"He was to save the world in place of them.
The chosen one he was not.
But to live without regrets, he must become a black knight and rage alone."
In a darkened room full of computers and servers humming quietly, in a room filled with nothing but the sound of keyboard clacking and the beeps and boops stemming from digital interfaces. A room cold but hot from the expert hackers mind running like a machine, and the endless amount of work requested of them.
"How do the stabilization levels look?"
"Energy levels are rising in the old cathedral. I don't think it'll awaken but we should send C&C to investigate just in case some stray students are playing around there."
"Got it. Hello, C&C?"
A beautiful petite girl in a wheelchair overlooking the room smirked. Thinking to herself how good at hacking they were, it was also masturbatory how often she stroked her inner ego. It's all according to plan, she said the phrase a few times in her head getting the right tone and pitch she wanted to say it in before saying it out loud. "It's all according to plan."
"Uh… Yes." A robust pink haired student who could barely keep her clothes on replied.
"..." Now the expert unparalleled brilliant hacker just felt embarrassed. "Y'know Eimi you could say it yourself. We're so good at our jobs, we might as well be good at everything."
Eimi returned to typing. "If you say so."
Maki spun in her chair to face them. "It's all according to Rio's plan."
"Hey I helped with the ideas too!"
"You begged him to get in the operation." Chihiro sat crossed legged in her chair. "And he begged to… Ugh… Wash your feet."
Hare gagged, sitting across from Chihiro. "Don't remind me. He was so bad at it."
Himari shuddered though secretly she liked the massage since being bound to a wheelchair made her stiff. Before she could respond, an unexpected knock on the door took their attention. The members of Veritas never had any visitors and Rio only discussed over text and private video calls.
So who was this? Eimi stood up, "I'll get it."
"Wait! I think we should ignore itー"
BOOM!
The door came flying off from an explosion. Eimi moved her arm almost reaching her shotgun when a bullet sent it out of her grasp. A bodybag flew and landed in the middle of the room on top of Hare's computer and she could hear the muted beeping of a c4 inside.
"Don't move!" Mutsuki entered, holding a detonator high up for all to see.
"W-what is this?!" Himari shouted.
"This is a sabotage! You're all at the bequest of my client." Mutsuki looked back at Aru peeking in the room then moved to grab her arm and drag her in.
"Ah! So sorry!" Aru cried.
"Damnnit! Youーagh! Forget it." Mutsuki, with all her might, punched Aru in the face hard enough to give a black eye and send her glasses off her face.
The members of Veritas all stared in confusion as Aru stood there hunched over from the teammate's betrayal. She would then raise her head grinning slyly and with a casual glare, her inner personality now awakened.
She flipped her hair. "My my what do we have here? A bunch of four eyed hermits that have never seen the sun."
Ironic coming from her.
Mutsuki held the detonator up again. "Aru, teach these suckers that if they get in our way, we'll blow their brains out."
Aru slowly walked to the computer servers lined on shelves. "You expect too less of me. I won't just blow their brains out immediately. I'll kill their friends right in front of them. I'll cut their eyelids so they have to watch and stare as the ones they love have their knees blown out and writhe. Like this!"
She held her sniper rifle like a bat and struck the server boxes. Swinging indiscriminately and pulling whenever she saw wires free to grab.
"Like this and this and this! Because that's the truth of evil!"
It was like watching a raging child who didn't get their way. Cringe but annoying to Veritas that she was destroying some of their tech with recoverable data, but Himari teared up.
"Haah… Haah." Aru backed away from the scraps on the floor and went back to monologue like that just didn't happen. "Evil is such a vile word. It's so vile that if you rearrange the letters it spells evil. I was bred for this."
"I wish she'd press that detonator." Chihiro groaned inside.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA" Self explanatory which member was dying inside.
"I wish I could drink something. My can is over there but I can't reach it. Will everyone be mad at me if we died because I tried to get a last sip?" Hare was deep in thought, not paying attention to Aru smacking computer monitors onto the floor as she passed them.
"...And that's why I never liked having pets." Aru finished and returned to Mutsuki's side, picking up her glasses along the way. "I think we're done here. Let's wrap up Mutsuki."
Mutsuki nodded and tossed the detonator on the ground before taking off with her partner in sabotage crime. Finally Veritas let out a breath of relief and their stresses lifted. Though most of their tech was damaged or destroyed. Seemed like a prank done by the Game Dev Dept.
After pushing her chair away from the bombs, Hare pointed to the body bag. "What do we do with this?"
