Belle
Belle had been unconscious for her first arrival to Scott Outpost, but she didn't think it could possibly be more impressive by air. It was a sprawling campus of temporary structures that had long outlived the crisis they were erected to alleviate; a vaguely militant science station adhering to the thematics of ramshackle and make-do.
The guns and combat suits of the gate guards looked very new; however, and even as a layman at a distance, Belle got the general sense that these soldiers were in an entirely different league from the people who had attacked Random Play. Their combat armor was pristine and elegantly designed, more subtly menacing. Belle took an instinctive deep breath as three of the soldiers approached and surrounded the car while a minor officer in plain uniform approached the driver-side window.
The man bent down and Belle saw him blink and salute towards the front seat. "Good morning, ma'am. May I see your papers?"
Qinqyi passed over laminated documents as a matter of course, and there was a relaxed aura that was obvious: no one in the exchange conceived of a reality that Qingyi was not getting through the gate. There was a cursory glance, a nod, and a handing back of papers.
"Thank you. Please proceed."
"What are all these vehicles doing here?" said Qingyi, leaning towards the driver's side of the car and pointing vaguely outside the windshield.
Belle strained up in her seat to peer through the grate. In front of their car, beyond the opening gate, a modest parking lot was nearly filled with armored vehicles- again, like fancy and high quality versions of the one that had crashed in front of Random Play.
"Obol squad got here early this morning, ma'am," said the soldier as he looked in the indicated direction. "All those are theirs."
"Obol? Are they doing a joint op with Section Six?"
"Sorry, ma'am. I am uninformed. But they had the correct papers and codes for entrance."
"..All right, thank you."
The window rolled up and the car moved into Scott Outpost. Lycaon leaned forward in his seat slightly. "Qingyi, is there a problem?"
"No, Obol doesn't have anything to do with us. I just didn't know there was a joint operation today. I've been in PubSec mode for a while," said Qingyi, vaguely thoughtful. "But it's actually good news for us. The military force in Scott Outpost is over doubled today. If Daemon has any new ideas since two days ago, we'll have plenty of extra allies on hand to deal with it."
The car moved through the gate and found a spot between two of the APCs. Lycaon looked over at Belle before getting out.
"Remain in the car a moment, Lady Belle."
He got out of the car, the vehicle notably shaking as his weight left it. Three doors shut, leaving Belle alone in the car. She watched Lycaon walk to the rear of the vehicle and scan their surroundings with a slow rotation. His crimson eye then returned to Belle and he motioned for her to join him. Belle obeyed, feeling it to be entirely appropriate that she followed Lycaon's instructions in this unfamiliar and vaguely menacing environment.
Was she getting used to being under threat? Getting used to having a bodyguard? Or was her trust in Lycaon so implicit that she acted upon it without thinking? Perhaps it was a mix of all three.
The afternoon air was balmy. There was a warm wind, mildly howling through the distant Chasm- the canyon torn open in the earth by humanity's early efforts at restraining Hollow Zero. The hollow itself loomed over Scott Outpost in the near distance, the titanic dome of energy rippling like a black cloak in the wind.
Belle gazed at the hollow as she walked, her breath getting a little faster. There was the enemy. The invader. The destroyer. The thing that was the root cause of Belle's personal catastrophes. She felt… animosity towards Hollow Zero, or something like animosity. It was difficult to be angry at something that seemed so inanimate. It was like hating a mountain. Something about the concept was frustratingly unsatisfying.
Ahead of them, a squat structure that seemed half a pile of cargo containers and half an over-sized circus tent loomed. Belle vaguely remembered walking out of this structure the last time she was here. Deep inside, Dr. Ray and her staff muttered and fussed around a jury-rigged mess of computers and machines- one of which was destined to soon suck some data out of Belle's brain. Fun times.
Before they reached the entrance, a pair of soldiers in yellow-accented armor suits crossed in front of Lycaon, Belle, and Qingyi. Other than the garishly bright yellow coloring, their armor looked somehow better than even the Scott Outpost guards. Their guns certainly looked bigger, and as they walked from somewhere to Belle's left to somewhere off to Belle's right- they both looked at Belle at the same time and seemed to stare at her as they walked.
