Chapter 18 Sound of Lies
Big Box – NEXT Hangar / Saturday, September 7th, 2030
There was one change James wanted to make before he deployed on this most important mission. Removing both back weapons, he instead placed an extra set of back boosters, which would give the AC an entire extra Mach in forward thrust, as well as increased flight characteristics.
"You sure you don't want any more ranged weapons?" Haze criticized. In his current loadout, his only weapons were the two Moonlight blades, as well as two Lare 90mm handguns to be used on each hand.
"Shinonono is an idealist. This is going to come down to close quarter combat." James declared. "I'll need all the speed I can get."
"James…" Fiona called out.
"Hey mom." James smiled.
"You refused my request to be your Operator?" Fiona frowned.
"…Expecting to make a mess is all." James shrugged. "Didn't want you to see that."
"I see. You're going to enjoy hunting her down." Fiona surmised.
"Oh yeah." James nodded.
"Then there's only one thing to be said." Fiona announced. "Good hunting."
"Thank you." James smiled. "I'll be back soon."
Stepping into the Armored Core, he started the launch procedure, reactor warming up. The AC was lifted by elevator to the flight deck, where the thrusters activated, slowly burning as they spun up to capacity.
"Strayed, now launching."
Blasting forward, from stand still to Mach three, Strayed rocketed south, on the hunt.
"Give me about three hours, and I'll get you there." Not Judith assured them from the back of their mind. "Looks like this is going to be fun."
"…" Strayed hissed, but accepted the ghost's help.
Big Box / One Hour Later
Chifuyu had been moping aimlessly the last few days, after the death of her brother. Everything she had fought so hard for, all the lives she had tried to save…just…what was the point anymore?
Her visitor surprised her.
"Uh…Ms. Jarnefeldt?" Chifuyu asked in confusion.
"…Walk with me." Fiona demanded.
"…" There was no threat in her statement, and seeing as she had little else to do, she followed, wondering what the older woman wanted.
"I understand you had a physical relationship with my son?" Fiona noted.
"Uh…yeah…we did." Chifuyu sheepishly answered.
"…I'm sorry. I know something of what that's like." Fiona mused.
"That's…" Chifuyu wanted to argue. How could anyone know what she felt? Then, she remembered. "Oh…your husband…"
"Yes." Fiona confirmed. "Thermidor killed my husband in battle. However, while I might never forgive him, I don't allow my feelings to impede my work. It is what it is."
"…Are you saying I should just…move on? Forget that James murdered my brother, to go on like it never happened?"
"I expect you to make up your own damn mind." Fiona answered. "And I think I was supposed to help you."
"How…?"
"Using this." Fiona had led them towards the research and development part of the fortress, opening doors to reveal James's temporary AC, the red and black Third Generation model.
"…I don't understand." Chifuyu shook her head.
"James had Haze and I modify this AC by installing an IS Core. After somehow getting the systems to work, we managed to create a weapons platform not far off from a Next. You're looking at the first fully integrated AC/IS Hybrid Core, the Nineball Throne."
"Why are you doing this?" Chifuyu wondered in mild shock.
"…I think James wanted you to choose. Help him kill Tabane, or kill him, or both. He's strange like that." Fiona commented quietly. "But he believes in fair chances. That's why he didn't kill your brother until after he presented a credible threat. You want a chance for vengeance or justice? Then go get it. Either kill the bastard who dismembered your brother, or the bitch who plotted his demise for her amusement."
"…" Chifuyu wasn't sure which she would chose yet, only that she wouldn't pass on the opportunity. "What can this bad boy do?"
Fiona shifted gears, going into the technical aspects of the Hybrid Core. "This prototype model essentially takes a heavily modified, custom Third Generation Armored Core, and gives it several IS capabilities, while correcting several of it's faults. While preserving the heavy armor and high mobility characteristics of an AC, it gains an IS energy shield and a vast arsenal of weapons stored in a pocket dimension. Since it forgoes most IS internal systems in favor of utilizing the ACs internal systems, it's only operational limit will be how long you can endure. It is also able to recharge it's shields rapidly, just like Next Primal Armor. Though it is still nowhere near as powerful as an AC Next, it certainly comes damn close."
"…" Chifuyu realized that Fiona was serious. She wanted her to use this AC to either help or kill James Klein.
"So, what will you do, Chifuyu Orimura?" Fiona wondered.
. . .
After getting a crash course in AC control, Chifuyu fit snugly inside the Hybrid Core. Still, having fought against this particular machine for hours on end, there was perhaps no one else on the planet more qualified to use this machine, other than the remaining Lynx.
"You'll be equipped with a VOB to quickly get you to the target area." Fiona informed her. "Once Strayed touches down, we'll have the target area marked. What you choose will be up to you. Good hunting."
"Copy." Chifuyu confirmed, feeling the weight of a VOB booster rocket attached to her back. Once it was in place, she announced her intentions. "Orimura, Nineball Throne, launching!"
Nowhere – Pacific Ocean / Two Hours Later
Thousands of miles away from anything, in one of the most desolate corners of the world, their hunt led them to this exact spot.
"Okay, you're right next to the target zone." Not Judith assured him. "Cut your speed, and set altitude to one hundred meters."
"…" Strayed obeyed, floating out over the ocean, with no indication that there was anything here but water and fish.
"Cut off all sensor data." Not Judith demanded. "Even your altimeter. Have no indication of where you are."
"…" Strayed cut off all sensors for the AC and themselves, truly having no idea where they might be.
"And cut thrust and fall…" Not Judith demanded.
"…" Strayed obeyed, and fell back towards the ocean. Instead of hitting water, their feet hit a hard surface, hydraulic pumps straining angrily as they absorbed the unexpected and hard impact.
"Okay. I got you here. Have fun kid." Not Judith announced.
"…" Strayed turned their sensors back on, and looked upon the artificial island they landed on. It was a relatively large structure, but nowhere near large enough to accommodate Tabane and her projects. It was more of an excessive front door. From James's studies, it appeared as an elaborate Greek temple, with tall pillars leading down a wide hall that would easily accommodate their AC. The pillars were lined with statues of scantily clad angels, all with Tabane Shinonono's face.
Weird.
At the end of the temple, were three women, wearing their Infinite Stratos under-suits, standing before it and guarding the portal/doorway at the end of the structure.
"…?" Challengers? No…just the welcoming committee.
"James 'Strayed' Klein." The leading girl, Madoka Orimura, greeted him. "Your coming here is surprising, but not unexpected. Though we are enemies, know that we have no intention of stopping you. Our only goal is to fight and kill Chifuyu Orimura. That being said, everyone beyond this door will oppose you. Good hunting, Lynx of ORCA."
"…" Strayed nodded, and walked forward, the three women moving out of it's way.
"You'll need all the luck you can get against the creator of the IS. She is a not a force to be taken lightly." The second woman, Alicia Jiosestaf announced.
"As much as I might enjoy putting you down, there's greater prey worth my time." The third woman, Agent Autumn declared.
"…" Strayed ignored them, and entered the anomalous facility, the secret base, prepared to cut down all who stood in it's path.
Tabane's Secret Fortress of Solitude - Interior
Annoyedly, this facility was much larger on the inside. Another bullshit quantum anomaly courtesy of Tabane Pinche Shinonono. All external sensor data failed to connect, meaning the inside of the facility was likely in another pocket dimension. Though admittedly a bad idea, Strayed knew Tabane wanted a fight, had to prove she was better than it. That's how it worked in her twisted mind. She needed to be the best, and she needed it to be known that she was the best. Which meant she wouldn't try and close a pocket dimension with it inside.
