Chapter 4 – Ticket to Ride.
As far as chasing trains went, Jet would say he had a lot more practice over most people. If it hadn't been Ell geeking out over a Sprinter on the Cardiff to Portsmouth services, rather than the usual Turbo, it had been all kinds of weird, wacky and wonderful diversions that the siblings had covered, but this took the biscuit…
Never mind the biscuit, it took the whole barrel, come to think of it.
The Concord had gathered, after his and Alice's research last night, digging up whatever they could on the Madhouse's new venture into the rail freight market, and settled on a plan:
One group would assault the facility that had filled up the train over in the Old North, hopefully securing any paperwork relating to the train, whilst another group had the task of boarding the train at a stop on the Atlantropa Viaduct, almost 2000 feet above the Mediterranean Dam.
It had been Rain who pointed out that, even with the numbers gathered, six of them in total: himself, Koharu, Rain, Philia, Sanya and Alice, they wouldn't stand much of a chance if only three of them attacked either point. All of them may have been very good at this game, but they were still relatively inexperienced, and the Madhouse numbered around seventy people… on a bad day.
On a good day, Philia had reckoned there were at least a hundred of them, and so he sent off a few messages – perhaps he couldn't gather an army, but he knew more than a few people who'd be willing to help, if only for selfish reasons (though it was debatable how selfless his reasons were too…).
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In the end, he'd miscalculated badly.
Itsuki and Alphard were caught up in their own misadventures, as were Kirito and co, Kureha was at work for the rest of the week, Zeliska hadn't answered, and Sierra had told him he was in hospital after a fight last night (a fight he claimed to have won), whilst Seven could only spare a brief amount of time to help with planning, rather than the op itself. After a bit of bartering though, Argo had come through and she'd agreed to ask Masai and Sinon if they were onboard (a pun they'd all rolled their eyes at) for a train robbery.
"Okay, so… eight of us, versus an army." Jet summarised. "Not quite the odds I'd like, but c'est la vie."
"We are just going to have to move quickly then, are we not?"
"So, here's the target for you girls – the Delta Point Rail Distribution Centre… in " Jet had drawn a crude map of the area, and if he was honest, neither job was the easy one here – the Centre was full of cover, obstacles and corners that would really mess you up if you weren't paying the utmost attention. "Looks like there's guards posted across the place, but I don't think they're expecting trouble. Certainly, they weren't yesterday, anyway. The office is in a building right next to the main marshalling yard, but it didn't look too heavily defended."
"Get in, see what we can find, and get out, right?"
"Yes! And I have a few tricks for you too!" Seven beamed, pulling out what appeared to be a shipping container worth of things from her inventory, much to the surprise of all gathered there.
"Can we do that too?" Masai asked, impressed by the "inventory of great capacity", as Seven had christened it, or "TARDIS cheat code" as he had christened it. The joys of knowing a developer, he supposed… they didn't crack down on you for small cheats like that, so long as you didn't use them in public…
Philia mumbled as she rummaged through the bazaar of military equipment that Seven had bought with her. "Night vision goggles, no, thermal goggles, ehh, maybe. Oohh, Unmanned Ground Vehicle! Taking!" She beamed, picking up a small, tracked vehicle from the container…
Whilst Philia looked like a child on Christmas morning, he noticed Rain looking slightly more objectively at the selection of equipment, before picking up an umbrella. "Umm, sis? What's there an umbrella here for?" Rain asked, confusedly throwing the umbrella around and pointing it at Jet, much to his confusion.
"Rain, I would advise against pointing that at anyone, unless you want to take them out." Suddenly, he was ducking away from the end of the umbrella…
"What is it?" Rain asked, now noticing the bolt on one side of the umbrella… before pulling the cocking handle back.
"Jet's new weapon. Remember, you mentioned wanting a combined arms weapon?"
"Oh yeah… why is it an umbrella though?" He wondered, taking it off Rain and giving it a twirl. It was a very nicely balanced weapon, but he'd noticed a rather glaring issue… aiming was difficult as the front sight was only barely taller than the fabric covering of the brolly.
"I watched how you fought in Aincrad, and figured a weapon that could drag enemies towards you as well as disable them was more in line with your style. Plus, I saw an old saying: "only a bloody fool of an Englishman would carry an umbrella into battle", and well, Rain did tell me you did."