Belle felt goosebumps go up her arms. Lycaon, walking just ahead of Belle at the moment, stiffened and stepped in front of her- obviously some instinct of his own triggering to the sudden intense attention by the yellow soldiers.
"Don't mind them, Lycaon," said Qingyi dismissively. "You just stand out and Obol people can be a bit intense. We don't have any wolf thirens here."
As if confirming Qingyi's words, the soldiers had already looked away from them and continued on their way without ever breaking stride. Maybe they had been more interested in Lycaon- he did stand out and he possessed a somewhat naturally threatening appearance. But even as Belle was trying to convince herself of that, she couldn't quite shake the instinct that those soldiers had been looking at her.
But why would military men be so focused on her? Belle looked down at herself. Victoria Housekeeping had delivered her a bit of temporary wardrobe and her usual jacket was missing. As it was, her t-shirt was a bit too tight and her skirt maybe a tiny bit shorter than normal. It was all close to her usual size and style, but not quite. Perhaps she was cutting a more traditionally attractive figure than usual? That must be it.
They entered the building. The entrance was a long hallway of mismatched wall panels, fans and passive decontamination devices. Ahead of them, a female soldier was walking in their direction. She was not in a full body suit, but instead wore a sort of nylon tunic of yellow and grays, almost like a firefighter's coat. Her lithe form and white hair immediately reminded Belle of Anby, and she had a mental double-take to make sure this oncoming soldier wasn't actually Anby walking towards them. The woman even had the same bare shoulders and weapon that Anby favored: a sword hilt sticking vertically off her back next to a bulky looking backpack.
Belle stared, wondering if this woman's face was similar to Anby's, but a yellowish visor obscured the woman's eyes.
"Eleven!" said Qingyi with familiarity. "What are you and your boys doing here today? You all and Six going to establish an outpost in-hollow?"
"I'm not sure of the details, ma'am," said Eleven, her pace steady as the two groups approached each other in the hallway. They would meet roughly halfway down the hall's length.
"Have you seen Yanagi from Six this morning?" said Qingyi. "I need to talk with her."
"...She's here," said the soldier named Eleven, her voice sounding calm and even- a lot like Anby's actually. Belle squinted at the woman's face as they neared. Did Anby have siblings? Belle had never asked.
"And she hasn't told you what you-" Qingyi began to say.
Soldier Eleven's arm suddenly blurred into motion.
A painfully loud clang of metal caused Belle to flinch, and she felt her clothing tug her body backwards, her tight t-shirt suddenly even tighter on her neck as something jerked her backwards. She stumbled back, instinctively trying to keep herself on her feet.
The world was suddenly in slow motion, Belle stumbling back and away from Lycaon's left arm, it being the obvious source of the backwards tug. Meanwhile, Lycaon's right leg was fully extended in a pushing kick, striking away a rectangle of metal that was wreathed in flame.
Belle blinked and focused on that bit of metal, confused over what it was and why Lycaon was kicking it. The strange object orbited the body of Eleven as she spun, the flames on the object intensifying, and then she chopped at Lycaon's body with it. In answer, he raised his knee and used his shin to deflect the- the- the sword…!
It was a flaming sword!
That soldier Eleven had just tried to chop Belle's head with a flaming sword! Belle blinked in shock as liquid flame and sparks splashed off Lycaon's cybernetic leg. This Eleven woman was trying to kill her! Right in the front door of Scott Outpost!
Lycaon
Even after being on edge from the yellow soldiers out front, Lycaon was almost caught off guard by Eleven's attack- almost. Aggression, bloodlust, anticipation; these emotions can be masked and hidden, but when they existed, clues were always there for those who could sense them. So, even as Eleven spoke easily with Qingyi, Lycaon had suddenly sussed out the truth: the smell of accelerant on metal and a tiny change in Eleven's walking pace. Both alerted Lycaon an instant before Eleven went for the sword on her back, and within that instant, the sword was already halfway to Belle's skull.
No time for grace or finesse, Lycaon tugged Belle backwards by her t-shirt while simultaneously striking out at the attacking weapon with his foot. It was an absurd, instinctive maneuver that put him off balance and over-extended, but Belle's survival came first. The initial blow deflected, Lycaon had the chance to worry about his own well-being in the brief time that Eleven needed to spin her body around, using the impact of his kick to propel herself around in a new slice at his neck.