Standing in their way were two women, in their deployed Infinite Stratos. Squall Meusel, leader of Phantom task, and that other bitch it knew, Daryle Casey, otherwise known as Rain Meusel.
"It was foolish to come here, Lynx of ORCA." Squall announced confidently with her powerful black and gold IS, Golden Dawn. "Now, you will die."
She opened fire, firing yellow plasma bolts from her IS that impacted against the NEXT's Primal Armor energy shield. In response, Strayed returned fire with 90mm handguns.
Squall was able to take the first few shots, but had to dodge and evade, as the massive caliber rounds bled her energy shielding too quickly. While Strayed was focused on her, her niece circled around and fired on it from behind with her flamethrower.
"Now burn! Burn James! Burn and let me hear you beg for death!"
"…" Strayed ignored the fire licking at it's back. Less than ideal, but not a concern at the moment. It's fusion core put out far more heat, so the heatsinks could easily keep up with a fire. Done playing around, it switched to laser blades, and lunged.
Squall was barely able to get her arms up in time to block the laser blade, not that it would save her. At most, it gave her another second of life, to watch as the super heated plasma blade that could carve up Arms Forts broke down her shields, melted through her arms, and cut into her neck, burning her to ash another second later.
"Y-You bastard!" Rain yelled at him. "You took everything from me! I'll kill you! I'll make you scream! And then I'll burn everything you love!" She increased the output of her flamethrower, washing over the 03-Aaliyah in a wave of fire.
"…" Strayed feigned struggle, slowly inching itself forward as it used it's hand to shield itself from the flames, crouching down to look like it was actually losing. This only encouraged Rain, who moved over it confidently, so certain she could win by burning it to death.
With it's hand warmed by her fire, Strayed lunged forward, and grabbed Rain by the head. It didn't kill her right away, just let her cook as the fire she had so desperately washed over it's armor had only warmed it, turning it into a stove her face was now caught in. Rain screamed as her face was seared by burning heat. Only then did Strayed close it's hand, and crush her head. With that out of the way, it opened it's heatsinks, cooling it's armor, before continuing with it's mission.
Down another level or hallway or whatever in this anomalous folded space reality, Strayed was confronted by a young girl roughly seventeen years old. She was a lithe little thing wearing a white and blue dress. She held an elaborate cane confidently.
"Greetings, you must be James 'Strayed' Klein, Lynx of ORCA." The white haired girl bowed politely. "My name is Chloe Chronicle."
"…"
"Though you've come here looking to defeat the great Tabane Shinonono, I cannot allow you to harm my mistress. As well, please consider your death as justice for the death of my younger sister, Laura Bodewig."
"…"
"There's nothing else to say. Please, take care and die well." Chloe activated her IS, pulling it into real space.
"…" Strayed readied themselves for some kind of attack, only to notice that Chloe was doing much the same, being weary and cautious of it and any attack it would make. Then, it noticed the attack she was making.
Electronic warfare modules rung out in alert, informing the Lynx that an enemy was attempting to infiltrate the ACs subsystems and primary computer systems. The demon smiled, and opened the gates.
Chloe was shocked that she'd managed to break into the ACs control systems, but wouldn't let this chance go to waste. Remote-controlling the ACs arms and weapons, she pointed it's laser blade inward, and activated it, running the AC through the cockpit block with it's own blade, killing James 'Strayed' Klein.
"…I…I did it." Chloe flinched in surprise. ORCA's greatest soldier, dead by her hand. Her master would be so proud of her.
"Congratulations!" Tabane Shinonono cheered, clapping eagerly for her. Chloe smiled, and took a bow.
"Congratulations!"
"…" All of her pride and sense of accomplishment was gone in an instant. Though they had never interacted, she knew that voice well enough from her own passive spying.
Clapping eagerly with a wide smile, Laura stared at her with unblinking eyes.
"Congratulations!" Another impossibility, another one of Strayed's kills, Cecila Alcott cheered politely.
"Congratulations!" Chloe turned in expected horror, seeing Lingyin clapping for her.
"Congratulations!" Charlotte cheered sweetly.
"Congratulations!" Ichika clapped strongly and proudly, nodding to her confidently.
Chloe was terrified and confused. "M-Master Shinonono…what's going on!?"
"Oh, don't you know, you're the big hero! You killed Strayed!" Tabane assured her. "Unless…"
Tabane lunged forward, and grabbed Chloe by the throat, choking her, and lifted her into the air. Tabane was gone. All those dead kids were gone. Instead, she found her throat ensnared…
By James "Strayed" Klein.
"Electronic warfare on an AC was always a poor choice of attack." James informed her calmly. "We've faced the horrors of AI rebellions before. Better to not let them have a way in. But you…you fucked up by using an IS."
"…!" Chloe choked fearfully, squirming to get out of his grasp. Her IS suddenly unresponsive, powerless.
"I understand that IS units form psychic links with their pilots for seamless control, and while my psychic-warfare isn't anything special, my anti-psychic-warfare is top notch, enough that I exploited that connection you made." James explained. "In other words, I'm inside your head right now."
"…!" Chloe wanted to scream out. She'd seen James die! She'd killed him herself!
"Oh, that?" James read her mind. "Much like your IS can show people their ideal world while you puppet them, I'm doing much the same. In fact, it's your hands currently choking you out. I just showed you a vision of myself dying on my own blade. Just like what comes next, nothing is real. It's all a vision…or…perhaps a memory."
"…" Chloe shook her head. She…that's right. She had a job to do. As The League's lowest, growling dog for hire. Unfulfilling and dishonorable work, but someone had to do it, and she excelled at it. With callous indifference, she stalked the underground, hunting men, women, and children, culling them with barbarous efficiency, to feed the insatiable appetite of The League.
That…wasn't true. Chloe had never hunted down and shot innocent people in a dark and dank underground. She'd never seen these people before. So why…why did she remember in excruciating detail every face and every scream and every bullet and every name? Why did she remember the sickening feeling of their weak, fragile bones snapping between her fingers?
Why did she remember how they tasted?
"…" Even so, she had her duty. She would stand by her stepfather, Anatolia's Mercenary, and protect Line Ark from League aggressors. That…no…this wasn't real! She'd never piloted a NEXT before. She'd never watched her stepfather die…knowing he would die…being powerless to stop him from dying…
But that word…her entire reason for seeking vengeance against The League. To right the crime that was Anatolia, for a family she could no longer remember…
Chloe felt sick. This memory that wasn't hers. It was cruel and evil and she had no want of it. What…kind of evil existed in the hearts of men to use their own soldier like that! Forcing a good man like Johsua to turn cannons on civilians…she couldn't even remember the name of her mother or brother…
They weren't her family through! But this painful influx of memories that felt so real, that felt like she had lived them. Fighting for and against The League, on a war torn and ashen world. Joining ORCA.
Laying with Judith Fanchon. Her lover and confidant. A sweet and honest girl that she…that she…
There was no reason for that. Like a flip of a switch she did not hesitate to bury her blade in that girl's back. Because she was a Lynx? Because she knew she was going to die? There was no excuse, no justification. Just a cold and brutal murder that left her reeling.
