Disclaimer : I don't own Naruto or Toaru Kagaku no Railgun/Toaru Majutsu no Index
The Trinity of Tokiwadai
Chapter Eighty Six: Battle Royale - Undercard Matches
Seated in the Black Knights' provided transport, one that she was pleased to note was a standard model and not one of the excessively luxurious models that Naru had been conned into getting and had been using when they'd first became friends, Mikoto explained to Ruiko, Accelerator and Alice-san's team what had happened after she'd split off from the rest of the Trinity to head to the District 13 External Connection Terminal.
"We couldn't shut down the connection to the internet so I just shorted the whole place with my Electromastery." Mikoto said with a shrug.
"That was the smart thing to do." Ruiko agreed with a sigh. "It might have temporarily cut off the City's internet access, but that's a small price to pay for preventing the release of the malware from the Virus Isolation Center. If those got out, who knows what kind of catastrophic damage they could cause?"
"It wouldn't be pretty, that's for sure." Tsuchimikado said with a wince. "That's why we asked Misaka-san to go Biri Biri on the place."
Mikoto gave the man a slight static shock for calling her 'Biri Biri'. Only her closest friends, and Kamijou, got to call her that.
"Yeah, so after that and linking up with them." Mikoto continued, gesturing at Tsuchimikado and Musujime. "We left Big Spider to handle the cleanup there and headed to the fight at the wall we heard was happening over the Dark Side chatter and you met us there. What about you? What did you and Accelerator get up to at the satellite control center?"
"Accel destroyed it." Ruiko said with a sigh and an annoyed look directed at her boyfriend who shrugged unrepentantly. "I tried to talk him out of it but he wouldn't listen. And thanks to that we lost contact with the Hikoboshi II and the surveillance it provided. Thanks to that, BLOCK's mercenaries could mass at the wall unopposed. If our surveillance wasn't compromised, the City's defenses would've engaged them before they could gather enough men and materiel in one place and likely kept things from spilling inside."
"How long was the coverage down?" Tsuchimikado spoke up, seemingly surprising Ruiko.
"About three hours. Since we first lost contact with Hikoboshi II."
"Then surveillance or not, those mercenaries would've gotten through." Alice-san, of all people, said. "It takes more than three hours to get such a large force together, especially without anyone noticing. And if the City noticed, they'd have nipped things in the bud a long time before those guys started moving for the final assault. By the time they were moving into position… The City doesn't have enough firepower to completely shut down an attack of that scale on short notice."
"Fennette-chan is right." Tsuchimikado nodded. "The three hour window was only to give the mercenaries that last bit of extra advantage by making it harder for the City to know where exactly they'll strike and whether they were part of a larger force whose allies would attack elsewhere. In light of that, the three hour blindspot wasn't that big of a deal."
"Okay, I'll give you that." Ruiko admitted, looking reluctant. "But it certainly didn't help our ability to respond."
"No, but we managed." Mikoto told her. "Zero-san has things under control. I'm more worried that we didn't spot a large group of mercenaries armed with American particle cannon tanks massing to attack the City. Or the Japanese for the matter. Surely, either of us must've spotted some sign. I mean they had to move through Japanese territory, right?"
"If I'd hazard a guess, the Directors let the attack happen on purpose." Tsuchimikado hypothesized, prompting everyone to nod in agreement.
"They probably wanted to send a message." Nishikigi-san said with a sigh.
"Yeah. Something like 'We know you are coming, so please enter our den of slaughter!'." Accelerator said with a roll of his eyes. "The Board is stupid like that."
"It backfired though since their precious Six Wings got massacred." Musujime said with a snort, referring to the HsAFH-11 unmanned attack helicopters that typically served as the City's perimeter defense by their more common name.
"They underestimated the enemy."
"I wouldn't say that, Inoue-san." Etzali said with a shake of his head. "In regards to the Six Wings, then yes, perhaps they did. But knowing the Board, they wouldn't put all their eggs in one basket. I imagine they counted on forces like say, you Black Knights, joining the fight of your own accord and making up for the deficiencies of those machines."
"Yeah, I can see it." Mikoto agreed with a sigh. "The Board might have some stupid ideas but they're not idiots when it comes to implementing them."
Everyone agreed with that if the mutterings of annoyance regarding the Board that filled the back of the camper that served as their current transport was any indication. Though this quickly died down and a tense silence began to settle upon its occupants.
Mikoto couldn't stand it. She hated heading into a fight all wound up. It tended to lead to screw ups and those were things that were best avoided in a fight. She thus desperately searched for some topic of conversation that she could use to ease the tension. Her eyes settling on Nishikigi-san and Inoue-san, who were huddling in a corner, Mikoto smiled as she found what she was looking for.
"Nishikigi-san, Inoue-san," Mikoto called out to the two. "Um, I've read a little about the two of you from Ruiko's intel briefs, but could you introduce yourselves?"
Ruiko giggled at Mikoto's question whilst GROUP and Alice-san shot her looks that ranged from disbelieving to confused.
Which is fair. I am treating Nishikigi-san and Inoue-san like a teacher would deal with new transfer students.
The two girls in question just shot her amused looks though before Nishikigi-san happily answered Mikoto's question.
"Well, you already know our names, but just in case anyone doesn't, I'm Nishikigi Chisato and my partner is-"
"Inoue Takina."
"Takina~! Hush! I'm doing the introductions."
Inoue-san rolled her eyes at her girlfriend's antics but obliged her request to let her take the lead, leaning back into her seat and making a 'go ahead' gesture with her right hand. Nishikigi-san offered her a grateful smile before turning back to Mikoto and continuing the couple's introduction.
"We're Child Errors that were trained by Disciplinary Action, or what you guys probably better know as DA. They had a whole class of us, apparently schoolgirls make for superb assassins since most people don't see us as threats. Anyways, when DA collapsed after the Necromancer Incident, most of our classmates scattered. We haven't heard from them. Takina and I stuck together though, for obvious reasons."
"We're lovers." Inoue-san cut in as she put an arm possessively over Nishikigi-san's shoulder.
Said blonde smiled at the admission but nevertheless smacked her girlfriend lightly on the thigh for interrupting her again.
"As I was saying, we stuck together and decided to defect to the Black Knights."
"And after they did, Zero assigned them to be my teammates." Alice-san said with a sigh. "Apparently he thought I needed some support."
"Aw~! Alice-chi, don't be like that! Admit it, you like the company." Nishikigi-san teased.
"N-No, I don't." The gravity manipulator countered, though her blush belied her words. "I was fine being a solo operator!"
"So you didn't like it when we went to the aquarium together? Or the time that we went shopping? Or that double date we had with you and Nunnally-sama? Or the trip to the arcade? Or-"
Nishikigi-san silenced her partner by putting a finger to her lips.
"I think everyone gets it, Takina." She said, before turning to Alice-san with a smirk. "See, Alice-chi, you love hanging out with us. If you didn't, you wouldn't have spent so much time with us."
"Mumumu!" Alice-san blushed and looked away as most of the occupants in the vehicle got a good chuckle at her expense.
"You should stop being such a tsundere, Alice-chi." Nishikigi-san said, putting the final nail into the coffin of Alice-san's self-esteem.
Understanding how uncomfortable it was to be the target of such relentless teasing, Mikoto decided to save Alice-san's dignity by offering her a helping hand.
