, he's already deep in the sewer system away from here."

"Or maybe he's waiting us out with all the time in the world." Gordon dropped the Cliff bar wrapper after mindlessly fiddling with it. "Man, I could go for a burger. To hell with this-"

"Bro, as soon as Loud or Lemy can answer back-" Simon's exhaust in trying to reach them made him sigh and cut away. Again, he moved the sniper around, still holding on.

"They would have already, I'm getting tired of waiting, man!" Gordon took his eyes off the cameras and went for the rifle packed away in the sports duffel bag opposite him. "I'm going in."

"What, without back-up?!" Simon protested.

"Idiot, you're the one backing me up!" Gordon strapped himself with body armor and three flash grenades attached to his gear. Next, he inserted a magazine into the rifle and loaded it, readying for a battle. "Eyes on the windows. No telling what floor our friend has dug himself on."

"I've gotcha covered, bro," Simon assured. "Lure him to my side, one round will take him down."

Gordon exited through the back, stepping off as softly as he could. Once he did, he looked up at the fire escape and groaned; my man had a challenge to climb while carrying the rifle. "Fuck me."

"What's happening?"

"A bit of a challenge, I'm moving into the second floor upwards."

"Good plan, corner him to the roof, and make it fast!"

"Simon, Gordon, come in!" came Lemy's voice, sounding alarmed from that end. "What's your location?"

"Lemy, what the fuck?!" Simon hissed. "We've cornered the anorexic albino, he's holed in-"

"Pull back immediately, that's an order!"

Gordon stopped before trying to figure out his climb. "Come again?"

"We have a new situation now, and this requires the both of you to give us aid. Forget the escapee for right now, we're up against a mechanized being. It's a joint operation now, we've already begun linking up with allies for this."

"M-mechanized being?" Simon repeated with bewilderment. "Robot suit?"

"We're in too deep, Lemy!" Gordon argued. "We might not get another chance at this..."

"I'm with Gordon here, you've no idea how much we've-"

"Now!"

"Tsk-" Simon lifted his face from the scope. "Shit, fine. We're retreating from this fight. He may be lucky today, but we'll get that son of a bitch."

"Damn, you've gotta be kidding me! Yo, we're this close-"

"This takes priority, let the target be and rendezvous to our position. I'll send over our coordinates."

"Ugh..." Gordon reluctantly complied, turning away from the building, aggravated by all the wasted effort. "Okay but we're stopping for food."

Simon disassembled the sniper rifle, parts going back in its black rectangle case. He vacated the roof through the ladder at the end after dropping the case right into the dumpster on ground level. "Pick me up, bro. I'm heading to the checkpoint. Hey, Lemy, tell us more about this guy."

"Little info right now, but they do not care about collateral damage, so they are top-tier dangerous that we cannot simply ignore it."

"Alright, alright!" Gordon returned the weapon and equipment back in place and removed his armored vest. "We're coming. What's the big man doing?"

"He's- We're, uh, meeting up with the old Patriot members right now. This mecha attacked them-"

"The ex-Patriots?!" Simon choked on himself. "Wait, wait a minute- You're telling me we're gonna fight an enemy who attacked those phenos?!"

"Lemy, in case you didn't notice-" Gordon tossed in, feeling nervous now. "Nah, I'm not doing this. That's too much-"

"Oh but it was so easy for you back then, huh?" Lincoln interrupted. "This is exactly what you've signed up for since day one, both of you. Where's all that motivation gone to, I wonder?"

"N-no, you can't do that-"

"I do nothing but say it how it is. Hand over your guns and walk away or await our location point. Let our so-called Reta Corps be cut in half or live up to your word. If I were you, I would hang up the towel right now. This is beyond our normal gig, but Lemy believes in you and trusts you to be of great help so prove to me that you can overcome a greater target or get out of my sight."

"Ergh..." Simon took a deep, uneasy breath. "No, I see what you're saying. We're far too late to sign out now, aren't we, Gordon?"

"You guys are some suicidal motherfuckers," Gordon throbbed, "but you guys are onboard so that means something, doesn't it? Fuck it, why not?"

And as the underlings of the secret Reta Corps team (Reta short for retaliation, and not to be confused with the user Reta from the Discord part of the fandom), the pale-toned Lincoln Loud, the true one of this timeline, peered through the front window, glad to know the young sniper of blond hair had left- but it brought about paranoia all the same. Was he relocating his position? Was he retreating to call in the doppelganger? Surely nothing good could come of it, so he had to move immediately. Move and find Clyde McBride, the only person who could help him now by having him fitted with the right stuff to destroy the replacement.