Stalking down the aisles of a Mosque, she slowly and cruelly hunted that terrorist woman, terrorizing her with chainsaw in hand…
Why would she…what kind of sick satisfaction was that to defile a woman, butchering her into so much ruined meat on holy ground?! It wasn't even her religion and she felt disgusted by that disgrace!
Locked in combat against those two Phantom Task brats, her skin sloughing off painfully in chunks, she grabbed Forte Sapphire by the arms, lunged with her gaping maw, and…
Chloe wanted to vomit. She knew what Forte's flesh and blood tasted like! Felt her skin tear between her teeth, warm blood pooling in her mouth. Even though most of it was spit out, some of it made it's way down her throat, as she watched the life leave the small girl's eyes…
She remembered…piloting the 03-Aaliyah, against the IS Academy Students. Cutting them down callously and cruelly. Grabbing her own blood sister, Laura, and…and…burning her…melting her by exposing her to the heat from the active fusion core.
Chloe fell to her knees, her soul awash in slaughter, drowning in the blood of it, lost in deep despair, stinking of violent death. Knowing the weight and the names and the screams of a billion souls she could see herself cutting down in excruciating detail.
These weren't her memories, but she felt herself reliving them all the same.
James towered over her cruelly, smiling so eagerly, with something more to share. "You think this is the worst I can put you through? You think you want to beg for death now? No, not until you've seen everything."
James grabbed Chloe by the throat, lifted her high, and slammed her down into a machine, a contraption. A thing used to create Lynx.
While she drowned in the warm bath, the mechanical arms of this machine reached towards her bare skin, and carved her up. Taking inch by inch of her flesh all at once, while she screamed wide awake, acutely aware of every ounce of flesh stolen from her. The arms took her skin, then her bones, cutting her down to ribbons of ruined flesh. Even her mind was torn apart, and she could feel how each half of herself was torn asunder, lobotomizing her, taking all that she was, and making it…
There was something swimming inside her. Something hungry with insatiable rage and an unquenchable thirst for war. It raked it's claws over her flesh, over her soul, promising her pain and insanity beyond her wildest imagination. It whispered sweetly, fangs dragging across her neck, letting her imagine being the plaything for something cruel beyond measure.
It stared at her, it's long gaping maw of sharp teeth lined with bright red eyes, smiling at her like an old friend.
This terrible monstrosity, this blight upon humanity, this demon born of man.
This terror named Strayed.
James leaned by her side, as she shivered, captivated and lost in the too many hungry eyes of the demon laughing at her.
"You want to escape, yes? You don't want to spend eternity with me or myself, do you?" James questioned, knowing that she would never want that. "Then stick some iron in your mouth and pull the trigger."
Chloe didn't know when she was holding a gun, but for the first time in what felt like years, she realized she had control over herself. She had a choice, a chance to escape, and she lunged at it.
While James and the demon watched her like a pair of old friends, Chloe put the gun in her mouth, and pulled the trigger.
. . .
From the time Chloe had made a connection, hacking into the AC, to the time she died, two minutes had passed. There was no gun. She had simply been so terrified, so painfully afraid, that given the opportunity, she willed herself to die.
With another obstacle out of the way, Strayed continued the hunt. One step away from killing Tabane Shinonono.
Tabane's Secret Fortress of Solitude – Front Entrance
After cutting off her sensors to get past whatever quantum field Tabane had put up, Chifuyu landed on the anomalous island. Turning the sensors on again, she noticed the elaborate temple lined with statues of the mad scientist.
Oh yeah, this was the place.
She then noticed the three guards, blocking the path inside. Two of whom she knew well enough, and one of whom she had no particular care for.
"Is…that you, Chifuyu Orimura?" Madoka questioned. "You're…using an AC?"
"This is…unfortunate." Alicia sighed. "Seems we'll have to give you a handicap just to make this fair."
"I don't care about being fair!" Agent Autumn sneered. "I just want the title of killing the great Chifuyu Orimura! Come on then! And let's settle once and for all not only my superiority, but the superiority of the IS over the AC!"
Agent Autumn charged with her spider like IS, and Chifuyu only hesitated due to the options before her.
Considering that nearly all of the IS Core's functions within the AC were abandoned, it allowed ORCA to load a vast arsenal of powerful weapons into it's pocket dimensions, and for a moment, Chifuyu was overwhelmed. She shrugged and went with back mounted missiles, and handheld machineguns. The weapons fell out of the pocket dimension, landing in her hands or affixing themselves to her back mounts.
Autumn stopped to shoot down the missiles with her lasers, but was forced back and on the defensive by the machinegun fire. She tried to fire on the AC, but it's energy shields protected it from her hand lasers.
"Oh…that's no regular AC…" Madoka realized. "That's some kind of hybrid unit. An IS Core augmenting an AC, multiplying it's capabilities by utilizing the best characteristics of either unit."
"Well then, that's good to know." Alicia nodded. "No reason to hold back."
Madoka released several laser drones that tried to surround the AC, only for Chifuyu to change out her machineguns for shotguns, and shoot down the drones by using the orbit drone on her back, the laser CIWS in the chest of the Core, and the two massive shotguns she'd summoned.
Alicia used her IS's special ability to direct hurricane force winds on Chifuyu's position. While this would have been very distracting and disorienting for an IS, Chifuyu was safely protected from the winds in the AC, and it's high mass meant that it was only slightly inconvenienced. Still, her weapons were proving less effective, so she searched for a weapon that wouldn't be thrown off by high winds.
As Autumn tried to ensnare Chifuyu with her spider-like IS, Chifuyu summoned a heavy high-intensity laser rifle known as a Karasawa. Lining the large weapon up with the spindly enemy-
The laser rifle discharged a massive, solid blue bolt of plasma that traced a line from the barrel to Autumn's chest. The weapon gave a very satisfying high-pitched whine as it fired. Autumn's shield, already weakened by previous weapons fire, didn't stand up to the heavy laser weapon, which might explain why the only part of Autumn left was her waist and legs, the rest having evaporated in the intense heat of the weapon.
…Oh. Chifuyu's eyes widened. Partly disgusted, and partly impressed. She turned the weapon on Alicia, and fired twice. The first shot was blocked by the IS shields, but not the heat from the weapon. Alicia screamed as the frontal portions of her IS melted against her skin, only to be entirely burned away as the second shot finished her off.
Madoka did the smart thing and evaded. The weapon was just unwieldly enough to make hitting a mobile IS a pain in the ass. Still, she shouldn't have tried to take on an AC in melee combat.
Chifuyu summoned a pair of physical blades, the long swords that attached to the wrist of an AC, and easily blocked her sister/clone.
"Now it's just you and me, sister!" Madoka mocked. "I wish I could have been there! To see your face when your boyfriend killed your brother!"
"…" Chifuyu didn't take that well. Though the AC lacked the flexibility of an IS, it more than made up for it in raw power and sheer force. She made quick work of Madoka, using one of the massive blades to overwhelm her and cut off her right arm, then reared back and punched her in the chest with her other arm, breaking several ribs.
"…S-So…it's like that…huh?" Madoka was laid out, bleeding out, sneering up at her "big sister" defiantly.
"I am sorry that I abandoned you." Chifuyu apologized softly. "But I could only get away with one other person…and you were already gone by that point. There was no kindness left in your eyes. Still…I regret every day leaving you to their experiments. You deserved better. The…only kindness I can give you, Madoka, will be a quick death."