He wanted to disagree with any of that, but annoyingly, she was spot on. "So… what kind of weapon is it?" In an act that would almost certainly have earned him a telling off from everyone had not been in VR, he poked his head towards the barrel of the brolly. "Barrel looks a bit small to be firing anything, doesn't it?"
Seven panicked, and quickly pushed the barrel away from his head... "Ahh! It's an energy weapon! A cutting tool, mostly, so I really must advise you not to do that, unless… well…"
"Noted."
"It has three modes: blade, shotgun, and shield. Simply twist the handle, and it will switch between them. Just, remember it does need the power packs changing, unlike a conventional photon blade." Seven explained. "Oh, and you'll need these too." Seven handed them a pair of gloves.
"I know the Dam caused a major shift in the climate… but it is still in the Mediterranean? It's not exactly cold out there…" Masai thought aloud, sharing his thoughts on the matter.
"Nope, these gloves are grappling gloves. Keep you from falling off the train!" Seven beamed. "Not that you'll need them, mind, but better to be prepared and not need them, than be unprepared and really need them."
"Handy." Masai nodded.
"And this is the train you'll be getting aboard…" Seven bought up a holographic projection of a train – one that looked absolutely nothing like the one Zeliska had described. In her description, the railways in this game were slow, inefficient, and using ancient old locomotives; a far cry from the train in the hologram, which looked to be an admittedly older Class 373 high-speed electric multiple unit. Whilst Jet was nowhere as much of an anorak as his sister was, the Class 373 was almost unique amongst British units – it was fast, it was sleek… and a consist was formed of two units for safety reasons.
It was absolute behemoth of a train – each consist formed of up to twenty cars for a combined length of nearly 400 metres; eighteen of which accommodated passengers in comfort as the train dashed under the English Channel, and across the European countryside at 186 miles per hour.
"That doesn't look like a slow old locomotive…" Philia pointed out.
"It's not even a loco. It's a Class 373 EMU, fastest things on the British network at one point with a top speed of nearly 300 kilometres an hour." He explained, almost reciting a Top Trumps card on the class…
"Pretty sure it's a train, not an emu." Masai joked. "But yeah, we're jumping onto a Shinkansen then…"
"Don't be silly! You'd die very quickly if you did that." He fought back the urge to explain that, yes, they'd be killed at 186mph, enough of a speed to turn them into a fine red mist, rather than anything recognisable… "You'll be sneaking aboard instead… so you'll need these too, all four of you." Seven smiled, and he felt a shiver go through his spine.
This was going to be the house party again, wasn't it?
"Uhh, what's with the suit?"
"If one wishes to impersonate high society, one should dress like high society." Seven explained, with her sister's acting chops, and a bit of Kingsman thrown into the mix too. A mix that he knew exactly where she had gotten it from...
"Seven, have you been guessing my passwords again?" He asked, mostly joking.
"You say that like they were hard to guess…" She rolled her eyes as she smiled innocently at him. "You really should improve your password security, by the way."
He rolled his eyes, before catching what she said. His password security was fine, more than eight characters, a special character and capitals all in the same code. After all, it wasn't his fault that she had a mind that functioned more like a supercomputer…
"Anyway… we're sneaking aboard as guests, right?"
"Yep, nice and easy!" He looked towards Koharu, and the pair exchanged a look that both knew too well – the "it's never that simple" look.
Still, it was only a party on a train, how badly could it go after all, thought a traitorous part of his mind for the briefest of moments, before the last shreds of common sense pounced on it…
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For the second time in a week, they'd found themselves dressed up and sneaking into an exclusive party that they weren't invited to, and probably weren't welcome at either. Not that that was going to stop them, mind you – something was being moved under the guise of this party, and he intended to find out what it was…
The free drinks and snacks were just an added bonus, he thought to himself, as the group walked past the almost oblivious guards, flashing what they had probably assumed was an ID card to say who they were.
What the "ID cards" were, though, was a library card, a disposed of bus pass, and two normal ID cards, scanned in and adjusted with fictional details of the supposed owners.
