Yes, it's not dead. Back to short updates tho.
Read Or Dare
Twenty
Sometimes, Nancy had to go around her comrades and talk to the boss alone. It didn't feel good, but certain secrets had to be kept. Damn it.
Wendy and Joker answered, as arranged. "Why did you need to speak with us alone?" Joker asked, the blond haired man frowning slightly.
"I studied the pictures of the labs Shane snuck out," Nancy said in explaination. "They looked a bit familiar."
Wendy looked concerned, "Oh?"
"The tech SORT OF reminded me of the Ijin project," Nancy frowned, referring to the secret plan to clone historical figures. A plan, she later discovered, headed up by the British Library itself. This was something she was hiding from Yomiko... both because she didn't want to wreck her faith in the Library and because Joker swore they were never doing it again.
Joker raised his eyebrows, "I assure you, it's not us."
"I didn't really think you were," Nancy admitted, "but... where did the technology you used for the project come from?"
There was a LONG beat of dead silence as Wendy and Joker exchanged a look.
Joker very quietly said, "It was based, mostly, on technology and information provided to us by Gentleman."
Nancy nodded grimly. "I know one of the things Gentleman and the Library was interested in was life extension. Could these labs be a project from before you were around?" she asked.
Joker made a face, thinking about it.
"It's POSSIBLE. Gentleman... well, he was around forever." Wendy mused. "I mean... we only have spotty records of host of his activities."
Joker frowned at her, mostly out of long time loyalty to Gentleman. Then he sighed, "I agree, it's possible. We'll dig through our records, see if there's anything connecting us to the island."
"Thank you," Nancy said, "that's about all we can do."
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
Later that day, they were at Rin Asogi's office, the detectives going over the jobs for the week. "GOD I hate divorce cases," Rin muttered.
"I can handle that," Nancy offered to do the job willingly. She WAS the junior partner in the agency, after all.
"Don't let her sneak out of work," Mimi chided, the office manager sitting at her desk.
Rin pouted, "Don't be mean!"
"Yeah, yeah," Mimi said. "We got paid for the Greenback Jane job," she told Rin. "Balalaika is prompt as always."
"Greenback Jane?" Nancy wondered. She knew the hacker had left the island, apparently in disgrace. Details however were few...
"Yeah. We helped trace the guy who tried to bribe her," Rin noted. She gave Nancy a look, "That's confidential, by the way."
"Got it," Nancy nodded.
"WHY do we have to take divorce cases?" Rin weaved back to the original topic.
"Because high paying jobs from Balalaika don't come along every day," Mimi noted. "And we have to pay for our vodka SOMEHOW."
"Heh," Nancy chuckled. She looked over at Rin, "So, it's the usual tail, and take photos if we catch them being naughty?"
"Pretty much," Rin passed the file over. "It's a wife who's hired us, to check up on her wife."
"Lesbians?" Nancy blinked.
"Yup. They've been together awhile too," Mimi noted. "And before you ask, I am doing a full internet search. I don't want us tripping over something unexpected."
"Which has happened before," Rin noted. "I got sorta pulled into a murder for hire scheme, once." At Nancy's questioning look she elaborated, "The murderer got clever, hired me to tail himself to create a alibi."
"Damn," Nancy blinked.
"We ended up getting footage of one of his meetings with the assassins. He was not pleased," Mimi smirked.
In another part of the world...
"Ahh-CHOO!" the pretty blonde sneezed.
"Hmm?" the pretty asian girl looked at her.
"Sorry," Mireille Bouquet apologized. She steadied her rifle and fired, dropping the older military type who was their target.
Kirika Yuumura nodded as the twin assassins, Noir, made their escape. Neither mentioned the old saying about sneezing when someone talked about you, as neither believed in it anyway...
Back in the office Rin added, "The two assassins actually took it all pretty well. Only shot me the one time."
Nancy decided right there that her boss was VERY weird. "I'll scout the target and start figuring out the surveilance," she noted, taking the file.
"Good luck!" Mimi smiled.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
"Good afternoon, class," the dignified, smiling man said, "I'm Professor Keaton. I'll be running this advanced History course starting today."
Nodoka blinked, wondering what had happened to the last teacher.
Yue sat nearby, also curious.
"Miss Ogasawara will be taking over the introductory class," Keaton added. He briskly continued, "As she was a general teacher and not a historian, I will be revising the class agenda, so expect some changes."
There were several groans from students. The 'Advanced History' class had previously been considered an easy A. Plus, the students all enjoyed looking at the beautiful Sachiko Ogasawara. Apparently both things were gone, now.
Keaton, however, was entertaining as well as smart, and he asked insightful questions of the class. The hour sped by quickly, and the students headed out encouraged by their first encounter with the new teacher.
"I feel disloyal to Miss Ogasawara," Yue admitted as they left class, "but that lesson was far more interesting."
Nodoka nodded reluctantly, "Very true..."