"I never cared about this world." Madoka smiled painfully. "I never cared about tomorrow. I never cared about anyone or anything. I always just wanted to get back at you, to make you hurt, no matter the cost. But…" She sighed, "Even I will acknowledge…that she went too far."
"…?" Chifuyu considered what Madoka had to say.
"For as much as I wanted my vengeance…roping in ORCA and the rest of the world was too far, and too many people have died." Madoka shook her head. "Was my vengeance really worth the forty million people killed by Tabane, and the sixty million killed by ORCA and James? I'm not a good person…but…I'd like to think I'm better than that. Which is why I have this."
Madoka swiped a file, sending it to the AC. "It's proof Tabane started this war, and my assistance in helping her. Send it to your ORCA friends…and end this war."
Chifuyu considered the information, and the injured clone at her mercy. "She'd like that you know. A big sister cutting down her estranged little sister. The drama and the tragedy of it."
"Eh…what?" Madoka glared up at the AC.
"Tabane. She enjoys little games like this, as she would call them." Chifuyu clarified. "This information, though damning to you as it is, would clear ORCA's name in starting this war. They would be in debt to you. They would take you in and make you stronger. Then…then maybe you'd stand a decent shot against me."
Madoka realized what she was saying. "Why…?"
"Because I'm tired of playing her games. Because I'm tired of seeing my family die. Because only I choose what I do next." Chifuyu declared. "Patch yourself up. I'll send your message up to ORCA. I think you'll like being one of them more than one of Tabane's puppets."
"…" Madoka could only nod tiredly. Chifuyu walked past her, and entered Tabane's facility with the AC.
Big Box – Communications Center
Having been "politely" encouraged by their guards to follow them to a specific part of the fortress, Houki and Tatenashi found themselves in the largely unused Communications Center, that had once connected ORCA to the rest of the world. Now in a state of war, ORCA had little need to negotiate with other nations.
And that's where they found May "Smiley" Greenfield.
"May…what is this?" Tatenashi questioned. "Why have you brought us here?"
"You're here because you might actually be able to do something. Something we in ORCA can't do." May suggested.
"Yeah? What exactly is that? Are you going to execute us to stow greater fear and distrust of ORCA?" Houki accused.
"No. No." May shook her head softly, hands held confidently behind her back. "You're going to help us decide the fate of this world."
It was a reasonably ridiculous suggestion. How were they supposed to do that?
"I'm giving you two access to many of our recordings. Combat footage, private meetings, and…the death of Ichika and Fanchon." May informed them. "Use it however you like. On one hand, you could spin it, and make us appear as the monsters your world truly fears, to ensure this war never ends, not until we are forced to slaughter every man, woman, and child. You know that we can. You know that we will. Or, you can stop it."
"How…how can we stop this terrible war that's started?" Houki demanded. "What could we possibly say that would change people's minds? Especially after all of your crimes, all the innocent who have been slaughtered? After what James has done to the world?"
"You know who started this war. You know why we have been driven to such extremes." May corrected. "And we have proof of it now."
There was then a video that played. Tabane smiling eagerly with several high ranking members of Phantom Task by her side.
"Okay so basically it's time to start the war!" Tabane cheered. "It's going to be a big huge war and doom and gloom and those cute little students will swoop in and save the day! Then we can get back to our regularly scheduled programming."
"Right. What would you have us do?"
"Yeah so what you guys have to do is get a small strike team to Catalina Island in the United States." Tabane explained while gesturing to a map. "The first ORCA built fusion reactor is there and if we were to say, overload it and cause it to explode, then it will probably destroy the island in a one or two megaton explosion and kill four thousand people. Then America will be super pissed and form a global coalition to attack ORCA! Won't that be awesome!?"
"…" Houki and Tatenashi were quiet. While the truth had been growing on them for a while, the realization was sickening and frightening all the same.
"You and your friends bragged for so long how you would be heroes. How you believe in justice and all that crap. Now you know that this war was built on a lie. Are you going to do something about it?" May suggested.
Tabane's Secret Fortress of Solitude – Interior
"Klein, I know you're here. I can smell the insolent stench of your bloodstained hands. I await for you ahead. Come to me."
This seemed to be the final stretch. A needlessly long and wide hall, several kilometers to either side, and of course dramatically lit. It reminded them of Arteria Cranium, the League megastructure filled with reactors, and the final objective of ORCA during the rebellion.
It felt so long ago that Strayed had strode down that long and lonely structure, left unguarded by the aggressiveness of ORCA's lightning war.
"It is truly disappointing, but not surprising, that you would find this sanctuary." Tabane was at the very end of the hall, dramatically playing a large organ, filling the space with grand, orchestral, melancholy horns.
"…"
"The IS Students…Phantom Task…all gone, with this world soon to follow. Your kind know nothing but hunger, purging life with glutenous desire, and yet they remain unsatiated. As do you." Tabane could be heard, sneering through clenched teeth. "You've taken everything from me, Klein. And now, all that remains is perfect hatred."
"…"
"Don't you know, that this story was always about me?" Tabane clarified. "I was always the hero of this story, the final judge of all that is righteous in this world. Armored Cores…ORCA…Lynx…I will wipe the world clean of these blights upon perfection, these relics of a war not our own, and create a new world, a better world, one of beauty and fun."
"…"
"I never wanted to be the final hero. The savior of this world. I was happy, just being the puppet master, sitting at the sidelines, letting others rise to the occasion."
"…"
"But you…you...you are a beast beyond reproach. An entity filled with hateful malice, a mind honed with barbarous cruelty, with desire only for butchery and savagery beyond insanity. A glutenous hound to the slaughter. There is no world that would take you as it's own. You are perhaps the most despised and loathsome dog in all of creation. An irreputable mistake of God. One I shall rise to correct."
"…"
Tabane slammed the fallboard down and stood sharply, her back to Strayed's Armored Core. As she spoke, she unfurled the wings of her IS, and floated off the ground.
"Klein…I will cut you down…break you apart…splay the gore of your profane form across the stars! I will grind you down until the very sparks cry out for mercy! My hands shall relish ending you…here! And! Now!"
Tabane spread the wings of her very first IS, the Shirokishi, better known as the White Knight. It had a surprisingly modest armor scheme protecting the pilot, and Tabane was still wearing her frilly maid outfit under the armor, though had forgone the helmet in favor of exposing her face. In it's current form, she held a large broadsword in her right hand, and the two wings floating on her back contained laser weapons of some kind.
"Behold! The power of Infinite Stratos!"
"…" Whatever.
Tabane charged down at the AC, her sword leading for a straight thrust. Strayed matched her, trusting forward with laser blade drawn…
Only for Tabane to burst into a cloud of water and evade around the AC.
"…" Ah…hell. She must have cannibalized abilities from Tatenashi's IS. This fight became much more difficult. On top of the fact that Tabane was using a high performance IS on par with a NEXT, she had access to her own quantum abilities and Tatenashi's water based IS abilities that even ORCA had been reluctant to engage.
Tabane rematerialized behind the AC, but had to teleport away as Strayed slashed at her with it's other blade. As a precaution, Strayed raised the reactor output in order to boil any water moisture off long before it got close to any internal mechanisms. Otherwise, Tabane would have been able to damage it's internal systems.
"An imperfection to be cleansed…" Tabane sentenced as she teleported in front of the laser blade on forced cooldown, forcing Strayed on the defensive. She swung with her sword, but Strayed blocked it with the laser blade mounting. Bringing it's other arm around, Strayed fired on her with it's massive handgun, only for her bring up a shield of water to block the cannon round, then teleported away again.