"Don't touch it for now." Chihiro pressed her forehead and Himari crying wasn't making her headache clear up any sooner. This ruined their plans for the worst.
Night was the supposed attack. Rio calculated this as Sariel's best time to sabotage and had guard droids patrol the city 24/7 effectively putting the entirety under surveillance for saboteurs and sympathizers.
Doing their last patrol for the hour was a large platoon of droids armed with various heavy metal equipment. Some wielded rocket launchers, the smaller infantry used basic assault rifles, but the most dangerous were the bulking droids wielding a shield in one hand and an SMG in the other. The machines stopped all at once to wait for the last tram which came to a slow stop.
Following the announcement of its stop, the doors opened and there stood a brown cloaked figure. The Droids were ordered to kill on sight. A collective clack of their joints locking into position was heard from the platoon and filled the empty silence. Then, a barrage of bullets howled and roared.
The cloaked figure was inched, filled with bullet holes and lead. Not never once did it fall, and never once did the droids stop firing, not until the cloak was in tatters and bent at a weird angle. Smoke leaked from the holes but smoke from a loud whirring underneath the cloak took precedence over all.
With a mighty swing, the cloak flew off revealing Hanae and her new giant chainsaw. She kicked over the riot shield she used to block every bullet fired at her and ran into action with Sariel, Faust, Azusa, and Izuna all following behind her massacre.
"Take this! This! And this!" Hanae's entire body moved with each recklessly wild swing of her chainsaw. Steel tore through steel, wires and shredded metal flew overhead in place of blood. The rising adrenaline within Sariel rose even further with each clatter of metal.
A loud clash against a droid's shield stopped Hanae's crusade, or did it? "Faust, split it!" Sariel ordered.
"Okay!" Faust dashed past the droid and broke free from the surrounding forces, taking half to chase her while the other half continued their battle against Sariel's squad.
She managed to drag their attention elsewhere before slipping out of their sight to stealthily enter Millennium Tower. The lobby room was empty at night, same with most of the halls, empty of people and robots that is. Rio pulled up camera feeds on her monitor watching her ascend the halls and stairs.
Rio smirked knowing she was growing closer and closer.
A lazily standing Noa asked, "Do you want me to deal with them again?"
"No. Let them come here and meet their demise." Rio's eyes drifted to Wakamo who sat on the edge of his wide desk.
"The consequences of your sins will catch up to you. I am disgusted you call upon my assistance, but lucky that the Sensei of Sensei intrigues me." The masked fox said.
Rio waved away those notions. That was until he saw Izuna amongst Sariel's squad on the camera feed, then his heart sank. Noa saw his cool gaze change into a fearful stare. He rested his elbows on top of the desk and hands clasped together, impatiently tapping his foot just waiting for them to arrive.
The beep of the elevator alerted Noa to draw her weapon but Rio exclaimed for her to wait. Emerging from the elevator was the bagged girl brought by the team to buy time. Rio was right in his hunch to hire Wakamo. Under the bag Faust was nervous facing the impossible to catch deadly fox that left nothing but destruction in her wake. From the back of her long coat she readied a disk object in her hand.
Rio raised his finger and lowered it towards Faust. "Wakamo, destroy her."
Faust dashed forward letting the bag fly off her head as she made her advance. Dodging left and right avoiding Wakamo's bullets at a speed similar to her own. Seeing the once youthful blonde heroine turned into a formidable foe made Rio's heart wrench now that they were opposing.
Kicking her leg up into a flip, Wakamo squandered her attempts to fight at close quarters. Then while Faust was still high in midair, Wakamo ran up the side of the window then lunged off with her bayonet acting as a lance.
Faust only had a small window of opportunity, twisting her body upside down so she could throw the disk which brought out an inflatable Peroro that Wakamo stabbed and rebounded off. Uncontrollably she crashed out of the window falling to her demise but as with all her escapes, this wouldn't be the last they saw of her.
"Oof!" Faust hit the ground on her back.
"Don't move!" Noa and Yuuka aimed their firearms at her but just in time, Sariel and company arrived from the stairwell.
"Don't shoot!" Sariel shouted. Izuna, Azusa, and Hanae all readied their rifles beside him.
Rio stood up. "You're back for round 2?"
"I'm ready to play cards and this time you don't have a choice."
"Hmph.." Rio chuckled then laughed. "Hahahaha!"
What was he laughing at? Annoyed, Sariel drew his own gun. "Is this another one of your schemes? Haven't you had enough? You're using students as a liability."