"Inoue-san, Nishikigi-san, I'm surprised to see you two using non-lethal methods in combat." She said, changing the topic of their discussion.
Mikoto herself did her absolute best to use only the necessary amount of force to take down her foes. Ruiko made an effort once in a while and Naru was more enthusiastic with her methods, but even she made an effort. But as a whole, the Trinity was generally pretty supportive of non-lethal measures whenever possible. So Mikoto was genuinely quite pleased that someone else was doing the same.
Inoue-san flushed a little and said, "I do it mostly because Chisato does."
Nishikigi-san perked up and pecked Inoue-san on the cheek. "Hehe~ Let's see, for me? It was due to a near death experience. When I was a kid, I had a terrible heart attack due to a congenital heart condition. Thanks to Heaven Canceler-sensei, I was cured! The experience showed me that life is precious and so when you take another's life, you take away a person's chance to do something good to help others in turn."
"Wow, that's honestly truly noble." Mikoto confessed in amazement.
"Heh, you think so?" Nishikigi-san blushed, with a happy expression, rubbing the back of her head.
"Yes."
"Hm, looks like Zero-san is right!" Tsuchimikado perked up with a sharp grin. "Man, that guy is too smart of his own good. I like him."
"Agreed, he does have a brilliant mind." Alice-san concurred, but her face soon soured as she looked at Tsuchimikado.
Probably realized she was 'making nice' with a friend of the Trinity. Man, that girl needs to get laid. Mikoto rolled her eyes. As far as the Level 5 knew, the gravity manipulator's grudge was because of an injury that her crush, Nunnally-san, sustained during the Silent Party Incident, which she blamed on the Trinity. An injury that the girl had already recovered from! That Alice-san still clung to her grudge even despite that was just her being a stubborn ass!
"But what exactly is he right about this time?" The aforementioned stubborn ass asked.
"About what BLOCK is after." The Magician-Esper Hybrid said with a sigh and slapping his hand against a folder he'd been reading almost the whole ride so far. "I've just finished reviewing the intel he's given me and I have to agree with his assessment of things."
"I concluded the same." Ruiko said with a nod. "Though they're pretty desperate if they're resorting to a plan like this."
"Ruiko, what do you mean?" Accelerator asked, looking at her curiously.
"Musujime-san, if BLOCK held your comrades hostage in exchange for you using your Move Point to teleport a bomb into Crowley's chamber in the Windowless Building would you do it?"
"Hell no!" The Teleporter replied without hesitation. "First, I'm not stupid. Not all my comrades are held in the Reformatory. I know the General Superintendent has at least a couple of them squirreled away somewhere else. If I did what BLOCK wanted, those guys' lives would be forfeit. And even if I'm willing to trade the lives of those in the Reformatory for the others, I wouldn't be able to do what they want anyway. The Windowless Building has protections against unauthorized teleportation."
"So BLOCK is on a fool's errand?" Etzali asked, rubbing his chin thoughtfully.
"Yes," Ruiko said with a nod. "Like I said, they are desperate to get their revenge against the City. They must know the slim chance of success that their plan has, so to resort to it must mean they are out of options."
"Which is what makes them dangerous." Tsuchimikado said with narrowed eyes.
"Stupid terrorists. Seriously, it's like we have a sign for them to just march in and do whatever." Mikoto grouched, sparks arcing off her forehead in response to her annoyance. "I'm so sick of these bastards just doing whatever to hurt people."
Alice-san shot her an unimpressed look. Almost everyone did actually. The sole exception being Ruiko, who just facepalmed.
"Weren't you listening at all, Misaka-sama?" Alice-san said, sounding annoyed. "Don't underestimate BLOCK. There's nothing more dangerous than a cornered animal."
"That's not what I meant-" Mikoto began, only to be cut off by Ruiko.
"Give Mikoto-senpai a break, everyone. She's still new to this."
"Which is the only reason I don't let Takina slap some sense into you for being an idealistic idiot. We know what you meant, and we get it. But what you're saying shows you don't understand the realities of our job." Nishikigi-san said with a tired sigh. "Honestly, Misaka-sama, in our line of work, people, both innocent or otherwise will die. We can't change that. All we can do is try not to be the ones to do the killing if we can help it and minimize the killing in general. And also there really isn't such a thing as good guys in this job. You think the 'terrorists' think they're the bad guys? Betcha they think they're freedom fighters fighting to liberate the City from the oppressive Board or something like that. We fight them 'cos we think for all that it's true that the Board are a bunch of sickos, the City would go to hell if they all suddenly kicked the bucket and we like it enough as is that we don't want that. It's as simple as that. Don't bring morality into it more than you have to, you won't be able to operate if you do."
"Sorry… It's just frustrating." Mikoto bit her lip, looking down shamefully and feeling frustrated. "No matter how many we stop, more and more just keep coming."
"That's the business, Misaka-san." Tsuchimikado said with a shrug. "Life too, really. You think other places don't have the same problem? Terrorists are like cockroaches. They're always out there wanting for a chance to be a menace. There are more than enough causes for them to latch onto to justify their actions after all. And it's not just terrorists, generally speaking, the same is true for basically everything unsavory."
"Yeah." Mikoto took a breath and leaned back as they continued the ride to the Reformatory in a tense silence as no one was in the mood to talk after what was just said.
Not even Mikoto.
Not when her worldview had just been so shaken. She knew that the others were right, but… She just wished there was a better way.
"We're here." Ruiko announced seconds before the transport's intercom crackled to life.
"Uh, guess I don't need to tell you that. Anyways, just give me a second to park and you're good to go, ladies and gentlemen." The Black Knight serving as their driver announced over the intercom.
"Thanks, Tamaki-san." Alice-san replied, as she and everyone began getting ready for the fight that awaited them outside.
"Ruiko, what can we expect?" Mikoto-senpai asked, all serious. Her uneasy introspective mood that their earlier discussion had engendered bottled away for later like the true professional she was becoming. Naru-chan would be preening at the sight.
"BLOCK is already here." She informed everyone. "But they're not unopposed. Elements from the Giarraputo Social Welfare Agency are here and holding them at bay."
"The Giarraputo girls? How did they know to be here?" Alice-san asked, blinking in surprise as the vehicle came to a stop and the door began to open.
"Their leader, Claes Johansson, is on par with your boss, Fennette-chan." Tsuchimikado said with a grin as they all began filing out of the transport. "She probably figured out what BLOCK's intentions were just like he did and deployed her sisters to intercept them. Probably correctly presumed you Black Knights would prioritize containing the wall breach and that's why she's here and not there. Though betcha Zero-san knew she would do that too. They both likely weighed where their outfits could be most useful and made their deployments based on that."
"What the hell? Are they both super geniuses or something!?" Mikoto-senpai said, looking startled.
"Yes," Ruiko said, her reply echoed by Alice-san and Tsuchimikado-san.
"Tsk. Like the City needs more of them." Accel grumbled.
"At least they're on our side?" Nishikigi-san offered with a smile.
Accel just tsked again, much to Ruiko's amusement.
"Okay, I've pinpointed where Johansson-san is." Ruiko said as she exited the vehicle. "I'm going to teleport over and check in with her. Everyone else, I suggest you charge in there and just attack BLOCK's mercenaries. For those of you unfamiliar with the Giarraputo girls, just don't attack the girls with guns."
