The Midnight Ride

A bike sped down the highway, streetlights columns of luminosity in the drizzle that fell from the cloudy night sky. Bronya swerved the bike between traffic, kicking up the acceleration. Project Bunny was feeding her GPS coordinates to follow in real-time, a hololith arc covering her eyes and displaying the information. Driving so fast in the rain was foolhardy at best and a death wish at worst. Bronya kept the bike steady, swerving between vehicles that were already speeding away from a Honkai incursion. Which was strange. Why would Bronya not be heading towards the centre of devastation? A car cut them off, pulling into Bronya's breaking space. She had enough time to rear the bike back, Authority flaring as she created a ramp of solid blue light, a temporary solid matter projection. The bike sailed over the foolish driver, landing ahead of it, suspension taking the impact.

Red exclamation marks flashed.

The traffic jam had worsened. People were trying to get off the highway and were clogging an offramp Bronya needed to get onto. A truck going easily too fast blocked access to the ramp. Hitting the breaks, Bronya shifted her centre of gravity, taking her passenger with her and dropping the bike enough onto it it's side to slide through the gap of a truck's undercarriage. Sparks lit up the wet bitumen of the road before the bike righted up. Project Bunny sped up the off-ramp, ignored the red lights and swerved hard left, weaving between traffic as it approached their destination rapidly.

"Are you okay, Seele?" Bronya called out.

"Mmmm."

Seele sat behind Bronya, gripping the girl perhaps a little too tightly around the stomach. They were doing all of this on two reasons. A traitors ambiguous advice and a hunch. Bronya had reasoned out the traitor's meaning. But for Seeele it was different. That hunch. Seele couldn't prove a thing. No logic or deductive skills to reason out why. Couldn't quantify or logically demonstrate.

But there was Bronya. Always by her side. Trusting Seele without reservation.

"Where are we going?" Bronya asked. "Has the location changed?"

Seele closed her eyes and tried to feel it out. What did her intuition say? Or something even more inexplicable? Older? She reached into the pocket of her dress and gripped the pearl flower hairclip.

Another hand rested on the pocket of the dress. Ethereal. Cold. Ambivalent.

'Why are you bothering?'

Seele couldn't answer. Her only thought was finding the victims before the enemy did. So Seele ignored the other voice and tried to focus her thoughts. It was a jumble. There was so much in Arc city that muddled and obscured what she wanted.

Another ethereal arm wrapped almost affectionately around Seele's throat. They had no need for a firm grip on the speeding motorcycle. But the meaning of the touch was not lost on the girl.

'You really want to save them? Some weaklings.'
'We have to. It's the right thing to do,' Seele declared without reservation.

'Screw right or wrong. You're risking both of us on this little adventure. We don't have any proof. Just some stupid circumstantial mumbo-jumbo'

'Sometimes you have to just trust.'

'Pff. Prove it.'

'Give me your hand'

The owner of the ethereal hand hesitated. They realised this had been Seele's plan all along. Back her into a corner and use her words against her. It was a good trick. And she was too prideful to back down. Taking the challenge, Velliona reached out and settled her ghostly hand within Seele's, the hands of the twin grasping the hairclip.

'Burnt rice. Unwashed linen's. Cold tile floors. No lighting because the bill couldn't be paid. Body's rugged up in multiple layers. It overwhelmed. Being trapped. A cage. A prison. A gaol that held them without chance of escape.'

(Authors note - Gaol is not a misspelling. It is an old British word for jail)

Seele yanked her hand away the same time Velliona did. All Seele could do was pant at the exertion. Her body was soaked in sweat. Velliona chose to swear. In more than a few languages. Vociferously.

'Point made. Then we start looking for this kid…. No that isn't right. I've got that backwards.'

Seele shouldn't have been surprised how quickly Velliona saw through her. The two faced something very dangerous. Even with Bronya here.

"Bonya-nee-san, these are the new coordinates."
Seele conjured up a hololith map with one hand and tapped out the location using a haptic interface. The information was fed through to Project Bunny. Again how Seele could extrapolate and interpret a series of quick images? Flickers of sensation into tangible information. Bronya unreservedly trusted.

"Bronya-nee-san, we have to go faster."

"Understood."

Intuition. Seele knew there were minutes. Maybe even seconds before the children were… Seele didn't want to think of it.

Bronya's Authority flared again. A road projection function for Project Bronya, literally laying down pseudo-matter for the bike to ride upon. The motorcycle zipped above the traffic and made a direct line for the apartment complex.

"We'll be there in two minutes," Bronya announced.

"Thank you, Bronya-nee san."

Time was against them. How had this all started? How had they ended up this situation? Where they would decide the fate of the innocent? Children who would live, die or experience a fate worse than death.

Where does this story begin?