Yue yelped as a older woman brushed by her. 'Revy-san,' she noted warily.
Revy frowned as she entered the lecture hall, then advanced on Keaton. "Big sis wants to know when we'll be going into the tunnels," she demanded.
"Big Sis? Ah, you mean Balalaika," Taichi Hiraga-Keaton nodded.
"You know what I mean! Why are you stalling?" Revy demanded.
"I am NOT stalling," he frowned.
Revy grunted disbelievingly.
Taichi frowned at her as he said, "You and Shane were remarkably lucky going into the tunnels unprepared. I at least want to be properly equipped going in there."
"I suppose...," Revy conceded.
"Plus there's the possibility the tunnels might be unstable," Taichi added.
"The robotics club ran a mecha over a tunnel roof," Revy noted.
"And what if a heavy truck runs over a cave while we're inside it?" Taichi offered a potential disaster scenario.
"Ugh," Revy made a face.
"Frankly, if I though we could, I'd have magnetic resonance scans done across the island to try to find all the tunnels, first," Taichi admitted.
"No way in hell Balalaika'll wait THAT long," Revy said flatly.
"That's what I assumed," Taichi agreed, "but if we are going to explore, I want us to be as safe as possible."
"I'll pass that on," Revy said, "but we need to move out soon."
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
After two days of following her subject, Nancy checked in back at base. "I'm reasonably sure no cheating is going on," Nancy announced.
"So what IS going on?" Mimi asked.
"Yomi, Ms Sachiko Ogasawara's wife, is just working a part time job to save up to buy her a surprise anniversary gift," Nancy said.
"Awwwww," Rin and Mimi both said.
"Mind you, we'll need to finish out the week of tailing her just to be sure," Nancy observed responsibly.
"How did you find out...?" Rin asked curiously.
"I talked to her at the bake shop, and mentioned having a woman partner," Nancy admitted. "We ended up talking about girlfriends and such," Nancy explained.
"Clever," Mimi agreed.
"We'll need to figure out how to tell Ms Ogasawara that everything's fine without spoiling the surprise," Rin mused.
"You're such a romantic," Mimi teased.
"Yeah, yeah," Rin waved that off.
"We can just tell her that her wife too a part time job and we confirmed there was no cheating," Nancy observed, "just don't tell her why."
"Works," Mimi agreed.
Notes: Yomi and Sachiko Ogasawara are from Maria-sama ga Miteru aka Maria Watches Over Us. It's set after the series, obviously. There's also a random Noir crossover, because I like random Noir crossovers.
I had the ODD idea for a black comedy Rin -Daughters of Mnemosyne/Noir crossover where Noir is trying to kill Rin, but are frustrated by her invulnerability/healing factor. So they keep escalating their attempts to KILL her...
Read or DARE!
Twenty One
It was quiet and dark. There was almost no moon in the sky, and there was a peacefullness over the island. But somehow, it wasn't going to last.
The tunnels beneath the island exploded.
THINGS of inhuman biology erupted from the earth, attacking and killing without warning.
Shadowy figures fought. FIVE vague figures using, of all things, paper fought off wave after wave of monsters. Finally, they were overwhelmed.
Two immortals fought, wrestling with inhuman things. Bodies rent and torn they fought on, until they were literally torn apart.
Gunslingers... nearly a private army of them, fought hard. But bullets ran out, explosives failed and in the end they died,
A woman, splattered in gore looked outward. "This is ALL YOUR FAULT!"
Ayame Li came awake with a gasp, shuddering as the nightmare vision lingered in her mind. She looked at the clock, sighing as she realized it was still early. Deciding she'd get no more sleep, she shut off the alarm, got up and made some tea.
Having visions of possible futures was incredibly frustrating. They kept her up at night, she would have 'flashes' of things during the day, and they changed as events progressed. When she first arrived on the islands, she had had nightmares about a military invasion. High tech tanks, troopers and so on. Then they just... stopped.
Ayame suspected that something had derailed that train of events. Thankfully. But now there was the monster attack...
She had felt a compulsion, really, to build the four mecha. Sadly Ayame didn't really KNOW if it would help against the coming attack. Or even do anything to change events. But none the less, she felt the need to do something.
Ayame finished her tea and ate some toast, then checked the time. She supposed getting ready for work was an idea. She also wanted to visit the engineering department for a bit and check on the mechs again.
"Senpai," Dan waved a little while later as he was oiling one of the Test Type's limbs.
"Morning," Ayame nodded to the student politely. "Your turn to maintainance, today?" she asked politely.
"Yup. I'll check over all four units, clean up then head to class," Dan agreed. He looked curious, "Uhm, why are you...?"
"Just want to check the controls of type-2," Ayame reassured him. Teasing she added, "I promise not to break anything."
Dan chuckled at that.
Ayame opened up the back of one, carefully climbed in and gripped the main controls. Motion was managed via two handles and foot pedals. Weapons, when it was time for those, would be controlled via triggers on each grip.
