Chapter 11: The Nameless and the Furious
Today was just not my day.
When I woke up this morning, I was looking forward to starting my work on the Abydos crisis. Fresh off the heels of a somewhat glorious victory over the Helmet Gang, I was in an extremely good mood and ready to face whatever challenge presented itself. Kicking Kaiser off the totem pole would have been child's play compared to my much more complex relationship with the IPC, only to find a new challenger had stepped into the corporate boxing ring and resolved the debt crisis at the cost of Nonomi's freedom and happiness. Next, I let Silver Wolf bait me while I was down into further agitating Rio, and finally I decided to walk into the beast's lair anyway despite fully expecting an obvious trap. The result was I had quite an uncountable number of guns currently trained on my head, with a furious Rio who apparently believed I was responsible for her troubles on the commanding end of them. All of this and noon was still a few hours away.
I stared down the barrel of Rio's handgun and was surprisingly calm and composed for someone who had essentially been taken hostage; partly due to having faced worse before, but mostly having had just about enough of the crap that had been thrown my way today. March discreetly applied shields to both herself and myself as Rio stared us down, her gaze aimed at our eyes as if they were daggers sharpened to a fine point.
"Nice tech," I sarcastically complemented. "I'm here for an explanation about why C&C tried to blow my head off."
Rio scoffed. "Are you mad, Sensei? Do you think you have the right to question me? You threw it all away by threatening a student under my care. I should be the one questioning you."
"Not mad, just impatient," I replied, not even bothering to address the accusation of threatening Yuuka, especially considering she still took the time to escort me despite a clear and present need to bury herself in her work. If she felt threatened at all, she was extremely good at not showing it, from someone who usually fails at hiding her emotions. "And while you're at it, you should at least tell me the crime I'm being accused of before sentencing me to death."
Rio didn't respond, and instead narrowed her eyes at me, clearly not in the mood to engage in banter. March, on the other hand, was in the mood for some more verbal mudslinging. "Have you seen your school, you cow? How about you call off your drones and send them to fix it instead of harassing us? We don't have time for this."
A vein throbbed on Rio's forehead, and she raised her arm towards March, the gun's muzzle pointing squarely at her. "Harassing you? FIXING THE SCHOOL?! That android was DESTROYING Millennium in YOUR name! It sang your anthem in impenitent lock and step! What do you have to say about that?!"
Her finger began to squeeze the trigger, and I instinctively stood in front of March to protect her from the blast. Before she could fire though, Rio slammed the handgun down on the table, her rage subsiding as she took several deep breaths to calm herself down. She interacted with a holographic interface on her desk, and the steel bars lowered from the double doors as they flung back open again. The drones lowered their turrets as most of them flew outside, presumably to assist in repairing the school, while some retreated back into the compartments they came out of in the ceiling and walls. She sighed and began speaking. "My apologies, Sensei. I see I have misjudged you. I was under the impression you were less...selfless than you have demonstrated."
Wait, really? Did Rio change her mind just because I was willing to take a bullet for March? Just what kind of person did she think I was, anyway? Though when thinking about it, media and calendar aside, Rio probably knew about the painting and plushie of myself currently residing in SCHALE's office. I suppressed a groan as I realized my own antics and March's moneymaking schemes had the unintended side effect of driving Rio up the wall. Regardless, it meant that Rio was more willing to talk than I thought, and March and I might be able to walk away from this peacefully, maybe even get Rio and by extension Millennium on our side. Having sat back down, Rio leaned forward onto her desk and continued the conversation. "What do you know about the Nameless?"
"What?" March was surprised, and I had to admit I was too. As far as I knew, Kivotos has had no contact with the galaxy at large outside of isolated incidents. Even with Silver Wolf meddling in Kivotos' affairs, I doubt she'd just casually drop space lore into the minds of the residents. "How did you know about us?"
Rio's complexion instantly shifted back to that of a berserk beast that smelled blood again, as she quickly interacted with another holographic terminal; the double doors leading into the room slammed back shut, the steel bars rising back up and barring the way out once more. The wall in front of me suddenly turned dark, and it was now that I finally realized the wall in front of me was in fact a massive projector screen.
"I never should have given you a chance!" An enraged Rio grabbed her handgun and fired eight rounds directly at March with surprising precision, with me getting in the way of and parrying the first few with my bat that I quickly materialized while March leapt out of the way of the second half of the volley.