"I can't believe that worked." Sinon seemed almost incredulous at just how lax they were, and he felt a pang of relief at the lack of trouble from the door.
"You'd be amazed how many people don't bother checking things because you walked in like you owned the place. No one wants to start an argument above their paygrade, after all…" He explained. Rule one of infiltration – know who you're supposed to be and act the part – he had been taught by his dad. No one batted an eyelid at the rich person who waltzed in as if they owned the place, because for all you knew, they did own the place.
Their thoughts on infiltration were interrupted by one of the waitresses offering them drinks. For some reason, he thought he recognised her, but struggled to place her –a shorter stature of around five feet, with bright red hair like Rain, but tied into a long ponytail and red eyes, it was almost as if he had known her from somewhere… but where?
"Is… is something the matter, sir?" She asked, snapping him back to reality.
"Oh, no. Just staring off into space. Sorry." He answered, picking up a champagne flute as he thanked her. Even if you were acting like high society, that didn't mean you had to be a dick to the serving staff. It was them that meant you didn't have to get your own drinks, after all… and if you were that much of a dick to hurl adjectives and invectives at them, you were probably too much of a dick to consider walking over to a table to pick up a drink yourself.
"Something the matter?" Koharu asked after the waitress had left earshot.
"I recognised her from somewhere." He answered, his expression faltering. "Only problem is I don't know where."
"It's not that surprising, right? We know a lot of people from places."
"Not like that Koharu, it's like…" He paused. "Remember when I disappeared for a month?"
"Yeah…" She said sadly. "You think she had something to do with it?"
"Nah, but I wonder if I met her then, and that's why I don't remember. Like an imprint in my memories, even when they've gone. Just the tiniest of hints…"
"Maybe, but why would she leave an imprint, but not anyone else?" She had a point; he was gone for a month, and he'd reckoned he'd wound up in that world they found Eydis in… which meant he was gone for a lot more than a month. Surely, in that time, someone would've stuck in his mind… wouldn't they?
"Dunno, memories are a fickle thing?" He shrugged his shoulders. "Eh, existentialism later. Mission first, right?"
"We will find out what happened, Jet. I promised you that much…" Koharu held his hand to comfort him.
"I know. Just weird knowing a fragment of life is almost lost to the aether…" He thought aloud, before putting his mind back on the mission. "You two doing alright?" He spoke into the earpiece in his ear.
"Yeah, we're just looking through the next carriage up. Nothing out of the ordinary."
"Ordinary if you're rich and famous, anyway." Sinon added, the disdain evident in her voice.
"Gotcha, keep in touch." Koharu finished, as they scanned the carriage they were in. Far from the interior he had expected to see on a Class 373, the interior reminded him of some kind of pastiche of the Orient Express; the old faux-Edwardian aesthetic of the carriage making him feel a little bit like he was Hercule Poirot for a moment.
Hopefully that wouldn't involve the "investigating a murder" bit of those stories though, he thought to himself.
"Rain, how are things on your end?" He asked.
"Boring." She answered idly. "We reached the office with no effort whatsoever, just a pair of guards that were quickly dealt with."
"If I didn't know any better, I'd say they wanted us here?" Philia added. "Or they wanted us to find something, anyway."
"Found anything?"
"Not that we didn't-oh no." He'd known Rain long enough to tell her emotions from her voice, and that one filled him with dread – that was terror. Pure and unbridled terror. Whatever was there, it wasn't a good sign that Rain was terrified of it…
"Rain, you still there?" Koharu asked, the look on her face being one of worry too.
"Albion's here." She answered quietly, before gunfire erupted over the comms, and the line fell silent...
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Jet really wished he'd picked a different day to do this, especially now he knew that Albion was involved. Anything involving that man was trouble, and never the kind of trouble that was worth it. He still had a score to settle with him, but if settling that score meant that the girls were in trouble, then his pride was nowhere near the priority.
It was his pride that had gotten people killed back in Aincrad after all; Eydis, Ronie, Layla…
"Guess you've got history with this Albion guy?" Masai asked, snapping him from his self loathing.
"You could say that, yeah." Koharu answered, recognising his agitation at the question.
"He was the leader of one of Laughing Coffin's factions back in the Aincrad days. Pretty sure he was gunning for the leader of the whole thing, to be honest. Still surprised PoH never had him bumped off in a convenient shaving accident where he violently disembowelled himself, really."