Nishikigi-san, Inoue-san and Alice-san all coughed.
"The other girls with guns." Ruiko corrected with a roll of her eyes. "It's not the most elegant strategy but simplicity is best at times and with our firepower, hitting the mercenaries from their rear whilst the Giarraputo girls keep them pinned should be more than enough. Musujime-san, you might want to go in to-"
"Some of the mercenaries made it inside the Reformatory?" Musujime-san asked, looking worried.
Ruiko nodded. "I'm not good with Clairvoyance and with any abilities I point in its direction being disrupted by the Reformatory's AIM Jammers, I can't get a perfect read on things, but I'm detecting that some of them have made it past the Giarraputo girls. You'd best stop them from making it to your friends. Someone should go with you, with the AIM Jammers active, you won't be able to use your ability."
"I'll go." Tsuchimikado-san volunteered.
"Anything else, Ruiko?" Accel asked and Ruiko shook her head. "Okay, then we've got our game plan. Let's move everyone."
As everyone else moved to begin the counterattack against BLOCK and Ruiko was about to teleport away, Accel caught her arm.
"Be careful. Don't get yourself killed until I get there to keep you safe." He told her chivalrously.
"Don't worry about me, Accel. I can take care of myself." Ruiko told him before giving him a quick peck on the lips before teleporting away.
She rematerialized next to a teenage Caucasian girl with fair skin and long, straight, blue-black hair and purple eyes who was using a shed in the Reformatory's exercise yard as cover as she traded fire with BLOCK's mercenaries using a MP5 submachine gun.
"Good afternoon, Johansson-san." Ruiko greeted the leader of the Giarraputo Social Welfare Agency.
"Good afternoon, Saten-sama." The combat cyborg returned politely even as she stepped out of her cover and fired a withering burst from her gun at the enemy, trusting in Ruiko to protect her from their return fire. A trust that was rewarded as the [AIM Sovereign] conjured a mobile barrier that shielded her from the hail of lead shot her way. "I expected you and GROUP fifteen minutes ago. What was the delay?"
"The forces at the wall were better armed than we expected. They had American particle cannon tanks and laser rifles. It took longer to extricate ourselves from that fight than we'd liked." Ruiko offered as she followed after the other girl whilst simultaneously unleashing a salvo of particle beams at the mercenaries.
Johansson-san frowned as they watched the mercenaries they were fighting be caught completely by surprise as Accel and Mikoto-senpai led a sudden, overwhelming attack on their rear. Confused and scrambling to respond, more than one mercenary fell to the bullets of Johansson-san and her sisters.
"Zero-san sent Team Alice too?" The older girl said as she eyed Alice-san and her teammates. "If he sent them here then I believe you. He must've assumed that the mercenaries here were similarly well armed and you might need the help when you reinforced us."
"I presume so," Ruiko agreed with a nod. "I'm honestly surprised they're not."
"BLOCK must have calculated that holding the breach was harder. I can see why they'd think that, even if it's a foolish assumption to make considering the possibility of a Level 5 Team or similarly powerful force being deployed against them." Johansson-san said as they and her sisters continued laying down suppressive fire on the mercenaries whilst Mikoto-senpai and the others ripped into their ranks.
Well, most of them. As braving the deadly fire from both sides, Musujime-san and Tsuchimikado-san dashed across no man's land.
"I imagine they assumed that such forces would be deployed to the wall breach instead. On the surface, that appears to be the bigger threat to the City and they probably assumed that the Board will prioritize it. They are likely unaware that we know about the bomb that they've built." Ruiko replied even as she breathed a sigh of relief at seeing [Move Point] and [The Backstabbing Blade] make it into the relative safety of the Reformatory's main building. "Speaking of the bomb-"
"Rico and Henrietta are leading teams to the locations where BLOCK might've secreted it. They'll take care of it."
Ruiko nodded, reassured that Johansson-san had sent her sisters to deal with the loose end.
"The bomb is yet another point of failure in BLOCK's plan. They truly are reckless idiots." Johansson-san said with disgust. "Their plan is full of holes and yet they still implemented it?"
"I agree, but put yourself in their shoes, Johansson-san. With a world war on the horizon, if they don't act now to depose the Board and Crowley, then when? If they want to stop the war, which I imagine is one of their motivations, then they have to act now." Ruiko countered as she saw Etzali-san break off from the fighting as suddenly Xochitl from MEMBER flew in as a cloud of dust before reforming her body.
Ruiko hadn't expected her to show up, she wasn't paying attention to the female Aztec Magician, but she wasn't surprised that now that she was here that Etzali-san would abandon everything to confront her. Based on what she knew about them, the two of them had quite a long history. It was only natural that when faced with each other, they would ignore other matters to settle things between them.
"Tsk. Yes, I suppose so." The combat cyborg conceded. "It is still bothersome though. Look at how much work it's created for us?"
Ruiko just chuckled. "It's not like it's all that tiring work."
Gunning down a mercenary with her Heckler & Koch VP70 sidearm whilst she expertly dropped the spent magazine of her MP5, Johannson-san agreed. "Yes, I suppose you're right about that."
Smoothly holstering her pistol before reloading her submachine gun, Johansson returned to firing burst after burst at the enemy before she continued. "Dealing with enemies of this caliber can hardly be considered work."
Shielding them both whilst shooting salvos of particle beams at the enemy, Ruiko nodded with a smile.
It was nice to work with someone on the same wavelength.
"Didn't the Reformatory have AIM Jammers?" Mikoto couldn't help asking as she shocked a whole squad of mercenaries into unconsciousness with a static burst. "'Cos I'm not feeling it."
"Most of the Reformatory's AIM Jammers are focused internally." Alice-san said from next to her where she was taking the occasional shot with her gun and using her gravity manipulation to hurl random objects at the enemy, supporting her two teammates as the crazy gun toting lovebirds literally waltzed through the battlefield, disabling any mercenary that got within their sights. "Plus the Giarraputo girls probably took out all the externally directed ones. They aren't just combat cyborgs you know, they're Espers too."
Mikoto nodded. Everything made sense then.
"I wish I could go down and help Musujime-san and Tsuchimikado-san." Mikoto said wistfully as she shocked another group of mercenaries into lala land. "I'm betting that it'll be less boring than things up here."
"You'd be nothing but a burden if you went down there and you know it, [Railgun]. With how strong the AIM Jammers are inside, your ability won't work and you're useless without it. You're more helpful up here." Accelerator reminded her as he seemingly sucked the air straight out of the lungs of a large group of mercenaries.
Since when could he do that!? I thought Ruiko told me that the calculations for something like that were too time consuming for combat. Did he get some kind of boost to his computational ability?
"Thanks, you're a real motivational speaker." Mikoto snarked to her kohai's boyfriend even as she eyed the choker that linked him to the Misaka Network suspiciously. To make up for the brain damage when he'd be shot protecting Last Order from Amai Ao, the choker allowed him to access the Misaka Network for his computations. But there should be a limit for what that could allow…
He must have upgraded it somehow. But to enhance his computational ability, he'd need to expand the bandwidth of the connection he has to the Network. But how?
"Accel, did you increase channel usage with the AIM bandwidth of your collar?" Ruiko asked as she teleported next to her boyfriend, her eyes wide in surprise.