"This is ridiculous!" March complained. "All our negotiations end in combat!" Thanks to March's inability to keep her mouth shut, we weren't walking away from this room without a fight after all.
My instincts quickly sensed three additional hostile presences, and I wheeled around to see secret panels on both the left and right sides from the entrance slide open and out came who else but the maid squad who had previously left my head nearly missing a considerable chunk in its composition. Having read up on their files since then, I now knew each of the four members by name and appearance: the short lead with similarly short orange hair tied in a braid was Mikamo Neru, the tall girl with dark complexion with long black hair and eyes with a tint of yellow a bit darker than mine was Kakudate Karin, and the one with black glasses and long beige hair tied in a blue ribbon was Murokasa Akane. Only Ichinose Asuna, who had similarly long beige hair to Akane's she let down to her legs, azure eyes, and what seemed to be an eternal smile in her file's photo, appeared to be missing. If I remember correctly, she was the one of the team who pre-ordered the calendar.
"It's time for revenge, you bitch!" Neru quickly leaped out at me with a bloodthirsty scream, firing her twin SMGs with wild abandon but surprising accuracy as she did so. A hail of bullets found their mark on me, staggering me back a little as they did so. Only March's shields and the mild amount of protection offered by the carrier vest stopped my guard from being broken, and as Neru was about to make contact with me, I quickly crouched under her dive while dematerializing my bat; unleashing a vicious right cross counter as I did so to her gut, knocking the wind out of Neru and sending her flying backwards into the wall.
"Gah! You..." Neru was too winded to curse me out, and the remaining ammo in Neru's guns were sprayed wildly at the ceiling before they ran dry. She slammed into the wall and began to slump over, temporarily stunned by my defensive blow. As this was happening, Karin took aim at my exposed back, but March had taken position to cover my flank, and we ended up back-to-back with one another.
"Ice to see you!" March quipped, and as Karin fired, March let out an ice arrow that met the tank-killer round head on. The bullet shattered the ice but altered its trajectory just enough that it whizzed past the both of us and left a considerable hole on the other side of the wall instead, missing her boss by mere inches. Karin wouldn't get a chance to fire again, as March's rapid spamming of more ice arrows left Karin on the backfoot, unable to shoot as she was continually staggered by the arctic assault.
Rio had taken advantage of the opportunity to activate the remaining drones in the room once more, then fled into one of the secret panels, dragging the android inside along the way. I could hear some faded voices coming from the hidden room before its entrance shut, for better or worse, taking Rio out of the brawl she had initiated. This left her desk wide open for us to use as cover, which was fortunate as Akane had prepared a smorgasbord of explosives for express use to send the Express Crew to potential early graves.
"Apologies, Sensei," Akane spoke gracefully. "My Master wishes to remove you from school grounds." The early warning gave March enough time to leap behind the desk, while I remained standing in the middle of the room, my body tense as I processed the tidal wave of grenades and dynamite sticks coming in my direction. In what seemed to be slow motion for me, I picked out their individual arcs of travel as the turrets began to open fire on me, and Akane aimed a rod-like pistol at my head. I let loose a swing from my rematerialized bat, batting away all the explosives and sending them flying in different directions, with most of them directed back towards Akane and some of them going elsewhere.
"Oh my." Akane let her composure slip a bit as she dove away from the redirected incoming rain of shrapnel, still getting a shot off and hitting me in the left thigh, the bullet piercing right through March's shields and staggering me. As I ran towards and jumped behind the desk, the explosives disabled a large majority of the drones coming from Akane and Neru's side of the room, but they and the drones from Karin's side still found their mark through a torrent of gunfire. I was left battered from the assault, but Akane had also taken some damage from my redirected grenade volley; more importantly she had let loose of her grip on her pistol, and the blasts had knocked her gun towards us in the process. This left both parties temporarily out of action points, so to speak.
"You're...going...down!" Neru wheezed, and attempted to pounce me, only for her to fall to one knee, still reeling from my blow. I grabbed Akane's dropped pistol and squeezed the trigger, only to find it wouldn't fire; I realized far too late it was bolt action cycled. As I cursed whatever engineer at Millennium created a pistol that was this sleek and high-tech yet still used a bolt action, Neru had recovered and took the opportunity to leap at me properly akin to an annoying melee enemy in a co-op shooter, and I ineffectually threw Akane's pistol at her which did nothing but bounce off her head harmlessly. I tried to block her punch, but Neru was too fast and managed to land a solid jumping blow right on my left eye, making me see stars and sending both myself and Neru tumbling from the cover that was Rio's desk.