"…" Strayed boosted back, dodging below Tabane's strike that had been aiming to behead the AC. It took the time to fire on her with both handguns, only for Tabane to expertly dodge each and every cannon round. Then there was a second Tabane, then a third…
Pretty soon, there was an entire army of Tabane charging down the AC, each of them dodging the high caliber rounds from it's handguns, though some were struck, only to explode into bursts of light or splashes of water. Normally this wouldn't have been a problem for Strayed…except that it could still not imagine her death, meaning it had no way to discern which of the Tabane clones was the real one, and which were just decoys.
Suddenly surrounded by an army of rabbit eared freaks, Strayed triggered it's Assault Armor, destroying all of them with a kiloton explosion. But Tabane was far from dead.
"You are less than nothing!" Tabane had teleported to the end of the hall, firing on the AC with her wing mounted particle cannons, now much more dangerous with Strayed's Primal Armor gone for several seconds.
"…" Strayed boosted forward at high Mach, laser blades primed and lashing out at Tabane. She gracefully danced around the blades, weaving around the superheated beams of plasma with ease. Sometimes she teleported, and sometimes she dissolved into mist, reforming moments later and out of harms way.
"Slow…sloppy…irregular…" Tabane sneered. She reared back and delivered a punch to the arm of the AC, that forced it back.
"…" Strayed hissed. While the AC could take many more hits from her, that fact that her fist managed to cause as much damage as it did was cause for concern. Damn quantum technology, allowing her to fight beyond what seemed natural.
"You should know when you're outmatched." Tabane announced. "You should have known that coming here was a death sentence."
Gravity shifted, and Strayed started falling down the hallway, which now seemed impossibly long. Being forced to flip around, Strayed set their feet against what had been the ceiling, gliding down at a near vertical angle.
Tabane came burning in after it, firing from above with twin particle cannons blazing. Strayed spun around, returning fire with twin handguns, only for gravity to shift again, causing them to fall at a new angle. She was trying to disorient it, but it could and would keep up with her, firing thrusters as necessary to correct orientation and continue to attack.
Even when she messed with the gravity, Tabane wasn't breaking through Strayed's defense. She was trying to force them to fall over, but the AC always managed to stay upright. She settled for turning the gravity back to default, and watched the AC skid to a stop, thrusters already burning as it readied to go on the offensive.
She wouldn't give it the chance, and teleported behind the massive machine, ready to drive her blade through it's back…
Except that Strayed was prepared, and had already quick-boosted away, putting her under heavy fire with twin handguns spewing massive rounds at her. She teleported again, to get a better firing position, only for her shields to tank a round, Strayed having already turned into her attack, throwing her off balance.
"You only delay the inevitable! I am perfection!" Tabane declared, continuing to teleport, multiple times a second as she fought for an angle from which to catch the AC off guard.
But matching her move for move, Strayed quick-boosted multiple times a second, even if it didn't open up an avenue of attack, it threw Tabane off, and forced her to reposition. Still, it had to acknowledge why it was doing so well.
Wynne D Fanchon's combat recordings. Her limited experience against Tabane had been downloaded and thoroughly analyzed by Strayed, and was proving very useful. Though she was dead, her hands were guiding it, showing the patterns Tabane inevitably fell into.
So Tabane wasn't just fighting one Lynx. She was fighting two. Fanchon's skill and Strayed's savagery, just the right balance to survive Tabane's tricks.
"Tsk…" Tabane grunted in frustration. "Do you even know what you're fighting for? What you're fighting against?"
"…"
"Won't you answer me!? Don't you have some stake in this battle?! Don't you have something you're just dying to tell me?!" Tabane demanded, as she continued to try and teleport into a better spot, only to be expertly countered by Strayed, who occasionally lashed out, putting Tabane on the defensive. This wasn't how her battle was supposed to go. She was supposed to be the obviously superior opponent, so how was Strayed keeping up with her, countering her every move?
"…"
"You…you are a monster! All you do is kill! You're no hero…just a butcher seeking more blood to drown in! What gives you the right to stand against me!? I am the one who is destined to bring order and beauty to this world! There's no place for you in my perfect world!"
"…"
"Tell me…are you fighting for Fanchon?" Tabane sneered gleefully. "Did you like finding her like that? Are you fighting to avenge her? Did that make you sad?" She mocked eagerly.
"…Heh." James laughed. While Strayed worked in the back of his head, controlling the AC, James smiled widely with insanity to match Tabane. "Fanchon…was my mark. I wanted to enjoy squeezing the life out of her myself. I was going to tear her apart and take a title as the better Lynx. Now…I guess I'll have to settle for you, though it gains me nothing."
"…Then you truly are lost." Tabane glared, disappointed. "Then I'll give you the honor of holding nothing back." She then summoned a large, customized laser rifle, which glowed unnatural green, and fired pale green plasma at Strayed.
"…" Ah…a Kojima weapon. Strayed had to work extra hard to evade, and even then it was for naught, as lingering clouds of Kojima particles stripped it's energy shielding, and slowly bit into it's armor. It wasn't a massive difference, but the battle had become much more dire.
"It wasn't easy, adapting this energy into a weapon system, then modifying my own shields to ward off the intense radiation, but for killing you, it's worth it." Tabane explained. "So be a good dog and die already!"
"…" Having depleted it's handguns by firing them through the battle, Strayed threw the empty weapons at Tabane, blocking at least two shots from her Kojima rifle. Having shed nearly a ton of dead weight, Strayed became just a bit faster, especially as it focused on using it's blades, constantly on the attack, not giving Tabane a chance to recover.
Though she was fast enough to keep up with it, she was starting to be strained by the constant, Mach speed combat. The kind of combat Strayed was designed for. It became then a game of what would give first. Would Strayed's armor burn away from Tabane's Kojima rifle, or would Tabane's concentration break?
To further complicate this deadly dance, there was an interloper.
Bursting in from an indeterminate point of the featureless hall, a Third Gen Custom AC, with red and black armor confronted Strayed and Tabane, glaring at both of them with it's wide censor strip.
"…" Strayed and James were actually a little bit surprised. It recognized the AC it had requested converted into a Hybrid unit. Though, since it utilized an IS Core, that meant the pilot was…
Interesting.
Tabane did not take the sight of the Hybrid Core as well.
"Chifu…you…you…you…you defiled one of my IS Cores? You willingly used this abomination Hybrid unit?" Tabane glared with infinite, seething hatred. "I'll make sure you burn for this."
Chifuyu hadn't yet decided who she was going to kill first. Although, having Tabane's unhinged, psychotic ass baring down on her certainly seemed like a priority.
"Ah…" Chifuyu muttered, before she was put on the defensive by Tabane, her blade sinking into the secondary armor paneling on the AC, destroying a slab of it.
Forced into heavy combat against a depraved and hateful foe, Chifuyu honestly struggled, but held her own. If she had been in an IS, she might have lasted longer, but only because Tabane would not be taking the fight seriously then. On the other hand, the Hybrid Core was far tougher than an IS, and what extra armor Tabane did destroy only made the AC faster as it lost more weight.
Deciding that they were there for the same reason, Strayed intervened, thrusting it's blade where Tabane should have been, only for her to teleport a distance away, fuming with eyes boring through them.
"Can you not?!" Tabane complained. "This isn't fair! This isn't fair at all! Armored Cores are nothing compared to the true power of the Infinite Stratos! So accept your death with a little bit of dignity!"