"Kivotos is beautiful isn't it?"
"Huh?"
The wind blowing in from the cracked hole made his hair sway elegantly. That added with the night sky stairs served to make his sorrowful smile beautiful. "Everything about this world is pretty to me. The ups and downs, the enemies I fought against. I love it all, but It must be finite and lost. I'm working to save that beauty by destroying it. You wouldn't understand what I'm trying to do. Gehenna Sensei thought the same thing."
Sariel lowered his gun curiously. "Gehenna Sensei..?"
"I won't listen to any more of this!" Izuna threw down a smoke bomb and vanished only to appear in a cloud of smoke behind Rio. Instead of using their guns they fought with their fists. Sariel didn't have time to watch, getting on one knee with Hanae to make a platform with their hands for Azusa to jump off of.
No longer did she use a white rifle, instead a stinger missile launcher reminiscent of Arius Squad. "Jumping shot!" She shouted and fired a rocket down towards Noa and Yuuka. The missile split into a plethora of smaller rockets that homed in on both girls, engulfing them in a barrage of explosions then smoke. Yuuka swiped her arm, clearing away the dust and smog, and taking most of the damage was her barrier shield summoned last second before the rockets hit. Readying a second SMG to wield, she closed the distance. This wasn't the Yuuka Sariel knew.
"Subdue Noa and Yuuka!"
Faust hopped to her feet. "And what about her?" Eyeing towards the blue haired android gearing up for battle. She slugged her railgun over her shoulder dropping it to the ground with a mighty thudd! It's inner machinations and gears shifting and expanding the retangular weapon slightly.
"Leave her to me!" Sariel ran towards her not with his gun raised but to save her. "Alice!" He tackled her and rolled along the ground away from the railgun.
Noa aimed her pistol at him only for a kick to push her back. Her attention aggroed on Azusa who had movements like a tiger, effortlessly sliding and weaving around Noa's shots. Occasionally she would jump up and fire another, "Jumping shot!"
Noa dove out of the way from another barrage of rockets further destroying the office. The short time in freefall Azusa had was an opening for Noa to take at least land a bullet or two. But the girl was more durable than she looked.
She took being hit in stride, reeling back into a ukemi and moving swiftly again. Noa extended her gun's stock and closed the distance while firing. Thinking she got the upper hand when Azusa placed the stinger upright to use as cover.
She ejected a magazine and reloaded another and in that time Azusa stepped slowly out of cover with a dull emotion in her eyes. She sped out of the way of a bullet and Noa swore she saw a trail of blue follow her eye as she moved like a zigzag towards her and kicked the gun out of her grasp. Following up that kick with a leg sweep. Before Noa's head hit the ground, Azusa caught and locked her in a choke hold.
"Wait! Y-you have to… Stop Yuuka..!"
Azusa lightened her hold. "What?"
"Hypnosis…. Rio used Hypnosis on her and she'll fight until..! Until she dies!" Noa exclaimed with all her strength.
Sariel heard her plea, and after he was finished choking Alice until she passed out, and hurried up wanting to assist Faust but Yuuka was like a machine and shot by his feet preventing him from getting closer. Her eyes darted left and right observing every movement and calculating her own movements in response, Faust couldn't break through to her.
Only Rio could fix this but his back was faced against the gaping hole in the window and Izuna cornering him. Their fight ended here.
"I guess Wakamo was right." Rio spat out blood.
"It's only natural. You have a debt to pay. Kon~!" Izuna made a fox with her fingers.
"Damnnit! Wait!"
Rio looked at Sariel one last time before he leaned back allowing himself to fall so far below. What was the point in looking specifically at him other than to rub salt in the wound that whatever he did to Yuuka was irreversible now that he was dead. Unfortunately a final bang that echoed throughout the night would spell the end for her as well. It was Faust's back against the wall in a scenario where it was kill or be killed by an immovable enemy.
Everyone watched her fall in a pool of her own blood.
"I'm so sorry…" Faust dropped her gun repeating the phrase over and over.
A/N: bit of a rushed chapter. ive been feeling extremely moody lately, but im close to 200 hits as of posting this. im excited, but also in a perpetual state or sorrow and eccentricity. this marks the end of volume 1? part 1? either way im going to step back for awhile and think. . .
and to the people private messaging me to kill myself and calling my fic shit, dont start shit with me if youre going to block me and prevent me from replying to your bitch ass PM. let this be a warning to anyone that continues trying this. there will be a wall of shame. (old)