"Stelle?!" March was taken aback by Neru's assault, as she was focusing on and had just finished up applying another layer of her invisible shielding on me. She quickly lobbed her own series of explosives, this time of the iceborne variety, at Akane to show her how saturating the arena in annoying AOE attacks was really done. Akane was frozen to the floor, taking her out of the fight, but the remaining drones that weren't disabled by the one-two punch of Akane and March's explosives fired at the desk to pin her down. They slowly riddled it with holes, though its remarkably sturdy construction of steel and wood meant not a single projectile went through the other end. As this was happening, Karin managed to shoot through the icy barricade that blocked her view, and unable to get a solid shot on me without hitting her team lead, opted to dump her rounds into Akane's glacial veil instead to try to free her from her prison.
Having been deprived of my bat, I rolled back and reached for the SCHALE-issued handgun strapped to my leg holster, which was promptly kicked away by Neru as she dove on top of me, pinning me to the ground. I punched her straight in the face, stunning her and giving me a chance to kick her out of the pin. Noticing the turrets were firing on me even with Neru in the way, hitting both of us in the process, I positioned myself with my back towards the wall and adopted a boxing stance; hunching forward and crouching to make myself a smaller target and force the turrets to fire lower to the floor.
"Damn it!" Neru sputtered. "Why did those nerds program the turrets to fire even when friendlies are in the way?" Both of us were currently being hit by the barrage, with me taking the brunt of it but coming out less scathed compared to Neru thanks to March's shields. I threw some jabs and hooks, but not being used to the stance, they came out slowly and clumsily; Neru expertly dodged all of them, but the turret fire made her flinch and kept her from launching a proper counterattack. Since Neru was around Silver Wolf's height, this meant I had a solid 30-centimeter height advantage on Neru, which was currently a disadvantage as it just meant it was easier to shoot me instead of her. Even Yanqing had a whole 10 centimeters over Neru, and he looked about nine years old...which gave me an idea.
I took a grenade from my carrier vest and lobbed it directly at the wall next to Karin, the explosion disabling many of the drones on that side, leaving the suppressing fire that was keeping March from supporting me a distant memory. Just in time too, as the turret fire breached through the second layering of shields the erstwhile Superstar Cute Bomber had given me. With a clear line of sight, March let loose a barrage of ice arrows that froze and shattered the remaining drones, giving me a brief moment of respite. Karin had reprioritized from getting Akane completely free into getting into a shootout with March to deny my ranged support, leaving Akane still partly encased in ice but able to attempt struggling free on her own as her arms were no longer encased. It wouldn't be long until Akane was mobile again, as she'd either get her legs free or the ice would eventually melt on its own. I decided to put my idea to work by engaging in some unsportsmanlike gloating.
"Come on, you stupid maid," I taunted. "Can't get a clean shot off because I'm too tall?"
"SHUT UP! JUST DIE!" Neru was so furious she was actually trembling. Her anger caused her aim to waver as she pointed both guns, now freshly reloaded, right at my gut. I used my height advantage and superior reach to quickly jerk the gun in her right hand out of the way while weaving between the fire of the second; its rate of fire was too quick for me to dodge all the bullets, but I only took a minor burst just below my left shoulder. It was an area that was covered by the carrier vest, and thus I was still relatively not much worse for wear. Taking care not to turn my back towards Karin or get caught in her crossfire with March, attacking Neru's potential height insecurity had given me the opportunity to spin her around, and I wrapped my left arm around her throat. Her free left arm attempted to jab me in the stomach, and I blocked it with my right arm as I began applying a chokehold.
"No...way...I'm losing...again!" Neru was clearly getting winded, and the pressure from her struggling had forced me to squeeze harder than I had intended to. The adrenaline in her veins and her desperate desire to beat me down and make me regret ever dropping a trash can on her head made her fight harder, however. The last thing I wanted was to apply my full strength against Neru; beyond it being distasteful, it would just make me seem like even more of a menace to Rio and potentially the rest of Seminar.
"I'm...going to...make you pay!" Neru tried her best to get the gun in her right hand, which was currently pinned behind her, in a position where she could fire it, and her struggle was slowly making her move in the direction of Karin. While I didn't want to take the risk of being shot by her teammate, I had no choice, as letting go would give her a chance to spin around and take another shot.