"I have learned a thing or two from you about how to manipulate AIM you know." Accelerator said with a shrug. "Managing this much is easy."
"Yes, but if you let me help you, I can upgrade it even further." Ruiko offered.
"No," Accelerator bluntly refused.
"Accel, please!"
"Are they having a lover's tiff? Here? Now?" Alice-san asked incredulously.
"Looks like," Mikoto said, palming her face in embarrassment.
"Science! Even Chisato and Takina at their worst aren't this bad!"
"At least they aren't tearing their clothes off?" Mikoto offered weakly.
Alice-san just shot her an unimpressed look. She was probably about to say something scathing, but before she could she was interrupted by a nearby section of the Reformatory's perimeter wall exploding inwards as a trailer truck with an armored ram mounted to the front of its grill slammed through it. It was only the first such truck though as it led four other such vehicles into the crater filled and rubble strewn exercise yard of the prison.
"What the heck!? New players!?" Mikoto shouted in frustration as the trucks came to a screeching stop and the sides of their trailers opened. Out of these containers poured out a large number of heavily armored tripedal robots that were vaguely reminiscent of one of Kazari-san's mainline drones with missile batteries built into their torsos and cannons mounted above and below the hands of their humanoid arms. These were towering machines, each stood at least two and a half meters tall, yet their height were matched by the humanoid bioweapons that joined them in disembarking the trucks. The familiar bald, pale skinned giants dressed in armored trench coats and armed with a variety of heavy weapons were monsters that Mikoto would recognize anywhere. They were the Tyrant bioweapons first developed and fielded by Parasol.
The new arrivals were unsettling enough, particularly the Tyrant bioweapons with which Mikoto had quite an unpleasant history, but even worse was who commanded them. Individuals who revealed themselves by hopping out of the cab of the lead truck to be no less than the heavily modified clones of herself named Marie and Eveline LeBeau.
"Teams A and B go! Infiltrate the facility and rescue my husband!" The busty clone with the long chestnut hair that was Marie LeBeau commanded her army, causing a section of them to split off and make a beeline for the Reformatory entrance. In the confusion caused by their arrival, no one made an effort to stop them. "All other units engage the enemy in a holding action!"
"Mummy!" The ten year old looking Eveline shouted irritably as she tied her messy blonde hair into a ponytail. "Looks like we couldn't escape fighting Accelerator and most of the Trinity after all. We shouldn't have bothered waiting in the first place."
Marie sighed even as her troops began engaging the forces already present. Mikoto's allies adapted fluidly, quickly shifting their positions so they could confront the new threat alongside the still present danger of BLOCK's mercenaries, who for their part were struggling to do the same. It seemed they weren't trained in how to deal with heavily armed combat robots and bioweapons, who knew?
"Alright, I'll admit I was wrong on that count Evie." Marie conceded. "If we kept waiting, the chance to rescue your daddy would have slipped by."
"Glad you admit it, Mummy. You are totally going to reward me for being correct, right?" Eveline asked, shooting her 'mother' a smirk.
Marie just sighed and nodded. "You get to do whatever you want to me the next time we have sex."
Eveline cheered at this. She even did a happy dance by squealing and hopping on the spot. It made Mikoto sick.
The nausea snapped her out of her shocked daze though and whilst bricking one of the LeBeau's drones that was lining up to unleash a missile salvo on her position, she turned to Ruiko who was standing nearby and whilst protected by Accelerator's Redirection was conjuring barriers all over the battlefield to provide mobile cover for their allies as they completed their repositioning to face the changed situation.
"Ruiko, don't tell me-"
"They're here to rescue Remy LeBeau." Ruiko confirmed.
"Wait! That guy is here?" Alice-san asked, confused. "Shouldn't he be in the special prison for high profile criminals in School District 17?"
"According to the Board, he's not high profile enough." Ruiko explained, her tone practically dripping with irritation. "Or maybe they believe he'd be better secured in the special cells here for whatever reason."
"Better secured? Easier to get broken out, you mean!" Mikoto concluded with a growl as she used an iron sand twister to puree a couple of flamethrower-toting Tyrants that had been about to roast a couple of the Giarraputo girls alive.
"Saten-sama, what's with these robots?" Nishikigi-san asked as she and Inoue-san literally danced towards them, stopping next to them with a twirl. "They seem a lot better coordinated than a bunch of autonomous drones. Did the LeBeaus make an AI breakthrough they didn't share with the rest of the City or something?"
Come to think of it, the Precognitive was right. The LeBeau's robots were behaving a lot better coordinated than most combat robots Mikoto had seen. They were working with their Tyrant allies like a well oiled machine. They were providing them fire support and even using their armored bodies as shields for the more vulnerable bioweapons without any lag that typified even the most advanced combat AI the City had developed. The only times Mikoto had seen a robot army operating this well, especially when working with non-machine allies, was when Kazari-san commanded her drone army.
Do they have someone controlling them remotely? Mikoto thought as she began using her electromagnetic sense to search for any control frequency that the hypothetical remote controller of the robots might be using. All whilst simultaneously conjuring a dome of electricity that took out an incoming missile salvo whilst Accelerator's Redirection dealt with the attacking robot's lasers and Alice-san, Nishikigi-san and Inoue-san wrecked it with what looked like specialized AP rounds.
"Don't bother, Mikoto-senpai." Ruiko said, putting a hand on Mikoto's shoulder. "The drones are being controlled, but you won't be able to disrupt her command frequency. Not unless you think you can overpower a Level 4 Electromaster specialized in technopathy whilst also fighting."
"A Level 4 Technopath? Who-"
"I take it that you're talking about Marie LeBeau, Saten-sama?" Inuoe-san asked as she put a bullet right between the eyes of a Tyrant all the way behind the LeBeau's lines who was leveling a charged particle cannon at them. The shot, something that should have been well outside of the range of the pistol she was using, didn't kill the abomination. The damned things were, if nothing else, tough bastards that could take an obscene amount of damage before dying. But it did stagger it and cause its shot to go wide and allow Alice-san to use her gravity manipulating power to hurl a chunk of debris at it with enough force to reduce it to a bloody smear.
"Yes," Ruiko said with a nod. "At least that's what I'm getting from her AIM field. It seems the rumors that she was working on upgrading her ability were correct."
"Looks like," Nishikigi-san agreed as she nudged her lover out of the way of a burst from a minigun of an advancing Tyrant that Accelerator proceeded to take out by bisecting the monster with a vacuum blade. "But if she did, then that means the Eveline girl did too. Where is she, by the way, Saten-sama? I've lost track of her."
Ruiko just pointed in the direction of one of the few positions held by BLOCK's mercenaries.
"She's snuck behind those gunmen. I presume she's about to use her own upgraded ability against them."
"Anything we should worry about?" Accelerator asked, sounding unconcerned and like he was asking purely for formality's sake.
"I wouldn't think so," Ruiko said with a shrug. "But judge for yourself. She's striking."
Finishing off the duo of robots that she was fighting, Mikoto turned in the direction of where the Eveline girl had supposedly snuck off to. And she honestly wished she hadn't. The sight that greeted her started innocently enough with Eveline, already transformed into the catgirl shape that both she and Marie could change into, leaping down from a tree and landing with feline grace behind the group of hard pressed and distracted mercenaries. But things took a turn to the grotesque from that point forward as the little catgirl bent over to allow dozens of disgusting tumorous tendrils to rapidly grow out of her back, exploding her clothes in the process.