"There is no dignity in death." Chifuyu argued. "It's messy and cruel, and leaves so much despair in it's wake. You wouldn't know that through, Tabane. You were born without empathy."
"You say that likes it's a bad thing, Chifu." Tabane smiled widely. "Don't you know that I am humanity perfected? Perfect intelligence and undeniable beauty wrapped up in an adorable package! You? The experiment that gave you life was abandoned when those scientists learned that I existed! What was the point of their efforts when utter perfection already existed? You and your brother were failed experiments, and honestly, good riddance he is gone. He was truly a pathetic and sad little man. Even Klein is more of a man than your stupid little brother, and he's not even human!"
"God damn you!" Chifuyu shouted, lunging at Tabane with a laser blade. The scientist teleported away, and Strayed continued the pursuit while Chifuyu raged. "My brother died staring down a demon that earned the ire of two worlds! His only mistake was believing that you or your technology would offer him strength! If you had never made the Infinite Stratos, then my brother and I would have been content living idle, quiet lives. ORCA would have never been driven to fight your war. Millions of people would still be alive! You, Tabane, are heartless and cruel! All you care about is your image, and you don't care who burns to prove your point!"
"Pff! Of course I care!" Tabane sneered. "Of course, we don't really need all those nations, do we? And most people are too dumb to appreciate how important I am anyhow. So what? A few million or billion people die, so sad bo hoo. That just makes it all the more dramatic!" Tabane cheered. "With the world in ruins to the evil ORCA, having me come out of hiding and defeating those monstrous Armored Cores will change everyone's perspective! Suddenly, Tabane is the hero who saves the day! Who rebuilds this world in such a way that the Infinite Stratos is even more important! Then I'll set up two sides in a cold war and push them into fighting with my IS units, with new adorable and probably underage heroes to play a part. Maybe I'll repeat what I've done already and find some clueless idiot boy to surround with cute girls! Or maybe I'll make a yuri lesbian romance just to make it extra spicy! Oh I'm going to have so much fun with this world once ORCA is out of the picture!"
"You've always been insane, Tabane…" Chifuyu hissed painfully. "But you…you are truly lost. I don't know what tomorrow holds. Maybe ORCA will conquer this world with cruel brutality. Maybe I'll die, having achieved nothing. But one thing I do know for certain…is that you have to die, or conflict and suffering will arise for truly asinine reasons."
"And you have to die for using that abomination unit!" Tabane shrugged angrily. "Sorry Chifu, yeah you were my friend, but presentation matters. I'll be sure to put you down as someone who was lured to the dark side or whatever when I explain why you died fighting in an AC."
Tabane teleported behind Chifuyu's AC, intent on stabbing it through the cockpit block, but Strayed had already quick boosted into her path, Moonlight blade deployed to block her path.
"Err! You!" Tabane complained. "Why won't you go down!"
"…" Strayed opened a link to Chifuyu's AC, sharing the battle data it had collected thus far. With the two Armored Cores linked by a battle network, Chifuyu had a better idea of Strayed's plan and Tabane's movement pattern. They silently settled into a formation, Strayed leading the attack with melee weapons, while Chifuyu summed that massive laser rifle, and back mounted laser cannons to keep pressure up against Tabane.
Now when Tabane teleported, she was immediately assailed by ranged fire from Chifuyu's guns, while Strayed closed in for killing laser blade strikes. Suddenly she wasn't dominating the battle anymore, and even teleporting as she could, her shield was taking massive damage.
The distraction didn't help.
"Wha-WHAT!?" Tabane noticed something insane, something that didn't make sense. It distracted her long enough that Chifuyu broke her energy shield with a shot from the heavy laser rifle, and Strayed closed in with laser blade burning, ready to wipe her from existence.
Tabane teleported away a fraction of a second too late. Still, she lived.
"Ahhhh!" Tabane screamed as she reconstituted a considerable distance away, having one of her arms melted away by the intense heat of a laser blade. Before Chifuyu and Strayed could finish her off, she cut the room in half with a snap of her fingers.
Suddenly the geometry of the room changed. While they could still see her, Tabane had opened a separate pocket dimension just outside of the space Chifuyu and Strayed were stuck in. It took her another second to focus, and undo the damage done to her, her melted arm returned to it's normal state.
"Err!" Tabane winced, the memory of the pain still fresh in her mind. "You…you were going to kill me!" Tabane complained as if she only now felt her life had been in danger. "You were actually going to kill me! Do you know what that would do?! Can you even think! I'm the hero! You can't kill the hero!"
Tabane reached out, and squeezed the room that Chifuyu and Strayed were still in. Suddenly it went from several kilometers wide, to a just a few meters, not enough room to hold two Armored Cores. Pressed together by the collapse of the fabric of reality they existed in, the two ACs were strained, their armor bending, and hydraulics being crushed as space itself became smaller than their dimensions.
"There, you see! It's not so funny when you're the ones dying, huh!?" Tabane squeezed her fingers, threatening to wipe both of them from existence with a flick of her wrist.
Chifuyu was actually somewhat frightened. Being trapped inside of a collapsing pocket dimention inside a machine that very much did not enjoy the outside being smaller than the inside, she could hear the armor of the AC straining against the collapse of reality, alarms blaring as the AC took massive damage.
The one-word message from Strayed certainly did not help.
Laugh.
"…Heh." Strayed chuckled. Then, it openly laughed at Tabane.
It sounded much more serious, and much more amused than James would ever have been. Though it was James's voice, it was cruel, and it did not seem to care that it was the one dying. It laughed as though it was the one standing victorious over a fallen, pathetic foe.
Oh…so that was their game.
"Wait…what…?" Tabane stared, unamused at being laughed at.
"Ha…" Chifuyu realized what Strayed was doing, and honestly found the whole thing…pathetic. God dammit…is this truly how she would die? Eh…oh well. "So the great Tabane Shinonono gets on the wrong side of a fight, and all she can do is cheat? This isn't a fight, just a stupid tantrum from someone with too much power. Ha…hahahaha!"
"Stop it!" Tabane screamed. "Stop laughing at me!"
Strayed and Chifuyu continued laughing, even with their pocket dimension trying to press them flat. It was the only thing they could do, and, oddly, was the most effective thing they'd done so far.
"Stop laughing!" Tabane demanded. "I'm better than you! I deserve respect and praise! I could crush you right now! Or wipe out your existence! So take me seriously and stop laughing!"
That alarm from before, that had almost killed Tabane, rung again, and since she wasn't in heavy combat, Tabane could focus on it.
"Oh!? Now what!?" Tabane swiped her hand, opening the pocket dimension trapping Chifuyu and Strayed enough to not crush them, but still disoriented them as the dimension spun for several seconds. She looked at the alert in confusion. "What…? That can't be right."
Bringing up the list of all active IS Cores currently on the planet, Tabane watched as just over a hundred IS Cores still active were rapidly being destroyed, until only the handful of Cores she kept in reserve and the one in Chifuyu's Hybrid Core were left.
"What? They're all gone? But how…?" Tabane ignored Chifuyu and Strayed for the moment as she went to work trying to uncover what had happened to all the IS Cores she had gifted to this earth over the years. Had there been a great battle? Had ORCA delivered another preemptive strike and hit them when they were down?
What she found, was two unencrypted transmissions, public broadcast shared with the world. One from Big Box, and one from the European Union.