"Stelle, watch out!" March warned. "I'm going to hit you if you keep getting in the way!" She was still preoccupied with a shootout with Karin and thus couldn't provide direct support. I couldn't let go of Neru, however, lest she break free and start shooting again. The turrets were no longer a factor, but Akane was getting close to breaking free of her icy cage and could potentially provide fire support for Neru as well; if that happened, I'd be forced to let Neru go, and I'd be bogged down in a 1v2 when I had taken a good amount of damage already. I had to end this fast; I didn't even necessarily have to win the fight, just neutralize them long enough to either confront Rio without being interrupted or make our escape from the campus.
"March, get ready!" I shouted.
"Huh?" she replied in confusion.
I took a deep breath, and applied more strength into the hold, before throwing spinning Neru around and throwing her straight into Karin, knocking her over like a bowling pin. Karin had gotten a shot off on me before that happened and hit me straight in the right thigh. Without March's shields to fortify my skin, the massive bullet left a considerable hole there as well, causing me to collapse, the anti-tank projectile still lodged in the wound like an insect stinger as I fell. I ignored the pain to continue barking orders at March.
"Now! Do it now!" I cried out.
March nodded, having caught on to my plan, our chemistry proving itself once more. "Check out this awesome move!" She tossed a massive amount of ice bombs and fired a hail of ice arrows at the entryway to the secret room Karin and Neru were occupying, sealing it shut behind an avalanche of ice. I could hear Neru's muffled cursing as both she and her subordinate were now taken out of the fight, and the reverberations of her pounding could be heard from the other side. I sighed, as the brawl was now over, and then shouted indignantly in pain to get March to heal me.
"My leg!" I emphasized with the exaggeration of a cartoon character. March came over and took a first aid spray and bandages from her carrier vest. She plucked the bullet out, causing blood to start gushing out, before using the spray both as an antiseptic and to clot the blood. She then used her hand to ice the wound before wrapping the large bandage around my thigh, and as I took a stim shot from my vest and jabbed it into myself, our combined treatment put me back into relatively good condition.
"Hold still, you big baby. Next thing I know, you're going to start calling me 'mommy' and sucking on candy."
"Only if you're the one handing it out, mommy."
March gave me a playful shove in response. She then proceeded to look for a way to get inside the secret room, as it was probably our best chance to talk with Rio, and it would do no good for either my progress or March's ego to leave Millennium empty-handed. Akane was now making no effort to break free, as the battle was over and the ice binding her would soon melt anyway. I took the opportunity to recover my bat as well as my handgun. As Neru's pounding on the ice continued, followed by volleys of submachine gun fire to try to break the massive column, I reminded myself to apologize to Neru for insulting her later. From the little time I spent in our bout, I could immediately tell she was just as if not more skilled than Wakamo in close quarters; if her rage didn't blind her into trying to rush me down, she could have prolonged the fight long enough for Akane to break free and put me at a numbers disadvantage. It wouldn't have changed the result much considering I'd just take the fight more seriously, but her skill and ferocity were still commendable, as was the teamwork between the three. If Asuna was present, March might have been forced to stop messing around to help me deal with the maids.
"Hmm...I think it was..." March pondered as she accessed the holographic terminals on Rio's desk, which were still functional even after the machine gun barrage from the drones. She navigated through the interfaces, and eventually found what she was looking for, putting her hand over the palm reader. March pumped her free fist enthusiastically, her unrivaled ability to notice the minor details at the expense of the big picture paying off once more.
"Yes! I did it!" she cheered.
"BIOMETRIC AUTHENTICATION FAILED," rebuffed the computer. "YOU HAVE TWO ATTEMPTS LEFT."
"Now that's just rude! You can't refuse a cute girl!" she complained, putting her other hand on the reader and failing the second attempt.
"BIOMETRIC AUTHENTICATION FAILED. YOU HAVE ONE ATTEMPT LEFT."
"What did you expect, March?" I questioned. "It's not like Rio could register your handprint beforehand even if she trusted us."
"You're right, Stelle. But..." March looked at Akane, and then a mischievous grin came over her face. "I got another idea!"
As the ice melted from Akane and she slowly and calmly broke free, taking the time to fix her maid uniform in the process, March dragged her over to the desk, much to her annoyance.
"Please, do not be so forceful," Akane began. "I do not believe my prints were registered either."
"Well, we'll have to see about that." March slapped Akane's hand on the reader.