The sound of ripping fabric caught the attention of the nearest mercenaries at last, but it was too little too late. They had barely begun turning to face the new threat to their rear when Eveline's tendrils stabbed into their skulls or somewhere along their spines. This did not kill or disable them though, that would have been a mercy and it seemed the LeBeaus didn't even understand the concept. Instead, Eveline had turned her victims into her puppets. Using her tendrils as vectors for her Electromastery, she seized control of their bodies and had them turn their weapons on their comrades.
"What the heck!? I think I'm going to be sick!" Alice-san said, her face looking a little green. "Did she turn them into her zombies!?"
"Puppets would be more accurate." Ruiko corrected with a shrug. "I wasn't expecting those flesh tendrils. She must have modified her DNA, specifically the parts that allowed her catgirl transformation already, to create them. I did know from her AIM that she'd become a Level 4 Electromastery based Telepath though."
"Saten-sama, you're not grossed out by what she's doing at all, are you?" A slightly queasy looking Nishikigi-san asked as she pulled a similar looking Inoue-san away from a retaliatory laser barrage after the Clairvoyant had tried to snipe Eveline only for one of Marie's robots to throw itself in the way of her bullet.
"Mah. Ruiko has seen worse." Accelerator commented idly even as Ruiko nodded.
"You should see some of what the City's geneticists attempt to cook up in their spare time and which Naru-chan and I have helped clean up in the past." Ruiko said airily.
"Please! No details! I don't want to hear it!" A pale Alice-san shouted even as she squashed a pair of the LeBeaus' robots with some debris using her ability.
A sentiment echoed by everyone else in earshot except Accelerator.
"Bah! Cowards." The pseudo albino scoffed.
Everyone ignored him and turned their attention to the fight. For Mikoto's part, she began trying to cut a path towards the LeBeaus' trucks. She knew what they were here for and if she could just get to the vehicles and take them out, then maybe she could stop them in their tracks! But every attempt she made was pushed back by a concerted counterattack from the LeBeaus' forces. Heck, even with the help of Ruiko, Accelerator and the Black Knight girls, they were only just able to keep themselves from being overrun. The overwhelming numbers that the LeBeaus were throwing at them were just too much.
"Report from Johansson-san." Ruiko said suddenly, cutting into Mikoto's frustrated thoughts. Mikoto turned to her kohai to see her putting away her phone. "She has a team near the entrance to the Reformatory and they're reporting that the force the LeBeaus sent in are on their way out."
Most everyone ignored her, but Mikoto knew her friend's message was especially for her. So the [Railgun] nodded at her kohai and turned her attention to the Reformatory. It was less than a hundred feet away, but with the intense fighting between it and where they were it might as well have been a thousand miles away. Thus Mikoto was helpless as she watched a large group of Tyrants and robots run out of the building, one of the former carrying a man along with them as they did.
"Stop them!" Mikoto roared as she fired off a massive electric bolt at the group.
Unfortunately, the LeBeaus were prepared for that and the robots in the group suddenly popped lightning rods out of their bodies and transformed themselves into grounding stations. It bricked the machines but their sacrifice proved enough to negate Mikoto's attack. At the same time, the surviving Tyrants easily weathered her allies' own efforts. A trio of the Giarraputo girls led by Johansson-san tried to intercept them but were quickly suppressed and forced back into cover as two of the giants peeled off from the group to unleash a storm of bullets at them with their miniguns. Ruiko tried firing a particle beam salvo but although she killed about a third of the group's number, they advanced over their corpses undeterred. As for everyone else? They were too busy dealing with other enemies to even turn their attention towards the group exiting the Reformatory.
Thus only mildly inconvenienced, they made it to where Marie was waiting and deposited their cargo: Remy LeBeau. Glaring at him across the battlefield, Mikoto noted that the tall Caucasian man with close cropped blonde hair, still looking surprisingly well kept and handsome despite his stint in prison. Heck, it seemed he somehow seemed to have either found the time to change into a stylish suit and tie after he was broken out of his cell or had got to wear the getup as his prison attire!
"Remy~!" Marie said as she threw herself into the man's arms the moment that he was on his own two feet. "I missed you~!"
For his part, the bioweapons arms dealer responded to this show of affection in kind and pulled Mikoto's clone into a deep kiss.
As this was happening, over where Eveline and her puppets were mowing their way through the beleaguered BLOCK mercenaries, the little catgirl had noticed what was going on as well and let out a happy cry. "Daddy!"
Abandoning her puppets and retracting her tendrils, the now naked child-like clone raced towards her 'parent's on all fours like a true cat. Dozens of her enemies turned their attention towards her as she did, not least of which were the few survivors of her bodyjacking, but the LeBeaus' Tyrants and robots rushed to shield her, keeping her safe. She thus made it to the two older LeBeaus' side in seconds, whereupon she threw herself at the kissing couple.
Acting with a fluidity that came only from plenty of practice, Remy and Marie pulled away from their kiss in time to catch their 'daughter'. And once in their arms, Remy pulled Eveline into a deep kiss in welcome just like he had his 'wife'.
All the while, the LeBeaus' forces were pulling back. Their lines formed up into a solid line of monstrously twisted flesh and armored combat robots that separated their masters from everyone else. Thus giving them the time to complete their reunion. This despite Mikoto and everyone else throwing everything at them to put a stop to the event.
Ignoring all that, Remy pulled away from his kiss with Eveline and set her back down on the ground and promptly proceeded to slap both her and Marie hard on their faces.
"What took you so long?" He scolded both of them, who despite the reddening marks on their faces were smiling at him warmly.
"Sorry Remy, it took a while to get the resources we needed for a break out." Marie explained apologetically as she began guiding him towards the cab of the nearest of their trucks.
"Yeah, Daddy. We're very sorry but planning your break out was hard." Eveline added as she skipped after her 'parents'.
Remy just rolled his eyes, looking decidedly unimpressed even as he climbed into the truck cab at Marie's urging. "Whatever. Let's get out of here. You can give me a full accounting of everything once we're somewhere safe."
"You're not going anywhere, Remy LeBeau!" Mikoto roared as she blasted bolt after powerful electric bolt at the wall of enemies separating her from the man.
In response, Remy just turned to offer her a smirk.
"Oh, but I think I am [Railgun]." He said as he took a seat in the truck cab and gestured for Marie and Eveline to get in from the other side. "But don't worry, this won't be the last you see of me."
Breaking into a demented laugh, he slammed the door of the cab closed and with his pet clones having boarded the truck whilst he made his taunt, the vehicle roared to life.
"No! You won't get away! I won't allow it!" Mikoto shouted defiantly, calling down a lightning bolt from the heavens that struck the truck. Unfortunately, its systems were well grounded and except for rattling it a little, it did nothing as it began driving away.
"Saten-sama, make a hole in the enemy lines!" Alice-san shouted suddenly.
Ruiko responded by turning a whole section of the ground that the LeBeaus' rearguard were standing on into mush with one of her many emulated abilities. The patch of distorted ground spread until it was just short of the truck the LeBeaus were using to escape before the ability ran out of steam. But whilst it didn't stop the truck, it did disorient the monsters and robots standing there as they suddenly lost their footing, leaving them vulnerable as everyone else focused their fire and tore them to shreds and cleared the way for Alice-san as she requested.