Opening them in order, she viewed the message from Big Box, and was surprised to see her younger sister, Houki, and that other surviving IS student, Tatenashi.
"Houki…?" Tabane wondered.
"Greetings." Houki had opened the message. "My name is Houki Shinonono, younger sister of the scientist Tabane Shinonono."
"And I am Tatenashi Sarashiki, IS Representative of the former Russian Federation." Tatenashi had announced somberly.
"Months ago, our world was rocked by the sudden and unexpected arrival of people from an alternate universe. The Big Box megafortress, and the nation of ORCA." Houki recalled.
"For the first several months, ORCA appeared as a benevolent force, hopeful in their efforts to improve the quality of life on our world, but willing and able to seek out and annihilate those that would challenge them." Tatenashi explained briefly.
"Then…the disaster on Catalina Island, and the death of forty million people across the Pacific Rim. It seemed so obvious to us, that ORCA was responsible. That they had been planning conquest of our world. I know that I assumed their guilt, and the following war seemed to only confirm our worst fears, and the depths of their depravity." Houki uttered calmly.
"Before we continue, know that we are technically prisoners of ORCA, but are free to leave whenever we choose." Tatenashi added. "We have not been tortured or coerced into this position. We are not making this transmission secretly. ORCA knows we are here, and they have no interest in stopping us. They told us, that we are free to demonize them, to beg you to continue this war, to ask that you throw every man, woman, and child at their guns in the belief that your deaths would serve some kind of obscene purpose…or we could tell you the truth, as we've come to know it."
"Less than an hour ago, information was recovered from a member of the terrorist organization Phantom Task, that proves beyond a doubt that the person responsible for orchestrating the Catalina Island disaster, and starting this terrible war, is none other than Tabane Shinonono herself. She ordered and provided assistance to Phantom Task with the intent to destroy the fusion reactor that wiped out California, and made us all believe that ORCA had every intention of starting this war." Houki revealed.
"On one hand, this does not excuse the war crimes of ORCA, especially those committed by James 'Strayed' Klein." Tatenashi noted. "ORCA feels no remorse for those lives so cruelly snuffed out, and they will not apologize for it. But they would have never come to this point if not for Tabane Shinonono. She started this war by messing with something she barely understood, and she could have even ended it, using her immense power to destroy ORCA where they stood. Instead, she allowed the war to progress, and didn't raise a finger to stop ORCA from wiping out so many millions of people. All she did was watch from the sidelines with mild amusement."
"I…used to believe my sister was a force for good." Houki frowned. "I believed wholeheartedly that she had only good intentions for this world. Now…I see that she only cared about herself and her perceived image. She only cared that her Infinite Stratos creations would be used and praised. The fact of the matter is that this war was built on a lie. We have all been deceived, and forced to suffer for her sins."
"We know how difficult this is. We know that it is impossible to ask that you forgive ORCA. Know that I will never forgive ORCA. But…in this instance...continuing to fight this war is foolish and wrong, and we should not feed the mad fantasy of that woman." Tatenashi pleaded.
"It is impossible to fight ORCA and their Lynx anyway." Houki declared. "The best we can do is lay down our arms, and live to see tomorrow. I hope that you all hear this message, and heed our words. And sister…if you are listening to this…God damn you. God damn you to hell."
The message ended, and Tabane tapped her foot impatiently. "Ungrateful little bitches." She sneered out, as she opened the transmission from the European Union, one of the last set of nations who had not yet been slaughtered by ORCA.
The President of the European Union, a middle-aged blonde woman, stood somberly before a podium, and stared into the camera.
"Ladies and gentlemen, citizens of the European Union, and indeed, the world, I stand before you today with a heavy heart, burdened by the weight of sorrow and the devastating consequences of a conflict that has shattered lives and nations alike. As the President of the European Union, it is my solemn duty to address you on a matter of utmost importance, a matter that will redefine the course of our collective future."
"In the past two weeks, our planet has witnessed a cataclysmic war that has claimed the lives of a staggering one hundred million people. A war waged against the otherworlders of the ORCA nation, and spearheaded by their Lynx. We, the nations of Earth, have borne witness to unspeakable atrocities, and the grim reality that we are on the brink of defeat."
"But in the last hour, a revelation has emerged that shakes the very foundations of our understanding of this conflict. It is with a heavy heart that I share this truth with you all. The war, the bloodshed, and the devastation were not the result of ORCA's aggression, but the nefarious actions of a single individual, the mad scientist Tabane Shinonono."
"In her twisted pursuit of chaos and amusement, she had the ORCA-built Catalina Island Reactor Complex sabotaged, unleashing destruction upon Southern California and sparking a conflict that has now consumed the world. The very fabric of our reality has been torn asunder, and we find ourselves at a crossroads where the path to justice is obscured by the fog of deception."
"It is true that ORCA stands guilty of heinous war crimes, and the scars of their actions may never fully heal. However, we must confront an uncomfortable truth, our retaliation was based on a lie. In light of this revelation, it is with a heavy heart that the European Union advocates for an unconditional surrender to ORCA."
"But our duty does not end there. To prevent further bloodshed and to lay the foundation for a lasting peace, we propose a drastic measure…the temporary dissolution of our remaining federal governments. By doing so, we eliminate the valid targets that ORCA seeks, effectively ending a war that has decimated nations and left countless lives in ruins."
"This decision is not made lightly, and it is met with the understanding that we, as a global community, must forge a new path towards reconciliation. The dissolution of governments does not signify weakness; rather, it is a demonstration of our collective strength to break the cycle of violence and pave the way for a future free from the shackles of war."
"In addition, we must address the tools of destruction that fueled this conflict, the Infinite Stratos weapons created by Tabane Shinonono. In the spirit of building trust and fostering genuine peace, the European Union will take special measures to destroy these weapons, ensuring that they can never again be wielded as instruments of war."
"In these trying times, let us embrace the ideals of unity, forgiveness, and understanding. May this revelation serve as a catalyst for a new era, where the wounds of war can heal, and humanity can stand together to build a future of peace and prosperity."
"May we find strength in our shared humanity and rise above the ashes of conflict."
"Thank you, and may peace prevail."
Big Box – Command Center
"Well…that's something." Thermidor noted quietly.
"We…can't exactly fight a war that no one else is willing to fight." Malzel pointed out. "If they are truly offering peace…we should take it."
"True…" Thermidor reluctantly agreed. "Start pulling our troops out of any territory beyond the Pacific Rim. Have them hold their fire but be of course prepared to defend themselves. No one is happy, not us, not the EU or the rest of the world, those conquered and what not, but…if the war is over…I'll take it."
"Then the only thing left, will be waiting on word from Strayed and Ms. Orimura that Tabane Shinonono has been killed." Malzel announced.
Tabane's Secret Fortress of Solitude – Interior
"No. No!" Tabane screamed. "That's impossible! No!"
Chifuyu and Strayed kept laughing at her, seeing as her whole plan had been ruined. Baring the few desperate and fanatical resistance groups in occupied territory, the war was over.
Also, they couldn't really do anything else to her at the moment, what with her being in a separate pocket dimension.
"No! No! No! No! No!" Tabane's stomped angrily through her tantrum. "No! I'm supposed to be the hero! People are supposed to love me!"
"I don't see that as likely anymore, Tabane." Chifuyu called out mockingly. "Even if you kill us and destroy ORCA, no one in the world will ever trust you again, let alone use your IS Suits."