Akane began to panic. "Now, hold on, dear visitors, you'll trigger the failsafe-"
"BIOMETRIC AUTHENTICATION PASSED."
March and I gave disappointed glares at Akane, who simply smiled. "Love for your master, and the iron hammer for your enemies. That is C&C 's creed."
"We're not your enemies, Akane," I began, before interrupting myself and remembering she's still an active hostile. "Actually, yes, we are at the moment. March?"
March wordlessly dropped more ice bombs straight at Akane's feet, freezing her in place once more.
"You have to be more specific, Stelle," March chided. "Now let's go."
We walked into the entrance of Rio's hidden room, and the panel closed behind us, shutting us inside. Tapping into my senses, I felt the presence of two hostiles in the room. One would be Rio, but who was the other?
Regardless, what was in front of us lay a somewhat ramshackle, lifeless room clad in nothing but grey paneled walls and exposed ceiling beams, and there was barely any lighting present save for the passive glow of the present computer monitors. A massive server array took up the opposite far left corner of the room from the entryway, while desks and drawers were strewn about with PCs and holographic displays. Barely an inch of wall wasn't covered up by more mounted monitors. Across from the server array was a corner desk where Rio, Asuna, and a third student sat facing away from us in a wheelchair, with the android Alice lying on the desk in a manner not too dissimilar of an operating table. It was reasonable for me to assume the second hostile presence was Asuna, though it was odd to consider her as such considering how friendly she was in our first encounter. None of them paid any attention to us or seemed to have noticed we entered the room, and they continued their dialogue.
"Rio, you are simply asking too much," the woman in the wheelchair began. One of the monitors on the wall opposite of her was for whatever reason powered off, and through it I could see a reflection of the student; if you typed in "woman in white" on the Internet, the search engine would spit out her image. Her waist-length long hair which was tied into straight pigtails was white, she wore a white robe with golden buttons and cream accents over a matching blanket wrapped over her legs; which were contrasted by navy black shoes, gloves, and headhand, while her wheelchair with Millennium's insignia on its joints and rim was similarly stylized. "Even with my skills, destroying a halo would require an immense amount of power." This was the first time it registered to me that the android also had a visible halo, which was unique from the others I've seen as it consisted of a cyan set of squares. I never questioned how the students could tell who did and did not possess halos if only I could see them, but it was simple enough to just abstract it as they could at least sense them innately, like how I could vaguely sense hostile presences in the area or each being's respective power levels.
"So, can you do it or not?" Rio replied impatiently. "My patience runs thin, Himari."
"Simply put, no," the student in the wheelchair replied. "The level of power required would be equivalent to that of an entire district's grid. And, may I add, the android is currently disabled regardless, so it would not only be nearly impossible, it would also be impractical. Entertaining your wild paranoiac fantasies is well below that of any reasonable person, let alone a genius such as myself."
"And if I said that the destruction of this android is paramount?"
"Then you would be a fool," Himari snapped back. "For it is already as good as destroyed beyond repair."
"But if we were able to somehow shatter its halo, then we could-"
"I am not the kind to make assumptions based off of hypotheticals, Rio." Himari's voice was beginning to rise, her tone growing harsher. "Something you seem to have been doing plenty of. Even if Sensei and her cohort confirmed they are part of the Nameless, that does not mean for certain they are responsible for the rampaging of this particular android. Perhaps they are a dissenting faction, a remnant that has renounced the ways of their old civilization, or simply some other entity entirely."
Rio showed her outrage by leaning closer to Himari, which prompted no reaction from either Asuna or Himari. "That's ridiculous. I refuse to accept such a theory."
"Your acceptance of it matters little. The reality is that this is not something to be treated as a casual affair." Himari tried to proceed with her dressing down of Rio, but found herself devolving into a sickly, coughing fit before she could. "Asuna, water. Please."
Asuna picked up a cup from the desk, placing it under both of her palms, and began to feed it to Himari, her radiant smile piercing the room's dark veil as she did. "Here you go, master!"
"Thank you, Asuna. I appreciate it, truly. Now, as I was saying-"
March, for whatever reason, was taken aback by Asuna's maid techniques. "Look at that!" March whispered to me. "Now that's how you endear yourself. So cute!" She whipped out her camera and quickly took a picture of the moment. "This is good study material!"
I rolled my eyes and ignored March, opting to listen in on the three some more.