With the path cleared, Alice-san burned one of her 'charges' and reduced the effects of gravity on her body to the point where her physical abilities became superhuman. Using the speed this granted her, she sped after the truck as it maneuvered to drive through an unbroken section of the Reformatory wall intent on using the armored ram affixed to its front to crash through it.
She was just gaining on it when Nishikigi-san shouted out an urgent warning. "Alice! Watch out!"
Heeding the Precognitive's warning, Alice-san aborted the chase and leapt back. The sound of gunfire rang out as Nishikigi-san and Inoue-san fired at the missiles that were zeroing in on the blonde. Their insane enhanced accuracy took out a large number of them but there were still too many. Thus despite the Black Knights' best efforts, Alice-san was still almost caught by the explosions of the concentrated missile barrage shot to intercept her by the last of Marie's robots. Thankfully, Ruiko managed to pull her attention away from helping Accelerator and the others suppress and shield against their enemies' still substantial firepower long enough to use Move Point to teleport her out of the way.
And with this last failed attempt, like dust in the wind, the LeBeaus were gone. And left in his wake was a howling [Railgun].
"You lousy, no good, motherfuckers!" Mikoto roared, her anger akin to divine wrath as the heavens split open and a massive bolt of lightning fell from the sky, forking at just meters from the ground to strike her remaining foes, both the LeBeaus' rearguard and the remaining BLOCK mercenaries, ending the fight in a thunderclap.
Her fury was unabated though and continued to thrum between her veins.
I swear that I'll recapture that bastard! And when I do, he's not getting away again! Never again!
After her rather brief sortie, Naru had returned to the Trinity's base, rather than Rui-chan's house, as they had agreed beforehand to await her teammates' return. And when they had, Senpai was still spitting mad. And Rui-chan? Upon hearing about what had happened to Frenda-chan, she'd gone all stiff and robotic as she was overcome with worry for her prospective mistress. Despite that, Naru's bestie remained professional and set aside her troubled feelings, reviewed the latest information and was now briefing them on the current situation.
"Things have still not settled down despite our efforts to cull the rogues." She said as she stood in front of the video wall in their CIC in their base, an identical room to the one under Rui-chan's house, the various screens behind her showing various feeds from across the City.
"BLOCK might be destroyed and the Black Knights and Maniple have successfully contained the mercenaries they hired. And for better or worse, the LeBeaus are out of the picture for now."
Senpai snarled, sparks dancing around her forehead and Naru leaned over and took her hand comfortingly. Yet Senpai pulled her own away, wanting to stew in her anger. It earned her concerned looks from both Naru and Rui-chan.
She's really losing it right now. At least she isn't lashing out at us
I mean, I get why, but I just hope she calms down. I remember the last time she ran into that miserable fucker. We should have just executed him.
"Senpai, are you al-"
"I'm fine." Senpai barked. "Ruiko, continue!"
Rui-chan and Naru exchanged a worried look but ultimately both nodded. They couldn't do anything about Senpai's mood at the moment. They had too many things on their plate. They would have to clear those first.
"Alright." Rui-chan said as she continued. "As I was saying, whilst the other groups are no longer a concern, SCHOOL is still active and has continued with their rogue activity. They have made use of the Tweezers to access UNDER_LINE and used it to track down ITEM, after which Kakine launched an attack."
"Well they're dead." Naru couldn't help but mutter. Sucked to be those girls, but the Number 4 was far less merciful than the Trinity was.
Personally, I think Mugino needs a good scare. She was always so full of herself.
Eeeh, coming from you? That sounds a touch hypocritical.
…I am not like her.
I know, idiot. I know.
"They survived, somehow. But for some inane reason," Rui-chan said, sounding thoroughly annoyed. "That wench Mugino believes that Frenda-chan has betrayed them and is hunting her down."
"Ugh." Naru complained in annoyance.
"And she's on her way here."
"Why would that unstable freak think Frenda-san betrayed her if she's with us and not SCHOOL?" Mikoto-senpai asked in confusion, pointing out how illogical [Meltdowner] was being.
"Senpai, I doubt Mugino cares. All that matters to her is that Frenda-chan was MIA and that herself and her team has been attacked."
"You didn't inform her that we rescued Frenda-san?" Mikoto-senpai asked with a cocked eyebrow.
"Of course I did. I told her about it through at least three different channels. How do you think Mugino knows to come here?" Naru said with a sigh. "Whether the two things are linked or not, the dumb-dumb is convinced that they are."
She always came off as a crazy yandere type.
She always was one of the craziest Level 5s.
"Betcha, she thinks Frenda spilled the beans on ITEM's safehouses before I rescued her or something. Like I said, she's an idiot."
"I agree with that assessment." Rui-chan said with a nod. "Now, if we can get back to the brief-"
Before they could continue their briefing, there was an explosion that rocked the base and while everyone remained calm, Kurozuma-san suddenly rushed into the room looking frazzled. Without a word, he rushed to a console and with a few rapid keystrokes had the video wall's screens displaying one of the external surveillance feeds. On it was the furious face of Mugino.
"How does she know where our base is?" Senpai growled in annoyance.
It seemed like Senpai had not read her intel briefs. Again.
Naru wondered why she made those cliffnote documents for her if the Electromaster wasn't even going to read them!
You even color coded them in order of importance to make things easier for her. Shame, shame on her. Kurama chuckled mirthfully.
Rui-chan replied. "The location of our base is openly listed on the Dark Side's secret chat boards. Crowley set us up as the closest thing to a public face the Dark Side has."
Senpai groaned, she was really frustrated tonight. She looked at Naru and deadpanned. "Your boss is an asshole."
"Well, yeah? Of course he is." Naru snorted and hopped to her feet. "I'll go deal with her."
Going to spank her? I'm sure that's a kink you share.
What Shu-chan and Arisa-chan do to my perfectly spankable bottom isn't on the table right now! Naru pouted as she headed out.
And besides, what she really wanted was to settle once and for all the fact that she wasn't the same as Mugino.
Plus, if Naru didn't do this, Rui-chan would. And with how emotionally attached she was to Frenda-chan, she'd end up killing Mugino. Which in turn would bring far too much heat on them then they could handle with so much crap on their plate already.
The things I do for my friends. Naru thought jokingly to laughter from her partner.
Stepping out of the doorway of their base of operations, Naru looked towards the enraged Number 6. Mugino was looking outright deranged, her face twisted by the bloodlust that she usually kept bottled up and even though her typically fashionable outfit was covered in blood, she didn't even seem to care. Considering how image conscious she was, that [Meltdowner] had forsaken any concern of her appearance like this, she must truly be mad with rage.
"Oi, Mugino! We have a buzzer, you know?"
"Fuck off runt. I'm not here for you, so get out of my way!" [Meltdowner] screamed out, spittle flying from her mouth as she looked as tense as a spring. Or a psycho.
The blonde raised an eyebrow. "You and I both know how this will go, right? I've kicked your flat ass more than a handful of times, Mugino."
The older girl let loose one of her lime green laser beams and Naru leapt out of the way.
Wow, she's so mad she's not even up for banter. She usually loves her smack talk.