"Huh, I always assumed they were… if not friends, then allies. Most of them anyway." Masai hummed. "Not something I really considered though."
"Can't say I blame you. We would rather have not considered it too, but unfortunately, that wasn't an option." He admitted, as a picked a glass up from a tray as a different waitress came round. He wasn't paying much attention, but had he been, he might have noticed that the waitress also looked familiar – brown hair, blue eyes and hair tied into small pigtails on the side of her head.
"The politics always gave me a headache, you know." Koharu stated, a familiar tone that he recognised as "I'm getting a headache just thinking about it.".
"So they had different factions, were they all as bad as each other, or…"
"Nah. Most of them were bad, but there were two standouts – the Justice Division, and the Subversion." Jet began to explain. "Justice Division were the one that always confused me; they were clearly Laughing Coffin – hell, they were PoH's enforcers – but they… were always professional, if that's the right word for it."
"Professional killers in a death game… I can't imagine that was ever good news." Sinon commented.
"We always thought they were fictional, a white lie told by PoH to scare people into compliance. Never found a single trace of their existence until we had to go looking for a defector from Laughing Coffin. Turned out we were basically racing them to reach him…"
"Didn't go well then?"
"We got there just too late, just as he turned into pixels, and I remember what their leader told us – that we were not their targets that day, so they would let us go."
"What, just like that? No trying to stab you in the back, just… honouring their word?" Masai asked, surprised. He didn't blame the younger lad for that surprise, it had been just as surprising for him too…
"Yup. They let us go, and it wasn't for another six months till came across them again. That time, we had the numbers advantage, and we won… just."
"What about the other one, Subversion?"
"They were worse by far – they were insidious. Justice Division killed people, sure, but they were… well, not predictable, but you knew what was coming if they were involved. They were professional about it if nothing else. Subversion, well, they enjoyed the chaos they bought about. Used it to sneak around and sow mistrust. Their little schemes pretty much threatened everyone, even if it was indirectly…" He thought back to the Forty-Seventh Floor, and their machinations there; the ones that had finally led to the collapse of Laughing Coffin as an actual organised threat. "Albion though, he's a nasty bastard. Rarely killed anyone himself, nah, that wasn't his style if he could help it. No, he had a silver tongue, he manipulated people into taking their own lives…"
Jet found himself thinking back to that scene in Ham's Stead, and the horror movie set they'd walked into, one clearly inspired by Jack the Ripper's reign of terror in Victorian Whitechapel. He shuddered just thinking about it again…
"And he walked free?!"
"Lack of evidence. Any crime committed in SAO was put on Kayaba's rap sheet; for better or worse." Jet sighed, his deflation at that clear from the way he said it. He looked away and back to the rest of the carriage; most of the passengers were dancing, but he noticed a woman in some kind of gothic dress-thing being escorted away by a large group of guys – at least ten of them – all in tops and tails into the next carriage up, one that he knew contained the secondary cargo hold for the "Trans-Europa Express".
"Ko, I'm going to check the cargo hold in the next carriage up, dunno why but I've got a feeling something's about to go off up there."
"You sure you'll be able to handle them on your own?" Koharu asked, evidently picking up on the scene he was watching too. "There's a lot of them, and only one of you."
"I'll be fine, I know the type – posh bastards, probably enrolled at Oxford, assume they can get whatever they want simply by shouting or buying it." He explained. "Besides, we could do with eyes on the dancefloor whilst I'm off beating up the establishment." He smirked as he headed off in the direction of the posh wankers.
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Eydis had had many a close shave in GGO, but this was probably up there – twelve against one, and they'd all surrounded her in a cargo hold, blunt weapons at the ready.
Such was the life of a cat burglar, she supposed.
"Now, sweetheart, remember what you told us back then…" One of them said, wielding a belt that she had no wishes to know where it had been…
"Nah." She replied, sizing them up. If she could keep them in such a frenzy that they would be struggling to identify friend from foe, then she could use the chaos to escape her current predicament and give them the slip further down the train. It was an eighteen-car train after all; even with twelve of them, that would be a lot of area to scour, and she could pick them off more effectively in ones and twos.