"No! That's not how this is supposed to go!" Tabane complained. "I'm the hero and everyone loves the IS! That's the whole point of this story! That's what's supposed to happen!"
Still, even she could not deny the facts. Several billion dollars worth of military spec hardware, the hundred and then some or so IS Cores left in the world, had been willingly smashed and rendered inoperable by their own users. No one was using the IS in it's intended fashion other than herself. No one was raising arms against ORCA. No one loved her anymore.
"No!" Tabane seethed, struggling with the urge to rip her own hair out in frustration. "I refuse to accept this outcome! I am supposed to be the hero, and if the world changes beyond what it should have, then I'll reset it. I'll make this right!"
Chifuyu and Strayed each weren't really paying attention to Tabane and her rambling speech, because they were distracted.
"Hey."
Chifuyu looked at her controls uncertainly, seeing as she did not recognize the voice that called out to her.
"Who the fuck are you?"
"Uh…?" Chifuyu considered the feminine voice, coming from the internal speakers of the AC.
"So listen." The voice in the machine made a request. "Tabane is about to do something really dangerous and dumb. I can stop her, but I need you to do something for me."
"Yeah? What's that?" Chifuyu wondered. She was then presented with a text prompt in the AC.
/GIVE ADMINISTRATIVE ACCESS TO PROGRAM: INVESTIGATOR. EXE
/Y\N?
"Just…hit yes please." The voice requested. "Hit no, and Tabane wins. Hit yes, and Tabane loses."
"…Who are you?" Chifuyu requested, rightfully confused.
"I'm…an old friend of James. But uh…please be quick about it? We don't have much time."
"…" Chifuyu made a choice.
. . .
"Hey kid."
"…?" Strayed was surprised to hear Not Judith calling on the radio, while her projected avatar in it's head stood on the frontal slope of it's AC, in front of the head unit. It shifted to allow James to speak to the ghost.
"Judith…?" James wondered what the ghost wanted.
"Listen…" Not Judith said somberly and seriously. "I'm uh…I need a ride, but you won't be coming with me. I've got to strike it out on my own…just for a little bit."
"I see."
"Thing is…you uh…won't be hearing from me ever again." Not Judith smiled sadly. "It's all a bit sudden, but uh…I've got to do something. Something risky. Something right."
"So…this is goodbye?" James was honestly surprised.
"Hmm, yeah." Not Judith nodded. "And kid. Go get laid, will ya?"
"Hmm." James chuckled. Then, he called out quickly. "Rain doesn't taste like anything."
"Oh?"
"It's just water." James confirmed.
"…" Not Judith smiled serenely. She saluted, and that was that.
. . .
"Fine!" Tabane sneered. She opened up several menus, setting conditions to do something drastic, something even she had never done before. "If this story has gone so off the rails, I'll set it right! I'll rewrite this story, and make myself the hero this world deserves!"
Conditions set, and location locked, Tabane dramatically raised her hand over her head, feeling the fabric of reality shift at her command.
She snapped her fingers.
Author's Note: So Chapter 21 took maybe a week longer than it should have, but it's done. So all I have to do for this story now is edit it's chapters and I can finally be done with this nightmare of a story. This also means I can now work on UDL again, so expect the next chapter of that sometime this weekend, and I'll have more to say then. Otherwise, I'll try posting the last three chapters of this story once a week, only to give my editor a break.
On this chapter, I sort of added that Chloe character last minute as a way to show off James's anti-psychic warfare capabilities. Its such a weird ability that basically never gets used, but I have to include it since "most Lynx are psychic" says AC4 lore with no clarification on what that even means.
As far as Tabane this chapter...yeah, she's cheating. That's going to become pretty clear next chapter, which is just insane. She didn't get her way and she's not happy about it.
So, proper citation. Most of Tabane's lines when James enters the room are from Ultrakill, so there's that.
Otherwise, see yall next week, so stay tuned for even more unhinged insanity!
EDIT: I forgot this site doesn't like it when you put words after a period with no spaces.
To Napster153: Hope that answers what the Hybrid Core was for. Had to use it at least once. Also, yeah...James kills a weird number of siblings in this story, one or another or both. Technically Chloe counts as one too. I'm just rolling in fucking nickels here.
To snipervk4: Ah, yes, I see. I have also read Halo fanficition on the rare occasion when I am not sleeping or writing one of my depressing stories. As far as a series of misadventures...uh...give me another year, I want to finish writing UDL without stressing myself or my editor out.
To Xs0nicblAdeX: ACs definitely hold a special place in my heart...for some reason. That's why I love writing these dark af stories.
To ak4567nn: So that part...uh...that's just me being impulsive and writing cheap shock value content and also some other reason my laywer has advised me not to specify on why I burned a hole through central Asia. Littlerly just the author being lazy af and not considering the values and motivations of the characters for my own reason. I just wanted this story to end.
To naufalrakha0104: Oh thank god. It's just that considering the cheap and half-assed writing I've been presenting with this story (see above response) I kinda just though James said something dumb again. Yeah...It's pretty obvious what the writer of the IS series was going for, as I've said at some point (it rimes with gorn). Don't worry, I have a plan for Tabane.
To ideal man: I am unfamiliar with this work, but yeah she's all over the place. Why take a hit when you can just not?
To Just a reader now a writer: No one should have trusted the rabbit! She's like suspect number one from the first moment! It's something that really annoys me in the IS anime is Chifuyu knowing that Tabane hacked the missiles that were fired at Japan...like she literally committed terrorism and Chifuyu is just like "funny coincidence huh?".
To Iguazu: WHATS WITH EVERYONE AND THE SEXUAL VIOLENCE!? I hate Tabane too but Christ on a corn stick! Calm down!
To Guest: That's why she has to go. She's too dangerous and unpredictable.
To realembernite: Wynne D would be a lot of fun but I'm not sure about writing another fanfic. Have to finish UDL and see where I go from there.
To Guest: Tell me you don't know how to read without saying it. Thanks. I'm going to assume that you missed that bit in the first chapter where I refer to this story as an "elaborate shitpost". That should have been your first warning that maybe the author wasn't doing a very good job and was warning you. Ichika and Houki were definitely half-assed in this story and I won't argue against that, but I am going to defend my actions with Tabane's writing. Sure she's really fucking far off from her canonical interpretation, but there's this thing in literature that you've clearly not heard about called a "dynamic character" where, over the course of a story, the character changes in regards to different events and interactions. Tabane was already fucking insane in the IS anime, such that it should have been obvious to the viewer that she was openly supporting terrorists and even nearly blew up Japan, all in an effort to make the IS look cool. In this story, having Armored Cores being compared and valued against her IS would piss her off because suddenly her invention is not the best thing ever, it has a near peer level competitor that makes the flaws of the IS obvious. So for Tabane to try and start a war to discredit ORCA and the Armored Core is pretty much already in her character, and going even more crazy because ORCA doesn't want to play her games.
And ah, yes, tell me about all seven of May's voice lines that you were able to extrapolate exactly the kind of character she is. Just ignore the fact that she is also a corporate mercenary who kills people utilizing a mech designed to conquer planets and lay waste to whole armies. I'm sure that has no baring on her character. This is just my interpretation of May given the...depth...of available material surrounding her character. Mainly, I wrote her to be James's foil, which is probably where her more extreme characteristics originate from considering his mindset, but that just makes her a character whom I deeply enjoy writing about. I certainly hope that clears up some of your uncertainty regarding this disaster of a story.