Naru, she's leaking a lot of killing intent. I don't think this will be like the previous scuffles between you two. She's seriously gonna go for the kill this time.
Got it, thanks for the heads up. Naru mentally sent to her partner as she used Move Point while in mid-air to dodge another laser beam. She reappeared at Mugino's side and went for a sharp kick to her ribs, but her instincts screamed at her and heeding them, she aborted her attack and used Move Point to teleport away. She thus narrowly evaded the screen of raw plasma that would have vaporized her limb.
Rematerializing a few meters away, the blonde felt a small wince at how her blistered and raw skin of her heel touched the ground as she landed. Her skin healed up in an instant, but her shoe was a lost cause.
"STOP MOVING!" Mugino raged as she twirled around to face Naru, the three spheres of plasma that she charged up to use her signature Particle Waveform High-Speed Cannon already at full power and aimed in her direction.
The [ManiForce] of course didn't listen and kept using Move Point in a mixed pattern to teleport all around her fellow Level 5 so as to exploit one of Mugino's major weaknesses. Thanks to extensively analyzing of how the older woman fought, Naru, or more accurately the intern from her Power Development Team she'd assigned the task, had figured out that Mugino could only fire in the direction she was facing.
Thus keeping out of her line of sight was one of the basic strategies when up against [Meltdowner]. Now, all she had to do was tire her out. An Esper's power might usually be independent of their physical stamina, unless it was linked directly to their bodily functions, but there was only so much computation a person could make before they tired themselves out and without computation even the most powerful Esper ability would do jack squat. And since Mugino seemed happy to blast away at her with abandon and tire herself out in the process, all Naru needed to do was keep on the move.
"Wow you've really lost it, haven't you?" Naru taunted, intent on goading Mugino to keep up her self-defeating tactics.
"Shut up! And face me HEAD ON! OR ARE YOU TOO MUCH OF A COWARD TO DO SO!?" Mugino accused, her face twisted into a snarl as she fired off a salvo of five of her Particle Waveform High-Speed Cannons at Naru only for the blonde to teleport away with Move Point.
Naru, you need to change strategies. Kurama opined thoughtfully. She's not slowing down. If anything-
Yeah, her movements are getting more aggressive, but scarily sharper. Also did you notice how she just exceeded her limit of four beams at a time?
Yeah. It's why I brought it up. Her anger is letting her push past her limits.
We need to end this quickly. I think we might need a Frame.
Okay, but which one? I think Festung might be fitting.
Nah! Let's go with something we need some practice with.
Sure. Whatever. It's not like we can't beat this girl without it. Just make it quick before she either burns herself out or somehow exceeds her limits to the point where she actually becomes a threat.
Yeah, yeah, I know. I'll make things quick. Naru sent to her partner even as she began calling on their joint chakra and began shaping it into the Demon Frame she wanted to use for the occasion. It surrounded her and took the shape of a giant humanoid that floated a few feet off the ground. The Frame had an upper body encased in a long sleeved crimson double breasted tunic with puff shoulders and a lower body that resembled a massive upturned rose with the tips of Kurama's tails poking out from the folds of the flower. Behind its back hovered a golden halo with blade-like protrusions at the cardinal and ordinal points. A few inches in front of the construct's hands, floated an orb of chakra and its head was shaped like Kurama's head with a long vulpine snout and long narrow ears frozen in an upright position
"Finally taking me seriously, you miserable whore?!"
"Rude!" Naru scolded. "I pull out my precious Hexe Demon Frame to play with you and you call me names? I thought we had something special. Mainly me kicking your cooch in."
Even as Naru ribbed Mugino, she activated Kurama's Micro Phase, Hyper Accelerated Entropy, and carefully applied it on [Meltdowner]. Hoping that she could drain away her stamina by accelerating the entropy the older woman was feeling. It was risky since it seemed the longer the fight went on Mugino just got stronger, and worse if Naru didn't modulate things just right she could quite possibly push the entropy too high and cause the other Level 5 to crumble to dust or something. But that was a risk Naru was willing to take. She needed to end this fight fast and this was her best bet to do so.
Plus it wasn't like Mugino was a high priority, even as a Level 5.
"I'LL BE THE ONE KICKING YOUR COOCH IN, YOU COCKY PIECE OF SHIT!" Mugino shouted back as she fired off ten of her lime green lasers at once. Ten beams that merged together into one immensely powerful beam.
Naru had not been expecting Mugino to either be able to pull off something this powerful or to attempt such a direct attack. It was thus very much a 'What the fuck' moment for her. She was thus completely unprepared as the beam slammed into her and literally blasted the entire right side of her Frame, and her actual body ensconced in its center for good measure, into smithereens.
Okay, no more playing around. Kurama thought, a tinge of real anger in his tone as he activated Naru's Recursive Temporal State to reverse time's effect on them and the Hexe Frame, effectively negating the damage of Mugino's impressive attack.
You think I'm playing? I think she's legit lost her psycho mind.
Before Kurama could reply, an incredible feat considering the almost instantaneous nature of the conversation between Naru and her partner, a second insanely powerful beam of green destruction slammed into the still healing Hexe Frame.
"I AM NOT A JOKE! DIE! JUST DIE YOU, UNDESERVING WRETCH!" Mugino shouted as she pressed her advantage and marched on Naru as the badly damaged Hexe Frame crashed to the ground.
Naru's sharp eyes, well lone eye at the moment since her right eye was still regenerating, caught a worrying sight though. Mugino's skin… It looked as though it was cracking open with thin beams of the green light of her lasers leaking out from the cracks. The Number 6 didn't notice though. She was still too caught up in her anger if the rictus of rage etched on her face was any indication.
This dumb bitch was willing to kill herself just to win a fight. A fight that meant nothing in the grand scheme of things.
Well, if she was being such a dummy. Then so be it. Naru was going to grant her death wish.
Struggling back to her 'feet', Naru was hit by yet another insanely powerful beam from Mugino but this time, she was ready for it. Even as a good chunk of her Demon Frame and her body was vaporized, she transformed the orb floating in front of her Frame's left arm, the right arm was still regenerating, into a whip that she cracked in Mugino's direction. At the same time, she had the four still intact tails of Kurama that the Hexe Frame possessed shoot out from the folds of the rose that made up its lower body and lash out at [Meltdowner] as well.
This forced the Number 6 to abandon her attack and conjure panels of plasma around herself to protect herself. They disintegrated the whip and tails before they could hit her, but that didn't matter. The attack had given Naru what she needed most: time to recover.
Using the time given, Naru poured as much power into her Recursive Temporal State as possible. And at last, Naru finally managed to fully regenerate both her body and Frame.
"DIE DIE DIE!" Mugino screamed as she combined twelve Particle Waveform High-Speed Cannons into a single beam. It caused the skin on the right side of Mugino's face to flake off entirely to reveal a mass of burned flesh and pulsing lime green veins, but she either didn't notice or more likely didn't care.
Shit! Kurama cursed as abandoning the use of Hyper Accelerated Entropy on Mugino, he instead redirected it in a desperate bid to erode the incoming beam instead.