"Remember, you asked for this-"
"Oh, I don't think the lady did." A dissenting voice came from them, only this one lacked the pompous spoiled rich kid voice they all had… instead he had an accent that was definitely English, but more to the-
No way was he here!
"Leave now pal, and you walk away with your life." One of them threatened. "After all, we could find you and make your life hell…"
He made a thoughtful gesture, clearly mocking them. "You see, that's the thing I don't get about you Oxford types, with your Bullingdon clubs, and all that money and power… and yet, you just get a consulting job at daddy's firm, or end up running the Conservative party. Why not use that power? Help broker peace in a war-torn nation, build things that save lives…"
"Does this little lecture have a point to it?" Another one asked, and he nodded.
"Yup, I needed a few seconds to finish sizing you up. Wanted to know what I was up against."
"Who the hell do you think you are?" One of them asked, a tone riddled with scandal…
"I'm Jet. I'm 20 years old from Bristol, and I'm the Knight of the Wind. Any more questions?" He grinned, readying an umbrella of all things. "No? Good. Shall we start this soiree then?"
One of the leaders attacked first, only to be thrown to the ground with a swift kick to his ankles, before another was thrown back, having the main body of the umbrella slammed against his windpipe.
A third rushed in with a pipe that he clearly intended to use as a club, only to be redirected with the handle of the umbrella so as he fell onto his backside amidst the luggage, whilst a fourth was swiftly dispatched by a kneecap to the groin. She'd heard stories of the Knight of the Wind back in Aincrad, a man feared by his enemies, and more than a capable fighter. In fact, the stories said he was some kind of soldier that had stumbled into the game, though she didn't believe those – he looked too young for that to be true anyway, and if what he'd said just was right, he was only 20 anyway…
Whilst the chaos unfolded, she took her chance to help out in getting rid of her captors, taking out three of them with her sword before they had even had a chance to realise they were under attack on both sides.
With both of them fighting, it had taken less than a minute to dispatch all twelve of them, and she snapped back to reality – this was the man who had saved her life back then, and here he was in the flesh.
Pixels, even.
Same difference, but she tried not to fangirl over him, and decided she would use the femme fatale act, see what she could gain from him here. He'd already given her a chance to break free, but if he caught onto what she was doing, then she had no doubts that wouldn't be the case.
If she could incapacitate him too, even briefly, it'd give her a chance to make a clean break… and better yet, make a boatload of cash, whilst stopping the idiots from getting their hands on something that would disrupt the balance of power in the game. Win-win-win, she reckoned.
"So, lover, how nice to have a handsome, charming man rescue myself from these perverts…" She sauntered over to him, making sure her dress offered him a view of her cleavage, whilst her hat would hopefully obscure her face a little bit.
She hoped so anyway, otherwise the next time they got coffee would be very awkward.
"I think you deserve a little reward, don't you?"
"Err… I have a girlfriend, that I love very much, thanks!" He stuttered, as she reached down, and picked his pockets.
Bingo! A plasma grenade. If nothing else, it'd be useful for making her escape when things went wrong…
"Follow me, I've got to show you what they were after…" She teased and made sure he was out of view for the others, before pulling out her gun. "Sorry lover, it's nothing personal you know. Just business."
"So's the concussion grenade you just nicked from my pocket. The one that I primed." He smiled innocently. "Sorry lover, it's nothing personal, you know… just business." He repeated, readying his umbrella, as she looked at the grenade.
2…1…
Oh, that son of a-BANG, CLATTER, FLASH, BANG.
The entire room around her exploded in a variety of colours and tones, as her eardrums felt as if someone was playing heavy metal on them, before feeling something at her throat – the point of a sword… her sword in fact, the one she kept in its sheathe at her side.
And the point of an umbrella. Both now being wielded by the man who'd saved her life back then. "So, who are you?" He asked, clearly a bit annoyed about being played for a fool.
"Who I am isn't important, just why I'm here. There's something big and very dangerous on this train, and we can't let them get their hands on it." She told him, trying to evade any kind of detail on why she was here in the first place…
"Who's them? The Madhouse?"
"Worse, the people who hired them." She told him.