Lycaon was almost helpless, limbs extended in two directions, standing on the toes of a single foot- like a hood ornament.
Desperate, Lycaon fired the engine jets in his extended leg. The sudden burst of cold air staggered Eleven sideways, causing her roundhouse sword slice to falter. Meanwhile, Lycaon's body was pushed by those same jets sideways away from Eleven, and most alarming, out from the direct path between this new assassin and Belle.
"Eleven! What are you doing?!" shouted Qingyi. "Stand down!"
There was no time for Lycaon to check his own momentum or see what Eleven would do next. Lycaon presumed the opportunity to attack an undefended Belle would be immediately seized. That's what he would do, so he accepted the sideways momentum of his own leg, his hips spinning with the momentum, and he planted that foot to the ground and transferred the energy into his previously planted leg by shifting his weight and twisting his hips.
Lycaon launched his other leg into a crude, rising kick- the kind of kick a person who doesn't know how to play a sport uses to kick a ball with way too much force.. All on the assumption of where Eleven would be if she attacked Belle directly in this singular moment… if he was wrong and Eleven was actually attacking him, he was likely a dead man…
Lycaon's shin caught Eleven in the solar plexus; right in the middle of a desperate, sword-first dive towards Belle. He fired that leg's jets again, augmenting the skyward momentum just after his shin's first contact with Eleven's flying body.
Eleven blasted upwards like a human rubber ball, smashing into the ceiling with an alarmed grunt, then fell back towards the ground before Lycaon could fully settle both his own feet to the earth again.
She was wearing body armor. Good body armor. She'd practically bounced off Lycaon's shin, the kinetic force of his blow being effectively muted. She'd bounced off the ceiling, too. And she was now falling back towards him with her sword heading for the top of his skull.
Lycaon kicked upward in a skyward scissor kick as the falling woman chopped at his skull. His metallic legs were the only thing he had to defend himself against that sword, so he used the metal sole of his foot to block the downward cut, his hips straining with the intense angle- he was getting too old for this kind of maneuver!
The strength Eleven had behind the blade caused Lycaon's block to change her trajectory in mid-air, rebounding her off the pillar that was Lycaon's skyward leg. For a brief moment, Eleven was free-falling and utterly helpless. Lycaon saw the opening and immediately leapt into a spinning kick, rocket jet assisted, aimed at Eleven's goggled face. She put armored arms up to block the kick, her lithe body twirled violently to the ground where she hit hard.
As soon as Eleven was on the ground, gunfire erupted from back down the hallway towards the building's entrance. An ambush in the middle of a long hallway! Blast! They had them all dead to rights!
Without even looking at the source of gunfire, Lycaon dove on Belle in an instinctive reaction, crushing her already crouching body to the floor. But no bullets hit him. Ears flat to his skull, Lycaon looked to see how someone with a gun could possibly miss their targets trapped in this narrow shooting gallery of a hallway.
Qingy stood in the middle of the hallway between Lycaon, Belle, and the two yellow soldiers from outside the building- they had double-backed on them and were now emptying their rifle clips directly at Qingyi. But she had some sort of chain-staff weapon in her hands, twirling it like a rotor blade at inhuman speeds. Sparks flashed from an intangible wall that the rapidly whirling weapon created. Lycaon could see ricochet rounds impacting the hallway back in the direction of the yellow soldiers. She was blocking all the bullets!
"Get her out of here, Lycaon!" shouted Qingyi, her attention entirely focused on the gunmen. "Go!"
Sound advice, as this hallway was a shooting gallery at the moment. Lycaon tugged a wide-eyed Belle to her feet and pulled her down the hall away from the shooting. Eleven was still down and not an immediate threat, so Lycaon ignored the fallen attacker- but as he passed, he felt a tug from Belle's arm. He glanced back in alarm, only to witness Belle kick Eleven in the side of the head. The blow didn't seem to have much force, but Eleven's head rocked back and she flopped over from the impact, interrupted in her efforts to get back to her feet.
Lycaon couldn't fault the emotion, but he disliked the brief delay. He tugged Belle forward and swept her into his arms, employing his jet boots to once again whisk her away down a long hall and away from danger. He didn't for a moment believe that Qingyi's kung-fu movie miracle was flawless or ever-lasting; every half-second counted if he was to get Belle out of here alive.