He was only partially successful however and it still hit Naru like a ton of bricks. Worse than that actually, since it practically vaporized the entire upper part of her Demon Frame. If Naru hadn't curled her body into a ball and dropped herself down into the rose-like lower body, she'd be dead. She might be able to keep going with even part of her brain vaporized, thank you chakra being able to record consciousness, memories, etc, but if it got completely destroyed then she'd be as dead as the next person. In exchange for that, having her back be flayed open by the edge of Mugino's beam was a small price to pay.
We really need more offensive options on the Hexe Frame. Naru mused. If we had something more substantial than your tails and that morphing orb to hit Mugino with just now, we probably could've taken her out. We just need something that could pierce through that defense she put up.
Beta test later! Change Frames and slice her head off!
Oka- Naru began to reply only to stop herself when suddenly Mugino was frozen inside a pillar of ice. Wait! I don't think we need to.
"What gives, Rui-chan? I thought I said I was handling this." Naru asked her bestie as she abandoned her Hexe Frame and teleported over to her classmate as she pushed a wheelchair bound Frenda-chan out of their base alongside Mikoto-senpai.
Rui-chan looked her over, her frown deepening at her disheveled state and recovering wounds.
"Don't blame Saten-sama, Namikaze-sama. I asked her to bring me out." Frneda-chan said even as the ice pillar began glowing from the inside with a familiar lime green light.
"Ah, well, if Frenda-chan asked, I guess it's okay. It is her problem after all." The twintail blonde nodded in understanding.
"Besides, I think you've got your answer to your long running question regarding the difference between you and Mugino already, Naru." Rui-chan said with a pointed look at her and the Number 6, who with a lime green explosion stepped out of the remains of the ice pillar. She honestly looked inhuman as she did so. Most of her clothes were rags at this point and showed off plenty of skin or would have if that hadn't flaked or burned off to reveal blackened flesh and glowing lime green veins.
"...Yeah. She's batshit insane." Naru said, trying to be flippant, but she still sent a grateful look to her bestie.
Rui-chan nodded. "And for how bloodthirsty and frankly insane you can get, you are not like her. Not even at your worst."
"I could've told you that." Mikoto-senpai said with a snort.
So could I. But you wouldn't have believed either of us or anyone else for that matter.
"I know." Naru agreed, cheeks flush at all the sudden attention. "But I think I needed to see it for myself."
"FRENDA! YOU TRAITOR!" Mugino shouted, reminding everyone that she was still there as she regained her bearings and noticed Naru's fellow blonde.
"Ah, I liked her quiet." The blue eyed Level 5 wrinkled her nose.
"Same," Frenda-chan agreed with a giggle before sighing. "But let me handle this okay?"
"You sure, Frenda-chan?" Rui-chan asked as Mikoto-senpai used her Electromastery to deflect the massive laser Mugino just shot their way skyward. They all ignored her furious cries for Frenda's death that accompanied it. Mugino's ranting had grown tiresome long ago.
"Yeah," the Norwegian nodded. "Just, um, keep me safe but let me talk to Mugino on my own."
"Leave her lasers to me." Mikoto-senpai assured them.
"I'll handle anything else she tries." Naru added.
"Just focus on what you have to say to her." Rui-chan said, squeezing Frenda-chan's shoulders encouragingly.
Frenda-chan nodded, and ignoring the latest supersized Particle Waveform High-Speed Cannon Mugino shot their way, she took a deep, steadying breath.
"Mugino!" She shouted once she was done. "I have something to tell you!"
Her words seemed to finally reach the crazed Number 6 and she paused in the charging of her latest death laser, though she didn't dismiss the two dozen orbs of plasma she'd conjured around herself.
"WHAT IS IT, TRAITOROUS BITCH!?"
Frenda-chan, despite being bound to a wheelchair for now, leveled a firm look at Mugino.
"I quit."
Mugino froze as her words and an eerie quiet filled battlefield, yet Frenda-chan's small voice was that of steel as the blonde continued to declare her intent. "You all left me for dead. You didn't even try to check on me. And then when you were attacked, you automatically assumed I betrayed you because I was MIA? And again that was only because you LEFT ME FOR DEAD! And based on that one erroneous assumption, what did you do, you asshole? You come here and try to kill me!?"
Looking over her shoulder, staring up at Rui-chan who offered her an encouraging smile, she nodded before turning back to look at Mugino. "I'd rather work for the Trinity. At least they know how to take care of their crew. Not like a deranged lunatic like you."
Mugino, the tryhard bitch she was, cracked her neck with a deranged sneer on her face, more skin peeling away to show how two-faced she truly was. "You-! You cheeky little bitch! You don't get to QUIT!"
With that roar, she combined the power of the twenty four orbs of plasma she'd conjured into a single massive laser that she fired at then The temper tantrum attack was deflected by Mikoto-senpai, going off in the distance to peter out safely.
"Mugino, leave." Rui-chan commanded with her tone akin to a tundra as rainbow lights flickered around her in an intimidating fashion. "We aren't going to let you harm one of our subordinates."
And with a scream of rage cut off mid-way, Mugino was forcibly teleported away with Move Point.
And just as Naru felt the end of their troubles were at hand for now, Rui-chan collapsed in a heap, her body surrounded by an aura that shined with a kaleidoscope of rainbow hues as she did.
Done and done! Thanks to Nameless as always!
And here we go, building up tension again! Sorry about the ending, but Ruiko really has to watch out for her rainbow powers. It's not like it's the power of friendship here. She ain't a pony!
Nameless: Using any of her Angel powers is a gamble at the moment. But so is getting emotional, since as you can tell, she inadvertently taps into them whenever she does. And with her precious Frenda-chan's life at stake in this instance, well, she couldn't help herself.
And of course, the LeBeaus escaped. Mikoto's personal demons are on the run again as she fumes and screams. It sucks but really I think they are some of our more depraved villains. It's going to be lots of fun to use them.
Nameless: Agreed. I love writing them. Though not always. It takes being in a certain mood. An evil mood. Mwahahaha! Fortunately, we happen to often be in such a mood. [Evil smirk]
So just to get it out of the way? Let it be said that Mugino is not weak. In fact, she's a Level 5. All of those crazies are geniuses in their own way. Just in this fight? Naru was just beta testing one of her newest powers, she did not see it as a real threat. Mugino on the other hand was going well beyond her limit, shattering her previous limits in fact as she went higher and higher to the point of destroying her own body in an attempt to win a fight that really didn't matter much at all except to her ego. So let's just say, if Naru was serious from the get-go? It would have been a much different fight with a lot more property damage and possibly a dead Level 5.
Nameless: Yup. Though let's just say that at this point in the story, it's not a given that the dead Level 5 would be Mugino. By the end of it? Sure. But now? Mugino has a slim chance she might win. As shown in the fight, she can push past her limits like crazy when motivated. Naru at the best of times struggles to do the same, just see her trouble mastering her Micro Phases. That said, she is generally much stronger than Mugino.
Her 1/10 chance evolved into a 3/10 chance! Good job, you raging lunatic.
Nameless: Yup. Somewhere in that ballpark. Though Mugino's ability to just become a raging lunatic and push past all her limits is what sets Naru apart from her most of all as was pointed out to her by her friends after their fight. At her worst, Naru is never as insane as Mugino can get. And learning that difference is important to Naru. She won't compare herself to Mugino again, something if you recall she tends to do off and on and not in a good way. So yeah, character development!
You know what to do! Smash that review button and tell us what you love! No flames and peace off my peeps!