"You knew that it would take an immeasurable amount of power to shatter a halo," Himari continued laying it on to Rio. With the way they talked to one another, if they were truly friends, they didn't need enemies. "That's why you built Eridu. And now that your little side project has fallen to the wayside, you've come to me, seeking confirmation your experiment could still be salvaged. It can't, Rio. It's unrealistic, flawed, and the rest of Seminar also now knows about it."
Rio narrowed her eyes. "Seminar denies any knowledge of this 'Eridu'. I'd advise you to do your research before you slander the council, Miss Akeboshi."
"I have, Rio. I'm not one of the only three Omniscientists in Millennium's history for nothing. I kept the Eridu incident buried from Veritas for you. They didn't buy that excuse for a cover-up at first. A cyber-attack? Was that the best your rational mind could come up with? For someone who prides themselves on logic, you've let emotions and what-ifs blind your judgement since Eridu was destroyed. And to think I considered you an intellectual rival."
Rio seemed ready to knock Himari off her wheelchair after their mutual tirade. Deciding to intervene before things got uglier, I began approaching the trio. As I did, I noticed too late that there was, to put for lack of a better description, a gigantic two-meter-tall mech suit in the corner waiting to ambush me. If I had my hands free to slap myself silly for thinking that it was Asuna I sensed, I would do so right now. It quickly grabbed me by the waist, restraining my arms and legs in its massive steel fist. Its other arm quickly transformed into a three-barreled rotary cannon, pointed directly at me. The suit discharged an electric current, giving me a nasty shock and causing me to let out a bloodcurdling scream, and the other three in the room finally noticed my presence. In the process, Asuna's eternal smile had dampened a bit from "radiant" to "nervous".
"Hey, bully someone your own size!" March rushed over to try to free me from the robotic assailant's grip, shooting a barrage of ice arrows as she did, but they were nullified by its electric barrier. The mech swiped its arm holding me at March, with her quickly rolling under it and towards the suit, only for it to quickly boost into March and body check her into the wall, shattering some mounted monitors in the process.
"Owowowowowow!" March exclaimed, as she picked herself up off the wall. "Alright, I'm done messing around!"
"As you should be," Rio retorted. It was then that I noticed the mech suit was just an exoskeleton with an exposed cockpit piloted by a fourth student within the room. The student had a slender, pale build with blonde hair in a bun hairstyle. Her eyes were obscured by what seemed to be AR goggles, and she appeared to be wearing only a leotard, both in matching navy blue color schemes. "Any further action, and I'll have Toki here execute your friend." Rio nodded towards the mech pilot, Toki, and spoke to her. "Give her another shock."
Toki obliged, and I let out another yell of pain. Combined with the leg injury Karin gave me, my whole body was in a world of hurt. I just barely noticed that Toki had discreetly relaxed the mech's grip on me as a result, using the shock to mask having done so. As she finished, the shock subsided.
"Please stop! We just came here to talk," March pleaded.
"I assume by 'talk', you meant 'send a weapon of mass destruction directly at Millennium'. The legacy of the Nameless has shaped the history of Kivotos..." Rio pointed her handgun at my head for dramatic effect, putting the hammer in full cock position for additional fear factor as she did so. "...For long enough."
Unfortunately for Rio, while all eight of her shots found their mark on the side of my head, all of them harmlessly bounced off, some of them further ricocheting around the room as they did so to add further insult to lack of injury. March had discreetly applied her shields to me as Rio was doing her best monologuing villain impression, though even without them, I doubt I would have sustained much damage. The sound of her pistol's dry fire echoing off the walls deflated the tension of the room even more.
"Tch," Rio grumbled, grabbing another fresh mag from her coat pocket as she loaded it.
As she did so, March readied her bow and aimed an ice arrow directly at Rio. "Stay right there while I give you a present!"
Asuna raised her rifle, being a bullpup design with a significant amount of empty vertical space between the sight and the barrel, at March, speaking to me as she did so. "Sorry, Sensei. I can't let you hurt Rio."
March was indignant, as she thought Asuna was talking to her. "Why does everyone here mistake me for-"
As this was going on, the rest of C&C had evidently finally broken free of their arctic cages, as the panel opened, and the three members shuffled in. They each pointed their respective firearms of varying length at the back of March's head.
"Arrows away from the boss, tits for brains!" Neru commanded.