"Wait, you know who hired them?" He asked, lowering the sword, but leaving the umbrella at her throat. Luckily for her, his earpiece burst into life, and she began to eavesdrop on the conversation, readying an escape plan in her mind…
"Jet, it's Masai. Don't suppose you know how to disarm a bomb, do you?"
"Surprisingly, it's never come up. Don't tell me they've smuggled a bomb on board…"
"Okay... the weather's nice, isn't it?"
"What's that got to do with anything!" A girl's voice could be heard chastising him. That voice sounded familiar, but she couldn't place it…
"He said don't tell him."
"I might have found our bomber then." He told the others darkly, as if he believed she had bought a bomb on board a train she was on! No one with a sense of self-preservation did that! She might have been there to steal the bomb, but she hadn't bought it onboard!
"I'm innocent of that!" She defended herself. She was a thief, a very good liar and double crosser, but a terrorist? That she wasn't! "That's the big and dangerous thing I told you about!"
"Sure, and you've been so honest up to now, haven't you?" He replied, his voice thick with sarcasm.
She hated that he had a point there. It was hard to believe someone when all they had done so far was deceive you, she knew that from experience. "I'm telling you the truth. They're smuggling that bomb to try and blow up a rival squadron. The Madhouse are just the hired help; I'm not even sure they know what they're transporting."
"And what about the posh knobs?"
She rubbed her neck sheepishly. That was… well, that was more difficult to explain, and probably going to take too long to explain. "Ehh… previous encounter of mine. I guess they recognised me, and well…"
He sighed in annoyance. "Masai, Sinon, get the hell out of there. Koharu, meet us in the buffet car." He paused. "Hey, Ko? You okay?"
Wait… she was here too? The Queen of Hearts in the flesh, pixels, whatever? Today might have been a mixed bag all in all, but she could safely say it was starting to look a little brighter…
"I can't reach her either."
"Same here."
"I'm fine, just had to, uhh, deal with someone." Another voice joined, and this time, she did recognise the voice. The Queen of Hearts herself… this really was turning into a pretty good day!
Minus the bomb of course. That was putting a bit of a sour note on an otherwise fun day.
"Jet, there's a note here specifically addressed to you." The boy, Masai she assumed, told them, and just from the way Jet shifted around, she could tell how nervous he had become. "It says "Best of Three, Knight. Let our game commence."."
"Run! Just get out of there!" He shouted down the earpiece, as the train jolted slightly. A jolt that was followed by a loud explosion further up the train. "Brace yourself, this is going to hurt a lot!" He shouted to her, as he grabbed hold of a nearby rail.
She quickly did the same, finding a part of the luggage rail to hold onto as a scratching sound started. A sound that became louder, and louder, and louder… until finally, she felt the carriage start to topple over beneath them, like a tower that had had the foundations collapse on one side.
"Oh shi-" For the briefest second, both of them found themselves hanging on for dear life as they went from standing up, to trying not to fall from the now ceiling that had once been a side wall. Luckily for them both, that didn't last too long.
Unluckily for them, that was because the screeching had become a howling whistling when the train flipped, and it was now on a collision course with the walls of the dam.
Eydis closed her eyes, imagining that the next time she opened them, she would be awake in her bedroom, rather than onboard the train. With her eyes closed, the last thing she heard was the thudding of a suitcase into her body as she fell backwards through the carriage…
{Author's Comments}
I really don't know why, but this chapter just... refused to come together. This is about the tenth iteration of the plot, and each one has been subtly different in enough of a way that I've had to rewrite it each and every time...
It didn't help that I had written about 2000 words of it... and simply lost them. Don't even know how, I saved it somewhere, but I'll be damned if I know where I saved it.
Also, a bit of a shout out to PanzerHippo for the Justice Division - they aren't something I just made up for this, but rather his creation, so check out his story about them: Laughing Coffin's Justice Division, it's a good read!
As usual, if you liked this, check out my other stories - An Englishman in Castle Aincrad, ACES (a crossover with Ace Combat) and Through The Looking Glass (a crossover with Dr Who), and if you want to ask a question or just give feedback about this or my other stories, I'm usually fairly active on the SAO Fanfiction Discord: https: double slash discord dot gg / SrsdNgJPVR
Signing out, Midland 2541