'At some point I need to work out how to channel spirit energy into the weapons,' Ayame mused. Still, they needed to get these running first.
"How is it?" Dan asked.
"The movement is still a bit stiff, but we're getting there," Ayame answered warmly.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
"This is a really, REALLY bad idea," Shane Llewellyn complained, his brown hair tied back somewhat messily.
"Oh, stop complaining," Revy chided him cheerfully, the gunslinger wearing a modified combat outfit of long pants, t-shirt, her twin guns and LOTS of ammo pouches.
Taichi Hiraga-Keaton looked on with some amusement. "Are we done flirting yet?" he asked mildly.
"We are NOT flirting," Revy yelped.
Hicks snorted with amusement, the other gunslinger carrying a semi-auto rifle.
The four of them were gathered by the huge sink hole that the mecha had fallen into a week or so ago. "All right, everyone," Taichi said, "the plan is to investigate where this section connects to the other tunnels that have been explored."
"Assuming it does," Hicks noted.
"If there are two completely separate tunnel systems under this island, we're in even more trouble than it looks," Shane deadpanned.
"Fuck," Revy agreed.
They descended the rope ladder, Hicks and Revy first, then Taichi and Shane. All for lit up low powered shoulder mounted lights, then swept the chamber before readying to move on.
"West?" Hicks asked tersely.
"If we've mapped things out right, that should take us to the other tunnels," Taichi agreed, the group heading into the westward tunnel.
"I REALLY do not like this," Shane noted as they walked along the creepily well maintained looking tunnel.
"I'll protect you," Revy teased mildly.
"The tunnels seem very well maintained," Taichi noted, "Oddly so, in fact."
"Oh?" Hicks asked.
"Other than dust, there's no debris from the roof or walls," Taichi pointed out, "the walls are completely smooth and unmarked."
"Huh?" Revy blinked.
"Something or someone is maintaining the tunnels," Shane suggested.
"Well, possibly. Or they were extremely well made," Taichi cautioned.
They walked onward, all four looking around warily. "Shouldn't we have hit a section we explored already?" Hicks asked. "There are marks on the walls in those sections, and we should have seen some by now..."
"Compass check?" Revy suggested.
Taichi took out the compass. It showed they were still heading westward, but he noticed the needle was wobbling oddly. He tapped the face... then suddenly the needle swung around wildly.
"Well fuck," Hicks muttered.
"Interesting," Taichi said mildly. "Could be there's ores in the tunnel walls that are magnetic enough to interfere with the compass."
Everyone exchanged glances.
"Well, we've just followed along one tunnel so far," Shane said nervously, "we can backtrack to the entry point."
"Like you wanted to do this in the first place," Revy snarked. She looked at Taichi, "So far, we're fine, and nothing's happened..."
"We are, however, effectively lost," Taichi pointed out, "and this expedition won't actually help us in mapping these tunnels."
"I think we should head back and try to figure out how to determine our direction etc etc." Hicks suggested mildly.
"Hmph," Revy grunted, realizing she was outnumbered.
The group turned around, moving a bit faster along the tunnel. Time bassed, then they heard footsteps up ahead of them. Revy and Hicks exchanged glances and readied weapons, then they carried on a bit more slowly.
Sargent Boris and a group of Balalaika's troopers saw them coming, then they visibly relaxed. "Gentlemen, I wasn't expecting you," Taichi noted.
"Well, you didn't report in after six hours," Boris said.
"We weren't down here THAT long," Revy blinked, checking her watch in confusion.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
Not long after, the group was gathered in Balalaika's office. "So not only were you unable to determine the direction you were going," Balalaika mused, "but there was this time discrepancy, too."
"I can't explain the later," Taichi admitted.
"It's not possible based on the physics I know," Shane added. Everyone looked at him and he added, "What? I've read a LOT of physics texts..."
Hicks sighed. "I THINK we were moving in a very gradual arc, which is why we never hooked up with the other tunnels." he suggested.
"That makes sense...," Balalaika conceded.
"I don't get why we didn't hit another tunnel though," Revy muttered darkly. "This is just fucking weird."
No one really argued that.
"A Global Positioning System might be useful to track us, assuming the signal can punch through the tunnel walls," Taichi suggested.
"I'll put Benny to work on that," Balalaika nodded. "Master Keaton, please up together a report on your experiences." She looked at Boris, who was lingering, "We're putting guards by both known enterances. I don't like this."
The four left, and Shane added, "I can help with the report, if you'd like."
"First we're all having a drink," Revy insisted. "That was too weird to face sober."
"Fuck yeah," Hicks sighed.
Shane made a note to scan a copy of Taichi's report for the British Library. Maybe they knew something about the weird phenomina too.
To be continued...
Notes for the Vision bit : The five are the paper masters: Shane, Yomiko and the 3 paper sisters, the immortals are Rin and Mimi and the army are the Black Lagoon characters, basically.