"Tits for brains? TITS FOR BRAINS?!" March was about to have a meltdown from the double-whammy of the insult and the misunderstanding, and, uncaring of the fact she had three guns pointed at the back of her head, proceeded to unleash a word-based payload onto Neru without even looking in her direction. Considering Asuna, March, and Rio all had similar sizes, Neru seemed to be taking out her spread out frustration on the newest available target. "I don't want to hear that from someone who wears that ugly jacket over a perfectly good uniform! Is your fashion sense as lacking as your height, you dirty-mouthed disgrace of a maid?"
Neru was not amused by this. "You want to die today, don't you?"
"Not before I turn you into a popsicle!" March, still in her anger-fueled rant, was not paying attention to the three guns pointing at her, and still aiming her bow directly at Rio, who seemed to have checked out of the entire affair.
"I'm going to enjoy making a snow cone out of your head, you ass-headed excuse of a teacher!"
"FOR. THE. LAST. TIME. I am NOT Sens-"
While they were in the middle of their spat, Toki had checked to see if Rio was paying attention to us at all. Rio was, fortunately enough, fuming at the complete lack of concern both her subordinate and her "enemy" were showing for the situation. She gave me a short nod, which I didn't know for certain what it meant, but I interpreted it as "take me hostage and add another factor to the standoff". With the others paying no attention to the broader situation outside of March's petty spat with Neru, I was able to wriggle my arms free from the slackened grip of the mech suit, using my hands as leverage to use my legs to kick the fist right open. Before anyone could react, I quickly grabbed Toki from the exoskeleton's cockpit, with it deactivating and resetting itself to a standby position without its pilot. I wheeled Toki around to face the others, putting her in an armbar hold while pointing my pistol at her head with my free right arm.
"Enough games. Let's all put our weapons down and have a nice, friendly chat. Otherwise, she gets it, " I threatened.
Everyone was, to put it mildly, not impressed, and I realized what an absolutely awful idea taking a student with a halo hostage was. As a meat shield, it was a sound idea; as a bargaining chip, I might as well point the gun at myself. Toki didn't show much outward emotion, but she seemed ready to roll her eyes regardless.
Himari let out a quiet laugh. "Did we all forget the properties granted to those with halos, now? But I agree, Sensei. An open dialogue would be the most productive outcome."
I found myself agreeing with Himari, and not just because it was what I came to do in the first place. The situation at hand was a comical standoff: all four C&C members were taking March hostage, March was holding Rio hostage, Rio was holding me hostage, and I was holding Toki hostage. A standoff that served relatively little purpose because just about everyone in the room had a level of resistance to bullets. And in this situation, I was the most disadvantaged, having taken a leg injury from Karin earlier, but with Toki seemingly unwilling to actually harm me it wasn't like my life was on the line either.
Ignoring Himari, Rio cocked the hammer on her handgun again. "No more dialogue. The legacy of the Nameless-"
"-has shaped the history of Kivotos long enough," a familiar, bored-sounding voice interrupted from outside the secret room. "Really, Rio, you keep repeating yourself. The players are starting to get bored."
March and I recognized that voice instantly, and so did Rio, as her expression immediately became bug-eyed from sheer hate, her once somewhat composed demeanor finally completely cracking. Brushing past the C&C members not Asuna and March, Silver Wolf strutted into the room like she owned the place. If nothing else, she was certainly renting a space in Rio's mindscape right about now. Only, this was different. Usually, Silver Wolf projects herself somewhere to interact with a place as if she was really there. Her aether hacking ability was to me no different from hacking reality itself, so beyond simple things like picking up objects her level of possible interactions wasn't too limited by the projection. Only, you could see some imperfections in the hologram, such as aliasing around Silver Wolf or the occasional fuzzy image. There was none here this time. It was as if she was physically present, or maybe she really was here.
"That's..." Arona spoke for the first time after a long period of silence. "I can't get any data on her, Sensei. But...why does it feel like we've met?"
Silver Wolf pulled walked past all of us, pulling out a stool sat down on the desk with the android on it next to Himari, resting her right elbow on the android's abdomen and her chin on her right hand. Himari registered her with mild amusement.
"Oh, I'm sorry," Silver Wolf apologized insincerely, her expression remaining unchanging and neutral. "Was I interrupting something? None of you were getting anywhere regardless."
Rio went straight for the neutron bomb, so to speak. "All units, open fire."
All four C&C members immediately pointed their weapons at Silver Wolf, as did Rio, and dumped every single round they had in their magazines at her. March and I both had the good sense to stand aside, and Toki took advantage of me letting her go to pull out her rifle and shoot at Silver Wolf as well. This exact scenario was why Silver Wolf tended to project herself to places, and if she did have to be physically present for whatever reason, her fellow members of the Stellaron Hunters or even myself on occasion were present to escort her. It wasn't that Silver Wolf couldn't handle herself in a fight, but she was relatively less useful when it came to dealing with numbers or particularly strong foes; the times we fought together, Silver Wolf would use her hacking abilities to impede or interrupt enemies while I took advantage of this to quickly end battles.
The result would have been Silver Wolf adopting a cartoonish death pose after her clothes and skin were seared and singed with gunpowder trails. Only that wasn't what happened at all. The bullets seemed to bounce off an invisible force field around her as she pulled out a pure white tablet, fiddling with it as if nothing was going on. From my angle, I was able to see the tablet had a magenta wallpaper, with a bold letter "S" surrounded by a circle as its logo. I guess graphic design has suddenly become Silver Wolf's passion.
Eventually, each member of the firing squad ran out of ammo and simply stared at their unscathed target in stunned disbelief, joined alongside by the members of the Nameless. I couldn't see anything that could produce an energy shield of that level of strength for Silver Wolf. Was this a more advanced form of her holographic projection? But that wouldn't be right, considering in my focus, I could see the bullets bounce off this force field.
"That's... That's not..." Rio stammered.
"Like how me destroying Eridu wasn't possible?" Silver Wolf rebutted, clearly enjoying driving Rio off the deep end. "What was that line you liked using again, 'I only speak of facts'? That's the way the world works, isn't it, Rio?"
Rio grit her teeth, trying to maintain composure, as Himari began speaking up.
"So, you're the one responsible for the destruction of Eridu, and leaking its existence to the rest of Seminar." What is Eridu, anyway? Could someone fill me in with some exposition, please? "I must say, I've never been able to get under Rio's skin quite like you have, even if I... disapprove, of your methods. You're quite a bit shorter than I imagined, but still, you must be..."
Silver Wolf got off her seat and took a bow, clearly having taken a few lessons in theatrics from Sparkle during their gaming sessions. "Guilty! Guilty! Oh, so very guilty, of being the esteemed Punk Lord of Gematria!" She gave an extended, evil sounding laugh that was so poorly acted it reminded me of old anime which was translated to other languages. I snuck a glance at March, and while I at least maintained a neutral expression, March was just visibly beyond disappointed at the proceedings.
I was, frankly, about to collapse from cringe. I did not walk into Rio's trap and then went through everything I just did to be the setup for Silver Wolf becoming a third-rate playwright. March apparently had the same idea, nudging me on the back as she began talking to me.
"You want to leave these idiots to sort it out themselves?"
Walking out without having accomplished my goal of getting more information out of Rio or even potentially securing friendly relations was, objectively, the worst thing I could do. But I had enough of being Silver Wolf's puppet on a string, just so she could find amusement. If she wanted amusement so much, she could play a game, as she has plenty to choose from. And so, completely spent, I agreed with March's proposal, nodding to her.
As we turned towards the entryway, I threw up my hands in a dismissive wave. "Have fun, you lot. I'll go save the city, like I'm supposed to be doing."
March and I didn't make it far, as the panel suddenly shut in front of us. Of course, Silver Wolf gained access to the academy's systems. Why wouldn't she have?
"Hey, I'm about to clear your name," Silver Wolf couldn't resist some more grandstanding to me. "Maybe even get you and Millennium to patch up. So, Sensei, what do you say?"
I crossed my arms and said nothing.
"What do you say, Stelle?"
The mood and tension in the room deflated as all parties involved witnessed the supposed savior of the city throwing a hissy fit akin to a hormonal teenager.
"I suppose you don't want my help after all."
Swallowing my pride as I realized time was precious and I wouldn't get another opportunity like this, I said the magic words, but not without getting one last 'screw you' in as I did so. "Thank you, Silver Wolf."
It didn't work, as she seemed to expect it. "I told you not to call me that." She went back to fiddling on her tablet, not saying anything further.
"Aren't you going to clear my name?" I indignantly demanded.
"Well, you did keep me waiting. And besides, a little cliffhanger never hurt a story, did it?"
Author's Note: Combining the fight and the second half of the confrontation would have made for a comically long chapter, and Chapter 7 suffered from glaring quality issues for it. Regardless, Silver Wolf finally makes her proper entrance into the stage of Kivotos.